Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 018: "Holiday in Aopulco"
American Episode ???: "Beauty and The Beach"
Pokémon Dare Da? Obaba (Japanese), Pidgeotto (American)
Japanese Air Date: July 29th, 1997
American Air Date: June 24th, 2000
Important Characters: Obaba (Brutella), Ryuu (Moe)
Important Places: Aopulco (Porta Vista), Obaba's Shop (N/A), Ryuu's Beach House (N/A)

Our heroes have arrived in the resort town of Aopulco!  After spending some time on the beach, Satoshi and his friends rent a boat and take it for a ride.  Their boat ride is cut short, however, when they accidentally crash into the Rocket-Dan's Gyarados submarine!  In order to pay for the repairs, Satoshi and his friends decide to help out at the restaurant run by the boat's owner, Ryuu.  The Rocket-Dan, also in need of some money to fix up their sub, decide to work at the neighboring restaurant owned by an old woman simply known as Obaba.  Musashi and her friends sabotage Ryuu's restaurant in order to drive customers away, preventing Ryuu from being able to earn the money he needs to pay back a debt.  As Satoshi and the others try to figure out another way to make money, Orchid-Hakase and Satoshi's mom suddenly appear and tell them about a beauty contest going on later in the day.  Everyone decides to set up shop near the contest area to take advantage of the influx of people, and Kasumi decides to enter herself!  As the contest is going on, the Rocket-Dan are ordered by Obaba to destroy the stage and sabotage Ryuu's chance of paying back his debt.  The trio set out to do what they're told, but Satoshi and his pokemon are able to send their Gyarados mecha crashing into Obaba's restaurant.  With Obaba's restaurant out of the picture, Ryuu is free to finish earning the money needed to pay back his debt.

---

Thoughts
This was a really weird episode, and not just because of Kojirou's tig ol' bitties.  The whole thing - the kids befriending a creepy old pedophile, the unusually (for this show) realistic portrayal of women in bathing suits, the nonsensical plot -  feels like a random, throw-away fanservice-y episode instead of the logical progression from a three-episode arc to Satoshi's next Gym Battle.  When I watch this episode, I get the same feeling I would get if someone took a volume of Pokémon Special and then crammed an uncensored Dengeki Pikachu chapter into the middle of it.  Really weird and out-of-place.

This is also another episode where Satoshi and his friends recognize the Rocket-Dan even when they're wearing a disguise.  It's too bad they don't stay as sharp as they are in these earlier episodes.

The voice actor who did Ryuu's voice, Kitamura Kouichi, died in October 2007 of pneumonia, so watching this episode in Japanese is a bit awkward.

This episode was skipped over during the show's initial run on American TV presumably because of the Kojirou scenes.  It wasn't until about two years later that 4Kids finally got around to dubbing it, cutting out the offending scenes in the process and giving the episode the "lost episode" label. The dub of this episode only aired twice on Kids' WB! and then was never seen again, so if you didn't catch it then...well, tough luck.  Since it was aired in the middle of the Orange Islands arc (specifically, between "The Mystery Menace" and "Misty Meets Her Match") and dubbed as a one-off, it probably isn't included with any season packs and is therefore unavailable for companies like Viz to release on VHS or DVD.  Probably.

The dub of this episode also stands out because 4Kids left the vast majority of the Japanese text intact.  This is pretty much the only episode in the series where they leave the text alone (for the most part), and from what I remember, nobody's eyes melted in their sockets upon catching a glimpse of Japanese writing.  I don't know of anyone who was seriously bothered by the fact that the Japanese wasn't wiped out of existence in this episode, making the whole idea that 4Kids has to edit out Japanese text for an English dub absolutely absurd.  Well...more absurd than it was to begin with.

Dialogue Edit
The creepiness of an old man befriending a bunch of preteens is present in both versions, but this line, uttered by Moe, is considerably watered down.  This happens right as Moe meets Misty for the first time:

Moe:  "You remind me of my granddaughter."
Misty:  "We don't have any money, but we'd be happy to work to pay for any damages."

Originally, Ryuu tells Kasumi that things would be more fun if she was eight years older.

I'm surprised 4Kids didn't just cut this scene out since the animation is a dead giveaway that this old man is hitting on a pre-teen girl.  Whatever.

Another thing I wanted to bring up is that Obaba (which simply means "old woman" or "hag") has a little speech quirk; she usually tags -baba at the end of all her sentences.  This is ignored in the dub, which will make a joke further on in the episode not really make a whole lot of sense.

Later, we get some food edits:

Brock:  "French-fried flounder!  Seven layered crab cakes!  Get 'em while they're cold!"
Ash:  "Try our new squid on a stick!"
Brock:  "And our clam juice snow cones!"

Originally, Takeshi was simply telling everyone that they served ramen and shaved ice while Satoshi invited people to come in and take a break from the hot sun.

Paint Edit
The stuff Nyarth's pumping into Ryuu's restaurant gets edited out:

Click on each image to view a larger version.

So 4Kids leaves in all the Japanese text in this episode but then goes and deletes the one bit of English text present?  Was it Bizarro Day at 4Kids or something?

Dare da?
The pokemon for "Who's that Pokémon?" segment in the dub is Pidgeotto, but in the Japanese version, it's Obaba.

After the "pokemon" is revealed to be Obaba, we see a bunch of objects being thrown at the old woman.  After dodging the various things being hurled her way, Obaba stops, sticks her tongue out at the camera, and then unexpectedly gets hit over the head with what appears to be a bathtub.

You can watch a video clip of the eyecatch here.

I guess 4Kids didn't want to bother cutting out the animation and pasting it over their splashy American background, so they just replaced it with an actual pokemon instead.

Music Edit
When the flyers for the The Suntanned Beauties and Pokemon Contest ("The Porta Vista Beach Beauty and Pokémon Costume Contest" in the dub) are being passed out, the English version plays Pokémon World, the opening theme to the Orange Islands set of episodes.  Which is...y'know...weird for a number of reasons.

Originally, the music that plays is Track 029 on the OST, チャリンコ暴走族 ("The Bicycle Delinquent Gang"). 

Dialogue Edit
The exact amount of the prize isn't mentioned in the Japanese version, but in the dub, Brock says that there are multiple prizes worth $1,000.

Later, we get, chronologically, the first time 4Kids has effed up the name of a pokemon:

Brock:  "Well, this is a very imaginative costume.  It's Staryu and Squirtle as extra terrestrials in their flying saucer!"

The big purple starfish pokemon is a Starmie, not a Staryu.

Sadly, this won't be the last time the company makes a mistake like this.  Not by a long shot.

Cut--32 seconds altogether
So the reason this episode got skipped over when 4Kids was first dubbing this season all those years ago was, presumably, because of the scene where Kojirou shows up at the competition in a skimpy bikini that shows off a pair of giant, fake, inflatable breasts. 

So what basically happens is that Kasumi goes out on stage with her pokemon and does her little pose.  This much is seen in the dub.  What's cut out is Musashi and Kojirou shoving Kasumi out of the way and taking the center stage themselves.  Kasumi is shocked to see Kojirou with a giant pair of breasts and exclaims that she thought he was a man all along.  Kojirou replies by saying that his beauty transcends gender and then, for no real reason at all, makes his breasts inflate to ridiculous proportions.  The Rocket duo poses as Takeshi, who's still acting as the M.C. at this point, comments on how a mysterious duo of beautiful women have taken the stage.  This whole sequence lasts 27 seconds.

Next, we see a shot of the crowd cheering.  In the Japanese version, they're cheering for Musashi and Kojirou, but in the dub, they're cheering for Misty and her pokemon.

Next, Kojirou teases Kasumi about how she'll have to wait ten years before growing a big pair of breasts like the ones he has.  After this little scene, we get a shot of the Rocket-Dan's pokemon.  This part lasts four seconds.

So basically, Jessie and James never enter the competition in the dub - only their pokemon do.

Here's how the scene plays out in the Japanese version'

Kasumi enjoys the spray of water caused by her pokemon.	Suddenly, she's shoved to the side!
"We'll be the ones who will claim victory this time."	"Kojirou!?  You're supposed to be a man, aren't you!?"
"Tsk tsk tsk...My beauty is able to surpass silly things like gender."	"Now you're in our way, little girl.  Go ahead...shoo."
"We'll be doing you a service."	"Eh!?"
"Suddenly, two adult women have appeared on-stage.  How will the audience react?"	"Wow!  Nobody seems to mind at all!
"Of course!"	"You're about ten years too young to hope to have a pair like this."

It's a completely random scene that doesn't really serve any purpose, and its deletion doesn't really impact the episode in any way.  So my question is:  if they were going to cut this scene, why didn't they just do so back in the first place?  Why dub this episode two years late if they were just going to cut out the offending scene anyway?  In retrospect, it pretty much makes the fact that this episode was even banned in the first place ridiculous.

Dialogue Edit
When Shigeru's on-stage bragging about his lady friends, he calls them his girlfriends in the Japanese version.  In the dub, he just calls them his fanclub.

Cut--7 seconds
After Kasumi comments on Takeshi oggling over the girls in the contest, we see Musashi and Kojirou, still in their bathing suits, looking on from backstage.  Both Musashi and Kojirou talk about how they're much more beautiful than the other girls onstage before Obaba appears and drags them away. 

"I'm much prettier than those girls out there!"	"Baba."

This scene was cut because it showed Kojirou, but luckily for 4Kids, he takes that suit off and puts some clothes on after this. 

Dialogue Edit
This next dialogue edit happens when Brutella's talking to Jessie and James:


Originally, Kojirou's second sentence is Tatoe hi no naka mizu no naka ("We'll go through the fire and through the water"), a line that just happens to be the opening line of the show's opening theme song, Mezase Pokemon Master.  I guess 4Kids didn't pick up on that, though, which is why they didn't put the English equivalent (as awkward as that would be) in its place.

Right as the Rocket-Dan’s sub is launching, Musashi says Hashin-baba! (“Launch -baba!”).  She then corrects herself, noticing that she’s beginning to talk with the Obaba-speak I mentioned earlier. 

The dub, on the other hand, just kinda of has Rachel Lillis do her best Brutella impersonation.  Except it doesn't really sound too much like her and ends up killing the joke.  

Paint Edit
The trophy gets a paint edit:

Click on each image to view a larger version.

The Japanese writing says "The Suntanned Beauties and Pokemon Masquerade Contest - Winner."  Which is different from what the banner on the actual contest stage says (the word masquerade is only present on the trophy).  Anyway...it's not really clear who the recipient of the award really is...we can't really assume that Satoshi's mom won the competition because she didn't seem to even enter.  So maybe Kasumi won it and she's just holding it for her?  Maybe one of Shigeru's girlfriends won it and she's holding it for Orchid-Hakase, who will eventually be taking it home?  It's really hard to tell.

I guess 4Kids didn't want to have the same ambiguity going on in the English version, so they just made the trophy be an award for Ash's bravery instead.  I guess, in the dub, the people holding the contest have someone on staff who can whip up an engraving on the spot, because otherwise, the fact that this trophy even exists doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

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