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ANIME REVIEWS

Pokémon
(original name: Pocket Monsters)
Copyright © Nintendo /
Creatures / Game Freak / TV
Tokyo
/ Sho-Pro / Jr Kikaku
U.S. version released by 4Kids
Productions, a division of
Summit Media Group.















—by Roderick "Agitator" Lee

Some readers may be asking themselves "Why does the term 'Pokemon' sound familiar?" or maybe, "Isn't it that show that caused all those seizures?" And the answer would be "Yes, POKÉMON, or rather the original title, POCKET MONSTERS, is the same popular anime series whose seizure incident sparked a new round of overreaction from the anime-ignorant media at the end of last year." (EX covered the original news story last year, and has also profiled the original series.) Following the incident, TV Tokyo pulled the show within two days after the fateful December 1997 broadcast. They did not cancel the show, but neither did they confirm any questions of whether the show would ever re-air. Meanwhile, Nintendo announced that the incident would not derail their plans to release the original Gameboy Pocket Monsters game-soft in the US in 1998.
  Fast-forward four months. Nintendo announced they could not conclusively determine the cause of the seizures, but had modified all flashing scenes in previously aired as well as unaired episodes. In the meantime, though, thousands of Japanese parents had been requesting that TV Tokyo bring the series back, in spite of the seizures. Thus, Nintendo and TV Tokyo announced their plans to bring the show back in April in concert with the new release of spring shows, and in no time, the show reclaimed its #3 status. Shortly after, Nintendo announced plans to bring the series over to the US, bringing us to today.
  As POKÉMON is not just a dub, but a broadcast dub, not only does the issue become the dubbing quality, but also the content. And since POKÉMON comes to the States with some dubious PR in its history, it would come as no surprise if it were hacked to pieces. The good news, however, is that it is not. In fact, just the opposite appears to be the case: it is uncut! This reviewer compared the US and Japanese versions of the same episodes and found no obvious scene cuts and also clocked them in the same running time of 19 minutes, 15-20 seconds. Now, obviously the US producers changed the songs, and consequently the opening and ending credits sequences are different. But this change is no major loss.
  The dub itself is similarly impressive. Naturally, the names change; so Satoshi, Kasumi, and Takeshi are now Ash, Misty, and Brock, respectively. Now, this reviewer has personal preferences regarding the names; Ash is hardly a commonplace name, and Misty seems to imply something underlying her character (and indeed, she has a line in one episode to that effect: "My name may be Misty, but I am not."). The voices for these three principals are excellent and well-cast. They are neither forced nor stilted, and when combined with the admirable translation job, make for one of the best broadcast dubs ever. But, that is just half the story. Anyone familiar with the original knows that, with the exception of Nyaasu, the monsters do not have any dialogue; they just repeat parts of their names. Thus, assuming the names do not change, there is no need to modify these lines. Which is exactly the case: Pikachuu's voice is the same as in the original, Ootani Ikue. And lo and behold, a glance of the ending credits reveals quite a collection of familiar Japanese names such as: Hayashibara Megumi (as Pidgiotto), Takano Urara (as Raichuu), Matsumoto Rika, Miki Shinichiro, and Ueda Yuuji (as other monsters this reviewer cannot immediately identify).
  While the principal voices and even many of the auxiliary voices sound more than suitable, the auxiliary characters suffer from that recurring syndrome that seems to be a problem with all dubs: accents. Why do the production teams behind dubs equate different or unusual characters with accented speech? During one early stretch in the dub version, Ash's opponents become a parade of different accents: country accent, Texas accent, British accent. Throw that in with Meowth's (Japanese name, Nyaasu) New York accent and it can get annoying.
  Then there is the seemingly unnecessary renaming of some of the monsters. While some of the names are handled cleverly (for example, "Zenigame," a play on the word for "turtle" becomes "Squirtle,") some changes just seem arbitrary. Both Rocket pokemon, Arbo and Dogash, are now renamed to Ekans and Coffing. Is "Ekans" any more descriptive than "Arbo"? In a more egregious example, the hybrid dog-seal monster Pawou (say it out loud) is now known as Seel. These are the kinds of changes that drive purists crazy: unnecessary, indiscriminate, and without any seemingly reasonable explanation.
  And what about those infamous flashing scenes? There is a noticeable change in some of the flashing scenes, but by the same token, the scenes are still there, but the flashes have been slowed down significantly. To the untrained eye, it is not even evident that something changed. As for the specific episode itself, the US broadcast version will completely omit it from the schedule despite the fact that Nintendo fixed the scene.
  An uncut broadcast dub with voices that "don't suck," accurate translation, and an intact premise? Yes, it really exists. They even partially subtitled an episode! (In the original episode 17, there are multiple scenes of pokemon dialogue subtitled in Japanese.) Nintendo just raised the standards bar for broadcast anime. Only one thing left to say: "Gotta catch this show." (And here is a station list to get you all started.)


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