According to an interview with Mark Kirk, former vice president of 4Kids, 4Kids never wanted One Piece to begin with, and they only got it because it was in a package deal with the two other Toei shows they licensed (Magical DoReMi and Ultimate Muscle, respectively), as Toei desperately wanted to bring their smash-hit show to North America as soon as possible. They did not screen a single episode of the show before agreeing to the deal and wanted nothing to do with it once they realized how violent it was. Once they were legally allowed to drop the license, 4Kids canceled their dub of One Piece and established new checks and balances to make sure something like that never happened again. - бггг