I absolutely remember getting up early every morning before school to watch Pokémon. And I remember all the fuss around violence and evolution, too. God, this brought back so many memories 😅
@@benamisai-kham5892 Jigglypuff, in early Pokemon anime, is like a second mascot. I believe that's why Smash 64 had Pikachu, with Jigglypuff unlockable. Smash generally looks to what's popular in the anime first, then the games. Thus, Pichu and Mewtwo were next, then Lucario, Greninja, and Incineroar, all of which have had a huge presence in the anime.
I did a little more research and I guess the Japanese used from that story meant "big chested" which could be sexy pikachu or could be Arnold swarzcheneggar pikachum
@poweroffriendship2.0 It wasn't Pikachu's fault either, those missiles would explode and flash no matter what they hit. If Pikachu didn't shock the missile, it either would've hit Porygon and everyone else, or it would've hit a wall (exploding and flashing in either case anyway).
The sad part is that if you know more about that interview they said it it looked more like a tiger with Pikachu's original tail (so the picture they made might be inaccurate)
furries aren’t all necessarily attracted to furries, and you don’t have to be a furry to be attracted to furries. i should know, i’m living proof of the second one. still funny tho
The backlash from that strobe effect is still impacting anime today, plenty of shows with sequences with any kind of quick moving colours get filters put over them to dim things down
Not just TV, a lot of game rereleases/virtual console versions get dark filters applied to any part that goes above a certain light level. The N64 virtual console on Switch does it a lot across Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Pokémon Stadium and most of the others.
@@PretendingToBeAHuman Yes im much the same, if there is any changes that should be kept, its the slight dimming or desaturation of flashing scenes. It's nice to be able to watch a show without needing to be ready to shut my eyes at a moments notice. Definitely a necessity for shows and can still convey the meaning without causing eye damage.
Things like that just prove how much adults don't really understand kids. I Watched both Pokémon & Sailor Moon as a kid in the target demographic and none of the attempts to sanitize it for American audiences made sense for me or any of my friends. It just left me with more questions that didn't get answered until I got older and had access to internet where I could look this stuff up.
@@WPFLAWLESSNah, some of the translations/cultural conversions definitely worked just fine, hell a few were even straight up inspired, but others extremely very much DID/WERE NOT! It's just that the latter events stick out SOOOO much more in our minds/memories than the former (which you often wouldn't even recognize) so you inevitably think that's all there was. 🤷 4Kids did a lot of bad, but considering what they had to deal with on the TV network end (daytime network TV is a fucking BIIIIITCH!!!), they actually did as decent a job as probably could be expected all things considered. And as far as DIC and Sailor Moon goes, there was even LESS appetite for "foreign coded media" in that even earlier era as during the Pokemon heyday of the late 90's. A direct translation of the original material would NEVER have flown on early-mid-90's children's TV. As drastic as it was in some cases, they simply did what they had to do to get the show on the air. 🤷
It feels weird hearing someone declaring Sailor Moon landed with a thud. I remember it being huge. Like local tv network running a marathon and contest leading up to the first season finale.
SM was an instant hit in Europe and Latin America (the latter even started airing it a year after the US) and did receive proper timeslots and promotion so it definitely feels really alienating. Both markets also managed to air all 5 seasons while the US suddenly stopped at 4 until the Viz Media reissue a decade later.
All the people my age watched CN, Nickelodeon, etc., and I was just sitting there, thinking about my favourite stuff from Teletoon. It broadcast mostly French or British shows, so it would be interesting to see whether Eddie had watched any of them and what he thinks about them after a while 😊
Even tho Edd tends to cover topics I too experienced as a UK born person, if we can get enough Americans (I assume that's his largest audience like most TH-camrs) asking for him to cover British media that'd be great.
I'm from the Carribeans, and I would LOVE to see more videos about British stuff. Why? Cause I'm open to learning other people's culture from around the world, and plus my best friend is British, and I legit wanna know more of British culture to get close to them. So please Edd, I heavy request you do more British stuff.
Hi Eddie, minor correction: Al Khan did not invent the word "Pokemon". This is easy to verify, as the word appears in the second box of text of Pocket Monsters Green and Red, where Ookido refers to himself as a "ポケモンはかせ", Pokemon Professor. I booted the game up real quick to check, but they've been called Pokemon from the beginning. Pocket Monsters is the title of the franchise and was dropped in the west. Originally watched this on Nebula but there aren't comments there so I had to wait for it here.
I don't think Americanisation and the way media from the rest of the world always has to drop it's culture is talked about enough. When a story or a joke is changed to erase it's cultural references it becomes a shell of it's original. As an example Ghosts is an amazing show but recently the British version was being aired in America with lots of bits and pieces cut out. I've seen American fans complain how the censoring had completely ruined it, messing up comedic timing and the plot. The fans in America already liked the show in it's original form and by trying to make it more appealing to an American audience they'd ruined it for everyone. The fact is audiences will like media regardless of where it comes from, if it has a lot of cultural elements from the country it's from they shouldn't be changed or removed. In the age of the internet, if someone doesn't understand a cultural reference they will likely search it up and also learn about the culture along with a piece of media they're engaging with.
No real cultural parts of pokemon were touched, just one off lines and stuff. It's really not a big deal and the English version improved upon that Japanese version tons over.
@dwainsimmons3447 Are you joking? There were huge parental panics over the Pokémon TCG (getting it banned in schools over false pretenses), religious outrage over everything being "demonic" (because Foreign Things Bad), and it was generally treated like some suspicious negative thing that would harm people. US news had a field day painting the franchise as dangerous because of the Porygon incident, as though the show had a special unique power to give people seizures or something.
Pokémon has gotten a lot more internationalized since the Red and Blue days. The first games and first season of the anime took place in Kanto, which is a real region in Japan. After Gold and Silver, not only were the new regions given fictional names but started being based on different countries starting with Black and White, which was based off of New York City, with characters of various races. Now in the games and anime, they have a fake written language on signs to make it easier to localize. There’s still a lot of Japanese influence in the franchise, but it’s also trying really hard to include other cultures as well.
I think every video essay ever from now on should have a Poke-Rap segment which summarizes the major events or funny moments in the video in the style of the Pokemon rap
Streamer duo Pat and Paige (PatStaresAt and PeachSaliva) had a child a while ago, and not only will they refuse to tell anyone the kid's name (instead referring to him purely as Pat Jr. or "the baby"), but any time they post a picture of the child, his face is censored...by them Photoshopping Pat's face onto the child. It is _distressing_ the first time you see it, because the fact that there isn't an obvious censor makes it feel like there isn't one, until you look closer and realize that baby has a fully-grown man's head!
Honestly, I can't really blame them in hindsight. Pokemon had a lot more widespread controversy back then; and the pastor that he showed in this video was overreacting to the point of being borderline abusive, forcing his own 9 year old kid to destroy a Pokemon toy the kid owned all because he saw Pokemon as being "evil". Either way you look at it, it really is stupid, and it goes to show that some people are too shortsighted when it comes to something seemingly going against an ideology they believe in
Makes me more grateful that the church and state separated. Imagine how many things we would've missed out on because the country was managed by people who thought lighting came from a dude throwing bolts from the sky instead of electrical discharges in our planet's atmosphere and that rain came from another invisible sky dude crying instead of water vapor condensing from the clouds
I guess something interesting about the effect of American media is that outside the English-speaking world, anime has been popular for a lot longer since they don't see too much difference between dubbing an English show or a Japanese show, and they may not have enough home grown cartoons to compete with them.
One part of the anime localization that I believe you missed is that they eventually created a fake written language so signs don’t have to painted over for localization as much.
As an American I will confidently and proudly speak on behalf of all Americans and American territories, that we would love a very British Episode of Eddache.
It’s worth noting that with regard to having a “Japanese voice” loads of Pokémon designs themselves are explicitly Japanese cultural and historical references that would mean nothing to people outside the country. Lickitung may be based on a specific yōkai, Froslass is based on the yuki-ona and in Pokemon Legends there is a specific quest that refers to this legend. Bronzor and Bronzong are based on bronze mirrors and dōtaku bells. Bells are significant to the history of religion and metal working in Japan. Baltoy and Claydol are based on Jōmon period Dogū ceramic figures. Jirachi is based on Tanabata.
Pawniard Bisharp and now Kingambit are based on infantry, samurai, and the Daimyō or Shōgun. They are obviously more well known outside of Japan but there are numerous Pokemon based on ninjas as well. Makuhita and Harihama are based on sumo. Darumaka and Darmanitan are based on daruma dolls. Dunsparce is based on the tsuchinoko. Ralts and castform are both based on teru teru bozu. There are numerous more like this. The entire setting of Gen 2 is based on the historical Japanese heartland of Kansai, with the names of the games referring to two specific pagodas with phoenixes on top. Geishas and monks abound in Johto.
"We can't have kids thinking this Japanese show is Japanese! Erase all the Japanese text and change the onigiri to jelly donuts! Also, let's abbreviate the show's name to Pokemon so it'll sound more Japanese!" also Jynx is so officially purple that the 3DS re-releases of the GBC games were retroactively altered to make the Pokemon purple... which funnily enough actually can't be done on the original hardware. Nintendo wrote special emulator features to *turn Jynx purple*! 28:20 Pokemon absolutely was not intended for US export, and we know that because the moment they learned the show was going to the US, they tried to write out Brock and replace him with Tracey, out of fear that their Southeast Asian character would read as a Black stereotype in the US.
@@dwainsimmons3447 It's not, they (the Japanese animation team) thought American parents might read it as such. They brought Brock back the next season once they realized their worries were unfounded.
I could definitely see the permanently closed eyes being a potential issue. If alternate realities were a thing, I don't think it would be very far from our own.
Thankfully in most Latin America, Sailor Moon came almost unaltered as the Dub studio bought the rights independently from the USA. We didn't have the lesbian outer sailors banned, they were in fact the first depiction of a sex-same relationship in an animated series I watched on TV
Yeah, but it was also very common for some anime that was dubbed into Neutral Spanish to be based on the English censored version. Shows like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gash Bell and One Piece were dubbed into Neutral Spanish, using the 4Kids version as the base Luckily, One Piece received a much more faithful dub many years later with many of the voice actors from the 4Kids version reprising their roles because they actually sounded pretty good
Oh yeah. Also Dragon Ball was lucky here in Latin America . Sure the church hated it, but at least the voice actors and the translation was good at least.
RE: Emergency numbers There's a convention for countries to support as many emergency numbers as possible. A lot of panasian countries support 114 for medical services and 115 for fire services too despite those only being official in a few countries, but since they already use 112 for emergency services supporting different kids of emergency services with a slight suffix change is an easy add. I don't think the UK will ever add those BTW, we've reused the 11- prefix already to include things like NHS direct and operator services, it'd get messy if there were any conflicts.
I really enjoyed the "international" appeal section of this video, you did an amazing job addressing something that's been on my mind for a while now. It's just crazy interesting to me. We really are seeing more and more Americanization in media and culture to a degree that a lot of people everywhere (I'm in a lot of language learning spaces online, and see this _especially_ on the internet) feel that they have to make themselves "palatable" enough to this weird imaginary American living rent free in their mind (or all around them, constantly). It's crazy how much America has built up this gradual cultural monopoly over the rest of the world when there's so much nuance and so much history that has gone into generations of these chunks of humanity. The line has gotten so blurred, and it's so odd to see
Hey man, I know it's not much, but I really enjoy seeing the british stuff in your videos. Us Americans have so much representation already that it honestly kind of sucks being stuck in this sort of cultural echo chamber. We don't get to see things outside of our culture too often, and when we do, most of the mainstream audience tends to view it with disdain, so it ends up being changed. I know I'm just one person, but I really hope you don't end up erasing your British identity just to appeal to us.
Honestly, I feel like everyone in the media involved in scaremongering Pokemon back then should be taken to task in the present for their ignorance and thinly-veiled xenophobia
Honestly, for the entire segmemt at 24:24, I don't think it's that big a deal to sway to a video or two about stuff you grew up with in your specific region. I know Nitro Rad broke off from his usual video game reviews for a video to talk about specific shows he grew up with in Canada - and not a lot of those shows made it to the US. It's fun taking a peek behind the veil & seeing what details of pop culture another country has.
I'm an american/japanese man but I must say I am very interested in any of your takes on british media. I would love it if you dropped a video now and then.
It's interesting bringing up the Japanese identity of Pokemon, as since Gen 5, (and arguably Pokemon Colosseum and XD on Gamecube) Pokemon stopped being set in Japanese themed settings, to settings based on: the Continental US, France, Hawaii, the UK, and most recently Spain. Only for Legends Arceus to bring back the most Japanese setting yet.
I'm kind of glad they missed the Jynx problem before airing. It shows they werent seeing it a human performing something offense, but instead saw it for what it was, a pokemon with a unique look most likely based on Japanese culture. Still, sorry if it did bother anyone else at the time, and happy there was a subtle change instead of a complete Jynx ban.
26:03 Not going to lie, having this clip have totally different audio from the rest of the video and having headphones on scared the bricks out of me. Scariest kids on halloween 10/10
@@sallomon2357I swear reactions like these just show how people should make a video talking about the Japanese side of Pokemon in detail lol, people know too little. The drunk guy in Viridian in the games is talked about a million times yet nobody mentions how Dark is the Evil type in Japan or how Fire type is Flame type, or many other things like Pokemon moves actually being Pokemon "techniques" in Japanese.
It's corny to say this, but I just think they (grown out of touch adults) just hate when they see younger people enjoy anything different. Just look at when GO launched (Disastrous game wise due to Niantic doing nothing to fix it), they were seething and trying to find anything negative to generalize anyone enjoying it.
In the Netherlands Black Pete is rapidly declining, with only a few more conservative places keeping the actual black face. Now he just has a couple of soot marks on his face from going down the chimney. No longer the black face with red lips. Cause as much as the older people want to claim they are black because of the chimney, no, they are representing black helpers. So not every corner anymore
Excellent video! You know, there IS an audience for learning about other places' childhood media, be the change you want to see in the world and tell us about some of that stuff in a way that you'd feel is approachable! Everything in media IS too USA-centric and the occasional video about other countries' culture helps make sure the context of the wider world and their experiences isn't completely lost! The only way we close the gap between us is by sharing those experiences.
Seeing Japanese writing in Sailor Moon as a kid never bothered me whatsoever. Also in Japan they absolutely shorted the name to Pokemon as early as Pokemon Red and Green. It's just the titles tend to be written out fully for, probably marketing purposes. I've never heard anyone outside of the commercials say anything but Pokemon and the only time they would say Pocket Monsters was at the end of the commercial.
I feel like their idea to change everything to American ideals in the show did work in their favor for the time but these days- we don’t give a damn. If anything I think it’s preferred for most people that you keep the Japanese stuff lol
The two points I'm most interested in discussing are the last two, which are the two culture points. One is about Pokemon and its Japanese voice, the other is about the cultural effect America has on the rest of the world. Pokemon had a much more distinctly Japanese voice early on. In the first two generations in particular, it "felt" very Japanese, both in the anime and in the games. Their efforts to make it feel more natural to American viewers did work, because as a kid I enjoyed the stuff I could understand much more, but I always knew I was watching a Japanese thing just because I would seek out information about the thing I loved and would find a lot of Japanese stuff with Pokemon on it. I think this is a part of Pokemon's awkward early years where it was still finding its feet, because very early Pokemon had a lot of weird details you wouldn't see in the multi-billion dollar corporate juggernaut it is now; in particular, early Pokemon had a lot of real world animals (in the show, a Gastly transforms into a mongoose to scare an Ekans, and while it is a cartoon mongoose, it is literally just a mongoose, which is extra strange now because we have Zangoose, a mongoose-based Pokemon that has its snake-fighting tendencies baked into the species!) and references to real-world locations (in the in-game Pokedex in Yellow, Arcanine is said to be a legendary Pokemon in China, and Raichu was said to have enough electricity to knock out an Indian elephant, both a real world place and a real world animal). As early as gen 2, a lot of these were being phased out, and now the simple idea of seeing regular fish swimming in a fish tank in the Pokemon world is ridiculous when there's sixteen different fish Pokemon to choose from. This has had the effect that early Pokemon felt a lot more Japanese, whereas modern Pokemon feels a lot more universal. Early Pokemon wanted you to believe the Pokemon world was somewhere in our world you could potentially visit, modern Pokemon pretty conclusively states it's a different world entirely from our own, giving them a lot more freedom to do their own thing without being tied to our real world contexts. As a result, while Pokemon will always be from Japan, it does not feel like "a Japanese thing", it feels universal. Some will say this brings people of all cultures together, some will say it's a direct attempt to silence Japanese culture specifically. Regarding the cultural effect America has on the world at large, many people will cite this as a great crime America is committing, like we're deliberately trying to sabotage the rest of the world to make them more like us. But like Edd says, most of the reason why these American culture details became so prevalent is just because our American movies would be exported out to other parts of the world, kids would watch them, and become used to the American way their media presents it. Which means that the problem comes from Americans making American media aimed at Americans that then...goes out to other places in the world for other people to enjoy, and then they grow used to the American way of things because of that, and now that's apparently...our fault for making American media that Americans would appreciate? It's not like we sent High School Musical 3 over to England to infect them with our senior prom obsession, we just made a movie about an American high school that ended up becoming popular outside of America too. Are we seriously expected to be removing all American culture from our American media just in case someone in England watches an American movie and dials 911 instead of 999? Are we supposed to use 999 in our movies because that's how England does it and now our American kids will all think 999 is the emergency number? This seems absolutely ridiculous. Americans papering over the culture of other countries to make it "make sense" to us, there's an argument to be made there about whether or not that's ignorant, but if British kids watch American movies where we trick or treat and they decide they want to do it too, I'm sorry, I don't think we're gong to ban depicting trick or treat in our movies just in case it spreads across the globe. If you watch an American movie, you should expect American culture, just like if we watch a movie from anywhere else in the world, we should expect _their_ culture. That sort of cultural exchange is how we all learn and grow and become better and more interesting people. Man, you found a country _once_ on stomping out a pre-existing culture and replacing it with your own, and now people think that's all you fuckin' do!
The worst thing about cultural reference accommodation is it’s always a one-way street to the US, even if the original reference isn’t hugely local and abstract, and the context is really clear. British comedian Joe Lycett has an early stand-up routine about eating a Greggs sausage roll in an expensive clothes shop, which is hilarious, but when you watch it on Netflix, he says “British sausage roll”. It sounds so unnatural coming from him, especially when he even explains what it is, even in the original routine (“If you’ve never had one, it’s 10% pork and 90% dust”). I’ve heard a British TH-camr explain a Wagon Wheel, even though I, and everyone else in the video, has known what one is since we were 5 years old. I’ve heard Tom Scott about to say “bap” before catching himself and saying “bread roll”, even though he’s clearly talking about making a sandwich. Meanwhile, how am I supposed to know what Piggly Wiggly is with no context at all? Is it like a Greggs sausage roll?! I know we can just google it, but it’s so infuriating and obnoxious how US writers and producers not only expect us to know their entire cultural sphere, but also overly sanitise our own content to remove any reference to the culture we grew up with, whatever the origin, alienating its original audience in the name of clueless Americans. Also, as a side note: I disagree with the idea that UK creatives aren’t coming up with good enough ideas. The UK is the biggest TV format originator in the world, and yet the US is still dominant because they’ll make their own versions, which then become the standard worldwide (Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, Masterchef, Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, Ghosts, The Office etc.). Taskmaster, in this case, is the exception to the rule. I’ll bet you weren’t aware that the second biggest originator is the Netherlands (Deal Or No Deal, Big Brother, The Voice etc.). The Masked Singer is Korean, Ugly Betty is Colombian, Dragon’s Den is Japanese - the world comes up with the idea, but the US versions get heavily marketed whatever happens. It’s up to streaming platforms and TV channels to give more prominence to non-US, especially non-English language, film and TV shows, to debunk this idea that a show ‘needs’ a US version to be successful. We’re starting to see this in big-budget dramas, but generally something has to be a proven, easy-to-follow hit like Squid Game, La Casa de Papel or Call My Agent, if it’s going to break its original market.
Pokemon as well as Video Games as a whole in the late 90s was the first time I was exposed to how people who never knew anything about that I enjoyed suddenly had beliefs that what I loved was somehow problematic to society. This, as a kid and teenager at the time, really was a cold and harsh reality that no matter what you do and what you enjoy, someone somewhere is gonna be offended by it and they will try to lobby the Gov to screw your hobbies.
Supporting the argument of Pokémon being "made for export", over time the series started creating its own written language to replace the Japanese text. What's more, as the world expanded and more Pokémon were added, many references to real-world locations and creatures have been altered (like a PokéDex entry referencing an African elephant changed to use new Pokémon Copperajah (SwSh)). Though why some PKMN are still called things like "the Mouse Pokémon" perplexes me to no end.
I think I get it. Mouse in the Pokémon world refers to the species biology. To be a mouse Pokémon, if needs pronounced ears, certain facial features, and overall, a rather stubby body.
Clearly, people who claimed Pokémon are violent has never seen the show; the way Ash treated his Pokémon is equivalent to how one who should treat his pets. Not ALL of Pokémon is about dog fighting.
What's weird is that Digimon didn't shy away from it's Japanese origins. OK, so the dialogue is americanised and they mention American food, but only a handful of Digimon received localised names. The majority still had their Japanese names. The town where the kids live received an American name in the dub, but it was still in Japan. The children received americanised nickname versions of their Japanese names. For example, Taichi is his name in both versions, but most people in the English dub shorten it to Tai. And Japanese text is still prevalent. It's strange to think that this didn't work for Sailor Moon.
@@dwainsimmons3447 Pretty much /the/ isekai anime. Not the first, not even close, and the basic premise of it has been re-invented in many cultures. Hell, Gulliver's Travels is technically an isekai anthology. But Digimon is what really popularised the Japanese form of it to a young American audience.
Do you find it hypocritical that Christians wanted to ban Pokémon for being demonic, yet they put in a lot of Christian pop artists in the movie’s dub vocal soundtracks.
@@jacksonvoet8312 True lol, But he has stated he never really like Pokemon growing up. I think he has stated that he is trying to play it but hasn't from what I know.
@@natalimoina How?Platinum you kill a guy and resseruct satan and all of team plasma. Look up most of the legendary backstories in BW2. And all of adventures manga is messed up lol
Another reason Pocket Monsters became Pokemon in the West: There used to be a brand of small plastic movie-monster figures in the 90s called Monsters In My Pocket. Nobody wanted to risk the trademark being considered too similar, since Pokemon toys were also marketed in the US at the same time as Monsters in my Pocket. Also, I think the word you mean is "alienate," not "ostracize." I'm not being attacked or offended by references to British telly; I'm just not familiar with it.
Porygon is my favourite Pokemon of all time, and that's largely due to the 'Pokemon Shock' controversy. It made me see Porygon as this forgotten underdog that deserves just as much love as any other Pokemon in the franchise. And I get the feeling other Porygon fans would agree. It's weird to imagine an alternate timeline where the controversy didn't happen and Porygon was featured in the anime just as any other Pokemon. So, while it sucks that the controversy destroyed the possibility of Porygon and its evolutions to take center stage in a new episode, the underdog interpretation has helped the line gain new fans over the years. Bit of a silver lining, if you ask me.
2:27 There is a bit more to this name change then "Making them easier to pronounce." Their original names referenced Japanese celebrities tied to the Pokémon's marital arts. So it made sense to have their English names reference celebrities that the west would know also tied to martial arts. 12:41 I mean... they cared enough to have the Pope himself at the time say Pokemon was okay due to its message of friendship. No joke look it up.
I could not stop laughing my ass off during this video because every news clipped used was not only absurd but was used in a Neil Cicierega song appropriately named "Pokemon"
These early years of Pokémon's prominence overseas are such an intriguing time period, and this video is easily among the best of those that cover just how things went down. Also, that Pokérap at the end made me laugh the hardest I had all day.
I was a little kid when Pokémon arrived here in Argentina around 1999. I can still remember how popular it got in such a short amount of time. The show, alongside Dragon Ball, where the series that brought anime into the mainstream, I mean, for a while "Pokémon fan" was a synonym for otaku. It was so populare in fact that the first two games were released in Spanish, which was very uncommon for the time, and yes, games back then were not translated, playing things like RPGs required to do it with a dictionary in hand
Man, the idea that "kids seeing Japanese text prevents them from being absorbed in the world" is so weird. I sure didn't care about any of that when I watched anime back in the day, before I knew what an anime was.
@natalimoina If you're annoyed by seeing Japanese text in a Japanese show then why bother watching it? Hell, 4Kids (who you seem to be defending in every comment) even erased _biligual_ signs, like the Keep Out sign in Island of the Giant Pokémon, and re-wrote them in English only. It's obvious their goal wasn't to enhance the anime or make it more accessible, it was to completely remove any trace of it being Japanese
I know you should generally take certain kinds of news with a grain of salt but I'm amazed that a figure of 600 hospitalisations for headaches and nausea became 12,000 epileptic seizures by the time the news came to the west.
This is why we dont blindly believe whatever the media tells us, take covid, for two years we were locked down and terrified into obedience, now? CDC recommends its no worse than the common flu. WE gotta do our due dilligence and not just blindly believe in authority, the minute we stop questioning authorities, is the same mnute we give them complete control over our lives.
It is so interesting to hear all of these broadcast news snippets of pokéhysteria outside of the marvelous remix Neil Cicierega made out of them hahaha
I remember when I was a kid I had a friend with super religious parents. I gifted him smash bros melee for his birthday and weeks later when I went over and said we should play it he said his parents threw it away because it had Pikachu on the box art...
Hearing Eddie say he has to keep his references more broad so he doesn't alienate his international fans is so weird as I subscribed specifically because all the examples he used were from British media. And it was so refreshing to see our media being used for the topics he covered
There's a device in use by TV producers to detect epilepsy-inducing scenes now, introduced in response to that episode. At least used to be a device, a physical box you put the video signal in to - I would imagine it's been replaced by software plugin now.
@user-pz5du5nz7j They could, but they won't, because it caused such negative international attention that they don't even allow the Porygon family to appear in the anime anymore. Inuko Inuyama (voice actor of Team Rocket's Meowth) even said in an interview that the producers want people to think of the Porygon episode as "an illusion".
Curious if the Peppa Pig effect is still ongoing, or if its even true. Apparently a lot of American kids watch enough British childrens' programming to pickup the accent. Not in either country so I have no clue.
When it come yo jynx the reaction the larger anime fanbase 4 shows how antiblack they are. The mental gymnastics that they do to justify antiblack racist depictions is telling. Whether it was malicious or not is irrelevant. Though i know the answer im just curious as to why (some of) the pokemon/anime fanbase feels so strongly about jynx maintaining a very antiblack depection? This is a serious question btw.
This was such a fun summary of how choices made helped it integrate into western audiences, the commentary got me a few times! If you ever do a follow-up on this I have so much research and displays I made in the first few years of it coming out - happy to share if needed!
I remember when I was a kid, my favorite show to watch on TV before school was the Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon. One day I wake up to find Alvin replaced with Pokemon. At first I hated it, it took my favorite show! Yeah I got its claws on me and never let go lol
Yes, things like hysteria can cause real symptoms but they can't cause real symptoms **in the past**. If that episode was only run once, the people couldn't have known about the hysteria while watching so if they later reported symptoms those were either imaginary or simply symptoms they would have had anyway blamed on the show.
I absolutely remember getting up early every morning before school to watch Pokémon. And I remember all the fuss around violence and evolution, too. God, this brought back so many memories 😅
A wild forest witch appeared!
Go! Pikachu!
IS THAT YOU!? REBBECA!? Also happy ramadan
I remember watching Pokemon too. Didn't see much of the drama though.
a wild explainer apppeared go arceus arceus use judgement
I did too, but with Dragon Ball. Where I live, Pokémon was always broadcast sometime after school.
1:22 I like how Eddie got the most British person ever to voice a very Japanese man
Is that not Jay Foreman?
@@spaceemanspiff It is Jay Foreman. :D
@@Kaimax61I thought I recognized that voice!
Fun Fact: Ash's starter Pokemon was going to be Clefairy but was swapped for Pikachu to make it appealing for boys and girls alike.
But they kept Clefairy as a main character in one of the earlier pokemon mangas.
All of it still doesn't clear up why we got jiggly puff in smash 64 instead of any other pokemon
@@benamisai-kham5892 Jigglypuff, in early Pokemon anime, is like a second mascot. I believe that's why Smash 64 had Pikachu, with Jigglypuff unlockable. Smash generally looks to what's popular in the anime first, then the games. Thus, Pichu and Mewtwo were next, then Lucario, Greninja, and Incineroar, all of which have had a huge presence in the anime.
I blame toxic masculinity.
@@Redthewolf2012 yeah I forgot how prevalent jiggly puff was the first couple seasons and movies.
Pokémon came to the west by using either fly or surf
😂
why did i laugh at this
No need for the video now
It needed to be surf. You can't fly to a location you didn't visit yet.
Or Teleport
Eyy, thanks for having me on as a cheeky cameo ;) I’m honoured to be included alongside some TH-cam titans!
You get back in your box! Dont make me get the masterballs out...
U don’t even like Pokémon
Wish he had true fans instead but oh well
i thought you were the Tesco own-brand version of Eddache when i first watched you
To think how close we were to "sexy pikachu" being canon is a troubling thought.
I ain't considering that pikacku. That's just something else entirely
@@Franklin_Johanessanthat's furry
I did a little more research and I guess the Japanese used from that story meant "big chested" which could be sexy pikachu or could be Arnold swarzcheneggar pikachum
either way man...
@@maxonmendel5757 so sexy pikachu either way really
Porygon did nothing wrong.
Ayo facts
True. That's just Pikachu who blasted the missle that leads to causing flashing lights.
@poweroffriendship2.0 It wasn't Pikachu's fault either, those missiles would explode and flash no matter what they hit. If Pikachu didn't shock the missile, it either would've hit Porygon and everyone else, or it would've hit a wall (exploding and flashing in either case anyway).
24:31 A British man apologizing for being British is the most British thing that ever Britished.
"Hey, are you a furry?"
"No, no, why do you ask!?"
"You posted a video of big-tiddied Pikachu."
"That's based on unused concept art."
"…right."
The sad part is that if you know more about that interview they said it it looked more like a tiger with Pikachu's original tail (so the picture they made might be inaccurate)
Palworld: "WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!"
@@mythology2467palworld's april fools announcement being a dating sim. They definitely did take notes.
@@mythology2467 Digimon: "WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!"
furries aren’t all necessarily attracted to furries, and you don’t have to be a furry to be attracted to furries. i should know, i’m living proof of the second one.
still funny tho
The backlash from that strobe effect is still impacting anime today, plenty of shows with sequences with any kind of quick moving colours get filters put over them to dim things down
Not just anime, it also impacts western cartoons.
You still get them unchanged for the Physical releases though.
Not just TV, a lot of game rereleases/virtual console versions get dark filters applied to any part that goes above a certain light level. The N64 virtual console on Switch does it a lot across Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Pokémon Stadium and most of the others.
@@PretendingToBeAHuman Yes im much the same, if there is any changes that should be kept, its the slight dimming or desaturation of flashing scenes. It's nice to be able to watch a show without needing to be ready to shut my eyes at a moments notice. Definitely a necessity for shows and can still convey the meaning without causing eye damage.
Noticed that some versions of the dubs including pokemon they slow down the flashing colours/lights still
Honoured to be a small part of this! Thank you Eddie!
ありがとございます！🙇🏻♀️
We love you Ami! ❤❤
Well done!
But... I thought the plural of "pokemon" was "pokemon"?
Nicely informative, Ass. Prof. Yamato!
I'm proud of myself that I can read that
Why was Professor Oak boiling a pizza?
Things like that just prove how much adults don't really understand kids. I Watched both Pokémon & Sailor Moon as a kid in the target demographic and none of the attempts to sanitize it for American audiences made sense for me or any of my friends. It just left me with more questions that didn't get answered until I got older and had access to internet where I could look this stuff up.
It was science boiling noises!
... So dumb. Should have just said it was spaghetti. 🤷
@@WPFLAWLESSNah, some of the translations/cultural conversions definitely worked just fine, hell a few were even straight up inspired, but others extremely very much DID/WERE NOT! It's just that the latter events stick out SOOOO much more in our minds/memories than the former (which you often wouldn't even recognize) so you inevitably think that's all there was. 🤷
4Kids did a lot of bad, but considering what they had to deal with on the TV network end (daytime network TV is a fucking BIIIIITCH!!!), they actually did as decent a job as probably could be expected all things considered.
And as far as DIC and Sailor Moon goes, there was even LESS appetite for "foreign coded media" in that even earlier era as during the Pokemon heyday of the late 90's. A direct translation of the original material would NEVER have flown on early-mid-90's children's TV. As drastic as it was in some cases, they simply did what they had to do to get the show on the air. 🤷
@@Cooe. the first movie’s dub was considered by many the worst thing that 4kids has done to the franchise.
It feels weird hearing someone declaring Sailor Moon landed with a thud. I remember it being huge. Like local tv network running a marathon and contest leading up to the first season finale.
Toonami made it a hit.
It _was_ big, but not initially. When it launched it was a dud and then Toonami made it big a few years later
@@mehpainter Pokémon fits onto a Saturday morning cartoon block better than sailor moon.
SM was an instant hit in Europe and Latin America (the latter even started airing it a year after the US) and did receive proper timeslots and promotion so it definitely feels really alienating. Both markets also managed to air all 5 seasons while the US suddenly stopped at 4 until the Viz Media reissue a decade later.
I remember it being pretty big but honestly I didn't get into it until seeing it in Japanese
Honestly Eddy I'm American but I wouldn't mind to see a episode of you just talking about a lot of the British shows you use to watch
All the people my age watched CN, Nickelodeon, etc., and I was just sitting there, thinking about my favourite stuff from Teletoon. It broadcast mostly French or British shows, so it would be interesting to see whether Eddie had watched any of them and what he thinks about them after a while 😊
Same!
Even tho Edd tends to cover topics I too experienced as a UK born person, if we can get enough Americans (I assume that's his largest audience like most TH-camrs) asking for him to cover British media that'd be great.
I'm from the Carribeans, and I would LOVE to see more videos about British stuff. Why? Cause I'm open to learning other people's culture from around the world, and plus my best friend is British, and I legit wanna know more of British culture to get close to them. So please Edd, I heavy request you do more British stuff.
“Nothing beats a good old jelly donut!”
i get it
love some jelly filled donuts 🍙🍙🍙
Even as a kid, I was thinking "That's not what that is..."
as an filipino i was like
"brock im pretty sure that's rice-"
Indeed I love these jelly donuts. 🍙
Hi Eddie, minor correction: Al Khan did not invent the word "Pokemon". This is easy to verify, as the word appears in the second box of text of Pocket Monsters Green and Red, where Ookido refers to himself as a "ポケモンはかせ", Pokemon Professor. I booted the game up real quick to check, but they've been called Pokemon from the beginning. Pocket Monsters is the title of the franchise and was dropped in the west.
Originally watched this on Nebula but there aren't comments there so I had to wait for it here.
I thought the name Pocket Monsters went unused in the U.S. because they ran into legal trouble with the toy trademark "monster in my pocket."
A franchise otherwise completely lost and forgotten is only remembered how it affected Pokémon.
check the wiki page on monster in my pocket which came out well before pokemon. pokemon ripped it off so bad
I don't think Americanisation and the way media from the rest of the world always has to drop it's culture is talked about enough.
When a story or a joke is changed to erase it's cultural references it becomes a shell of it's original.
As an example Ghosts is an amazing show but recently the British version was being aired in America with lots of bits and pieces cut out. I've seen American fans complain how the censoring had completely ruined it, messing up comedic timing and the plot. The fans in America already liked the show in it's original form and by trying to make it more appealing to an American audience they'd ruined it for everyone.
The fact is audiences will like media regardless of where it comes from, if it has a lot of cultural elements from the country it's from they shouldn't be changed or removed. In the age of the internet, if someone doesn't understand a cultural reference they will likely search it up and also learn about the culture along with a piece of media they're engaging with.
That's why I rather they keep the product true to where it comes from such as pokemon like how the heck is a riceball a doughnut, sandwich & cookie? 😂
This video isn't about that, it's about why Americans panicked about Pokemon. It was only touched on in the video for a laugh.
@@peanutsveryepicchannel8699 Americans didn’t panic over Pokémon.
No real cultural parts of pokemon were touched, just one off lines and stuff. It's really not a big deal and the English version improved upon that Japanese version tons over.
@dwainsimmons3447 Are you joking? There were huge parental panics over the Pokémon TCG (getting it banned in schools over false pretenses), religious outrage over everything being "demonic" (because Foreign Things Bad), and it was generally treated like some suspicious negative thing that would harm people. US news had a field day painting the franchise as dangerous because of the Porygon incident, as though the show had a special unique power to give people seizures or something.
Pokémon has gotten a lot more internationalized since the Red and Blue days. The first games and first season of the anime took place in Kanto, which is a real region in Japan. After Gold and Silver, not only were the new regions given fictional names but started being based on different countries starting with Black and White, which was based off of New York City, with characters of various races.
Now in the games and anime, they have a fake written language on signs to make it easier to localize. There’s still a lot of Japanese influence in the franchise, but it’s also trying really hard to include other cultures as well.
Legends Arceus was a very interesting step since that is VERY Japanese (being set in roughly the Meiji period)
U.s.a should rebooted Pokemon animation. Oh wait! They dont have that talent! Booo....!!! 🇺🇸=👎🏻
I think every video essay ever from now on should have a Poke-Rap segment which summarizes the major events or funny moments in the video in the style of the Pokemon rap
Eddie censoring his son’s face makes me so happy… more people should be sensitive about posting their children online
Streamer duo Pat and Paige (PatStaresAt and PeachSaliva) had a child a while ago, and not only will they refuse to tell anyone the kid's name (instead referring to him purely as Pat Jr. or "the baby"), but any time they post a picture of the child, his face is censored...by them Photoshopping Pat's face onto the child.
It is _distressing_ the first time you see it, because the fact that there isn't an obvious censor makes it feel like there isn't one, until you look closer and realize that baby has a fully-grown man's head!
Pretty sure his son has appeared uncensored in several videos, like the TryHards series with TomSka. Maybe he didn’t do the editing on those though.
I remember showing my parents the pastors being offended by Pokemon and they thought it was the funniest shit ever
Honestly, I can't really blame them in hindsight. Pokemon had a lot more widespread controversy back then; and the pastor that he showed in this video was overreacting to the point of being borderline abusive, forcing his own 9 year old kid to destroy a Pokemon toy the kid owned all because he saw Pokemon as being "evil". Either way you look at it, it really is stupid, and it goes to show that some people are too shortsighted when it comes to something seemingly going against an ideology they believe in
Yet they put in a lot of Christian pop artists in the movie soundtracks. How ironic.
Nowdays, you have pastors doing positive sermons with anime, movies and series kek. The pokemon incident really teached them a lesson
@@marinhaalternativa3829 wait what, my church that i went to was boring (it was a mormon one). i need to see this
Makes me more grateful that the church and state separated. Imagine how many things we would've missed out on because the country was managed by people who thought lighting came from a dude throwing bolts from the sky instead of electrical discharges in our planet's atmosphere and that rain came from another invisible sky dude crying instead of water vapor condensing from the clouds
The Jay Foreman cameo caught me way off guard. That's so cool
all british youtubers know each other.
I'd recognise his voice anywhere lol
I guess something interesting about the effect of American media is that outside the English-speaking world, anime has been popular for a lot longer since they don't see too much difference between dubbing an English show or a Japanese show, and they may not have enough home grown cartoons to compete with them.
Pa-Koo-Cho is my favorite Poo-Kay-Man!!!!
23:47 this is so hilariously dumb
I never appreciated just how significant the term "Saturday Morning Cartoon" was before today.
One part of the anime localization that I believe you missed is that they eventually created a fake written language so signs don’t have to painted over for localization as much.
What is this new language
@@dwainsimmons3447I don’t know if it has an official name, but I’ve heard it referred to as “Tajirian”.
Yeah basically making pokemon world more appealing to international audience without it being mostly Japanese & them having to drop that
@@maganhassan2627 personally feel like if someone complains that a dubbed show they watch is too japanese they probably are extreme weirdos
I think the "Pokemon Language" started appear around Gen 5
As an American I will confidently and proudly speak on behalf of all Americans and American territories, that we would love a very British Episode of Eddache.
Amen brother 🇺🇲
It’s worth noting that with regard to having a “Japanese voice” loads of Pokémon designs themselves are explicitly Japanese cultural and historical references that would mean nothing to people outside the country. Lickitung may be based on a specific yōkai, Froslass is based on the yuki-ona and in Pokemon Legends there is a specific quest that refers to this legend. Bronzor and Bronzong are based on bronze mirrors and dōtaku bells. Bells are significant to the history of religion and metal working in Japan. Baltoy and Claydol are based on Jōmon period Dogū ceramic figures. Jirachi is based on Tanabata.
Pawniard Bisharp and now Kingambit are based on infantry, samurai, and the Daimyō or Shōgun. They are obviously more well known outside of Japan but there are numerous Pokemon based on ninjas as well. Makuhita and Harihama are based on sumo. Darumaka and Darmanitan are based on daruma dolls. Dunsparce is based on the tsuchinoko. Ralts and castform are both based on teru teru bozu. There are numerous more like this. The entire setting of Gen 2 is based on the historical Japanese heartland of Kansai, with the names of the games referring to two specific pagodas with phoenixes on top. Geishas and monks abound in Johto.
And the whole Jynx fiasco. Perfectly innocent in Japan, but doesn't translate culturally.
"We can't have kids thinking this Japanese show is Japanese! Erase all the Japanese text and change the onigiri to jelly donuts! Also, let's abbreviate the show's name to Pokemon so it'll sound more Japanese!"
also Jynx is so officially purple that the 3DS re-releases of the GBC games were retroactively altered to make the Pokemon purple... which funnily enough actually can't be done on the original hardware. Nintendo wrote special emulator features to *turn Jynx purple*!
28:20 Pokemon absolutely was not intended for US export, and we know that because the moment they learned the show was going to the US, they tried to write out Brock and replace him with Tracey, out of fear that their Southeast Asian character would read as a Black stereotype in the US.
How is Brock a stereotype?
@@dwainsimmons3447 It's not, they (the Japanese animation team) thought American parents might read it as such.
They brought Brock back the next season once they realized their worries were unfounded.
Pretty sure Japan is the one that told 4kids to do that stuff anyways. Regardless, pretty much a non issue, 4kids did such a great job with pokemon.
@@natalimoina the first two movie might have a word with you.
I could definitely see the permanently closed eyes being a potential issue. If alternate realities were a thing, I don't think it would be very far from our own.
Thankfully in most Latin America, Sailor Moon came almost unaltered as the Dub studio bought the rights independently from the USA. We didn't have the lesbian outer sailors banned, they were in fact the first depiction of a sex-same relationship in an animated series I watched on TV
Yeah, but it was also very common for some anime that was dubbed into Neutral Spanish to be based on the English censored version. Shows like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gash Bell and One Piece were dubbed into Neutral Spanish, using the 4Kids version as the base
Luckily, One Piece received a much more faithful dub many years later with many of the voice actors from the 4Kids version reprising their roles because they actually sounded pretty good
@@pablocasas5906with pokemon, that's a good thing, not so much the others though
Oh yeah. Also Dragon Ball was lucky here in Latin America . Sure the church hated it, but at least the voice actors and the translation was good at least.
And all those people (clips included here) complaining about Pokémon were remixed by Neil Cicierega into showing how Pokémon will outlive us all!
"From girlfriends to cousins" Made-for-Alabama dub.
Jay Foreman in a Eddache video is the British version of Spiderman: No Way Home.
watching these are fun and educational but damn American moral panic about everything annoys me so much
As Bandet Keith said, "Every country in the world belongs to America"
I may have a headache but I’m always up for some Eddache!
RE: Emergency numbers
There's a convention for countries to support as many emergency numbers as possible.
A lot of panasian countries support 114 for medical services and 115 for fire services too despite those only being official in a few countries, but since they already use 112 for emergency services supporting different kids of emergency services with a slight suffix change is an easy add.
I don't think the UK will ever add those BTW, we've reused the 11- prefix already to include things like NHS direct and operator services, it'd get messy if there were any conflicts.
I really enjoyed the "international" appeal section of this video, you did an amazing job addressing something that's been on my mind for a while now. It's just crazy interesting to me. We really are seeing more and more Americanization in media and culture to a degree that a lot of people everywhere (I'm in a lot of language learning spaces online, and see this _especially_ on the internet) feel that they have to make themselves "palatable" enough to this weird imaginary American living rent free in their mind (or all around them, constantly). It's crazy how much America has built up this gradual cultural monopoly over the rest of the world when there's so much nuance and so much history that has gone into generations of these chunks of humanity. The line has gotten so blurred, and it's so odd to see
Hey man, I know it's not much, but I really enjoy seeing the british stuff in your videos. Us Americans have so much representation already that it honestly kind of sucks being stuck in this sort of cultural echo chamber. We don't get to see things outside of our culture too often, and when we do, most of the mainstream audience tends to view it with disdain, so it ends up being changed. I know I'm just one person, but I really hope you don't end up erasing your British identity just to appeal to us.
Honestly, I feel like everyone in the media involved in scaremongering Pokemon back then should be taken to task in the present for their ignorance and thinly-veiled xenophobia
Xenophobia was high back in the 90s and 2000s.
This is the same pokemon who thought listening to rock music backwards would summon demons. 😂
Honestly, for the entire segmemt at 24:24, I don't think it's that big a deal to sway to a video or two about stuff you grew up with in your specific region. I know Nitro Rad broke off from his usual video game reviews for a video to talk about specific shows he grew up with in Canada - and not a lot of those shows made it to the US. It's fun taking a peek behind the veil & seeing what details of pop culture another country has.
I'm an american/japanese man but I must say I am very interested in any of your takes on british media. I would love it if you dropped a video now and then.
It's interesting bringing up the Japanese identity of Pokemon, as since Gen 5, (and arguably Pokemon Colosseum and XD on Gamecube) Pokemon stopped being set in Japanese themed settings, to settings based on: the Continental US, France, Hawaii, the UK, and most recently Spain.
Only for Legends Arceus to bring back the most Japanese setting yet.
The clip of a dude talking about satanic garbage with a picture of Jigglypuff is incredible
As an American, I’d love to see you make a video about British shows - especially Only Fools and Horses (love that show)
I'm kind of glad they missed the Jynx problem before airing. It shows they werent seeing it a human performing something offense, but instead saw it for what it was, a pokemon with a unique look most likely based on Japanese culture. Still, sorry if it did bother anyone else at the time, and happy there was a subtle change instead of a complete Jynx ban.
26:03 Not going to lie, having this clip have totally different audio from the rest of the video and having headphones on scared the bricks out of me. Scariest kids on halloween 10/10
They renamed all the Pokemon but they still didn't rename the grass type to plant type
To be fair, "Grass Type" rolls off the tongue more easily.
And they did rename "Evil" to "Dark"
@@DrRank wait... The Dark type was originally "Evil"? O_O
@@sallomon2357 Why do you think Malomar and Yveltal are Dark Type?
@@sallomon2357I swear reactions like these just show how people should make a video talking about the Japanese side of Pokemon in detail lol, people know too little. The drunk guy in Viridian in the games is talked about a million times yet nobody mentions how Dark is the Evil type in Japan or how Fire type is Flame type, or many other things like Pokemon moves actually being Pokemon "techniques" in Japanese.
Well I mean when you think about it ingame it’s pretty gr*ass* anyways so uhh…
It's corny to say this, but I just think they (grown out of touch adults) just hate when they see younger people enjoy anything different. Just look at when GO launched (Disastrous game wise due to Niantic doing nothing to fix it), they were seething and trying to find anything negative to generalize anyone enjoying it.
In the Netherlands Black Pete is rapidly declining, with only a few more conservative places keeping the actual black face. Now he just has a couple of soot marks on his face from going down the chimney. No longer the black face with red lips. Cause as much as the older people want to claim they are black because of the chimney, no, they are representing black helpers. So not every corner anymore
I can't believe we have Jay Foreman in an Eddache video now
Excellent video! You know, there IS an audience for learning about other places' childhood media, be the change you want to see in the world and tell us about some of that stuff in a way that you'd feel is approachable! Everything in media IS too USA-centric and the occasional video about other countries' culture helps make sure the context of the wider world and their experiences isn't completely lost! The only way we close the gap between us is by sharing those experiences.
Seeing Japanese writing in Sailor Moon as a kid never bothered me whatsoever. Also in Japan they absolutely shorted the name to Pokemon as early as Pokemon Red and Green. It's just the titles tend to be written out fully for, probably marketing purposes. I've never heard anyone outside of the commercials say anything but Pokemon and the only time they would say Pocket Monsters was at the end of the commercial.
I feel like their idea to change everything to American ideals in the show did work in their favor for the time but these days- we don’t give a damn. If anything I think it’s preferred for most people that you keep the Japanese stuff lol
The two points I'm most interested in discussing are the last two, which are the two culture points. One is about Pokemon and its Japanese voice, the other is about the cultural effect America has on the rest of the world.
Pokemon had a much more distinctly Japanese voice early on. In the first two generations in particular, it "felt" very Japanese, both in the anime and in the games. Their efforts to make it feel more natural to American viewers did work, because as a kid I enjoyed the stuff I could understand much more, but I always knew I was watching a Japanese thing just because I would seek out information about the thing I loved and would find a lot of Japanese stuff with Pokemon on it. I think this is a part of Pokemon's awkward early years where it was still finding its feet, because very early Pokemon had a lot of weird details you wouldn't see in the multi-billion dollar corporate juggernaut it is now; in particular, early Pokemon had a lot of real world animals (in the show, a Gastly transforms into a mongoose to scare an Ekans, and while it is a cartoon mongoose, it is literally just a mongoose, which is extra strange now because we have Zangoose, a mongoose-based Pokemon that has its snake-fighting tendencies baked into the species!) and references to real-world locations (in the in-game Pokedex in Yellow, Arcanine is said to be a legendary Pokemon in China, and Raichu was said to have enough electricity to knock out an Indian elephant, both a real world place and a real world animal). As early as gen 2, a lot of these were being phased out, and now the simple idea of seeing regular fish swimming in a fish tank in the Pokemon world is ridiculous when there's sixteen different fish Pokemon to choose from. This has had the effect that early Pokemon felt a lot more Japanese, whereas modern Pokemon feels a lot more universal. Early Pokemon wanted you to believe the Pokemon world was somewhere in our world you could potentially visit, modern Pokemon pretty conclusively states it's a different world entirely from our own, giving them a lot more freedom to do their own thing without being tied to our real world contexts. As a result, while Pokemon will always be from Japan, it does not feel like "a Japanese thing", it feels universal. Some will say this brings people of all cultures together, some will say it's a direct attempt to silence Japanese culture specifically.
Regarding the cultural effect America has on the world at large, many people will cite this as a great crime America is committing, like we're deliberately trying to sabotage the rest of the world to make them more like us. But like Edd says, most of the reason why these American culture details became so prevalent is just because our American movies would be exported out to other parts of the world, kids would watch them, and become used to the American way their media presents it. Which means that the problem comes from Americans making American media aimed at Americans that then...goes out to other places in the world for other people to enjoy, and then they grow used to the American way of things because of that, and now that's apparently...our fault for making American media that Americans would appreciate? It's not like we sent High School Musical 3 over to England to infect them with our senior prom obsession, we just made a movie about an American high school that ended up becoming popular outside of America too. Are we seriously expected to be removing all American culture from our American media just in case someone in England watches an American movie and dials 911 instead of 999? Are we supposed to use 999 in our movies because that's how England does it and now our American kids will all think 999 is the emergency number? This seems absolutely ridiculous. Americans papering over the culture of other countries to make it "make sense" to us, there's an argument to be made there about whether or not that's ignorant, but if British kids watch American movies where we trick or treat and they decide they want to do it too, I'm sorry, I don't think we're gong to ban depicting trick or treat in our movies just in case it spreads across the globe. If you watch an American movie, you should expect American culture, just like if we watch a movie from anywhere else in the world, we should expect _their_ culture. That sort of cultural exchange is how we all learn and grow and become better and more interesting people. Man, you found a country _once_ on stomping out a pre-existing culture and replacing it with your own, and now people think that's all you fuckin' do!
28:12 I'd recognize Ami Yamato's silky voice anywhere! ❤
So it is! I love her voice!
Amy is great!
The worst thing about cultural reference accommodation is it’s always a one-way street to the US, even if the original reference isn’t hugely local and abstract, and the context is really clear.
British comedian Joe Lycett has an early stand-up routine about eating a Greggs sausage roll in an expensive clothes shop, which is hilarious, but when you watch it on Netflix, he says “British sausage roll”. It sounds so unnatural coming from him, especially when he even explains what it is, even in the original routine (“If you’ve never had one, it’s 10% pork and 90% dust”).
I’ve heard a British TH-camr explain a Wagon Wheel, even though I, and everyone else in the video, has known what one is since we were 5 years old. I’ve heard Tom Scott about to say “bap” before catching himself and saying “bread roll”, even though he’s clearly talking about making a sandwich. Meanwhile, how am I supposed to know what Piggly Wiggly is with no context at all? Is it like a Greggs sausage roll?!
I know we can just google it, but it’s so infuriating and obnoxious how US writers and producers not only expect us to know their entire cultural sphere, but also overly sanitise our own content to remove any reference to the culture we grew up with, whatever the origin, alienating its original audience in the name of clueless Americans.
Also, as a side note: I disagree with the idea that UK creatives aren’t coming up with good enough ideas. The UK is the biggest TV format originator in the world, and yet the US is still dominant because they’ll make their own versions, which then become the standard worldwide (Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, Masterchef, Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, Ghosts, The Office etc.). Taskmaster, in this case, is the exception to the rule. I’ll bet you weren’t aware that the second biggest originator is the Netherlands (Deal Or No Deal, Big Brother, The Voice etc.). The Masked Singer is Korean, Ugly Betty is Colombian, Dragon’s Den is Japanese - the world comes up with the idea, but the US versions get heavily marketed whatever happens. It’s up to streaming platforms and TV channels to give more prominence to non-US, especially non-English language, film and TV shows, to debunk this idea that a show ‘needs’ a US version to be successful. We’re starting to see this in big-budget dramas, but generally something has to be a proven, easy-to-follow hit like Squid Game, La Casa de Papel or Call My Agent, if it’s going to break its original market.
Pokemon as well as Video Games as a whole in the late 90s was the first time I was exposed to how people who never knew anything about that I enjoyed suddenly had beliefs that what I loved was somehow problematic to society.
This, as a kid and teenager at the time, really was a cold and harsh reality that no matter what you do and what you enjoy, someone somewhere is gonna be offended by it and they will try to lobby the Gov to screw your hobbies.
Supporting the argument of Pokémon being "made for export", over time the series started creating its own written language to replace the Japanese text. What's more, as the world expanded and more Pokémon were added, many references to real-world locations and creatures have been altered (like a PokéDex entry referencing an African elephant changed to use new Pokémon Copperajah (SwSh)). Though why some PKMN are still called things like "the Mouse Pokémon" perplexes me to no end.
I think I get it. Mouse in the Pokémon world refers to the species biology. To be a mouse Pokémon, if needs pronounced ears, certain facial features, and overall, a rather stubby body.
Clearly, people who claimed Pokémon are violent has never seen the show; the way Ash treated his Pokémon is equivalent to how one who should treat his pets. Not ALL of Pokémon is about dog fighting.
12:15-12:28 And pokemon is the acult... suuurreee.....
No, you're allowed to do English TV, PLEASE, i need my fellow Americans to experience Mr Blobby and Mr Noseybonk, I still have nightmares
What's weird is that Digimon didn't shy away from it's Japanese origins. OK, so the dialogue is americanised and they mention American food, but only a handful of Digimon received localised names. The majority still had their Japanese names. The town where the kids live received an American name in the dub, but it was still in Japan. The children received americanised nickname versions of their Japanese names. For example, Taichi is his name in both versions, but most people in the English dub shorten it to Tai. And Japanese text is still prevalent. It's strange to think that this didn't work for Sailor Moon.
Because digimon is an iseaki.
I'm sure it's more complicated than just the genre, but you do have a good point. Genre may be a factor.
@@dwainsimmons3447 Pretty much /the/ isekai anime. Not the first, not even close, and the basic premise of it has been re-invented in many cultures. Hell, Gulliver's Travels is technically an isekai anthology. But Digimon is what really popularised the Japanese form of it to a young American audience.
Do you find it hypocritical that Christians wanted to ban Pokémon for being demonic, yet they put in a lot of Christian pop artists in the movie’s dub vocal soundtracks.
“Japanese media never really blew up in the American mainstream”
Toonami and Crunchyroll: “are we a joke to you?”
Toonami only made niche anime mainstream
Eddache: "Pokemon has never been edgy."
Gen 4 and 5: *Enters the Chat*
Adventures Manga: *Enters the Chat*
I mean, has he even played a singular Pokémon fangame?
@@jacksonvoet8312 True lol, But he has stated he never really like Pokemon growing up. I think he has stated that he is trying to play it but hasn't from what I know.
None of those are edgy
@@natalimoina How?Platinum you kill a guy and resseruct satan and all of team plasma. Look up most of the legendary backstories in BW2. And all of adventures manga is messed up lol
The fact that you and Jaiden Animations uploaded Pokémon videos 10 minutes apart on the same day is funny.
🤮
Another reason Pocket Monsters became Pokemon in the West: There used to be a brand of small plastic movie-monster figures in the 90s called Monsters In My Pocket. Nobody wanted to risk the trademark being considered too similar, since Pokemon toys were also marketed in the US at the same time as Monsters in my Pocket.
Also, I think the word you mean is "alienate," not "ostracize." I'm not being attacked or offended by references to British telly; I'm just not familiar with it.
26:13 using that clip for taskmaster is so based, such a great bit
Porygon is my favourite Pokemon of all time, and that's largely due to the 'Pokemon Shock' controversy. It made me see Porygon as this forgotten underdog that deserves just as much love as any other Pokemon in the franchise. And I get the feeling other Porygon fans would agree. It's weird to imagine an alternate timeline where the controversy didn't happen and Porygon was featured in the anime just as any other Pokemon. So, while it sucks that the controversy destroyed the possibility of Porygon and its evolutions to take center stage in a new episode, the underdog interpretation has helped the line gain new fans over the years. Bit of a silver lining, if you ask me.
2:27 There is a bit more to this name change then "Making them easier to pronounce." Their original names referenced Japanese celebrities tied to the Pokémon's marital arts. So it made sense to have their English names reference celebrities that the west would know also tied to martial arts.
12:41 I mean... they cared enough to have the Pope himself at the time say Pokemon was okay due to its message of friendship. No joke look it up.
I've always liked to joke that I was born watching Pokemon, but I had no idea it actually came to America /on the actual day of my birth/
I could not stop laughing my ass off during this video because every news clipped used was not only absurd but was used in a Neil Cicierega song appropriately named "Pokemon"
These early years of Pokémon's prominence overseas are such an intriguing time period, and this video is easily among the best of those that cover just how things went down.
Also, that Pokérap at the end made me laugh the hardest I had all day.
I was a little kid when Pokémon arrived here in Argentina around 1999. I can still remember how popular it got in such a short amount of time. The show, alongside Dragon Ball, where the series that brought anime into the mainstream, I mean, for a while "Pokémon fan" was a synonym for otaku. It was so populare in fact that the first two games were released in Spanish, which was very uncommon for the time, and yes, games back then were not translated, playing things like RPGs required to do it with a dictionary in hand
Man, the idea that "kids seeing Japanese text prevents them from being absorbed in the world" is so weird.
I sure didn't care about any of that when I watched anime back in the day, before I knew what an anime was.
I personally always liked seeing Japanese asthetics in TV shows as a kid, they just look cool.
@@Exlayer-pk8hy Getter Robo's pretty cool too, eh, Mr. Ryoma?
It can be quite annoying imo
@natalimoina If you're annoyed by seeing Japanese text in a Japanese show then why bother watching it?
Hell, 4Kids (who you seem to be defending in every comment) even erased _biligual_ signs, like the Keep Out sign in Island of the Giant Pokémon, and re-wrote them in English only. It's obvious their goal wasn't to enhance the anime or make it more accessible, it was to completely remove any trace of it being Japanese
@@natalimoina lmagine cencoring romans letter.
I'm assuming they took a boat
I know you should generally take certain kinds of news with a grain of salt but I'm amazed that a figure of 600 hospitalisations for headaches and nausea became 12,000 epileptic seizures by the time the news came to the west.
This is why we dont blindly believe whatever the media tells us, take covid, for two years we were locked down and terrified into obedience, now? CDC recommends its no worse than the common flu. WE gotta do our due dilligence and not just blindly believe in authority, the minute we stop questioning authorities, is the same mnute we give them complete control over our lives.
who else got to watch the original Holiday Hy-Jinx?
In later seasons Pokémon did invent their own Japanese inspired fictional language
It is so interesting to hear all of these broadcast news snippets of pokéhysteria outside of the marvelous remix Neil Cicierega made out of them hahaha
How many times are going to change this goddam thumbnail
When a video is underperforming expectations, it's common for people to alter the thumbnail and title to gauge if that improves the views
@@eddache holy fucking shit… thank you Eddache for clearing that up and making this one of my proudest moments
how to solve the porygon scene:
turn the flashing into solid bright white
I was only a baby weeb when Brock threw that "donut" and even then I gave it some serious side eye
I remember when I was a kid I had a friend with super religious parents. I gifted him smash bros melee for his birthday and weeks later when I went over and said we should play it he said his parents threw it away because it had Pikachu on the box art...
Hearing Eddie say he has to keep his references more broad so he doesn't alienate his international fans is so weird as I subscribed specifically because all the examples he used were from British media. And it was so refreshing to see our media being used for the topics he covered
Heck that red blue seizure thing was a problem even with Cyberpunk 2077. They patched it out
Honestly,I think if they fixed the things they needed to,they could re-release the episode too.
There's a device in use by TV producers to detect epilepsy-inducing scenes now, introduced in response to that episode. At least used to be a device, a physical box you put the video signal in to - I would imagine it's been replaced by software plugin now.
@user-pz5du5nz7j They could, but they won't, because it caused such negative international attention that they don't even allow the Porygon family to appear in the anime anymore. Inuko Inuyama (voice actor of Team Rocket's Meowth) even said in an interview that the producers want people to think of the Porygon episode as "an illusion".
Another banger from Eddache, my favorite international appeal content creator
Oh damn, got some Jay Foreman too. Nice 👌
crossover moment
Curious if the Peppa Pig effect is still ongoing, or if its even true. Apparently a lot of American kids watch enough British childrens' programming to pickup the accent.
Not in either country so I have no clue.
00:06 How's Zubat holding Squirtle????
glue
@@cheezburger2001 What glue?
When it come yo jynx the reaction the larger anime fanbase 4 shows how antiblack they are. The mental gymnastics that they do to justify antiblack racist depictions is telling. Whether it was malicious or not is irrelevant. Though i know the answer im just curious as to why (some of) the pokemon/anime fanbase feels so strongly about jynx maintaining a very antiblack depection? This is a serious question btw.
Facts
23:45
This caught me so off guard,golbat is freaking dead
23:46 lmao what the fuck was that????
This was such a fun summary of how choices made helped it integrate into western audiences, the commentary got me a few times! If you ever do a follow-up on this I have so much research and displays I made in the first few years of it coming out - happy to share if needed!
I remember when I was a kid, my favorite show to watch on TV before school was the Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon. One day I wake up to find Alvin replaced with Pokemon. At first I hated it, it took my favorite show!
Yeah I got its claws on me and never let go lol
Porygon was the fall guy
Yes, things like hysteria can cause real symptoms but they can't cause real symptoms **in the past**. If that episode was only run once, the people couldn't have known about the hysteria while watching so if they later reported symptoms those were either imaginary or simply symptoms they would have had anyway blamed on the show.
Finally Blessed with another Eddache Video