Funimation Acquires One Piece

FUNimation has formally announced its acquisition of American distribution rights to the One Piece anime franchise. FUNimation will take over translation and television broadcast from 4Kids Entertainment, and take over DVD production and release from Viz. FUNimation will produce its own English dub based on the American producers’ interpretation of the series, not based on the sound of the original Japanese voices, for new episodes scheduled to air in edited (but not as heavily edited as previous 4Kids episodes) form on the Cartoon Network beginning this August. The FUNimation TV release will begin with episode 144. Uncut, bilingual episodes will be released on domestic DVD in 13 episode sets retailing at $49.98 each.

Source: AnimeOnline