Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 041: "Okiro!  Kabigon!"

("Wake Up!  Kabigon!")

American Episode 039:  "Wake Up, Snorlax!""
Pokemon Dare Da?  Kabigon
Japanese Air Date:  April 23rd, 1998 
American Air Date:  October 29th, 1998

Satoshi-tachi are continuing on their journey when they encounter an old man with a flute.  After the old man gives the Pokemon Trainers a free concert, the starving group arrives in a small village, searching for food.  Much to their dismay, they learn that there isn't so much as a crumb of food in the entire village!  A meeting with the mayor reveals that the cause for the famine is the village's river drying up.  Satoshi-tachi set out to find out why the river stopped flowing, and soon they discover the cause--a sleeping Kabigon is blocking the water's path!  Satoshi-tachi try a number of different ways to wake the Kabigon up, but they have no luck.  Musashi-tachi show up and try to steal the Kabigon, but Satoshi-tachi decides to help them in order to get the Kabigon out of the way.  Finally, a note found under the sleeping pokemon reveals that a Pokemon Flute is the only way to wake up the Kabigon.  Satoshi-tachi look up a picture of the flute and find that it's the same kind of flute that the old man they had met earlier was playing.  Satoshi-tachi find the man and bring him to the Kabigon, where his song is used to awaken the behemoth.  With Kabigon out of the way, the water is free to flow and the village's food supply can now thrive. 

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Thoughts
I liked this episode a lot.  The anime producers took something from the game, expanded it as much as they could, and created a believable story around it.  It's one of those episodes I wish had happened in the game, but sadly Nintendo would rather have us go around and endlessly collect Gym Badges instead of work our ways through interesting plotlines. 

I think it's also interesting to note the premiere dates of this and the next batch of episodes.  The dubbed version came out only six months after the Japanese version, which is pretty darn fast for an anime dubbed for TV.  Guess the whole dubbing process isn't that long at all, now is it?

Side Note
A few little things to note...

First of all, the original Pokemon no Fue ("Pokemon Flute"--the Poké Flute in the dub) keeps its little tune.  In fact, I believe that all the Japanese music in this episode was kept in the same place, with 4Kids only adding their music to moments of silence.  Very nice.

Second of all, 4Kids seems to have decided to make the old man a hippy for some unknown reason.  He's just a regular old man in the Japanese version, but in the dub he's given this kinda out-of-it voice, a bunch of hippy-ish dialogue, and he even gets his own theme music (music that's only heard about two more times in the rest of the series, if that much).  Strange.

And finally, Snorlax talks a lot more than Kabigon does in this episode.  Kabigon rarely says anything in this episode, even when it's awake. 

Paint Edit
Right after Satoshi-tachi see that the bread shop is empty, we see Kasumi freak out while "GA~N" (that all-purpose Japanese sound effect) appears, in katakana, behind her in the background.  Because of the way it was written and the way it moved around, 4Kids had to redo the entire background behind Misty to erase the Japanese writing.

Paint Edit
Despite the fact that just about every sign in the episode is already written in English in the Japanese version, we still get one sign with a bunch of Japanese writing on it--the note that Kabigon's sleeping on.  The front of it says Okosuna ("Don't Awaken," which was replaced with "DO NOT DISTURB" in the dub) and the back reads Goyou no kata wa Pokemon no Fue de okoshite kudasai ("How to (wake up):  Wake up with the Pokemon Flute, please," which was replaced with "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY PLEASE USE A POKé FLUTE TO WAKE").  I think it's strange that this was the only sign in the entire episode with any Japanese writing on it.

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