Did Ash start his journey on his 10th birthday?

SinnohEevee

SinnohEevee

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According to the narrator in M04 and M05, he started his adventures on his 10th birthday. However, from what I know, Shudo says Ash was 10 years, 10 months, and 10 days old when he started. But I also heard that this was a mistranslation of what Shudo said. So, how old was Ash when he started?
 
If the shudo thing is actually a mistranslation, then we'd have no reason not to believe the narrator.
 
If translation of 2bamaster is true, Shudo's novelizations differing from the show in many ways. So the information from it can't be considered as canon.
 
Kinda of weird for a small town to have four kids with the same birthday and them never mention it. I remember hearing something along the lines of the day after their birthday in the dub for either may or dawn but I could just be remembering things incorrectly. It seemed like intended to be on his birthday at least at first. Shudo was still in charge at the time and he wrote that episode.

So I think the logical answer is that on certain days within certain timeframe (months/weeks/seasons etc) is when all the people with close birthdays get pokemon. Or rather that was the original system because in future episodes characters don't start their journey at the same time as other trainers and they don't mention their birthdays. So I think it got retconed to be: each trainer starts their journey on their own a short period directly after their birthday.
 
Harmful Heron said:
Kinda of weird for a small town to have four kids with the same birthday and them never mention it. I remember hearing something along the lines of the day after their birthday in the dub for either may or dawn but I could just be remembering things incorrectly. It seemed like intended to be on his birthday at least at first. Shudo was still in charge at the time and he wrote that episode.

So I think the logical answer is that on certain days within certain timeframe (months/weeks/seasons etc) is when all the people with close birthdays get pokemon. Or rather that was the original system because in future episodes characters don't start their journey at the same time as other trainers and they don't mention their birthdays. So I think it got retconed to be: each trainer starts their journey on their own a short period directly after their birthday.
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They start on the April following their 10th birthday.
 
maybe they are all secretly quadruplets!

nah i am just kidding, now this is bothering me as well.

Ted.
 
Shudou's explanation is a lot more believable than assuming a bunch of unrelated children from the same small town share the same birthday, but then again certain plot points in the novels make a lot more sense compared their anime equivalents to begin with (i.e. Chapter 6: "Butterfree Soars!" vs. EP004 "Challenge of the Samurai").

Also, I don't know if it was in whatever dub you were watching or something, but the Japanese version of the World of Pokemon (Satoshi's Journey) segment does not mention he started his journey on his 10th birthday. I just checked. All it mentions is that Satoshi is a boy from Masara Town, who loves Pokemon and started his journey after receiving his first Pokemon from Dr. Orchid.

I remember the 4Kids dub in general liked to embellish dialogue with their random bullshit headcanons. In fact, I'm pretty sure the segment was different in English. Unused "re-animated episode 1 footage" that wasn't used in the Japanese version of the recap, Takeshi (Brock) voicing the narration instead of the dude that voices the professor (Ishizuka Unshou in the Japanese version), among other things.
 
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Yeah, thanks buddy. I was after what the change was rather than an explanation about the format of the books!
 
ii kanji said:
?
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The Spear weren't out for revenge because of Satoshi's failed capture (which was Samurai's fault in the anime episode, plus Bug Catcher - who replaces anime Samurai in the books - actually catches Beedle at the beginning of the chapter, preventing its retreat from the anime), the swarm was just out hunting while Satoshi and Bug Catcher were having a friendly Pokemon Battle (no threatening people with swords and shit), and in a panic Satoshi admittedly forgets to recall Trancell causing it to get kidnapped by the swarm. Satoshi doesn't realize he left it behind until they make it to the cabin and tried to make excuses for his immaurity/incompetence at first, i.e. "Trancell didn't say anything". In the anime, he did remember Trancell and tried to save it, but there was nothing he could do because the Spear got to it before he did - and then he tried to save it again when they happen upon the nest, but then the Kakuna evolved and they had to run for the cabin.

In the anime, Samurai starts talking a bunch of shit to Satoshi and then calls it a day, even though everything that happened was out of Satoshi's power, and the reason why the Spear were after them to begin with was because the dumb kid interrupted Satoshi's capture of Beedle with his fucking katana. The novel's Bug Catcher is not a hypocrite as opposed to his ass-of-the-day anime counterpart Samurai and is a lot more likable, and rightfully calls out Satoshi on his immature excuses and feels sad that another person's Bug Pokemon will become the Spear's snack - he even helps Satoshi plan out his rescue of Trancell using a map of the Tokiwa Forest!

Satoshi's character development and thus Butterfree's evolution has a lot more meaning here as opposed to the anime, where the whole thing felt poorly executed because a lot of it could have been blamed on Samurai's own meddling rather than Satoshi actually doing anything wrong (we are told rather than shown, as if they expected us to go along with it). In the novels, he did make a mistake and he learned from it. It's a shame that the novelizations didn't make it past the second volume, it offered an interesting take on the anime's events that was often an improvement imo.
 
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ii kanji said:
Thanks for the explanation @FANG-TAN! Have you read the novelisations yourself?
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The untranslated bits I've only read partially through excerpts or photos of single pages, because these books are so damn elusive. But the person who uploads The Reminiscence of Haruhi Suzumiya walkthroughs on YouTube actually does have the books and is in the middle of translating them, though only the entirety of volume 1 so far.

The second volume (pretty much everything after Tokiwa Forest) seems to be the largest departure from the show because it appears that Satoshi doesn't capture Zenigame, Fushigidane, or Hitokage nor does Takeshi catch Zubat (or at least, they're never mentioned). Instead, after Satoshi gets the Blue Badge, he heads straight to Kuchiba City to battle Matis. Though it's just as likely Shudou would have placed their captures differently on the timeline had the series continued (if they weren't just simply caught off-page) - Satoshi's dream sequence in the first chapter featured him owning a Lizardon after all, so maybe at least Hitokage? Takeshi's dad also doesn't make a direct appearance, so Takeshi has this amusing new role where he has to fill in his father's "You're light years away from facing the Gym Leader!" shoes on top of his own anime debut and Satoshi visits the Nibi Museum, which was left out of the show. It's definitely a new experience compared to rewatching the actual anime episodes, but coming from the original head writer of the anime, it still feels very OS at the same time.

I kind of wish Shougakukan did a reprint of these novels for the 20th anniversary of the anime. That way I could probably buy them at Kinokuniya like all of my other Japanese books.

martianmister said:
So, basically this:
Fix Fic - TV Tropes
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Other than the fact that it's officially licensed material.
 
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FANG-TAN said:
The untranslated bits I've only read partially through excerpts or photos of single pages, because these books are so damn elusive. But the person who uploads The Reminiscence of Haruhi Suzumiya walkthroughs on YouTube actually does have the books and is in the middle of translating them, though only the entirety of volume 1 so far.
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Oh awesome, thanks for reviving that link. Last time I went on that page they'd only completed vol. 1 chapter 4. Do you know when these books were written/published? Takeshi's first convo with Kasumi made my skin crawl...

This did make me laugh though:
This may be a superfluous point to bring up, now as the Spia slept it was impossible to tell whether the heavily stung members of Team Rocket were still alive or not. It may be that we never hear from Team Rocket ever again.
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While some of the information found in Shudo's novelization is of questionable canocity, I'm more inclined to trust it than a dub-exclusive line.
 
ii kanji said:
Do you know when these books were written/published?
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The first volume was published in Fall 1997. The second volume was published two years later.

Seeing Takeshi not being super no-nonsense-serious during his debut was kind of a strange experience since I was used to him being under a straight stoic facade in EP005. I suppose either his later tendency to womanize was always intended or his new "I'll look forward to you [18 minus age of target] years later" traits post-EP015 just stuck with Shudou.

(The translations are also available on Baka-Tsuki, which is easier to find if you forget, since they archive light novel translation projects in general.)
 
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