SBS Volume 26

Special-edition SBS — no Q&A this volume. Instead, Oda dedicates the entire SBS to the “International Investigation Committee” report: a list of all 11 (then 15) countries where One Piece is officially published, foreign character-name comparisons, and the November 2002 launch of Shonen Jump in America (with One Piece in the inaugural lineup).

The next regular Q&A SBS resumes in Volume 27.

SBS content

Chapter 237, Page 26 — International publication list

O: Um… in the SBS Sections a few volumes back, everyone kept asking about foreign versions of One Piece. Amazingly enough, even I, the author, had no idea in which countries One Piece is published. So, I asked the Shueisha publishing’s international department to investigate for me. Thanks to everyone that helped. Below is the list of countries and languages that One Piece is published in as of October 2002. You will definitely not be able to buy these versions in Japan.

Eleven countries (as of Oct. 2002):

• Taiwan (Mandarin)
• Korea (Korean)
• Singapore (Mandarin)
• France (French)
• Spain (Spanish)
• Brazil (Portuguese)
• Hong Kong (Cantonese)
• Thailand (Thai)
• Malaysia (Malay)
• Italy (Italian)
• Germany (German)

Four more countries planning to publish in 2003:

• Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Sweden (Swedish)
• Denmark (Danish)
• Mexico (Spanish)

Chapter 238, Page 44 — Foreign character names

O: In the foreign versions, some of the main characters’ foreign names sound rather interesting. Let’s check them out now. Some are pretty strange. (Continues on p.62…)

Anime Report

O: As for the anime, it’s already in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Italy and Greece. So Luffy and the others are talking in those countries’ languages! I want to see it…

Chapter 239, Page 62

O: Different countries have different spellings, but a lot of them have the same pronunciation, so I picked the ones that sound unique and listed them. I didn’t include Nico Robin because she hasn’t appeared in the books published in those countries yet. Obviously they’re behind the Japanese releases. By the way, sometimes I get mail from readers in foreign countries, but I can’t read them. (Doh!) I can still understand their feelings, though, so I’m happy. Thank you.

Chapter 241, Page 98

“The many faces of ONE PIECE!” — visual gallery (foreign cover art).

Chapter 242, Page 116 — “That’s Not Good!” corner

O: The one on the left is the cover insert for Volume 10 of the French version. It talked about how I am the same age as Sazae-san. Of course, French readers don’t know about Sazae, so they had to add an explanation below. Sorry about that, making you have to go this far… from now on, I’ll be careful and try not to blabber.

Now, look at the right, I was surprised… they even translated “SBS”… it’s such fine work… even these little Q&A games made it across the sea. Now all the kids in the world are going to say “Oh, the Japanese are so silly”.

Ok, you are also our friend.

Chapter 243, Page 134 — American launch (Shonen Jump Nov 2002)

O: Oh… it’s English. This is the American version. It only happened recently, but starting from November 2002, “Shounen Jump Weekly” is going to transform into “Shonen Jump” and enter the American market. The lineup for the magazine is: “Dragon Ball”, “Yu-Gi-Oh!”, “Sandland”, “Shaman King”, “Naruto” and “One Piece”. Oh, I wonder what it’s like. So that’s it! Not only will you see One Piece in a lot of countries, but you’ll also see lots of other Japanese manga series. I can’t wait to see what will happen in the future, although I’ll probably still be doing the same thing.

Well then, the Special SBS International Investigation Committee is over. Starting from the next volume, the stupid, the fun SBS Q&A will return. See you next volume!!

Notable canon-leaks

• No character / lore canon-leaks this volume — special-edition international-publication report only.
• Time-anchor: dates the start of Shonen Jump America (and thus VIZ’s official US licensing of One Piece) to November 2002. Useful for cross-referencing the VIZ translation history.
• Pre-Robin-international-publication frame: as of Oct 2002, no foreign edition had reached Nico Robin’s introduction (Vol. 21 / Ch. 192 in JP). Foreign readers were a full arc behind.
• Robin’s name was not yet localized in any foreign edition as of this writing — establishes that all Robin-name foreign-spelling variants come from post-2003 editions.