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| Episode Comparisons | Orange Islands
Episode Stats:
Japanese Episode 102: "The Monster of the Underpass!?"
American Episode 246: "The Mystery Menace"
Pokémon Dare Da? Fushigidane (Japan), Zapdos (English)
Dr. Ookido's Pokémon Course: Pocket Monsters The Movie "Pikachu's Exploration Party" Special Feature
Japanese Air Date: June 24th, 1999
American Air Date: May 6th, 2000
Important Characters: Mayor (Mayor)
Important Places: Big City (Trovitopolis)
Thoughts
In the comparison for "The Coil of the Great Plains!" I brought up how the episode had a lot of the Rocket trio in it despite them not being the focus of the story, and wondered if they only got as much screentime as they did because there just wasn't enough of a plot to fill out the show's 22 minute runtime otherwise. This week's episode, "The Monster of the Underpass!?," doesn't seem to have that same problem. It has not one, but two storylines going on at the same time, and as a result we end up barely getting to see the Rocket trio at all.
The "A story" of the episode, the "monster of the underpass" part, starts off as a fairly cool idea. It's like a kid-friendly horror movie, in a way, and while I do like what the episode sets out to do it kind of loses steam for me about halfway through. For starters, we're still only at Generation 1 at this point in the show and so it's not like there's any real mystery as far as the monster's identity goes. The second we see that vine come out of the water it's like OK, there are literally only like six Pokémon this could possibly be, y'know? But also, I feel like the "mystery" wrapped up just as soon as it was starting to get good. I personally would have loved it if we ditched the mayor subplot altogether and just focused more on the kids walking around the sewer, getting dragged into the water one by one until it's just Satoshi left all by himself. But maybe that'd be too dark for a kids' show like this?
The "B story" of the episode is the story about a nameless mayor running for re-election. It's...fine, I guess, but I also feel like we never get to learn enough about the mayor or how bad he is to really feel much of anything when he's finally defeated at the end of the episode. The image of him abandoning his Fushigidane by putting it in a cardboard box and sending it down a river is pretty shocking (though maybe that's just because I'm remembering a similar, though much darker, scene from Revolutionary Girl Utena) but other than that the mayor's biggest sin seems to be that he's an inept narcissist...? I dunno, I feel like we needed to see more of just how truly bad he was for the people of Big City for us to side with its citizens gleefully standing by as their elected leader gets shot into the stratosphere by a group of random out-of-towners.
The other thing about this episode that stands out to me is that it's the first (and apparently only) time Satoshi has ever had his Betobeton on his team outside a Pokémon League match! Isn't that wild? A random filler episode most of us probably forgot about years ago is literally the only time we ever see this particular Pokémon not on Dr. Ookido's ranch or a Pokémon League battlefield! It seems unreal, but at the same time when we see just how little the show does with the Pokémon here it's obvious the writers just don't know what to do with the character. Betobeton just kind of slinks around the sewer and then points at the water...and that's about it! The idea of Satoshi having reserves he can call on whenever the situation calls for it is a fantastic one but unfortunately this show doesn't always use that potential to its full advantage.
I don't have much to say about 4Kids' treatment of this episode (it's fairly alright, by 4Kids' standards at least) but the original version of this episode does make it obvious how we're now at the point where the show Pocket Monsters has officially gone from being a Japanese cartoon for Japanese kids to whatever shapeless, culture-less blob of a show it's supposed to be now. It's been that way ever since Kenji made his way into the show, really, but this episode right here really drives home just how Westernized the whole thing's become. The word BANG appearing in English at the start of the episode, the citizens of Big City eating pizza and hot dogs instead of anything that could be perceived as "foreign," the S.W.A.T. team using "putty guns,", the mayor taking a bath in a towel, for some reason...despite what your instincts might tell you literally none of what I just listed out here are 4Kids edits. This is just what the show has become now, and it sucks to see how much its staff is having to walk on eggshells when it comes to anything that could be considered even remotely "objectionable" for the sake of internationalization.
Dialogue Edit
Right before the episode's title screen:
In the Japanese version the narrator sums up what's been happening up until now while the English dub decides to tease the events that are coming up instead.
The Rocket trio hatch a scheme:
I regret (???) to inform you that in the original, Kojirou does not talk about his "new high-tech hole" while doing the best Snagglepuss impersonation his voice actor can muster . That's aaaaaaaaall 4Kids' doing.
After the title screen the Rocket trio plots a pitfall trap:
The English version of the Rocket trio's motto starts off differently than it does in Japanese and so the trigger words (and therefore the sentences that contain them) all have to get rewritten.
There isn't really much in the way of rewrites for a while after this. There's one point in the sewer scene where Satoshi's about to order his Pikachu to use its "electricity" (ピカチュウ、電撃だ！) that gets changed to Ash about to order it to "Thundershock it!" but that's really about it for the next few minutes of the episode.
So let's move on to talking about this episode's character-of-the-day.
Side Note
I have a few things to say about the Mayor of Trovitopolis.
For starters, his name in both the Japanese and English versions is basically just "mayor." In Japanese he's only ever referred to as shichou (市長), and in English it's either "mayor" or "Mr. Mayor." His logo vaguely resembles the letter "M," like the word "mayor," and while that's probably what they were going for the Japanese version never really confirms this one way or the other. The English dub does outright state this ("That bell! That's my initial!"), for what it's worth.
The other thing I want to talk about is his voice because boy oh boy is his English voice actor horribly miscast. The Mayor of Trovitopolis is voiced by Gary Oak's voice actor, a fact I didn't even have to bother to look up because he's essentially using the exact same voice for this mayor character that he uses for Professor Oak's grade school aged grandson. And because of this the mayor ends up sounding way too young and snooty. It honestly feels like the actor just looked at the script, saw the character described as "whiny spoiled man child," and then based his entire performance off that single sentence summary.
In the Japanese version the mayor's played by voice actor-turned-voice director Toshihiko Nakajima, and he actually sounds like what you'd expect the elected official of a major city in a metropolis to sound like. The mayor doesn't need a "slimy bad guy voice" to make us understand he's not a great guy; his actions do that for him! Mr. Nakajima won't end up doing a lot of voice acting for Pocket Monsters over the years (he plays the grandfather of the Gym Leader Mikan in a late Johto episode but that's really about it) and so that frees him up to use what I assume is his normal speaking voice instead of a put-on cartoon voice like the one we hear in the English dub. The difference between the two really is night and day.
Dialogue Edit
The next rewrite I'll discuss is the part in the jail when Officer Jenny explains to the mayor why she's not illegally holding a group of children in jail:
Junsar's first line getting completely rewritten is the point of interest here. The rest of this dialogue is close-ish, but the English dub adds a few more details ("till next week" instead of "a while longer," for example) that aren't there in the original.
The mayor tells our heroes not to say a word:
I don't really know why 4Kids changed Kenji's child-like wonder at there maybe being a new Pokémon down in the sewers (the franchise was right in the middle of its Gold & Silver pre-release hype, after all!) to him asking existential questions about why it's not always OK to tell the truth, but they did!
A line Kenji has later in the episode about the creature maybe being a new species of Pokémon gets left as-is for the dub so this change is for this part and this part only.
Officer Jenny explains what her department's been doing to track the creature:
So "500 miles of sewers" is about what they have in several cities in the Virginia area or DuPage Country, Illinois or Los Angeles county, so I guess 4Kids is trying to tell us that Trovitopolis is a really, really huge place!
As you can see, the "500 miles of sewers" / "5,000 marbles" numbers Officer Jenny rattles off aren't found anywhere in the original dialogue.
The mayor continues:
Kasumi's sarcastically stated realization that politicians only care about themselves gets replaced with Misty gingerly wondering why people are mad at a Pokémon for being hungry.
The mayor fights with the police:
The mayor in the Japanese version gets upset that Joy's blabbing his plans out to everyone in the room while the mayor in the English version is still attempting to play dumb.
Also, I don't think exterminating a creature terrorizing a neighborhood is in any way against the law...? If it's an endangered species then yeah, there are legal protections to keep people from just indiscriminately wiping them off the planet, but if it's a single unknown creature terrorizing a community I think most police departments wouldn't even bat an eye at the mayor's suggestion here.
Ash worries about his Pokémon right before the commercial break:
Something that's kind of surprising to me about the dub of this episode is how 4Kids makes it very clear, several times throughout the episode, that the mayor intends to murder what we later find out is his old Bulbasaur. In this exchange here, in fact, 4Kids' dialogue makes that even more explicit than the Japanese original did!
Anyway, Satoshi only seems to care about his Fushigidane while Ash expresses worry about both his Bulbasaur and the sewer creature.
Eyecatch
I want to take a second to say I am absolutely in love with the fact that in this episode, we get this serious close-up shot of Satoshi worrying about his Pokémon being murdered in cold blood while background music from Mewtwo Strikes Back! plays and then all of a sudden BAM we cut to kids exclaiming "Who's that Pokémon?" while a cheery little ditty plays in the background. The tonal whiplash here is just so, so good.
Anyway, Satoshi's Pokémon (notice the lack of bell around its neck) gets a new piece of artwork for the Japanese eyecatch while the English dub replaces it with one of the stars of the year's upcoming movie.
Dialogue Edit
The Rocket trio's been trapped underground for a while:
Meowth's line is sorta-kinda the same but everything else is a rewritten for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
The Rocket trio come face-to-face with the S.W.A.T. team:
In the Japanese version the mayor is fully aware that the Rocket trio is not the monster they're looking for but authorizes an attack anyway. In the English version, meanwhile, the mayor (at least at this point in the episode) has no reason to believe his team isn't currently face-to-face with the monster they've been after this whole time.
The rest of the episode's script is pretty OK for a while after this. The music replacement gets pretty bad in the second half of the episode (everything surrounding the flashback scene is especially rough), and the mayor's voice still pretty grating, but at least the script itself is more or less faithful to the original.
Side Note
For this next rewrite I'm going to need to review several episodes' worth of exposition to try to figure out where in the world our hero's third Orange League gym is supposed to take place.
The first time the third Orange League gym is brought up is by Kanna at the end of Episode 099 "Kanna of the Four Heavenly Kings! The Icy Battle!!"
As you can see here, 4Kids is showing an uncharacteristic amount of foresight here by telling us the third gym's "straight across the bay," implying it's not a part of Mandarin Island itself but is actually on its own separate landmass. We wouldn't have known this at the time but "Trovita" will end up being the dub's name for Yuzu Island, not Big City.
The next episode (the Nidoran one) doesn't really mention the gym at all, but the one after that (Episode 101 "The Coil of the Great Plains!") brings it up several times. First, the opening narration:
Here, the narrator in the Japanese version introduces viewers to the idea that the gym in Big City is called the "Yuzu Gym." At this point the name is only ever used by the narrator; as far as Satoshi and his friends know they're still going to someplace called the Big City Gym, maybe.
The English dub doesn't follow this convention and continues to refer to the gym as being in Trovita.
Later in that same episode, we get this little throwaway scene with Ethan:
Here, 4Kids has Ethan imply that even he knows the gym's not on the same landmass they're on right now since his wagon's not able to cross bodies of water. This line is not in the Japanese version.
The third time the area's brought up in the episode is during its ending narration:
The Japanese version tells us, again, that Satoshi's third gym challenge is in a place called the Yuzu Gym located in Big City. The English version uses more generic language here instead.
And that brings us to this episode. First, the opening narration:
The Japanese version isn't too surprising -- just a recap of information we'd gotten before -- but the English version throws the word "Trovitopolis" at us all of a sudden. It turns out that "Trovita" wasn't 4Kids' name for "Big City"; it was their name for the Yuzu Gym all along. That might seem super obvious now, especially since we all have access to Wikis and guidebooks and whatnot, but if you were just watching this show on Kids' WB! back in the year 2000 this wouldn't have been so clear.
The dub repeats this information later in the episode:
Here, we find out that Ash and his friends apparently know that the Trovita Gym is on another island, something Satoshi and his friends still haven't been told yet.
Now, before we head into the rewrite I've been setting the stage for let's do a quick review of everything we've learned so far:
So now that we're on the same page, let's take a look at this exchange that happens at the end of this episode. It happens right after the mayor's taken care of:
It isn't until this very scene, right here, that audiences in Japan learn that the Yuzu Gym is actually on a small island just off the coast of Big City. So then why has everyone in the original been acting like the Yuzu Gym is in Big City? Well, my reading of all this is that Yuzu Island is actually a part of Big City much in the way that, say, Staten Island is a part of New York City, and so everyone naturally pointed Satoshi and his friends toward Big City.
4Kids maybe didn't have the same reading, or maybe thought the whole thing was too confusing / convoluted, or something, because they spilled the beans about the third gym being on a separate island several episodes ago.
None of this is a big deal at the end of the day, of course, but it is interesting to track the differences between who knows what at any given point in both versions.
Also, according to the English dub the city of Trovitopolis apparently has a shuttle service that's able to stay in business despite only running a single ferry per day. Now I'm no criminal expert or anything, but I think I know a money laundering scheme when I see one!
Dialogue Edit
The Rocket trio end the episode:
While the overall gist of the dialogue is the same the actual words they say are, when you compare them side by side, pretty different.
I've also seen claims that 4Kids added dialogue and sound effects at the end here to suggest the trio escaped, and that in the Japanese version the three just remain stuck there forever, but as you can see from the transcript above that just isn't true.
Side Note
For the second episode in a row I want to bring up the Dr. Ookido Pokémon Lecture.
For the next handful of episodes Dr. Ookido will forego the typical Pokémon lecture in favor of a special sneak peak of the summer's upcoming film Pocket Monsters The Movie "Revelation Lugia" & "Pikachu's Exploration Party." For this first installment the doctor focuses on the Pikachu short, spending a lot of time highlighting the two brand new Pokémon using what appear to be colorized versions of their production design sheets.
So in a way this episode marks the first appearance of these Generation 2 Pokémon, sorta-kinda!
This page was last updated on March 1st, 2024
Episode Stats:
Japanese Episode 102: "The Monster of the Underpass!?"
American Episode 246: "The Mystery Menace"
Pokémon Dare Da? Fushigidane (Japan), Zapdos (English)
Dr. Ookido's Pokémon Course: Pocket Monsters The Movie "Pikachu's Exploration Party" Special Feature
Japanese Air Date: June 24th, 1999
American Air Date: May 6th, 2000
Important Characters: Mayor (Mayor)
Important Places: Big City (Trovitopolis)
Satoshi and
his friends finally have Big City in their sights! The young Trainers
are just about to enter the city limits when a bomb planted by the
Rocket trio sets off a chain of events that sends them hurtling into
the sewer below, forcing them to navigate its waterways in search of a
manhole back to the surface. Along the way, the group is attacked by a
mysterious vine that drags Satoshi's Fushigidane into the water!
Satoshi rushes to go after his Pokémon but is pulled away from
the scene when a Junsar arrives to get the children out of the sewer.
Back in town, Satoshi and his friends learn that the vine they saw
belongs to a fabled “creature of the underpass” and that Big City’s
mayor really wants to eliminate it to help his chances of re-election.
He sends a SWAT team into the sewers to exterminate the creature but
when they're unable to find it the mayor ends up having them seal all
the entrances and exits with concrete. Pressure builds up and before
long pipes around town start to burst, eventually putting the mayor
face-to-face with the creature of the underpass, his old Fushigidane!
The townspeople soon learn the mayor had abandoned the Pokémon
when he was a kid and decide they don’t want a person like that leading
them any longer. Later, Junsar thanks our heroes by pointing them in
the direction of Yuzu Island, the site of Satoshi's third Orange
Islands gym challenge.
Thoughts
In the comparison for "The Coil of the Great Plains!" I brought up how the episode had a lot of the Rocket trio in it despite them not being the focus of the story, and wondered if they only got as much screentime as they did because there just wasn't enough of a plot to fill out the show's 22 minute runtime otherwise. This week's episode, "The Monster of the Underpass!?," doesn't seem to have that same problem. It has not one, but two storylines going on at the same time, and as a result we end up barely getting to see the Rocket trio at all.
The "A story" of the episode, the "monster of the underpass" part, starts off as a fairly cool idea. It's like a kid-friendly horror movie, in a way, and while I do like what the episode sets out to do it kind of loses steam for me about halfway through. For starters, we're still only at Generation 1 at this point in the show and so it's not like there's any real mystery as far as the monster's identity goes. The second we see that vine come out of the water it's like OK, there are literally only like six Pokémon this could possibly be, y'know? But also, I feel like the "mystery" wrapped up just as soon as it was starting to get good. I personally would have loved it if we ditched the mayor subplot altogether and just focused more on the kids walking around the sewer, getting dragged into the water one by one until it's just Satoshi left all by himself. But maybe that'd be too dark for a kids' show like this?
The "B story" of the episode is the story about a nameless mayor running for re-election. It's...fine, I guess, but I also feel like we never get to learn enough about the mayor or how bad he is to really feel much of anything when he's finally defeated at the end of the episode. The image of him abandoning his Fushigidane by putting it in a cardboard box and sending it down a river is pretty shocking (though maybe that's just because I'm remembering a similar, though much darker, scene from Revolutionary Girl Utena) but other than that the mayor's biggest sin seems to be that he's an inept narcissist...? I dunno, I feel like we needed to see more of just how truly bad he was for the people of Big City for us to side with its citizens gleefully standing by as their elected leader gets shot into the stratosphere by a group of random out-of-towners.
The other thing about this episode that stands out to me is that it's the first (and apparently only) time Satoshi has ever had his Betobeton on his team outside a Pokémon League match! Isn't that wild? A random filler episode most of us probably forgot about years ago is literally the only time we ever see this particular Pokémon not on Dr. Ookido's ranch or a Pokémon League battlefield! It seems unreal, but at the same time when we see just how little the show does with the Pokémon here it's obvious the writers just don't know what to do with the character. Betobeton just kind of slinks around the sewer and then points at the water...and that's about it! The idea of Satoshi having reserves he can call on whenever the situation calls for it is a fantastic one but unfortunately this show doesn't always use that potential to its full advantage.
I don't have much to say about 4Kids' treatment of this episode (it's fairly alright, by 4Kids' standards at least) but the original version of this episode does make it obvious how we're now at the point where the show Pocket Monsters has officially gone from being a Japanese cartoon for Japanese kids to whatever shapeless, culture-less blob of a show it's supposed to be now. It's been that way ever since Kenji made his way into the show, really, but this episode right here really drives home just how Westernized the whole thing's become. The word BANG appearing in English at the start of the episode, the citizens of Big City eating pizza and hot dogs instead of anything that could be perceived as "foreign," the S.W.A.T. team using "putty guns,", the mayor taking a bath in a towel, for some reason...despite what your instincts might tell you literally none of what I just listed out here are 4Kids edits. This is just what the show has become now, and it sucks to see how much its staff is having to walk on eggshells when it comes to anything that could be considered even remotely "objectionable" for the sake of internationalization.
Dialogue Edit
Right before the episode's title screen:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ナレーション 「マンダリン島を横断していたサトシたちはついに島で一番の大都
市ビッグシティにたどり着いた」 |
Narrator: "After making their
way across Mandarin Island, Satoshi and his friends arrive in Big City,
the largest city on the island." |
Narrator: "Our heroes have
finally arrived at the city of Trovitopolis. Everything seems normal,
but beneath the surface a secret lurks." |
In the Japanese version the narrator sums up what's been happening up until now while the English dub decides to tease the events that are coming up instead.
The Rocket trio hatch a scheme:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ムサシ 「フフフフ ジャリボーイたちが風景に見とれているこの隙に…」 |
Musashi: "Heh heh heh heh.
While those brats admire the view..." |
Jessie: "Ah hahahaha! Just
look at them, admiring the view." |
| コジロウ 「久しぶりに基本に返って落とし穴作戦で ウへへへ」 |
Kojirou: "...We'll go back to
basics and get them with the ol' pitfall scheme." |
James: "They have no idea that
they're headed for our new high-tech hole. Ooh hoo hoo hoo hoo~" |
I regret (???) to inform you that in the original, Kojirou does not talk about his "new high-tech hole" while doing the best Snagglepuss impersonation his voice actor can muster . That's aaaaaaaaall 4Kids' doing.
After the title screen the Rocket trio plots a pitfall trap:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ニャース 「ニャンだかんだいっても落とし穴の世界は穴だけに奥が深い」 |
Nyarth: "We can talk about
this or that all day, but the point is the world of pitfalls is a
bottomless one Nya." |
Meowth: "I think I can say
without fear of contradiction that we are completely and totally
prepared." |
| ムサシ 「何だ…」 |
Musashi: "This..." |
Jessie: "Prepared?" |
| コジロウ 「かんだ？」 |
Kojirou: "Or that...?" |
James: "Prepared." |
| ムサシ 「何だかんだと言われたら」 |
Musashi: "If we're talking
about this or that." |
Jessie: "Aha~! Prepare for
trouble!" |
| コジロウ 「応えてあげるが世の情け」 |
Kojirou: "It's up to the world
whether or not we answer." |
James: "Oh! I say make it
double." |
The English version of the Rocket trio's motto starts off differently than it does in Japanese and so the trigger words (and therefore the sentences that contain them) all have to get rewritten.
There isn't really much in the way of rewrites for a while after this. There's one point in the sewer scene where Satoshi's about to order his Pikachu to use its "electricity" (ピカチュウ、電撃だ！) that gets changed to Ash about to order it to "Thundershock it!" but that's really about it for the next few minutes of the episode.
So let's move on to talking about this episode's character-of-the-day.
Side Note
I have a few things to say about the Mayor of Trovitopolis.
For starters, his name in both the Japanese and English versions is basically just "mayor." In Japanese he's only ever referred to as shichou (市長), and in English it's either "mayor" or "Mr. Mayor." His logo vaguely resembles the letter "M," like the word "mayor," and while that's probably what they were going for the Japanese version never really confirms this one way or the other. The English dub does outright state this ("That bell! That's my initial!"), for what it's worth.
The other thing I want to talk about is his voice because boy oh boy is his English voice actor horribly miscast. The Mayor of Trovitopolis is voiced by Gary Oak's voice actor, a fact I didn't even have to bother to look up because he's essentially using the exact same voice for this mayor character that he uses for Professor Oak's grade school aged grandson. And because of this the mayor ends up sounding way too young and snooty. It honestly feels like the actor just looked at the script, saw the character described as "whiny spoiled man child," and then based his entire performance off that single sentence summary.
In the Japanese version the mayor's played by voice actor-turned-voice director Toshihiko Nakajima, and he actually sounds like what you'd expect the elected official of a major city in a metropolis to sound like. The mayor doesn't need a "slimy bad guy voice" to make us understand he's not a great guy; his actions do that for him! Mr. Nakajima won't end up doing a lot of voice acting for Pocket Monsters over the years (he plays the grandfather of the Gym Leader Mikan in a late Johto episode but that's really about it) and so that frees him up to use what I assume is his normal speaking voice instead of a put-on cartoon voice like the one we hear in the English dub. The difference between the two really is night and day.
Dialogue Edit
The next rewrite I'll discuss is the part in the jail when Officer Jenny explains to the mayor why she's not illegally holding a group of children in jail:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ジュンサー 「地下水道の怪物と彼らの関係を調べてみたのですが問題ないことが
はっきりしましたので…」 |
Junsar: "We looked into
whether there was any connection between those three and the sewer
creature but there was absolutely nothing." |
Officer Jenny: "Sir, they told
me that they only arrived in town today and they're on their way to the
Pokémon gym on Trovita Island and their story checks out." |
| 市長 「あれこれしゃべられると面倒だ。しばらくこのままにしておきなさい」 |
Mayor: "Doesn't matter. We
can't have them
going around telling anyone who'll listen...better keep them here a
while longer." |
Mayor: "I can't have this
thing leaking out yet. Better keep them locked up till next week." |
| ジュンサー 「たとえ市長の命令でもそれはできません」 |
Junsar: "I can't do that, even
if it is an order from the mayor himself." |
Officer Jenny: "I can't hold
them if they're not charged with a crime, Mr. Mayor." |
| 市長
「むむむ…しょ…しょうがない。」 |
Mayor: "Urg...I guess..fine." |
Mayor: "Well, if that's the
law..." |
Junsar's first line getting completely rewritten is the point of interest here. The rest of this dialogue is close-ish, but the English dub adds a few more details ("till next week" instead of "a while longer," for example) that aren't there in the original.
The mayor tells our heroes not to say a word:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| 市長 「キミたち！今日見たことは誰にも言うんじゃないぞ」 | Mayor: "You three! Don't say a word to anyone about what you saw here today, OK?" | Mayor: "But I forbid you to say a word to anyone about that creature." |
| ケンジ 「なぜですか？ひょっとすると新種のポケモンかもしれないんですよ」 |
Kenji: "But why, sir? What if
the creature ends up being a new type of Pokémon?" |
Tracey: "You can't do that!
Why can't we say anything about it if it's the truth?" |
| サトシ 「それよりオレのフシギダネが心配だよ！」 |
Satoshi: "But more than that,
I'm really worried about my Fushigidane!" |
Ash: "Well, all I care about
is getting my Bulbasaur back." |
I don't really know why 4Kids changed Kenji's child-like wonder at there maybe being a new Pokémon down in the sewers (the franchise was right in the middle of its Gold & Silver pre-release hype, after all!) to him asking existential questions about why it's not always OK to tell the truth, but they did!
A line Kenji has later in the episode about the creature maybe being a new species of Pokémon gets left as-is for the dub so this change is for this part and this part only.
Officer Jenny explains what her department's been doing to track the creature:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ジュンサー 「これ以上同じことが続くと市民がパニックになってしまう恐れがあ
るの…」 |
Junsar: "If this keeps up
there's a chance it'll cause panic throughout the city." |
Officer Jenny: "But the mayor
says people will panic if they hear about the creature because we'll
never be able to capture it." |
| サトシ 「ああ…」 |
Satoshi: "I see..." |
Ash: "Why not?" |
| ジュンサー 「警察もマンホールを見はったりしてるけど今のところ効果なしな
の…」 |
Junsar: "The police are doing
its best to patrol the manholes all over town but so far it hasn't had
any effect..." |
Officer Jenny: "There are
almost 500 miles of sewers under the city, and more than 5,000
manholes." |
So "500 miles of sewers" is about what they have in several cities in the Virginia area or DuPage Country, Illinois or Los Angeles county, so I guess 4Kids is trying to tell us that Trovitopolis is a really, really huge place!
As you can see, the "500 miles of sewers" / "5,000 marbles" numbers Officer Jenny rattles off aren't found anywhere in the original dialogue.
The mayor continues:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| 市長 「１週間後に追った選挙が終わるまでこのことは絶対に秘密だ。たかが怪物
１匹退治できないなんてうわさがたったらわしの市長再選は危うい！」 |
Mayor:
"We must keep this under wraps until next week's election is over. If
rumors got out we weren't able to get rid of a single creature it'd
put my chances of re-election in serious jeopardy!" |
Mayor:
"That's why we have to take drastic and immediate action to ensure the
safety of every citizen in this city. There's an election next week and
if word gets out that I'm letting a monster run amok right beneath
people's feet I'll be ruined!" |
| カスミ 「市民の安全より自分の選挙のほうが心配なわけね」 |
Kasumi: "So you're more
worried about your re-election campaign than you are about the safety
of the
people, huh?" |
Misty: "It just doesn't seem
right to be mad at it if all it wants to do is eat." |
Kasumi's sarcastically stated realization that politicians only care about themselves gets replaced with Misty gingerly wondering why people are mad at a Pokémon for being hungry.
The mayor fights with the police:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| 市長 「こ…こら！秘密の計画をばらしおって！逮捕だ！逮捕！えっ？」 |
Mayor: "H...hey! How dare you
reveal my plans! Hey you! Arrest her! Huh?" |
Mayor: "Any talk of any such
plan is pure speculation. There's no proof." |
| ジュンサー 「市長、今の話本当ですか？警察も聞いていませんが…」 |
Junsar: "Mr. Mayor, is what
she's saying true? The police haven't heard anything about this." |
Officer Jenny: "Mr. Mayor, if
there is such a plan, it's illegal. The police don't know anything
about it." |
The mayor in the Japanese version gets upset that Joy's blabbing his plans out to everyone in the room while the mayor in the English version is still attempting to play dumb.
Also, I don't think exterminating a creature terrorizing a neighborhood is in any way against the law...? If it's an endangered species then yeah, there are legal protections to keep people from just indiscriminately wiping them off the planet, but if it's a single unknown creature terrorizing a community I think most police departments wouldn't even bat an eye at the mayor's suggestion here.
Ash worries about his Pokémon right before the commercial break:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| サトシ 「オレのフシギダネまで巻き込まれたら大変だ。必ず助けに行くから無事
でいてくれ！フシギダネ」 |
Satoshi: "Things'll get real
bad if my Fushigidane gets caught up in all this. I'm coming to save
you so please be safe, Fushigidane!" |
Ash: "We've gotta find some
way to get into that sewer before they do. Cause if we don't it'll be
the end of that creature...and Bulbasaur." |
Something that's kind of surprising to me about the dub of this episode is how 4Kids makes it very clear, several times throughout the episode, that the mayor intends to murder what we later find out is his old Bulbasaur. In this exchange here, in fact, 4Kids' dialogue makes that even more explicit than the Japanese original did!
Anyway, Satoshi only seems to care about his Fushigidane while Ash expresses worry about both his Bulbasaur and the sewer creature.
Eyecatch
I want to take a second to say I am absolutely in love with the fact that in this episode, we get this serious close-up shot of Satoshi worrying about his Pokémon being murdered in cold blood while background music from Mewtwo Strikes Back! plays and then all of a sudden BAM we cut to kids exclaiming "Who's that Pokémon?" while a cheery little ditty plays in the background. The tonal whiplash here is just so, so good.
 |
 |
Anyway, Satoshi's Pokémon (notice the lack of bell around its neck) gets a new piece of artwork for the Japanese eyecatch while the English dub replaces it with one of the stars of the year's upcoming movie.
Dialogue Edit
The Rocket trio's been trapped underground for a while:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ムサシ 「あたしたちここに迷い込んでからどれくらいになるのかしら…」 |
Musashi: "How long do you
think we've been wandering around down here?" |
Jessie: "We've been wandering
around down here all day and we still haven't found a way out." |
| ニャース 「ニャ―の腹の減り具合だと3日ぐらいになるかニャ～」 |
Nyarth: "If my rumbling
stomach's anything to go by I'd say it's been about three days Nya." |
Meowth: "Forget about finding
a way out. I just want to find somethin' to eat." |
| コジロウ 「まだ半日もたってないってば」 |
Kojirou: "Well your stomach's
wrong...it hasn't even
been half a day." |
James: "Well there's nothin'
to eat down in this place, Meowth." |
Meowth's line is sorta-kinda the same but everything else is a rewritten for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
The Rocket trio come face-to-face with the S.W.A.T. team:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| リーダー 「こちら捜索隊。こちら捜索隊。化け物と名乗る連中を発見。指示をお
願いします。どうぞ」 |
Leader: "Search party to base,
search party to base. We've found a group pretending to be monsters.
Please advise. Over." |
Leader: "Squad leader to base. Squad leader to base. We've discovered three unidentified creatures. Please advise. Over" |
| 市長 「は？化け物？攻撃を許可する！」 |
Mayor: "Huh? Monsters you say?
You have permission to fire!" |
Mayor: "Three? Excellent work!
Launch your attack immediately!" |
| リーダー 「了解！トリモチ攻撃用意！」 |
Leader: "Roger! Prepare to
fire the birdlime attack!" |
Leader: "Roger. OK, get the
putty guns ready." |
In the Japanese version the mayor is fully aware that the Rocket trio is not the monster they're looking for but authorizes an attack anyway. In the English version, meanwhile, the mayor (at least at this point in the episode) has no reason to believe his team isn't currently face-to-face with the monster they've been after this whole time.
The rest of the episode's script is pretty OK for a while after this. The music replacement gets pretty bad in the second half of the episode (everything surrounding the flashback scene is especially rough), and the mayor's voice still pretty grating, but at least the script itself is more or less faithful to the original.
Side Note
For this next rewrite I'm going to need to review several episodes' worth of exposition to try to figure out where in the world our hero's third Orange League gym is supposed to take place.
The first time the third Orange League gym is brought up is by Kanna at the end of Episode 099 "Kanna of the Four Heavenly Kings! The Icy Battle!!"
 |
| Episode
099, "Kanna of the Four Heavenly Kings! The Icy Battle!!" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| カンナ 「ここから一番近いジムはビッグシティにあるわ」 |
Kanna: "The closest gym from
here is in Big City." |
Prima: "The nearest gym is
Trovita." |
| サトシ 「ビッグシティ？」 |
Satoshi: "Where's that?" |
Ash: "Trovita?" |
| カンナ 「マンダリン島を横断した反対側にある街よ」 |
Kanna: "It's a city on the
other side of the island." |
Prima: "Go to the other side
of the island and straight across the bay." |
| サトシ
「よーしピカチュウ！ビッグシティへ行くぜ！」 |
Satoshi: "Alright Pikachu!
Let's head for Big City!" |
Ash: "OK, Pikachu, ready for
Trovita?" |
| ピカチュウ
「ピカ！」 |
Pikachu: "Pika!" |
Pikachu: "Pika!" |
As you can see here, 4Kids is showing an uncharacteristic amount of foresight here by telling us the third gym's "straight across the bay," implying it's not a part of Mandarin Island itself but is actually on its own separate landmass. We wouldn't have known this at the time but "Trovita" will end up being the dub's name for Yuzu Island, not Big City.
The next episode (the Nidoran one) doesn't really mention the gym at all, but the one after that (Episode 101 "The Coil of the Great Plains!") brings it up several times. First, the opening narration:
 |
| Episode
101, "The Coil of the Great Plains!" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ナレーション 「オレンジリーグの次なるジム、ユズジムのあるビッグシティを目
指しサトシたちはマンダリン島の大平原を進んでいた」 |
Narrator: "Satoshi and his
friends continue to make their way through the great plains of Mandarin
Island on the way to Big City, home of his next Orange League gym
challenge at the Yuzu Gym." |
Narrator: "Bound for the next
Orange League Gym in Trovita, our heroes find themselves trekking
across the rugged desert landscape of Mandarin Island." |
Here, the narrator in the Japanese version introduces viewers to the idea that the gym in Big City is called the "Yuzu Gym." At this point the name is only ever used by the narrator; as far as Satoshi and his friends know they're still going to someplace called the Big City Gym, maybe.
The English dub doesn't follow this convention and continues to refer to the gym as being in Trovita.
Later in that same episode, we get this little throwaway scene with Ethan:
 |
| Episode
101, "The Coil of the Great Plains!" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| カスミ 「えっフォードさん、ビッグシティのこと知ってるんですか？」 |
Kasumi: "Oh! Mr. Ford, do you
know about Big City?" |
Misty: "That's right, but
we're looking for the nearest town so we can rest." |
| フォード 「もちろんさ。島のことなら何でも知ってるぞ。ビッグシティまでは行
かんが途中の町までなら乗せてってやろう」 |
Ford: "Of course I do. I know
everything there is to know about this island. I can't take you all the
way to Big City but I can
drop you off at a town along the way if you'd
like." |
Ethan: "You're in luck.
That's just where I'm headed, little lady. I'd like to take you all the
way to Trovita but this old wagon don't float. " |
Here, 4Kids has Ethan imply that even he knows the gym's not on the same landmass they're on right now since his wagon's not able to cross bodies of water. This line is not in the Japanese version.
The third time the area's brought up in the episode is during its ending narration:
 |
| Episode
101, "The Coil of the Great Plains!" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ナレーション 「こうして大平原で暮らすコイルと共に町のピンチを救ったサトシ
たちはユズジムのあるビッグシティへと旅だったのである」 |
Narrator: "And that's how
Satoshi and his friends saved the town with the help of the Coil of the
plains. They've now set out to Big City where the Yuzu Gym is waiting." |
Narrator: "After beating the
bad guys and helping to save the day Ash and his friends hit the trail
once more, headed toward the next gym and their next adventure." |
The Japanese version tells us, again, that Satoshi's third gym challenge is in a place called the Yuzu Gym located in Big City. The English version uses more generic language here instead.
And that brings us to this episode. First, the opening narration:
 |
| Episode
102 "The
Monster of the Underpass!?" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ナレーション 「マンダリン島を横断していたサトシたちはついに島で一番の大都
市ビッグシティにたどり着いた」 |
Narrator: "After making their
way across Mandarin Island, Satoshi and his friends arrive in Big City,
the biggest city on the island." |
Narrator: "Our heroes have
finally arrived at the city of Trovitopolis. Everything seems normal,
but beneath the surface a secret lurks." |
The Japanese version isn't too surprising -- just a recap of information we'd gotten before -- but the English version throws the word "Trovitopolis" at us all of a sudden. It turns out that "Trovita" wasn't 4Kids' name for "Big City"; it was their name for the Yuzu Gym all along. That might seem super obvious now, especially since we all have access to Wikis and guidebooks and whatnot, but if you were just watching this show on Kids' WB! back in the year 2000 this wouldn't have been so clear.
The dub repeats this information later in the episode:
 |
| Episode
102 "The
Monster of the Underpass!?" |
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ジュンサー 「地下水道の怪物と彼らの関係を調べてみたのですが問題ないことが
はっきりしましたので…」 |
Junsar: "We looked into
whether there was any connection between those three and the sewer
creature but there was absolutely nothing." |
Officer Jenny: "Sir, they told
me that they only arrived in town today and they're on their way to the
Pokémon gym on Trovita Island and their story checks out." |
Here, we find out that Ash and his friends apparently know that the Trovita Gym is on another island, something Satoshi and his friends still haven't been told yet.
Now, before we head into the rewrite I've been setting the stage for let's do a quick review of everything we've learned so far:
| Japanese
Version |
English
Version |
| Our
heroes are (somewhat confusingly) told the next gym's in a place called
Big City |
Our
heroes are told the next gym's in a place called Trovita, right from
the get-go |
| Viewers
find out the name of the setting of this episode (Big City) back in
Episode 099. |
Viewers
don't find out the name of the setting of this episode (Trovitopolis)
until Episode 102. |
| Ford, the character of the day in Episode 101, does not say anything about the Yuzu Gym being on another island | Ethan, the character of the day in Episode 101, is fully aware that the Trovita Gym is on another island and assumes Misty is as well. |
| By
this point in the episode, Satoshi and his friends have no reason to
believe the gym isn't on the same island they're on now. |
By
this point in the episode, Ash and his friends are already fully aware
the gym is on its own separate island |
So now that we're on the same page, let's take a look at this exchange that happens at the end of this episode. It happens right after the mayor's taken care of:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| サトシ 「ところでビッグシティにポケモンジムがあるって聞いてきたんですけ
ど…」 |
Satoshi: "By the way, we heard
there was a Pokémon Gym here in Big City." |
Ash: "We heard there was an
Orange League Gym near here in a place called Trovita Island." |
| ジョーイ 「ユズジムね。ほらあの島。あのユズ島にあるのよ」 |
Joy: "You must be talking
about the Yuzu Gym. It's over there on Yuzu Island." |
Nurse Joy: "You heard right,
Ash. It'll only take you a few minutes to get over to Trovita Island." |
| ジュンサー 「港から連絡船が出てるから案内するわ」 |
Junsar: "There's a ferry that
leaves from the pier...I'll show you where it is." |
Officer Jenny: "There's a
ferry that goes there once a day. I'll take you to the pier." |
| サトシ
「ありがとうございます」 |
Satoshi: "Thank you so much." |
Ash: "All right!" |
It isn't until this very scene, right here, that audiences in Japan learn that the Yuzu Gym is actually on a small island just off the coast of Big City. So then why has everyone in the original been acting like the Yuzu Gym is in Big City? Well, my reading of all this is that Yuzu Island is actually a part of Big City much in the way that, say, Staten Island is a part of New York City, and so everyone naturally pointed Satoshi and his friends toward Big City.
4Kids maybe didn't have the same reading, or maybe thought the whole thing was too confusing / convoluted, or something, because they spilled the beans about the third gym being on a separate island several episodes ago.
None of this is a big deal at the end of the day, of course, but it is interesting to track the differences between who knows what at any given point in both versions.
Also, according to the English dub the city of Trovitopolis apparently has a shuttle service that's able to stay in business despite only running a single ferry per day. Now I'm no criminal expert or anything, but I think I know a money laundering scheme when I see one!
Dialogue Edit
The Rocket trio end the episode:
| Japanese
(original) |
Japanese
(translated) |
English
Dub |
| ムサシ 「誰か～誰か～」 |
Musashi: "Hello? Anyone out
there?" |
Jessie: "Finally...daylight!
Sunshine!" |
| コジロウ 「誰か助けて～外に出して～」 |
Kojirou: "Please help us! Let
us out!" |
James: "That's very nice,
Jess, but we're trapped here." |
| ニャース 「腹減ったニャ～」 |
Nyarth: "I'm so hungry Nya~" |
Meowth: "We'll never get out." |
| ムサシたち 「イヤな感じ～」 |
Rocket Trio: "This is bad~" |
Team Rocket: "Team Rocket's
all washed up!" |
| ムサシ 「ったく！あっ」 |
Musashi: "Ugh I've had
it...huh?" |
Jessie: "Achoo!" |
| コジロウ 「取れた」 |
Kojirou: "It came off." |
James: "The bars!" |
| ニャース 「ニャンで？」 |
Nyarth: "Why Nya?" |
Meowth: "We're free!" |
While the overall gist of the dialogue is the same the actual words they say are, when you compare them side by side, pretty different.
I've also seen claims that 4Kids added dialogue and sound effects at the end here to suggest the trio escaped, and that in the Japanese version the three just remain stuck there forever, but as you can see from the transcript above that just isn't true.
Side Note
For the second episode in a row I want to bring up the Dr. Ookido Pokémon Lecture.
For the next handful of episodes Dr. Ookido will forego the typical Pokémon lecture in favor of a special sneak peak of the summer's upcoming film Pocket Monsters The Movie "Revelation Lugia" & "Pikachu's Exploration Party." For this first installment the doctor focuses on the Pikachu short, spending a lot of time highlighting the two brand new Pokémon using what appear to be colorized versions of their production design sheets.
 |
 |
So in a way this episode marks the first appearance of these Generation 2 Pokémon, sorta-kinda!
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