Japanese Episode 4

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Japanese Episode 4

Japanese Episode 4: "Samurai Shounen no Chousen!"

("The

Satoshi and Kasumi continue travelling through the Forest of Tokiwa when Satoshi is challenged to a battle by a Samurai boy. Satoshi wins the first match against the boy's Kairos, but the second battle ends in a stalemate when the two trainers pit Trancell against Trancell. Just then, a swarm of Spear appear and chase the young trainers away from their battle. In the chase, Satoshi's Trancell is taken by a Spear, and Satoshi spends the night missing his pokemon. That morning, he finds the cocoon pokemon, and while he retrieves it he starts to realize that he needs to take responsibility for his own actions rather than blaming them on others. The Spear are avoided when Satoshi tricks them into fighting the Rocket-Dan, and afterward Satoshi's Trancell evolves into Butterfrii. Satoshi and the samurai part ways, promising each other a rematch someday.

Thoughts
Ho-hum...another episode, I guess. It really doesn't stand out in any way. The only worthwhile event in this episode was Trancell's evolution, but even that wasn't too exciting.

Butterfrii keeps its Japanese voice.

Dialogue Edit
Some puns just don't translate well...

Misty: (Screams) "I think I see another bug! Gross!
Ash: "Maybe it's a...Cowterpie!"
Misty: "That's not funny!"

You're right, Misty, that wasn't funny.

In the Japanese version, when Kasumi's clinging on to that tree, she says "Mushi! Mushi! Mushi! ...Mushi!" which means "Bug! Bug! Bug! ...Bug!" Well, then Satoshi, in a cow costume, says "Ushi?" Ushi is the Japanese word for cow, and sounds a lot like mushi. Of course, that just doesn't translate into English, so they had to rewrite the scene.

Dialogue Edit
Misty says:

Misty: "You know I hate bugs and I saw one right over there."

In the original, the narrator's talking during this part, covering up what Kasumi's dialogue. He's basically talking about how their journey's continuing, and other typical narrator stuff.

Music Edit
The anime producers did a neat thing with this episode by having the battle music interrupted in the original. When Satoshi tries to catch the Biidle, the battle music is playing, and the next scene (when Samurai meets Kasumi) interrupts the music. There's silence in the that scene (the "Samurai Theme" heard in the dub is never heard at all in the Japanese version), and then we cut back to Satoshi's battle. And the battle music just picks up where it left off. In the dub, they just use two different pieces of music for each scene. This happens again later in the epsiode, and 4Kids uses different music for that as well.

I rather like the interrupted music technique, and I wish 4Kids' had kept it. They kept it in the "Case of the K-9 Caper" episode (when Jigglypuff appears in the middle of Satoshi's battle) but not in this one.

Side Note
Look veeeerry carefully on Ash's sleeping bag during the scene at night. If you have a good copy of the episode, you'll be able to see the word "Satoshi" written in English letters inside a yellow box on Satoshi's sleeping bag. 4Kids' left that in, probably because it's too hard to read.

Broken Promise
At the end of the episode, Samurai and Satoshi promise to battle again another day. And you know what? We don't see Samurai again for the rest of the series. And so begins the trend in all of Pocket Monsters...rivals who promise to battle Satoshi someday, and then are never seen again. Satoshi also does this with a lot of the pokemon he releases later on in the series, saying he'll come back for them someday and then never doing that.

Paint Edit
The word "Mika" is painted off Musashi's cocoon at the end of the episode. I don't know what Mika means, or why it's there, but it's erased. It's probably a staff member's name or something.

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