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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.



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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
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