I have the original releases of volumes 1-3, before VIZ changed from "Zoro" to "Zolo". In a way...I understand their vague reasoning--they didn't want to run into name copyright issues (with the old-time "Zorro"), since the U.S. is kinda really strict in copyright stuff. So they basically used a general rule when translating Japanese...when reading katakana lettering, "R" and "L" can be used interchangably in translation. Some people take this to mean ALL katakana "R" MUST BE "L"...but it's not always true. I think VIZ often exploits the general American public's not-knowing-Japanese in order to translate things as they like.

Ironically, this can backfire on them in some instances. In volume 73 here, there was an SBS question where a reader pointed out to Oda how many times Zoro refers to Sanji by name and how many times Sanji refers to Zoro by name--and it turns out that Zoro has never called Sanji by name. However, the VIZ editor made a footnote saying that in the "American edition" Zoro has called Sanji by name several times. Again...VIZ takes a lot of leniency to translate things in a very loose manner. "Dragon Ball" is a fabulous example of this (beyond their breaking it up into the separate ages of Goku)--it may not translate well, but the way Trunks-from-the-future refers to characters in the past is very, VERY important. The fact that he calls Gohan "Gohan-san" shows how much he respects the boy who will become his teacher in the future...when in the manga, this term confuses Gohan the first few times Trunks calls him this. VIZ completely negates this and slips in extra made-up dialogue to prevent having to explain this.