| Japanese Episode 001 |
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 Episode Stats Japanese Episode 001: "Drifting? The Island of Adventure!" American Episode 101: "And so it begins..." Japanese Air Date: March 7th, 1999 American Air Date: August 14th, 1999 Important Characters: Yagami Taichi (Taichi "TAI" Kamiya), Takeno'uchi Sora (Sora Takenouchi), Ishida Yamato (Yamato "MATT" Ishida), Izumi Koushirou (Koushiro "IZZY" Izumi), Tachikawa Mimi (Mimi Tachikawa), Taka'ishi Takeru (Takeru "T.K." Takaishi), Kido Jou (Joe Kido), Koromon (Koromon), Mochimon (Motimon), Kuwagamon (Kuwagamon), Pyocomon (Yokomon), Tokomon (Tokomon), Tsunomon (Tsunomon), Pukamon (Bukamon), Tanemon (Tanemon), Agumon (Agumon), Piyomon (Biyomon), Tentomon (Tentomon), Gabumon (Gabumon), Patamon (Patamon), Gomamon (Gomamon), Palmon (Palmon) Important Places: File Island (DigiWorld) All over the world, a number of weather anomalies have been appearing. In Japan, a group of seven children - Taichi, Sora, Yamato, Koushirou, Mimi, Takeru, and Jou - witness one such anomaly while at summer camp when an aurora appears in the sky. Suddenly, seven small devices fall from sky and land in front of the children. Soon after, the sky opens up and sends the children to another world! When Taichi wakes up, he is greeted by a small creature named Koromon. Before long, Taichi reunites with the rest of the kids from the summer camp and discover that they, too, are being followed by strange creatures. Koromon, Mochimon, Pyocomon, Tokomon, Tsunomon, Pukamon, and Tanemon introduce themselves as "Digimon" and tell the children that they are on File Island. Suddenly, a giant stag beetle Digimon named Kuwagamon appears and attacks! The Digimon is able to chase everyone to the edge of a cliff, making escape impossible. The children's Digimon attempt to fight, but they prove to be no match for their opponent. Suddenly, the devices that had fallen from the sky begin to glow and the Digimon start to evolve! The newly evolved Digimon - Agumon, Piyomon, Tentomon, Gabumon, Patamon, Gomamon, and Palmon - are all bigger and stronger than their unevolved counterparts and are able to fend off Kuwagamon. Just as victory seems within the children's grasp, Kuwagamon breaks the cliff and causes it to fall toward the river below. Can the children and their new friends survive? To be continued! Thoughts The first episode...where do I begin? I guess I'll start off by saying the first word that comes to my mind whenever I think of this episode; crowded. I like this episode alright, but I feel like it absolutely bombards the viewer with way too many characters. This episode is a nonstop onslaught of new names and we, as viewers, feel pressured to remember the overwhelming majority of them. By the end of this first half hour, we are introduced to a whopping twenty-two characters, fourteen of which are actually major characters. That's more than most other series throw at you in the first five episodes, much less one. On the other hand, that could end up being a good thing. We, as viewers, are thrown into the middle of all this just like the main characters are, and we therefore become just as interested as they are in trying to solve the many mysteries of this strange new world in which the children suddenly find themselves. Unlike other shows where we're spoonfed the answers and then forced to watch the main characters figure things out at a snail's pace, this series seems to challenge you to accept things just like the kids have to do. The dub is a really interesting beast. At a quick glance, the fact that it retains so many Japanese names and isn't afraid of showing Japanese text makes it seem like it's a faithful dub. The problem is that once you actually sit down and watch the thing, the problems that the English version will be known for show up, one after the other. The script only gets across the gist of what's happening and contains so many rewrites that I'd be posting entire transcripts to show you just how different things are. The dub is also fond of adding jokes in inappropriate moments and having the characters whine over the most trivial of things. There's some weird naming stuff going on here, too. The dub is known for "keeping" the Japanese names, but I, for one, don't really count that because the people who get nicknames - Taichi, Yamato, Koushirou, and Takeru - never actually get called by their Japanese names in this dub. Taichi also gets his last name changed, from Yagami to Kamiya, for no real reason at all. On the Digimon side of things, Pyocomon is called Yokomon, Pukamon is called Bukamon, and Piyomon is called Biyomon. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense to me, either. In the Japanese version, the opening theme is Butter-Fly and the ending theme is I wish. Music Edit The Japanese music score, by Arisawa Takanori, was completely replaced. Given that it's a dub from the early 2000s, that's not all that unusual, even if it is really annoying and pointless. So if the Japanese music was replaced, that means that the dub got some brand new music, right? Unfortunately not. Saban was apparently too cheap to make up any original music for this series - other than the theme song and an instrumental version of said theme song - so they just yanked the music from their reversioning of Masked Rider and called it a day. Pretty much all of the music you hear in the Digimon dub was actually written for Masked Rider. I cannot tell you how aggravated this makes me. It's bad enough Saban went and replaced the music, but to do it in such a cheap an half-assed way? It's lazy, it's unprofessional, and it makes Saban look like they just don't give a damn. I apologize for starting this comparison off on such a negative note, but this is really something that needs to have attention drawn to it. Dialogue Edit There are like a million of these in this show, so in the interest of not posting gigantic walls of text, I'll try to limit these to the big ones. The first big one that comes to mind is the opening narration. Originally, this show has a narrator, but in the dub, the DigiDestined provide the narration for everything. In this episode, Tai gets the voice over duty. During the character introductions, the narrator would simply state each child's name. In the dub, Tai describes each of these people while making some rather douchey comments. Paint Edit Each of the children's introductory screens get the Japanese text replaced with English text for the dub.   The dub neglects to include the text at the bottom which states what school they go to (Odaiba Elementary School) and what grade they're in. Click here to view more pictures from the scene. Cut -- 8 seconds The episode's title screen is removed from the dub. Originally, it shows up after Tai's "So there we all were at camp, and suddenly this huge blizzard came out of nowhere" line.  Instead, the English version has the episode's title (lack of appropriate capitalization and all) placed on top of the first scene of the episode. Dialogue Edit The dub has this weird tendency to gloss over any references made in the original to the fact that the children are in Japan. Despite the fact that, y'know, every one of them have Japanese names. Sora: "Maybe an aurora?"
Izzy: "You mean aurora borealis, the northern lights? That's impossible! You see that in Alaska. We're way too far south." Sora: "Tell that to the snow." Originally, Koushirou says that it's impossible for there to be an aurora up there because they're in Japan. Added Footage - 6 seconds After the dub's first commercial break, Saban repeats the footage that was shown before the show went to break. It's the part where Mimi delivers the ridiculous "Do you think we need sunscreen?" line. Dialogue Edit Um...no. Koromon: "My name's
Koromon...and we're...partners!"
Tai: "Koromon? That means...talking head?" Koromon: "Hmm. It means brave little warrior, and don't forget it, Tai!" First of all...what's with the the awkward delivery of that first line? Isn't it part of the script writer's job to phrase sentences in a way that doesn't result in awkward pauses in the middle of sentences like that? Secondly, I'm aware that Tai's line is supposed to be a "joke" and that Koromon's follow-up is most likely supposed to be one, too. But I wanted to point this out anyway because Koromon does not, actually, mean any of the things the dub tells you. The koro part comes from korokoro (ころころ), which is the onomatopoeia of a small, round thing rolling. The mon part, as I'm sure you're aware, is from the word monster. Paint Edit The Digimon introduction pages get a little digital paint applied to it in order to move the romanized version of the Digimon's name to the center of the screen.   Interestingly, the dub doesn't bother to translate the Japanese text on the side there. Click here to view more pictures from the scene, as well as translations of the Japanese text. Added Footage - 2 seconds An establishing shot of the tree that Taichi and Koushirou hide in is repeated after the dub's second commercial break. Cut - 3 seconds / Added Footage - 3 seconds "I usually only get this excited when they say the title of a movie in the movie." Digimon: "Digimon: Digital
Monsters!"
Tai: "Digital Monsters?" Digimon: "Yes! Digimon!" In the Japanese version, that third line there was a still shot of the Digimon while we hear them all laugh. The dub removes that shot and repeats the shot of them talking. Cut--16 seconds The eyecatches - that is, the little pieces of animation that play as the show is going to commercial break and again as the show comes back - are removed from the dub.
These are removed from every episode, so I won't bother mentioning them again. Dialogue Edit After the commercial break in the original, the Digimon each reintroduce themselves. The dub changes this to having each Digimon talk about how cute and loyal they are. Later, when the Chosen Children introduce themselves, they tell their Digimon that they're students at Odaiba Elementary School and what grade they're in. They don't give this information in the English version, instead opting to give one liners that I guess are meant to be charming but are actually just really really stupid. I mean, "self-proclaimed cool one?" "Do you have Internet access?" "I'm not as small as I look?" The hell? Paint Edit Tanemon's data page gets edited, just like all the others.   I also wanted to point out that dub's pronunciation of "Tanemon" is all sorts of awful. It's Tah-nay-mohn, not Tanny-mon. Paint Edit The Digimon whose names got changed for the dub got some digital paint added to their evolution screens.   Click here to view more pictures from the scene. Saban didn't bother to alter the Japanese text, so the katakana there still says Pyocomon even though the English letters now say Yokomon. Dialogue Edit The majority of the Digimon's attack names got changed for the dub: Patamon's "Air Shot" becomes "Boom Bubble."
Tentomon's "Petit Fire" becomes "Super Shocker." Agumon's "Baby Flame" becomes "Pepper Breath." Gabumon's "Petit Fire" becomes "Blue Blaster." Piyomon's "Magical Fire" becomes "Spiral Twister." Palmon's "Poison Ivy" is the only attack to not get a name change. In the Japanese version, all the names above are originally said aloud in English. But hey, if Saban is going to change a bunch of Japanese names to different Japanese names, why not come around full circle and change English names to different English names? Added Footage - 4 seconds / Cut Footage - 2 seconds The end of the episode had some weird scene rearranging going on. In the Japanese version, Kuwagamon's pinsir thing crashes down on the cliff. We then see a shot of the kids looking on in shock as the ground beneath them starts to give way. Next, we see a bird's eye view shot showing the cliff that everyone's standing on start to break apart. We see the same shot of the kids that we saw earlier, only this time they begin to fall off-camera. There's a shot of the cliff falling completely off, and the episode ends with a shot of the kids falling together with the cliff.  The dub removes that first shot of the kids looking on - which lasts about two seconds originally - and replaces it with shots of Izzy, Matt, and Joe. Those added shots, from earlier in the episode, make up about four seconds of footage. After those reaction shots are done, the episode continues as it does in the Japanese version. It seems like such a weird and random edit to end the episode on. But then again, this dub is pretty weird and random.
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