Episode Stats:

Weekly Pokemon Broadcasting Station #033: "We Pichu Brothers [Calling on Detective Nyasu!] and [Niece Ruriri's Big Trouble?]"
Pokémon Chronicles Episode 21:  "Big Meowth, Little Dreams"
Japanese Air Date:  June 17th, 2003
American Air Date:  October 21st, 2006

The adventures in Millennium Town, the setting of the mini-movie "Pichu and Pikachu," continue!  In "Calling on Detective Nyasu!" Nyasu is about to enjoy a sandwich when it suddenly disappears out of his hand!  As the cat pokemon chases after the thief, he reunites with all the other pokemon from the area and enlists their aid in finding out what happened to his lunch.  They determine that the sandwich was stolen by a pokemon who cannot be seen, but they are still able to pursue it because of a single red marking that's still visible.  Their chase eventually ends up in the playground of a Doble, whose paint is splattered about in order to reveal the identity of the thief; Kakuleon!  The now visible chameleon pokemon is chased to a different playground, where it is revealed that it had stolen the food to feed a baby Ruriri.  Nyasu and the other pokemon forgive the pokemon for its actions and return with it to the park, where they have a feast together.  In "Nice Ruriri's Big Trouble?" the baby Ruriri gets lost, so the Pichu brothers start to search the area to retrieve the pokemon before its aunt notices.  As the Pichu brothers and their friends run around frantically, Nyasu comes across an Eneko with whom he falls madly in love.  The Rocket-Dan pokemon makes several attempts to woo Eneko, but all of them are foiled when Ruriri decides to interfere.  Having had enough, Nyasu starts to lash out at the small water-type pokemon, which in turn angers the Eneko he was trying to hook up with.  The cat pokemon sends Nyasu blasting off again just as Ruriri reunites with the Pichu brothers.  Now that the baby pokemon is safe again, our heroes return to Marilli and celebrate with a huge feast.

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Thoughts
As much as I've praised the previous Pichu brothers shorts, these two just weren't as good, in my opinion.  The first one was insultingly easy to figure out, and the second one was too Buttons and Mindy-esque for my tastes.  I think it's a good thing that the anime producers haven't made many more of these because this episode proves that the writers don't have enough ideas to keep these stories interesting.

The dubbed version doesn't suck as much as "Of Meowth and Pokémon" does, but it didn't turn out as good as "Trouble in Big Town," either.  The episode order of Chronicles, by this point, is all shot to hell, but in the long run that's not that big a deal.

For your reference, this episode was released between episodes AG 029, "A Startling Yamirami!" ("Ready, Willing, and Sableye") and AG 030, "The Battle Girl and Asanan!  Inside the Storm!" ("A Meditite Fight").  In the Japanese version, Nyasu no Party is used as the episode's ending theme.

Music Edit
Zero percent; that's how much of the Japanese music was retained in this episode.  I don't mean to bring it up in every comparison for Chronicles, but I've been doing it for so long that it would just feel awkward to not bring it up in these last few comparisons. 

Cut--11 seconds
The first eleven seconds of the episode were removed from the dub.

The clouds move out of the way...	...to reveal Millennium Town.
The camera zooms in right before the title screen.

I expected it to be cut since it's the same eleven seconds that were removed from the beginning of "Of Meowth and Pokémon."

Dialogue Edit
Just like in "Of Meowth and Pokémon," Meowth is turned into the narrator while Mike Pollock is cheated out of a fun episode.  And just like that episode, the script isn't so much a "translation" as it is a "complete and total rewrite."  Episodes like this would really be benefit from a bilingual DVD release because the script makes watching the Japanese version and watching the English version a completely different experience, but unfortunately the chances of that happening are slim to none.

Cut--1 second
When Meowth and the gang arrive at Smeargle's area, a second is trimmed from the shot where Meowth says "Hey, what's this!?"

Added Footage--6 seconds
You know that shot of the wall with all the scribbles on it?  And you know how, in the dub, it's shown twice; once before the commercial break, and again afterwards?  Well - you guessed it - this was only shown once in the Japanese version.

Cut--15 seconds altogether
Right before Doble splatters its paint all over the place, revealing Kakuleon, the Pichu brothers tell it their plan.  An overhead shot of the brothers talking to Doble is removed from the dub.  This last five seconds.


Later, after Doble runs off, Nyasu and his friends follow its footprints to the area where we see Ruriri.  At this point, the dub shortens each shot of the footprints on the ground and removes an establishing shot of Ruriri's hideout, for a total of ten seconds of lost footage.


Added Footage--5 seconds/Video Edit
4Kids extends the flashback of how Doble met Ruriri by five seconds by focusing on each shot a few seconds longer. 

Also, in the Japanese version, a page curling effect is used to transition from shot to shot.  Below is a screenshot; the page curl would go from the lower, right-hand corner of the screen to the upper, left-hand corner of the screen.  I guess the intended effect is that of a storybook's pages being turned.


Paint Edit
4Kids got rid of the TO BE CONTINUED text at the end of the first short. 


Click on each image to view a larger version.

Cut--10 seconds
In the second short, a shot of the Pichu brothers jumping off the table (after noticing that Ruriri's gone), a shot of Marilli blissfully unaware of her niece's absence, and the short's title screen are all removed.

The Pichu brothers start to look for Ruriri.	Meanwhile, Marilli is completely clueless.
Then we see the short's title screen.

Dialogue Edit
I'll list a bunch of the script changes here...first up is what I believe to be an attempt by 4Kids to tie the two unrelated shorts together:


Originally, there wasn't any dialogue until Moochul started speaking.  At that point, Moochul (through the narrator's voice) asks Marilli what it's doing, and she responds by saying that she's having a party for all her friends.  Ruriri isn't mentioned in the Japanese version until it shows up much later in the episode.

Also, I don't think the dub ever mentions the fact that Ruriri is Marilli's niece.  They just keep calling her "Little Azurill" throughout the whole episode.

Later, when the pokemon are walking across the crosswalk, the narrator in the Japanese version reminds the kids at home to be careful when crossing the street in a crowded city.  Yeah, I know, it's kinda preachy, but this is a kids' show, after all.  In the dub, nothing is said at all.

Added Footage--8 seconds
The shot where Ruriri falls on Ordile's head is only played once in the Japanese version, but in the dub, it's played twice.

Cut--17 seconds
Right after Ruriri escapes to freedom, Moochul and the others talk amongst themselves, saying how dangerous it is for Ruriri to be running around by itself in such unfamiliar territory.  After that, we see a pan shot of the city to show us how vast it is.

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.	A big city like this is dangerous!
We have to get Ruriri back right away!  It doesn't know anything about the big city!	The scene ends with a pan shot of the city.
The city is a vast place...

Dialogue Edit
In the Japanese version, Ruriri says (through the narrator) that it wants the flowers Nyasu brought for Eneko.  In the dub, however, we don't get any dialogue.

Paint Edit
REW is painted away like it was in the "Of Meowth and Pokémon."  Hey, I wanted consistency with these Chronicles episodes, and I guess I got it.


Here's another shot:


Click on each image to view a larger version.

Music Edit
In the Japanese version, Nyasu sings the second ending theme to the main series, Nyaasu no Uta (Nyasu's Song) to woo Eneko.  In the dub, however, he sings a completely new song that's all about how much Meowth likes Skitty.  4Kids already had a dubbed version of Nyaasu no Uta they could have used (from "Go West, Young Meowth"), but I guess it didn't sync up with the lip flaps in this episode the way they would have wanted to.

Cut--1 second
Right after Nyasu gets his in the face with his own guitar, the screen goes completely black for one second.  That one second is removed from the dub.

Paint Edit
The Chinese characters on the buildings here are erased.


Here's another shot.  Notice how 4Kids actually went the extra mile and added stuff to that one sign they erased the text from.


Click on each image to view a larger version.

Cut--41 seconds/Added Footage--20 seconds
The way the episode ends is completely different depending on which version you're watching.

In the Japanese version, the Pichu brothers and their friends return to Marilli's picnic after Nyasu is squashed by Kabigon.  The pokemon talk to each other a bit and laugh at how oblivious Ruriri was to the danger it was in.  They eventually reach Marilli's table, where the the water pokemon reveals a table full of delicious fruit.  The pokemon all gather around the table, cheer, and begin to feast.  As the narrator talks about how the pokemon are all friends, the words TO BE CONTINUED appear on the bottom of the screen.  This whole ending portion lasts 41 seconds, and you can see some screenshots of it here.
In the dub, 4Kids does away with the entire ending and replaces it with an ending they created by splicing together footage from "Of Meowth and Pokémon."  After a few shots of Meowth's apartment is shown, they show Meowth laying down to sleep.  How did they create this scene?  Well, they took the shot of Meowth sitting up in bed and taking off his blindfold and reverse it, so that now it looks like he's putting on a blindfold and is laying down.  It's a pretty obvious edit when you see Meowth's mouth move, in slow motion, after he lies down; I would have thought 4Kids would have used some digital paint to make the edit look more seamless.  Altogether, this cut and past job lasts 20 seconds.

Besides getting rid of the TO BE CONTINUED text that the Chronicles editors hate so much, the new ending also takes the focus of the episode from Azurill's adventures in the city and puts it aaaaaaaaaall on Meowth.  The episode wasn't really about the Team Rocket pokemon at all, but I guess 4Kids didn't like that and decided to change it.

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