The Region 1 Pokemon DVDs are terrible and yet nobody cares

[froakiefroak]

Quick question, do the DVDs/Bluray releases of Pokemon in Japan have English tracks included?

If so, I would probably collect those instead of Viz or Beyond

I think the first few movies on DVD did but I can't confirm or deny anything beyond that. I know that The First Movie's JP DVD did, at least a "recent" re-release within the last 5 years anyway... which I believe is OOP now based on recent Amazon JP searches by myself.

 

[Dogasu]

The DVDs for the first three movies include the English dub but everything else beyond that is Japanese only. None of the Blu-rays feature the English dub.

 

[froakiefroak]

The DVDs for the first three movies include the English dub but everything else beyond that is Japanese only. None of the Blu-rays feature the English dub.

Yeah, that's what I thought/knew but couldn't remember well enough to confirm. Thanks for confirmation there.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

The DVDs for the first three movies include the English dub but everything else beyond that is Japanese only. None of the Blu-rays feature the English dub.

A part of me wonders why they bothered putting the dub track on those DVDs. I'd understand that being done to a Disney movie, as those are of American origin, but Pokemon? In any case, that's a nice touch, at least. Are the dub tracks subtitled in Japanese, being as there are script rewrites between the two versions of those films?

What gives? The DVDs are incredibly cheap - you often pay less than $1 per episode in most releases - but is the quantity really better than quality here? Or - and this is what I suspect - do most fans just not bother buying the DVDs in the first place and so none of this matters to them? Show of hands: how many people here actually buy the DVDs as they come out?

Hand raised. Unless it's a rerelease of a set I already have, I do buy the sets as they come out. And really, they look good to me, but that's because I don't care about those "digital destruction" problems that John K. and those like him do. Though as the old axiom goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

 

[Dogasu]

A part of me wonders why they bothered putting the dub track on those DVDs. I'd understand that being done to a Disney movie, as those are of American origin, but Pokemon?

The fact that a Japanese cartoon was a hit overseas was a big deal back in the late 90s / early 2000s. The inclusion of the English dub track was most likely done as a novelty.

Are the dub tracks subtitled in Japanese, being as there are script rewrites between the two versions of those films?

They are subtitled into Japanese, yes. I've only spot checked a few places but from what I could tell they're actual translations instead of just closed captions taken from the Japanese script.

Also the untranslatable jokes that 4Kids added (like the whole "I wish my mom had called me Bob" thing) more or less get ignored in the Japanese subtitles.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

Also the untranslatable jokes that 4Kids added (like the whole "I wish my mom had called me Bob" thing) more or less get ignored in the Japanese subtitles.

I see. I was thinking they would've had an extra subtitle on the screen explaining the joke, like how fansubs do.