Plot: After Luffy almost loses his precious straw hat, we’re told the story of how he obtained it. As a child, Luffy befriended a great band of pirates lead by the legendary Shanks. After being saved from a sea monster by Shanks, causing Shanks to lose his arm in the process, Shanks gives Luffy his straw hat with the promise that he’ll return the hat to him on the day that he indeed becomes a great pirate.
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In the original, you hear the pirates who were sunk by Nami yelling at her that they’ll get her for what she did to them before the title screen. In the dub, it’s silence and the title screen immediately comes up…..If they didn’t return later in the episode, I’d think 4Kids killed them off right there.
Title Screen:
Subbed: 
Dubbed: 
Also, I shouldn’t have to tell you that all that pirate talk (Especially about swag and….whatever swigger means) plus the pirate puns when they get into her boat are dub-only.
They edit out some shots of the pirates drinking.
A bottle on the bar is painted away.
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Dubbed: 
They erased the word “Anchor” from Luffy’s shirt…..*sigh* 4Kids, that is a word that you would literally find in a book aimed at toddlers learning how to read. In addition, there’s a picture of an anchor right behind the word.
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Dubbed: 
They edit out a shot of Benn Beckman after Luffy asks Shanks to take him with him next time he goes on a journey. This is likely because he’s smoking.
They edit out the word ‘Yassopp’ (No idea why it’s misspelled) on Yasopp’s headband and later erase a bottle from his table.
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Dubbed: 
They edit out a shot of Makino, the woman who owns the bar, watching the pirates talk to Luffy as she dries a glass.
Also, in the original the pirates are laughing at Luffy after taking the glass of juice because a real adult/pirate wouldn’t drink juice, he’d drink alcohol like the rest of them. In the dub, they make it out like the real reason that this proves he isn’t an adult/pirate is because it’s APPLE juice and a real pirate/adult wouldn’t drink APPLE juice. Yeah! Real adults drink grape juice!
Subbed: 
Dubbed: 
Another shot of Benn is edited out probably due to his cigar (Is that a cigar, technically?)
In the original, the bandits want ten gallons of beer. In the dub, 4Kids actually decides to play around mentioning beer instead of saying it’s juice or something. They say they want “strong stuff.”
I give 4Kids semi-points for that, but in typical 4Kids fashion, they lose it immediately in the next scene. The color of the bottle that Shanks gives the bandit leader is changed from purple to orange…Why? I have no clue. If anything, it just makes it look like the beer they were so careful to avoid mentioning instead of whatever it was supposed to be. (Maybe wine? I can’t think of any other bottled drink that would be in a purple bottle, and the label’s blank in both versions.)
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Dubbed: 
In the original, the leader of the bandits destroys the bar top with his sword and says that since they love cleaning up so much that they’ll enjoy what he did. He then says that, since there’s no beer there, that they’re wasting their time and they leave while calling Shanks and the others cowards. In the dub, well, if that bandit had stats like a trading card, he’d be listing them off. I’d say he’s bragging, but he really just seems like he’s listing off all of the stuff he’s done like he’s reading it from an info card.
They edit out another shot of Makino after Luffy eats the Gum Gum fruit.
They edit out a shot of the outside of the bar after Luffy eats the Gum Gum fruit.
More Bottles removed.
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Dubbed: 
After we see Makino getting the mayor, there’s a series of stillscreens explaining what had happened with Luffy and the bandits. (Flashback within a flashback) It basically shows the bandits making fun of Shanks and his crew for not fighting back earlier in the bar. In the dub, they cut out the stills and go straight to Luffy yelling at them to stop making fun of Shanks.
In the original, the mayor gets on his hands and knees and begs for Luffy’s life. In the dub, while the dialogue is kept mostly the same, they don’t show the mayor getting on his hands and knees.
Okay, this is just sad. We have another instance of a gun, this time being pointed at Shanks’ head. So what do they do? Erase it? Make it some water gun?
Nope.
Even better.
They make it a CORK GUN! Yeah, you know, one of those old toy guns that has a cork in the end of the barrel and when you pull the trigger or push the stick thing the cork pops out and makes a POP noise? And the cork has a string on it to ensure that you don’t lose it when you use it? How could that possibly hurt him, 4Kids? HOW? It’d be slightly annoying to be hit by that. The end. It’s almost comical that 4Kids actually believes this is intimidating.
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Dubbed: 
In the original, the cork gun thing is made even funnier because Shanks says that pistols aren’t toys before one of his crew shoots the bandit in the head. Speaking of which, OH MY! Shooting someone in the head?! How will 4Kids tackle this?!
Well, Shanks tells the bandit that the weapon, whatever it’s supposed to be, misfires at such close range….uhh, how? Weapons don’t really misfire because they’re close, they misfire due to mechanical issues or stuff plugging up the barrel. Considering the edit makes it out to be a cork gun, I guess he’s not wrong. If you press a cork gun to something and try to pull the trigger, the cork might still come out due to the pressure, but it wouldn’t do as much because it doesn’t have the room to eject with full force.
Now about that head shooting. Well, first off, the gun that Shanks’ crew member had is changed to a bright orange color to indicate that it’s not real, I suppose. But the bandit still falls over. How to tackle that? Well, Shanks says that when he wakes up (from his mortal head wound) to tell him that it was a cap gun……..
A….cap gun….
A.
Cap.
Gun.
ALL CAP GUNS DO IS MAKE NOISE AND SMOKE! They don’t even produce any reasonable burst of air! The cork gun is a more legitimate weapon than a cap gun because at least it has a projectile! I can’t even say maybe they’re making off like the smoke is knock-out gas or something because the gun doesn’t really produce any smoke. Just BLAM and the bandit falls over.
Maybe, considering Shanks said that those weapons deliver quite a scare, we’re meant to believe that the bandit was so scared from the noise that he passed out? That’s quite the pill to swallow, 4Kids.
Also, 4Kids, are you friggin’ high!? You just told kids that it’s okay to shoot each other in the head because they’ll just get knocked out! If anything, yes, I’m gonna say it, the original version is actually more kid-friendly than what 4Kids just showed. At least it says that guns aren’t toys and they can result in death. 4Kids basically said that all guns are toys and they just knock you out. What the hell is wrong with you people?! 4Kids makes some pretty stupid moves, but this one actually pisses me off.
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Dubbed: 
Oh and, cherry on top, in the dub, after the guy gets ‘knocked out’, one of the bandits says that he was their ride home. Hurr hurr.
After one of Shanks’ crew beats the bandits with his rifle, he points it at the leader. In the dub, despite the fact that the rifle is left unedited in the previous scenes, the rifle is painted away when he points it at the leader which results in his left arm being mysteriously missing.
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Dubbed: 
So….guns….bad.…
Alcohol….bad…
Cleavage lines….bad.…
Japan in any way, shape or form……bad……
Shot of Shanks after he just got his arm bitten off: A-OKAY!
Granted it’s not like it’s pouring blood, which it honestly should be, and you can’t see the stump, but they still acknowledged and showed that he did indeed get his arm ripped off by a sea monster and didn’t change the shot at all. They didn’t even paint away the blood-ish tint on the ripped sleeve. I’m so confused.
Also, can I just point out that dub!Luffy’s crying is nowhere near as emotional as original!Luffy crying? Original!Luffy is bawling and I mean bawling after he sees Shanks in the water. Dub!Luffy’s crying like he dropped his ice cream.
Dub!Buggy Pirate: “Or you’ll be getting’ a knock-knock on the head you won’t soon forget!”
Hey 4Kids, knock-knock!
4Kids – Who’s there?
Bad dialogue!
4Kids – Bad dialogue who?
Go to hell! 😀
In the dub, the episode cuts off before the smoke from Luffy’s landing clears…like it’s some cliffhanger. We know who it is…Heck, if the previous scenes weren’t a big enough clue, the episode shows closeups of him falling from the sky.
What, are we wondering if Luffy’s still alive after that? He’s a rubber man! I’m pretty sure he can survive any fall. In the original, we see Luffy in the clearing dust, see him standing up and saying “Where’d that cannonball come from? Well, you don’t see that every day!” and we close in on Nami’s face before we see the TO BE CONTINUED screen which is also edited away.
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This episode was great. I loved the backstory on Luffy, Shanks is a fantastic character that I really love, there was plenty of action and emotional moments to keep things interesting, and I actually like the fact that Luffy eating the Gum Gum fruit isn’t a bigger event. He just mistook it for regular food and ate it. That’s definitely a ‘Luffy’ thing to do.
Dub-wise, holy crap, this is a nightmare. I will give them props for leaving in Shanks’ de-arming, but that’s about it. Everything else is either ruined at best and demolished at worst.
Next episode, it’s the debut of Buggy. Luffy tries to get Nami to be the navigator for his ship, but Nami’s got enough on her plate trying to trick Buggy into letting her be part of his crew for the sake of getting a map to the Grand Line.
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The Anime Madhouse 