One Piece in Germany

In Germany, the One Piece manga is published by Carlsen Manga and the Anime TV series premiered in 2003 on RTL II. The Anime has also aired on Tele 5 since 2008, on Animax Germany since 2009 and on the MTV-owned TV station VIVA (as of November 2011). The show is also currently airing on ProSieben Maxx (as of January 2021).

The OVAs as well as most of the TV series' specials up to the first Boss Luffy specials have been left unnoticed for neither broadcasting nor publishing on DVD. There were early plans for DVD releases of the TV show by polyband, but the plans were dropped while the first DVD was being announced only. From February 2011 onwards, the German Anime DVD Publisher Kazé Germany has announced to release all ten One Piece movies. In January 2012, Kazé announced that they had acquired the license to release the first 195 episodes on DVD. 877 episodes have been aired on German Television as of June 2021.

As a result of Germany being the only country in Central Europe to air One Piece, many Czech and Slovakian fans know characters by their German names.

Germany
One Piece began being published in Germany in the magazine Banzai! which was a collaboration of Carlsen Manga and Shueisha to publish manga on a monthly base back in 2001. Furthermore, Carlsen began publishing One Piece in Volumes as well.

The television anime series started airing on April 22, 2003 on RTL II with a German dub. In 2008, Tele 5 started to air One Piece as well. The pay-television station Animax Germany also began airing the show, however many of the earlier episodes that were censored on RTL II and Tele 5 were presented uncut.

The episode 400 was aired on February 2011.

However, as of November 2011, all three stations have dropped One Piece because the dub has been put on hiatus at Episode 400 since January 2011 by PPA Studios (One Piece's dubbing studio). In September 2011, the MTV-owned channel VIVA acquired the dub rights to episodes 1-143 and later the episodes 144-400.

On September 2013, the new TV station ProSieben Maxx started to work and shows the episodes 1 to 100 several times but from now on, they want to show the episodes 1-400. Viva stopped the airing episodes.

ProSieben Maxx stated that new episodes will be shown in September 2014. Also, ProSieben Maxx has shown episodes 401 and 402 on April 21, 2014 as a preview for promoting the beginning of the new season. The regular series has restarted on September 11, 2014 (just as said) from episode 401 and new episodes are shown each Thursday and Friday (it can be counted four episodes per week). The airing has been stopped again at episode 456 on December 18.

Since January 16, 2016 the series is going to restart since the episode 457.

On June 4, 2018, the last German dubbed episode of the New World aired, Episode 625. The reason was the channel's license for the One Piece anime series were expired. As of 2021, One Piece's dub has since returned to ProSieben Maxx all the way to the Whole Cake Island Arc. Additionally, streaming service Crunchyroll offers select seasons of the German dubbed Anime as well.

Alterations and Censorship
From the beginning of the manga publication, the German version had some alterations, such as changed volume covers (almost all into having a blue background and a changed logo), name changes or filling text for shouted attack names and errors such as wrong bounties. Name changes are also edited onto Wanted posters, from time to time it happens that edits were forgotten. For example as Luffy's first wanted poster was shown it clearly reads "Monkey D. Luffy".

As with the addition of name-changes, much of the onomatopoeia for sound effects is visually edited out, drawn over and replaced with German onomatopoeia instead.

Censorship
While the Manga is left uncensored in both dialogue and images, the only exception in Volume 18 where the swastika of Ace's back tattoo was erased leaving only Whitebeard's face to be left, the TV show is censored. Unlike the 4Kids TV dub, the RTL II version started with minor cuts to leave out scenes mainly showing humans getting punched, so many episodes weren't censored. Compared to the 4Kids dub, the German version was much more lenient on censorship.

As the story continued and more episodes were licensed, there were more scenes RTL II felt needed to be toned down. After the network station licensed Naruto in partnership with Panini, and once the story got to the Water 7 arc, even dialogues were heavily censored. Anything about "sterben" (dying) and "Tod" (death) was now people being "verschwunden" (vanished) or that people "einen auf den Deckel bekommen" (get a roasting).

When new episodes of One Piece changed from RTL2 to Tele 5, the dub became mostly unaltered, with only scenes which showed people getting hurt/injured were cut out of the episodes.

ProSieben Maxx showed the uncut episodes (401 - 625) from September 2014 to June 2018.

Name changes
The change of names often occurred in the Manga due to both L/R problems and by the transliteration of the Katakana ン which can be interpreted as m instead of a n. Most inconsistencies occur because there have not been any official transliterations from Eiichiro Oda when the Manga was brought to Germany. In the translated manga, many occasions of the official names transliterated into Latin script are also visually edited to retroactively fit the changed names. Since the TV dub is based on the German manga version, most of the name changes are placed in dialogue and episode titles while the scenes showing names on signs and Wanted posters remained unedited here.

The names of many characters eventually differ from their original form either by distinctive spelling in the German manga, or by a complete name change, or by being pronounced wrong in the German dub version of the TV show. In some re-released volumes, characters are still referred to by their changed names, but the character's introduction box may also provide the original name.

While most of these were just transliterations of the Japanese name into English, a number of names can cause confusion among readers, as some are extremely different to their Japanese counterparts. As a result, there are many German fans who are unable to recognize the characters by their English or even their Japanese names.

However, many errors still occurred, especially with Marine ranks, when translating the series into German.

Character Name Changes

 * Note: Several of these names are mere translations of their Japanese meaning (marked "T"). A few others are based on the lack of an l sound in Japanese writing.


 * Monkey D. Luffy is called "Monkey D. Ruffy".
 * Due to this, his alias as gladiator in the Corrida Colosseum was changed to "Ruby".
 * Roronoa Zoro's name was changed to "Lorenor Zorro".
 * Usopp's name is changed to "Lysop" (the "Ly" being based upon "lie" or the German equivalent "Lüge", to make the meaning of Usopp's name more obvious).
 * Lucky Roux's name is changed to "Lucky Lou".
 * Jango's name is changed to "Jacko".
 * Kuro's is changed to "Captain Black". (T)
 * Don Krieg's name is changed to "Don Creek" (Probably another way to write "Don Kuriku" or an attempt to avoid the mention of war or "Krieg" in German).
 * Zeff's name is changed to "Jeff".
 * Merry's name is changed to "Lämmchen" (German for "little lamb" or "lambkin").
 * Chew is called "Kiss". Since there exists the word "chu" (which is an onomatopoeic kissing-noise and what fans often believe his name is) in Japanese, they most likely translated it as a Japanese name, unaware his name was spelt in English as "Chew" by Oda. (T)
 * Hatchan's name is translated to "Octa", and "Okta" from Vol. 50 onwards.
 * Kuroobi is called "Schwarzgurt". (German for "black belt") (T)
 * Nico Robin as Miss All-Sunday is called "Miss Bloody-Sunday".
 * Portgas D. Ace's name is changed to "Puma D. Ace".
 * Portgas D. Rouge's name is changed to "Puma D. Rouge".
 * Pudding Pudding's name is changed to "Puddingknie". ("Pudding" is pudding, "knie" means knee, together they mean an easily frightened person as his legs will wobble) (T)
 * Captain Nezumi's name is changed to "Ratte". (T)
 * Hiriluk's name is changed to "Doc Bader". ("Bader" is a medieval term for a barber who acts as an unlearned doctor)
 * Bon Kurei's name is called "Bon Curry" (probably another way to write "Bon Kurei").
 * Pell's name is changed to "Peruh".
 * Matsuge is called "Wimper". (T)
 * Hasami is called "Schere". (T)
 * Tony Tony Chopper's name is shortened to simply "Tony Chopper".
 * Dorry is called "Woogey".
 * Brogy is called "Boogey".
 * Galdino is spelled as "Gal Dino" in the manga.
 * Mont Blanc Noland's name is changed to "Maron Noland".
 * Mont Blanc Cricket's name is changed to "Maron Cricket".
 * Wyper is called "Viper".
 * Kamakiri is called "Fangschrecke" (German for "mantis"). (T)
 * Ohm is called "Aum".
 * Nefertari Vivi is called "Nefeltari Vivi".
 * Nefertari Cobra is called "Nefeltari Cobra".
 * Oars is renamed as "Oz".
 * Little Oars Jr. is changed to "Little Oz Jr.".
 * World Nobles are called "Tenryubito" in the manga, however in the anime they're called both "Weltaristokraten" (German for World Nobles) (T) and "Himmelsdrachenmenschen" (Literally meaning of "Tenryubito" translated into german). (T)
 * Kaku's name is translated to "Ecki". ("Ecke" means "corner", also a common nickname for people named "Eckhard" in Germany) (T)
 * Fukurou is called "Eule" (German for "owl"). (T)
 * Kokoro's name is translated to "Cocolo".
 * Aokiji's name is translated to "Blaufasan" or "Blauer Fasan" (German for "blue pheasant"). (T)
 * Kizaru's name is translated to "Gelber Affe" (German for "yellow monkey"). As of Volume 52, he is called Kizaru. (T)
 * Akainu's name is translated to "Roter Hund" (German for "red dog"). (T)
 * Tsuru's name is translated to "Kranich" (German for "crane"). (T)
 * Dracule Mihawk is translated to "Mihawk Dulacre". His epithet is called "Falkenauge" (Hawkeye). (T)
 * Bartholomew Kuma is translated to "Bartholomäus Bär" ("Bär" means "bear"). (T)
 * Donquixote Doflamingo is translated to "Don Quichotte de Flamingo".
 * Clover's name is translated "Dr. Kleeblatt" (German for "clover"). (T)
 * Van Augur's name is translated to "Wan Oger".
 * Laffitte's name is translated to "Raffit".
 * Jesus Burgess's name is translated to "Jesus Barges".
 * Sarquiss's name is changed to "Cirkies".
 * Peepley Lulu's name is changed to "Louie-Louie".
 * Iceburg's name is changed to "Eisberg" (German for "iceberg").
 * Mikazuki's name is changed to "Mondsichel" (German for "crescent moon"). (T)
 * Itomimizu's name is changed to "Wurm" (German for "worm").
 * Tamanegi's name is translated to "Zwiebel" (German for "onion"). (T)
 * Ninjin's name is translated to "Möhre" (German for "carrot"). (T)
 * Piiman's name is translated to "Paprika" (German for "pepper"). (T)
 * Inuppe's name is translated to "Hunduin" (compound of two names "Hund" and "Pinguin", German for "dog" and "penguin").
 * Kumashi is changed to "Bärsy". (compound of "Bär" is german for kuma and "-sy" which can be translated as the japanese term "-chan" here)
 * The Going Merry's name is changed to "Flying Lamb", by the crew members also nicknamed as "Lämmchen." (Likely to fit with Merry's name as seen above, or vice-versa)
 * Laboon's name is changed to "La Boum".
 * Very Good is named "Berry Good".
 * Heracles is called "Herakles", sometimes as "Heraklesn" due to his habit of putting a 'n' on the end of names and subjectives in the german manga.
 * Daz Bonez's name is changed to "Jazz Boner".
 * Jaguar D. Saul is named "Hagwar D. Sauro", in the flash back of Nico Robin's childhood he's just called "Sauro".
 * Jean Bart's name is changed to "Janbar".
 * Banchi's name is changed to "Ramirez".
 * Caesar Clown is named "Caesar Crown".

Places

 * Luffy's hometown is called "Windmühlendorf" ("Windmill Village") instead of Foosha.
 * Nami's hometown is named "Cocos" in this version.
 * The name of Laugh Tale is changed to "Unicon" for unknown reasons. With Volume 96, Laugh Tale was also adopted in German, but "Unicon" has still seen use as well.
 * Holy Land Mary Geoise is called "Heilige Stadt Mary Joa" ("Heilige Stadt" means "Holy city/town/place", "Mary Joa" because of his Japanese name in katakana).
 * Elbaf is renamed to "Elban".

Other

 * The name of the Seven Warlords of the Sea is changed to "Die sieben Samurai der Meere" ("The Seven Samurai of the Sea"), based on the illustration of the Warlords as swordfighters in Yosaku's explanation
 * The Galley-La is changed to "Galeera".
 * The Den Den Mushi is called "Telefonschnecke" as it first appeared in the story, later called "Teleschnecke" ("Tele" as in "telephone" and "Schnecke" is "snail" in German). Black Den Den Mushis are called "Abhörschnecke" (literally "intercepting snail").
 * All devil fruits are named by the german translated meaning.
 * Characters epithets are also translated into their meaning in german.
 * The SBS corner of the manga is renamed to FPS ("Fanpostseite" means "Fan mail page")

Rokushiki

 * The Rokushiki techniques are called "Formel 6" in the manga and anime. (T)
 * However, in the german translated version of the official Databooks and in the manga since the Punk Hazard arc they do use the word Rokushiki.
 * The Geppou technique is translated to the English word "Moonwalk". (T)
 * The Tekkai technique is translated as "Eisenpanzer". (German for "Iron clad") (T)
 * The Shigan technique is translated to "Fingerpistole". (German for Finger pistol/gun) (T)
 * The Rankyaku technique is translated as "Orkankick". (German for "Storm kick") (T)
 * The Soru technique is translated as "Rasur". (German for "Shave") (T)
 * The Kami-e technique is translated as "Papierschnitt". (German for "Paper cut") (T)
 * The Rokuogan technique is translated as "Sechskönigspistole" (German for "Six king pistol") (T)

Note: The story trends towards using the original Japanese names instead of Germanizing them as it goes on.

Translation errors

 * Aokiji was called being a Konteradmiral in the German dub of episode 225 which is the Shōshō rank in the Japanese version.

Anime Soundtrack
Intros 1 and 2 did not appear in the German anime, instead being replaced with a theme written to be played over Intro 1, "We Are" called "Die Legende" (The Legend). Up until the re-licensing of One Piece, all other intros were kept intact visually and instrumentally, with the only change being that the lyrics were re-written and performed in German. Intros 2, "Believe" and 11, "Share the World" have been omitted entirely. Later intros kept the Japanese vocals, the only remaining edit being the staff rolls having been changed to German and adding the localization staff.

Up until Episode 373, an instrumental version of "Die Legende" was also used for the next episode previews, until being replaced with an instrumental of "We Are" with the introduction of the 2008 remix as the opening theme.

Air Times
The One Piece anime airs on ProSieben MAXX (as of January 2021) from Monday to Friday around 6 PM in the evening and Thursdays additionally around 4 AM at night.

Trivia

 * The German dub has received criticism for some of the following reasons:
 * Airing one episode that was originally an hour long in Japan (the Robin backstory episodes).
 * Airing only half of the Ruluka Island Arc, then ceasing to broadcast the show and re-starting it again, this time, however, without even reaching this arc.
 * One Piece Film: Gold was first NOT dubbed in German, as they subtitled the movie instead. Later the film was also dubbed in German.
 * One Piece won the Sondermann Prize in 2005, 2008 and 2009 (always in the category "best Manga/Manhwa international").
 * Up to Episode 207, the episodes were broadcasted in 4:3 format, cropping the HD 16:9 episodes to 4:3, unlike in Italy. Since Episode 207 there has been a change to HDTV and thus to the 16:9 format.
 * In the German dub, Satori, Hotori and Kotori are declared as sisters and also have female voice actors.

Links

 * German page about cuts in the German anime version