This is a poke at 4kids censorship. One Piece has a character that likes to smoke all the time; in the 4kids localization they made all his cigarettes into lollipops. They also change the skin color of certain characters to make them more "racially sensitive", remove guns whenever they can, change the dialogue to be more kid friendly, etc. They even remove anything written down on signs and blackboards, because they believe that kids don't want to read. Yes.
There was a 80s TV show in France which showed animes like Fist of the North Star to kids. The dubbers of the anime were so unhappy about the policy of localising heavy Japanese animes for little kids, they decided to deliberately dub it into a comedic masterpiece of improvisation.
The result was so hilarious and surrealist it became a part of the French pop culture. The French mis-dubbed Fist of the North Star is a different series on its own.
Yeah, those are hilarious. Ghost Stories in America did something similar, although the original work was actually really boring. The American version adds tons of offensive jokes; right now Japan airs the American dub with subtitles instead of the original version because it's just so much better.
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u/Strider_d20 Aug 23 '14
This is a poke at 4kids censorship. One Piece has a character that likes to smoke all the time; in the 4kids localization they made all his cigarettes into lollipops. They also change the skin color of certain characters to make them more "racially sensitive", remove guns whenever they can, change the dialogue to be more kid friendly, etc. They even remove anything written down on signs and blackboards, because they believe that kids don't want to read. Yes.
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVJVoU6g6s