Re: "One Piece" apparently not licensed by Funimation after all.

"D B Malmquist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> From AnimeNewsNetwork -
>
>   http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=4404
>
>   Following reports that FUNimation had lost the One Piece license, ANN
>   contacted them today to find out whether they had in fact lost the
>   license or not. The surprise, was an explanation that they had in fact
>   never licensed One Piece and that the whole thing was a
misunderstanding.
>
>   At Anime Expo New York in 2002 Gen Fukunaga discussed "Great Anime
coming
>   to America" and mentioned One Piece as one such title that was coming to
>   America. Many of the journalists present, including but not limited to
>   Anime News Network's own reporters, misconstrued this as an announcement
>   that it was FUNimation that was bringing One Piece to America, in other
>   words, that they had licensed the title.
>
>   We were informed today that the license for One Piece has not been
awarded
>   and that FUNimation "Remains one of the top companies in negotiations
for
>   the property."
>
>   In 2003 ANN implemented a policy of showing all our convention reports
>   to the companies before posting them, but at the time of AX 2002 this
policy
>   was not in place.
>
> Well, crap.  I thought the first 18 episodes that I saw before it was
> licensed were pretty good, and were improving with each story arc.  I
guess
> AoD was given bad info as well  -
>
>   http://www.animeondvd.com/licenselist/O.php
>
> And apparently Funimation registered the "One Piece" trademark in Apr
2002,
> but abandoned it in Jul 2003 -
>
>
http://forums.animeondvd.com/printthread.php?Board=generalanimeforum&main=267458&type=post
>
> So, Viz doesn't have "Hikaru no Go" after all, and now Funimation doesn't
> have "One Piece" after all.  I'd be wondering whether ADV really has the
> remaining "Slayers" movies after all, were it not for the fact that I've
> personally seen the second movie for sale in stores.
>
> - dbm

This news has caused a flurry of Bit Torrent postings for One Piece.

Dave Baranyi