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Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

How did they handle the “match” and “shake” puns, I wonder?

Misty says "It doesn't hurt to shake your hand with your opponent" and Mandi replies "That's a good concept, but I'm afraid that the eager friends are no opponents for me".

Brock says "I'm thirsty and I want to drink something".
 
Misty says "It doesn't hurt to shake your hand with your opponent" and Mandi replies "That's a good concept, but I'm afraid that the eager friends are no opponents for me".

Brock says "I'm thirsty and I want to drink something".
Brock says that he wants a shake because he's thirsty. For some reason, 4Kids is a really huge fan of puns and put puns in every episode in every show they dubbed. Being thirsty and wanting some shakes have nothing to do with the conversation.
 
My counterpart story to Dogasu's is that I didn't realise he was a guy till I read this comparison... #awks
 
Misty says "It doesn't hurt to shake your hand with your opponent" and Mandi replies "That's a good concept, but I'm afraid that the eager friends are no opponents for me".

Brock says "I'm thirsty and I want to drink something".
Being "no opponent" (or "no rival") for someone is akin to saying "no match" in English so that was actually a decent translation. Brock's line, however... ugh. Though the sentiment is the same as the English dub: Brock couldn't care less about Ash at that moment.
 
This is my least favorite Pokemon league, I don’t know if I would call it bad at points but this battle illustrates a lot of my problems with the Kanto era in general. Is there thematic weight to how ash loses and wins? Sure, but the pacing is pretty bad.

When Ash wins this first one, it’s a fluke that his never used before Krabby somehow evolves and then singlehandedly wins the whole thing for him. It’s not paced well nor is it well handled.

The next two are shortly and almost clip like but at least then it felt better with set-up and payoff. Ash’s battle on the grass arena is the best one imo.

I think the idea of ash losing because of his incompetence due to him being handed freebies is a good idea, but because Team Rocket Kidnapped him and made his Pokemon tire out for a quick 5-minute battle I feel more like he got robbed of a legitimate battle. So, when people berate him for acting up over his loss. I am then left wondering, yeah, I would be mad too if Team Rocket tired my Pokemon out then I was forced into a corner. It plays down the impact of that message that could have been interesting because he was cheated out of using his full team due to a kidnapping. It's there but I think because of the 15 minute stuff with team rocket I don't think it works as well.

This was good to start a set-up for how to do leagues for later, but I do think this is the weakest Pokemon League in the series. But a lot of criticism I have for this is also one I have for Kanto in general due to poor pacing on a whole rather individual episodes, though some of them here are also poor. Still there are good moments and I would say I still liked it but I would use other leagues to showcase how to do it right.
 
That logic is still so strange to me. Not only because the main character captured Charmander in that same episode, but this is also one of the starter Pokemon. Charmander was pretty popular back in the day too, so the idea that it would only appear once in the anime is so weird.

Logic?!

THIS! IS! 4KIDS! :mad:
 
Weird how the last episode romanized Pokemon as the antiquated "Pockemon" yet this episode used the modern and popular romanization with the movie poster.
"The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" is also the title of the last episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, so maybe the background artist got it from there. It's a pretty out-there reference either way.
 
I know what the special thing is, but in my opinion special sounds like a positive word. Maybe commemoration would sound better...

Last summer I watched 20 episodes of OS and this was the one I enjoyed the least, because of its lack of a point.

The dive pun had a good translation in Latin America. Brock says "Ash, make Pikachu disappear!", and then says "No, I mean disappear under the sea!".
 
Dogasu said:
Bulbapedia claims that this scene was actually dubbed and included in TV broadcasts and was only cut for the American DVDs (which is what I use for these comparisons, by the way) but I've been looking around and haven't been able to find a version of this episode that didn't remove it. Have any of you seen a dubbed version of this scene?
I haven't, but there's a weird thing going on in my (non-official) Latin American copy of the episode. The audio weirdly cuts off both times before each cut.

The first time it's the Viridian City theme appearing out of nowhere with no lead-in, so it sounds as if the cut was made after the whole scene was dubbed to English. The second one is Ash going mute mid-sentence, he says "smells goo--", then there's the shot of the restaurant. 4Kids' background music also sounds like it was cut after being inserted in the scene.

Due to this, I'm sure an English version of the full episode should exist, and it was used for foreign dubs, or at least its script. (Perhaps the episode was uncut here, but whoever uploaded it had to cut the audio to fit with the U.S. DVD footage? They don't do reruns here and the only official releases were on VHS, so I can't check.)
 
I'd never heard that "Mimikyu is secretly a disgruntled Porygon" theory but I 100% buy it now. Does it flash red and blue when you remove its costume or something?
 
The episode that screwed the Poochyena and more or less changed everything.

Though they bought it on themselves. It was almost liked they MEANT for the Seizure Incident to happen :mad:

To this day I weep for the Porygon line. It's bad enough poor Porygon was made into a scapegoat and never got another animated appearance, but it's evolutions being banned? That's just cruel. You think they could let them appear in an AU special or short. It's been 20 years, OLM. Let's let bygones be bygones.
(Heck, have they even been many Manga stories?o_O)

I'd never heard that "Mimikyu is secretly a disgruntled Porygon" theory but I 100% buy it now. Does it flash red and blue when you remove its costume or something?

That would explain why people get effed up when they look under there. :cautious:
 
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And the worst part is the seizures happened because of Pikachu and not Porygon. Logically Pikachu should’ve been banned and not Porygon.

There was no way they could have banned Pikachu. It's the mascot of the franchise and Ash's partner Pokemon. There wouldn't be a good way to write Pikachu out of the series even if they wanted to for some reason. Porygon was the focus of the episode, so it would be associated with the seizures far more than Pikachu would be too.
 
Contrary to popular belief, seizure-inducing colours are caused by the explosion of Anti-Virus Program's Rockets. Pikachu had nothing to do with it. It did and would explode with same colours, with or without Pikachu's attack.
 
Dogasu goes into more detail on his site, but, in the commentary that was included on the Pokémon 4Ever DVD, Michael Haigney says that when he first did the voice of Charmander, he thought it was the only time that the character was going to appear, but then he and the rest of the company realized Charmander was far more important than just a one-time character.
Which probably has more to do with the fact it was early on in the series and nobody had a clue how the show would turn out or be successful.
 
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