Fletchling's title

[Rentorar]

Overseas Fletchling is known as the Japanese Robin Pokemon because that is the bird it was based on. In the English games it is simply known as the "Tiny Robin" Pokemon. Now I have to beg this question, why did they feel that they had to do this? Why take out the word Japanese for the English games? There are alot of edits that have rubbed me the wrong way in the past..like Emonga becoming Emolga but this takes the cake. Some people might consider this a racist move.

 

[Beth Pavell]

If I'm not mistaken, there haven't been references to any real world places in the English-language games since ... well, since Generation I, as I recall. Given that Pokémon is supposed to be a fantasy world, this makes sense to me.

EDIT: Lt Surge's title hasn't ever changed, so no new references to real-world places since Generation I

As for the Emolga edit, I wonder if someone was aware of "mong" being fairly offensive British slag meaning something worse than the way "retard" is used now. I think it's rather outdated now, but I definitely recall that it used to be used a lot

 

[Krash]

I doubt very many North American children know what a Japanese Robin looks like.

 

[KingKarp]

I think the real reason for this is because Fletchling seems to fit into the category of "the region's respective bird mascot," or the bird Pokemon you will find most common and early on in the games. These Pokemon have a tradition of being called similar names in their English Pokedex entries.

For example:

Pidgey - Tiny Bird Pokemon
Taillow - Tiny Swallow Pokemon
Pidove - Tiny Pigeon Pokemon
Fletchling - Tiny Robin Pokemon

 

[Rentorar]

If I'm not mistaken, there haven't been references to any real world places in the English-language games since ... well, since Generation I, as I recall. Given that Pokémon is supposed to be a fantasy world, this makes sense to me.

EDIT: Lt Surge's title hasn't ever changed, so no new references to real-world places since Generation I

As for the Emolga edit, I wonder if someone was aware of "mong" being fairly offensive British slag meaning something worse than the way "retard" is used now. I think it's rather outdated now, but I definitely recall that it used to be used a lot

Well, Emonga's name is derived from Momonga. A Japanese dwarf flying squirrel..

 

[BlackButterfree]

If I'm not mistaken, there haven't been references to any real world places in the English-language games since ... well, since Generation I, as I recall. Given that Pokémon is supposed to be a fantasy world, this makes sense to me.

EDIT: Lt Surge's title hasn't ever changed, so no new references to real-world places since Generation I

As for the Emolga edit, I wonder if someone was aware of "mong" being fairly offensive British slag meaning something worse than the way "retard" is used now. I think it's rather outdated now, but I definitely recall that it used to be used a lot

Many Gen. 1 and Gen. 2 Pokémon have real world references in their Dex entries up until Unova games. There's also been subtle references but those aren't outright stated (Castelia City has GameFreak's office on the 22nd floor of a building, which it is in their headquarters in Japan.

 

[Alolan Coconut]

Sorry I just want to mention this since there is no place where to put it:

Fletchlings eye looks like a tiny penguin. It can not be unseen, you're welcome.

 

[Te-em]

Overseas Fletchling is known as the Japanese Robin Pokemon because that is the bird it was based on. In the English games it is simply known as the "Tiny Robin" Pokemon. Now I have to beg this question, why did they feel that they had to do this? Why take out the word Japanese for the English games? There are alot of edits that have rubbed me the wrong way in the past..like Emonga becoming Emolga but this takes the cake. Some people might consider this a racist move.

Well, anything associated with Japan was censored in the anime, such as rice balls and kanji. I don't know if this has something to do with it. That they are still doing this is strange; nowadays even a little kid should know that Pokemon is Japanese.

 

[Beth Pavell]

See, people keep calling it "censoring". I call it localisation. I remember watching the anime when I was a kid, and though it was obvious that rice balls were food (Because the characters were eating them), I didn't know what food they were. That could possibly have been solved by working in the name "rice balls" somewhere, but kanji are completely useless to a foreign audience. Even if you know that it's supposed to be language, it's still useless if you can't read it.

I guess your preference may vary - and that's fair enough - but for a big-ass franchise like pokémon not thinking about localisation like that is asking to lose viewers. Or at least, it was, since anime is generally a hell of a lot more accessible these days

 

[Fairy Ice Ricky]

Just to make sure, I checked out the species names for Fletchling in other major languages (French, German, Italian, and Chinese), and from what I can tell Fletchling is called the Robin Pokémon in all of those languages. (The word used in French and Italian could also be less translated as "Robin Redbreast".) But yeah, pretty sure it's only called the Japanese Robin in Japanese.

Also, I looked at the length of species names in English, and it looks like the character limit for Pokémon species in English is thirteen characters (Drapion's "Ogre Scorpion" and Gliscor's "Fang Scorpion"). And guess which species name would go over the limit (by one character, of course) if directly translated to English... ?

But yeah, in this specific situation, I'm not exactly sure it's a racist move/censorship.

 

[Team Gaara]

My guess has always been that it simply wouldn't fit, which appears to be the case. Another reason is that...well, I guess they didn't feel they had to be so specific with Japanese Robin when Tiny Robin seems to work fine enough (also correlates with the other Tiny early route birds). Also, the name in itself is a bit...odd when you think about it. So it's a Japanese Robin, but it's a Pokemon? That would be like if they made the German Shepard Pokemon. Tiny Robin or just Robin just seems to fit better.

I wouldn't worry about this being "racist". Like others have said, there aren't too many references to real world places or animals in the English games. There is plenty in the games that is included, including in-game TV shows that teach you Japanese and the Japanese names of Pokemon, that wouldn't be there if they were being "racist" with the localization.

 

[Sakuraa]

the German Shepard Pokemon.

Furfrou is the Poodle Pokemon. Just saying.

Anyway, I also don't see the name change as being racist or anything. The original name wouldn't fit anyway and, as others have mentioned, the Tiny-"bird species" thing has been done with the earlier birds, so it may have been done just to be consistent with them. Besides, it's not like the little kids (or even the adults) playing the game care what the Pokemon's species name is.

 

[Team Gaara]

the German Shepard Pokemon.

Furfrou is the Poodle Pokemon. Just saying.

I meant, as in, from Germany.

 

[zakisrage]

Sometimes they change titles to make more sense. Mandibuzz was called the Bone Eagle in Japanese, but overseas they changed it to the Bone Vulture because it's a vulture, not an eagle. (In some languages, the word for vulture and the word for eagle are the same.)

I think the main reasons were that people outside of Japan aren't familiar with Japanese robins and they wanted to continue the tradition of tiny birds.