Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

[V Faction]

To me, it's all donated from the games themselves. When gameplay elements revolve around gender relation, it's about breeding and making eggs, and moves like Attract or Captivate and abilities like Oblivious and Rivalry which set the framework. I don't think there's any hidden messages or subtle feelings towards either representation -- it is what it is. It's a simple little anime, happy and dumb and ignorant to other the real world crap (unless there's humor involved).

Also, Brock gets a numb-bum at every turn, so who cares what he thinks.

 

[kenisu3000]

It's quite late for me to say, but for April Fool's this year I sort of had the vain hope Dogasu would bring back Dora Buugaranan's Belly to compare the next episode of Zyuranger with MMPR.

 

[Lil Brother]

I honestly never bought such an idea as a "gay Pokemon". The reason being (besides the obvious) is that in real life, there is no such thing as a "gay animal". Male and female creatures simply hook together and breed, nothing more or less.
Anyway, interesting comparison Dogasu. I look forward to the next two and Kanto ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior



And to avoid seguing into off-topic territory too much, I just gotta say the Digimon site amused me; I had totally forgotten April First was coming up until I saw it. Really interesting that the Digimon dub's background music all came from that original Kamen Rider adaptation. That's an awesome piece of trivia right there. Your prank's also got me considering re-watching Digimon Adventure. Hmm... *mulling it over*

 

[Garren]

I honestly never bought such an idea as a "gay Pokemon". The reason being (besides the obvious) is that in real life, there is no such thing as a "gay animal". Male and female creatures simply hook together and breed, nothing more or less.

Well, the anime seems to treat Pokemon for the most part as being a bit more advanced...at the very least, they've been shown to fall in love in human-like ways quite a bit with a clearly opposite gender partner...usually indicated with a ribbon. For example, Totodile and Azumarill, or Lombre and Mawille.

Also, there's actually been some debate on that. I believe some penguins (oh, how fitting...) that were at a zoo displayed some homosexual tendencies, but I don't know if it was conclusive evidence.

 

[Sombra29]

Oh boy,that prank was epic its ovious you put a lot of work into it,althrought I couldn´t take it seriously haha,Its the epitome of the "digimon and pokemon are so similar...yet so different"


...awwn,I miss digimon...I loved the Mexican dub used for LA.Specially the openings.And the english names were not a big deal....they somehow made the "get used to all the 20 characters" easier lol

Also,caaant wait for the red chain´s comparasion

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I honestly never bought such an idea as a "gay Pokemon". The reason being (besides the obvious) is that in real life, there is no such thing as a "gay animal". Male and female creatures simply hook together and breed, nothing more or less.

Others have pointed out how very wrong you are so I'm just going to add "what the hell?" to that list.

Also it's canon that pokemon can be gay. At least in Magical Pokemon Journey, but that's an official series so my point stands.

 

[Dogasu]

Thanks for all the April Fool's feedback, guys. Glad you all seemed to enjoy it.

I'm surprised Dogasu never used Dragonball for an April Fools day prank, given how big a fan he is of the series.

Would have been fun to compare the old Saban Season 1 ep, with FUNI's redub from 2006, with the original Japanese. Maybe next year?

Nah, DBZ Uncensored is too iconic for me to try to mimic. Besides, I'm not a masochist, and sitting through FUNi's DBZ dub again would make me want to rip my ears off.

I prefer to think that in the original version Brock was just being a dumbass at that moment, actually

Which is kind of funny since he's lika a Batman-level super genius in the rest of the episode.

The "all sorts of reasons" being that Pika and Pip so suddenly could not be seperated after knowing each other for several months, and the fact that they literally did not want to do anything but hug makes a lot more sense than "OMG teh GAY".

Yeah, I see where the dub is coming from with their rewrite. I'm also pretty sure they didn't want to open up the can of worms a quote like that would open.

It's also weird that Takeshi would be all like "two pokemon of the same gender can't fall for each other" but then sits back and says nothing at the dozens of inter-species romances he's witnessed.

No, in the original, he calls them "Racket-dan" the second time. He only uses "Pocket-dan" the first time.

On topic note: Dogasu, I noticed that on your Haunter vs Kadabra comparison, you have the important places listed as Tamamushi (Celadon) City instead of Yamabuki (Saffron) City near the top. I'm a little surprised no one's noticed that before (I guess nobody does read that part of the comparison).

Whoops. I'll fix those with the next update.

To me, it's all donated from the games themselves. When gameplay elements revolve around gender relation, it's about breeding and making eggs, and moves like Attract or Captivate and abilities like Oblivious and Rivalry which set the framework. I don't think there's any hidden messages or subtle feelings towards either representation -- it is what it is. It's a simple little anime, happy and dumb and ignorant to other the real world crap (unless there's humor involved).

Yeah, pretty much. The people who want the show to be 100% like the games sometimes forget that the reason the game is the way it is is because it's nothing more than a bunch of code. Programming a move like Attract to work on members of the opposite gender unless said members happen to be homosexual would require quite a bit more effort.

Also it's canon that pokemon can be gay. At least in Magical Pokemon Journey, but that's an official series so my point stands.

Different continuity. Even if they did have the TV characters interact with them in those end-of-volume throwaway stories.

I still agree with your overall point, though.

 

[dman_dustin]

Which is kind of funny since he's lika a Batman-level super genius in the rest of the episode.

Is that really accurate?

Ignoring the stupidity of the other characters, but is Brock's intelligence or guesses that turn out to be 100% right really making this episode intolerable.

I mean seriously look at the Pokemon affected, only water and electric Pokemon were affected. Does someone actually need to be really intelligent to figure it out. I'm sure most of us watching figured it out, even why Magnemite and Quagsire were unaffected.

The only part that required a little bit more than observation skills was the magnet part when Brock was trying to tell Ash and Dawn to separate Pokemon.

I mean seriously two Pokemon are fighting and then suddenly "fall deeply madly in love" and disobey their trainers while not being able to separate.

If that really requires some sort of PHD degree to figure out that's not natural. Then I'm worried about humanity.

Sure Brock or should I say Takeshi could've been a naive dumbass about gay Pokemon. But seriously given the circumstances doesn't he at least have a point?

I mean let's list a few things:

1. Piplup fell in love with a Marill, likely female.

2. Pikachu has shown no real interest in any other Pokemon (romantically anyway)

3. Piplup and Pikachu were just fighting.

4. Both Pikachu and Piplup ignored their trainers entirely. Hell Piplup came out of its Poke ball just to stick with Pikachu.

5. When Piplup was recalled, Pikachu fell to the ground as if it was way of saying without Piplup it would just die.

How is what happened natural at all? Why shouldn't Brock have figured it out?

 

[Thingamajig]

I went to the "General Edits" section recently...

As of the time of this writing, no single episode of the regular TV series has consisted of only Japanese music or only dub music; it's always been a mixture of both.

Depending on whether you consider the opening and ending themes "dub music" you may want to change this now. At least you've got the "As of the time of this writing" disclaimer thing there.

For trivia's sake, I think the episodes that have kept all the Japanese music as-is (including the title screen) are DP071, 072, 142 and 146. There may be a few more, though.

Also, the reason I went to the General Edits page in the first place was to see if there was anything written about TR's dialogue... a paragraph about that probably wouldn't be out of place.

 

[V Faction]

Dogasu is referring more to the super-human detective skills Brock utilized in order to piece the puzzle together almost flawlessly. Out of all the conclusions, he some how dreams up the right clues and points everyone in the right direction, and it's only due to a momentary lapse in Nurse Joy's... uh, brain, apparently... that they're aren't immediatley thrusted upon the answer in mere moments. An answer that we, being the omnipotent audience, should only be aware of.

I.E., Brock's the goddamn Batman!

 

[dman_dustin]

Dogasu is referring more to the super-human detective skills Brock utilized in order to piece the puzzle together almost flawlessly. Out of all the conclusions, he some how dreams up the right clues and points everyone in the right direction, and it's only due to a momentary lapse in Nurse Joy's... uh, brain, apparently... that they're aren't immediatley thrusted upon the answer in mere moments. An answer that we, being the omnipotent audience, should only be aware of.

I.E., Brock's the goddamn Batman!

The only time that really ever happened, is when he said that some machine is likely doing all this. But isn't that a fair assumption?

I mean there's no known Pokemon that's can screw with Pokemon like this and in a technologically advanced society as the Pokemon world is, with you know Poke balls, high quality video phones, even one the size of your watch. Pokedexes that can scan a Pokemon even disguised or invisible. Or machines that can resurrect fossil Pokemon.

A Machine is likely the answer.

It's not like Brock suddenly said "Oh let's go to Nurse Joy, I've figured it out, it's this Professor named Kodama, it's because his Magnemite and Quagsire are fighting, so he made a machine to make Electric and Water Pokemon become better friends, but what he failed to take in account is the fact that Quagsire, and Magnemite are dual type Pokemon. Watch once we enter the Pokemon Center, only electric and water type Pokemon will be affected. Hurry pick up Pikachu and Piplup. I AM B-rock"

Now I suppose I can see an argument that Brock somehow knew the scientist had an electric type and water type fighting each other.

But he only made that observation after he learned the other trainers electric and water were fighting and not getting along and they suddenly stuck to each other.

After all, when Pokemon are fighting each other and of a specific type, and then they suddenly "fall madly in love" doesn't it make sense that the person causing this unnatural process is doing it because they have those specific type Pokemon fighting?

Seriously I cannot think of anything Brock said that he could not figure out through observation or deductive reasoning or in the case of the magnet example, simple knowledge of science.

Seriously Brock took quite awhile to figure it out. But once I saw Magnemite and Quagsire, I instantly knew that the reason they were fighting and not getting along was because they were dual typed (and the Pokemon that were affected were single typed). And this was when I was watching the original, and I don't know a lot of Japanese.

If I can I figure it out that easily, I don't see why Brock couldn't figure it out after technically a few minutes. We don't know how long Brock was trying to figure it out, because time is compressed. It could've taken Brock an hour to figure it out. But because time is compressed, it only looked like it was a minute or so (which is still slower than it took me).

I mean you know Monk right, the TV series detective, there are sometimes where I figured out cases really fast even with the most basic unlikely clues and it took Monk until the end of the episode to figure it out, and he has like Sherlock Holmes level of deduction.

I mean sure maybe I get the benefit of being an audience and certain things are apparent to me that aren't apparent to the characters of the show. But with Brock, I don't see what he did was so unbelievable.

I mean if anything making Nurse Joy look like a dumbass was the only thing wrong in this episode, as if she couldn't figure it out herself. Then again it could be because she had more important issues at hand, and had so much on her mind that she really didn't think too much.

Even when Brock said things that made Nurse Joy go "huh, what are you serious, could it be?" she was still being a dumbass, I mean at one point she looked as though she knew what was going wrong but for some reason she just kept her mouth shut and waited until Brock continued with his possibilities.

 

[V Faction]

I think you're overthinking it.


.... Are you Batman?

 

[Cybersai]

.... Are you Batman?

No, but Kevin Conroy is.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

Decent comparison, Dogasu. And I agree with you about how far the anime has gone over the years.

 

[Cybersai]

I like that a lot of the Japanese music is being kept for the Galactic finale, it keeps things epic.

However I disagree that everything in Sinnoh was planned out well, as we've seen with Gliscor and the E4 plot possibly being axed.

 

[Jesse GS the II]

I echo your sentiment of hating all the unnecessary dub rewrites that always get made to Musashi-tachi's dialogue (well, I hate all the dub rewrites on this show, but I digress). In the Japanese version, Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu are my favorite characters; in the American version, I just want to smack them.

In fact, I think that might be a big part of why so many of the fans who only watch the dub want the Rocket-dan to go away. Fans like myself who are familiar with the Japanese version know that they're actually very sincere, likable characters - they just get really, really corrupted on this side of the Pacific, moreso than anyone else on the show, to the point where they actually become the most annoying characters. Apparently, the school of thought is "Well, they're the comedy relief, we can't give them things like a personality or subtle acting! They need to be broad and goofy all the time!"

 

[Dogasu]

However I disagree that everything in Sinnoh was planned out well, as we've seen with Gliscor and the E4 plot possibly being axed.

You can cherry pick a few things here and there, yeah. And yes, there is evidence that some of the stuff was made up as they went along. But I'd say that, for the most part, the writers at least had a general outline that they've been following since DP 001.

I echo your sentiment of hating all the unnecessary dub rewrites that always get made to Musashi-tachi's dialogue (well, I hate all the dub rewrites on this show, but I digress). In the Japanese version, Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu are my favorite characters; in the American version, I just want to smack them.

In fact, I think that might be a big part of why so many of the fans who only watch the dub want the Rocket-dan to go away. Fans like myself who are familiar with the Japanese version know that they're actually very sincere, likable characters - they just get really, really corrupted on this side of the Pacific, moreso than anyone else on the show, to the point where they actually become the most annoying characters. Apparently, the school of thought is "Well, they're the comedy relief, we can't give them things like a personality or subtle acting! They need to be broad and goofy all the time!"

I can definitely see that. Sort of a DBZ / 4Kids One Piece situation, but restricted to those three characters.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

BTW, I'm not sure if it was changed or not (I had video problems), but in the Japanese version of the Red Chain episode, there was an art error. Skuntank is in the sleek hallway, but when it snickers at the prisoners, the background behind it is that of inside the cell.

 

[Grave-E]

I really have to wonder why they decide to let certain episodes keep all the music intact and then go straight back to using their own material. Is it simply because they deem certain ones 'special' enough to remain untouched or something? It's just kind of funny to think they sit down and say to each other 'Man, this three-parter really is something else! I'm sure everyone's been looking forward to it, so lets keep the score in place!'

 

[Yamato-san]

^let's not forget about them keeping all music for seemingly random episodes (evil Togepi, for instance).

Really interesting that the Digimon dub's background music all came from that original Kamen Rider adaptation. That's an awesome piece of trivia right there.

I keep hearing this was the case, but I swear, I'm pretty sure I recall a few of those tracks from the mid-90's Spider-man cartoon.

Yeah, pretty much. The people who want the show to be 100% like the games sometimes forget that the reason the game is the way it is is because it's nothing more than a bunch of code. Programming a move like Attract to work on members of the opposite gender unless said members happen to be homosexual would require quite a bit more effort.

a lot of things in Pokemon could be attributed to limited programming, but they're constantly brought up all throughout canon anyway (Pikachu and Coil are Electric-types, so they take half damage against Electric-type attacks... yup, half. This simple mathematical figure is the perfect determinant of how much they're getting hurt). But that aside, you really should consider the nature of Attract in the first place: it makes an opposing Pokemon of the opposite sex become infatuated with them to a point where they'll hesitate to act half the time, regardless of how close the two Pokemon are or even if they're both compatible to breed with eachother. In a realistic sense, I'm guessing it's a move that plays off of pheromones, so it's not hard to see why Takeshi would find Pokemon of the same gender suffering such similar effects to be unusual (though, I'm unfamiliar with how pheromones work with homosexuals... gay animals do exist, but I can't say whether they're outright opposing standard mating instincts, or if it's a chemical difference).