Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 062:  "Pippi vs. Purin"
American Episode 206:  "Clefairy Tales"
Pokémon Dare Da?  Pippi (Japan), Arcanine (US)
Dr. Orchid's Pokémon Lecture:  Raichu
Japanese Air Date:  September 10th, 1998
American Air Date:  September 25th, 1999
Important Characters:  Hirata (Oswald)

Satoshi and his friends are outside enjoying ice cream one day when a wild Pippi approaches them! Shocked at seeing such a rare pokemon out in the city like this, our heroes drop everything they're doing and chase after the pokemon. Their attempt to catch it fails so they go back to the table they were sitting at to discover that all their bags have gone missing! They go to a nearby police box to report the incident and find out that other people around the city have had their belongings stolen as well. Just then the Rocket-Dan appears and traps Pikachu inside a glass case before making a run for it! Satoshi's Pigeon takes down the trio but a Pippi shows up, catches the glass case that Pikachu's still trapped inside of, and runs off with it. Our heroes chase the kidnapper to an underground hangar where the group of Pippi who are responsible for the crime wave terrorizing the city are using the items they've been gathering to build themselves a rocketship. After Satoshi and the others sneak onboard and free Pikachu the rocket is launched with everyone still on it! Fortunately, Satoshi is able use his Fushigidane's Vine Whip attack to grab onto a nearby skyscraper and swing back down to safety as the ship breaks apart and sends the stolen items back to their rightful owners below. With the thief pokemon gone and their stolen bags returned, our heroes return to the road toward Tokiwa City.

---

Thoughts
For the episode right before Satoshi's final gym, the show's producers sure did pick a strange story to go with.

I mean, let's look at what's between badges seven and eight for a minute. First we got a story about a bunch of turtles on an island somewhere that get put to sleep because of Purin's song. It's not a super interesting episode but it serves as the proper debut of Kamex so I get why it was made. After that is the episode where we revisit Hanada City. That one ends with Kasumi dumping off some of her pokemon at her sister's gym, presumably to make room for future captures, so I understand its role in the overall series as well.

And then we have this episode, a tale about how Purin are trying to go back to outer space. It doesn't advance the overall plot of the series in any way, it features two pokemon who have already had proper debuts (and one of who only just appeared two episodes ago!), and it basically just rehashes the "unhinged scientist is convinced that Pippi are from outer space" storyline that "Pippi and the Moon Stone" already did over a year before. Like, it's way too early for this show to start rehashing its older plotlines and yet here we are!

That's not to say the episode is bad, per se. It's derivative as hell, sure. But thanks to that special brand of Kanto insanity, which allows a story about pink fairies collecting pots and pans and baseball bats to create a working spaceship to somehow get greenlit, the episode manages to entertain despite the fact that we've kind of been there, done that before. We get some great comedy from Rikao Hirata, a weird but also weirdly entertaining sequence where two pink blobs slap the shit out of each other, and an exciting third act where our heroes literally have to jump out of a rocket in mid-flight. It's a fun little adventure and even though I doubt it'll pop up in anyone's lists of top ten Pokémon episodes of all time it's still a decent way to spend 22 minutes.

The English version of this one was surprisingly unedited, all things considered. If this was an episode of Pokémon Advanced Battle then you can bet 4Kids would have deleted the very Engrish-y "Soft Cream" labels at the beginning of the episode or the signs in the background that say things like "Pocket Monsters" and "Monster Ball" but since we're only in Season Two they're still letting things like this slide. There's also the slapfest between Purin and Pippi which was kept 100% intact here but would have definitely been abridged if this episode had come up later in 4Kids' run with the show. It's important to take a step back and appreciate what we have is what I'm saying here.

Music Edit
I'll just get these all out of the way right here at the beginning.

In the very first scene of the episode, we see Purin singing as it walks through a forest. In the Japanese version we just hear the sound of Mika Kanai singing without any music in the background but 4Kids decides they needed to "fix" this by adding some filler music to the background. It changes the entire mood of the scene.


The amount of Japanese music retained in the rest of this episode is pretty awful (the Team Rocket motto theme is the only piece kept in the first half, for example) but that's been the norm for a while now. Something kind of unique about this one, however, is that 4Kids seems to have created a bunch of new background music and are using this episode to debut a lot of it. I don't remember this music ever being used before nor do I remember it ever being used again so I'm not sure why they spent the time / effort on it in the first place...?

Dialogue Edit
Clefairy approaches our heroes:

Misty:  "Clefairy?"
Clefairy:  "Fairy!"
Brock:  "I can't believe a Clefairy would just walk right up to us like this."

In the Japanese version Takeshi mentions how rare it is for a Pippi to show itself inside a city like this. The "inside the city" part is missing from the dub.

Next, Misty tries to catch a non Water-Type Pokémon, again:

Misty:  "Hey! Maybe I can capture it with this ice cream as bait!"
Clefairy:  "Fairy?"

And then, a bit later:

Misty:  "I don't know how that Clefairy got away from me."
Brock:  "They may be small, but they're tricky."
Ash:  "Maybe it only likes chocolate ice cream."
Pikachu:  "Pikachu!"

The whole "let's use ice cream as bait" dialogue is all 4Kids. In the original Kasumi says she just wants to get Pippi without ever mentioning ice cream or bait or anything like that. After the failed attempt, Satoshi reassures Kasumi by telling her that she'll definitely have another chance to get a Pippi later.

I also have no idea why Misty would think that Clefairy like ice cream in the first place *shrugs*

A little bit later, we hear more about the crime wave sweeping the town:

Chef:  "I turned my back for a second and my pot disappeared. And my chicken, too."

There's no mention of chicken in the Japanese version. Originally the chef simply says "My pot got stolen and now business is terrible!" (鍋を盗まれて商売あがったりなんです).

Later, we meet Oswald, the scientist / character-of-the-day. For some reason Maddie Blaustein gives the character this pseudo-German accent; in the original version Hirata doesn't really have any unique speech patterns or accents or anything like that.

The alien Rocket duo appear:


In the original the duo just makes stock alien sounds.

The duo continues talking to the yellow rat they just caught:


There's no shitty pun here in the Japanese version! Instead, Kojirou simply states that it's important to conserve electricity (そうそう電気は大切にね).

Once the Rocket trio is defeated, Oswald and the others chase a Clefairy until this happens:


Were people still ordering things from comic books back in 1999? Like, sea monkeys and decoder rings and x-ray glasses and things like that? Because I feel like that's more of a 1970s type of thing than something your average Kids' WB! viewer would understand and identify with.

In the original Hirata is upset because "the fruit of [his] sweat, tears, and 2800 yen development fee" (ああ！わたしの汗と涙と開発費2千800円のけけけ…結晶が！) are all ruined. Two thousand eight hundred yen is equivalent to about US $25. The idea in both versions is essentially the same though; this scientist spent very little money for this device that, frankly, doesn't work.

Eyecatch
The eyecatch Pokémon this time is...!


It's kind of a shame that the dub of last week's episode used the stock artwork of Clefairy rather than the unique image used in the eyecatch for the Japanese version of this episode. There's so much original art that dub fans are missing out on!

Dialogue Edit
After our heroes land underground:


So it seems like the 4Kids script writers wanted to add a joke here, for some reason, about Misty wanting to be like "welp, nobody's here, guess we can just turn around and go home now!" But the voice actors, whose performance is done to match the serious-looking animation rather than the jokey script, have no choice but to deliver their lines in a way that clashes horribly with what they're saying.

In the Japanese version Kasumi simply says "What's going on?" (どうなってんの？) while Satoshi asks "Where are we?" (ここはどこだ？).

Team Rocket spies on the spaceship from behind a rock:

Japanese Version	English Version
Nyarth:  "It's gotten really noisy for some reason Nya."	Meowth:  "This is like being at Cape Canasta."
Musashi:  "What in the world is going on here?"	Jessie:  "James, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Kojirou:  "It seems like the twerps are on the move now."	James:  "I don't know. What were you thinking that I was thinking?"
Musashi:  "In that case we'll start moving as well. We'll get both Pikachu and the Pippi all at once."	Jessie:  "What if we brought the Boss back Pikachu plus an entire spaceship full of Clefairy?"
Kojirou:  "This will be the first time the Rocket-Dan will be getting on a rocket!...wait, that doesn't seem right..."	James:  "That's amazing! You must've read my mind, Jess. Or did I read yours?"
Musashi:  "...Well we are the Rocket-Dan you know..."	Jessie:  "Gee, that's a hard one."
Nyarth:  "What are you babbling about Nya!? Let's start our attack Nya!"	Meowth:  "Let's start stealing before they blast off!"

I don't know what this "Cape Canasta" thing Meowth is talking about is supposed to be; I've heard people theorize it's supposed to be a humorous mispronunciation of Cape Canaveral, if by "humorous mispronunciation" you mean "Meowth says a word that's completely different from what he was trying to say," but it's also possible that it's a reference to something that we all would have gotten if we weren't two decades removed from this episode's original premier. And I guess Meowth is implying that he went to some space camp at some point?

Regardless of whatever the hell Meowth is doing here, 4Kids then decides to change Musashi and Kojirou commenting about how the Rocket-Dan is going to be getting onto an actual rocket to some "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" vaudeville bit.

By the way, there's no background music during any of this dialogue in the Japanese version; the only sounds we hear, other than the Rocket trio's conversation, is that of the countdown alarm going off over and over. The English version, on the other hand, puts in this filler music that's played so loud that it basically drowns out the sound of this alarm.

Finally, Pikachu breaks free:


Satoshi's explanation in the original is simply that Pikachu's electricity is too strong; the weird balloon analogy Ash gives us in the dub isn't in the original.

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This page was last updated on August 6th, 2017