Review S11 EP09: Team Shocker!

[Yash]

\It does.

User CP > Settings & Options (third down on the left side) > Edit Ignore List.

Oh, thank you. I'm used to being able to click on someone's username and putting them on the ignore list from there, so I assumed Bulbagarden didn't have that feature.

DP Gym Battle
Route 3
Crazy random x2 (Team Rocket talking before contest - it stops then starts again)
DP contest
Kimi no Soba de
DP Gym Battle again
DP contest again

Well I missed the cold opening, I'm guessing that's where the DP battle music was.

Crazy random... I thought a dub piece played there.

 

[Aestivate]

Okay, back on topic.
I thought that on a whole, all the voices were very shrill and un-professional sounding.
Good news, Sarah sounded decent as Ash, and Dawn's VA sounds fine as usual.

 

[Shift]

Okay, back on topic.
I thought that on a whole, all the voices were very shrill and un-professional sounding.
Good news, Sarah sounded decent as Ash, and Dawn's VA sounds fine as usual.

*snicker-snicker-laugh-snort-other laugh noise*

 

[PanicAttack]

I don't see the point of either of them, or of those discussions constantly taking place in these threads.

Touché.

I enjoyed this episode. I thought for a minute that Dawn was going to punch Jessie and I was a bit suprised by Zoey's sudden appearance in the latter parts of the episode, but overall, it was pretty good. Not much to say really.

Best bit: Psybeam asplosion.
Worst bit: Eh... I wasn't overly struck on Kenny's appeal.

 

[Casual_Furi]

I've always wondered if Kenny caught Breloom already evolved or if he trained it from a Shroomish.

 

[PDL]

I've always wondered if Kenny caught Breloom already evolved or if he trained it from a Shroomish.

While not being a main character means that you don't need to have "Tiny Titan" (unevolved Pokémon who are overpowered) Pokémon. I find it a tad unrealistic how Kenny, despite starting out only a short time after Dawn did, already has 3 Pokémon that are already very evolved. Prinplup is believeable, possibly Breloom as well, but Alakazam? What gives there?

 

[Duckgon Z]

Abra evolves into Kadabra pretty fast actually, at level 16, which is the same as most of the starters. And then all you have to do is trade Kadabra to evolve it into Alakazam. You can do this right after you evolve Abra into Kadabra, so it is pretty believable.

 

[Dogasu]

But that's applying game logic to the anime. The same anime where Tamatama doesn't need a Leaf Stone to evolve.

 

[Linkpre]

This was a pretty good episode. I was surprised that Dawn lost again and even more surprised Jessie won. It was nice that Ash wanted to confort Dawn after losing.

Battle Dimension has been a fun season so far hopefully stays great.

 

[Duckgon Z]

But that's applying game logic to the anime. The same anime where Tamatama doesn't need a Leaf Stone to evolve.

Wasn't that in the same first season where Pikachu beat Onix with Thundershock? Where real world fish appeared in the sea? Where Ash didn't actually win 6/8 of his gym battles? A lot of the first season doesn't make any sense, so they might have fixed this 10 years later.


I just saw the episode, and I'm glad that music that played during Kenny's appeal in the original was replaced. When I compared it to the Raw, that tropical music really seems out of place during Kengo's appeal. But that guitar music seems more in place.

Also, I went and checked that "Mama" line. Hikari said Mama and some other stuff, and Dawn said Mom, and some other stuff. I'm no Japanese expert, but with my limited knowledge of it, I can tell the meaning was the same.

 

[PDL]

Abra evolves into Kadabra pretty fast actually, at level 16, which is the same as most of the starters. And then all you have to do is trade Kadabra to evolve it into Alakazam. You can do this right after you evolve Abra into Kadabra, so it is pretty believable.

Now that I think of it, I don't remember Kadabra having many if any appearences after the Sabrina arc. Could it be that the writers use Abra/Alakazam in it's place because Kadabra is a "taboo" Pokémon? (Christain and parental groups made a big stink about Kadabra's markings and wizard powers.)

But that's for another topic.

Shame that the music was supposedly much better in the Japanese version though, how come they still mess with the music? Oh well, they still have some time to make up for it.

 

[Yash]

I'm pretty sure Pokemon evolving by trade doesn't happen in the anime. It doesn't really make any sense for them to do so - how would they have evolved when they weren't under human control?

I just saw the episode, and I'm glad that music that played during Kenny's appeal in the original was replaced. When I compared it to the Raw, that tropical music really seems out of place during Kengo's appeal. But that guitar music seems more in place.

The guitar music is fairly good, but I prefer the original appeal music. It's strange because PUSA usually keeps the music during the appeals, but I guess they didn't feel like it.

Also, I went and checked that "Mama" line. Hikari said Mama and some other stuff, and Dawn said Mom, and some other stuff. I'm no Japanese expert, but with my limited knowledge of it, I can tell the meaning was the same.

I'll take your (and other's) word for it, my memory must be hazy.

Shame that the music was supposedly much better in the Japanese version though, how come they still mess with the music? Oh well, they still have some time to make up for it.

To be honest, I really only wanted PUSA to keep that one piece, and I won't consider it made up for until it's used in the dub. It is hands down my favorite piece of bgm in the series and it's rarely ever played.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Spoiler

They did? When was this?

The voice acting quality of the 4Kids dub and the PUSA dub are pretty much equal, in my opinion.

Spoiler

Wow. You think it's equal, huh?

Personally, I think if the voice acting quality of the Pokemon USA dub was really equal to the 4Kids dub, then they would've had no need to redub the Mastermind special. I mean, 4Kids never had to redub anything that had the name Pokemon attached to it (Legend of Thunder would've been a good idea as many fans hated it, but the problem was, the voice acting in that special was actually good).

My point is, if the voice acting in the Pokemon USA dub was that good from the beginning, there wouldn't have been quite as many complaints from fans about the original Mastermind. The fact that people are still complaining about the voice acting now, leads me to believe that some people are still unsatisfied with the performances of the new cast (Jimmy Zoppi, anyone? When it comes to voicing Meowth, he's no Maddie - that's for sure).


Of course, I'm not saying that the new cast is horrible. Obviously, they are pretty good, cause if the VAs were that bad - then people wouldn't be able to tolerate the voice acting enough to watch the show (myself included). All I'm saying is that, there is a fine line between good voice acting and truly outstanding voice acting (and yes, I have always found the 4Kids dub to have top-level voice acting, but even people outside the Pokemon fandom have praised the 4Kids dub for having great voice acting).

But like with any subject, everyone has their own opinions. I am just surprised that you see no difference in the voice acting whatsoever, Dogasu. O.O

 

[Yash]

Spoiler

The acting in 4Kids Pokémon isn't as stiff as, say, 4Kids One Piece, but that's not really saying much.

When Dogasu says "voice acting" I'm pretty sure he's not referring to the voices themselves, but the actual acting. Line deliveries. Energy. All of that jazz. Jimmy Zoppi, for example, is a great actor. His interpretation of James may be off, but unlike Eric Stuart, he's at least capable of projecting emotion - Just look at Training Daze or A Poached Ego, and compare that to Sweet Baby James or Once There Were Greenfields. It's night and day.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course. I will say this, though: PUSA's ADR is, no questions asked, better than 4Kids. Frequently in the Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or One Piece dubs, the lines would very obviously not match up with the characters' mouth flap. I don't remember ever seeing that in the PUSA dub.

Also, 4Kids would never re-dub The Legend of Thunder because as far as they're concerned, it'd be wasted money, and the fans' opinions don't factor in. Thems the breaks. PUSA is slightly better at this, but they try to be too much like 4Kids. Hiring soundalikes, replacing the music. I partially blame the fanbase for this, for WANTING PUSA to keep things the same, but that's for another topic.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Spoiler

When Dogasu says "voice acting" I'm pretty sure he's not referring to the voices themselves, but the actual acting. Line deliveries. Energy. All of that jazz. Jimmy Zoppi, for example, is a great actor. His interpretation of James may be off, but unlike Eric Stuart, he's at least capable of projecting emotion - Just look at Training Daze or A Poached Ego, and compare that to Sweet Baby James or Once There Were Greenfields. It's night and day.

Spoiler

Yeah, I suppose that is true.

Of course, I'm not much of a James fan myself, so I couldn't see much of a difference between Jimmy's acting and Eric's acting. However, I do know that I liked the sound of James' voice better when Eric was providing his voice. The actual voice itself has a better ring to it (and I can say the same thing about the rest of the original voices, they each had this special sound to them which added so much to all of the characters).

Heh, perhaps I'm better with comparing the voices themselves, rather then how lines are being delivered. I can't pick up on that very well. ^^;


Anyway, as for Sarah Natochenny, I know some people are probably huge fans of her. And that's perfectly fine. But personally, I feel that Sarah was miscast as Ash, you know, like this role was completely wrong for her. For example, look at her other roles, Sarah does a wonderful job with providing voices for female characters and for Pokemon, but for Ash - she cannot express emotion in him. Trust me, no one is a bigger fan of Ash than I am, and I can tell whether or not Sarah is doing a good job of "bringing him to life". Sarah may be giving Ash emotion, but on a grand scale, it's not nearly enough to truly bring the character to life (Veronica, on the other hand, always made me believe that Ash was a real person and not just an anime character - you see, when Ash was excited, hungry, or sad, I could feel his emotions - but this isn't the case with Sarah's Ash). So anyway, that covers Sarah's emotion problem. But unfortuantely, this isn't the only problem with her acting. Sarah has also been inconsistent with trying to find the right voice for Ash (Veronica was able to do that almost right away). Ever since Sarah began voicing Ash, she's made the pitch of his voice go up and down, like he's on a roller coaster or something. And finally, Sarah has been pronouncing "Pikachu" wrong and I have no idea why this is happening. And when I say wrong, I mean Sarah is the only VA who's pronouncing Pikachu like that, because everyone else is saying Pikachu the right way.

 

[Lil Brother]

The same anime where Tamatama doesn't need a Leaf Stone to evolve.

My little theory for that is that there was a large collection of Leaf Stones in that forest, and the air carries trace amounts of them. Because I'm convinced that the Exeggcute thing was the anime writers fucking up, and later it was decided they needed to explain why that happened, hence Whichever Way the Wind Blows. Hey, that episode also had that weed from The Stun Spore Detour, so they were looking at old episodes when writing it.

Hmm, come to think of it, the only other time I can remember a stone-evolution happening without a stone was in Here's Lookin' at You, Elekid. And that also required an absent Leaf Stone. Coincidence?! Probably.

I also believe that trade evolutions don't apply to the anime, btw.

To be somewhat on-topic, I actually kind of like Kenny having all these evolved Pokémon, because it kinda goes with my "tried to be tough, but is really something of a weakling" interpretation of him.

 

[Dogasu]

Where real world fish appeared in the sea?

The show never retconned the real world animal thing, y'know. Pokemon are still described as being "the *insert real-world animal* pokemon," and real animal cries - like birds during daytime scenes and crickets during nighttime scenes - can still be heard to this day (of course, a lot of these are drowned out by the dub background music, but it's still there).

To be somewhat on-topic, I actually kind of like Kenny having all these evolved Pokémon, because it kinda goes with my "tried to be tough, but is really something of a weakling" interpretation of him.

Could be. The anime has always been all about "you don't need to make your pokemon evolve for them to be strong!" and usually depicted people who did make them evolve to be bad guys. Of course, they're not really doing the bad guy thing with Kengo, but I could very easily see them having Hikari's unevolved pokemon beat Kengo's team of final stage powerhouses when they eventually face off in the Grand Festival.

And now the annoying off-topic stuff:

Spoiler

I mean, 4Kids never had to redub anything that had the name Pokemon attached to it

Spoiler

Veronica Taylor re-recorded all of her May lines for the first two episodes of Pokemon Advanced.

And while not redubbing anything could be interpreted as "they did a good enough job the first time around that they didn't need to redub it," it can just as easily be interpreted as "they don't really care enough to fix their past mistakes." It's all a matter of perpesctive.

Spoiler

(Legend of Thunder would've been a good idea as many fans hated it, but the problem was, the voice acting in that special was actually good).

Spoiler

You obviously have a very different opinion of what "good" voice acting is than I do. I've already made my opinions on the special clear and don't really feel the need to repeat them here.

Spoiler

The fact that people are still complaining about the voice acting now, leads me to believe that some people are still unsatisfied with the performances of the new cast

Spoiler

OR it just means that people have been doing it for so long that they don't know how to not talk about them. That people don't know how to let things go.

Spoiler

Sarah has also been inconsistent with trying to find the right voice for Ash (Veronica was able to do that almost right away).

Spoiler

Veronica Taylor's Ash is the epitome of inconsistent.

She started off kinda low, got really high during the Orange Islands to the point where he sounded like a girl (I know you're going to respond by screaming that he NEVER SOUNDED LIKE A GIRL!!!, but I and a handful of other fans feel this way), and then kind of leveled off by around Johto.

The fact that you're going to deny any of this just proves how much you're watching the 4Kids dub through rose-colored glasses.

Spoiler

And finally, Sarah has been pronouncing "Pikachu" wrong and I have no idea why this is happening.

Spoiler

Sarah is not pronouncing Pikachu any differently from anyone else in the show.

I swear...you must be actively searching for things to complain about or something.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Spoiler

Veronica Taylor's Ash is the epitome of inconsistent.

She started off kinda low, got really high during the Orange Islands to the point where he sounded like a girl (I know you're going to respond by screaming that he NEVER SOUNDED LIKE A GIRL!!!, but I and a handful of other fans feel this way), and then kind of leveled off by around Johto.

The fact that you're going to deny any of this just proves how much you're watching the 4Kids dub through rose-colored glasses.

Spoiler

Actually, I will not disagree with you there. That's right, I'm actually agreeing with you (to an extent). XD

Yes, it's completely true that Veronica changed the pitch of her Ash voice. But the difference is that, she would do this only after every "season" (not the TV network season, but I mean when the openings change - that kind of season).

When Veronica changed the pitch of her Ash voice, I think she was basically getting used to her role. In addition to that, it was more like she was simply tweaking the voice every so often, to make it sound better (sort of experimenting with her Ash voice, to find out which pitch was the best). I don't view that as inconsistency. Personally though, I don't care much for Ash's season one and Orange Islands voices. Season one was "too low" and Orange Islands was "too high" (I wouldn't go so far as to call Orange Islands-Ash girly, I just think that particular voice was too high pitched). Anyway, I prefer Ash's voice starting with Johto Journeys and later on, cause that voice was just right for him. I mean, his Johto Journeys voice seemed to fit him better than Veronica's previous Ash voices (as a fangirl, I also think his Johto Journeys voice is really cute!). Also, as I'm sure you noticed, Veronica made Ash's voice much deeper starting with Pokemon Advanced, and the voice finally reached its deepest point with Advanced Battle. Of course, I believe that if they hadn't replaced the VAs, Veronica would've used her Advanced Battle voice for Ash. Sarah's current Ash voice is deep, but not THAT deep. I prefer Sarah's higher-pitched variations on Ash's voice. Her higher-pitched Ash reminds me of Veronica's Johto Journeys Ash voice.


Anyway, when I say that Sarah's very inconsistent, I'm referring to how back in Battle Frontier, she would make Ash sound low pitched for one episode. But with the next episode, he would have a higher pitched voice, and then it would go back and forth like that for the entire Battle Frontier season. Apparently, Sarah would change the pitch of Ash's voice so much that you could never predict how he would sound in an episode (that's what it seemed like to me, anyway). But thankfully, Sarah has improved in this department, as she seems to have stopped doing this with D/P Battle Dimension. However, the inconsistency I'm seeing now, happens when Sarah changes Ash's voice during the middle of a given episode, like what happened in "Tears for Fears".

Veronica Taylor's Ash voice at least sounds the same for an entire episode (in any given season). For example, compare an episode of Master Quest to any other Master Quest episode - Ash sounds the same. Or, compare an episode of Advanced Battle to any other episode of Advanced Battle - again, Ash sounds the same within that given season. And this is because Veronica only changed the pitch of Ash's voice after a season had ended. But she didn't change the pitch of Ash's voice mid-episode, however (there may be an exception to what I've said, but for the most part, I know that I'm correct).

Spoiler

Sarah is not pronouncing Pikachu any differently from anyone else in the show.

I swear...you must be actively searching for things to complain about or something.

Spoiler

Okay then, compare Veronica yelling for Pikachu in "A Scare to Remember" from Advanced Challenge, to the way Sarah yells for Pikachu in "The Keystone Pops" or any other episode from D/P Battle Dimension.

Do that, and tell me afterwards, if you still believe Sarah pronounces Pikachu the same way as everyone else.

Oh, and I'm not making this up, as I'm not the only person to have noticed this.

 

[Marvel Girl]

What's the point of Dawn having a weakling for a rival?

 

[Duckgon Z]

So he can have her starter's evolved form, it can fully evolve, and we can see Piplup beating an Emperleon so we're forced to buy its plushie toys.

Simple really.