Obscure Pokémon anime trivia

[AgedVeteranofShow]

People often mocked the 4Kids dub for the infamous jelly donut thing (in which Eric Stuart sounds like he's at gun-point and is clearly aware of how dumb he sounds, so tried to have fun with the delivery of it, hence it became a meme in the Pokemon fandom), which TPCi's dub themselves would bring back as a running gag in the M22 dub (dumb in 1998, and dumb in 2019 too, idiotic to keep that going tbh).

What people don't realize is while TPCi's dub had the apples becoming berries and "kimi no mi" fruit fiasco as they couldn't differentiate the two kinds of fruit due to the script Cathcart was handed by the higher ups during both the BW & XY dubs, 4Kids' dub actually just called the fruit what they looked like in Season 8 in late AG's dub = apples.

Snorunt & Ash | Pokémon: Advanced Battle | Official Clip

It's snow secret that mischievous Pokémon can also be the cutest! âï¸When Ash chases a prankster Snorunt, the two get stuck in a blizzard marking the start of...

www.youtube.com

 

[Charmander4]

You can hear “Zeni Zeni” from Squirtle when he and Pikachu are running to check in on Ash and Ponyta in “The Flame Pokémon A Thon” after the Electrode explodes. When Weezing is using the gas attack that ultimately explodes and sends them flying, you also hear its Japanese voice.


You can also hear a “chaaaa” (as in the voice it has in Japanese)from Ekans clearly when it and Koffing are about to finish off Caterpie in “Ash catches a Pokémon”

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I have some more I just recalled, related to songs...

4Kids kept three songs/instrumentals from the Japanese Version of Pocket Monsters in the original English dub of Pokemon.

"Pokemon Ondo" was kept in Kanto in "The Flame Pokemon A Thon," then in late Johto, "Mezase Pokemon Master" was kept in instrumental form in the episode "Same Old Song and Dance."

Lastly, and in their final dub production, the instrumental version of "Mezase Pokemon Master" was kept in the Movie 8 dub/Lucario film.

 

[BigDocFan]

One thing I liked about 4Kids is, whilst they did dub over Seviper, they did retain some of the noises Chie Sato made

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

One thing I liked about 4Kids is, whilst they did dub over Seviper, they did retain some of the noises Chie Sato made

I liked that 4Kids kept Drew's Roselia's Japanese voice (trivia- Pikachu's seiyu, Ikue Otani), I don't know why TPCi gave it a dub voice (Sarah Natochenny took that role in BF's dub, apparently).

On the flip side, 4Kids kept Brock's Forretress' Japanese voice just one time in AG004, but then gave the role to Eric Stuart otherwise in late Johto to the end of their tenure, and then TPCi would keep its Japanese voice in general for the remainder of that Series.

 

[Charmander4]

One thing I liked about 4Kids is, whilst they did dub over Seviper, they did retain some of the noises Chie Sato made

Sure do miss those Rasberries

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

4Kids kept A Meeting and a Parting from Indigo League in the English dub all the way into early AG, you can only hear this piece of the Japanese OST in their AG dub too in the English run as TPCi never kept it in BF, replacing it every time.

Pokémon Anime BGM - Meeting and Parting (1997~1998-M04)

Album with Shinji Miyazaki's own compositions and his instrumental arrangements of three theme songs for TV anime series.Kanto tracksAlbum: TV anime Pocket ...

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Movie 20's dub ended up replacing it outright & we didn't get to hear it again in English when it played there in Japanese, tragic since it was kept in the 4Kids dub of OS multiple times, twice in their dub of Advanced, and even one time in Galactic Battles too...

 

[BigDocFan]

During Dig Those Diglett!, a trainer can be heard calling out his Porygon to battle the Diglett

 

[Charmander4]

Arbok should still be with her, not Seviper

 

[Antiyonder]

So I mentioned before that Ash/Satoshi' Japanese VA Rica/Rika Matsumoto voiced the Dragon Quest entity Rubiss in Broadcast Satellite Dragon Quest (Yeah, BS Dragon Quest).

Well Rubiss was also voiced by Keiko Han, the voice of Professor Ivy's in Japan, during DQ II CD Theater.

 

[Charmander4]

You can hear Ekans’ Japanese voice in “Pokémon Fashion Flash” when it and Koffing are spinning and reflecting Pikachu’s Thundershock.

Someone add that to the wiki.

 

[Charmander4]

It played volleyball with Victreebel once

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

The outfit Ash/Satoshi wore the second longest, and the only one that kept pace with his OS outfit at 275 episodes in total appearances, was his AG oufit with 197 total appearances (EP275-EP276, AG001-AG192 & DP001-003). No other outfit even comes close to being worn as often, it seems as Series progressed Ash would change his outfits more and more frequently, especially after DP.

Kayzie Rogers voiced Ash in the 4Kids Era English run just one time in a Burger King Commercial for Movie 2, before 4Kids decided to never use her voice ever again for the role and had Veronica Taylor do it in all the 422 episodes they dubbed and 8 Films + Chronicles etc. etc. during the 1998-2006 Era of the dub (Sarah didn't start voicing Ash until near the end of 2006, for 67% of that year, it was still Veronica Taylor as trivia). TPCi would themselves then try using Kayzie Rogers in the Mastermind Initial Dub, before scrapping her, and this time with Sarah Natochenny (both VAs were told to VA match Taylor, and both failed epically at it, which is why Natochenny went with her own thing- how that thing ended up is a YMMV, but it has many fans AND many critics of it respectively to this day as with most recasts-- and she still generally ranks below Taylor/McInerney for most overall who weigh in on that controversial topic, including me!). Given that the recast VAs were told to mimic the original cast, this lends credence to Eric Stuart's claim at the time of the "switch," it was a cost cutting procedure and they opted for lower budget talent after all at the time.

The LA dub of Pokémon JN is bicoastal, so it uses NY/LA VA talent. Despite this, TPCi refused to bring back either Veronica Taylor or Rachael Lillis to the English dub in JN (evident bad blood obviously, likely via the criticisms leveled against them after MoMP etc. which IMO were/are genuinely valid overall), both of whom work there, and Marc Diraison apparently did not have things pan out to reprise Ingo either.

Sean Schemmel's first role on Pokemon was as a burglar in Season 4, Johto League Champions, dubbed in English while Mike Pollock's first role was a COTD in the same Season too.

 

[BigDocFan]

Goldeen only battled Tentacruel and it lost

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Though it's well known that 4Kids actually surprisingly tended to mention the concepts of "death" and "dying" more often when compared to TPCi in the Pokemon Anime dub, something that isn't well known is that while they also initially had the same phobia as TPCi of the words "God" + "Heaven," they eventually actually ended up mentioning them a lot in the in-house dub they did of Season 7/Advanced Challenge in Hoenn (2005).

Examples listed here from @Dogasu:

Japanese Episode AG 075

"So how weird is it that Sullivan is able to refer to himself as a 'fishing god?' Hearing a word that's been taboo for so long suddenly brought up sure did surprise me, and I'm happy that 4Kids was able to get away with saying it."

Japanese Episode AG 085

"The dubbed version surprised me because they kept in the part about Nagi praying to the god of the sky, which most fans had assumed to be rewritten to appease the censors. I guess it just goes to show you that predicting what will be censored and what won't be censored is almost impossible to do."

Also, though it's well known that for the most part in terms of visual edits, both respective dubs would get more prone to doing more of them as they progressed, the episode with the most edits in the 4Kids dub is Season 2's "Princess vs Princess" in mid/late Kanto with 40+ scenes reanimated to remove kanji while in the TPCi dub, it is Season 19's "Coming Apart at the Dreams" listed here:

Pokémon the Series: XYZ episode

On Saturday, November 19th, 2016, Cartoon Network in the United States aired the Pokémon the Series:...

www.pocketmonsters.net

This edit TPCi ordered OLM to censor the crucifying scene in is actually the longest time-based visual edit in the entire Pokemon English Dub (yes, believe it or not, you'd expect this to be the case under 4Kids as they were more censor-happy visually but it's not in this individual case!).