Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 219: "The Legend of the Silver Wing! The Battle of Silver Rock Island!"
English Episode 510:  "Hi Ho Silver...Away!"
Pokemon Dare Da?  Sandpan (Japanese), Charmander (English)
Orchid-Hakase Pokemon Lecture:  Ptera
Japanese Air Date:  October 11th, 2001
American Air Date:  November 16th, 2002
Important Characters:  Yurico (Ariene), Shintaroh (Jenaro)
Important Places:  Silver Rock Island (Silver Rock Isle), Oki Island (Ogi Isle)

Satoshi and his friends have come to Kadado City on Silver Rock Island to find out more about the mysterious pokemon rumored to appear in the Whirl Islands.  Our heroes run across a young woman named Yurico who takes them to the house of a jewelry maker named Shintaroh to see what he knows about the legendary pokemon.  The young man tells our heroes a story his great-great-great-great grandfather told him about a terrible storm out at sea and how they were saved by a tornado whipped up by the legendary pokemon.  As the weather cleared large Silver Feathers floated down from above.  Unfortunately he doesn't know much more beyond that but he does think they might be able to find out more on nearby Oki Island.  Our heroes later discover that Shintaroh is in love with Yurico and even wants to propose to her tomorrow!  Later, Shintaroh is preparing to present Yurico with a Silver Feather shaped broach he had made for her when the Rocket-Dan appear with a giant vacuum and suck up all the Silver Feather accessories in town!  The Rocket trio is chased to a forest where Shintaroh's Sandopan is able to help send them blasting off.  After the battle Shintaroh presents the broach to Yurico and successfully proposes to her!  Some time later our heroes are led to the underwater path that leads to Oki Island.  When they step out of the cave they are surprised to be greeted by Hiroshi's Pikachu Léon.  To be continued!

---

Thoughts
When the movies are being made each year they often include pokemon and elements from an upcoming video game that haven't really been completely worked out yet.  In the "Data-Book" that came with the Pikachu the Movie Box 2007 - 2010 DVD box set, for example, it's stated that the "Reverse World" created for Giratina and the Sky Bouquet, Shami was based on a very limited amount of information the film's producers was given about the "Distorted World" that was set to be featured in the then-unreleased Pocket Monsters Platinum.  And, as a result, there are some notable differences between what's in the movie and what's in the game.  And if you look at The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo it seems pretty obvious that the movie division wasn't given the full story of how Mega Evolution really worked.  No Mega Stones, Mewtwo being able to Mega Evolve multiple times in the same battle, no Trainer involved...they most likely just had a character design and a few vague details ("Mewtwo can move faster now") and that's it.

So when the second movie, Revelation Lugia, began production in 1998 Gold & Silver was still a ways away.  Accordingly the movie shows a clear lack of awareness of that gameplay element as well.  This time around the whole bit about the Silver Feather was omitted entirely and the legendary bird trio kind of took its place.  When it was time to feature Lugia in the TV series, however, the producers saw a chance to finally incorporate this forgotten gameplay element.  It still doesn't really function the same way as it does in the games - here it's used as little more than a mood ring - but at least its existence and its connection with Lugia isn't being completely ignored.

I really love the characters-of-the-day in this episode.  Shintaroh, who's voiced by the same guy who does Roronoa Zoro in One Piece (Nakai Kazuya), has such a great chemistry with Yurico (played by the less famous but still really-good-at-her-job Sumitomo Yuuko) and it's a shame we don't have more episodes featuring just the two of them bantering back and forth.  And while the animation in this episode is pretty decent and has a lot of great facial expressions throughout I do feel like it doesn't adequately reflect the great a performance those two give in this episode.  If the animation could have reflected the tiny little nuances in the actors' performances I feel like the episode would have been even stronger but I also realize that that's an unrealistic expectation to have for a series like this.

Something I'm not so in love with with those two is the fact that they apparently skipped the whole dating part of their relationship and are jumping straight into the marriage part.  I mean sure, it's the 21st century and some couples don't require lengthy courtships and all that but doesn't it still seem a bit fast?  Maybe they should try dating first?  In any case you can be sure that as soon as our heroes left for Oki Island the two of them went into Shintaroh's house to "celebrate," if you know what I mean.

Léon shows up at the end of the episode without Hiroshi in order to bring up the drama.  Why is it out there all by itself!?  Where's its Trainer!?  Is it lost?  Is Hiroshi's absence most definitely a case of them now wanting to pay Takayama Minami to show up for one extra episode?  Probably yes!

I went on and on about how great Shintaroh's and Yurico's voices were in the Japanese version but oh my God are their dubbed voices teeeeeeeeerrible.  Ariene's is alright, I guess, but holy cow is Jenaro one of the more horribly miscast characters-of-the-day in recent memory.  Nakai Kazuya was able to make Shintaroh sound like a regular guy who can dish out as much as he can take but Ted Lewis makes him sound like your typical whiny kid instead.  Absolutely terrible.

Lugia keeps its Japanese voice.

Side Note
When Nintendo of America localized Pokémon Gold & Silver they took the item Gin'iro no Hane (ぎんいろのはね) and decided to translate it as "Silver Wing."  Gin'iro is pretty easy to parse (it's 銀色, or "Silver") but the hane is a little bit trickier.  That's because the word hane can be written out one of two ways in kanji: either as 羽 (which means "wing") or 羽根 (which means "feather").  The pronunciation's the same but, as you can see, the meanings are slightly different.  Nintendo of America didn't have any kanji to help them figure out which meaning to go with and there wasn't any in-game sprites or official artwork of the item to help them out either so they just had to end up making an educated guess.

Unfortunately for them this episode would come out several years after Gold & Silver were released in the U.S. to show them that, whoops, we probably should have gone with that other meaning instead.  It's not really that big a deal - "feathers" and "wings" are close enough I suppose  - but I think most would agree that "Silver Feather" is a lot closer to what the original intention was.  So that's what I'm going with on this site.

(Now as to why NOA didn't go back and fix this for HeartGold SoulSilver, on the other hand...)

Paint Edit
It's a Whirl Islands episode, so here's a map paint edit!

Click on each image to view a larger version.

Dialogue Edit
Some good ol' fashioned food edit:

Misty:  "I can't believe how much stuff there is here with the mark of the Silver Wing on it.  Ha-ha, look!  Silver Wing cookies!"

Originally Kasumi points out that there are Silver Feather keychains, pennants, manjuu, and senbei ("rice crackers"). 

Side Note
The salesman in this episode is based on Japanese comedian Tony Tani (トニー谷).

Tony Tani was a comedian back in the first half of the 1950s known for his slicked back hair and fox eyed glasses.  The unnamed salesman in this episode mixes in English into his speech (just like the real Tony Tani) and ends several of his sentences with zansu (ざんす), a shortened version of Tony Tani's catchphrase saizansu (さいざんす).

Tony Tani is also one of the people the character-of-the-day Leon from the Best Wishes! episode "Ohbem, Doubran, and the Dream Thief!" is based on.  Another random fact: Leon shares his name with Hiroshi's Pikachu, a pokemon who happens to appear at the very end of this very episode! 

This is probably all one massive coincidence but I still find it all very fascinating.

Dialogue Edit
Ariene threatens the salesman:

Ariene:  "I should probably call the police."
Eric Stuart just pretty much doing his James voice:  "No!  No need!"
Ariene:  "That's the fifth phony I've caught just this week."

Originally Yurico tells the salesman that his products are fakes without bringing the police into the mix.  She also only says that there have been a lot of these fakes showing up "lately" without specifying exactly how many.

Side Note
Yurico's name is kept as-is on the stop of her store.

4Kids has broken out the digital paint for smaller signs that are on-screen even less than this is so I'm not really sure how this slipped under their radar.  Oh well, I'll take what I can get!

Dialogue Edit
Brock flirts with an older woman:

Brock:  "My lovely Ariene, I'm Brock.  Beauty!  You surround yourself with such beauty. But all of this cannot compete with the beauty that is you.  And as one earring is lost without its mate, so am I lost without you.  Aah!"
Misty:  "All right, you're gonna lose an ear if you don't give us all a break."

This is very close to what Takeshi says in the Japanese version up until the earring part.  Originally he asks Yurico if he can be her accessory, not earring, prompting Kasumi to say that she doesn't need an accessory that big.

You can interpret that any way you want.

After Ash trips over the Sandslash inside Jenaro's home:

Brock:  "Ash, are you hurt...or embarrassed?"

Takeshi's not as much of a dick in the Japanese version; he instead just asks if his friend's OK.

Tony Tani returns:

Salesman:  "Hello, strangely dressed but lovely young woman and dapper blue-haired young man."

The salesman doesn't insult his potential customer in the Japanese version.  That's all 4Kids.

I will say, however, that Jessie's "could someone check that math" bit a few lines later was pretty clever.  Translation-wise it's no good (originally Musashi repeats the salesman's "buy one get three free?") but it works well enough so I don't mind it too much.

This part, on the other hand:

Misty:  "I think they call that a lovers' quarrel.  Looks like you might be out of luck this time, too, huh Brock?"
Brock:  "Oh, to have loved and lost."
Togepi:  "Toge Toge piii~!"
Ash:  "Hey, guys, I'd rather talk about the Silver Wing."

In the Japanese version Satoshi, who's completely oblivious to all things love, asks his friends what the heck they're talking about.

It's such a great in-character moment that the dub messes up for no real reason.  Why not translate this properly?  Last I checked Ash being completely clueless when it comes to romance is one of the things his fans love about him so why change it here?  What was 4Kids' thinking?

Jenaro's retelling of the legend matches up pretty well with what Shintaroh said with the only real change being to the title he gives to Lugia.  In the Japanese he refers to the legendary pokemon as the Umi no Kami-sama (海の神様), or "God of the Sea," a term that is almost identical to the title it was given in the second movie, Umi no Kami (海の神).  In that movie 4Kids changed "God of the Sea" to "Titan of the Sea" so common sense would dictate that they'd do the same thing here, right?  Nope!  They go with "Sign from the Sea" instead.

The dickening of Brock, Part Two:

Ash:  "Jenaro."
Jenaro:  "Hey guys, what do you think?  Pretty nice, huh?"
Misty:  "How come you're working on it now?"
Brock:  "Shouldn't we all be sleeping?"
Jenaro:  "I don't know about you guys but I'm wide awake."

Originally Takeshi tells Shintaroh that he should be resting prompting the young jewelry maker to state that he feels all better now.

The Team Rocket motto:

Japanese Version	English Dub
Musashi:  "If we're asked "Who would do such a thing!?""	Jessie:  "Prepare for trouble from up in the clouds."
Kojirou:  "It's up to the world for us to answer "It's us!""	James:  "And make it double while we rip off the crowds!"
Musashi:  "To prevent the world from being destroyed"	Jessie:  "To protect the world from devastation."
Kojirou:  "To protect the peace of the world"	James:  "To unite all peoples within our nation."
Musashi:  "To carry out the evils of love and truth	Jessie:  "To denounce the evils of truth and love."
Kojirou:  "We, the lovely and charming villains"	James:  "To extend our reach to the stars above."
Musashi:  "Musashi!"	Jessie:  "Jessie!"
Kojirou:  "Kojirou!"	James:  "James!"
Musashi:  "The Rocket-Dan whose all decked out in Silver Feathers"	Jessie:  "Team Rocket is very well accessorized at the speed of light."
Kojirou:  "Party Silver - a tomorrow filled with happiness is waiting"	James:  "So surrender now to this fashion faux pas or prepare to fight."
Nyasu:  "What they said nya~"	Meowth:  "Meowth!  That's right!"
Sonansu:  "So~nansu!"	Wobbuffet:  "Wobbuffet!"

More food cover-ups:

Jessie:  "We got the deal of the century on all of your valuable Silver Wing finery."
James:  "Oh, and snacks and pottery, too.  We're up to our nasty necks in knickknacks."

Manjuu and senbei make their debut again only this time 4Kids decides to refer to one of them as...pottery?

I mean...maybe if you squint really hard that manjuu in his right hand looks sorta-kinda like some kind of ashtray or something?  Maybe a very small bowl?  Or maybe they're saying the senbei in his left hand looks like a coaster or something?  A weird fork?

Referring to Japanese food as Western food isn't anything new for this dub, of course, but referring to Japanese food as something that isn't even food at all?  I think this might be a first.

Cut - 16 seconds
The footage of Shintaroh running toward the vacuum, tripping, and watching helplessly as his present box flies away is played twice in the Japanese version: once before the commercial break and a second time after.  The dub had its commercial break take place a few minutes earlier so they when it got to this part of the episode it cut the first instance of the footage so it only plays one time.

Dialogue Edit
After Team Rocket crashes:

Meowth:  "Say hello to my little friend."

...is one of the most memorable catchphrases from the 1983 film Scarface, an R-rated film about a Cuban drug smuggler living in Miami.  Other memorable quotes from the film include "All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break them for no one," "I'm Tony Montana! You fuck with me, you fuckin' with the best!," and "I kill a communist for fun, but for a green card, I gonna carve him up real nice."  The movie also reportedly features 226 instances of the word "fuck" and was heavily criticized upon its release for its extreme violence.

Pokémon Master Quest is a show aimed at nine-year olds.  The two are perfect for each other, is what I'm saying.

Originally Nyasu says that they'll be unstoppable as long as they have those charms.

Jenaro's about to propose:

Ash:  "Come on, Jenaro.  Now's your chance."
Misty:  "Yeah.  Pop the question, fast."
Brock:  "Drum up some courage or I'm gonna do it."

Holy shit 4Kids won't stop making Brock be an insufferable dick, will they?  So now he's telling this guy who fed him and gave him valuable information that he's going to steal his girl?  Within earshot of said girl?  Really!?

In the Japanese version Takeshi joins the others in cheering Shintaroh on, telling him to gather up his courage and confess his love to her.

A few lines later:

Japanese Version	English Dub
Takeshi:  "I guess it's all for the best...as long as Yurico..."	Brock:  "Uh, I've got...to get a grip...somehow I..."
Kasumi:  "...is happy, right?"	Misty:  "Maybe someday you'll understand women."
Takeshi:  "Hey!  That's supposed to be my line!"	Brock:  "How can I understand something so complicated?"
Kasumi:  (laughs)	Misty:  "Well..."

The Japanese version has Kasumi and Takeshi do the "hey that's my line!" bit that Yurico and Shintaroh were doing earlier.  It's a perfectly translatable section of dialogue that got rewritten anyway because 4Kids.

Cut - 2 seconds
Two seconds are trimmed from the establishing shot of Janero's house right after the episode's final commercial break.

Dialogue Edit
Misty gives us the last script change of the episode:


...says the Water-Type Gym Leader.

Originally Kasumi admires how wondrous it is in this underwater cave.

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