Review: One Piece Collection 12

Release Date
28/12/2015
Format
DVD
Publisher
Manga Entertainment
Certificate
12
Language / Subtitles
English, Japanese / English
Discs
4
Run Time
542 Minutes

One Piece Collection 12 has landed! In this lovely collection, the Straw Hats must battle their way through Enies lobby on the Judiciary Island! One Piece Collection 12 comes to the UK from Manga Entertainment and spans four discs, with a total of twenty-four episodes. The first few episodes of the collection begin to tell Robin’s back-story as a child as well as recapping the other Straw Hat’s back-stories. This collection really brings together how close the crew have become and really shows they are a family. Following on from this, we begin to see possibly some of the most memorable fight scenes in One Piece history.

This release of One Piece Collection 12 is identical, in terms of content, to the Funimation release in North America, as are the previous collections. This means that we’re receiving the full uncut version of One Piece, both English dubbed and in the original Japanese. The English dub included is the Funimation dub and not that of the original North American broadcast, so there’s no censored dialog or name changes. It does, however, contain logo and credit alterations as are present in the Funimation version; this does not impede the viewing experience.

Despite being a DVD release, the anime quality is very high, and the quality remained consistent through all of the episodes.  Fans of both original Japanese and English dubs are catered for in this release, the latter moreso with a total of four episodes including commentary with members of the English voice cast, and two special behind the scenes featurettes. The English audio track is offered as 5.1 surround sound, while the Japanese audio is stereo only.

However, as mentioned before, there are translation choices that still irritate me throughout the series; in particular the name of techniques the Straw Hat crew uses, for example, Luffy’s Gear Second. The translation of Sogeking’s song also felt slightly weak and less imbued with passion in comparison to the original dub. Moreover, there were a few issues in the dub where sometimes the lip sync felt slightly off. Apart from that, the quality of the content is very good.

Extras include the standard clean opening and ending animations, behind the scenes featurettes, titled ‘On The Boat with’; featuring John Swasey (Crocodile), Stephanie Young (Robin),  Jason Liebrecht (Rob Lucci), and Jonathan Brooks. The episodes with commentary can be found in the extras menu and are spread over the first three discs; this is available for the following episodes:

277 – Tragedy of Ohara! Fear of Buster Call!
287 – Even if I Die, I Won’t Kick You! Sanji’s Manly Chivalr
289 – Zoro’s New Technique Explodes! The Katana’s Name is Sogeking?
290 – Uncontrollable! Chopper’s Forbidden Rumble

Verdict
As with previous One Piece collections the visual quality is good as is the audio. However the translation of Sogeking's song also felt slightly weak and less passion full in comparison to the original dub. Again we have more behind the scenes featurettes which are always a welcome addition to any release.
7
GOOD