"Glass Half Full" corner - What do you like about the Japanese version?

[Ryu Taylor]

I've begun two discussion sections having to do with the dub, so now, I think I'll give the same treatment to the original show. I won't repeat why I prefer the dub, so I'll just say that I think there are definitely things to love about the original Japanese show. For one thing, some of the Pokemon voices sound better. Off the top of my head at this exact moment, that's all I've got, but I've got more.

This ought to be easy for you: what do you like about the Japanese version?

 

[Nicolas721]

-OPENINGS!!! They are awesome and they present the show very well. There have been some downs from time to time (Together lasting 2 years, Mega V having terrible singing...) but overall the animation and the songs are superb.
-Dare da having some troll answers
-Less instances of characters acting out-of-character because of lame rewrites.
-I'm mixed on eyecatches. They helped to give their respective series its own identity but at the same time they were a bit repetitive.
-Endings!!! Just like the openings they help to show some features of the show.
-The professor Oak segment. It gives attention to some Pokemon, and sometimes it shows new footage of them.
-Next episode previews. Enough said...

 

[Dogasu]

And for a hard mode challenge, see if you can avoid bashing the dub

Interesting how there's no similar disclaimer for either of the dub threads you started.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

-OPENINGS!!! They are awesome and they present the show very well. There have been some downs from time to time (Together lasting 2 years, Mega V having terrible singing...) but overall the animation and the songs are superb.
-Dare da having some troll answers
-Less instances of characters acting out-of-character because of lame rewrites.
-I'm mixed on eyecatches. They helped to give their respective series its own identity but at the same time they were a bit repetitive.
-Endings!!! Just like the openings they help to show some features of the show.
-The professor Oak segment. It gives attention to some Pokemon, and sometimes it shows new footage of them.
-Next episode previews. Enough said...

Wow. I can't believe I forgot about those. I concur.

 

[Alola]

The fact that we get to hear beautiful renditions of OSTs from the games.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

And for a hard mode challenge, see if you can avoid bashing the dub

Interesting how there's no similar disclaimer for either of the dub threads you started.

I really don't like encouraging bias. Ergo, the disclaimer you quoted is gone now. After all, why should this thread have a special challenge/rule?

Here's another of my positives toward the Japanese version: aspects of Japanese culture making it into the show.

 

[MRStealth64]

Here's another of my positives toward the Japanese version: aspects of Japanese culture making it into the show.

But there hasn't been much Japanese culture in the show, likely because of orders from 4Kids and now TPci, saying that the show should be more neutral from a cultural perspective. Sure, a piece of Japanese culture might slip through every now and then, but not to the degree it did in the early Kanto days. That's pretty sad, in my opinion, since I agree that that was a pretty interesting aspect of the world of the Pokemon anime.

 

[ii kanji]

Everything.

(Easy mode - What do I like about the dub: Nothing.)

 

[The Power of Pika]

I like the ending credit tunes and animation and also being able to see stuff that haven't been dubbed like some of the mini Pikachu shorts and the odd specials. I think it's a shame that not everything is dubbed.

 

[Ampharos King]

The music. Granted the dub may use the same scores sometimes (and they always keep certain tracks like TRio's themes), but the dub never uses those insert songs and very rarely incorporates game music (i.e. the Snowbelle theme isn't used).

The voices. I like that in the Japanese version a Pokemon has a unique voice actor/actress. For example, Ash's Quilava is voiced by Ueda, whereas Dawn's is voiced by Furushima. Ash's Charizard is voiced by Miki, and Alain's is voiced by Sato. The Japanese version gives a sense of individualism to each Pokemon. Granted it is not always the case, as Ash's Treecko-Grovyle share the same VA as Sawyer's in the Japanese version.

The dub, however, almost always uses the exact same voice for every Pokemon in the same species. Every Bulbasaur sounds alike, every Fletchling sounds alike, etc. The only case I found that a Pokemon's dub voice was changed was Snivy. Trip's Snivy had a different voice than Ash's, though it could have only been because both Pokemons' genders were confirmed before TCPi started to dub BW.

 

[Almonds]

The opening themes. They are awesome.
Major characters having unique voice actors/actresses that rarely overlap. The dub where I live is famous - or rather, infamous - for the over-recycling of voice actors/actresses. Talk about individuality.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

In this thread's partner, I saw an interesting point be brought up.

I mean that the JP Pokémon sound like actual monsters\ animals rather than some person making a voice for amusement. Take Japanese Greninja he sounds amazing and like a true frog ninja while hid dub counterpart makes him sound silly and childish. The Pokémon voices sound far more believable in Japanese IMO

I gotta concur with this. Although I have a soft spot for the English Pokemon voices (even if they're obviously actors saying a name), it's a creative move that the Japanese Pokemon don't sound human. They aren't, so it makes sense.

It gets me curious as to how Pokemon sound in French, being as France is one of the only other countries that change Pokemon names.

 

[Desdar300]

In this thread's partner, I saw an interesting point be brought up.

I mean that the JP Pokémon sound like actual monsters\ animals rather than some person making a voice for amusement. Take Japanese Greninja he sounds amazing and like a true frog ninja while hid dub counterpart makes him sound silly and childish. The Pokémon voices sound far more believable in Japanese IMO

I gotta concur with this. Although I have a soft spot for the English Pokemon voices (even if they're obviously actors saying a name), it's a creative move that the Japanese Pokemon don't sound human. They aren't, so it makes sense.

It gets me curious as to how Pokemon sound in French, being as France is one of the only other countries that change Pokemon names.

What helps is that the JP actors don't just say the names but also make animalistic grunts and roars to add more realism into the Pokémon . The dub actors don't emote this very well because they are just told to say the names so that the younger audience can properly get them but that's a double edged sword.

 

[Team Gaara]

That one episode with Serena's flashback with Ash~ They played Lavarre City's music during that scene~ That's my favorite Town music from X and Y~ :3

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

I love the music, dialogue, and voices. Everything seems to fit and work in unison. The voices for the Pokemon are perfect and the people they get to play the human characters sound their age.

 

[~ Blazing White Yang]

Rica Matsumoto.

Her voicework for Ash brings in all the hype.

 

[GuyWhoTellsTruth]

The Pokemon voices are so much better, especially in Kalos- the gap between Gekkouga and Greninja's dub voice is gigantic, and even wider between Numelgon and Goodra's dub voice.

Yuji Ueda has a really wide vocal range (the same man can do Takeshi & also does Sonansu, just amazing), and the same can be said of Shinichiro Miki (from Kojiro to Lizardon?!)- I also really like how sultry Megumi Hayashibara can sound as Musashi, and like that she didn't do the stereotypical high-pitched voice I tend to hear in many Anime for other characters.

Rica Matsumoto's hot-blooded, yet earnest sounding Satoshi voice- she never makes him come off as arrogant or insincere when she speaks- a really smooth and polite way of speaking comes across in her tone.

The dialogue/script writing is much better than the dub's (especially TPCi's style)- there is no slang coming from Satoshi's mouth, no dumb jokes added in to be funny, no constant alliterations, rhymes, made up gibberish as words from Rocket-Dan, etc. People tend to speak normally and people speak with some intelligence and respect in this version most of the time.

Shinji Miyazaki's beautiful, orchestral BGM compositions made on the basis of the video game's own OST.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

The beautiful marvellous score by Shinji Miyazaki, Pokémon's answer to Hans Zimmer (which does sound a bit silly but still). the episode previews and the really nice acting from everyone.