This video series takes a look at the Japanese and English versions of the Pokémon anime
and compares some of the ways 4Kids changed the show when they brought it to the West.
To kick things off from last time with episode 4, which is titled "Challenge of the Samurai
Boy!" over in Japan and "Challenge of the Samurai" in the West.
The first thing to bring up from this episode is a Japanese pun that would be pretty hard
to localise into English.
You see, early on in the episode, Misty starts to freak out over seeing bugs.
She clings to a tree and, in the Japanese version, says the word "mushi" again and again.
Mushi is the Japanese word for "bug" but it also sounds very much like the word "ushi",
which means "cow".
Due to this, Ash then appears in a cow costume and says "a cow?"
- poking fun at Misty's situation.
This would have been hard to localise into English due to "bug" and "cow" sounding nothing
alike.
So, in the English version, Ash instead says "Maybe it's a...
Cowterpie?"
- which comes across as rather random, unlike the Japanese version.
There aren't many other changes in this episode but 4Kids did remove some Japanese letters
from Jessie's cocoon made from cardboard boxes.
In the dub, the characters were painted away.
Interestingly though, 4Kids actually missed some text in this episode that they would
usually change.
It's a little hard to see but on Ash's sleeping bag, in both versions, is the name "Satoshi"
written in English.
"Satoshi" is Ash's Japanese name but this was left in the English version unaltered.
But moving on to episode 5, which is titled "Showdown In Pewter City" over in the West
and "The Fight at Nibi Gym!
in Japan.
Nibi Gym by the way, being the name of Pewter City's gym in Japan, with Nibi City being
changed to Pewter city when the show was brought to the West.
Nibi is Japanese for a shade of the colour grey and is named this due to the city being
famous for its stones and stones being the colour grey.
The English name Pewter is instead a type of metal but the metal is also grey in colour.
In this episode are a couple of instances of 4Kids drastically raising the price of
things.
The first of these being the price that Brock's Father tries to get Ash and Misty to pay,
for sitting on one of his rocks.
Over in Japan this was 50 yen, equivalent to 44 cents.
In the 4Kids dub though, this was for some reason changed to 2 dollars.
A more drastic change was made to Ash and Misty's food bill.
In Japan this was 1150 yen, which is approximately $10.
4Kids simply changed the yen sign to a dollar sign and didn't put a decimal place or anything,
meaning in the Western version the food cost 1150 dollars.
If you compare the 2 screenshots too, you'll see that 4Kids also removed and changed various
Japanese text.
Next we have a big translation difference that 4Kids made to Brock's Dad discussing
what happened to Brock's Mother.
In the Japanese version, he says she left the house and never returned.
This means that Brock was left with no parents due to his father also walking out on them
in hopes of becoming a Pokémon trainer.
For some reason, 4Kids turned this into her trying her best to hold things together, but
sadly passing away.
Little did 4Kids know though, that Brock's Mother, Lola, would then go on to appear in
later episodes alive and well.
No attempt was made by the producers to try and rectify or explain this mistake.
Lastly we have another translation difference from towards the end of the episode, when
Brock reunites with his father and hands over the responsibility of looking after his 9
siblings.
In the Japanese version, Brock goes on a long lecture about his 9 brothers and sisters'
eating habits and mentions lots of Japanese food such as ramen.
4Kids changed this to things like cornflakes and spaghetti.
They also added in a lot of non-food related dialogue such Cindy sleepwalking and the twins
not wanting to take baths.
The next episode is episode 6, “Clefairy And The Moon Stone” over in the West and
"Pippi and the Moon Stone!"
in Japan, with Pippi being Clefairy's Japanese name.
The character of the day in this episode is Seymour the Scientist and some big changes
were made to his personality outside of Japan.
In the English version, Seymour is only concerned with knowledge and research and will often
burst out in poetry about his love for science.
Over in Japan though, he doesn't recite poetry at all and he is instead fascinated with love
and will often talk about things being romantic instead.
Next we a few changes that were to made to the scene where Ash is trying to figure out
what Pikachu is saying.
The Clefairy are jumping around the Moon Stone and the gang are trying to figure out what
exactly they are doing.
Pikachu tries to describe what the Clefairy are doing and, in the English version, Ash
interprets this as them doing the Macarena.
The Macarena, as many of you probably already know, was a hugely popular song and dance
from the 90s.
The Japanese version though, didn't reference the Macarena but instead the Bon Dance.
This is a style of dancing performed during the Bon festival, which is an annual Buddhist
event for commemorating one's ancestors.
The next hint was also changed in the English version.
Here, Pikachu pulls out one of Ash's hairs, which leads Ash and the gang to say "kami"
- the Japanese word for "hair".
Kami is not just Japanese for hair though but also "god".
They finally conclude that the Clefairy are protecting their god, with god being the moon
stone and this turns out to be the right answer.
4Kids would usually remove religious references outside of Japan, due to feeling that this
could be offensive to Western audiences.
This means that the moon stone was changed to it just being something that they pray
to, with the hint being changed to "hair" rhyming with the word "prayer".
There is no direct mentioning of the moon stone being their god, unlike the Japanese
version.
But lastly we have a change that was made to the sign to Cerulean City at the end of
the episode.
On the sign is a note that Gary wrote for Ash in the bottom right corner and, in the
Japanese version, a transparent image of Gary sticking his tongue out will pop up.
4kids translated Gary's message accurately, with it reading "Gary was here!
Ash is a loser!", but, for some reason, they removed Gary's image popping up.
That's all this time though but there are still many other episodes to go.
If you're interested in seeing more then please leave a comment below, hit that subscribe
button and set notifications to on and, until next time, thank you for watching.