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Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

I'm aware that I'm unique in the way I view this movie. I was already 16 years old when Pokémon The First Movie came out. I saw the movie in Japanese before the English dub was even released. The last time I saw the 4Kids dub of Mewtwo Strikes Back! was in 2015, back when I was doing the "Mewtwo Mondays" thing for my site. Out of the roughly 30 times I've seen the first movie, only maybe 5 of those were in English.

But, I'm also very aware that the "circumstances" line is very popular among Western fans who aren't me. I even say as much in the comparison. The line's still a rewrite, though. A popular and well-loved rewrite, yes, but a rewrite nonetheless.

Silktree said:
You mention Mewtwo's circumstances line not being needed 20+ years later, but what was so special about the original line?

The dubs annoyingly change the order of things around so it makes it harder to discuss, but for the sake of this conversation I'll compare the "circumstances" line from the two dubs to Mewtwo's parting lines from the original since that's the line the dub is basically replacing.

Japanese: "We were created. We are alive. And we will continue to be alive. Somewhere in this world..."
English: "I see now that the circumstancesof one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."

Takeshi Shudo's script tells us that Originals and Copies are both living beings and therefore have a right to co-exist in the same world, point blank period. The original version doesn't dip its toes into any conversation about what you do with that gift of life, it just states that you're alive and therefore you deserve to live.

Haigney's and Grossfeld's script, on the other hand, turns the focus away from individuals' rights to life to focus more on the legacy left behind due to the actions taken during said life. Do good things, you're a good person; do bad things, you're a bad person. The circumstances of your birth aren't an excuse.

The dub line doesn't contradict anything else from the movie, I suppose, but that doesn't mean the Japanese and the English lines are interchangeable, either.

What was so bad about the original line?

No one ever said that this dub was meant for people who prefer the Japanese version (that wouldn't make much sense) and just need official subtitles.

Fans have been speculating about how this movie is TPCI's chance to provide a more faithful script literally since before the movie even came out in Japan. It's all fans have been talking about for literally a year at this point. It isn't a crazy idea I just came up with all on my own.

But also, it's the year 2020. We should be holding TPCI to the same standards that every other anime dubbing company is held to. As I said in the comparison, an accurate script is the bare minimum we should be accepting.

As for the songs, can anyone point out examples of other localized songs that did that kind of thing (Japanese turned into English)?

If we're sticking to just shows that had their Japanese theme songs replaced with brand new English-language songs, and then when those shows were redubbed / re-released years later the dubbers opted not to re-use the older localized song but instead decided to record an English cover of the original Japanese song, then:

Dragon Ball GT
One Piece
Saint Seiya

If we're talking about shows that restored the original Japanese language theme song, in Japanese, then:

Card Captor Sakura
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Shaman King

There's plenty of precedent out there.
 
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1.
I think it’s too bad that TPCI never brought back Rachael Lillis as Misty. Before those SM episodes she was only in the Mirage special and that one BW episode. Surely it wouldn’t have stepped on Michele Knotz’s toes if they had brought back Rachael Lillis.

Same. Won't say that she'd do it perfectly, but she had more experience voicing the character and I can't imagine Knotz being passionate about needing to do the role more.

2. Also the Charizard being poorly trained line is from 4Kids.
 
There are some short videos Taylor and Lillis did a few years ago of their Ash and Misty voices and they sounded great! I’m not a #OriginalAsh stan or anything (Natochenny has very much warmed up to the role when she doesn’t have to laugh as Ash) but Lillis really should have been Misty, again because Knotz had like no history with the role when the character became semi-prominent again.
 
The dubs annoyingly change the order of things around so it makes it harder to discuss, but for the sake of this conversation I'll compare the "circumstances" line from the two dubs to Mewtwo's parting lines from the original since that's the line the dub is basically replacing.

Japanese: "We were created. We are alive. And we will continue to be alive. Somewhere in this world..."
English: "I see now that the circumstancesof one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."

Takeshi Shudo's script tells us that Originals and Copies are both living beings and therefore have a right to co-exist in the same world, point blank period. The original version doesn't dip its toes into any conversation about what you do with that gift of life, it just states that you're alive and therefore you deserve to live.

Haigney's and Grossfeld's script, on the other hand, turns the focus away from individuals' rights to life to focus more on the legacy left behind due to the actions taken during said life. Do good things, you're a good person; do bad things, you're a bad person. The circumstances of your birth aren't an excuse.

The dub line doesn't contradict anything else from the movie, I suppose, but that doesn't mean the Japanese and the English lines are interchangeable, either.

What was so bad about the original line?
There's an interesting philosophical distinction in the Japanese and the English lines here, and I wonder if it speaks to some broader cultural differences between the U.S. and Japan (I know basically nothing of Japanese culture so maybe that's not quite right). Seems like Japanese Mewtwo's understanding of the world is based on a simpler, fundamental principle (you exist, therefore you deserve to exist) whereas American Mewtwo is more about results (gotta earn your way into justifying your existence, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, Ashy boy).

The English line is feel-good pap either way, it wouldn't seem that out of place in like, a Disney movie or something, just interesting to dissect the underlying logic that made the English writers phrase it that way.
 
Great comparison, except when it isn't....Just kidding. I was going to rant about the line too, but that explanation made things clearer, it should be on the site in my opinion.

However, I have to say that some nostalgia is better than no nostalgia at all. It's hard to say why, but a 2020 production referencing something from a previous incarnation feels better than just rewatching something from the year 2000, the controversy around PM's continuity phobia is enough of an argument. Also, it's hard to blame the English Dub when the movie itself runs on nostalgia, it wouldn't have used similar music if it didn't, and this.
 
Dogasu, do you think you could make a sidepage translating Takeshi Shudo's old blogposts pertaining to his experience working on the show? In your comparison of the 4kids dub of Mewtwo Strikes Back you mention on his blog he went into the specifics of how Satoshi gets turned to stone but you didnt want to make the comparison any longer to include it. I think that info as well as any other untranslated anecdotes might be interesting.
 
Also for Dogasu or anyone who understands Japanese, been rewatching Suede's Pokémon Journey and a couple questions came to mind regarding an episode we got a comparison on and one yet to be compared on the site:

1. "Sleeper and Pokemon Hypnotism!?": So, Ash was asking about whether or not Joy was related to the one from Maiden's Peak.

Did Satoshi ask about that particular Joi? Just asking because of Suede's speculation and/or joke that he didn't take Pikachu to a Pokémon Center since Maiden's Peak.

2. "A Rival Showdown! Satoshi vs. Shigeru": One of the Rocket Trio's plans is to get close to and capture Pikachu is to pose as reporters with Jessie staring that they are L-I-V-E. The bold letters leads to Brock having another "don't say that name" bit regarding Professor Ivy.

At least in the dub. So since the scientist has a different name in the original (Dr. Uchikido), what was the dialogue in the original?


The Mewtwo Returns comparison seems to have been down for a while, but I found a Wayback 2015 link to it.
 
This is very minor and trivial, but I was reading the Passimian review and Dogasu mentioned the most complex edit TPCI has done was probably translating a signpost in the first DP episode.

It got me thinking, and I believe the most complex one was replacing the background with the Best Wishes logo for their "Adventures in Unova" intro.



There was animation on the foreground so it probably meant cutting out the characters frame by frame
 
1. "Sleeper and Pokemon Hypnotism!?": So, Ash was asking about whether or not Joy was related to the one from Maiden's Peak.

Did Satoshi ask about that particular Joi? Just asking because of Suede's speculation and/or joke that he didn't take Pikachu to a Pokémon Center since Maiden's Peak.
Yes he did! LOL @ the insinuation :ROFLMAO:
 
Yes he did! LOL @ the insinuation :ROFLMAO:

Well he noted the same thing during his review of The Bridge Bike Gang/Stormy Cycling Road where Ash asks the first Nurse Joy her relation to the Gringey City Joy (Sparks Fly for Magnemite/Do Coil Dream of Electric Mice!?) So no Pokémon Center after Koga/Kya. Mind you he considered the possibility that he had some restorative options, but ultimately seemed doubtful.
 
If we're sticking to just shows that had their Japanese theme songs replaced with brand new English-language songs, and then when those shows were redubbed / re-released years later the dubbers opted not to re-use the older localized song but instead decided to record an English cover of the original Japanese song, then:

Dragon Ball GT
One Piece
Saint Seiya

If we're talking about shows that restored the original Japanese language theme song, in Japanese, then:

Card Captor Sakura
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Shaman King

There's plenty of precedent out there.
Ancient and somewhat off-topic, but fun fact about Card Captor Sakura, the Cardcaptors dub actually first aired internationally with an English cover of the theme song:



As part of Kids' WB's bizarre obsession with over-localizing it, this meant replacing the theme song with the "expect the unexpected" business, but Nelvana did try to do it right at first, apparently.

To be honest, I wonder how much of an influence WB was on 4Kids' overall dubbing practices. I believe I read somewhere that WB executives pressured 4Kids into replacing the score for the first movie (which notably stopped happening when they changed distributors to Miramax, who probably couldn't have cared less), and I also heard through the grapevine that 4Kids intended to retain Yugioh's Japanese soundtrack similarly to how they did Pokemon (i.e. fill in silence with their own music, but by and large keep everything else). I don't know how true that is, but it does seem curious to me that the first three seasons of Pokemon all retained ~70% of the Japanese soundtrack (according to this thing, anyway), which seems remarkably consistent, only for it to immediately crater into the 20-30% range with season 4 onward, coinciding exactly with Yugioh's premiere (which served as much more of a template for how 4Kids would dub shows moving forward - 100% bgm replacement, skipped/spliced episodes, a jokier script that only ever sees the Japanese translation as a guideline at best, bizarre editing choices, etc.).

I feel like that also has a ripple effect in that TPCI has been more or less copying 4Kids' homework ever since they took over the series, I imagine they'd be much better about keeping music now if 4Kids had been from the beginning. On the flip side, if Journeys does include a Japanese audio option, that's a significant step up from anything 4Kids probably would have ever done with the series.
 
Ancient and somewhat off-topic, but fun fact about Card Captor Sakura, the Cardcaptors dub actually first aired internationally with an English cover of the theme song:



As part of Kids' WB's bizarre obsession with over-localizing it, this meant replacing the theme song with the "expect the unexpected" business, but Nelvana did try to do it right at first, apparently.

What I think happened there is that Nelvana made the dub with the dubbed songs and it was the network executives that demanded the "expect the unexpected" song, probably because they thought Catch Me, Catch You was too girly and they wanted to make Cardcaptors a boy's action show, which as you can imagine wasn't exactly possible and of course as a result didn't work. Network executives in Australasia were much less idiotic and so those regions got the show as it was presented and didn't demand it be butchered.
 
Hey so for Dogasu and/or anyone reading, some of us who developed an interest in Tokusatsu for Power Rangers is been a surprise to even see a good number of Sentai given official US DVD, plus the legit subbing of Ultraman Leo, Kamen Rider (both the original series and Kuuga).

So would this be an indicator of Pokémon being possible to see as far as getting subbed someday if not soon? I may be satisfied with the dub, but having options is still a nice thing and all.
 
MizuTaipu said:
Dogasu, do you think you could make a sidepage translating Takeshi Shudo's old blogposts pertaining to his experience working on the show?

I'm not really rushing to do this at the moment, no. The problem with Takeshi Shudo's blogs is that the man rambles on and on and on and on about the most random shit, and wading through his stream of consciousness writings to get to the actual interesting bits is a real chore. I'd rather translate a relevant paragraph here or an interesting story there and insert those into other pages where relevant instead of sinking a bunch of time into translating entire blog entries.

With that said, I can translate the relevant passage for the first movie and insert that into the comparison the next time I get a chance.

Antiyonder said:
2. "A Rival Showdown! Satoshi vs. Shigeru": One of the Rocket Trio's plans is to get close to and capture Pikachu is to pose as reporters with Jessie staring that they are L-I-V-E. The bold letters leads to Brock having another "don't say that name" bit regarding Professor Ivy.

At least in the dub. So since the scientist has a different name in the original (Dr. Uchikido), what was the dialogue in the original?

In the original the trigger isn't any single word like it is in the dub; the trigger is when anyone mentions anything related to Takeshi's time with the professor. Her name is what's brought up the most, yes, but phrases like "Daidai Island" or "the southern islands" also cause Takeshi to curl up in the fetal position for a moment. The latter (南の国) is what Musashi says in that scene in the original.

Antiyonder said:
The Mewtwo Returns comparison seems to have been down for a while, but I found a Wayback 2015 link to it.

When I updated the comparison a few years ago I neglected to update the link to it on the comparisons page that leads to it. That link should be fixed now.

Antiyonder said:
Hey so for Dogasu and/or anyone reading, some of us who developed an interest in Tokusatsu for Power Rangers is been a surprise to even see a good number of Sentai given official US DVD, plus the legit subbing of Ultraman Leo, Kamen Rider (both the original series and Kuuga).

So would this be an indicator of Pokémon being possible to see as far as getting subbed someday if not soon? I may be satisfied with the dub, but having options is still a nice thing and all.

Unfortunately not. Shows with much much much smaller fanbases than Pocket Monsters have been getting subbed releases for nearly two decades at this point and yet we've still never gotten a Pokémon home video release with the Japanese version. TPCI simply does not care what everyone else is doing.


I'm not really holding my breath for the Japanese version of the 2019 series to be put up on Netflix, by the way.
 
The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon comparison you did a few years back isn't linked as well.
 
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