Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

[Dogasu]

Actually, in Japan, they do the voice work *after* the animation's finished.

But yeah, I'll probably remove the note.

 

[Yamato-san]

I think those people missed out on the mid-Jouto episode that played up how trading was good and allowed people to train different Pokemon, too

shame that said episode featured another crappy, forgettable Jouto character, and the only major trade that did occur (Beroringer for Sonans) happened by complete accident. Hell, they couldn't even let Satoshi give up one of his (numerous, rarely-used, rarely bonded with, and very expendable) Kentauros, even when this same episode featured a random excuse to briefly have a Kentauros on Satoshi's team just for the hell of it.

Also, I can't help but agree with a comment, which I believe Grave-E said before on an SPPF thread many a year ago, on how the COTD, as well as his entire community, seemed to treat Pokemon and approached the entire trading thing. The Gentleman aboard the St. Anne seems to respect the idea of trading as a way of forming bonds with people across the world (thus, even if you are giving away a precious Pokemon, you can be relieved knowing that it's in the capable hands of someone you sincerely trust and deem a worthy Trainer). These guys, on the other hand, just take a Pokemon, raise it like livestock, wait for some annual celebration, and then trade the Pokemon with whomever just for the hell of it. Given, I have made previous comments around here about where to draw the line in "caring" for Pokemon and how Trainers, in a lot of ways, actually shouldn't be expected to give a damn about the Pokemon's feelings and frequently contradict their own claims (just like how several captures in the show were not a voluntary, Dragon Quest-like recruitment, but a deliberate on-the-spot capture because the Trainer damn well felt like it, ex. probably every bird Satoshi's caught up to this point), but I do agree with Grave-E that said community seemed to act very half-assedly with what they do (regardless of having some bells-and-whistles festival based around it).

 

[MizuTaipu]

BTW, when you restart your Kanto comparisons will you start with "Paras and Parasect" or "Sing! Purin!", since the Paras comparison is already in your current style?

 

[Thingamajig]

What exactly do you mean by... ?

I'm not really excited about the former because watching HD episodes in standard definition destroys my eyes

Are the episodes on these 7-11 DVDs cropped or something? Because I've never seen you say anything like that about the movies being in standard definition when they're released on DVD.

 

[Dogasu]

BTW, when you restart your Kanto comparisons will you start with "Paras and Parasect" or "Sing! Purin!", since the Paras comparison is already in your current style?

I'll go through it again to see if there are any other script changes I missed (my Japanese is a lot better than it was back when I first did that comparison) and upload better quality screenshots. It won't take nearly as long as other comparisons, though, because I won't have to start from scratch.

Are the episodes on these 7-11 DVDs cropped or something? Because I've never seen you say anything like that about the movies being in standard definition when they're released on DVD.

"Standard definition" is not the same thing as "cropped to 4:3." DVDs are not capable of producing high definition images because of the technical limitations of the format.

And yes, all the movies that have been released on DVD are in standard definition. Hopefully Media Factory will get around to releasing those films on Blu-Ray someday.

ALSO, I really shouldn't call them "7-11 DVDs" on my site, but I'm too lazy to go through and correct that

 

[Thingamajig]

Yes, I do know that aspect ratio and pixel count are two different things - it was just you'd never expressed such distaste at being only being able to watch Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark in SD on DVD and I thought there might be some other factor contributing to your... lack of enthusiasm about the Best Wishes episodes being on DVD, namely that the episodes were cropped, in addition to their 480p-ness.

That being said - I do wonder if the original masters for the Indigo League episodes are good enough to get a decent HD transfer out of. Vintage Pokemon in HD would certainly be something special.

 

[Eitarou]

It only took 10 months, but all of WatcherMark's comparisons are up!

I probably would've lost my patience somewhere around 7 months.

Oh well, at least Dogasu put them up. And those are always an enjoyment to read.

 

[bluesun]

Apparently, from this month TV Tokyo have started something called Data Broadcast upon anime series, one of which is Best Wishes.
Data Broadcast doesn't seem to have a comparable term used in America from what I could find, but appears to resemble the British teletext and BBCi systems here, which has its own exclusive content such as daily quizzes, as well as non-exclusive content such as news media clips, weather reports, multi-angle sport, and there's even been an episode of Doctor Who produced exclusively for BBCi.
Since such interactive broadcasts (from my experience here at least) are hard to emulate or otherwise store without just recording from the screen of a TV (which of course loses the interactiveness) as well as possibly being time-limited too, it effectively becomes something hardly anyone not in Japan would, or even can, see.

As such, if you have the capibility to recieve it, would there be any possibility of you covering this part of Pokemon?
You could mention such things like, whether there is any Pokemon content, an overview of what it is, is it available all the time or only during BW's broadcast, etc.
Of course, if I'm just overhyping it and you already know about it and all it is is something like one page of text summarising the episode or so feel free to let me down by saying that too. ^^;

 

[Adamant]

Apparently, from this month TV Tokyo have started something called Data Broadcast upon anime series, one of which is Best Wishes.

Ah, so that's what that was about. I've seen reports on it, but didn't understand what "broadcast of relevant data" was supposed to mean.
How does one receive such data, anyway?

 

[bluesun]

Ah, so that's what that was about. I've seen reports on it, but didn't understand what "broadcast of relevant data" was supposed to mean.
How does one receive such data, anyway?

I can only speak for the UK version, but here it's recieved as a seperately broadcast stream in the multiplex (so you have, for example, video, audio, captions, video, audio, captions, interactive menu, interactive video) which gets decoded by the TV or other digital reciever so that when you push the Red Button, a menu pops up, with options that change depending on the time it is accessed, with the content changing too.
However because it's not marked as belonging to any channel in particular, it becomes impossible to record on a set-top box and very difficult to record on a computer. (Boxes which record the original stream will usually flat-out refuse to record interactive video at all, and even some which record through analogue can fail to recognise the menu and record the clean channel beneath.) Not to mention processing a file with interactive data inside it in any way will usually strip it completely, and since it's not a usual media stream, it's hard to tell whether it even exists, and as for actually viewing it on a computer... there's one buggy emulator for computers which doesn't work that well, I've certainly never got it to work.
For Japanese TV though, I hear the captions are integrated into the video, so it's possible the data broadcast would be handled differently too, although given that there's still the channel's video being shown in a window in the menus I've seen on the internet, it must be somewhere on the same multiplex.

 

[Shinneth]

Nice work with the DP128 review. Again, I saw most of these changes coming because I've written the scripts of both versions myself months ago for my own purposes, but you expanded on them which helps clear things up for me on the differences. I'm surprised you left out one line that bothered me because it seemed like a weird change, while the gang drove to the Battle Pyramid, after Ash asked Reggie why he retired as a trainer after losing to Brandon:

Reggie: "Because I learned one thing... that I have a lot more to learn."
Reiji: "I was made aware... of my own immaturity."

It might be nitpicking on my part, but the dub's line doesn't seem to convey the same meaning as the original line.

Also, what bugs me about Reggie's line about Paul going to Kanto to see Reggie and Brandon's battle is that it never explicitly stated in either version that Kanto was the region Paul traversed through first. That's the only line in the series that comes even close to "implying" that, but I always took it as Paul just came to Kanto to watch the battle; not to start his journey there. It's entirely possible he did after watching the battle, but I figured it's just as possible that he went to another region afterwards as well. However, in Paul's Bulbapedia entry, it states outright that Kanto was the very first region Paul traveled through and that DP128 revealed that. I always found that to be a bit presumptuous. Unless there's some nuance in the Japanese language indicating that is the case...?

And while the dub did get rid of a lot of the original music, at least they retained the inarguably most important piece: the piano background music that played during the last phase of Paul's match. No other music could have suited that scene better. And I thought Soutaro had a dub name since AG. I'd seen "Samuel" listed as his name long before A Pyramiding Rage! aired, though in this episode and the following it was strictly just "Sam"...

For me, the Paul/Brandon being related thing was a lot deeper to me than the two merely looking alike. They have similar attitudes, both were quite unpleasant to Ash when they met him, and for being nothing more than a spectator in the battle from years ago, Paul seems to take Brandon MUCH more personally. I mean, he was also squashed in public by Cynthia, but he had the sense to forfeit after it became clear he couldn't win and he handled the loss very professionally even though he was getting jeers from the peanut gallery. With Brandon, Paul really lost his cool and for whatever reason refused to forfeit even though it was painfully obvious that he couldn't win.

Another thing they brought up here that they never brought up again was Paul not having an answer for Brandon's question about why he's a Pokemon trainer to begin with. That was the precise moment that Paul flew into a rage, and I took that as Paul having no answer for Brandon, realizing he had nothing but revenge motivating him to be a trainer or something along those lines. Brandon could read into Paul so well it was scary, and the same could be said of Reggie.

I mean, yeah, the conversation held when they met up in the episode tears that theory a new one when it comes down to it, but one thing that motivated me into believing it was true was that we never really got any information on Paul's family other than his brother, and I found it odd that this show would display a situation where Paul's practically being raised and financially supported by his brother. Brandon being the dad, financially supporting them from afar but never spending any time with them to the point where he's pretty much estranged would've explained so much about Paul's behavior, I believed.

But this is all crossing into fanon nonsense you don't care about, so I'll shut up. tl;dr: Great comparison/review!

 

[Adamant]

I'm surprised you left out one line that bothered me because it seemed like a weird change, while the gang drove to the Battle Pyramid, after Ash asked Reggie why he retired as a trainer after losing to Brandon:

Reggie: "Because I learned one thing... that I have a lot more to learn."
Reiji: "I was made aware... of my own immaturity."

It might be nitpicking on my part, but the dub's line doesn't seem to convey the same meaning as the original line.

Nah, that's a pretty good translation. In retrospect, "inexperience" would've been a better choice as the translation for mijuku in that line.

 

[Luna Tiger]

and Jindai's assistant Soutarou finally gets a name in the English version.

And I thought Soutaro had a dub name since AG. I'd seen "Samuel" listed as his name long before A Pyramiding Rage! aired, though in this episode and the following it was strictly just "Sam"...

Basically this. He was originally dubbed Samuel in the AG run.

 

[Shinneth]

In retrospect, "inexperience" would've been a better choice as the translation for mijuku in that line.

Maybe. I'm no translator, and I forgot precisely which fansub I was going by (whichever one becomes available first, if that narrows it down). Though "inexperience"? In what context? If Reggie was admitted to the Battle Frontier and nearly conquered it in addition to getting 4 regions' worth of badges (and presumably entering those Leagues), he'd be quite experienced as a battler despite his lack of originality, right?

 

[Adamant]

Maybe. I'm no translator, and I forgot precisely which fansub I was going by (whichever one becomes available first, if that narrows it down).

There's only ever been one "fan translation" of that episode, so that narrows it down pretty well.
(plus I had to check for the original Japanese line, and the translation is the same you posted... so yeah).

Though "inexperience"? In what context? If Reggie was admitted to the Battle Frontier and nearly conquered it in addition to getting 4 regions' worth of badges (and presumably entering those Leagues), he'd be quite experienced as a battler despite his lack of originality, right?

Well, yeah, but he was still unable to beat Jindai due to him not being an experienced and matured enough trainer... in other words, he still "had a lot to learn", like the dub puts it. The two translations are just different ways of formulating the same message.

 

[Shinneth]

Alright, that makes sense in my head now. Thanks for clearing that up. The dub line still comes off as clunky in the wording to me, but eh. It could've been worse.

 

[Eitarou]

A comparison this early? The world must be ending.

In the Japanese version, Dent states that the qualities that Araragi-Hakase praises Satoshi for is the reason that they - as in both Iris and Dent - are traveling with him. Cilan, however, keeps Iris out of it.

That bastard! Cilan wants Ash all to himself! It all makes sense now.

 

[Aestivate]

Maybe it's the Cafemochashipper in me, but I always thought Dent's adding of "-tachi" always seemed like an afterthought when he was talking to Araragi anyway >:3

~uniqueness~ and ~natural talent~ can be taken in so many delicious ways

 

[Shinneth]

I guess it makes sense why Cilan wouldn't mention Iris, given that Iris never outright states her reason for joining the group and I highly doubt it's the exact same reason Cilan chose to do so. And it would be pretty weird for Cilan to be speaking for Iris; if that line was totally translated accurately, I'd be calling foul. So I'm going with Aestivate's assumption for the original version.

Then again, -tachi lines can be tricky to translate depending on the context anyway.

 

[Sweet Veil]

So the dub makes Cilan seem like a "want it all", basically. Meh, TPCi probably just likes Cilan more then Iris which isn't hard to believe since EVERYONE LOOOOOOOVES Cilan. It's just one line, so I don care Underdog all the way, Iris!

Any reason why you linked the "Pippi Moon Stone" episode and not Makomo's appearance in "Munna and Musharna! The Dream Site!"?

Here is yet another example of the actor's delivery altering the meaning of the dialogue.

Actress's you mean, since ya Iris is voiced by a girl ^^;