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Review S25 EP45: Must Be Our Heroes and the Witch!

RetroPokeFan

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This week's episode which features the return of Brock and what could very likely be the last ever appearance of our dear connoisseur Cilan has aired on Cartoon Network in Canada.

Please keep all spoilers in spoiler tags.

Voice Characterization -

Sarah Natochenny
Michele Knotz
James Carter Cathcart
Cherami Leigh
Rodger Parsons

Additional Voices -

Edward Bosco
Wayne Grayson
Jason Griffith
Megan Hollingshead
Barrett Leddy
Bill Rogers
Erica Schroeder
Billy Bob Thompson
Jenny Yokobori
 
I watched a few clips of the episode and ugh I don't want to sound like an asshole but I reeeeeaaaaally don't like Michele Knotz's take on Misty :( She just sounds so stuffy and too old for her age, which is the same problem I have with her performance as May. I also thought Cilan sounded older and a bit more serious than when we saw him last, but he sounded fine.

Also they replaced Cilan's theme in this episode which is unforgiveable. Why can't Goldfarb or whoever makes these decisions just leave the music alone
 
Yeah the current Misty voice... No good, but that's the choice they wanted to go with.
 
The speculative
Sarah Natochenny - Ash, "Delia", Joltik:unsure:
Michele Knotz - Misty, Jessie, Psyduck
James Carter Cathcart - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, few lines?)
Cherami Leigh - Pansage:unsure: (Grookey logic)
Rodger Parsons - Narrator

Edward Bosco - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, most lines), Kathy's boyfriend (James logic)
Wayne Grayson - "Emmet"
Jason Griffith - Cilan
Megan Hollingshead - Kathy:unsure:, "Nurse Joy"
Barrett Leddy - Rotom Phone
Bill Rogers - Brock
Erica Schroeder - Wobbuffet
Billy Bob Thompson - "Ingo" (Blastoise logic)
Jenny Yokobori - Hatterene, Hatenna, Hattrem
Could be dead wrong for the last two, try comparing cries of Azurill (from previous episode) and Roserade, respectively.
 
I watched a few clips of the episode and ugh I don't want to sound like an asshole but I reeeeeaaaaally don't like Michele Knotz's take on Misty :( She just sounds so stuffy and too old for her age, which is the same problem I have with her performance as May. I also thought Cilan sounded older and a bit more serious than when we saw him last, but he sounded fine.

Also they replaced Cilan's theme in this episode which is unforgiveable. Why can't Goldfarb or whoever makes these decisions just leave the music alone
Goldfarb doesn't decide what to replace, he just makes the music itself. Whoever does though It is a bit weird they decided to replace Cilan's theme and instead give him his own theme for the dub (especially since he only appears in this episode and won't appear ever again most likely
 
The speculative
Sarah Natochenny - Ash, "Delia", Joltik:unsure:
Michele Knotz - Misty, Jessie, Psyduck
James Carter Cathcart - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, few lines?)
Cherami Leigh - Pansage:unsure: (Grookey logic)
Rodger Parsons - Narrator

Edward Bosco - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, most lines), Kathy's boyfriend (James logic)
Wayne Grayson - "Emmet"
Jason Griffith - Cilan
Megan Hollingshead - Kathy:unsure:, "Nurse Joy"
Barrett Leddy - Rotom Phone
Bill Rogers - Brock
Erica Schroeder - Wobbuffet
Billy Bob Thompson - "Ingo" (Blastoise logic)
Jenny Yokobori - Hatterene, Hatenna, Hattrem
Could be dead wrong for the last two, try comparing cries of Azurill (from previous episode) and Roserade, respectively.
I'm pretty confident that Cherami Leigh voices Kathy as I can hear a bit of Chloe in her voice but deeper. (She was also credited last week too and I think for that one she voiced Misty's Azurill)
 
- OPINIONS ON THE DUB -

Rogers' Brock & Knotz's Misty takes (we all already discussed the issues with Misty above, I agree, I've already discussed my thoughts there- still wish Knotz went back to the MoMP take shockingly) sadly I feel ended up degrading quite a bit over time, despite starting out decent enough in MoMP (the redubbed version on DVD for Brock, less said about the Kids WB airing the better though).

I just have never liked the excessively deep & gruff voice too much, as it makes Brock sound more like a middle aged father-grandfather vs a teenager to me (listen to "Please don't even ask" around the 4:30 mark and "Steelix, GOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at 17:12 for examples in this JN dub episode).

To be fair to both actors, it was going to be almost impossible to replace either Rachael Lillis or Eric Stuart in those roles given how iconic they are for a lot of English speakers (Reba Buhr couldn't quite do it either w/the latter, and while JYB & Bauer respectively did better than Rogers for me on the former they were just so plain and generic in comparison as well) that said.

On the flip side, Natochenny's Ash has gotten quite a bit better from BF through most of DP (I think she actually started out as one of the worst recasts in the 2007-2010 Era of the dub), but nowadays she's average/passable to me...still, nothing that is forcing me to truly bond with it and connect either here, Taylor's rendition just had so much warmth and character in delivery and tone that never resurfaced fully for me ever again in the dub after late AG in the English dub (Galar Adventurer has gone into my exact gripes with this take, same ones now too).

An example of this is noticeable in, "I get hungry when I have to walk" from Natochenny's Ash there, I could very much tell it was a grown woman there when he got sarcastic...this is always the issue I've had despite Sarah doing the role for double the time at 17 years now since Sept. 2006.

Whenever Ash has to emote, or shift gears from happiness where she does fairly well, that's where Sarah loses her consistency & slips.

Her Delia sounded much better in the Leon battle and closer to Taylor's take, but here it has gone backwards however (tbf Taylor's Delia was pitch perfect and hard to replace, so kind and motherly)- I hope if Sarah reads this, she goes back to that one.

Though I hated Armen Mazlumian as a voice director in the late TAJ dub back when the initial change-over happened, and thought he was far worse than either of the 4Kids dub's directors (though Dunstan seemed to struggle with James' serious moments, when compared to Haigney and Malone to me, Mazlumian ended up merely adding the infamous "nasally" affliction to the performance to boot over time that has persisted to the end with Ortiz here), I have to concede he seemed to be better about maintaining a similar tonal inflection between vocal renditions for 2/3 of the original trio here in hindsight.

- THE TITLE CARD -

sighs Say what you will about 4Kids, but for god sakes, couldn't TPCi at least keep some form of Japanese OST for the title card? Even 4Kids at least, at worst, ended up replacing one pieces of Japanese OST for another there, and never put dub specific music in the title card except for EP001. Goldfarb, I swear, why do you feel the need to change the title card jingle in every episode to your own dub exclusive theme? Why?

STUPID DIALOGUE ALERT (SDA)/OBVIOUS SCRIPT REWRITES

"Sometimes, you just gotta go for broke" - Ash
"Who's that Pokemon?" - Jessie


Mr. Cathcart (I hope you get better and recover from your cancer that said), this type of dialogue you introduced back in Season 9's dub was annoying then, and it's unfunny now too- Ash in the original English dub would never say stuff like that, and I'm pretty sure he didn't say this in the OG Japanese Version either.

As for the latter...just, why say that out loud, come on now...there's a segment for that already.

Jason Griffith's Cilan does sound a little older and awkward at times than he did in BW's dub (e.g. "the ans--ooorr"), but I think this is still easily the best performance of the main cast in this JN dub episode, so I don't hate it either: passable, but I liked it more in Seasons 14-16 too.

Edward Bosco's Meowth sounded best so far in the 3 episodes he's had, in the last one, he regressed to the gruffy, deep JCC impression and it ends up sounding more forced than JCC as a result tbqh here. He was actually fine in JN138, I hope he studies that take, a lot better than this one or the one in JN137. At his best, he has the potential to far exceed JCC's BW onward take when he goes higher pitched and I can see the potential there, but right now he's back below JCC's take for me (I already didn't care for that one)- wildly inconsistent so far, but it's early.

Jessie, already discussed prior, moving on...

Barrett Leddy's James still sounds like a cross between Eric Stuart's AG James mixed in with JCC's BF James, aka I'm still getting DP dub James' vibes from him the last 3 episodes: it is honestly an improvement from where JCC took the role from XY onward IMHO, but it could stand to lose some of the goofy tone that weighed down the former and nasal timbre the latter over time, as well- see Meowth, he seemed to have gotten better vs the prior episode on the flip side.

Music wise, 1.75/21 cues retained, last week was just a fluke apparently and we are back to the norm for the JN dub on this: they kept about 3/4 of 'Battle! Wild Pokémon 2' ~TV Anime Ver. and all of the BW M06A World of Pokémon theme as well, that's about it.

I will give kudos to Cathcart for the "Best wishes" line though at the end, JCC good job for once there, and you know I've been very critical of your writing for the dub under TPCi: clever.

- END DUB REVIEW -
 
- OPINIONS ON THE DUB -

Rogers' Brock & Knotz's Misty takes (we all already discussed the issues with Misty above, I agree, I've already discussed my thoughts there- still wish Knotz went back to the MoMP take shockingly) sadly I feel ended up degrading quite a bit over time, despite starting out decent enough in MoMP (the redubbed version on DVD for Brock, less said about the Kids WB airing the better though).

I just have never liked the excessively deep & gruff voice too much, as it makes Brock sound more like a middle aged father-grandfather vs a teenager to me (listen to "Please don't even ask" around the 4:30 mark and "Steelix, GOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at 17:12 for examples in this JN dub episode).

To be fair to both actors, it was going to be almost impossible to replace either Rachael Lillis or Eric Stuart in those roles given how iconic they are for a lot of English speakers (Reba Buhr couldn't quite do it either w/the latter, and while JYB & Bauer respectively did better than Rogers for me on the former they were just so plain and generic in comparison as well) that said.

On the flip side, Natochenny's Ash has gotten quite a bit better from BF through most of DP (I think she actually started out as one of the worst recasts in the 2007-2010 Era of the dub), but nowadays she's average/passable to me...still, nothing that is forcing me to truly bond with it and connect either here, Taylor's rendition just had so much warmth and character in delivery and tone that never resurfaced fully for me ever again in the dub after late AG in the English dub (Galar Adventurer has gone into my exact gripes with this take, same ones now too).

An example of this is noticeable in, "I get hungry when I have to walk" from Natochenny's Ash there, I could very much tell it was a grown woman there when he got sarcastic...this is always the issue I've had despite Sarah doing the role for double the time at 17 years now since Sept. 2006.

Whenever Ash has to emote, or shift gears from happiness where she does fairly well, that's where Sarah loses her consistency & slips.

Her Delia sounded much better in the Leon battle and closer to Taylor's take, but here it has gone backwards however (tbf Taylor's Delia was pitch perfect and hard to replace, so kind and motherly)- I hope if Sarah reads this, she goes back to that one.

Though I hated Armen Mazlumian as a voice director in the late TAJ dub back when the initial change-over happened, and thought he was far worse than either of the 4Kids dub's directors (though Dunstan seemed to struggle with James' serious moments, when compared to Haigney and Malone to me, Mazlumian ended up merely adding the infamous "nasally" affliction to the performance to boot over time that has persisted to the end with Ortiz here), I have to concede he seemed to be better about maintaining a similar tonal inflection between vocal renditions for 2/3 of the original trio here in hindsight.

- THE TITLE CARD -

sighs Say what you will about 4Kids, but for god sakes, couldn't TPCi at least keep some form of Japanese OST for the title card? Even 4Kids at least, at worst, ended up replacing one pieces of Japanese OST for another there, and never put dub specific music in the title card except for EP001. Goldfarb, I swear, why do you feel the need to change the title card jingle in every episode to your own dub exclusive theme? Why?

STUPID DIALOGUE ALERT (SDA)/OBVIOUS SCRIPT REWRITES

"Sometimes, you just gotta go for broke" - Ash
"Who's that Pokemon?" - Jessie


Mr. Cathcart (I hope you get better and recover from your cancer that said), this type of dialogue you introduced back in Season 9's dub was annoying then, and it's unfunny now too- Ash in the original English dub would never say stuff like that, and I'm pretty sure he didn't say this in the OG Japanese Version either.

As for the latter...just, why say that out loud, come on now...there's a segment for that already.

Jason Griffith's Cilan does sound a little older and awkward at times than he did in BW's dub (e.g. "the ans--ooorr"), but I think this is still easily the best performance of the main cast in this JN dub episode, so I don't hate it either: passable, but I liked it more in Seasons 14-16 too.

Edward Bosco's Meowth sounded best so far in the 3 episodes he's had, in the last one, he regressed to the gruffy, deep JCC impression and it ends up sounding more forced than JCC as a result tbqh here. He was actually fine in JN138, I hope he studies that take, a lot better than this one or the one in JN137. At his best, he has the potential to far exceed JCC's BW onward take when he goes higher pitched and I can see the potential there, but right now he's back below JCC's take for me (I already didn't care for that one)- wildly inconsistent so far, but it's early.

Jessie, already discussed prior, moving on...

Barrett Leddy's James still sounds like a cross between Eric Stuart's AG James mixed in with JCC's BF James, aka I'm still getting DP dub James' vibes from him the last 3 episodes: it is honestly an improvement from where JCC took the role from XY onward IMHO, but it could stand to lose some of the goofy tone that weighed down the former and nasal timbre the latter over time, as well- see Meowth, he seemed to have gotten better vs the prior episode on the flip side.

Music wise, 1.75/21 cues retained, last week was just a fluke apparently and we are back to the norm for the JN dub on this: they kept about 3/4 of 'Battle! Wild Pokémon 2' ~TV Anime Ver. and all of the BW M06A World of Pokémon theme as well, that's about it.

I will give kudos to Cathcart for the "Best wishes" line though at the end, JCC good job for once there, and you know I've been very critical of your writing for the dub under TPCi: clever.

- END DUB REVIEW -
"Ash in the original English dub would never say stuff like that, and I'm pretty sure he didn't say this in the OG Japanese Version either." actually he did say this in the original japanese, specifically "Guys have to go for broke" so it's more or less a translation but worded slightly differently but basically is the same thing. And tbf with Jessie saying "Who's That Pokemon?" there's plenty of examples of characters in prior seasons and episodes so I don't mind that tbh. Speaking of translations there's a literal translation that at first some people i was talking to thought it was a dub mistake/edit, when Brock calls a potion "Disinfectant" but turns out he called it that in the original japanese too, which is interesting, huh!

I do enjoy reading your takes even if I don't always agree with all of them!

and yeah, loved hearing Cilan say "Best Wishes!", Iris did the same and it always makes me smile.
 
"Ash in the original English dub would never say stuff like that, and I'm pretty sure he didn't say this in the OG Japanese Version either." actually he did say this in the original japanese, specifically "Guys have to go for broke" so it's more or less a translation but worded slightly differently but basically is the same thing. And tbf with Jessie saying "Who's That Pokemon?" there's plenty of examples of characters in prior seasons and episodes so I don't mind that tbh. Speaking of translations there's a literal translation that at first some people i was talking to thought it was a dub mistake/edit, when Brock calls a potion "Disinfectant" but turns out he called it that in the original japanese too, which is interesting, huh!

I do enjoy reading your takes even if I don't always agree with all of them!

and yeah, loved hearing Cilan say "Best Wishes!", Iris did the same and it always makes me smile.
Thanks, likewise! I have to even give a thumbs down to the Japanese Version for the broke line, then, that sounded like something I'd expect from JCC & the current dub exclusively normally but wasn't fully him- I take that one back, my bad on that. And I agree, the "Who's that Pokemon" in the show proper thing started back in the BW dub so it's not new to the JN dub at all.

(This was oddly one of the best dub scripts JCC has ever put out, and I've never normally had good things to say about his writing, he seemed to actually try in this one- maybe it's because he's so ill he can only focus on it instead of VO now, but keep it up for once Carter Cathcart- a lot better than what you normally did for a long time, IMO)
 
Thanks, likewise! I have to even give a thumbs down to the Japanese Version for the broke line, then, that sounded like something I'd expect from JCC & the current dub exclusively normally but wasn't fully him- I take that one back, my bad on that. And I agree, the "Who's that Pokemon" in the show proper thing started back in the BW dub so it's not new to the JN dub at all.

(This was oddly one of the best dub scripts JCC has ever put out, and I've never normally had good things to say about his writing, he seemed to actually try in this one- maybe it's because he's so ill he can only focus on it instead of VO now, but keep it up for once Carter Cathcart- a lot better than what you normally did for a long time, IMO)
yeah I'd agree tbh!
 
The speculative
Sarah Natochenny - Ash, "Delia", Joltik:unsure:
Michele Knotz - Misty, Jessie, Psyduck
James Carter Cathcart - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, few lines?)
Cherami Leigh - Pansage:unsure: (Grookey logic)
Rodger Parsons - Narrator

Edward Bosco - James:unsure:, Meowth:unsure: (both, most lines), Kathy's boyfriend (James logic)
Wayne Grayson - "Emmet"
Jason Griffith - Cilan
Megan Hollingshead - Kathy:unsure:, "Nurse Joy"
Barrett Leddy - Rotom Phone
Bill Rogers - Brock
Erica Schroeder - Wobbuffet
Billy Bob Thompson - "Ingo" (Blastoise logic)
Jenny Yokobori - Hatterene, Hatenna, Hattrem
Could be dead wrong for the last two, try comparing cries of Azurill (from previous episode) and Roserade, respectively.

Is Michele Knotz voicing Latias too? Or did it keep it's Japanese VA? I know that she has voiced Latios and Latias in the past.
 
Misty and Psyduck sound positively like garbage. Just like Ash and Brock but even more so.

Cheap, junk knockoff. Just as it has always been.
 
Cheap, junk knockoff. Just as it has always been.
I'm going to say something re: the music, personally, to past Users Grave-E, Shift, Yamato, Habunake, and co.-- WYA right now, as TPCi has been replacing more of the OST since the XY dub began than 4Kids ever did in all the original dub? Oops.

The best thing about the modern dub to me is it is making people look back on the original dub retrospectively & admitting they were too harsh in some ways on the later run right now, FWIW.
 
Is Michele Knotz voicing Latias too? Or did it keep it's Japanese VA? I know that she has voiced Latios and Latias in the past.
Latias is dubbed, likely Knotz as she did it and Latios in Movie 18

On another note, I'm not sure Cathcart is handling the script now due to his health, I might be wrong
 
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