Baleno and One Piece Collaboration

Baleno is a famous clothing franchise in Hong Kon
g and Taiwan (not really sure if it also has stores else where). It has been collaborating with cartoon/anime companies to produce shirts with cartoon characters like Doraemon, Disney, Toy Story, etc. Two or three years ago, when I was still in high School, it started its collaboration with One Piece. Below are some images
of Baleno's spring collection, being sold in Taiwan.

Again, why is One Piece successful in Japan, and as this collaboration shows, in Taiwan and Hong Kong (perhaps other parts of Asia, too), but not in the USA? The answer is probably still the difference in culture. People from Japan's neig

hboring countries probably have deeper understanding of its culture than Americans do on general, although I still find it hard to find the Japanese cultural element that could be incomprehensible to US audience.

If I were to think of a theme in One Piece that is not common in American culture, I will say the teamwork

of the crew. Normally, in a American movie or cartoon, most notably Hollywood Blockbuster or Marvel Comic books, the hero always fights alone and rarely does he (also note that hardly is a woman a hero) need the help from the others. Think about Superman, Spiderman, Ironman and Batman. They are all way too strong to need any partner. It would be well enough for them to handle any enemy.

Okay, I know one may be inclined to argue that in all Spiderman, Ironman and Batman, there are supporting casts. Spiderman has his lovely girlfriend, Mary Jane, and also teams up with his friend-and-foe Harry osborn in Spiderman 3 the movie. Ironman, Tony Stark, has his whole company and its cutting-edge technology. Batman has Robin. However, in all these, the protagonists are still obviously the strongest and are only very rarely helped by the supporting crew; whereas in One Piece, every member on the pirate crew has his or her own purpose. In the very first episode, Luffy set out to sail on the journey on his own, but he couldn't even get anywhere because he lacks the technique to stir a boat. So if there was no Nami, he couldn't even have reached the New World (where they just arrived in last week's Shonen Jump).

The other crew members also help Luffy and each others in all sorts of ways. In this sense, they all rely and depend on each other that they can't really live the way they do right not if they lack any of their comrades.

So is there a tendency in American kids to favor the one-man trend instead of teamwork? The answer is, I would say, maybe. Perhaps this is why Naruto is doing way better than One Piece outside of Asia. Although the protagonist Naruto has his friends, classmates, teachers and seniors to guide him and color his life, he does not stick with any one of them for the whole of the plot. At different stages, he trains with different people and learns new ninjutsu. So, in this sense, the spotlight of the story has always been on Naruto and not he and his friends.

This is me trying to act funny in Chopper's Hat that was sold in one of the Baleno chain in Taipei, Taiwan two years ago.

Top left image is from the HK Baleno site: <http://www.baleno.com.hk/EN/whatsnew_2.asp?id=118>

All others, except for the last one featuring me is from the TW Baleno facebook page: <http://www.facebook.com/Baleno.tw>