Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 003:  "As Long as I'm With Nyahoja"
English Episode 2603:  "For Sure! Cause Sprigatito's with Me!"
Dr. Friede's Pokémon Seminar:  Pikachu
Japanese Air Date:  April 21st, 2023
American Air Date:  March 7th, 2024
Important Characters:  Joy (Nurse Joy), Roy (Roy)

The crew of the Brave Asagi, a group known as the Rising Volteccers, split up in search of Liko's kidnapped Nyahoja. Friede doesn’t want Liko to get involved since it might get dangerous but she joins the search party anyway. The ship's chef Murdock has his Puppy Pokémon Iwanko use its keen sense of smell to pinpoint the exact building where Nyahoja's being held hostage. Friede soon realizes Liko's not going to just sit back and wait and so he devises a plan where she can help him get her Pokémon back. First, Friede enters the Explorers' hideout from the front door and challenges Amethio to a Pokémon battle. If Friede wins they’ll have to give Nyahoja back, but if Amethio wins then both Liko and the pendant will have to be handed over to the Explorers. Meanwhile, Liko will go deeper into the building while Amethio's busy with his battle to continue the search for her Pokémon. She soon comes across both Nyahoja and Conia but is able to defeat the henchman in battle with another powerful Leafage attack. Finally, Liko makes a run for it with her Pokémon. As soon as Friede realizes the rescue operation's a success he calls off the battle and have the Rising Volteccers make a run for it. Back on the Brave Asagi, Liko is amazed at what all just happened; she's just had her very own adventure! Who knows what else the future holds for Liko and Nyahoja!? To be continued!

---

Thoughts
The show's first three parter comes to a close and it's alright, I guess. It's not quite as exciting as the previous episode, but it's not really as slow as the first episode either. It's just fine. Murdock (well, his Iwanko anyway) gets to do something after sitting most of the last episode out, Conia shows us the lighter side to her personality, and Liko gets to go from being a scared and confused child to taking on more of the action heroine role. The characters in this show are all slowly starting to come into their own and it genuinely makes me excited to see how the story will progress from here on out.

Comparisons between Liko and Satoshi are bound to come up from time to time, especially by diehard fans of the latter, with special focus on who accomplished what by which episode. If you compare what Satoshi had been able to do by his third episode and what Liko's been able to do by her third episode then Satoshi is the "better" hero, but I don't think that comparison's necessarily fair. Pocket Monsters (1997) and Pocket Monsters (2023) are two completely different shows made over a quarter of a century apart, and each of their main characters have their own things going for them. Sure, Liko hasn't caught three Pokémon or defeated members of the current Gen's evil team yet, but Satoshi still only had one traveling companion in his show while Liko currently has five. Satoshi saw a Houou in his first adventure while Liko's walking around with a legendary Pokémon around her neck. Satoshi had to travel the world by foot while Liko gets to ride around in an airship. Etc. etc. But at the end of the day none of that matters. Both Satoshi and Liko are perfectly fine characters in their own right and I'm glad this franchise is making the effort to have them develop in different ways. It'd be boring otherwise.

The only part of this episode that kind of bugs me is Amethio because his plan makes no sense. At one point in the episode he tells Conia he doesn't want to use Liko's Nyahoja as a bargaining chip, but then he never expands on that any further. If he's not using Nyahoja as a hostage then what in the world is he doing with it? The way it looks to me, it seems like the Explorers kidnapped Nyahoja to lure Liko to their little warehouse so that they could use the Pokémon to coerce her into coming along with them. If that's not using Nyahoja as a bargaining chip then what in the world is?

When it comes to the English dub the human voices are all mostly OK but the Pokémon voices are a lot more hit or miss. There are none I would consider "very good" but there are some that are absolute clunkers; Fuecoco and Magikarp are the two that stick out to me in this episode. A lot of them are just...fine. Not great, but not terrible either. The thing that's catching me off guard the most about this particular dub is how Pikachu is literally the only Pokémon in these three episodes to keep its original Japanese voice. Even species who normally have the same voices in both Japanese and English -- Lizardon, Yorunozuku, Metagross, Crab, Hitodeman -- all get replacement voices now, and it's such a weird thing to hear after over a quarter of a century with their original voices. When did this practice start? And why?

Dialogue Edit
Liko scan's Murdock's Rockruff with her Rotom Phone:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
スマホロトム　「イワンコ、こいぬポケモン。いわタイプ。とてもすぐれた嗅覚を 持つ。一度嗅いだ匂いは忘れない」	Smartphone Rotom:  "Iwanko, the Puppy Pokémon. Rock-Type. It has a very good sense of smell. Once it picks up a scent it never forgets it."	Rotom Phone:  "Rockruff, the Puppy Pokémon. A Rock-Type. It has an extremely powerful sense of smell."

For some reason the Smartphone Rotom's final line gets removed from the dub.

Nidothing's stream of the day:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ぐるみん　「よっす ポケモントレーナーのみんな！ぐる～びんしてる？トレーナーが100パーお世話になる場所、それがポケモンセンターだぜ」	Gurumin:  "Hey all you Pokémon Trainers out there! Feeling Gu-roovy? Today we're talking about the place where Trainers go to get 100 percent, the Pokémon Centers!"	Nidothing:  "Hey hey hey! All you epic Pokémon Trainers! Nidothing here, back with a brand new video about all things Pokémon Center!"

Like many good streamers out there Gurumin has a catchphrase used to start each episode of their show, "Hey all you Pokémon Trainers out there! Feeling Gu-roovy?" The same does not appear to be true in the dub. That's because in the English version of the first episode, Nidothing said "Hey there Pokémon Trainers! What's up?" and so if they were following along with the Japanese version TPCi should have had Nidothing say the exact same thing in this one as well. But, as you can see, they decided to change it up. The meaning of the dialogue in this episode is the same either way so it doesn't really matter, of course, but I guess having a consistent opening to each video isn't going to be a part of Nidothing's character the way it is with Gurumin's.

Onia's caught fawning over Liko's Sprigatito:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
コニア　「あ～んかわいい！すぐにポケモンフーズ買ってきちゃう。ギャーッ！ し…失礼しました。大事な人質…いえ、ポケ質ですもんね」	Conia:  "Ah it's so~ cu~te! I'll go get you some Pokémon food, OK? Gyaa~! Amethio sir, please forgive me. This person...er, Pokémon is our hostage."	Onia:  "A~ha you are the cutest! I'll go get you some more Pokémon food, alright my baby? Aho~h~! Amethio sir, please forgive me! This is your widdle cutie... no, I mean this is your hostage sir."

The Japanese word for "hostage" is hitojichi (人 質), and if you break each letter down you'll see that it has the word hito (人), or "(human) people" in it. Conia refers to Nyaoha as a hitojichi before realizing that oh yeah, Nyahoja's a Pokémon, not a person, and so she corrects herself and uses the made-up word PokéJichi (ポケ質), "Pokémon hostage," instead.

This play on words doesn't really work in English so TPCi changed it to have Onia initially refer to Sprigatito as "your widdle cutie" instead.

Eyecatch
This week's eyecatch adds Amethio to the mix:


Click on each image to view a larger version.

Dialogue Edit
Friede tries to stop Liko from running off ahead:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
フリード　「聞け　ここからは危険だ」	Friede:  "Listen to me, it's not safe in there."	Friede:  "Listen, going in there is risky."
リコ　「分かってます。でもニャオハは私のポケモンです。きっと今も１人で心細 いはず。私が行ってあげなきゃ」	Liko:  "I know that. But Nyahoja is my Pokémon. It's probably all alone and scared right now. I have to go in there..."	Liko:  "I know that. Please, Sprigatito is my best friend. It's probably feeling very scared and alone in there. I can't just do nothing."

Nyahoja is Liko's Pokémon while Sprigatito is Liko's "best friend."

And not that I'm complaining or anything, but the dub's scripts being so good all of a sudden means that all that's left to talk about are nitpicky little changes like this one!

After their big adventure Liko asks to join the Rising Volt Tacklers:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
フリード　「俺たちの使命はポケモンの謎、世界の謎を解き明かすこと。人呼んで ライジングボルテッカーズだ」	Friede:  "Our mission is to solve the mysteries of Pokémon and the mysteries of the world. We are... the Rising Volteccers!"	Friede:  "Because our mission is to discover the mysteries of Pokémon. That's what the Rising Volt Tacklers are all about!"

The "mysteries of the world" part of the team's mission statement gets removed from the dub.

Video Edit
For the third episode in a row the "To Be Continued" text gets erased.


Click on each image to view a larger version.

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This page was last updated on March 8th, 2024