Japanese Episode 54

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Japanese Episode 54

Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 54: "Pokemon Kentei Shiken!?"("Pokemon Presentation Examination!?")
American Episode 52: "The Ultimate Test"
Pokemon Dare Da? Purin (Japanese), Vulpix (American)
Japanese Air Date: July 30th, 1998
American Air Date: May 1999

Satoshi-tachi are eating lunch outside when Kasumi starts talking about how Satoshi's victories were just luck. Satoshi argues that he won by skill, and he wants to prove it. Toru suggests that Satoshi enter the Pokemon League Entrance Exam. The announcer explains that trainers can just take a test to get themselves into the Pokemon League. Satoshi agrees, and gets signed up. While signing up, they see a woman who looks a lot like Musashi. Anyway, Satoshi has to give his pokemon to the test-giver (you can't use your own pokemon). Just then, Satoshi sees a guy who looks a lot like Kojirou. The Rocket Dan are both in disguise and can't tell who the other is. They finally figure it out when Nyasu appears.

The exam begins. Satoshi easily knows the answers. Kojirou is having trouble, but Musashi just guesses, saying that she can get half of them right if she guesses True on every question. The second part of the exam is silouhette identification. These questions prove to be tougher. Satoshi get all these wrong, and most of the other people do, too. Musashi gets frustrated and storms away. She walks outside and tells Nyasu that she'll her revenge...

The scores of the written exams are revealed. Musashi has been expelled, and Satoshi and Kojirou have the lowest scores. The battle-part of the exam starts, and the examenees must choose from several sets of unmarked Monster Balls. They pick, and Kojirou goes up to battle.

Kojirou's first pokemon is...a Pikachu. He knows all its attacks (because he's been beaten by all of them before) but it doesn't work against Goron. Kojirou gets frustrated, so he sends out the other two pokemon, Lizardon and Fushigibana. He is expelled because he uses two pokemon at once, so he joins Musashi and her plan...

Now it's Satoshi's turn. He must beat a Booster, and throws his first Monster Ball--it's a Matadogasu! Kojirou's pokemon! Boosters shoots fire out, but Matadogasu's smoke screen causes an explosion which harms Booster. Then Matadogasu tackles Booster and wins! Next up is a Thunders, so Satoshi sends out...Arbok! Musashi's pokemon! Arbok tries to wrap Thunders up, but its spikes hurts Arbok and it loses. Satoshi sends out his next pokemon...a Nyasu! Showers is now called from the opponent and quickly freezes Nyasu. Nyasu, sad at seeing a fellow Nyasu being hurt, jumps into the arena. Then the Rocket Dan show up with the pokemon Kojirou had during the exam. The Rocket Dan command the pokemon to attack, but the examiner orders the pokemon to attack the Rocket Dan. The examiner was the one who trained the pokemon in the first place, so they obeyed. The Rocket Dan are soon blasted away.

Unfortunately, though, because of the battle the exam center has been damaged and the tests have to be postponed. Satoshi-tachi decided to leave, saying that they'd rather battle gym leaders and do the work than getting it from an exam.

*When Musashi is signing up, she says she has two different ages, depending on what you're looking at. In the actual episode, she says she's 22. In the film comic, she says she's 17. It's hard to tell what age she is, and for all we know these ages could just be part of an alias she uses for the exam. Thanks to Mabis for pointing this out.

Lots of sign edits...

Also, when Musashi is signing up, there was a sign that said "Pokemon Master" in Japanese. Not only were the words erased, but the whole sign was taken off the wall! During the close-up of Musashi ("Oh no! I wanted number seven!") you can see a bit of the poster.

When Joi first walks by, there's a poster on the wall (where all the people are sitting) that say "P LIIGU" (P-League). The P is written in English letter but the LIIGU part is written in katakana. 4Kids took the entire poster off the wall.

When the examiner is taking Satoshi's Monster Balls, there's a little white card on the far left of the screen (it's on the desk when Misty says something about taking care of Ash's Pikachu) with kanji on it. The kanji's been removed.

When Kojirou hands in his registration, there is a sign above the counter with lots of kanji (I can't read kanji!). My guess is that it says something like "Check-In Station" or something to that effect. 4Kids, instead of painting over it, simply lowered the scene so that the sign is cut off at the top.

Pikachu holds up a sign saying "Dai 1 Shiken" ("First Test" or "First Exam"). 4Kids erased that and wrote "Exam #1" in its place. Better than leaving the sign blank. This is done three times throughout the episode, with a "2" and "3."

The questions are pretty much the same, but the way they're presented is not. In the original, the screens had a picture of the pokemon in question with the question written out below in Japanese. There was no computer-voice. In the dub, they completely erased the screen and then put in a picutre (usually a poorly-done enlargement of the original picture) and has a computer voice say the questions out loud.

For the silouhette part, the examinees would write down the answer in Japanese. "Biriridama," "Monster Ball," "Marumain" were all written out by the examinees in katakana. In the dub, it would appear that they'd scroll down a list of pictures to choose the answer. Guess you don't have to know how to read to take this exam...

When the examiner is explaining about Nyoromo and Nyorozo's spirals, the word "Nyorozo" is above the picture of Nyorozo and "Nyoromo" above its picture. This was erased by 4Kids. Satoshi Tajiri, creator of the game, said that the spirals came from his memory of the transparent skin of a tadpole with its coiled insides visible beneath.

The big scoreboard is divided into three sections, and at the top of each section is a sign, in Japanese, of what each section is. The left section is "Taihen Yoku Deki Mashita" ("Very Well Results Below"), the center is "Yoku Deki Mashita" ("Well Results Below"), and the right is "Mou hito ganbari" ("Try Harder Next Time" ). These signs were erased by 4Kids.

The screen with Satoshi's, Kojirou's and Musashi's scores has a lot of Japanese. At the top, the words "Mou futatsu momittsu moganbari," ("The Two that are Being Denounced for not Trying and have to Try Harder ") which were replaced by "Lowest Scores," and the kanji beside Musashi was replaced with "0%."

*The Pokemon for the episode is Purin. When the kids say "Dare da?" (Who's that Pokemon?), it's a round silouhette. Then when it comes back, it's revealed to be Purin, shown from above like it was in the test. It involves a little animation, so 4Kids just used a still pic of Rokon. This episode starts a bad trend for the next bunch of episodes-the pokemon for the Dare Da? part are different from the pokemon featured in the Japanese version for no real reason at all. It's really stupid because 4Kids would feature pokemon that didn't even appear in the episode!

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