Pokémon in Italy

Pokémon in Italy
Flag of Italy
Language	Italian
Continent	Europe
Original anime airdates
EP001	January 10, 2000
AG001	March 24\25, 2004
DP001	September 17\18, 2007
BW001	February 13, 2011* May 30, 2011*
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise first reached Italy on January 7, 2000, with the first broadcast of L'inizio di una grande avventura in Italian on Italia 1.

Pokémon anime

Italia 1 logo

On January 10th, 2000, Italia 1 (Italia Uno), a commercial Italian TV channel owned by Mediaset, started airing the Pokémon anime from Mondays to Fridays every afternoon, around 5 P.M. The series that year was successful in Italy and it was also broadcast at prime time on Saturdays. From the fourth season on, however, Pokémon lost more and more Italian fans. On Christmas 2001 it was even suspended for one year, possibly for dub problems, and when in the end of 2002 it started again, its popularity was even lower.

In 2003, Pokémon: Master Quest began around 4 P.M. With this fifth series, Italia 1 chose to divide the episodes into two halves for the premiere, creating, in this way, two 10-minutes episodes broadcast from Monday through Friday. However, when the episodes were re-aired, they were transmitted fully. Nevertheless, Pokémon started being broadcast later and later (Pokémon: Advanced at 4:30 P.M., Pokémon: Advanced Challenge at 5 P.M.) until the eighth season started to be broadcast at 6 P.M., always for ten minutes on February 2006. After a few months, Pokémon was moved to Saturdays and Sundays, imitating the TV schedule of Kids' WB!. The main problem facing this was that Italian children attend school on Saturdays. Due to this choice, some Italian Pokémon sites chose to make together a petition against Italia 1. Perhaps because of this petition or maybe due to the lower audience, Pokémon returned in the afternoon at 5:15 P.M.

With the beginning of Pokémon Chronicles, however, the show was broadcast once again in the weekend, although later in the morning. The same happened for Pokémon: Battle Frontier, which was not only was transmitted in the weekends, but also for 10 minutes only. In Summer 2007, Pokémon landed every morning at 8:30 A.M. In September 2007, Italia 1 decided on give another chance to the show and, exploiting the success of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Pokémon came back in the afternoon with the new series, Pokémon: Diamante e Perla. The first episodes were successful, similar to the ones of the first seasons, but after a few episodes the success decreased and so, also because the series was going too much near the U.S. airings) in January 2008 "Diamante e Perla" went back to the weekend.

Boing and Hiro

Like most rerunning cartoon series and movies coming from Italia 1, the Pokémon anime has also been aired by Boing and Hiro, two Italian digital television channels, broadcast via DTT technology, owned by Mediaset.

In 2009, Walt Disney Company's channel, Jetix, obtained the rights for broadcasting the eleventh season. The Pokémon anime from Battle Dimension onward is also broadcasted by "K2", a syndication channel. In 2010 Jetix changed name to Disney XD, that mainly premieres the episodes in Italy, but sometimes alternates with K2 (for example, the last episodes of the fourteenth season).

Pokémon movies

Twelve Pokémon movies have been released in Italy so far. On February 28, March 6 and 13 2004, the first three movies were supposed to be broadcast, for the first time on TV, on Italy 1 in prime time. However, due to the low audience, only the first two movies aired. One year later, finally, the third one was broadcast, this time on Sunday afternoon. After almost 4 and half years without any movie release (except for the events' cinema projections of the eight and tenth movies), the movies started to air again in 2009: the eight and the ninth were aired on Hiro (respectively on January and November 2009), Fratello dallo spazio was aired for the first time on Boing in July 2010, and The Rise of Darkrai premiered on July 2011 via online broadcast on the official site; most recent movies (from the eleventh onward) were aired on Disney XD and K2. Actually, only the movies of Advanced Generation haven't been released in DVD yet, because during 2011 the 4 films of the DP saga were released from Universal Pictures. The sixth movie aired for the first time on March 16, 2012 on Sky Cinema Family (also in 720p-HD version), becoming the "italian" movie with the longest gap from the japanese and american releases (almost 8 years from the american, 8 and a half years from the japanese).

Music

For more information, see Category:Italian songs.

Traditionally, Mediaset, since its origins, has always created openings for cartoons and anime, some independent from the Japanese and North American opening themes. For Pokémon, nine themes have been made (for the first ten seasons and for Pokémon Chronicles). For Pokémon: Advanced & Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, and for Pokémon: Advanced Battle & Pokémon: Battle Frontier, the same opening themes have been used. This makes Italy one of only three known countries outside of Japan and the United States to create original music for the Pokémon anime, the other two being China and Korea.

Although the Italian dub has its own music, a Italian-language translation of the Pokémon 2.B.A. Master soundtrack was also released, entitled Pokémon: Le Canzoni Autentiche Della Serie TV, including the first Italian opening as a bonus track.

Cast and crew

The main role of Ash Ketchum is dubbed by Davide Garbolino. Other minor roles Garbolino had on Pokémon include Jared. Misty, the second main character in the series, has been dubbed by Alessandra Karpoff, who also dubbed Lilian Meridian, J, and Cynthia.

Brock's role was taken by Nicola Bartolini Carrassi (also known as Nicola Ryan Carrassi; born August 1, 1971 in La Spezia), the man who brought Pokémon to Italy. He is also a journalist, scriptwriter, anime expert and anchor. He has been chosen by Warner Bros, 4Kids, Pokémon INC., Nintendo Games Freak and Buena Vista in order to become the Italian voice of Brock and for this he has been rewarded as the best European voice of Brock. Nicola left the cast after two seasons, and starting the Johto saga, the role was taken by Luca Bottale.

The Team Rocket trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth is has been voiced by Emanuela Pacotto, Simone D’Andrea, and Giuseppe Calvetti (also known as Beppe Calvetti) respectively. Starting with AG041, the role of Meowth was passed to Pietro Ubaldi.

May, who is named Vera in Italy, was dubbed by Serena Clerici, who also voiced Janina. May's brother Max was dubbed by Federica Valenti, who also voiced Casey and Melody.

The newest main character, Dawn, is called Lucinda in Italy. Her voice actress is Tosawi Piovani, who was also the voice of Casey and Marina, for the 10th and 11th seasons (and movies), and Ludovica De Caro, also later voice of Daniela, Emmy and Christie, from the 12th season (and movie) onward.

Other notable voice actors in the Italian dub include Riccardo Rovatti as Professor Oak, Paolo Sesana as Gary Oak (although he was initially voiced by Nicola Bartolini Carrassi in EP001), Patrizio Prata as Tracey Sketchit, Marcella Silvestri and Monica Bonetto as Officer Jenny, Sonia Mazza and Laura Brambilla as Nurse Joy, and Massimo Di Benedetto as Paul, Drew and Trip.

Airing schedule

The Pokémon schedule as of December 19th, 2011, is:

Channel	Time	Day	Series
Disney XD	6:40 PM	Monday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Tuesday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Wednesday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Thursday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Friday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Saturday	Pokémon: Black & White
		Sunday	Pokémon: Black & White
K-2	9:10 AM, 6:15 PM	Monday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Tuesday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Wednesday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Thursday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Friday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Saturday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
		Sunday	2 episodes of Pokémon: Black & White
Boing	11:15 AM	Monday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Tuesday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Wednesday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Thursday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Friday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Saturday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
		Sunday	Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl

Pokémon merchandise

File:Get Da Ze volume1.jpg

Cover artwork for volume one of Pokémon

Pokémon Advanced Action Cards were available in Italy in the early 2000s.

Pokémon manga

Italy is one of only three countries outside of Japan to publish a translation of the Pokémon Get da ze! manga series. It is published by Play Press Publishing under the title Pokémon.

There is also an Italian version of Magical Pokémon Journey.

Trivia

• Although Italy is one of the only three countries other than Japan and the United States that has original opening themes, it is also one of the few Western European countries that does not have original names for any Pokémon.
• Pokémon Day has been celebrated in Italy every year since 2005.

This article is part of Project Globe, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon franchise around the world.