Dub
A dub of the Pokémon anime is a version which has voices recorded in a different language than the original Japanese. By some definitions of the word, the original Japanese recording can also be considered a dub, but fans almost exclusively use the word to refer recordings in other languages, and refer to the Japanese recording as "the original" or "raw" version.
The English dub
Production
The English dub was produced by 4Kids Entertainment and TAJ Productions from seasons one through six.
Seasons seven and eight were produced solely by 4Kids Entertainment. After this, 4Kids lost dubbing rights, and seasons nine and ten were produced by Pokémon USA and TAJ Productions. Since the beginning of season eleven, the dub is produced by Pokémon USA with DuArt.
Criticisms
The dub has been the target of criticism and controversy throughout its history. Despite these criticisms, the English dub is well received, and has many viewers, some even preferring it over the original Japanese anime. Many would like to see DVDs containing the original Japanese version with subtitles, but that has yet to happen.
During the early years of the dub, new episodes aired a year or more after their original Japanese airing, with 4Kids' long season breaks tending to cause the dub to fall far behind the original. Get the Show on the Road! and Ruin with a View, for instance, were first aired in March of 2003 to commemorate the English release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, as they were in Japan for the Japanese release, however, at the time in the dub, Ash had only just gotten his seventh Johto badge, and would continue through the region until that November, when the AG episodes would finally be aired in order. When Pokémon USA took the helm, the episodes were initially as far apart as they had been before, however, the impending release of the English versions of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl forced them to, rather than air a special and not revisit the series until later in the year, air the Battle Frontier arc as quickly as they possibly could, reducing the nearly yearlong gap of the episodes at the beginning of the season to nearly half that amount, and staying at a gap of around 150 days (5 months) since.
Distribution
The English-language dub is broadcast in many countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Other languages
The Pokémon anime has been dubbed to many languages. Most countries use the English dub as the basis for their own dub, instead of the original Japanese version. Other than English, the anime has been at least partially dubbed to Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, both Canadian and European French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, both Brazilian and Iberian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, both Latin American and Iberian Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, and Turkish.
Related articles
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This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation. |
