Anime Pirates Foiled from Pirating Pirate Anime
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I know a great many of you don’t give a shit about anime, but bear with me. One Piece — one of my most favorite anime series ever, and don’t ask me about it unless you want 1000 words or so on why it’s the best, most brilliant shonen series ever — is finally getting the anti-piracy treatment courtesy of Funimation and Viz. Beginning May 30th, Funimation will offer new episodes of the series on onepieceofficial.com, one hour after the episode airs in Japan (which looks to begin with episode #403, right in the middle of the Shabondy arc), while Viz will run the current manga chapters in Shonen Jump sometime this fall.
I’m pretty goddamn excited, although I don’t know how much good this will do One Piece DVD or manga sales in the U.S. (sure can’t hurt, though). Now, if Viz would only show a little of that Naruto love to the One Piece manga and get me volumes 22-53 a little faster than one per every six months, I will be one happy fucking Straw Hat pirate. (Via AnimeVice and ANN)
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.