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Japanese Episode 17: "Kyodai Pokemon no Shima!?"
- (“Island of the Giant Pokemon!?”)
Pokemon Dare Da? Yadon (Japanese), Slowbro (American)
Japanese Air Date: September 22nd, 1997
American Air Date: September 30th, 1998
Satoshi-tachi and Musashi-tachi have survived the Gyrados’ Dragon Rage attack and have crash-landed on a secluded island. Satoshi’s and Musashi-tachi’s pokemon have been separated from their trainers, and as they search for their master Musashi and Kojirou try to contact their boss. Everyone is eventually brought back together as they’re chased by giant 50-foot tall pokemon. After a harrowing roller coaster ride, the giant pokemon are revealed to be nothing more than robots that make up the main attraction of Pokemon Land, an amusement park owned by the Rocket-Dan’s leader Sakaki. Satoshi-tachi eventually get back on dry land as they look down at the resort town of Aoporuko.
Thoughts
This episode is pretty special because the pokemon talk, and unlike
the mini-movies, their dialogue in this episode is translated by way of
subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen. The subtitles in
the Japanese version are, of course, in Japanese, and were pretty faithfully
translated into English for the dub. I don’t know if 4Kids was given
a clean version of the episode to just place the subtitles on, or if they
had to go in to each scene and digitally replace the hiragana and katakana
with English (which would mean a ton of work for 4Kids). The only
problem I have with the subtitles are that they’re kind of hard to read--white
letters with a very thin border makes your eye strain just a bit more than
I’d prefer.
Aside from the work done with the subtitles, this episode has its fair share of paint edits and other changes, including completely changing one scene…
Paint Edit
OK, I don’t know what else to classify this as, but I’ll put it down
as a paint edit since it deals with the subtitles. At the beginning
of the episode, when the Krab sees Musashi and Kojirou facing feet-up in
the sand, the subtitles read "???." But 4Kids decided to delete that
for the dub--I guess they didn’t want to subtitle a pokemon when it wasn’t
actually saying anything. They do this again later, when Yadon says
"…"--the dub has the subtitles removed. This is probably due to differences
in the tendencies of Japanese manga to have word balloons with nothing
but "…" and "???," while American comics do not. In fact, I don’t
think I can recall a single American comic that does that, so the change
was more than likely made due to the differences in ways we do things.
Side Note
In the Japanese version, all Dogasu says for most of the episode is
"Inaina~i."
I think it’s a term of agreement or something like that (kind of like nodding
one’s head), and I think it’s pretty cute. It says maybe a few more
things, but for the most part Dogasu just says “Inaina~i.”
In the dub, they have it saying all sorts of things that could have been
replaced with an affirmative statement.
In addition, for some reason, 4Kids gives the Rocket-Dan’s pokemon bad grammar. I guess they're trying to tell us that bad grammar is only a trait of the bad guys or something--and if that's true, that means the singer of the Cardcaptors theme is in trouble...
Paint Edit
The sign that Musashi and Kojirou run into while running from the has
Japanese writing on it. It says Tachiirikinshi ("Off Limits")
written in Japanese, and then right under it the words KEEP OUT are written
in English. It's a bilingual sign. 4Kids deleted the kanji
AND the English, and then painted their own “KEEP OUT” so that it covers
the whole sign instead of just half the sign. It’s times like this
that really make me question the rationale behind the text deletions in
this show...
Dare da?
The pokemon in for this episode is Yadon, not Yadoran. I don’t
know why 4Kids felt the need to change the pokemon of the day, they just
did. Also, the picture of Yadon used in the Japanese version has
a random fish on its tail, not the shellfish that’s usually clamped on
its tail that we see on all the promotional art.
Paint Edit
Here’s the big scene that was altered in the dub, the oden scene.
It’s the whole scene after the commercial break where everyone’s crying.
First of all, you need a little background--oden stands are where one goes
to eat oden, which is a sort of hodgepodge of food. The ingredients
in oden can be varied, but they usually include fish cakes, tofu,
skewered meats, eggs, and vegetables, all simmered in a broth. The
oden tents are usually heated during the winter, making them inviting atmospheres
for people who are hungry and cold. Oden isn’t the only thing
served in these tents--alcohol is often served as well.
First of all, the word oden, written in hiragana, is painted away from the sign on the top of the stand. Also, the dub has the usual “sad” music playing in the background to emphasize that the pokemon are sad--the Japanese version has the very Japanese song entitled Oden. This is probably so that the dubbers can pull off the illusion that the pokemon aren’t drowning their sorrows (you kind of get the gist that that might NOT be just juice in their glasses, nudge nudge wink wink), but are just “sad that their trainers left.”
And finally, a bunch of dialogue was cut out. In the dub, there’s no subtitles or anything, and the whole scene just kinda sits there, making you wonder what it’s doing there. In the Japanese version, there are subtitles all over the place. They go something like this:
Ningen nante saa
Ningen nante saa
“What humans, Humans bad something something”
Maa maaa
Genki o dashite
Wakaru yo
“That’s life. The end.”
Yeah, that is kind of weird, isn’t it? I really don’t know what it all means, and I just couldn't translate some of the words . All I can assume is that it’s some sort of chant in the style of some classic Japanese form of poetry or something like that. Anywho, the subtitles are all taken away in the dub.
Dialogue Edit
All of the giant pokemon have different voices in the dub--in the original,
they just kind of growled and roared. In the dub, they say their
names like the regular pokemon. Even Pikachu’s different! The
Japanese giant Pikachu had this really deep, creepy voice, kind of like
the character Him from the Powerpuff Girls.
Side Note
In the Japanese version, when the Rocket-Dan blast past the giant Kabutops
and knocks it over with the telephone cable, Musashi apologizes (“Gomen
nasai!”). I thought it was funny, but the dub apparently didn’t
think so--they don’t have Jessie say anything.
Paint Edit
The inside of the Pokemon Land tour boat has “Pocke Mon Land” written
in English letters behind the docent-type person. The dub corrects
the spelling by replacing it with “Pokémon Land.” I guess
this was before the Japanese people learned how to spell “Pokemon” in English,
and I can kind of see why 4Kids would correct it. The spelling of
Pokemon Land is also corrected on the outside of the boat.
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