Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Very Weird Japanese Anime: One Piece

I love Japan. I love everything about Japan; the people, the history, the architecture, the culture, the girls, the anime... Er, well, no. As an "oldster" (someone over 50) I do have a problem with Japanese anime. In fact, I always have.

Since the very first time I saw Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion on TV when I was about 13-years-old, I've had a "problem" with Japanese anime; it was too wimpy and too cute for my liking.

Actually, I hated the Speed Racer cartoon

Forgive me, you have to remember that I grew up in 1960's America where is was OK to have violent kids cartoons with lots of killing and guys like Galactus coming to earth to suck its energies and lifeforms completely dry...  (It also is a strange sort of commentary about American society when our comic book heroes are all extremely muscular guys who wear skin-tight leotards!) It was this way until the early 1970's when the PC crowd got a hold of TV and made sure there were no more violent cartoons so kids got stuck with crap like the Archies and, well, Japanese anime.

Of course, today's Japanese anime seems to me to be much better than those old days. I first started thinking, "Wow! This is cool!" when I first saw the Japanese cartoon Dr. Slump. That was very bizarre...

Today, I'd like to share with you another Japanese anime that I've found that strikes me as quite bizarre. It's called One Piece and it is a very strange cartoon.

One Piece is about a pirate kid named Monkey D. Luffy... There's even Wikipedia entries for this guy and One Piece.  I'd go into a big explanation for this but why bother? All you folks need to do is to read on and watch the Youtube video and you'll see real Halloween for yourself. This is one very off-the-wall cartoon....

Wikipedia says about Monkey D. Luffy:

Monkey D. Luffy (モンキー・D・ルフィ Monkī D. Rufi), or "Straw Hat Luffy" as he is often referred to as, is a fictional character and the main protagonist in the anime and manga series One Piece created by Eiichiro Oda


Wikipedia also adds:


He is a boy whose body is made of rubber after he ate a devil's fruit and acquired the ability.


Catch that? Read that last sentence again. "He is a boy whose body is made of rubber after he ate a devil's fruit and acquired the ability"!? (emphasis mine)


Hey! I thought that Wikipedia had people checking these things. Is that sentence for real? Or have the Japanese anime lovers actually done that on purpose?


I suspect that this cartoon is so popular in the USA and Japan that this is on purpose. Don't believe me? Watch this 10 minute segment of One Piece for yourself and see. I think you'll agree with me that this is one extremely bizarre cartoon.... Er, I mean "anime".


Anyhow, watch this and check out these characters in this cartoon... I thought drugs were illegal in Japan... I wonder what the creators of this cartoon were smoking!


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Keywords: One Piece, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, anime, cartoon, Monkey D. Luffy, Mike Rogers

6 comments:

Graham said...

Might be the same stuff Tashiro "Marcy" Masashi was doing when he was making this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3wuw3AQ-w

Anonymous said...

One piece is one of the best manga/anime out there nothing wrong with it at all

Guy Jean said...

One Piece is also hugely successful in an industry and market that is pretty near saturated. That's success! I never watch it, but my kids love it.

Anonymous said...

You are very closed minded, welcome to the present.

mike in tokyo rogers said...

Thanks Anonymous... And if you ever order Domino's Pizza in Japan, you'll be happy to know that I arranged ALL the One Piece promotions and giveaways... Hope you enjoy them... Welcome to the profitable present.

Anonymous said...

Cutey Honey is a 70s anime and it was very violent, perverted and had nudity. Same with some of other Go Nagai's creations.

Majokko Megu-Chan was perverted too.

There are other anime during that time that are just as violent and inappropriate, as well as lighthearted ones.

The anime that was imported to the US in the 70s or around that era did not include the ones inappropriate to American audiences at the time.

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