One Piece in Italy

Manga
In Italy, the One Piece manga is released by Star Comics and as of November 2010 the first 57 volumes and the three special Red, Blue and Yellow have been released. So has been released the volume of One Piece Wanted. (all of them can still be purchased online on Star Comics website -www.starcomics.com- at prices between 3,90€ and 5,00€ each)

Anime
Italy could be the first nation to have broadcasted ONE PIECE on a TV Channel outside of Japan. The first 53 episodes are titled "All'arrembaggio! (stand by to board!)", from 54th to 195th "Tutti all'arrembaggio!", from 196th to 309th "One Piece - Tutti all'arrembaggio!" and from 310th onward "One Piece". It is broadcasted since 2001 on Mediaset's Italia1 channel. The episodes are imported directly from Japan and dubbed by Merak Film.

Even if the quality of the voice actors is generally good, they often say wrong statement because of mistakes from the original dialogues. Especially in the earlier episodes, some names were changed to make them easier for children and the dialogue were changed and made "softer" and some sceen were turned sepia-tone or black and white to sort of "mask" the blood. The episodes aired on Italia 1 are edited because the channel may be penalized if they contain something that can scare a child and when it's not cut blood's colour is changed to brown, black or light red.

The first 195 episodes have been aired from 2001 to 2005, then it was transmitted no more until July 2008, when Italia 1 decided to broadcast new episodes in the summer, that had been dubbed two years ago. But it had such a success that they didn't stop it and dubbed new episodes. Currently the anime has reached the Impel Down Arc. Movies 1 through 7 have been dubbed and transmitted as well.

From episode 207 onward the Japanese original anime is broadcasted in 16:9 while Italia1 Channel is still using the 4:3 format, resulting in a partial image cut.

The last epsiode that aired on Italia 1 was 452 on December 21, 2010, being the closest to the Japanese version than any other dub (except the Taiwan dub that is usually only 20 epsiodes behind Japan).

Characters, places and other name changes in Italian dub

 * Monkey D. Luffy is called Rubber. From Episode 401, to adapt it to the original name, it was stated several times that "Rubber" is his nickname while Monkey D. Luffy is his name, so friends usually call him "Rubber" while marines often announced him as "Monkey D. Luffy alias Rubber". There was an attempt to call him "Monkey D. Rubber" in Episode 400 but it was immediately discard it.
 * Shanks is pronounced "Shenk".
 * Usopp's name is pronounced "Asopp".
 * The Grand Line is called "Grande Blu" (Great Blue).
 * The Calm Belt is traslated as "Fascia di Bonaccia".
 * The All Blue is called "Cuore dei Mari" (Heart of the seas).
 * Beli are called danari (Berry from Thriller Bark arc onward).
 * The Devil Fruit are called "Frutti del mare" (sea's fruits).
 * The Den-Den Mushi was called "Lumacofono" (the same translation used in the manga) from the first episode to the 195th, then its name was changed to "Radio-Snail".
 * Hatchan is called Octy.
 * Kuroobi is called Blackbelt.
 * Tony Tony Chopper is called Renny-Renny Chopper.
 * Kureha is called Koreka.
 * Hiluluk is called Hiruruku.
 * Chess is called Scacco (chess in Italian).
 * The names of some Baroque Works female agents (Miss Wednesday, Miss All Sunday, Miss Monday, Miss Valentine, Miss Thursday and Miss Friday) have been translated in Italian (Miss Mercoledì, Miss Domenica, Miss Lunedì, Miss Valentina, Miss Giovedì e Miss Venerdì).
 * Iceburg is called Iceberg.
 * The CP9's name wasn't changed, but the 9 is pronounced in Italian (nove) and not in English.
 * The Galley-La Company is called "Galley Company".
 * Oars is called Ozu.

Openings and Endings
The dub features all new opening music performed by popular Italian singers, just like most of the other anime that is dubbed in Italian. The visuals change with each season by show clips from the japanese openings and actual scenes from the show. The credits air at the end of each episode, which has exactly the same visuals as the opening.