Original canon and Dub canon

[Ryu Taylor]

Ash ("The Battle of the Badge"): "I can't believe it's been a whole year since we were here."

Flint ("Showdown in Pewter City"): "His good-for-nothing father left the family to become a Pokémon Trainer and they never heard from him again. Brock's heartbroken mother tried her best to hold things together, but sadly, she passed away."

Shamouti Island prophecy read aloud by Lawrence III ("The Power of One"): "Though the waters' great Guardian shall arise to quell the fighting, alone its song will fail, lest the earth turn to ash."

As the English dub is the version I follow, I treat its continuity as such, too. Though, and I have no problem admitting this, there are areas where that's hard (and in some cases 100% impossible) to do. I know it has not been a year between Ash's two visits to Viridian City in the Kanto saga. I know Brock's mom is alive (which I actually knew since that infamous episode of Pokemon Chronicles). I know the Shamouti Island prophecy never predetermined exactly which trainer would save the world. I know where Ash got his thirty Tauros from. I know Latios and Latias dispersed an evil rain that flooded Alto Mare. I know Annie and Oakley were originally independent spies. And I most certainly know that Mewtwo was originally going through an existential crisis.

Despite my disfavor of the original version, I'm not forsaking its canon, especially in spots where it patches up mistakes found in dub canon. And I will happily admit that in those certain spots, the original canon makes more sense.

Despite this, though, I don't feel like the dub lied to me. The way I see it, it's like I've been told someone's interpretation--actually, adaptation would be the better word to use. Anyway, I feel like I've been told an adaptation of a story. To make an example: imagine reading Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" fairy tale and seeing Disney's "The Little Mermaid" animated film. Disney changed lots of things about the story (most famously the fate of the main character). But despite that, I don't feel like Disney lied to me about the story. And I feel exactly the same way about the English dub of Pokemon (and also lots of other Japanese cartoons that got similar treatment in dubbing).

So here are my questions: how do you feel about this whole "separate canons" deal? Where do you feel the original canon shined? Where do you feel the dub canon shined? Let's discuss.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm not sure if the comparison with Disney's The Little Mermaid quite works here. I can kind of see why you'd bring it up here when it is significantly different from the original story, but there's a difference between a movie adaptation of a book and a dub. A movie adaptation of book basically has to be treated as its own story, even though it is trying to adapt a source material. Not to mention it was a Disney movie aimed at kids, so they obviously weren't going to stay loyal to the original Little Mermaid.

Ideally, a dub should just be about putting a show, in this case, a Japanese show, into English as best as they can. A dub shouldn't have its own canon separated from the Japanese version, especially when the 4Kids era did include quite a bit of 4Kids just making stuff up only to completely ignore it later if it ever conflicted with the actual show. And Pokemon wasn't the only case. That happened with their other dubs too. I don't think that TPCI flat out makes things up for the dub as much as 4Kids did, but I could be mistaken. Still, I don't think that a dub should have a separate canon from its original version. That just opens the door for the dub and the original version to be two completely different shows, which I don't think is the mark of a good dub.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

The dub and original's canon is something that should not be separate. There was a topic like this before debating the same thing.

 

[Gabo2oo]

The main problem when creating a separated canon for a dub is that things blow up on their faces easily. For example, it seems nice at first that they changed the reason of why Brock's mom isn't around (both parents abandoning their child the same way is kind of lame in my opinion), but then you get to Chronicles and it's a mess. So, I believe dubs shouldn't try to make up stuff or change them like that. Adaptation is okay, but not when it changes something related to the plot or the characters' backstories... unles they're COtDs or something.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

I'd be lying if I said I was 100% okay with the dub basically being another canon, even if I'm not mad that it is. That said, the mistake concerning Brock's mom can't be overlooked. I think that could've been easily solved if either Flint or Brock had a line along the lines of "we thought something terrible happened to you!" (adhering to the weird self-imposed "never say 'die'" rule).

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm not sure if that would have really solved anything though. It would some attempt to fix their own plot hole, but it wouldn't really fit with the tone of that special or with its plot for that matter. Brock's mother had been there for quite some time, so throwing in a line about how they thought something bad happened wouldn't have fixed it. It still would have been pretty jarring. Besides that, 4Kids completely ignoring their own dub plot holes because they contradict with something within the actual show was pretty typical of them. That happened a couple of times with their Yu-Gi-Oh! dubs too.

 

[Desdar300]

I think this is like the Digimon US movie vs the Our War game OVA. No matter the change the Original version will always be canon because it's well... the initial version and holds ground above everything else.
Also as Hidden Mew said, a Dub's job is to just translate what the original version stated so that its native audience can more or less understand the intention not stray away and do it's own thing.
A Dub isn't some urban legend that's been passed down through multiple generations it's a translated version of something from another language and thus should try it's best to stay close to the original in order to not confuse or misinterpret something to its watchers.

 

[polmpolm]

I'd be lying if I said I was 100% okay with the dub basically being another canon, even if I'm not mad that it is. That said, the mistake concerning Brock's mom can't be overlooked. I think that could've been easily solved if either Flint or Brock had a line along the lines of "we thought something terrible happened to you!" (adhering to the weird self-imposed "never say 'die'" rule).

To be fair, I don't think the problem of Brock's mom haunts everyones dreams every single night. There is, also, ALWAYS going to be errors. You'll just have to accept it since they are unavoidable. Practically the entire cast has never had two parents mentioned, if at all one for the main characters. It doesn't concern you that EVERY side character doesn't have parents or a backstory because I doubt the entire Pokemon world are lab babies?

 

[technickal]

It should be noted that this mostly applies to the 4Kids dub.
TPCi doesn't do complete story rewrites like that.