Episode Comparisons

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Episode
Comparisons

Pokemon first aired on September 7th, 1998 in America on local stations around the country. It had a slow start, but soon got blown up into the monster we see today. Would you like to know what changes were made to the series? You've come to the right place.

General edits in every episode

Inside each episode comparison, I have several symbols:

= Cultural change. Something Japanese was mainstreamed for the American version so it's less Japanese.
= Edit. Almost every hiragana, katakana, and kanji character have been removed and replaced with either English or a picture of some sort. Find out what the signs originally said in Japanese.
= Cut. This was a scene cut or altered because the TV censors didn't like them. Stuff like Kojirou's breast scene, Nyasu's use of a lighter, or Mushashi getting spanked. Also find out about cover-up lines (like calling bombs "blaster balls").
= Rocket Dan. The Rocket Dan periodically change their motto (Lovely-Charmy Salon, the Yamato/Kosaburo motto, etc.). This symbol indicates whenever the motto's different.

In the more recent comparisons, these symbols are being replaced by bold/underlined text. Episode comparisons with the symbols above were done from the Japanese anime books--basically, what Pokemon Power consisted of back when Nintendo Power still printed those. While these are good sources of information, they aren't the same as having the real episode to compare with, so they are most likely incomplete.

Also note that whenever I use the dubbed names in the comparisons, I'm talking about the dubbed version. When I use the Japanese names, I'm talking about the Japanese version (unless it's in one of the older comparisons). So saying "Mewtwo is more shallow than Myuutsu" is the same as saying "The dubbed version of Myuutsu is more shallow than the Japanese version." It's just more concise.

Below is a list of all the episodes. Click on the episode number for an episode comparison. At the very end is a complete episode listing. Episodes 35 and 38 were never shown in America. The episodes in italics don't have comparisons written up yet.

Complete Episode Listing

Pokemon League (Red/Green/Blue/Yellow)

[01] [02] [03] [04] [05] [06][07] [08][09] [10]
[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18][19] [20]
[21] [22][23][24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
[31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39][40]
[41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]
[51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60]
[61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]
[71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80]

Orange League (anime-only)

[81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90]
[91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100]
[101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110]
[111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116]

Jouto League (Gold/Silver)

[117] [118] [119] [120]
[121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130]
[131] [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140]
[141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] [147] [148] [149] [150]
[151] [152] [153] [154] [155] [156] [157] [158] [159] [160]
[161] [162] [163] [164] [165] [166] [167] [168] [169] [170]
[171] [172] [173] [174] [175] [176] [177] [178] [179] [180]
[181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] [189] [190]
[191] [192] [193] [194] [195] [196] [197] [198] [199] [200]
[201] [202] [203] [204] [205] [206] [207] [208] [209]

Uzumaki Cup

[210]
[211] [212] [213] [214] [215] [216] [217] [218] [219] [220]
[221] [222] [223] [224]

Jouto League (cont.)

[225] [226] [227] [228] [229] [230]
[231] [232] [233] [234]

TV Specials

[Ruujura's Christmas] [Iwaku as a Bivouac] [Yadoking's Day] [Mewtwo Lives]
[Pocket Monsters Crystal: The Legend of Lightning Raikou]

Movies

[Myuutsu Strikes Back] [Pikachu's Summer Vacation]
[Revelation Lugia] [Pikachu's Exploration Party]
[Emperor of the Crystal Tower] [Pichu and Pikachu]

Like episode comparisons, do you? Then here are episode comparison sites for other anime.

Cardcaptors Uncensored--self-explanatory...I was going to do this site, I swear I was! But they beat me to it! Anyway, they don't update the site that often, but if it was your job to scrutinize the dubbed Cardcaptors, you wouldn't update often either. They've compared just about every episode, and since the dub's been cancelled, it seems that that's all they'll have to do. According to my Geocities account, most people access this main Comparisons page from their Links Page, so a big ARIGATOU! to the webmasters!

If you go under the section labeled "Sessions" on "The Jazz Messengers" website, you'll see a list of edits done to the Adult Swim version of Cowboy Bebop. It pretty much as the same information as Kyle Pope's list, but this site also has lots of mp3's (yay!), lists of references made in each episode, and other neat info. Plus, I really like the layout.

Dragon Ball Uncensored--not as good as the others (the site is more like notes than write-ups) but still infomative. Includes comparisons of both the 1995 dub and the Toonami 2001 dub.

DBZ Uncensored--the most popular one that started it all! It's closed down now, but if you thumb through the pages Chris left up, you'll see some well-written comparisons and will see why so many people have copied him.

There are two sites you can go to to find comparisons for the ill-fated Escaflowne dub--The Escaflowne Report, which are reviews of the episodes broadcast on TV that mention what edits were made, and A Comprehensive Look: Escaflowne, which has the more traditional list of edits. For those of you who actually remember the serie's short nine-episode run on Fox Kids, these comparisons will show you WHY Escaflowne had to be yanked due to poor ratings.

The Real Outlaw Star has a detailed look at most of the Outlaw Star episodes and goes into more depth than Kyle Pope's list (see below) by going through each and every dialogue edit as well as showing screenshots from footage that was either removed or painted over.

Ultimate Pokemon Anime--They have Pocket Monsters episode comparisons. They have more than I do, but don't go into nearly the detail that I do. They're great, though, and this is where I go to find out what episodes Kids' WB! is airing this week.

Sailor Moon Uncensored--A tribute to DBZ Uncensored. They have comparisons for every Sailor Moon S and Super S epidode, and they're working their way through the Classic season.

Like Toonami anime? Then check out Kyle Pope's Edit List on the Anime News Network site. The column deals with strictly the censors/cuts of each series and doesn't get bogged down by cultural changes or voice actor critiques that the other sites get into. Currently, there are edits lists for (deep breath): The Big O, Blue Submarine #6, Cowboy Bebop, Gundam 08th MS Team, Gundam 0083, Outlaw Star, Pilot Candidate, the Sailor Moon movies, and is currently working through the Tenchi series.

Pocket Monsters was not created by me. It was created by Satoshi Tajiri and the crew at TV-Tokyo. Pokemon is (c) Game Freak, Nintendo, 4Kids Productions, Hasbro, Bandai, and a ton of other companies. When you have a popular anime like Pokemon, lots of people own it so it's impossible to list every company who owns a piece of Pokemon. No infringement of copyrights is meant by the creation of the web site. All images were gotten from official websites (Nintendo, TV-Tokyo, etc.) unless otherwise noted (I don't steal images from other sites!).