Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 37:  "Metamon to Monomane Musume" 

("Metamon and the Mimicry Girl')

American Episode 36:  "Ditto's Mysterious Mansion"
Pokemon Dare Da?  Metamon
Japanese Air Date:  December 9th, 1997 
American Air Date:  October 26th, 1998
Important Characters:  Imite (Duplica), Sato-chan (Ashy-boy)
Important Places:  Imite House (The House of Imite)

Satoshi-tachi are traveling along when it begins to rain.  The trio seeks shelter in a seemingly abandoned mansion, but they soon discover that the house is the home to a girl named Imite and her Metamon.  She shows the group that her Metamon can transform itself into any pokemon, and a skeptical Satoshi decides to put the blob pokemon to a test with a pokemon battle.  Much to Satoshi's surprise, his Fushigidane loses to Imite's Metamon.  After the battle, Imite explains that even though her Metamon is good at what it does, it always retains its original face, resulting in imperfect transformations.  Suddenly, the Rocket-Dan appear and take the Metamon!  They want the pokemon to transform into Miniryuu so that they can present it to the Boss, and after a while they get it to perform a perfect transformation.  Satoshi and his friends eventually catch up with Musashi-tachi, and after a bit of confusion concerning which pokemon is which, the Rocket-Dan is sent blasting off.  Now that Imite's Metamon can transform perfectly, she decides to open her  Imite House to provide entertainment to passing trainers.  Satoshi-tachi leave the area with a newfound respect for the metamorphosis pokemon.

---

Thoughts
I like Metamon.  Even though the pokemon caused my original Pokemon Red game to glitch up (making it useless in battle), I still liked the idea of a pokemon who could transform into other pokemon.  I also like what the anime did with it, giving Imite's Metamon a special problem.  However, I'd have to say that my favorite part of the whole episode is Satoshi-tachi's recitation of the Rocket-Dan motto.  It's such a fun scene, in both languages, and I think the Rocket-Dan uniforms look good on our heroes.  

The dubbed version is weird because they changed Imite's name to Duplica, yet they let her house retain the name "Imite."  Kinda weird, if you ask me, but I guess 4Kids wanted to have an alliteration thing going on (Duplica and Ditto) or something.  Other than that, there are no cuts or paint edits to report.

Metamon only keeps its Japanese voice when it's transformed into Pikachu.  Every other time, it has a different voice in the dub.

Side Note
You know how the Rocket-Dan want Metamon to transform into a Miniryuu so badly, going so far as to have an ancestor to the "Sakaki fantasies?"  Why do they want one so much?

Well, the reason is because they failed to catch one in "The Legend of Miniryuu," the episode that was never aired outside Japan because of censorship problems.  So for Japanese fans, the Rocket-Dan's desire for a Miniryuu makes sense, because it's the most rare pokemon that they've tried to catch thus far.  For everybody else, it just seems like a random desire.

Rocket-Dan
You know I've gotta give you the Imite motto.  First, the Japanese version:

Satoshi:  Nanda kanda to kikare tara
Takeshi:  Kotaete ageru ga yo no nasake
Kasumi:  Sekai no hakai o fusegu tame
Imite:  Sekai no heiwa o mamoru tame
Satoshi:  Ai to shinjitsu no seigi o tsuranuku
Kasumi:  Raburii Chaamii na shuujin ko!
Satoshi:  Satoshi!
Kasumi:  Kasumi!
Takeshi:  Takeshi!
Imite:  Imite!  ...Geesuto dakedo
Takeshi:  Ginga o kakeru Poketto-Dan no ore-tachi niwa!
Imite:  Howaito Hooru! Shiroi ashita ga matteruze
Pikachu:  Nya, Nyaante na

Team Rocket motto (Twerps' version):

Ash:  Prepare for trouble!
Brock:  And make it double double.
Misty:  To protect the world from devastation,
Duplica:  To ignite all people within our nation,
Ash:  To denounce the evils of truth and love,
Misty:  To extend our reach to the stars above.
Ash:  Ash!
Misty:  Misty!
Brock:  ...and Brock!
Duplica:  Duplica...that's right!
Brock:  Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light.
Duplica:  Surrener now or prepare to fight all of us!
Pikachu:  Pika Pika!

Previous Episode (#35)

Next Episode