Today something occurred to me in seeing non-TCG merchandise in Japan. I figured I always missed it in some random Japanese text or that the English release made it up. Bulbapedia actually had the scoop from this link:)
“Gotta catch 'em all! is the English slogan of the Pokémon franchise, including the English language Pokémon video games. The Japanese equivalent is Get Pokémon! (Japanese: ポケモンゲットだぜー！ Pokémon get da ze~!, also spelt ポケモンＧＥＴだぜー!”
Thought it to be interesting that English made the whole focus on Pokemon to “catch them all” when it wasn’t actually ever depicted to be a goal in the show and maybe why it was downplayed upon completing the Pokedex in game.
I’ve been watching the anime in Japanese recently and that was something I noticed as well. The theme songs for the Indigo League arc in both languages prominently feature their own slogan.
As I just stated in my previous post I’ve been watching the anime in Japanese. Therefore, I’ve learned a lot of Pokemon’s Japanese names. Some people like to complain about uninspired English names when their Japanese counterparts are just as bad if not worse. Here are some examples from some episodes I’ve seen so far:
Shiny Cramorant is based on this English seagull, which fell into a vat of curry and was stained orange:
Togepi’s original Pokédex entries mention it using poison to chase away foes, despite it not learning any poison moves and (obviously) not being poison type. When it was retconned as a fairy type, it gained weakness to poison, making the “poison barbs” even more odd.
Solgaleo is inspired by alchemic symbolism. The purification of metal was often depicted as a lion eating the sun - this is why Solgaleo is steel type instead of fire.
Makes a whole lot of sense. Not only for Pokémon’s import but any if not every Japanese franchise translated into western culture. From Godzilla’s name to that stupid censoring shit thats cursed all over Yu-Gi-Oh.
It’s not so much a fact however a realisation that life is too short to be collecting them all because a franchise tells you when there’s enough of them and hardly any of you in what is out there in other sectors that truly moves one. Not sure how to explain it best but searching for other areas is to me more rewarding than the same?
Yeah, there’s a lot of crossover with those kinds of transitions from an Eastern-to-Western media franchise. Kind of like how American Ninja Warrior was almost treated like a Reality Show which made a lot of things feel inauthentic as compared to the original version. It’s that transition from community-whole focus versus the individual at times - I felt like Shin Godzilla was a metaphor for that as well, but we can talk about that separately if we wanted to. Haha.
Just came across this one as I was watching an episode yesterday. Team Rocket stole a characters badges so Ash and co helped him out by locating James and Meowth. Jessie had snuck off with the badges so they forced James and Meowth to show everything they had on them to prove they weren’t lying. They proceed to show this little card collection with Dark Primeape sitting on top. James said he was trying to learn more about Pokemon so he’s been collecting the cards. Thought it was a funny gag and that you all would appreciate it
Also, if you don’t remember this it’s because in the English version they replaced the cards with pictures of James and changed the dialogue.
And the reason why the English version had to do that was because FCC standards ban product placement within children’s programming. In fact–correct me if I’m wrong–but I believe shows like Pokemon cannot even advertise their products between commercial breaks of a Pokemon episode, i.e., Pokemon products can only be advertised in commercials that are NOT in between segments of a Pokemon episode.
It’s also why the “Duel Monsters” cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes have a different card format than the ones you can buy in real life. But that’s really blurring the lines lol, honestly surprised Yu-Gi-Oh! got away with it as much as they did.
I feel like I’ve seen Pokemon product commercials while watching Pokemon on TV but I really don’t remember so you’re probably right about that. I think the main reason why they removed the cards from this episode of Pokemon is because when there’s any instance of Japanese writing shown, 4Kids (the company who dubbed Pokemon) either removed the writing, smeared it so it wasn’t legible or removed the scene completely. They did this with all of their anime. This was probably a two birds one stone situation since they didn’t want to show the Japanese writing and couldn’t advertise their product during the show.
That also makes sense with Yugioh why they removed all of the text on the cards and made the artwork take up pretty much the entire card.
Krabby’s Japanese name is a double entendre. クラブ is pronounced kurabu which of course sounds like crab in english, but it actually means “club” like how krabby uses crabhammer to crush his foes and all who stand in his way
-The original design for base set Mewtwo (featured in September 1996 CoroCoro Comics) had 100 HP.
-In Japan there were quite significant rule changes on how sleep and confusion worked and when Pokémon were knocked out.
-The “Secret Mission” trainer card features a map of German-occupied Poland in the background.
-In the German translation of the “Recycle” and “Gambler” trainer cards, the text is garbled.
As a german iam suprised they didint change that O.o
Like Kogas Ninja Trick Change is kinda obvious.
If this card would be yugioh it would have been changed instantly XD
Thanks for sharing, i never took the time to watch the background of that Card
