Episode Stats:

Weekly Pokemon Broadcasting Station #018: "Kasumi!  Get the Blue Badge!"
Pokémon Chronicles Episode 09:  "The Blue Badge of Courage"
Japanese Air Date:  February 25th, 2003
American Air Date:  July 22nd, 2006
Important Characters:  Sakura (Sakura), Kinzoh (Kinzo)
Important Places:  Enju City (Ecruteak City), Rifure Village (Rifure Village)

Life in the Hanada City Gym is going along peacefully enough.  After feeding her pokemon, Kasumi and Kenji attempt to teach Kasumi's Koduck how to swim.  Unfortunately, the duck pokemon doesn't want to go into the water, making the swimming lessons a waste of time.  Suddenly, Kasumi's old friend from Enju City, Sakura, appears with her Eifee to challenge Kasumi to a gym match!  The Gym Leader goes to get the badges before the start of the battle, but she discovers that there are no more badges left!  She finds out from her sisters that she has to go to Rifure Village to get some more, so Kasumi, Sakura, and Kenji all set out to get some more badges.  Along the way, they meet a man who's fallen and can't get up, so they limp him to his cabin.  There, they discover that he's Kinzoh, the man from whom they are meant to get the badges from!  However, Kinzoh doesn't just -give- the badges to our heroes; he tells them to -make- them instead!  After a lot of backbreaking labor, a new set of Blue Badges are created.  Before long, the badges are stolen by a pair of thieves, so Kasumi, Kenji, and Sakura work together to bring the criminals to justice.  After retrieving the badges they had worked so hard for, Kasumi and her friends return to the Hanada City Gym.  There, Kasumi and Sakura hold their gym match, and the challenger wins after a tough battle.  As Sakura leaves the gym to continue her quest for four more Gym Badges, Kasumi continues her quest to teach her Koduck how to swim.

---

Thoughts
Kasumi's second of four Weekly Pokemon Broadcasting Station episodes is here, and it offers us yet another look at the life of a Gym Leader.  I think it's pretty interesting to see what all goes into the creation of the badges, and it's nice that we get confirmation on some of the finer points of the badges (i.e. they're made of metal, are hand-made, etc.).  Seeing Sakura brought back from Jouto is also really nice, and the little bits of continuity here and there (in the Japanese version, at least) was a nice reminder that the writers can keep everything straight with these characters.

The dubbed version is still pretty bad, but it's not as bad as it has been lately.  I'm surprised that they remembered Sakura from "Espeon, Not Included," but they're still using the incorrect pronunciation they used back then.  It's sa-ku-ra, not sa-KOO-ra.  They also kept Kinzoh's name intact, but they bungled that pronunciation too; it should be Keen-zoh, not Khin-zoh.  I mean, I'll take poorly pronounced Japanese names over awkward sounding English names any day, but I still wish 4Kids would have at least listened to the Japanese version to hear how these names are supposed to be pronounced.

One more interesting tidbit: the episode's title, "The Blue Badge of Courage," is obviously a reference to The Red Badge of Courage. However, there's an additional hidden meaning here that may or may not have been intentional; "The Blue Badge" is the Japanese name for the object known in the dub as "The Cascade Badge." 

For your reference, this episode was released between episodes AG 013, "Pokemon Contest!  Agehanto's Magnificent Battle!!" ("All Things Bright and Beautifly!") and AG 014, "Double Battle and Double Kemusso!" ("All in a Day's Wurmple").  In the Japanese version, Pokettaari Monsutaari is used as the episode's ending theme.

Music Edit
You know this by now; all the background music is replaced in the dub.  To their credit, though, 4Kids does let some music-less scenes slip through at the beginning of the episode. 

Scene Switch/Cut--5 seconds altogether/Paint Edit
You know how the dub starts off with the episode's title screen?  We're not used to seeing that, are we?  Usually, we get a little bit of the episode play before the episode's title screen; in fact, I can't think of a single example of an episode going to the title screen straight from the opening song. 

So what happened?  Well, 4Kids just rearranged a few shots, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

In the Japanese version, the first shot of the episode was that pan shot of Kasumi feeding her water pokemon  Then, we see Tattsu getting fed, Togepi chirping for no reason, and then we fade into a shot of the Hanada City Gym.


After that, we get the episode's title screen, and then we see Kasumi putting the bucket of pokemon food on the ground.

In the dub, the title screen is moved to the very beginning of the episode, and the shot of the gym is placed right after it and shortened by two seconds.  Then, the rest of the scene plays out the way it did in the Japanese version.  We see Misty feeding the water pokemon, the first shot of which is shortened by two seconds in the dub.  The scene continues, unaltered, until we get to the shot of Togepi chirping.  That shot is a second shorter in the dub than it is in the Japanese version.  After that, we go straight to the shot of Misty putting the bucket of food down.

Finally, Hanada City is changed to Cerulean City on the gym's front. 

Paint Edit
The fake text from "Cerulean Blues" is erased in this episode too.


Later, Hanada Gym is changed to Cerulean Gym for a second time.  Here's a particularly good shot of the edit.
Since they do this about a dozen more times in the episode.

Video Edit
Here's a random edit.  After Koduck rams into Sakura, the screen goes black and we then see Sakura sit down.

In the dub, however, the screen goes white before Sakura is seen sitting down.

Cut--17 seconds
After Kenji is introduced to Sakura, she gets up and bows.  After that, there's an eight-second flashback featuring clips from "Espeon, Not Included," all while Kasumi tells Kenji that she met her in Enju City.  This flashback is removed from the dub, probably due to whole "we hate continuity" attitude of the Chronicles dubbers and the fact that the animation looks old as hell when placed next to the rest of the episode's digitally colored animation.

After that, there's a nine-second shot of Kasumi telling Kenji that Sakura is the youngest sister, just like she is with her sisters.  That's removed from the dub as well.


Later, a somewhat random eight-second CGI shot of the ceiling moving by is removed from the dub.


I guess the idea was that everyone was looking up at the ceiling as they walked to the gym arena, and this shot is supposed to be from their point of view.  Anyway, during this scene, Sakura expresses her surprise that Satoshi's in the Houen region, and Kenji tells her that he seems to be doing well.

Side Note
Notice how Misty's CLOSED sign remains unchanged?  I'm only bringing it up because that exact same sign was erased in "A Family That Battles Together Stays Together."  So if they left it in now, why'd they go to the trouble to erase the same thing four episodes ago?

Added footage--1 second
When the gang runs up to Kinzo after seeing him sprawled out on the ground, 4Kids replays a second of the footage due to them placing a commercial break at this part.

Dialogue Edit
Kinzo gets some lame dialogue:


Originally, Kinzoh doesn't say a word. 

Cut--6 seconds
The shot where Kinzo says "Know this: through arduous work, one recognizes value" is six seconds longer in the Japanese version.

Sound Effects Edit
On the morning of the gang's second day in Rifure Village, a rooster's call is added in the dub to signal that it's morning.  Taking notes from the One Piece dub, 4Kids?

Added footage--10 seconds
After the gang is sort of chased out of Kinzo's cabin, 4Kids replays the scenes of the kids welding and hammering and all that other hard labor.  In the Japanese version, we go straight from the cabin scene to the shot of Kasumi painting the Blue Badge.

Cut--2 seconds altogether
Because of the above edit, a second-long clockwise transition between the cabin scene and the painting scene is removed.


Later, Misty's first attempt at forcing Psyduck's head into the water is a second longer in the Japanese version.

Dialogue Edit
I'm only listing this in the interest of being thorough.


Originally, Sakura was saying that her Agehanto had evolved from a Kemusso she caught.

Paint Edit
The Hanada Gym becomes Cerulean Gym again.


Cut--5 seconds
At the start of Kasumi's and Sakura's battle, Kenji is seen looking back and forth.  Originally, we saw the camera pan up from his feet to his head, and then we saw the camera zoom in, all while Kenji was thinking about how both Sunnygo and Eifee are strong pokemon.  In the dub, the first five seconds of this is removed so all we see is the final zoomed-in shot of Kenji's face. 

Paint Edit
Hanada Gym becomes Cerulean Gym one last time.


Cut--22 seconds
Just like in the last Misty episode, the last part of this episode is removed.

In the Japanese version, Kasumi watches as Kenji and Sakura head toward Orchid-Hakase's laboratory.  Then, we see a scene inside the gym where Kasumi resumes Koduck's swimming lessons.  She puts its beak into the water, so Koduck freaks out and starts running around the pool.  Kasumi chases the pokemon for a while and then stops, looks at the camera, and wonders when Koduck will ever learn to swim.  At this point, the words TO BE CONTINUED pops up on the screen.

Kasumi pushes Koduck into the water.	Koduck is resisting.
Its beak touches the water.	Some of this animation is recycled.
Kasumi runs after Koduck.	After a while, she stops to rest.
Meanwhile, Koduck is still at it.	What can ya do?
No "TO BE CONTINUED" for you!

Part of me wonders if the scene was cut because 4Kids felt that the shot of Misty waving good-bye to her friends would be a better way to end the episode, and part of me wonders if it was cut because of the TO BE CONTINUED text. 

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