UpFromTheSkies wrote:Does anyone know if they do the same stuff with other manga, or is it just Dragon Ball? I was thinking about picking up One Piece, but it seems like VIZ can't release anything without messing it up.
There are a lot of nit-picky complaints about the One Piece release, like that at the beginning it was heavy with pirate lingo and using the word "Kami" instead of "God" in Skypea. The biggest issue people have is Zoro is named "Zolo" in the Viz releases, which I think came from worries about legal issues or something. But all that stuff was from the earlier days, and now the translations are great. Zoro is still Zolo for consistency's sake, but that's really not too obtrusive in being able to enjoy the otherwise good releases. The translator Stephen Paul is an active part of the OP fan community and before working on the official release, his translated scripts were often pointed to by fans as the gold standard.
There are OP 3-in-ones, but they are lower quality paper as well. The regular volumes are similar in quality to Dragon Ball/Z's single volumes.
Censorship does not seem to be an issue. There's an occasional "Damn" or whatever and there isn't any nudity or that sort of thing to cover up in OP anyway. Do you think that there's a difference in the fact that even though OP is definitely rising in popularity in America, it is still within the niche of manga fans, while Viz are still trying to get Dragon Ball out to the "general" public? Dragon Ball has also had issues in school libraries, which Viz is probably sensitive about...
