Season 21: Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon - Ultra Adventures - Dub Episode Titles Thread

[WatcherMark]

The way Ash's face is painted (all black but with his eyes left white) looks way too similar to Blackface to be ignored. That and the fact he acts like a monkey... yeah, I can understand totally why this is being skipped. All it would take is one offended person to complain to potentially lead to some very bad publicity for the show (especially since comparisons would be made to the controversy around Jynx).

You could argue TPCi could ask for a repaint, but given that this is pure filler I can understand why they'd decide it was easier to just skip it.

 

[abcboy]

I've managed to confirm that SM064 was intentionally skipped in the English dub.

 

[Poke Trey]

Yeah this one got skipped, again filler so whatever. But still, I'm seeing quite a bit of salt on Twitter so eh.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Not gonna lie, it's probably for the best.

Official sources.

They'll never announce out loud that they're skipping an episode because it could be seen as racist. That's just bad publicity.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Now I'm wondering if they're gonna give us an explanation of why they've chosen to skip this episode or not...

 

[Poke Trey]

Isn't it because of the slightly racial tones of the episode? Blackface, Monkeys, and what people like me might think about despite having seen worse.

 

[radek.tadajewski.7]

I'm glad they actually banned this Passimian episode, it was rather boring.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Did they honestly ban it because of Ash's disguise? That's weird. You'd think stuff like that could be edited, if that's the case...

I'm still waiting for the official explanation, if it ever does come. Hopefully it does. I'd hate this getting left unexplained.

 

[SamurottMan]

Is it banned for good, or is TPCI taking extra time to edit Ash's face? Anyway, they're lucky the episode doesn't affect the main story.

 

[Hidden Mew]

They probably could edit Ash's face without too much trouble, depending on how many scenes there are where he's fully dressed as a Passimian, but it could boil down to if they think it's worthwhile to do that for a filler episode. They had to do some major edits for Lenora during her appearances in BW, but that was necessary given that those were Gym battle episodes. While I didn't think of blackface when I first saw images of that episode, I can definitely see how it could be potentially problematic. I can't really blame TPCI if that is the reason why they're skipping the episode. They'd want to avoid any controversy like that, especially after the whole situation with Jynx.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

So, should the Passimian episode be added to Bulbapedia's list of banned episodes yet?

 

[GuyWhoTellsTruth]

I personally think it's pretty lame TPCi/DuArt banned SM064 from airing Internationally outright, when they could've just had OLM make edits to Ash in the second half of the episode to recolor him a lighter shade of black or blue or something, but I feel in the episode in question Ash doesn't even resemble the stereotype of Blackface *that* much (to clarify what I mean, Blackface's lips are far larger, not to mention the area around Ash's eyes was not blackened as is, in the episode in question).

While this is nothing new for the dub and I know 4Kids banned some episodes back in the day (in addition to TPCi banning 3 episodes 4Kids dubbed of the OS solely because of the presence of Jynx as well), it's unfortunate this one had to go this route when they could've just ordered them to make the edits for them necessary to air it on TV, but knowing them, that's too much work for them to do these days so it's easier just to ban it.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I personally think it's pretty lame TPCi/DuArt banned SM064 from airing Internationally outright, when they could've just had OLM make edits to Ash in the second half of the episode to recolor him a lighter shade of black or blue or something, but I feel in the episode in question Ash doesn't even resemble the stereotype of Blackface *that* much (to clarify what I mean, Blackface's lips are far larger, not to mention the area around Ash's eyes was not blackened as is, in the episode in question).

While this is nothing new for the dub and I know 4Kids banned some episodes back in the day (in addition to TPCi banning 3 episodes 4Kids dubbed of the OS solely because of the presence of Jynx as well), it's unfortunate this one had to go this route when they could've just ordered them to make the edits for them necessary to air it on TV, but knowing them, that's too much work for them to do these days so it's easier just to ban it.

Considering how clunky the recent censoring incidents have been (like the edits done to soften up Meowth's "deaths" caused by Mimikyu), I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they considered recoloring Ash's face too hard/time-consuming of a task to do, so they just took the easier/lazier route and chose to outright skip the episode.

And if this is even remotely true, I can't help but shake my head even harder at the recent dubs...

 

[GuyWhoTellsTruth]

Considering how clunky the recent censoring incidents have been (like Meowth's "deaths" caused by Mimikyu), I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they considered recoloring Ash's face too hard/time-consuming, so they just took the easier route and outright skipped the episode.

And if this is even remotely true, I can't help but shake my head even harder at the recent dubs...

I'd say your theory makes sense, but that's just me.

 

[Cresselia92]

Considering how clunky the recent censoring incidents have been (like the edits done to soften up Meowth's "deaths" caused by Mimikyu), I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they considered recoloring Ash's face too hard/time-consuming of a task to do, so they just took the easier/lazier route and chose to outright skip the episode.

And if this is even remotely true, I can't help but shake my head even harder at the recent dubs...

It may be the “easier” way, but you have to consider the fact that recoloring and reanimating scenes in an animation is a very expensive process. It would be one thing if Ash was in costume for only a few random scenes, but considering that he looks like that for most of the episode, it’s not surprising that they opted to not spend their budget for an episode that looks to be totally irrelevant to the overall plot.

If the episode ends up having some tie in the future, then perhaps they’ll consider adapting this episode and airing it at a later time – which plays in its favor, as it has no continuity nods – but if the episode itself has no connection altogether with the general plot, then why go out of their way for a simple filler just to make happy a few fans, when they can use their budget for more relevant episodes?

It may be sad that they resort to that, but the reasoning makes sense.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

It may be the “easier” way, but you have to consider the fact that recoloring and reanimating scenes in an animation is a very expensive process. It would be one thing if Ash was in costume for only a few random scenes, but considering that he looks like that for most of the episode, it’s not surprising that they opted to not spend their budget for an episode that looks to be totally irrelevant to the overall plot.

It may be sad that they resort to that, but the reasoning makes sense.

*Sigh* I'm afraid you might very well be right... Even if it's just pure filler, though, it still stings me a bit inside.

If the episode ends up having some tie in the future, then perhaps they’ll consider adapting this episode and airing it at a later time – which plays in its favor, as it has no continuity nods – but if the episode itself has no connection altogether with the general plot, then why go out of their way for a simple filler just to make happy a few fans, when they can use their budget for more relevant episodes?

True. I personally doubt that this'll ever be brought up again. This seemed like a standard "Pokémon of the day" episode, and those very rarely, if ever, have any kind of connections to other episodes, other than Ash knowing what this new Pokémon is called, but that's just about it.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Yeah, I don't think that choosing to skip the episode instead of recoloring Ash's face when he's dressed as a Passimian necessarily means that TPCI is being lazy. They could most likely afford to do it, but it would probably be expensive considering that Ash is in that costume for a good chuck of the episode. Is it really worthwhile to spend the money on paint edits for a filler episode? If the episode was important, then I could see them doing it, but if it's just a Pokemon of the Day kind of episode, then they probably thought that they're better off just working on other episodes.

They probably could have aired the episode as it was without causing too much of a problem, but I don't blame them for being cautious either. The Jynx controversy is the second biggest one associated with the series with the biggest one being the Porygon episode of course. And both of those controversies still affect the series/franchise even to this day. Porygon and its evolved forms haven't been featured in the anime outside of a couple of World of Pokemon segments at the start of a few movies. The backlash towards Jynx's original design was big enough for Nintendo to change its design. Granted, Ash dressing up as a Passimian isn't as problematic as Jynx's original design, which did have some more noticeable similarities to racist imagery regardless of what the actual inspiration for the design was, but because the series is known for being family friendly and they've already had to deal with the backlash towards Jynx's original design, I can't say that that I blame TPCI for just cutting their losses and skipping this episode. If it was a more important episode, maybe I'd be more upset, but it's really not a big deal.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

it's unfortunate this one had to go this route when they could've just ordered them to make the edits for them necessary to air it on TV, but knowing them, that's too much work for them to do these days so it's easier just to ban it.

It would be absurd to expect them to edit the whole episode, it would be too expensive and too much work for a filler episode. 4Kids was skipping episodes just because of Jynx cameos.

True. I personally doubt that this'll ever be brought up again.

Considering SM's track record, I expect them to reappear in some form.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

4Kids was skipping episodes just because of Jynx cameos.

Not exactly. They outright banned only episodes that featured the black Jynx in a prominent role. If it was just a cameo appearance, they just cut that scene from the episode.

 

[BigDocFan]

I have to wonder if this is the reason why we haven't seen any Jynx in the anime since Battle Frontier