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 however, fans were already wary, as 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. Indeed, many changes to the series were noticeable in the first few episodes. Along with the removal of blood, cleavage and religious symbols (which were something of a given), the English version was given a rap theme song instead of the original openings, text on nearly all objects and buildings were removed, guns were painted over or changed to look like water guns (or, in one infamous instance, changed to a "hammer gun"), and the original music was replaced by music done in-house by 4Kids. The characters' voices were also heavily criticized.

Despite this, the dialogue remained consistent with the original Japanese version (for the most part) save for a few puns thrown in to lighten the mood of a few situations. However, as the series carried on, 4Kids began to take more and more liberties with the show starting around the Arlong arc. This would soon begin a decline in the dub's quality as scenes soon began to be rearranged or skipped over entirely, even whole episodes and arcs were passed over (some of which were vital to the plot in later stories i.e: Laboon, Little Garden.). Dialogue and voice direction began to suffer as well from overuse of puns and lack of emotion to the characters in certain scenes.

As the show continued on and began to become more serious in their arcs, 4Kids soon dropped the show from their 4kids TV block and let it run exclusively on Cartoon Network's Toonami block where it has since remained (One Piece having also run in the Miguzi block and a few 8:30pm slots for a bit). However, despite now being accessible to an older demographic, the show editing still persisted.

Finally in 2007, 4Kids announced they were dropping the One Piece license, which was then picked up by Funimation, who would continue from where 4Kids had left off. The filler, Rainbow Mist arc, being their final dubbing of the series.

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.