Yeah, a ton of people were asking FUNimation on a constant basis as to why the show was pulled and if it was canceled. At the time, even they had no idea about it. They weren't told the show was no longer going to air, meanwhile, CN was stating they had no plans to even rerun the series.Hao_Kaiser wrote:And why am I just now finding out that One Piece was canceled? WTF, Cartoon Network?
It wasn't until someone got a hold of someone at Toei Animation's US division and found out that CN pulled it because they didn't like how it wasn't pulling in massive ratings (aka Naruto-sized) and that the dub was far too serious compared to the 4Kids dub.
In other words, CN wanted it to be like the 4Kids dub and expected Naruto-sized ratings even though they would not allow FUNi to get away with certain things that Naruto was allowed to do and would even delay episodes for another week to air a surprise RERUN of the god damned Naruto movie.
Naruto became Cartoon Network's new DBZ. When they found out One Piece wasn't to their liking (even though it was confirmed to actually be GAINING ratings when the dub change occurred), they dropped it at a cliffhanger.
That was what ultimately killed Toonami. They pulled One Piece and Dragon Ball Z, kept an hour of Naruto, then started airing episodes of Bakugan and Blue Dragon that had ALREADY DEBUTED EARLIER IN THE MORNING.
FUNi's still dubbing the series and releasing it on DVD. They have no intention on stopping. It's just incredibly sad to see how royally fucked up it is that One Piece can't seem to catch a break here despite the amount of potential it has.
