Nigel Ng, better known as his comedic alter ego Uncle Roger, received a copyright strike from Toei Animation for his latest YouTube reaction video that featured footage of the anime series ONE PIECE. The video was a review of Asian cooking, which in this case, was Sanji’s Japanese curry from episode 133 titled “A Recipe Handed Down! Sanji, the Iron Man of Curry!” Uncle Roger is known for reaction videos to cooking content and the “haiyaaa” usage to express disappointment.
The episode involved Sanji, the cook of the Straw Hat Pirates, indirectly guiding a young trainee chef, Taijo, as he makes Japanese curry for a group of Marine Captains. All in all, Uncle Roger commended the authenticity of the anime’s curry cooking process and was impressed that Taijo, whom he called Little Nephew, cooked rather well.
However, copyright owners for ONE PIECE anime are known to be strict with their intellectual property, so Uncle Roger commented on the video stating that he received a copyright strike. Shueisha owns the manga rights for the series, while Toei Animation is the rights holder for the anime adaptation and the issuer of this strike. The video will be removed in three days (at the time of writing) – at the moment it is still available and has over 1.7 million views and the creator has asked fans to watch the video before it disappears forever.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch Nigel Ng/Uncle Roger’s ONE PIECE cooking review below:
This isn’t the first instance of anime copyright claims on YouTube by Toei. In 2020, they struck YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick of the Totally Not Mark channel with more than 150 copyright claims. The lengthy dispute ended with YouTube’s new copyright policy with region-blocked/accessible videos. TeamFourStar, the group behind Dragon Ball Z Abridged on YouTube, also received copyright claims from Toei. In a similar situation, Suede‘s Pokémon Journey review series received a copyright strike when Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (Sho-Pro) filed a court complaint over their channel. There is no concept of fair use in Japanese law, which generally covers reviews in the West.
ONE PIECE is a manga by Eichiro Oda that follows Monkey D. Luffy in his quest to find the Pirate King’s greatest treasure. It is free to read on MANGA Plus while the anime is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Bilibili. Lastly, all the episodes of the live-action adaptation are now available on Netflix.
Source: Nigel Ng’s YouTube
© Eiichiro Oda / Shueisha / Toei Animation
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