Pokémon (anime) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Based on the Pokémon video games, the Pokémon anime series was created in Japan and then translated for the North American television market. The series appeared outside Japan before the video games did, and has since spawned several movies. It is aimed at younger viewers but many teens and adults enjoy it as well.The series' music was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka, better known for his work on Nintendo games such as Metroid. Nintendo disapproved of Tanaka working on the project, so he quit the company to turn his attentions completely to Pokémon.
The show is currently in its second season of its second series in Japan, while the English dub is on the first season of the second series. Each season also brings forth a Pokémon feature-length film, and each film up until the seventh is preceded by a Pokémon animated short. In the United States, new episodes of the show can be seen on the air on the Kids WB cartoon block, while Cartoon Network shows the earlier pre-Johto episodes, which are still considered the best episodes of the series by many. 4Kids Entertainment produces the English version of the television show.
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2 Series names 3 Pokémon movies 4 Banned episodes 5 Cast list 6 See also |
Characters
Japanese names in Western order (given name before surname) are given first, followed by the English name. For the sake of simplicity, English language names will be used in this and other articles in Wikipedia about Pokémon, unless explicitly referring to the Japanese version.
Main characters
Team Rocket
Main article: Team Rocket
- Musashi / Jessica "Jessie" - the smarter, female half of Team Rocket
- Kojirō / James - the dumber, male half of Team Rocket
- Nyasu / Meowth - One of the few Pokemon that can speak a human language.
In almost every episode, there is a subplot where Team Rocket is trying to steal Ash's Pikachu or another Pokémon introduced in that episode. The attempt is always unsuccessful in the end; Team Rocket is usually sent flying into the distance, often as a result of either Pikachu's Thunderbolt attack, an attack of the Pokémon introduced in the episode, or mechanical failure of the various (usually Pokémon-shaped) machines they pilot. As Team Rocket vanishes over the horizon, they yell their catchphrase Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again! or a variation thereof (the Japanese counterpart is Ya na kanji!, which translates to "I've got a bad feeling about this!" or simply "This feels bad!"). A few episodes make Team Rocket the protagonists while the main characters (who Team Rocket refers to as "the twerps") are relegated to secondary characters.
Although Team Rocket is almost exclusively used to denote Jessie, James, and Meowth, the series occasionally features other members of Team Rocket, including Butch (Kosaburo in the original Japanese) and Cassidy (Yamato in the original Japanese), Tyson, and Professor Nanba (Nanba-Hakase). These characters are often legitimate villains, donning black Team Rocket uniforms (consistent with the game, and contrasting those of Jessie and James, who wear white), and generally have different plans that are, through the incompetence of Jessie and James, foiled by Ash and his friends.
With the current series now taking place in Hoenn, the area of focus in the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire games, the new criminal groups Team Magma and Team Aqua also made appearances for large-scale plans, but their appearances are far fewer than those of Team Rocket, who have become main characters. Team Aqua and Team Magma, like the black-clad Team Rocket members, are portrayed as true villains rather than mere antagonists.
Other recurring characters have been introduced, but few have more than one appearance. They include:
In Japan and parts of Asia, the series names are:
During each season of the Pokémon TV series, a Pokémon feature film (劇場版ポケットモンスター, romaji Gekijōban Pocket Monsters, and later 劇場版ポケットモンスター アドバンスジェネレーション, romaji Gekijōban Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation) starring the main characters from the TV series has been released. As of 2004, there have been seven movies and one feature length TV broadcast (not yet released outside Japan), with the seventh one yet to arrive outside Japan and a eighth one currently in the works for a summer release in Japan. The plot of every movie has involved an encounter with a "legendary" Pokémon, although some may not conform to a strict dictionary definition of the word.
Each movie until the seventh is preceded by an animated short, featuring Pikachu and other Pokémon owned by the main characters and Team Rocket. Much of the dialogue in the short is done in the Pokémon language, which consists of grunting (for larger Pokémon) or stating the name of the Pokémon, and most of the intelligible dialogue (monologue?) excluding the narration is performed by Meowth.
The movies, along with their corresponding animated shorts, are:
On December 16, 1997, an episode titled Dennō Senshi Porygon (Electric Soldier Porygon) broadcast in Japan caused several children to have epileptic seizuress. A sequence in the show included a form of computer graphics which needed a certain anti-virus program in order to function properly. However, the software also caused a series of visual flashes to appear on the recording, so these were altered to make them appear computer-generated too. The resulting series of flashing lights and flickering colours inadvertently triggered the seizures in the children; Japan's Fire Defence Agency reported 685 affected people were admitted into hospitals of 30 prefectures by the following day. The phenomenon was repeated when a news broadcast about the event inexplicably replayed the offending scene. It was discovered that the very quickly alternating red and yellow patterns of the scene in question caused a reaction due to a previously undiagnosed (in Japan) form of epilepsy. (As it turned out, the American Federal Communications Commission, and equivalent agencies in most European countries, already knew that television used in this manner could sometimes invoke epilepsy, and had banned extremely high frequency color switching on television broadcasts in their countries years ago.) Nintendo's stock dropped significantly, and the episode with the flashing scene was not broadcast outside of Japan. On March 30, 1998 TV Tokyo announced its intention to resume broadcasts.
The epileptic seizures were referenced on The Simpsons, although the seizures was attributed to an episode of Super Sentai rather than Pocket Monsters.
In addition to the episode that caused epileptic seizures, a handful of other episodes in the first season of the series were deemed to have content too mature for Western audiences and were cut or not shown at all. This has prompted complaints from among those fans who are denied the right to see these episodes, especially since some of the episodes in question are not classed as too mature on Western television.
Other characters
The various key characters in the video game, such as the Pokémon Gym Leaders, have also made numerous appearances in the anime. Several characters in the various Pokémon League Elite Four (shitennō) have also appeared.Series names
Some seasons of the series are given more specific names to denote the areas and adventures going on. Each season is identified by the opening animation used for the episode, rather than a run of a fixed number of episodes. The Japanese episode titles are often given with little or no kanji, as Pocket Monsters is a children's anime series (more kanji is used in the Advanced Generation episodes, perhaps as a homage to how text is displayed in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire compared to earlier generations of Pokémon games). In the English version, episode titles tend to be a play on words or phrases in pop culture, although early episode names were mostly translations of their Japanese counterparts.
Also broadcast is the:
In areas outside of Japan/Asia, these are:Pokémon movies
Banned episodes
All of the banned episodes were translated into English, with most of the English production completed, but were prevented from airing. Only one of them, Beauty and the Beach, made its way around the ban.
| Character Name | Voice Actor (Japanese) | Voice Actor (English) |
|---|---|---|
| Satoshi / Ash Ketchum | Rika Matsumoto (松本 梨香) | Veronica Taylor |
| Kasumi / Misty | Mayumi Iizuka (飯塚 雅弓) | Rachael Lillis |
| Takeshi / Brock | Yuuji Ueda (上田 祐司) | Eric Stuart |
| Kenji / Tracey Sketchit | Tomokazu Seki (関 智一) | Ted Lewis |
| Haruka / May | KAORI | Veronica Taylor |
| Masato / Max | Fushigi Yamada (山田 ふしぎ) | Amy Birnbaum |
| Pikachu | Ikue Ootani (大谷 育江) | Ikue Ootani |
| Togepi | Satomi Koorogi (こおろぎ さとみ) | Satomi Koorogi |
| Ōkido-Hakase / Professor Oak | Unshou Ishizuka (石塚 運昇) | Stan Hart |
| Hanako / Delia Ketchum | Masami Toyoshima (豊島 まさみ) | Veronica Taylor |
| Joi / Nurse Joy | Ayako Shiraishi (白石 文子) | Megan Hollingshead |
| Junsa / Officer Jenny | Chinami Nishimura (西村 ちなみ) | Megan Hollingshead |
| Shigeru / Gary Oak | Yuuko Kobayashi (小林 優子) | Matt Mitler |
| Tōru / Snap (Todd) | Kappei Yamaguchi (山口 勝平) | Jimmy Zoppi |
| Musashi / Jessie | Megumi Hayashibara (林原 めぐみ) | Rachael Lillis |
| Kojirō / James | Shinichiro Miki (三木 眞一郎) | Eric Stuart |
| Nyaath / Meowth | Inuko Inuyama (犬山 犬子) | Madeleine Blaustein |
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