So, how uncut is the TPCI dub of Pokemon anyways?

[LoudyKaizoku]

For those who don't, this is the dub that has been going on since Diamond and Pearl and The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon.
From what I understand, this dub is a lot more straightforward than the 4Kids dub, not taking as many liberties with the original, and being mostly uncut, aside from changed music and some names.
If I am wrong, please let me know.

 

[snowmint]

DP, BW, XY more or less ran uncut on Cartoon Network baring a few. Strange edits, "speedo Giovanni, stereotype apron Lenora, crucified ash," then on Disney XD for sun and moon, lots more edits were done cause Disney XD has crazier censorship board than CN. I'm not sure about the Netflix censors for journeys currently.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Visually, the current TPCI dub was pretty uncut for the BF-XY Seasons...until XYZ (Season 19 is where the general censorship returned, late XY save a few random instances of stuff such as "Sinnoh Now" signs in early DP and some in later DP too. S19 is when it started to regress to the censorship 4Kids was infamous for back in the old days). Since then, TPCI have been editing (or to be more apt, ordering OLM to edit stuff for them visually) like the old days. For example, Meowth drowning being cut, Ash "glitter" vomiting, etc. in SM, and IIRC in JN a recent edit involved taking a mustache off a character due to the Hitler resemblance. Souls being removed from bodies and wine cups being changed into orange juice glasses, green liquid edit once too, are also ordered to be edited out in SM & JN dubbed, too. In other words, from 2007-2013 yes, 2014+ mostly but not entirely.

Everything else is a completely different story, however. The biggest misconception people tend to have about the current dub (because apparently they like to believe it's true, but it doesn't mean it is at all) pertains to the script writing: TPCI still takes its fair share of liberties with the scripts just like 4Kids. In fact, the script writer for the last 15 years of the dub has been doing so since the 4Kids' Master Quest S5 dub (though back then his duties were lesser, JCC gained more than just prominence in major VO roles during the TAJ/PUSA switch, but chiefly over the dub's writing when earlier he was a tertiary writer not primary), believe it or not.

The most common complaint is in regards to JCC's Team Rocket rewrites, which have been a source of great ire for much of the fandom since Season 11's dub aka Battle Dimension (aka when DuArt took over for TAJ & it continues into the Iyuno LA dub as well to this day). Essentially, the dub's script hammers in alliterations, assonance, and pop culture references as much as humanly possible since mid-DP's dub excluding BW's Season 14 dub (because TR were made serious for 2/3rd of BW)- while there were occasional instances of this in Seasons 1-10, they were done far more sparingly, far less often, and generally weren't done almost every other sentence when on screen either. Also, Meowth has got a habit of saying the catchphrases "Dig it," and "I'm getting pumped up" in the current dub for some reason as well, not in the JPN version or the 4Kids dub.

Also there's a general "slang" insertion at times to the dub's writing style post-4Kids for the protagonists at times: for instance, Ash's TPCI era catchphrase is "so psyched," in particular, he doesn't say that in the JPN version (very rarely in the 4Kids dub, mainly only towards the tail end, and it was not his catchphrase-- was only said a literal handful of times), "so stoked," "down the hatch," & "'kay" (both entirely a current dub created thing), and in the early TPCI days, was a "I got me,"and "ya see/ya know" habit that isn't there now and wasn't in the previous dub either.

Finally, there are still tons of dub episode titles in the TPCI dub that-- like 4Kids (e.g. "May We Harley Drew'd Ya")-- are puns, pop culture references (i.e. "Wheel...of Frontier," "A Little Rocket R & R!"), alliterations (e.g. "Crowning the Chow Crusher!"), and do things of this nature.

tl;dr TPCI's script writing style is often different stylistically/in terms of diction from the Japanese Version's script writing, as was the 4Kids dub's script writing style: all three tend to have different styles of translation. 4Kids tended to insert snark and sarcasm most, TPCi tended to insert random catchphrases, plays on the English language & slang most, and the JPN version has usually fairly plain, and generic dialogue most. Now there are times when TPCI will churn out a fairly faithful script for an episode or Movie, but just like 4Kids, it can absolutely vary at random.

Musically, it's been a wild ride as well--

For the Anime dub, the first two seasons of the TPCI dub keep more or less the same amount of JPN OST as the later 4Kids Era if you average them out. Then the DuArt Seasons 11-13 keep in between early 4Kids and later 4Kids in terms of percentage, Season 14 keeps the most JPN OST of any individual Season...and then, Season 15 keeps about as much as 4Kids in S4-5, Season 16 keeps as much as AG/DPS1 does in both dubs, and....Seasons 17-present replace more of the Japanese OST than any of the first 16 dub seasons.

There's even a recent development in the JN dub where, for the first time ever in the main Anime Series, apparently there are episodes with 100% dub music now at random- never happened in the 4Kids Era even at its worst on this, never.

For the Movies/Films- the dubs of Movies 9-16 keep the OST, continuing something 4Kids did do from Movies 4-8...then, Movies 17-20 have replacement scores like Movies 1-3 in the dub, and now Movies 21-present keep the JPN score again.

In sum, unless visual edits are your main concern...which I'd say in that case, mostly yes uncut: but in other regards, nope/no.

 

[snowmint]

Didn't the "sinnoh NOW" text edit get reverted back on the DVDs?

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Didn't the "sinnoh NOW" text edit get reverted back on the DVDs?

They did, my point per se was that was the greatest extent visually but they did. Visually there was almost nothing altered pre-XYZ, that’s when it began again post-4Kids.

 

[Gabo2oo]

The biggest misconception people tend to have about the current dub (because apparently they like to believe it's true, but it doesn't mean it is at all) pertains to the script writing: TPCI still takes its fair share of liberties with the scripts just like 4Kids.

I thought the difference was that TPCI doesn't add/remove plot elements at random such as the infamous Brock's mom incident, nor how a character would feel or react (but rather the way it's conveyed through their script's wording style). Those more "direct" kind of re-writes are gone with TPCI as far as I'm aware, but then again I don't know how frequently 4Kids did that in the first place.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I thought the difference was that TPCI doesn't add/remove plot elements at random such as the infamous Brock's mom incident, nor how a character would feel or react (but rather the way it's conveyed through their script's wording style). Those more "direct" kind of re-writes are gone with TPCI as far as I'm aware, but then again I don't know how frequently 4Kids did that in the first place.

TPCI doesn't really do that type of thing, I suppose, but they do still make the same types of errors 4Kids did in regards to game mechanics at times (e.g. the infamous "potion" to "lotion" in SM029, "Houndoom, move out" instead of "Houndour," in a late XYZ ep from a Team Flare Grunt, they called "Hearthome City" instead "Eterna City" in S011E01 to name a few examples so that didn't really change between then and now).

The tradeoff IMO is that while TPCI don't tend to be as willing to be plot divergent as 4Kids could be (at times), they have instead turned their version of Team Rocket into the most rewritten characters in the entire English dub's run and pretty hard to understand with all the obligatory rhyme for sake of rhyme, alliterate for sake of alliterate characters, while also having many of the other characters speak in a very strange jaded 90s NYC style of speaking (James Carter Cathcart has been the script writer for the dub since TPCI took over, but the irony is he was also a tertiary script writer in the later 4Kids Era though wasn't in charge then: not to deviate much, but he went under various aliases such as "Billy Beach," and "Carter Cathcart" during the TAJ dub as did Kayzie Rogers with "Jamie Peacock" as trivia).

This means that instead of characters saying things in a more natural way that (ironically, 4Kids did!), we went from people speaking like "I'm so excited, I can't wait to..." and "This is so cool" etc...instead we now get "I'm so totally stoked," "Like I can't believe it," "I'm getting pumped up big time, ya hear," "Miss Senior," "I'm super psyched," "Yo ho, Ho Oh," "Dig it, jack," "Nobody messes with MY MUG," among other oddities. The style of speaking in other words, has changed a great deal getting more slang-y/outdated hipster like, and they still commit the same type of errors the former dubbers did at times (for every Arbok to Seviper, we get an Electrode the Voltorb, "Alle-Hoopa-Ring" for every Latias didn't kiss me/the girl Bianca did, etc. etc.).

YMMV, in other words. The script's still rewritten, it's just rewritten in a different way. TPCI are less prone to being willing to Brock's mom died plot hole, but are far more willing to have people speak in ways no normal people would speak with each other now in real life than in the 4Kids Era IMO.