I was keeping up with the Japanese version weekly and even I was extremely annoyed at the Pokemon social media team spoiling Ash's world champion victory minutes after it happened. They have all the money in the world to simply offer weekly subs and they just don't for whatever reason.

Re-releasing the first movie in Japanese would also be an excellent opportunity for them to release the Japanese theatrical version as an extra

It's funny how Pokemon social media pages try to pander to the older audience by just plain spoilering the big events happening in the Japanese version. Reminds me how the Miraculous Ladybug KZfaq page posts trailers for episodes that aren't even airing on the US yet all because they never made a proper deal to air the episodes in a consistent way, as instead they premiere epiosdes on either Canada, France, Spain, etc.

When I was a kid, every time the Hoenn opening played during the climax of an episode I'd think, " this sounds way too good to be dub music" I didn't have internet at the time so I couldn't check it out. Not surprised to see it was the Japanese opening. Though why 4kids kept so much Japanese music with Pokémon always confused me.

i so dearly hoped the anime expo screening would finally be the series entry point into official subs but alas… great vid and documentation as always

Brock's Paradise was also in "Lights, Camerupt, Action!" and "Once in a Mawile"

You're doing wonders, man. I always found it strange how the Pokemon anime felt "region-exclusive", like th e only way to access it in Japanese is to catch it on TV Tokyo or rent (not even buy and own?) a DVD. Pokemon de English looks so interesting so I'll definitely have to check most of these out at some point.

It's so strange to not have a legal Japanese version available when practically every other anime is advertised with that first these days. To me it never felt like they advertised the show as an anime, so I wonder if some of the issues today are a holdover from that marketing strategy. I'm sure it would be impractical to get the entire series at this point, but at least getting subs for the recent episodes seems reasonable. Though I remember that Sonic X release being mentioned as impossible when the English bluray was coming out a few years ago, so I guess anything is possible. Neat to hear that some of the odd localization stuff made its way back to Japan as a teaching program.

Tweet cameo yay! Great work as usual, it's this kind of thorough content from you that leaves me confident our voices can be heard!

There should be a law that forces companies to include the original language if it's a non-English property.

Seriously, the higher-ups at Viz/TPCi/ShoPro ahould just stop beating arround the bush and give us the subbed episodes already. I mean I get it; translating an anime subbed or dubbed isn't an easy overnight process.(Not to mention there's probably tons of paperwork that needs to be sorted out amongst other hypothetical hurdles.) But still, they're well aware that there is a demand for a legal way to watch the show subbed, so there really shouldn't be any excuse.

These Pokemon Facts videos are always a fun watch. Thank you Malik.

I actually own that Destiny Deoxys DVD.

Absolute gold mine of information in this vid, amazing work man!!! Keep it up!!

That three-movie set came out right before WB began to lose the distribution rights to the trilogy (not counting their distribution deal with Viz Media), so it was likely their attempt to get some extra money out of The First Movie while they still could.

There's also the Japanese Pokémon theme in Pokemon pinball

I once had a chance to buy some English Pokémon movie DVDs when I visited London years ago, but since Pokémon is sort of an addiction to me, my dad didn't let me buy them. Needless to say, I was grumpy for the rest of the day. The Netflix batch indeed dropped out today, but it's not actually the last batch. The English dub counts the "Aim to be a Pokémon Master" arc as part of the 25th season.

17:26 Ayo that's my old tweet lol. The volunteer handing out the wristbands actually started giving them out the night before. I remember having to shower with a ziplock bag over my hand not to get it wet. Managed to get a good middle row seat and enjoyed the film and performance without having to strain my eyes. The Pokemon go armored Mewtwo raids announcement right after was also very hype (still disappointed I never caught one). To this day the movie is still the only piece of the anime to be released with it's original audio and I'm disappointed TPCi didn't decide to simulcast Horizons.

It is crazy that the original Japanese version has never been officially released outside Japan it seems like they won't because it's too different with the dub episodes being more censored then Japanese or maybe it's Nintendo not letting them

In the Credits of Nier Automata it does a bilingual with with Japanese and English

I had no idea English fans had so many little peeks into the Japanese version! OLM and TPCi should really get Discotek to do subbed DVD/Blu-Rays like the ones for those other 4Kids shows.

Lots of crazy good info in here. Thank you for compiling this. I know this doesn't get tons of views because old Pokémon anime content is much more niche than the modern stuff and gaming content, but just know that all your videos like this are truly appreciated. Thank you!

I think the other reason people want to watch the legal Japanese version is to hear the lyrics of songs and the original score for each episode as the English version barely exists to begin with. All I want with a Japanese simulcast is the voices to be accurate, the translations to be the same and the bgm to be kept

One of the most interesting things about the Anime Expo screening was that TPCi never acknowledged it whatsoever. As far as I could tell there was never any tweets or advertisements for the screening from the actual American branch of the company, and I don't think they even acknowledged the Japanese dub being on Netflix either. Considering the track didn't end up being on the bluray even though a subtitle track already existed... it says a lot.

In the western release of the Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disk. The Japanese trailer of the game was used to promote the American release!

The ironic thing is that an important representative of Pokemon, promoted piracy and showed no concern for his product outside of Japan... by spoiling the end of Pokemon Journey xd on social networks with great fanfare, in multi languages. Well, at that moment there were several chapters left for Netflix to get to that episode.... and whoever wanted to find out what I was talking about if they weren't up to date... went to see it pirated

Great video! I had NO idea about the Meowth's Party thing, pretty cool! I feel it's also worth noting that there is an English Version of the movie 3 ending song, The Day A Rainbow Was Born. The instrumental also snuck it's way into the dub in "Barry's Busting Out All Over!" Once, too.

Pokemon getto daze indeed. While the Japanese dub of the show is still vastly superior, I fondly enjoy the English dub when I was kid till this day even I found out it remains still not a bad dubs of the series.

I think i can guess why they have been adamant to keep the original Japanese version out of the western market. Status quo for the already established pokemon brand in english speaking territories and wanting to avoid any potential controversies via some select scenes throughout the anime's run. I.E Ash getting a revolver pointed point blank at his face. Cuz even though that might be common knowledge to us pokemon fans, to the average consumer or ignorant parent that probably wouldn't the difference between either version and just show anything pokemon related to thier kids? Yeah, that'd be a PR nightmare waiting to happen. One that TPCI couldn't Walt out like Dexit or Sca/Vio launch.

This all feels like secret, lost history. A lot of stuff snuck onto VHS tapes, lost to time

I have that DVD of the first three movies. Now I gotta take it off my shelf and see if it really does list Meowth's Party on it.

There is no reason they can't have the dub ready the same day it airs in Japan. Space Dandy had English episodes airing on Adult Swim before they aired in Japan, and that was over 10 years ago by much smaller companies! It's like they WANT people to pirate Pokemon!

Meowth's Party is unlockable in English and in Japanese on Pokémon Channel for Gamecube with different endings.

If anyone ever had any doubts about your level of knowledge or fact-checking, it be obliterated by this video. This is a SERIOUSLY deep dive into some pretty die hard topics. Even I had forgotten that "OK!" doubled as a CD-ROM. Pokemon Encore is sadly most lost, but I'd love to hear your take on the follow up variety series if you ever get a chance to dive into it. You've been around the block long enough that i'm sure you've watched clips of Pokemon Sunday. Also, one omission, one of the French Mystery Dungeon DVD"s had the entire short In Japanese as a bonus feature, subtitled. Little known fact. Also, the jab you make at the end, if you're looking for inspiration on a video, the topic of the seires on DVD in Japan is actually pretty interesting. There's only 65 episodes that you could actually buy and own for yourself for the original series. Keep up the good work :-)

I wonder why Pokémon JP version is locked up. Nothing else is this locked up. I use to watch it in Japanese starting with DP

This guy really was the internet in the past, for having many knowledge and realization.

I definitely remember having tgat Winter Vacation vhs, but i dont remember the Japanese opening being on it. It very well could have been on there, and I just most likely forgot.

Oh wow! As someone who grew up with the First Movie VHS it's cool to know the history behind that little Alakazam clip! What a great video !

Although this has like a 0.0001% chance of happening what I would like to see is a mostly uncut re-dub of the 4Kids-era episodes with the current cast that are more faithful to the original.

Great Video CG8000! From,Gabe

People should be allowed the option to watch an official subbed version. On Hulu, Naruto Shippuden has both the dubbed and subbed versions for those who prefer either or both. Pokemon should do that as well.

Maybe it has something to do with the legal situation as the japanese version is handled by TV Tokyo and the animation studio, but the rights for overseas marketing and distribution lies with pokemon company international. They might not like the idea of licensors purchasing the japanese version instead of their inhouse edited international version. Other shows like yugioh or digimon were already bought straight from japan by US 3rd party companies and it was up to TV channels in every country to purchase either the edited US version or the japanese version. For yugioh most countries went with the US version because of all the edited cards, but for digimon there were quite a bunch of countries who even back in season 1 already bought from jp instead

Much as i love both anime, it is a very odd decision on TPC's end.

Insane amounts of research on this, respect man

I wish they released Pokémon in japanese on DVD editions in USA & Europe. By not including an original version is stupid in my oppinion. The same goes for the Yu-Gi-Oh! tv-shows too like Duel Monsters & GX. The DVDs that dont have the original versions, like the japanese uncensored, uncut unchanged versions of Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters & Yu-Gi-Oh! GX are worthless to me.

This is fascinating video i saw there & I wonder if pokemon could do a simuldub even probably too much work 🤷‍♂️ i don't know. I see the Japanese version because it has better music & I get to see the show right from Japan seeing the original version without any dub edits so yeah an offical fansub simulcast would be nice huh? Though I like watching the dub because i don't have to read subtitles you get me? It's fascinating pokemon prove they can release Japanese version of pokemon to international audience yet we don't have simulcast at the very least if the dub is delayed🤷‍♂️

Professor oak lecture actually got featured in the rotom episode in BW even dubbed lol

(19:51-21:18) Like I said in a comment on the Mario movie review, I avoid spoilers like the plague, and I used to get spoilers of games from a youtuber (I won't name drop him, because I'm a nice person.), and he would spoil the new Paper Mario game by showing me the bosses before I got the chance to reach them (not to mention a character's death), and it *BUGGED* me! So, yeah... Even if I don't watch much of the Pokémon anime these days, I think I know how you feel... Sorry for what you've been through...

Why does Canada get the anime before the US?

So, time for some cold water. Based on my interactions with folks at tournaments and conventions, I think the majority of the fanbase is somewhat interested in the Japanese version of the anime, but is generally fine with a few bits and pieces here and there, and the proportion who would really want to dig into a subbed version on a regular basis is actually smaller than most anime, but appears larger due to the scope of the franchise, and the dynamics of online media. I wouldn’t be surprised if the uptake on the Japanese audio track on MSBE was proportionally lower than expected and other anime on Netflix. I wouldn’t mind there being a better way to access the Japanese version of the anime, but I can see some reasons why it isn’t more common.

I honestly think people care to much about spoilers I want to know if it's good before I take time out of my day to watch its I watch clips see for myself then decide weather I want to watch it or not.

W vid.

Meh, English dub best way to watch the story anyways, big improvement, makes sense they wouldn't bother since the dub is so big and iconic and good for the brand

The dub is garbage, they need to be more true to the original!

*PromoSM* 🌈