4Kids Entertainment

4Kids Entertainment is an United States film and television production company specializing in the acquisition, production and licensing of children's entertainment around the world. They are most known for their acquired television programs.

4Kids Productions
4Kids Productions is a wholly owned subsidiary of 4Kids Entertainment, and is responsible for the production of original or licensed properties owned by the company.

4Kids and One Piece
Having acquired the license in the year of 2002, 4Kids set to work on an English version of the series. Even before the series debuted, 4Kids already had a reputation for questionable editing and dubbing in their past animes (specifically the Yu-Gi-Oh anime at the time). Come 2003, their English dub of One Piece debuted on the 4Kids TV block (formally FoxBox), a block for the 6-11 year old demographic.

The most note worthy problem with the 4Kids dub is that many arcs were cut from the orginal storyline. These included:


 * Warship Island arc
 * Laboon arc
 * Little Garden arc

In all cases, the storyline had to be altered resulting in problematic results. At the time, there was no way of knowing which way the mangaka Oda was taking the storyline. many plot holes were later caused by this version.


 * Because the Little Garden arc was removed, there was no explaination behind much of Mr.3's later appearance in Alabasta. Mr.3 was said to have been chasing the Straw Hat Pirates since Logue Town yet Baroque Works did know about the crew in the actaul storyline until Misty Peak. Mr.3 and his partner Ms. April Fools Day were also spoken about during the explaination about Baroque Works given on the organisation as if the  crew had met them.
 * Laboon was removed, leaving Brook without reason to join the crew later on.
 * Information left out in the Warship Island arc on entry into the Grand Line created problems in explaining why one cannot just sail into the Grand Line.
 * Crocus was removed resulting in the storyline being reworked to fit around his absence. The rework initally included just his log pose explaination that he gave the Straw Hats. At the time other storylines that mention his importance to the One Piece world had not been reached.

While there are also many other complaints on the company such as visible alterations, poor translations and low-quality dubbing, this remains the only non-opinion based problem caused by the dub.

4Kids announced in December 2006 that they had canceled production of their dub. As of September 2007, 104 English-dubbed episodes have been produced from the first 143 Japanese episodes. 4Kids dropped the license afterwards. The dub's naming conventions were used in One Piece-related media in North America, such as the English version of the fighting game One Piece Grand Battle for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube. The TV version of the Funimation dub continues to use most of these names to date.

Leadership Team

 * Alfred R. Kahn Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, Inc.
 * Norman J. Grossfield has been President of 4Kids Productions, Inc., 4Kids’ television, film and home video production subsidiary, since February 1994. For two years prior to such time, he was President of Gold Coast Television Entertainment, a television production company. Prior to such time, Mr. Grossfeld served as Coordinating Director for NBC Sports from 1991 through 1992, and as Producer/Director for Television Programming Enterprises from 1988 to 1991.
 * Thomas J. Kenney is 4Kids's Vice President.
 * Bruce Raymond Foster has been Chief Financial Officer since December 1, 2005. From August 2002 to December 2005, Mr. Foster was 4Kids’ Senior Vice President of Finance. For more than four years prior to such time, Mr. Foster was with Deloitte & Touche LLP, most recently as an Audit Director.
 * Samuel R. Newborn has been the General Counsel since January 2000. Prior to joining 4Kids, Mr. Newborn was a partner in the law firm of Janklow, Newborn & Ashley for more than five years.
 * Brian G. Lacey has been Executive Vice President of International for 4Kids since July 2003. Prior to joining 4Kids, Mr. Lacey was the President and founder of Lacey Entertainment, a New York-based worldwide television marketing, production, and distribution company, specializing in innovative and creative approaches in the packaging, production and launching of television series in the U.S. and around the world.
 * Lee Ravdin was named President of The Summit Media Group on February 13, 2006. He has over 30 years of experience as a planner and buyer of kids’ media. Previously, he was President of Lake End Consulting, a full service media company specializing in the design and execution of media campaigns. He started his own media buying agency, Lee Media, in 1981 and sold it to Toy Biz/Tangible Industries in 1988. He continued to run Lee Media until 1999, when he started Lake End.