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What was with 4Kids adding so many Pokeshipping hints?

Cilan

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Were the writers at 4Kids Pokeshippers or something? They added so many hints towards the relationship between Ash and Misty that wasn't there in the original. Meanwhile with their dub of Yu-Gi-Oh most of the things with Yugi's crush on Tea and Tea's crush on Yami were taken out. Why do you think 4Kids added so many Pokeshipping hints? Things like Misty's Song, the Christmas song, and they completely changed the montage at the end of Johto to heavily focus on Misty and Ash.
 
Because western audiences like these kinds of things. It stirs up the show and makes them want to keep watching so they'll know what happens between those two. But I guess its all ancient history now :(
 
But why ADD a relationship in one series, and then TAKE AWAY a subtle one in another?
 
Well, they did add some YuseixAkiza lines in their 5D's dub too. It wasn't to the extremes they went with AshxMisty, but it was definitely added in as well. As for why they went to that extreme for Pokeshipping, maybe they just thought it was cute or that making it seem like there was such a romance between them would attract more girls to the show.
 
central character + original female lead, both around the same age= shipping hints (and nobody knew that May was gonna replace her at that point)

The second movie has a little shipping subplot, and I actually found it slightly entertaining.
 
I've sort of noticed a pattern with shows that 4Kids dubbed. They pretty much force their own headcanons onto us.

No, really. The original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime; 4Kids made a huge deal about the ~SHADOW REALM~ which never existed in the Japanese version of the show, and continuously used that to cover up character deaths or other obscure things. And in Zexal, they go out of their way to convince us that Tori's skirt is much longer than it really is along with every other girl in that show.

Their dub of Winx Club had a metric ton of crap that didn't exist in the original show. Teen Fairy magazine, all spells being lame parodies of Harry Potter spells, Musa being a princess (which they had a hilariously shitty write-around for that when the show later on proved that Musa WAS NOT a princesss). All of that got hammered into our heads.

The shameless insertion of Pokeshipping in Pokemon is right up there with "RICE BALLS CANNOT EVER BE RICE BALLS" in 4Kids' bastardized bible of the show. It's a shame, too, because I might have liked Pokeshipping if 4Kids didn't try to cram it in my face as often as they did. 4Kids is never, ever subtle in their methods. Pokemon's one of 4Kids' first dubbed shows, though, so maybe that's why they were heavy with ship-hinting in Pokemon but took away shipping elements from other shows.

I'm willing to bet if 4Kids was still dubbing the show now, at least one of the DP movies and one of the BW movies would have Ash talking about missing Misty for no goddamn reason whatsoever. Blegh.
 
central character + original female lead, both around the same age= shipping hints (and nobody knew that May was gonna replace her at that point)

The second movie has a little shipping subplot, and I actually found it slightly entertaining.

Sounds about right. 4Kids probably thought Pokemon would be one of those "go for a year or two then end" shows. If they had known Ash's girl travel companions would be replaced every 4 years while Ash isn't all that sad about any other them other than for a short period or so and the show would go on for over 15 years...well they might have still had the hints, but stuff like "I miss Misty everyday" or hammered lines like that wouldn't have happened.
 
That's what I don't get about 4Kids and their hypocrisy sometimes. They add shipping hints when there was originally none (The Alexis and Jaden stuff in Yu-Gi-Oh GX and Yusei and Akiza stuff in 5D's) and when there are hints (like with Yugi, Tea, and Yami like the OP mentioned) they remove them.

I'm pretty sure if 4Kids was doing DP and they got to the episode with Misty's lure they would have Ash throw a line in there about how he misses her. I'm pretty sure there was a line in the Jirachi movie about Ash saying that he misses Misty too. Basically, when 4Kids believes in something they'll make sure to spam children's minds with it.
 
Honestly, I actually really liked the dub a lot more with 4Kids myself than I have with TPCi (awesome voice acting and intros > presence of onigiri and faithfulness; 'nuff said), but even I'll admit they liked to force their own beliefs about shipping onto others. I can see why others would be frustrated about that. It's perfectly reasonable.

Personally, in a way, I found their cheesiness kind of sweet and charming. In another way, I found it deplorable.

Still, I'm going to have to say that 4Kids was right on the money on this one to me. I'd probably pair Ash with Misty out of every girl he's traveled with myself. I can't seem to truly fault them for that.

Plus, they actually bothered to ADD continuity to the fact Misty left in back in M06, as opposed to what the original JPN version did there with the whole vibe they gave off along the lines of, "Oh, Kasumi? Fuck her. She's never coming back." Good job, dubbers, for actually caring enough to remind us the older characters existed. *GASP*

Ash to Max, M06: "But no matter what, we'll always be friends!"

AWWWWW...

I am a hopelessly cheesy guy, so I didn't mind their obsession with Pokeshipping. I suspect they didn't even think Pokemon would go on so long, anyway, or that Satoshi/Ash would be so pimpin' with the ladies.

But why ADD a relationship in one series, and then TAKE AWAY a subtle one in another?

Because it's 4Kids, that's why. Their logic was nonexistent. XD.
 
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Meanwhile with their dub of Yu-Gi-Oh most of the things with Yugi's crush on Tea and Tea's crush on Yami were taken out.
That subplot was toned down from manga to anime in the first place, to the point where it wasn't as developed anymore (as was everything else).

As for SatoKasu in the dub, it's not that much different from 4Kids shoving the idea that Yukinari from the Celebi movie = Ookido-hakase as a kid. They seemed to like to take subtle things in Pokemon and over-explain them to kids to make sure they "get" it. Basically, "hey, I don't think this is enough for kids to figure out that he/she kinda' digs him/her... LET'S ADD MORE HINTS!" Pfft, as if the tsundere trope didn't make it obvious enough.
 
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Yeah, I noticed that with 4Kids they tend to repeat what they wants kids to believe over and over again and not just with Pokémon either. It's just weird that they did so much for Pokeshipping. Having songs about Misty loving Ash and changing her final montage to how she'll miss Ash and everything. I know that there were a few hints in the original version but 4Kids really overdid it.
 
Yeah, I noticed that with 4Kids they tend to repeat what they wants kids to believe over and over again and not just with Pokémon either. It's just weird that they did so much for Pokeshipping. Having songs about Misty loving Ash and changing her final montage to how she'll miss Ash and everything. I know that there were a few hints in the original version but 4Kids really overdid it.

I think that changing her final montage at least kind of made sense due to how she had been traveling with Ash for so long, but the songs about Misty loving Ash were really over the top, especially when she was practically singing about her love while he was sleeping. In retrospect, that was seriously weird. I still like the idea that they thought it was a marketable idea too considering I think that they made two or three songs about Misty's feelings for Ash. Though, they did seem to eliminate any bit of subtle in most of their dubs, so that played a factor too.
 
I think it was simply a case of 4Kids liking their version of events more than what was in the original Japanese script - they did this all the time with the movies and the Pokemon Chronicles episodes, after all.

It would have been less of an issue if they hadn't gone completely nuts with those songs they had her sing on the dub tie-in CDs. To this day, I still see people cite those things as "proof" that AshxMisty is officially cannon, apparently oblivious to the fact that they had nothing to do with the show in its original Japanese form.
 
I think it was simply a case of 4Kids liking their version of events more than what was in the original Japanese script - they did this all the time with the movies and the Pokemon Chronicles episodes, after all.

It would have been less of an issue if they hadn't gone completely nuts with those songs they had her sing on the dub tie-in CDs. To this day, I still see people cite those things as "proof" that AshxMisty is officially cannon, apparently oblivious to the fact that they had nothing to do with the show in its original Japanese form.

Eh, I disagree on the movies. Movie 1, yeah, I agree. However, in movies 4-8, they were very faithful to the source material (Movie 4, though, they had that edit where Professor Oak knew Ash as he was Sammy at the end, but that actually made me like things more in that instance). Chronicles is....an entirely different story. I wouldn't even loop that in with their main series dub. That was one of their weakest efforts to me.

Though I do agree they KINDA went a bit far. I honestly can't blame them, since I am more a Pokeshipper than the others myself (other than Rocketshipping). They made me kinda happy with their choices on one. XDDD.
 
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As has been stated already, they couldn't have known what was going to happen with the series in regards to Ash traveling with all kinds of girls and Misty leaving. Besides, people like that kind of stuff.

Given the hints already present in the original, it is a bit understandable with them going overboard on the hints in terms of the songs, I guess.

But that thing in Jirachi Wish Maker was a bit much (and that's coming from a Pokeshipper).
 
Eh, I disagree on the movies. Movie 1, yeah, I agree. However, in movies 4-8, they were very faithful to the source material (Movie 4, though, they had that edit where Professor Oak knew Ash as he was Sammy at the end, but that actually made me like things more in that instance). Chronicles is....an entirely different story. I wouldn't even loop that in with their main series dub. That was one of their weakest efforts to me.

Though I do agree they KINDA went a bit far. I honestly can't blame them, since I am more a Pokeshipper than the others myself (other than Rocketshipping). They made me kinda happy with their choices on one. XDDD.

I was thinking mainly of Movies 1 and 5. While I can agree that the 4Kids movie dubs generally did improve as they went along (they certainly never got any worse than "Mewtwo Strikes Back") the fifth film is a pretty big anomaly in that regard, to the extent that the entire backstory was effectively rewritten. For reasons unknown they also insisted upon making Annie and Oakley members of Team Rocket, which was not the case in the original.

The thing about the songs is that, when I bought my 2BA Master CD back in 1999 and listened to "Misty's Song", I was frankly confused. I had never gauged from anywhere in the TV series (even with the 4Kids dub being the only version I was familiar with at the time) that Misty felt so strongly about Ash, or that she was losing sleep over her inability to confess those feelings to him. It made me wonder if I had missed an episode or something. :p
 
Eh, I disagree on the movies. Movie 1, yeah, I agree. However, in movies 4-8, they were very faithful to the source material (Movie 4, though, they had that edit where Professor Oak knew Ash as he was Sammy at the end, but that actually made me like things more in that instance). Chronicles is....an entirely different story. I wouldn't even loop that in with their main series dub. That was one of their weakest efforts to me.

Though I do agree they KINDA went a bit far. I honestly can't blame them, since I am more a Pokeshipper than the others myself (other than Rocketshipping). They made me kinda happy with their choices on one. XDDD.

I was thinking mainly of Movies 1 and 5. While I can agree that the 4Kids movie dubs generally did improve as they went along (they certainly never got any worse than "Mewtwo Strikes Back") the fifth film is a pretty big anomaly in that regard, to the extent that the entire backstory was effectively rewritten. For reasons unknown they also insisted upon making Annie and Oakley members of Team Rocket, which was not the case in the original.

The thing about the songs is that, when I bought my 2BA Master CD back in 1999 and listened to "Misty's Song", I was frankly confused. I had never gauged from anywhere in the TV series (even with the 4Kids dub being the only version I was familiar with at the time) that Misty felt so strongly about Ash, or that she was losing sleep over her inability to confess those feelings to him. It made me wonder if I had missed an episode or something. :p

All true statements, but I always felt there were subtle hints to Ash x Misty, even in the original Japanese version. That's just me, though. lol.
 
All true statements, but I always felt there were subtle hints to Ash x Misty, even in the original Japanese version. That's just me, though. lol.

From what I understand, there were hints that they liked each other in the Japanese version. 4Kids just crushed any bit of subtle with their songs and adding in a line about her in the Jirachi movie. Adding in more signs in the show was okay, but they went really overboard with the songs to the point that, at least in retrospect, it's just kind of silly. I wouldn't call myself a Pokeshipper, although I can understand that Ash pairing more than most of the other ones, but they just went so far with beating it into the ground to the point where all subtle was lost, as most everything else that was subtle in their dubs.
 
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