Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 083: "Tropical Pokemon and the GS Ball"
American Episode 229:  "Pokéball Peril"
Pokemon Dare Da?  Nyorozo (Japan), Lapras (English)
Dr. Ookido's Pokémon Course:  Eleboo
Japanese Air Date:  February 11th, 1999
American Air Date:  January 15th, 2000
Important Characters:  Minami (Charity), Tsunami (Hope), Konami (Faith)

Now that Satoshi and his friends are on Daidai Island they head for Dr. Uchikido's laboratory. When they find the laboratory they're shocked to see that the professor's a beautiful woman..!? She leads our heroes inside her lab where she explains that the Monster Ball that Dr. Ookido had sent them there to get, the gold and silver colored "GS Ball," is a mysterious item that cannot be transferred or broken into. She hands the GS Ball over to Satoshi and asks him to deliver it to the Ookido Laboratory. Later, Dr. Uchikido decides to show the young Trainers around the island. Takeshi shows off his Pokémon Breeder skills by helping feed a wild Butterfree and then, later, shows off his housekeeping skills by cleaning the professor's house. Dr. Uchikido, meanwhile, shows off how much she cares for Pokémon by shielding a Ratta from a startled Rafflesia's Stun Spore attack. It seems like both Takeshi and Dr. Uchikido are getting along really well...? The next day, Satoshi and Kasumi prepare to leave for Masara Town when they hear some shocking news; Takeshi has decided to stay behind as Dr. Uchikido's assistant! His friends respect his decision and bid him farewell. Later, they board a blimp headed for the Kanto Region, unaware that this one is also being run by the Rocket trio! Purin has also snuck aboard and sings, putting everyone to sleep and leaving no one awake to fly the blimp. Will our heroes be OK? To be continued!

---

Thoughts
The show sure is cramming a lot into these early Orange Islands episodes, aren't they? The first one set up the story arc's premise and cleared away space on Satoshi's team for what would eventually be his Kabigon, the second episode actually got everyone from one region to the next, and then this third episode comes along to 1) introduce us to the region's Pokémon professor, 2) give us the GS Ball, and 3) get rid of one of the show's three main characters.

I'll talk more about Takeshi's departure later on in this comparison but I want to use this space to talk about how wild it is that this could have been Takeshi's grand departure from the show. I haven't seen anything that suggests that the show's staff would have seen Takeshi's departure in this episode as a temporary one and so this right here could have maybe been his big exit from the show! "I'm going to stay behind with this woman I just met yesterday." "OK, sure, bye." The end! There wasn't any sense of sadness, we didn't get any tearful montage sequence, or anything! Like, the Rocket trio's Nyarth got a better farewell in that Orange Islands episode where he's worshipped as a god, and he didn't even leave the show then! I'm really glad Takeshi did get to come back and eventually get a proper farewell because if this had been it then...well, it would have been really effed up.

The GS Ball is also introduced here, and as of this episode I'm pretty OK with it. I don't want to get too much into its ultimate fate here (I'll save that when I get to that particular Johto comparison, in the year 2046 or so) but I do want to say that I think this episode does a pretty good job of setting everything up. The mystery behind what could be inside (it just has to be a new Gold & Silver Pokémon, fans back then wondered), the background that explains why it can't be transported like any other Monster Ball, the fact that this item is more or less the catalyst for everything else that happens throughout the rest of this series; all the setup this episode's doing is absolutely fantastic. Now whether or not it actually sticks the landing? That's a topic for another day.

The other thing I remember about this episode, something that's stuck with me for a few decades at this point, is that part toward the end of the first half where Takeshi's like "Pokémon care about the way food tastes you guys." And everyone's like "ah, of course!" as if he just made some incredible observation about life instead of stating the most obvious thing ever. That scene's just always felt weird to me.

The English dub is fairly average, as far as the 4Kids dub goes. Lots of baffling rewrites, of course, but there are also lots of parts that are surprisingly well done. Professor Ivy's assistants (Hope, Charity, and Faith, apparently) have these really dumb cartoon voices that sound just godawful but we'll never have to hear them again after this episode so I guess it's not that big a deal.

Dialogue Edit
Our heroes meet their first Orange Islands Joy:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
タケシ　「素晴らしい！感動です！どちらのジョーイのご親戚の方で？」	Takeshi:  "Wonderful! My heart is so full! Which of the other Joys are you related to?"	Brock:  "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Are you related to any of the other Nurse Joys?"
ジョーイ　「私はセキチクシティのお姉さんの又はとこなの。みんなはこの島初め て？」	Joy:  "I'm the second cousin of the older sister of the Joy in Sekichiku City. Is this your first time to this island?"	Joy:  "I'm the second cousin of the sister-in-law of the Joy in Saffron City. Have you ever been to Saffron City?"
タケシ　「はい！先着いたばかりです」	Takeshi:  "Yes it is! We only just arrived!"	Brock:  "Oh yes, it's beautiful like you are."
カスミ　 「とりあえず用事を先に済まそうね～」	Kasumi:  "Well we'd better finish our errand first."	Misty:  "Looks like Ash isn't the only one who needs to cool down."

Sekichiku City was localized as Fuchsia City in the video games so why go to the trouble of changing it to Saffron City here? It's not like Saffron City would take up any fewer mouthflaps or anything like that.

Also, sidebar: I do kind of wish the Orange Islands Joy had a more radically different design than what we ended up getting here. Their sleeves are a little more wavy and they have hibiscus flower patterns on their dresses now but other than that they don't look too different from their relatives back in Kanto. Best Wishes! would end up being the first time the Junsars and Joys got major re-designs but can you imagine if the staff on these Orange Islands episodes had been a little more ambitious? Maybe we could have seen more variety from Johto onwards!

Oh well.

Ash asks for directions:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
サトシ　「ウチキド博士の研究所はどこですか？」	Satoshi:  "Could you tell us where Dr. Uchikido's laboratory is?"	Ash:  "Could you tell us how to get to Professor Ivy's laboratory?"
ジョーイ　「あぁ、それなら…この前の道をまっすぐ行ったところにある大きいな 白い建物がそうよ」	Joy:  "Oh, that's easy...if you go straight down this road right in front of us it'll be the big white building at the end there."	Joy:  "Oh, it's very easy. You go straight out of the Pokémon Center, make the first left, and it's the big white building at the end of Bayview Road."

Joy's dialogue doesn't last for the entire duration of the pan shot in the Japanese version so I'm guessing 4Kids added all those extra little details there to avoid there being even a single second where someone isn't talking.

Ash and his friends meet Professor Ivy:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ウチキド博士　「よしよし、いい子ね。はいはい、みんなも健康状態に問題ないわ ね」	Dr. Uchikido:  "There there, that's a good baby. Yeah, it looks like all of you have a clean bill of health."	Professor Ivy:  "Very good, Gyarados. I think you're all looking better and stronger every single day!"
ピカチュウ　「ピカ～」	Pikachu:  "Pika~!"	Pikachu:  "Pika~!"
サトシ　「スッゲー。あの凶暴なギャラドスがあんなにおとなしいなんて」	Satoshi:  "Whoa! Who coulda thought a violent Gyarados could be so calm?"!	Ash:  "You see that? I wish I could train my Charizard like she trained her Gyarados."
タケシ　「ん～俺もいい子いい子されたい」	Takeshi:  "Ah, I wish she'd pat me on the head and tell me I'm a good baby!"	Brock:  "Ah~ I wish she'd train me!"

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
タケシ　「見たことのないタイプだな」	Takeshi:  "It's a type of Monster Ball I've never seen before."	Brock:  "Why is it all gold and silver?"
ウチキド博士　「不思議でしょ？私も偶然手に入れたんだけどこんなの初めてな の」	Dr. Uchikido:  "It's strange, isn't it? I came across it by accident and it's the first of its kind I've ever seen."	Professor Ivy:  "We haven't been able to discover the reason for that or very much else about the PokéBall, I'm afraid."

So this is kind of a big change! There's so very little we know about the GS Ball as it is and so it's quite disappointing to see the dub remove the one piece of background we get on the item -- even if it is something as vague and useless as "the professor just came across it one day" -- for no reason whatsoever.

Ash and his friends learn the alphabet:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
サトシ　「あれ？ねぇ、これなんですか？字が書いてあるみたいだけど」	Satoshi:  "Huh? Hey, what's this? It looks like something's written here."	Ash:  "Oh, uh, Professor Ivy, it looks like there's some kind of writing on it."
ウチキド博士　「ちょっと読みづらいけど、アルファベットのGとSって読めるで しょ？」	Dr. Uchikido:  "It's a bit hard to make out but it kind of looks like the letters of the alphabet "G" and "S," right?"	Professor Ivy:  "If you look closely you can see the letters "G-S.""
サトシ　「本当だ」	Satoshi:  "I see it."	Ash:  "I see it."
ウチキド博士　「それで私たちはGSボールって呼んでるだけど」	Dr. Uchikido:  "So we decided to start calling it the GS Ball."	Professor Ivy:  "So, we decided to call it a GS Ball."
サトシ　「GSボール…」	Satoshi:  "GS Ball..."	Ash:  "A GS Ball..."

The Japanese version is written for an audience for whom Roman letters are not the default writing system and so the whole vibe in the original is that "it kind of" "looks like" the letters G and S. That same approach would be a little awkward to bring over as-is for the English dub so Professor Ivy speaks with a little more authority on the markings than Dr. Uchikido does.

Professor Ivy hands over the GS Ball:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ウチキド博士　「ここはやはりポケモンの大家オーキド博士にお任せするべきと 思って、みんなに遥々来てもらったの」	Dr. Uchikido:  "I thought this was definitely something we should leave up to Dr. Ookido, the authority on Pokémon, and so we asked to have you come all the way out here..."	Professor Ivy:  "I wish I could have uncovered the secrets of this PokéBall myself but if anyone can solve its mysteries your friend Professor Oak can."

This is a nice moment in the Japanese version where Dr. Uchikido actually acknowledges that these kids came all the way out to her island to do this little errand for her, something the English dub doesn't really do at all.

The professors geek out at each other:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
オーキド博士　「いやー、この間君が月刊ポケモン研究で発表した地域差における ポケモンの適正に関する中間報告は実に面白く、読ませてもらったぞ」	Dr. Ookido:  "Ah~ Since we last spoke I read your interim report published in "Pokémon Researchers' Monthly" regarding regional differences and Pokémon suitability and I found it really interesting."	Professor Oak:  "Well, I recently read your preliminary report in "Pokémon Researchers' Monthly" on Pokémon adaptive variation as a function of regional distribution, and I found it quite persuasive."
ウチキド博士　「私も博士の書かれたポケモンと人間の共存における諸問題は大変 興味深く拝見させていただき」	Dr. Uchikido:  "And I wasn't able to put down the report you wrote on the problems related to the coexistence of humans and Pokém..."	Professor Ivy:  "Oh, thank you. And I think your article on challenges facing anthro-Pokémon global cohabitation was absolutely fascinating!"
サトシ　「あのさ、長くなりそう？」	Satoshi:  "Uh, do you think this is going to take a while?"	Ash:  "Is this gonna take much longer?"

...this is actually fairly decent? Like, 4Kids usually rewrites the hell out of anything they think sounds too science-y so the fact that they left this little conversation more or less completely intact (with only a few tiny tweaks here and there) is actually kind of amazing.

After Ash hangs up the phone:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
オー キド博士　「無事に着いてよかった」	Dr. Ookido:  "I'm glad they made it there safe and sound."	Professor Oak:  "Hmm, how terribly exciting! Mmm"

Aw, and 4Kids was doing so good! Why randomly change this line here...?

Team Rocket looks at the wreckage of the blimp accident:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
コジロウ　「もう一度飛ばすには勇気が居るかも」	Kojirou:  "We're gonna need courage if we ever want to fly again."	James:  "I guess we should have bought the flight insurance."
ニャース　「あぁニャ―またボスに怒られるニャ―！」	Nyarth:  "Ah~ the Boss is going to get mad at us again Nya~!"	Meowth:  "We'll never get off this island!"
コジロウ　「俺たちどうすれやいいんだ？」	Kojirou:  "What should we do??"	James:  "And the Boss is going to hate us again!"

James has a line about how they should've bought flight insurance which, according to the English dub, it already has...? I mean, I guess in the dub canon James would have no reason to know that, but still.

After Jessie violently bludgeons her teammates with a wrench:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ムサシ　「ジメジメ言ってないで！さっさと修理するわよ」	Musashi:  "Stop your crying! Hurry up and get to work fixing this thing!"	Jessie:  "Quit blubbering and let's get to work and fix this thing!"
コジロウ　「あの…新しいの買った方が速くない？」	Kojirou:  "Um...wouldn't it be faster to just buy a new one?"	James:  "But Jessie, I don't know the first thing about work."
ムサシ　「こんなお金がどこにあるの？」	Musashi:  "And where do you expect to get the money for that?!"	Jessie:  "Are you saying you won't work?"
コジロウと ニャース　「ないないないないないない」	Kojirou and Nyarth:  "We don't have it, we don't have it."	James and Meowth:  "No no no I was just..."

4Kids:  The guy who constantly digs holes and builds giant robots just doesn't do manual labor, OK?

Side Note
I wanted to bring up this line from Jessie:


"Have you forgotten that the twerp and his friends are supposed to make a round trip?" is a perfectly fine translation of the original Japanese dialogue (よいことっ、ジャリボーイたちは往復のチケットだっ たのよ), so no worries there. But here's the thing: the only other time it's ever mentioned that Ash and his friends have round-trip tickets is in the English dub! Let me remind you of this rewrite from "A Scare in the Air."

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
空港のスタッフ　「あの飛行船に乗るんですか？」	Airport Staff:  "Are you planning on taking that airship?"	Airship Staff:  "You're not here for a blimp ride, are you?"
サトシ　「福引で当たってダイダイ島まで行くんです。いいでしょう？」	Satoshi:  "I won a lottery and so we'll be going all the way to Daidai Island. Isn't that nice?"	Ash:  "Yes sir. We won round-trip tickets to Valencia Island...on the blimp."

So while Jessie's line in this episode is consistent with what was said in the previous episode -- our heroes have round-trip tickets from Kanto to the Orange Islands -- Musashi's line is not. This is the first time we're hearing about a round-trip ticket in the original.

This is super weird, right? Did 4Kids pick up on this and decide to add the "round-trip tickets" line to the previous episode to help cover for this little inconsistency? Because if they did, then bravo, but also that's suspiciously out-of-character for a company that thought Ash's Charmander was going to be a one-off character. So I'm not sure how to explain this.

Dialogue Edit
The professor shows our heroes around her laboratory:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
タケシ　「ここ全部が庭なんですか？」	Takeshi:  "Is all of this your garden?"	Brock:  "So this is all part of your laboratory?"
ウチキド博士　「ええ。ポケモンの生態を正しく見るにはこれくらいの敷地がない とね」	Dr. Uchikido:  "Mm-hmm. We need a site this big to properly observe the way the Pokémon live."	Professor Ivy:  "Yes, we need all this space for all the Pokémon. We breed and study so many of them."

The "breed" part of "We breed and study so many of them" is a rewrite of 4Kids.

Professor Ivy explains Alola Orange Islands regional Forms:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
サトシ　「わあ～、他のポケモンたちも少しずつ普通のと違ってる！」	Satoshi:  "Wow, the other Pokémon are all a little different from the way they normally are."	Ash:  "Hey look, all these Pokémon look a little bit different than they usually do."
カスミ　「不思議ね～」	Kasumi:  "It's strange, isn't it?"	Misty:  "Yeah, you're right."
タケシ　「この地方、特有のものなんですか？」	Takeshi:  "Is this something unique to this region?"	Brock:  "Why is that, professor?"
ウチキド博士　「それが、私の研究のテーマでもあるの」	Dr. Uchikido:  "That's something I'm looking into as a research theme."	Professor Ivy:  "If you stop and think about it, it's not surprising, really."
タケシ　「テーマ？」	Takeshi:  "Research theme?"	Brock:  "It isn't?"
ウチキド博士　「ここは、君たちの町から遠く離れた南の島。気候、フード、環境 によってポケモンも微妙に違ってくるの。その環境によるポケモ ンの違いを実際に育ててデータ化してるのよ」	Dr. Uchikido:  "We're on an island far south from the town you came from. The climate, the food, the environment...they all contribute to the tiny differences you see among the Pokémon. We're actually raising the Pokémon ourselves and then collecting data on the differences the environment creates."	Professor Ivy:  "This island's tropical climate is very different from the one where you live. Naturally the different environment creates differences in the Pokémon that we've raised here. I'm now collecting data and studying how environment causes variation in all our Pokémon."
タケシ　「じゃ、ここのポケモンは博士がみんな育ててるんですか？」	Takeshi:  "So that means you're looking after all the Pokémon here?"	Brock:  "You don't mean you bred and raised all the Pokémon on this island, do you?"
ウチキド博士　「ええ。みんなとてもカワイイ、私の子どもたちよ。」	Dr. Uchikido:  "Mmm-hmm. I think of them all as my cute little children."	Professor Ivy:  "Yes. I've dedicated myself to them and I couldn't be happier."

There are lots of little differences here; a mention of the island's location in reference to the Kanto Region is omitted from the dub, Dr. Uchikido clearly states her research theme while Professor Ivy is more vague, 4Kids adds the whole "breeding" thing to her backstory again (I guess to give her a stronger connection to the kid she's about to make her indentured servant?), etc. Alone these things wouldn't be much but put them all together and you have a back and forth that's quite different.

Brock teaches a bunch of humans with medical school degrees that food should taste good:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
コナミ　 「何をしてるの？」	Konami:  "What are you doing?"	Faith:  "What are you doing?"
タケシ　「数字の上で栄養分の配合されただけの食事じゃ、ポケモンだって納得し ません」	Takeshi:  "Food that's just thrown together with only nutrition in mind isn't going to be accepted by the Pokémon."	Brock:  "I found out that when a Pokémon decides to eat something the most important thing isn't how nutritious the food is."
ミナミ　「は？」	Minami:  "Huh?"	Charity:  "Huh?"
タケシ　「味ですよ味！人間だってうまい、まずいがあるでしょう？」	Takeshi:  "It's taste, the way the food tastes! We humans have ideas of what's delicious and what's not, right?"	Brock:  "They care about the taste. Pokémon like food that tastes good to them."
ウチキド博士　「それはそうだけど。でも君、ポケモンの好みの味ってわかる の？」	Dr. Uchikido:  "I get what you're saying, Takeshi. But how do you know what flavors Pokémon like?"	Professor Ivy:  "Well, flavor is a factor. But how can you determine what flavors each Pokémon likes?"
タケシ　「まっ、見ててください～」	Takeshi:  "Just take a look and see what happens."	Brock:  "Only from experience!"

The comparison to humans that Takeshi brings up is a neat comparison between humans and Pokémon that gets completely removed from the English dub for some reason.

I'm also not a huge fan of Brock's final "only from experience!" line there because it kind of comes across to me as Brock saying he has more experience than these women do...? Or is that just me?

Eyecatch
This week's eyecatch features Water-Type Pokémon:

I'm always one to rag on 4Kids for picking random Pokémon for their eyecatches but this time around I have to give it to them. I mean, when did a Nyorozo even appear in this episode? I had to look back again to find it.


This is basically it!

Why didn't the Japanese version just use, oh I dunno, "Orange Islands Butterfree" or "Orange Islands Ratta" or literally any of the other special Pokémon who appear in this episode and this episode only? Why pick the most random Pokémon you could choose?

Lapras, on the other hand, is a Pokémon that will be featured prominently in the following week's episode so I understand 100% why 4Kids made the choice that they did.

Dialogue Edit
Everyone pigs out on Brock's cooking:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
サトシ　「みんなスゲー食べっぷり」	Satoshi:  "They sure can eat, huh?"	Ash:  "The Pokémon eat quieter than they do."
タケシ　「ん～よきかな、よきかな」	Takeshi:  "Mmm...this is nice."	Brock:  "Mmm, just like... my family."

As you can see, the comparison to Takeshi's own family is dub-only.

Ash and Misty get ready to leave:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
サトシ　「それじゃ、ウチキド博士」	Satoshi:  "Well, off we go, Dr. Uchikido."	Ash:  "Well, we gotta go Professor."
カスミ　「今度はみず系ポケモン見に来ますね」	Kasumi:  "Next time we'll come back to see all the water Pokémon."	Misty:  "We have to get the GS Ball to Professor Oak."
ウチキド博士　 「ええ、楽しみに待ってるわ」	Dr. Uchikido:  "OK, we'll be looking forward to that."	Professor Ivy:  "Well, come and visit any time!"

So...I actually think Misty's line makes more sense here? I mean, I like the fact that she hasn't lost sight of what they came there to do in the first place, and it's perfectly in-character for her to be the one to remind everyone of this.

Plus, the Japanese version makes it seem like Kasumi only has a one track mind a bit too much for my taste, and it has her making a promise to come back that -- spoiler alert -- she absolutely breaks.

(It feels so weird being this positive about the 4Kids dub LOL)

What's Brock doing?

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ウチキド博士　「タケシくん、お手伝いに残ってくれる言うのよ」	Dr. Uchikido:  "You see, Takeshi said he's going to stay here to help us out."	Professor Ivy:  "It seems...it seems Brock has decided to stay with us."

Dr. Uchikido is much more sure of what she's saying than Professor Ivy is; there's none of this "it seems" business in the original.

The assistants talk about Brock:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミナミ　「よかった。」	Minami:  "He's great."	Charity:  "He's great."
ツ ナミ　「やっぱり男手がると違いますね先生」	Tsunami:  "It really is different having a man around to help us, right professor?"	Hope:  "It's like we were adrift at sea until Brock came along."
ウチキド博士　「そうね」	Dr. Uchikido:  "That's right."	Professor Ivy:  "That's true."
サトシ　「おい、タケシ！どいうことだよ！？」	Satoshi:  "Hey, Takeshi! What's going on!?"	Ash:  "Hey Brock! Are you really staying here?"
タケシ　「南風に聞いてくれ」	Takeshi:  "You'll have to ask the southern wind."	Brock:  "This ship needs a captain."

Takeshi's line was probably changed to piggy-back off Hope's line, which itself was probably changed to avoid what could be conceived as sexist overtones.

The "you'll have to ask the southern wind" is also another example of the Japanese version telling us that the Orange Islands are in the South, something the English dub doesn't want to make as obvious for some weird reason.

Brock's farewell:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
タケシ　「ここに居るとポケモンの新しい面をいっぱい見られそうだしな。トレー ナーとしても、ブリーダーとしても、興味をそそられるんだよ」	Takeshi:  "If I stay here I think I'll be able to see all these different sides to Pokémon. It'll be fascinating for me as both a Trainer and as a Breeder."	Brock:  "If I stay here I'll get to learn more and more about Pokémon everyday. And I think these guys may need me a lot more than you guys do."
サトシ　「そうか…じゃあな、タケシ」	Satoshi:  "I see...well then, see you later, Takeshi."	Ash:  "Well then, I guess this is goodbye."
タケシ　「がんばれよ、サトシ」	Takeshi:  "Good luck out there, Satoshi."	Brock:  "Friends to the end, right, Ash?"
サトシ　「オッ」	Satoshi:  "Yeah."	Ash:  "Right."
(笑 い声)	(the girls laugh to each other)	(the girls smile silently at each other)
ピカチュウ　「ピカチュウ！ピカピカ」	Pikachu:  "Pikachu! Pika Pika!"	Pikachu:  "Pikachu! Pika Pika!"
カスミ　「さよ～なら～」	Kasumi:  "Goodbye!"	Misty:  "Bye! Brock!"
サトシ　「元気でな～っ」	Satoshi:  "Take care!"	Ash:  (laughs)
タケシ　「さらば友よっ！オレは南国の研究ライフに生きるっ‼」	Takeshi:  "Farewell my friends! I'll be here living a tropical research life!"	Brock:  "Thank you guys! And just make sure you don't forget me, will ya?"

There are a lot of tiny differences here, but the main reason I bring up this exchange is because this last line of Takeshi's here is one of the more famous lines among Japanese fans. It's pretty iconic over here, actually!

Side Note
Most people have heard some telephone game version of why Takeshi got the boot during the Orange Islands arc. I've noticed there are some misconceptions out there ("they were afraid Americans would see him as a racist stereotype" being chief among them) so I've decided that, instead of going through the various rumors and debunking them, one by one, I thought it'd be better to start off with a translation of what former head writer Mr. Takeshi Shudo had to say about the subject on his personal blog back in 2009:

And then another issue came up. We got word that the show's upper management wanted to remove Takeshi as a regular member of the cast. The reason they gave was because of the shape of Takeshi's eyes. Almond-shaped eyes make people aware that he's an Asian, and an anime where Asians appear can't be successful in the West. So make it so he doesn't appear, they said. But I wouldn't say this was racism or anything like that. I just think the idea that Westerners wouldn't accept Asian-looking characters to be old-fashioned. I don't know who ordered it but I remember thinking the whole thing was stupid. Later, upper management noticed that Takeshi was surprisingly popular in the West and so they allowed him to be brought back. さらに困ったことが起こった。 レギュラーメンバーのタケシが、上層部の意向で 消されてしまったのである。 理由は、タケシの目が細いということである。 細目は東洋人を意識させる。 東洋人の出るアニメは、欧米では受けない。だか ら登場させるな、である。 人種差別とはいわない。しかし、僕は、東洋人が 欧米で受けないという感覚が古いと思った。 だれが言い出したか知らないが、馬鹿じゃないか と思った。 その後、タケシが意外に欧米人に人気があること に気がついた上層部は、タケシを復活させた。

"Oh what, so Japan just assumed Americans are all racist, is that it?" And I meeeeeaaaannn............

Look. It's a hard pill to swallow, I know, but maybe they sorta-kinda had a point...? Whitewashing in Western media is still very much a thing. And in the late 1990s you could probably count on one hand the number of American TV shows and movies that featured Asians in anything even close to resembling a leading role. Asians weren't getting cast as leading actors; they were getting cast as nerdy sidekicks, or wise martial artists who impart wisdom to the film's (white) main characters, or femme fatales. Things are getting better, little by little, but we've still got a ways to go.

Making things worse is the fact that even when there is an artform released in the West that heavily features Asians -- say, Japanese animation -- a not insignificant number of viewers perform any number of mental gymnastics to explain away any of the casts' non-whiteness. I've seen the conversation play out a million times over the years. If you ever get into it with these people (not something I recommend, by the way) their argument always, without fail, boils down to the fact that Japanese animators just don't draw Asian people the same way Western animators do. To them, Sailor Moon is a blonde white girl. To them, Goku being played by a white Canadian in that awful live action movie was no big deal because it's not like the characters in Dragon Ball even look Asian to begin with. To them, Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi works because she's just a cyborg, right? And to them, Ash Ketchum from Pokémon certainly looks like a white boy.

But Brock, though. Brock actually does look very similar to the way Western animators draw Japanese people. And, well, it seems that Japan saw that as a potential issue.

Takeshi in Episode 260, "Yadoking! The King's Symbol!"

So Japan has this idea that Americans don't want "Japanese-looking" characters showing up in every single episode. What's their solution?

It was actually pretty terrible, if you ask me. They remove Takeshi from the show now, a good year and a half after the series has already started, in a move that is very much a case of too little, too late. Audiences will still have over 80 episodes with the smaller eyed kid to wade through before they'd even get to meet his more "Western-friendly" replacement. So what was the plan, exactly? Was 4Kids supposed to just skip all of Kanto and jump straight into the Orange Islands? Were kids in the U.S. expected to just absolutely hate one of the show's main characters for its first year and a half or so? Did they think TV networks in the West were going to be like "Oh yeah, the show's ratings were absolute shit for those first 81 episodes but things really turned around once we got rid of that one Asian looking kid"? Spend even two seconds thinking about it and the whole thing falls apart fairly quickly.

Thankfully, the old Japanese men Mr. Shudo talks about were dead wrong about how Westerners would react to Takeshi. They realized they screwed up and so, in an episode that would have gone into production while Kids' WB! was still in the middle of debuting their first 52-episode season -- well before Western audiences would ever get to meet "Tracey Sketchit," in other words -- Takeshi was brought back to the show. And the rest is history.

Dialogue Edit
A Brock-less Ash and Misty walk back to the airport:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
カスミ　「やっぱ南の島よね～。タケシとここでバイバイするとは思わなかった」	Kasumi:  "Just what I expected from a tropical island. But I didn't think we'd be saying bye-bye to Takeshi here."	Misty:  "It's gonna be really weird not having Brock around."
サトシ　「そうだな。あいつ気合入ってたもんな。」	Satoshi:  "Me neither. He really seems to take a liking to it here."	Ash:  "Yeah, I know. I wish he was coming back with us."
		Misty:  "Now that you mention it, how are we gonna get back?"
サトシ　「さて、俺たちはあとは帰るだけ」	Satoshi:  "Well anyway, all that's left for us now is to go back home."	Ash:  "No problem. I have our blimp tickets right here!"
カスミ　「飛行船大丈夫かしらね」	Kasumi:  "I wonder if that blimp is going to be OK."	Misty:  "But we can't go back to that blimp."
サトシ　「ん～ちゃんと飛んでくれるといいけどな」	Satoshi:  "Hmm...it'd be great if it could fly."	Ash:  "Yeah...the food was bad and they didn't show a movie."

4Kids loves, loves, loves to rearrange dialogue whenever the characters are too far away in the background to be able to see the movement of their mouths properly.

Ash and Misty come across Team Rocket's new blimp:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ム サシ　「ようこそ！」	Musashi:  "Welcome!"	Jessie:  "Hello."
コ ジロウ　「お待ちしてました」	Kojirou:  "Sorry to keep you waiting!"	James:  "Checking any luggage?"
ム サシ　「当社最新型飛行船 "哀愁のオニスズメ" 号の処女航海を招待で～す！」	Musashi:  "We invite you on the maiden voyage of our company's latest model, the "Sorrowful Onisuzume.""	Jessie:  "This is Flight 001, the maiden voyage of the most incredible dirigible to ever sail the seven skies!"

The blimp doesn't get a name in the English version, unfortunately.

I'm going to skip all the dialogue with the Rocket trio teasing Satoshi and Kasumi being a couple because the 4Kids dub is surprisingly accurate with their dialogue choices there. They could have rewritten those scenes, or punched some parts up, or shoehorn in an extra joke or two, or any of the other tricks they apply over and over again and yet this time they decided to just...translate the dialogue accurately. If only the rest of the show was dubbed that well!

The final dialogue edit of the episode appears shortly after the Rocket trio reminds our heroes that electricity + gas = KABOOM:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ニャース　「命が惜しけりゃピカチュウを渡すニャ」	Nyarth:  "If you value your life you'll hand over Pikachu."	Meowth:  "All right, Romeo. Time ot hand over that Pikachu!"
ムサシ　「さあ、どうする？」	Musashi:  "Well, what are you going to do?"	Jessie:  "Come on!"
コジロウ　「さあ？」	Kojirou:  "Well?"	James:  "Let's go!"
ムサシとコジロウ　「さあ？さあ？さあ？さあ？さあ？」	Musashi and Kojirou:  "Well? Well? Well? Well? Well?"	Jessie and James:  "Go go go go!"

Nyarth's death threat here gets written out of the dub.

Previous Episode

Next Episode

This page was last updated on November 30th, 2020