One Piece in Italy

Manga
In Italy, the One Piece manga is released by Star Comics since 2001 and as of February 2012 the first 62 volumes and the three special Red, Blue and Yellow have been released. So has been released the volume of One Piece Wanted!. Star Comics, since 2008, started a monthly reprinting called "One Piece New Edition" which reached Volume 48, the new edition keeps the original logo, add extra content like Oda's sketches as well correcting major translation mistakes.

The original title is deliberately in Latin and uppercase characters, but outside Japan the most common title chosen is "One Piece", Star Comics follows this choice as well.

Anime
Italy is one of the first nations (like China for example) to have broadcast One Piece on a TV Channel outside 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 broadcast 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 statements because of translation mistakes from the original dialogues. Especially in the earlier episodes, some names were changed to make them easier for children and the dialogues were changed to made them "softer" and some scene were turned sepia-tone or black and white in order to "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, which they had been dubbed two years before. But it had such a success that they didn't stop it and dubbed new episodes. Currently the anime has reached and completed the Impel Down Arc. Movies 1 through 7 have been dubbed and transmitted as well.

From episode 207 onward the Japanese original anime is broadcast in 16:9 while Italia 1 Channel is still using the 4:3 format, resulting in a partial image cut.

The last episode aired on Italia 1 was 452 on December 21, 2010, being the dub closest to the Japanese version second only to the Taiwan dub that is usually only 20 episodes behind the original. Currently the anime is not broadcasted to give time for the original dub to air new episodes and complete new arcs, since in Italy usually animes and cartoons, One Piece included, are broadcasted with a pace of one episode per day.

Reception
When the Water Seven arc was broadcast, One Piece often reached up to two million viewers and more than 13% of Italian viewers.

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.

Songs
Brook's favorite song, Binks' Sake, was translated in Italian. Here the song performed by the Italian dub.