Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 052: "Fierce Fighting! Pokemon Hinamatsuri"
English Episode 201: "Princess vs. Princess"
Pokemon Dare Da? Beroringa (Japanese), Butterfree (English)
Japanese Air Date: July 9th, 1998
American Air Date: September 4th, 1999
Important Characters: Takuya (Fiorello Cappucino)
Important Places: O-Hina Town (N/A)

March 3rd is Hinamatsuri, a national holiday where boys have to do whatever the girls tell them to! Both Kasumi and Musashi decide to celebrate this holiday by visiting a department store in O-Hina Town and buying up all the items that are on sale. Musashi buys a bunch of souvenirs to give to Sakaki but a wild Beroringa comes by and eats them all up, so the annoyed Rocket-Dan member throws a Monster Ball at the wild pokemon and captures it. Later, an announcement is made about a Hinamasturi Contest being held on the roof of the department store. The grand prize is a set of gorgeous hina dolls, prompting both Kasumi and Musashi, who never had a set of their own when they were younger, to enter. The contest ends up being a pokemon tournament and both Kasumi and Musashi manage to make it to the finals! Kasumi makes quick work of the Rocket-Dan's Arbok, Matadogas, and Nyarth, leaving only one pokemon left: Musashi's newly caught Beroringa! The tables are quickly turned on Kasumi as Musashi's pokemon uses its extremely long tongue to defeat Pikachu, Fushigidane, and Rokon with very little effort! Beroringa starts to do the same attack on Kasumi's Koduck that it did on the others but all this does to the Water-Type pokemon is give it the headache it needs to activate its Psychic-Type powers. Kasumi wins the tournament and the set of hina dolls! She sends them back to her sisters in Hanada City before our heroes return on the road to their next adventure.

---

Thoughts
"Fierce Fighting! Pokemon Hinamatsuri" is probably the most Japanese episode of Pocket Monsters ever. The whole thing's centered around Hinamatsuri (雛祭り), a Japanese holiday that is often translated as either "Doll's Day" or "Girls' Day." The general idea behind the day is to wish for our daughters to grow up to be healthy and successful in their lives and so during the weeks leading up to the holiday, ornamental dolls depicting the Emperor, Empress, and their court dressed in traditionial Heian period clothing are displayed in homes across Japan. The holiday takes place on March 3rd every year.
 
A lot of people seem to be hesitant to refer to the characters in this show as Japanese for a number of reasons (a lot of which seem to boil down to "they don't draw Japanese people the way we draw Japanese people") but then you have episodes like this, in which the characters not only know about this extremely Japanese holiday but also have a sense of history and emotional attachment to it, and in which they also put on kimono without any comment from anyone whatsoever, and yet we're to believe that the creators of the show don't view them as Japanese? Really!?
 
This episode also gives us a random pokemon capture for Musashi! Beroringa is a pretty cool pokemon who is unfortunately severely underused during its time on the show - Bulbapedia counts it having only seventeen appearances between now and the time it gets sacrificed for Sonansu - but at least it gets to shine in this episode here. Beroringa was also the first shiny pokemon I ever caught in the games so I might be a little bit biased in my love of the Licking Pokemon.
 
I don't envy the job 4Kids had with this episode. Localizing an episode centered around a Japanese holiday is no easy task, especially when you make things so much harder for yourself by having that borderline racist "no Japanese text" rule in place. Like, did they think that spending God knows how much money on erasing all the Japanese text in the episode would be enough to cover up the fact that this is a show from Japan? Part of me wonders if 4Kids would have just said "screw it" and not gone to the trouble of even dubbing the episode if it didn't feature a Pokémon capture, especially since they already skipped a a similar episode in the previous season?

Speaking of seasons, this episode is also the start of 4Kids' second season of the show. To celebrate this, 4Kids replaces the Pokérap with Pikachu's Jukebox, a series of AMVs set to songs from that awful "2BA Master" CD 4Kids put out around that time. This is also the season when 4Kids would start replacing more and more of the soundtrack, which is unfortunately a trend that will get worse as the seasons continue.

Brock's Vulpix, for some reason, keeps its Japanese voice in this episode and this episode only.
 
Side Note 1 - Airing Out-Of-Order
This episode, like so many others, was aired much later than it was meant to due to the hiatus the show took after the Pokemon Shock incident.

And then, just to make things even more complicated, the English dub is even more out of order than the Japanese version!
  The explanation of what goes where gets a bit on the long side, so I've put it in its own page here.

Side Note 2 - Paint Edits
As I've already stated a few times in this comparison, this episode had an insane number of paint edits for a single half our of television - 34 by my count. I don't think any other episode comes close to this number.

Images and links to full image galleries will be posted all throughout the comparison, but if you're impatient and want to see the before and after images all together, well then here you go:
  As always, you can click on each image to view a larger version.

Dialogue Edit
It's not enough that there a bajillion paint edits in this episode, that would make my job too easy. No, the script is also complete garbage as well.

Here's the very first line of the episode:
  Originally, Kasumi states that it's March 3rd which means that it's Hinamatsuri. 4Kids omits the date and changes Hinamatsuri to "Princess Day," which is of course not a real holiday. I wish they had just called it "Girl's Day" since that's what most people tend to translate the holiday's name as but I guess 4Kids wanted this to seem like some kind of Pokémon-specific celebration for whatever reason.

Paint Edit
There are eight paint edits made before we even get to the episode's title screen.

The % banner on the left gets its text erased even though there's no Japanese on it.  The purple one on the right says something Fair (～フェア)
Purple Banner:  Hinamatsuri Big Bargain (ひなまつり大バーゲン) Gold Banner:  Big Sale / Big Bargain Sale!! (大セール・大特売!!)
Musashi Banner:  Bargain Sale (バーゲンセール) Kasumi Banner:  Big Bargain Prices!! (大特価!!)
This blink-and-you'll-miss-it sign says Hinamatsuri Big Bargain Sale!!  Going On Now (ひなまつり大特売!!　実施中)
It's hard to tell what those banners on the upper right of the screen were meant to say because the text is cut off, but it's interesting to note that the middle banner got its text erased even though it's already in English.
The banner gets the redundantly redundant Hinamatsuri Festival (ひなまつり祭) erased and also gets recolored for some reason.
From left to right:  Bargain Sale (バーゲンセール), Hinamatsuri (ひなまつり), Everything's 50% - 90% Off (全品５０～９０％), Big Bargain Sale on Clothing (大特売！洋服～), the pokemon Nyorobon (ニョロボン) and Nassy (ナッシー), and illegible scribbles (~~~~~~~).
4Kids actually tries to translate, sort of! The sign that says SALE! originally said Big Bargain (大バーゲン), the one that says SAVINGS! originally said Hina Sale (ひなセール), and the arrow originally says Hinamatsuri Fair (ひな祭りフェア)

Dialogue Edit
The narrator explains what "Princess Day" is:
  The narrator in the Japanese version repeats the March 3rd date and states that it's Hinamatsuri all over the country. He also identifies the setting of this episode as "O-Hina Town" (オヒナタウン), something the English dub doesn't ever bother to do.

He then goes on to say that women are basically allowed to do whatever they want thanks to all the money they bring in during the holiday.

Paint Edit
Various banners in the buildings surrounding the restaurant / café our heroes are eating at have their text removed.

From left to right (deep breath!):  Hinamatsuri (ひな祭り), Hinamatsuri Sale (ひなまつりセール), PM Peach Festival (?) (・PM・ももまつり), Pika-Pika Department Store (ピカピカデパート), scribbles, balloon, and Pokemon (ポケモン).
From left to right:  Bargain - Going On Now! (バーゲン実施中), -ster 40% - 70% (スタ４０％～７０％), Ohina-sama (おひなさま)
Same signs as before.

Dialogue Edit
Brock hits on the waitress:
 
Takeshi originally asks to be the Odairi-sama (御内裏様), the emperor and one of the figures represented in the hina dolls. The dub changes this to "prince" to fit in with the whole "Princess Day" theme.

Paint Edit
Both the billboards get their text "translated":
 
This is probably my favorite paint edit of the episode! Let's take a minute to appreciate everything that's going on here.

Super Idol! O-Hina Festival with Special Guest Takuya-kun (スーパーアイドル!!お雛フェスティバルタクヤ君特別ゲスト) gets changed to "Fiorella Cappuccino - GIGANTIC." Yes, GIGANTIC. Mr. Cappuccino is a movie star, so I guess GIGANTIC is the name of one of his films? A movie with a really, really shitty poster? Fiorella Cappuccino is a "movie star" that all the girls in O-Hina Town Namelessburg are heads over heels for so my guess is that GIGANTIC is really just the name of his latest porno or something.

I also like how the balloon just over to the right gets erased out of existence as well. Like, the whole motherfucking balloon is just gone. I can't make this stuff up.

Of course, the ad beside it got edited as well:
 
Click here to view more pictures from the scene.

Side Note
In the Japanese version, the idol that everyone goes crazy over in this episode is named Takuya (タクヤ), a celebrity who is clearly based on Kimura Takuya (木村拓哉), or Kimutaku (キムタク), of the Japanese idol group SMAP. Mr. Kimura and all the other guys in SMAP were known primarily for their music but are had also gained fame for their acting, variety shows (SMAP xSMAP was one of the most watched shows on Japanese TV), and commercials. The group ended up breaking up at the end of 2016 but its members remain household names to this day.


(On a related note, it's kind of hard to find a picture of Kimutaku from the late 90s because he's been active so long that all of his newer stuff is at the top of any search you make. The one here is the best one I could find)

So what did 4Kids do with this guy? They...made him a movie actor (not singer or anything like that) and also made him Italian, for some reason. Because it's a well-known stereotype that hunky Italian guys are also movie stars, I guess? And I guess also because he looks just like Fabio, minus the blonde hair and the facial structure and the muscles and pretty much everything else?

Also, in the Japanese version Takuya has a normal fucking voice while Fiorella Espresso here has one of the most cartoonishly awful voices this show's given us since Team Rocket's Butch.

The infuriating thing about this all? 4Kids apparently spends so much time and money on painting out Japanese text in this episode that they weren't able to meet their deadline and therefore had to postpone this episode...and then they go and throw in an Italian guy, just because. They'll leave in French references all the time and also go to the trouble of adding Italian references but apparently Japanese stuff is "too foreign?" What in the world makes Fiorella Café au Lait here speaking with a really thick accent more American-friendly than seeing banners advertising Girl's Day sales (sorry, "Princess Day" sales, my bad) in Japanese?

Dialogue Edit
Jessie goes shopping:
  Musashi asks the sales clerk to gift wrap the items in the Japanese version.

And aren't these supposed to be presents for the Boss, Jessie? Why would you charge all this to "the Team Rocket account," aka the account owned by the very person you're buying all this stuff for? "Please forgive our past screw-ups! And also you'll be getting a bill for all this in five to ten business days. Enjoy!"

Jessie explains what she was shopping for earlier:
 
Originally the presents she buys are just to show that they're thinking about their Boss; their failure to capture a pokemon he doesn't really care about one way or the other doesn't ever factor into her decision to buy all this junk. Nyarth then states that it must be nice to be a salaryman like the Boss.

Lickitung starts eating the clothing Jessie bought:
 
Originally Musashi just screams and asks the Beroringa what it's doing, but I'm mainly bringing this up because maybe Jessie shouldn't buy fake designer goods for her Boss when she's trying to suck up to him? Or maybe she's actually being considerate and buying the cheaper stuff, since, as covered earlier, he's the one who's going to end up footing the bill anyway?

Paint Edit
Various signs in the department store get their text removed:
 

Sale (セール)
Big Bargain (大バーゲン)
The banner being obscured by Musashi says Big Bargain Prices (大特価)
The same "Big Bargain" sign from before.
And again...
Behind the Rocket-Dan:  Big Bargain (大バーゲン) Above Musashi:  Pika-Pika (ピカピカ) Behind the Monster Balls:  Big Bargain Prices (大特価) Above Takeshi:  Big Sale (ビッグセール)

Dialogue Edit
Misty and Jessie fight over a piece of clothing:
   
Originally Musashi states, quite accurately, that the kimono or whatever it is they're fighting over is too big for Jaari Girl. Kasumi responds by saying that she'll eventually grow into it so it's OK.

Kasumi also refers to Musashi as "Rocket-Dan," which is kind of amusing to me for some reason.

The old woman takes the garment they were fighting over:
 
The two call the woman Obaachan (お ばあちゃん), or "old woman," prompting the reaction you see here. The two aren't quite as insulting in the English dub.

The O-Hinamatsuri Queen Contest, which the dub decides to call the "Queen of the Princess Festival Contest," begins:
 
The original line is a parody of a Japanese proverb dealing with how to be a lady:

Original Proverb	Pokemon Version
Stand like a Chinese peony, sit like a tree peony, walk like a lily	Stand like a Rougela, sit like a Purin, walk like a Nazonokusa
立 てば芍薬、座れば牡丹、歩く姿は百合の花	いずれピッピかフシギバナ、立てばルージュラ、座ればプリン、歩く姿 はナゾノクサ
Tateba shaku-yaku, suwareba botan, aruku sugata wa yuri no hana	Izure Pippi ka Fushigibana, Tateba Ruujura, Suwareba Purin, Aruku sugata wa Nazonokusa

  I'm not sure why those particular pokemon were chosen for this version of the proverb, unfortunately. But at least they were smart enough not to give the announcer black skin when he turned into a Rougela!!
 
After we see our heroines in their O-hinasama kimono:
Originally, Kasumi states that it'll be easy for her to win since she's the "most beautiful woman in the world" (やっぱ世界の美少女カスミが一番いいよね). Musashi responds by saying that a real woman wouldn't boast about her beauty like that and then declares that she'll be the one to win.

The announcer describes the grand prize:
 
The announcer in the Japanese version does say that the dolls were made exclusively for the contest and are therefore one-of-a-kind, but he also adds that this is a three-tiered hina doll set (as opposed to, say, a seven-tiered set).

That "batteries sold separately" line, on the other hand, is the sort of 90s cheeseball "humor" that this dub is so well-known for.

Paint Edit
The English dub keeps all the "East Block / West Block" stuff in the dialogue ("In the eastern division, we have a match between Bulbasaur and Kingler!" / "The challenger from the western division is using a Primeape. What will her opponent Jessie use for her first attack?") but then goes and changes it to the Roman numerals I and II for the sign that Mr. Café mocha's holding up here for some reason.

Ohina-sama (おひなさま)
East (東) gets changed to the Roman Numeral I while West (西) gets changed to Roman Numeral II.  What's odd about this is that the dialogue in the English version still refers to the divisions as "east" and "west," contradicting this paint edit.

See?


The dub also removes the characters' names, written in those awful devil letters, and replaces them with a picture of the contestant instead. Which...I'm actually kind of OK with since it kind of helps make the whole thing a little more consistent. Contestants' pictures are used on this board later on in the episode so why wouldn't they be used here as well?
 
(And those weird brown marks at the bottom of the dub image on the right there? That would be glue from the animation cell that would have only been visible in the frame right before the cut to the next shot. If I was a paint editor at 4Kids I would have tried cleaning that up before sending the edited shot to be reinserted into the episode but maybe the schedule for this episode was too tight to allow that?)

Other shots from this sequence:

West (西)
Musashi (ムサシ), like Kasumi before her, gets changed to a picture of Jessie from later in the episode.  The little bit of text you can see in the purple square off to the right there gets erased as well.
Ohina-sama Queen (おひなさまクイーン) gets erased from the stage in the background.

Side Note
A lot of the reason why Kasumi wants her own set of hina dolls so bad goes unsaid in the Japanese version and therefore doesn't really carry over in the English dub. So let's take a look at them for a minute.

For starters, hina dolls are crazy expensive. A three tier custom made set like the one on display in this episode would cost at least several hundred dollars. The cheapest set available on this site, for example, is nearly US $900. The ones Kasumi's sisters have in her flashback are seven-tiered and would have probably cost around US $1,000 each. I have a friend here who told me that his sister's seven-tiered hina doll set cost his family about 500,000 yen. That's roughly US $5,000. For a set of dolls.
 
The dolls that Sakura, Ayame, and Botan got probably cost at least a grand per set. No wonder Kasumi got hand-me-downs.
  Hand-me-downs are apparently okay, socially, but having a set all to oneself is usually what people strive for. And also because the dolls are a symbol of your parents' desire for you to grow up healthy and successful; giving original sets to three of your daughters but then giving the fourth one their hand-me-downs is kind of like saying "We hope your sisters have a great life! But you? ...meh."

I'm not sure how much of this is apparent in the English dub given how most foreigners have no idea what these dolls are or what they're for, but I guess the general gist is sort-of kind-of there?

Dialogue Edit
After Misty's flashback:
 
Here, Satoshi's response is that it seems like Kasumi is like the forgotten leftover of the Three Beautiful Hanada Sisters (ハナダ美人３姉妹と、その出がらし、だったっけ？), which is probably why Kasumi knocked him over the head as hard as she did.

Eyecatch
One of the things 4Kids started doing in their second season, of which this is their first episode, was change the way they did their "Who's That Pokémon?" segment. Throughout Season One they would (mostly) feature the same pokemon that the Japanese version used - that is, the pokemon who was the star of the episode - but from Season Two onwards this would no longer be the case.
 
Now, instead of a pokemon who's actually relevant to the episode in question, 4Kids decides to use whatever random pokemon they feel like. In this episode, for example, we get Butterfree, a pokemon who isn't in this episode at all and who won't be making another appearance until the start of the Pokémon League. I guess you could argue that 4Kids has now made this little "game" a bit more unpredictable, but I just find it annoying.

Things will get a little better in the Johto Journeys episodes since there actually seems to be a pattern to the pokemon they choose for those episodes, but until then we'll have to deal with this random nonsense.
 
Dialogue Edit
The tournament announcer in the English dub prattles on way more than his Japanese counterpart. The English play-by-play pretty much describes everything that's happening on-screen as it's occurring while the Japanese one isn't nearly as redundant.

Jessie prepares for her first battle:  
James is upset with Jessie because he doesn't want Jessie taking his Pokémon, maybe because he thinks she'll mistreat it or something? Originally, Kojirou questions how Musashi managed to take his Matadogas from him without him knowing.

Paint Edit
The sign behind Meowth gets its text erased:
 
Click here to view more pictures from the scene.
 
Dialogue Edit
Meowth is thrown into the ring:
  Originally Nyarth states that he hasn't been this fired up in a while and boasts that he'll defeat Okorizaru in one hit.
  On another note, I'm kind of surprised 4Kids didn't edit this shot since it very much looks like Meowth is flipping us off here, but then again it doesn't have any Japanese writing on it so they probably don't have a problem with it?

Paint Edit
As the tournament continues we see a tournament bracket showing who's battling who. 4Kids erases the scribbles from the boxes.

Scribbles erased from the tournament bracket.
More scribbles, now with "WINNER" at the top.

They later replace the word yuushou (優勝), or "winner," with the English equivalent.


Side Note
So I'm kind of surprised that this scene, in which Meowth asks Jessie if she'd like her to kill Misty, with a gun, was left intact.
  But then again, as I've stated before, the censors treat little throwaway gags like this differently from more serious forms of gunplay.

The Japanese version of this line, by the way, is more or less the same as what's said in the dub.

Dialogue Edit
Jessie has her own "Princess Day" flashback:
  Musashi mentions the March 3rd date for the third time in this episode, something the dub has been avoiding all episode long for some reason. Nyarth then responds that she said the same thing about hating this holiday back at Christmas, alluding to the Rougela episode that, production-wise, takes place before this one. 4Kids aired this episode before the Christmas episode aired, just like Japan did, but unlike Japan they decided to alter this line in what is likely an attempt to avoid confusing people. Or because they just like making stuff up. It could honestly go either way with those people.

The finals are about to start:
 
And then a few lines later:
 
The announcer has been referring to Kasumi as "Kasumi-chan" throughout the tournament while referring to Musashi as "Musashi-san." For those of you who don't know, "-chan" is used for young people and / or people who are considered to be cute / beautiful while "-san" is a more generic suffix used for pretty much everybody else. Musashi considers herself to be the former and is upset at having the latter used in reference to her so she demands to know why the announcer isn't using the "-chan" suffix with her as well.

This final battle contains a lot of tongue puns in Japanese that get replaced with equally clever tongue puns in the English version. Our heroes find out about Team Rocket's new Pokémon:
 
Here, Kasumi's response to the Pokemon Bestiary entry is "In other words, it takes whatever it wants with its tongue because it's lazy (namakemono-san) and doesn't want to move?" (つまり、動きたくないから何でも舌でとる怠け者さんってこと？). Namakemono (怠け者), or "lazy," sounds a lot like nameru (舐める), or "to lick."
 
The "lazy" remark, by the way, is the reason Musashi looks kind of ticked off in the very next shot. I guess Jessie, on the other hand, is upset at...Misty telling her pokemon to avoid her attacks, or something?

Paint Edit
The Hinamatsuri poster behind the announcer gets its text erased throughout the battle.

O-hinasama (おひなさま)
O-hinasama (おひなさま)
O-Hinasama Queen Contest (おひなさまクイーンコンテスト)

Dialogue Edit
A few lines after the last dialogue edit:
 
Nyarth delivers the pun this time, saying "That Beroringa can't eat Pikachu so it just spit (ポイした) it out" (あいつ、ピカチュウが食べられないからポイしただけニャ). The shita part in poi shita can also mean "tongue" (舌).

After Pikachu's knocked out:
 
Use your Bulbasaur? Um...

Originally, Satoshi simply says "Kasumi! Use Fushigidane next!" (カスミ！次はフシギダネだ！).

Music Edit
Throughout the battle between Musashi's Beroringa and the pokemon Kasumi borrowed from her friends, the song "The Red Hot Battle Field" (灼熱のバトルフィールド) is used as the background music. In the Japanese version, the song screeches to a stop whenever Beroringa defeats its opponent - first Pikachu, then Fushigidane, and finally Rokon - and then picks up where it left off again whenever Kasumi switches pokemon.

The dub does the same thing for the Lickitung vs. Pikachu battle but then decides that enough is enough and uses one of their own songs for the Bulbasaur and Vulpix battles. And the song plays straight through; no abrupt stops like in the Japanese version.

The Japanese version's nice because it gives the battle a unique feel to it while the 4Kids version kind of makes it feel like every other battle in the series. Lame.

Dialogue Edit
After Bulbasaur gets licked (haha, I'm hilarious I should write for 4Kids):
 
Takeshi's response here is that Beroringa is more into this contest for the tasting than it is for the actual battling (しかしあいつ、戦ってるっていうより、味見してるだけみたいだぞ).

After the Rikako Aikawa Vulpix is defeated:
 
Yet if you remember from right before the commercial break:
 
Kasumi says she's going to use Hitodeman in both lines but Misty mixes her pokemon up and says "Starmie" in this first dialogue instead. The Staryu line is the correct one.
 
After the battle between Psyduck and Lickitung begins:
  Eh...is Mr. Cappuccino making a reference to the events of "Lights, Camera, Quack-tion," an episode that's nearly 15 episodes away? What?

Originally Takuya says that it's unexpected for Koduck to not be phased by Beroringa's attack.

Also, I'd like to point out that the Announcer is saying "lick attack" with a lowercase l, not "Lick attack" as in the Pokemon move. Which Lickitung couldn't legally learn the move at the time this episode came out, as nonsensical as it seems. The Japanese version does the same thing too: they never say Lick attack (したでなめる) and instead opt for phrases like shita kougeki (舌攻撃) or namete (舐めて).

Side Note
The princesses' pokemon stop obeying:
 
So Psyduck ignoring Misty isn't surprising given the way it's been portrayed in the past, but what about Jessie's Lickitung? Why does it stop obeying Jessie all of a sudden?

In the Japanese version we hear Beroringa's stomach rumble quite loudly at this part of the episode. There's no music playing in the background so the sound effect is able to come in loud and clear. And remember how, earlier, Takeshi said that Beroringa's more into this contest for the tasting than it is for the actual battling? Well as we can see here, Beroringa loses the will to battle whenever it gets hungry, more or less proving what Takeshi had observed earlier to be true.
  We don't really get any of this in the dub. In addition to rewriting Takeshi's line, the English version makes it really hard to hear Lickitung's stomach rumbling because it's playing its own background music as loud as it can. The sound effect is still there, but it's mostly drowned out by 4Kids' music.
 
So in the Japanese version, the pokemon stops obeying its Trainer because it's hungry and has lost interest in fighting. In the dub, it stops battling...because reasons.

Paint Edit
The final paint edit of the episode!
   
Dialogue Edit
Finally,
 
Originally Musashi says ii kanji. The dub decides to replace her catch phrase with a pun instead.
 
 

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