Nigel Ng, better known as his comedy alter ego Uncle Rogerreceived a copyright strike from Toei Animation for its latest reaction video on YouTube, which features footage from the anime series ONE PIECE. The video was a review of Asian cuisine, which in this case was Sanji’s Japanese curry from episode 133, titled “Recipe Submitted! Sanji, Curry’s Iron Man!” Uncle Roger is known for reaction videos to cooking content and using “haiyaaa” to express frustration.
The episode features Sanji, the Straw Hat Pirates’ chef, indirectly guiding a young trainee chef, Tayo, as he makes a Japanese curry for a group of sea captains. Overall, Uncle Roger praised the authenticity of the anime’s curry-cooking process and was impressed that Taijo, whom he called Little Nephew, cooks quite well.
However, ONE PIECE anime copyright owners are known to be strict about their intellectual property, so Uncle Roger commented on the video saying he had 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 publisher of this warning. The video will be removed in three days (at the time of writing) – it’s currently 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 watched it yet, you can watch Nigel Ng/Uncle Roger’s ONE PIECE cooking review below:
This is not the first case of YouTube anime copyright claims by Toei. In 2020, they hit YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick from Not at all Mark channel with more than 150 copyright claims. The long controversy has ended with YouTube’s new copyright policy with region-blocked/accessible videos. TeamFourStarthe group behind Dragon Ball Z Abridged on YouTube also received copyright claims from Toei. In such a situation, Velor‘c PokémonJourney review series received a copyright strike when Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (Sho-Pro) filed a lawsuit against their channel. There is no concept of fair use in Japanese law that usually covers reviews in the West.
ONE PIECE is a manga by Eiichiro Oda that follows Monkey D. Luffy on his quest to find the Pirate King’s greatest treasure. It’s free to read on MANGA Plus, while the anime is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Bilibili. Finally, all episodes of the live-action adaptation are now available on Netflix.
source: Nigel Ng’s YouTube
© Eiichiro Oda / Shueisha / Toei Animation
