Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

[Ryu Taylor]

Pokemon is unique in that, ever since Season One, The Pokemon Company has had the rights to the show in all non-Asian territories. Now places like South Korea deal directly with the Japanese version but every non-Asian country's dub is based on the English dub that's produced in the U.S. The Spanish dub is based on the English dub. The French dub is based on the English dub. The German dub is based on the English dub. Etc. etc.

I remember Maddie Blaustein saying that the German Meowth freaked her out a bit. She said this in the Pokemon 4Ever commentary track.

Also, have you ever seen the Nostalgia Critic's review of the first Pokemon Movie?

Yes. Not my cup of tea.

It's hard to get the hang of the quote system here.

I see. On the site he works at, three of the other reviewers working there (That Dude in the Suede, Linkara, and JewWario; JesuOtaku joined them for the fourth film since JW had to sit that one out) did collaborative reviews of the first four Pokemon movies as part of Suede's "Animenia" series.. Also, unlike the NC, they aren't outsiders to Pokemon, and JewWario even references the original Japanese films. In fact, the review of the fourth Pokemon film was one of the last videos JewWario was a part of before he died.

Just in case you'd like to see a more fair look at them.

 

[Gabo2oo]

Is it common that Western Pokemon dubs are based on the Japanese version?

For Pokemon, yes. For other shows, no.

Pokemon is unique in that, ever since Season One, The Pokemon Company has had the rights to the show in all non-Asian territories. Now places like South Korea deal directly with the Japanese version but every non-Asian country's dub is based on the English dub that's produced in the U.S. The Spanish dub is based on the English dub. The French dub is based on the English dub. The German dub is based on the English dub. Etc. etc.

Are you sure about that? As far as I know, most Japanese shows since the late 90s-early 2000s are getting their overseas versions based on the English dubs. Sonic X, Dinosaur King, Dragon Ball Z Kai, newer Digimon seasons, One Piece, etc... all of them are based on the English dub to my knowledge.

DBZ Kai is notorious here in Latin America due to changing DBZ's original "It's over 8000" memetic phrase (translated to Spanish directly from the Japanese script) to Kai's "It's over 9000" (translated from the English rewritten line), showing how it seems that dubs are becoming more and more dependant on the English version. Also, over here, some anime series such as One Piece were oddly based on both the English dub and the Japanese version simultaneously. I believe Pokémon was the first one to be 100% English-based.

 

[Galactic_V]

Almost every anime show until today in my born country uses the American dub, the only exception I can remember and am sure of is Digimon... When they didn't pick the English one they'd pick the Mexican one, which in times proved to be a worse adaptation than the American (comes to mind the Dragon Ball dub, man what a sucky thing...)

Digimon only example that wasn't the Japanese version was Xros Wars (known as Fusion there), which happens to be the newest season.

 

[Galactic_V]

Is it common that Western Pokemon dubs are based on the Japanese version?

For Pokemon, yes. For other shows, no.

Pokemon is unique in that, ever since Season One, The Pokemon Company has had the rights to the show in all non-Asian territories. Now places like South Korea deal directly with the Japanese version but every non-Asian country's dub is based on the English dub that's produced in the U.S. The Spanish dub is based on the English dub. The French dub is based on the English dub. The German dub is based on the English dub. Etc. etc.

Are you sure about that? As far as I know, most Japanese shows since the late 90s-early 2000s are getting their overseas versions based on the English dubs. Sonic X, Dinosaur King, Dragon Ball Z Kai, newer Digimon seasons, One Piece, etc... all of them are based on the English dub to my knowledge.

DBZ Kai is notorious here in Latin America due to changing DBZ's original "It's over 8000" memetic phrase (translated to Spanish directly from the Japanese script) to Kai's "It's over 9000" (translated from the English rewritten line), showing how it seems that dubs are becoming more and more dependant on the English version. Also, over here, some anime series such as One Piece were oddly based on both the English dub and the Japanese version simultaneously. I believe Pokémon was the first one to be 100% English-based.

Really? That's weird since I used to live in Brazil and their dub uses the "over 8000" one for sure O: It's still a crappy dub, yes, but corrected lots of mistakes from the original Z (like Freeza stating his power level's barely 53000 when it was supposed to be 530,000)

 

[Gabo2oo]

Really? That's weird since I used to live in Brazil and their dub uses the "over 8000" one for sure O: It's still a crappy dub, yes, but corrected lots of mistakes from the original Z (like Freeza stating his power level's barely 53000 when it was supposed to be 530,000)

I was just speaking about the Spanish Latin American dub of Kai, which was based on the English dub instead of the old times when DBZ was based on the Japanese script. I'm not sure about how did the Kai dub worked for Brazil... and to be honest I don't know much more about Dragon Ball either

 

[AvatarAce2015]

Hey, Dogasu; really been enjoying Lugia Lundis and your coverage of the Hoopa movie. I particularly liked your revamped comparison of the second movie; as it's my favorite of the original three, and as such very interesting to see all the changes they made (I have yet to track down a Japanese copy of the movie, so my piece for the 15th anniversary only addressed the one scene with Tracey being cut apart from cursory mentions of the movie being made more shippy, simplifying the plot, and the pieces of innuendo that slipped by the MPAA with a G rating). Regarding the Hoopa movie: I am dismayed at the box office underperformance, so my suggestion is a bold one. If an Avengers-like gathering of legendaries won't work, and a potential new Pokémon and form for Zygarde are on the table for the movie next year; I suggest to scale down. As it were, less is more. I will have to see it before I disagree with parts of it (it does at least look better than the likes of Pixels or Hitman Agent 47 as video game-related movies go). Regarding the shorts: my family was late to the theater when I was a kid, and I didn't really see the Rescue Adventure till I got back into the franchise as a teenager. Personally, I find it to be enjoyably silly, much like the others; and the lack of a narrator doesn't bother me too much. I find it relaxing sometimes to just have the animation and music advance the story; and I can usually get the gist of what's going on. As for the Pokémon Band short: I think the "not going to bother" option seems most likely for TPCI, as they've always treated the Pikachu shorts as an afterthought. They could effectively say "eff you right back" by refusing to dub it at all. I dunno, acapella and the Little Glee Monster song are both things I'm not really a fan of. Anyway, good luck with that string of episodes for your final Lugia Lundis; and I second the suggestion of Entei Enero for the third movie, whoever suggested it.

 

[MizuTaipu]

and I second the suggestion of Entei Enero for the third movie, whoever suggested it.

That was me. I don't think it's feasible, though, since January only has four weeks.

 

[Galactic_V]

Really? That's weird since I used to live in Brazil and their dub uses the "over 8000" one for sure O: It's still a crappy dub, yes, but corrected lots of mistakes from the original Z (like Freeza stating his power level's barely 53000 when it was supposed to be 530,000)

I was just speaking about the Spanish Latin American dub of Kai, which was based on the English dub instead of the old times when DBZ was based on the Japanese script. I'm not sure about how did the Kai dub worked for Brazil... and to be honest I don't know much more about Dragon Ball either

I know, just said that since both dubs sometimes were pretty close... And DBZ used the Mexican version as a base like I said
What I know's that DBZ's very praised there (in Brazil), often to the point of being "better" than the Japanese one. Opinion's opinion but for me it's at most average xD

 

[Ryu Taylor]

That's too bad about the dub making Butch the only one to get his name mixed up by others, but it looks like that happened to Namba way too often. Ideally, I think the dub could've afforded to keep at least three of those moments (one per part of the arc, maybe?). But anyway, it seems like the Lugia arc came out good.

Also, Professor Namba's name is literally one letter away from being the acronym for one of the most despicable organizations to ever exist. I doubt I'm the only one who noticed that.

 

[MizuTaipu]

Thanks for the hard work on the comparisons, even though I barely remember those episodes. 4Kids rewrote minor scenes a lot and changed character personalities along with them, but it looks like it depends on the writing team for each episode since as you said some scripts were translated better than others.

 

[SammyW27]

Also, Professor Namba's name is literally one letter away from being the acronym for one of the most despicable organizations to ever exist. I doubt I'm the only one who noticed that.

To bad 4Kids couldn't go there. That would've actually made that stupid joke FUNNY...

 

[Ryu Taylor]

Also, Professor Namba's name is literally one letter away from being the acronym for one of the most despicable organizations to ever exist. I doubt I'm the only one who noticed that.

To bad 4Kids couldn't go there. That would've actually made that stupid joke FUNNY...

You know, I imagine that one of the VAs might have Freudian Slipped and said that during a recording session.

Also, wouldn't it be great if we ever got to see a Pokemon gag reel? The closest I think we ever got to that was in the first movie commentary where they revealed that one of Rachel Lillis's ad-libs over the scene where Pikachu tries to revive stone Ash was "...my bike...".

 

[JS3284]

I really love the work you do, Dogasu.
So, Brock is a dick in the "Hi Ho Silver...Away" episode. This does remind me of how 4Kids turned Yuya into a real prick in the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V (Seriously, "You're as nasty as you smell"? Come on).
Also, Hiroshi/Ritchie in the Japanese version was voiced by the same person who voices Conan from Dectective Conan? That's interesting trivia.
Lastly, 4Kids actually used the word "heaven", which is out of character for them.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

To return to Pikachu's Rescue Adventure for a moment, I have to say that I 100% support 4kids's decision to have it go without narration. And let this portion of an online review of that short (from 23:09 to 24:11) speak for me why I support that decision, because Suede puts it better than I ever could.

By the way, there are French subtitles on the linked video. All I could find was a mirror on Youtube, since the original video went down with Blip.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

As far as comparisons go, here's my ranking of the Lugia Lundis events:

Last place: Week Six – Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure

This is the only part of Lugia Lundis I actually didn't like. Personally, I think the Pikachu shorts, while fun, don't serve any purpose to the anime, and that's why I'm so forgiving when the dumbest of dubbing practices happen to them. Better a Pikachu short than an actual feature film or an episode. But where that comparison really lost my respect were these lines:

"But it's hard to imagine someone being able to follow the story of the English dub as well as a Japanese person is able to follow the story of the Japanese version."

"One of the big complaints critics had after "Pikachu's Vacation" was that they didn't understand what the hell was happening and so 4Kids responds by making things even worse the second time around. Why would anyone except the most diehard fan know that Exeggcute are supposed to have six seeds instead of five? Is that something your parents knew when they took you to the theaters back in whatever year this movie came out (I dunno, 4Kids made it really hard to figure out)? And why would they know that finding the missing Exeggcute is the only way they'd be allowed to bring Togepi back with them? The Japanese version makes all of this very clear but the English dub turns everything into this convoluted jigsaw puzzle that requires multiple viewings to figure out why anyone's doing anything they're doing."

"Some people like puzzles. And that's fine! But I kind of prefer my kids' movies to be something that kids can actually understand."

The intelligence of children is best not underestimated. I've even seen people in this very thread attest to the fact that the removal of the narrator didn't confuse them when they first saw it in 2000 (AnimeAddictedNihon, Treacle, AvatarAce2015, and myself). Same goes for the survey Dogasu took on Twitter. And really, narration can be intrusive in some cases, and the Japanese version of this short reached "The Thief and the Cobbler"-levels of intrusive narration. So to say that that is needed to understand this short accidentally made Dogasu sounds like he doesn't think children are smart, which is the unfortunate mindset 4kids operated on for years. And although it was an accidental implication, it still didn't sit well with me, which is why I think this was the worst part of Lugia Lundis.

Second place: Week Four – The Power of One

Now this was more like it. Disregarding the music complaints (being as I contest that the dub soundtrack trumped the original soundtrack) and that paragraph about 4kids missing the Japanese writing on that bag of chips, this was a much better comparison, and a great way to start off the most anticipated parts of Lugia Lundis. It was nice to see acknowledgement of the dub's improvements over the original. And I don't think Herman Kain will ever live down quoting "The Power of One" upon his forfeit from the 2012 presidential candidacy.

First place: Week Nine – Lugia Arc (Johto)

And by giving Brock some mean-sounding lines, my "no character rewrites" criterion got violated, if only for those moments he said such lines. I think the dub didn't lose much when it removed the joke of people getting Nambla's Namba's name wrong, but it would've been nice to have maybe four or so instances of it. Plus, that bit where it was said that they saw Lugia flying over them when it was really swimming under them was just embarrassing on 4kids's part. And those comparisons constituted the best part of Lugia Lundis.

 

[Dogasu]

I remember Maddie Blaustein saying that the German Meowth freaked her out a bit.

I also remember her rather dismissively saying that the German Meowth is "doing his own thing." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Are you sure about that? As far as I know, most Japanese shows since the late 90s-early 2000s are getting their overseas versions based on the English dubs. Sonic X, Dinosaur King, Dragon Ball Z Kai, newer Digimon seasons, One Piece, etc...

Sonic X and Dinosaur King were 4Kids dubs so that might have just been the way they did things.

Not sure about Dragon Ball Kai because I didn't follow the international releases.

But with One Piece, however, I know that there are quite a few countries that got the show before the U.S. and so their dub was based off the Japanese version.

I second the suggestion of Entei Enero for the third movie

I'm not going to go with that simply because I don't want to have to wait until January before starting

The intelligence of children is best not underestimated. I've even seen people in this very thread attest to the fact that the removal of the narrator didn't confuse them when they first saw it in 2000 (AnimeAddictedNihon, Treacle, AvatarAce2015, and myself). Same goes for the survey Dogasu took on Twitter. And really, narration can be intrusive in some cases, and the Japanese version of this short reached "The Thief and the Cobbler"-levels of intrusive narration. So to say that that is needed to understand this short accidentally made Dogasu sounds like he doesn't think children are smart, which is the unfortunate mindset 4kids operated on for years. And although it was an accidental implication, it still didn't sit well with me, which is why I think this was the worst part of Lugia Lundis..

Some people could follow the short just fine without the narration? Good for them. But I've also heard from quite a few people who said that they found the short difficult to follow and would have found a narration to be helpful. The "Tamatama won't give Togepi back unless we find the missing seed" part of the story was something a lot of people cited as being difficult to parse and the ones who did manage to figure it out weren't able to do so until after multiple viewings. So what, are you saying these people aren't smart?

See, I can put words in other people's mouths too.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

The intelligence of children is best not underestimated. I've even seen people in this very thread attest to the fact that the removal of the narrator didn't confuse them when they first saw it in 2000 (AnimeAddictedNihon, Treacle, AvatarAce2015, and myself). Same goes for the survey Dogasu took on Twitter. And really, narration can be intrusive in some cases, and the Japanese version of this short reached "The Thief and the Cobbler"-levels of intrusive narration. So to say that that is needed to understand this short accidentally made Dogasu sounds like he doesn't think children are smart, which is the unfortunate mindset 4kids operated on for years. And although it was an accidental implication, it still didn't sit well with me, which is why I think this was the worst part of Lugia Lundis..

Some people could follow the short just fine without the narration? Good for them. But I've also heard from quite a few people who said that they found the short difficult to follow and would have found a narration to be helpful. The "Tamatama won't give Togepi back unless we find the missing seed" part of the story was something a lot of people cited as being difficult to parse and the ones who did manage to figure it out weren't able to do so until after multiple viewings. So what, are you saying these people aren't smart?

See, I can put words in other people's mouths too.

I saw Squirtle counting the Exeggcute. The physical gesture of counting can be recognized by all languages, and yet somehow the short needed to spoon-feed that info to the audience, as well as everything else. Seriously, short, you don't need to hold everyones' hands. In Japanese, "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure" is a condescending piece of trash on the level of pre-preschool trash like "Dora the Explorer" or "Barney the Dinosaur". In English, it is an intuitive cartoon that lets those watching it figure everything out themselves. Besides, isn't it the sign of a good work of fiction that one would notice more things upon rewatches?

 

[Galactic_V]

Hey Dogasu, just wondering, but's there any chance you'll go back to Kanto's first episodes comparision someday, no matter when?

I was just looking back at epi. 01 and there're some stuff you seem to have skipped, like some differences between versions (the narrator's last lines were different as far as I can remember, the Japanese one stating: "Don't miss next episode, okay?", and the American saying "The amazing world of Pokemon" instead, or Satoshi telling Professor Ookido, a bit angry, that he's not a kid anymore, being a teen already, etc...)

 

[AvatarAce2015]

Really enjoyed your last Lugia Lundis for now, Dogasu. I can say I liked those Johto eps from both the perspective of a 10-year-old and a 23-year-old. Amazing how many changes there were that made me glad that company that insisted on them is now bankrupt. As for the Scarface reference: it wouldn't be the first time a kids' show referenced a hard-R movie (I've lost count of how many I've seen that make Terminator references, and I was 12 when I saw the first three of those movies for the first time); and it definitely won't be the last. I bid you good luck on your prospective theme for the Entei movie and any other projects you have in the pipeline.

 

[Dogasu]

Speaking of that comparison, the link to it on the "Revelation Lugia" main page needs to be fixed, since it currently leads to a 404 page.

Thanks. It should be fixed now.

Hey Dogasu, just wondering, but's there any chance you'll go back to Kanto's first episodes comparision someday, no matter when?

It's definitely on my to-do list.