Japanese to English Episode Comparisons
Eps 46-60
There is a sign with an arrow on
it. It just has an arrow and nothing more. Originally it had
written on it in Japanese 'Granpa Canyon' which is of course
the name of this place where they are. When Meowth has the lighter to
light the fuse for the dynamite, the Kids WB version zooms
close into Meowth's face so we cannot see the lighter.
Again, 4Kids wasn't responsible for this and the rest of the
world and people who bought the video tape saw the lighter
as is from the Japanese
version. When Purin(Jigglypuff) imagines a
stage looking at the pile of rocks, the stage has a big
blank sign and nothing on the bottom. Originally, the big
sign above read, "Purin on Stage" in big letters and
below the stage it read, "Go! Go! Purin" and so I blame
4Kids for being so lazy. It'd have been quite cute reading
"Jigglypuff on Stage!" or something like that. The stage painting happens again
when Jigglypuff imagines a stage out of the ladder and the
lights. Same words on the same parts of the stage. 4Kids
still makes it blank.
The 'closed' sign was painted over
a Japanese sign that I believe said something similar. It
was in the exact same black lettering, so I believe this is
a nice change from 4Kids and certainly better then simply
erasing it. Okay, the people at Kids WB seem to have a problem
with needles, specifically when they are injected into
someone. There is one scene here with a few alterations done
to it. When the doctor is dealing with the Dodrio. First, after the needle flips out
of his hand, and it's heading toward the doctor. They use a
digital paint 'freeze frame' so everyone sees the needle
come to a halt in mid-air. People that aren't watching the
Kids WB version saw the needle keep going straight into
his arm. Cut -6 sec- We see the needle
there, sticking out of his arm. The WB version cuts back in
as he pulls it out of his arm. There is some sign off in the
distance near the end of the episode. I couldn't even make
it out on my tape because of the smallness of it. Still,
4Kids decided that Japanese is bad and it was painted to
become total blankness.
The only thing to mention in the
entire episode is the sign at the start. So, 4Kids painted
"Missing" over the Japanese on the wood sign. So, basically
4Kids did good on this episode.
When Team Rocket's boat has sank,
and they dig into the backpack to find the boy's supposed
Staryu and Starmie, the paper shows a tongue-stuck-out face.
It shows two of them on the dub. The face on the top is
covering up "Ba-Ka!" written in Japanese. Meaning 'fool'
because of course he successfully tricked them. At the police station, the sign
that says 'Beware this Pokemon' originally said roughly the
same thing in Japanese.
Professor Oak's greeting card
orginally had printed on it in small letters 'Dr. Okido' his
original name in the Japanese version The restaurant's name in Japanese
on the front was simply erased. Interesting to notice, the
restaurants these kids go to are named after Pokemon. They
had the Poppo restaurant in the Jigglypuff episode and now
here's the Koikingu restaurant. What exactly do you suppose
these places are serving for food?! ^^; A card inside one of TR's fake eggs
that has the red sad face in it originally read what I make
out to be 'sucker' in Japanese. Above the buckets of water Meowth
threw at Onix, there was originally a sign there said
something about fire, like 'to be used in case of fire' or
something to that effect.
E.R. was painted on by 4Kids in the
little Pokemon Center. It originally said approximately
the same thing so 4Kids did okay in this case, certainly
better than simply erasing it. As Team Rocket crashed the
Bulbasaur evolution festival there, they both had 'ro' and
something else written on their left sides. Also, that post
there with the "R" on it was actually originally 'ro' so,
4Kids did okay for that one too.
Well, nothing was cut from the
episode, as usual. However, 4Kids really let loose with
their painting on this one!! No wonder they had to delay it
to 2nd season. Constantly right through, they were always
painting something, I don't know why they bother!? They
could have saved so much time and effort, allow us to be
exposed to a little Japanese, only paint signs that are
important for the kids to understand and leave the rest
alone. There was a lot of simple erasing going on here, and
it must have been hard. You can tell all the scenes that
were painted because they appear brighter on screen than
unpainted scenes because they didn't have time to adjust the
brightness on the painted scenes to match the rest of the
episode.
Big giant Kanji behind the karate
kicking dude ^^; Very cleanly erased. Team Rocket's magic van originally
had Kanji on the front and sides promotionally advertising
themselves. 4Kids replaced all this with their own
graphics. In the magic show, the big purple
sign above their heads originally said 'Pokemon Magic' in
katakana, but 4Kids simply erased it due to
laziness. The big 'Super Meowth' on the background as Meowth
imagines his popularity, was originally in this scene in the
first place! This wasn't changed at all! Kind of
surprising how this got into the original version, but still
I guess it made things easier for 4Kids.
No cutting, no painting, nothing.
These episodes are always nice to come upon. Although, did
anybody find it wierd when Jessie talked in Ash's voice
*before* changing her mega-phone there? Well, this certainly
didn't happen in the Japanese version, just one of 4Kids'
many mistakes.
Of the numerous copies of the
'Pokémon Times' seen in this episode, all of them had
to be painted on the front, and the caption below Snap's
picture of Aerodactyl in Japanese was erased, leaving us
with a picture and no description of it!! Also, when Meowth
took a closer look at the ad for Snap, they did a digital
freeze frame, so that we didn't see the Japanese surrounding
the image. When Kids WB aired this episode, (and the next 2), they
had changed his name from the original dubbing. When
4Kids initially produced this episode, the photographer's
name was Snap, and that is the version that aired in the
rest of the world (and the name I'm used to which is why I
use it on this site exclusively). So, Kids WB made his name
Todd, I guess to avoid copyright infringement on Rice
Krispies or something (Snap, Crackle, Pop!) ^^; Cut-1 second- Kids WB also cut
one of the bombs thrown at Ash. I guess they felt it got too
close to him, as it send Ash flying backwards. Anyway,
Kids WB only showed 2 out of 3 bombs. Update: The cut mentioned above, it
seems Kids WB changed their mind! I most recently have
seen this episode aired and all three bombs are shown, yes,
that INCLUDES the one that lands close to Ash flinging him
backwards. It was a small, short cut to begin with, but it's
nice to see.
All over the place inside the
sign-up room for the test, there are Japanese signs all over
the place. There's one on the desk, many on the walls... All
the Japanese carefully painted away... 'Exam #1', 'Exam #2', etc.
originally on the sign in Japanese, this was the right
choice re-painting the signs, I don't blame 4Kids for this.
I'd have been rather steamed if I'd seen Pikachu there,
holding up a blank sign! ^^; For the test, all the computer true
or false questions originally had small images and the
question written out in Japanese. 4Kids painted huge full
screen images over all this, meaning a deaf person taking
4Kids' version of the test would fail. ^_^ When they had to guess what the
Pokemon sillhouette's were, the original version showed
their answers written down on the computer screens, the
English version shows pictures of the Pokémon.
When the teacher was explaining the
Poliwhirl and Poliwrath, their names were on top of the
graphics in a blue box. This must have been some paint job
for 4Kids' painters. They need to reconstruct a good portion
of Poliwhirl and Poliwrath's body. Japanese writing originally above
the big scoreboard, and all of it painted away, and also
'Lowest Scores' painted over more Japanese by 4Kids. 0% was
added by 4Kids as well, and originally said something else,
like she was expelled or something.
This episode contained a lot of
Japanese sign removal, for starters, at the very beginning
there are numerous Japanese signs around the area where Ash,
Misty, Brock and Snap are getting pictures of Togepi.
Behind Cassidy on the TV ad
for the breeding center, the thing in behind her originally
had Japanese writing on it. The breeding center sign on front
originally said so, but that has been painted to be blank on
the English version, at least they kept the word
'Pokémon' Japanese above the restaurant where
the chef was, and the 'Eat for free' sign was
translated. 'Closed' sign on the Breeding
Center was also translated. There were some Japanese signs
positioned over and around the jail. All of them
removed.
Japanese signs all around the
island have been carefully painted blank. There were a lot
of these, and it must have taken some time to change all of
this. In the original version, when they
all get off the boat onto the island, you hear
'Pokémon Ondo' playing in the background. In the
English version, it's just some stupid sounding tropical
island music. I don't usually point out these musical
changes, but this really stuck out for me. 4Kids translated the card Blaine
gave them for his inn. In the translation, for some unknown
reason, they moved some of the graphics around on the card
^_^ It seems the clouds were shifted over and the English
text 'Big Riddle Inn' was added on the other side.
Finally, the only other change to
this episode was the signs in front of all the various
hotels were changed.
Only one thing in this episode was
changed. It's quite interesting too. You see, when Charizard
deflected that huge fire blast attack, in the English
version, it floats off into the sky. Simple as that, right?
No. 4Kids did some real painting here to cover up a little
bit of Kanji humor the Japanese producers slipped in there.
First, let me tell you that the shape the giant fire blast
forms is the Japanese Kanji meaning 'Big' and so, after
Charizard managed to fling it off into the air, it becomes
smaller on screen, so the fire rearranges itself into the
Kanji for 'Medium' and then as it's flying off further into
the distance it changes shape again into the Kanji for
'Small', and this all happens in the exact same length of
time as in the English version, where the shape stays the
same all the way into the distance, 4Kids hoping the kids
won't notice that the formation of the fire is a
Kanji.
There were no alterations in this
episode. Considering the whole episode takes place on an
island, there aren't any Japanese signs to be painted over.
There weren't any cut scenes either. Phew! ^_^