10 WILD Examples of Pokémon Censorship

[Music] for being a series primarily aimed towards kids pokemon has probably seen more than its fair share of censorship over the years if you can believe it while meant for generally a younger audience pokemon bean of japanese origin results in some wild stuff being included in the games anime and more due to the difference of culture between japan and its western audience what passes as acceptable there doesn't always fly here and as such sometimes has to be censored that is going to be the subject of today's video as we look at 10 especially wild examples of pokemon censorship what will not be censored in this video though is my unbridled love of today's sponsor ridge wallet i've talked about the ridge wallet plenty of times on this channel and the reason why i continue to is because of the amazing quality that these wallets have they hold up to 12 cards cash all the while maintaining this slim size that is never going to be an issue to carry around like many wallets can become i use one of these myself and i admittedly was also a little bit skeptical at first myself but after using one for a few days i instantly fell in love with how much it streamlined my wallet setup additionally the ridge wallet also has thirty thousand five star reviews online it comes in over 30 colors and styles so you can find one that fits best for you it also has rfid blocking technology built in to keep your credit card information safe it has a lifetime warranty so you're never ever going to have to buy another wallet again and it even comes with a 45 day money back guarantee if it's not your thing you can even get 10 off on one of these with free worldwide shipping and returns by going to ridge.com forward slash hoops and entering code hoops at checkout the link for that will be in the description ridge has honestly been such an amazing supporter of the channel over the past year or so and has honestly made a huge difference in me being able to do some of the bigger projects on the channel like pokemon cardinals so be sure to show them some love for that and pick up a wallet with the link in the description and as always thank you again to ridge for sponsoring this video believe it or not the pokemon anime had to be censored before the first episode could even begin in the original opening for the anime it naturally had its own opening theme song in japan just as every japanese anime does in one shot of the intro we see the camera zoom past charizard venusaur and blastoise before ultimately showing pikachu running past ash and an unidentified girl well the original japanese theme song during this part of the intro has a few lines that translate roughly as through fire through water through grass through forests through earth through clouds through that girl's skirt as pikachu is seen running between the legs of this girl and you can even briefly see her pushing down her skirt as well interestingly this clip was unedited in the english version probably because it was pretty brief although this lyric about the girl's skirt was naturally taken out this mysterious girl didn't stop there though as another character heavily resembling her was involved in another censored moment as well in the japanese version of this grimer tcg card which came from the team rocket expansion we see grimer popping its head out from under a manhole cover and looking up under the skirt of a girl that is walking by now as i mentioned it's curious that this girl in the card is wearing an outfit that heavily resembles that of the girl from the anime opening in the western release of this card however grimer's eyes were made to be a little less suggestive and were shifted to be looking straight forward instead shockingly enough yet another part of the anime's original intro was not only censored but temporarily banned in the us in the intro including in the western version we briefly see a giant tentacruel lunge one of its tentacles into a building completely destroying it this is a clip from the episode tentacool and tentacruel where we see the aforementioned tentacruel and a legion of tentacool essentially destroy a city while this episode did air without incident when it first premiered it was temporarily taken off the air following the 9 11 terrorist attacks as kids wb who broadcasted pokemon episodes at the time refused to show it understandably to avoid being insensitive in the years that followed however it was slowly reintroduced both on tv as well as on home video and streaming services one very interesting edit that was made to the anime when brought over to english concerned the episode the kangaskhan kid the episode as you may know is all about a boy who had been lost by his parents and had been raised in the wild by kangaskhan in the english version upon the gang meeting this boy he asks misty if she's a person or a pokemon to which she gets angry and hits him however in the japanese version of this scene misty gets angry at the boy because he actually asked if he could nurse on her breasts and even includes a shot that zooms in on them which was also cut from the dub i think this is a classic example of you never really can know what to expect from japanese anime even if it is directed towards kids we've talked a lot about the anime so far but there are some examples of censorship in the games as well for instance in pokemon stadium every pokemon has an entrance animation upon being released into battle this includes nidoqueen who well does this nidoqueen has always been kind of flamboyant in this regard in terms of her design so naturally the animators were just using what she was given but that naturally wasn't going to cut it for western audiences as in the western release of the game this animation was changed to nidoqueen simply shaking her body in an intimidating manner instead in the main series games several changes have been seen over the years as well many of which have to do with various in-game sprites specifically the in-battle sprite of the sailor trainer class in pokemon ruby sapphire and emerald was changed from its japanese appearance to its international one the japanese version seems pretty harmless which could make this change puzzling but it was made due to the sailor's pose resembling the iberian slap an offensive gesture that essentially equates to giving someone the finger other changes have been seen to other trainer classes as well including the beauty from gold and silver being given less revealing clothing in the international releases the sage from heartgold soul silver having his prayer beads removed from the korean release of the game the hex maniac from the hoenn games being given pupils while originally having eyes that appeared pupillous the medium from the generation 2 games also having her prayer beads removed for the international release of the games and more all of these things seem like small and mostly unnecessary changes but it's just part of the challenge in making sure pokemon is able to appeal to a global audience properly speaking of trainer classes from the gen 2 games one of them that was newly introduced at that time was the fire breather in the original gold silver and crystal there is a fire breather that can be battled at the burned tower whose name is dick and well yeah that's a pretty clear red flag especially when coupled with his trainer class meaning that you're greeted with the phrase firebreather dick wants to battle upon encountering him in the heartgold and soulsilver remakes his name was understandably changed to richard which is actually the full length version of the name dick back to the anime i'm sure we're all well aware by now how ridiculous some of the anime's localization edits can be well an example of how ridiculous they can be sometimes comes from a very classic episode of the anime the ghost of maiden's peak in the episode we see brock and james fall under the spell of the ghostly maiden seen in the episode and in response a local old woman gives the group what are supposed to be some o fuda in order to protect them which are religious items in japanese culture used for much the same purpose as they are in the episode and are often made out of paper also like we see in the episode however the problem is that in the english dub these ofuda are referred to as anti-ghost stickers which is a comically insulting replacement i get that kids outside of japan wouldn't have any idea what an ofuda is so it makes sense to change the description of these things but anti-ghost stickers really sadly though the earlier episodes of the pokemon anime dub are riddled with these kinds of changes one specific type of censorship that transcends both the games and anime is censorship involving hitler yep believe it or not there have been several instances over the years where both the games and anime had to be adjusted for international release because they contained something deemed too close to hitler and or nazi imagery one of these examples occurred very recently in fact in pokemon journeys in journey's fourth episode settling the score bunny a man seen in the episode has a mustache that very much resembles that of hitler and as such was edited out of the dub other hitler censorines include one from an early episode of the anime that was banned all together where meowth dresses up in an outfit which includes another hitler-like mustache in a later episode titled all things bright and beautiful there is a scenario where we see a group of team rocket grunts doing a unified salute that closely resembles the infamous nazi salute and was edited out of the dub as well as i mentioned before even the games were not immune to this imagery as reggie still's sprite in pokemon diamond and pearl shows it in a pose that once again very much resembles a nazi salute and as such this sprite was changed in the non-english european releases of the game to something less controversial next up before we get to our final example of the video i actually have a bonus one for you as i hadn't originally planned to include this but it's just too good to pass up in an episode of the indonesian dub of pokemon sun and moon jessie's midriff is censored which is honestly a bit too much on its own but instead of editing her appearance to cover her up they simply just blurred her stomach out and the end result as you can see is hilarious it's like they were really concerned that jessie's belly button was gonna poison the minds of children but they were also like editing some extra clothes on her is too much work so we're just gonna blur it out instead we may give some flack to the english dub of pokemon from time to time but luckily it doesn't have anything on this and lastly comes a pretty recent occurrence of censorship from the games specifically pokemon sword and shield just last year it was announced that the chinese names of pangoro coffe grigus runarigus toxil nikkit and thievel were all being changed no reason was given for the change but words like death thief and even hooligan were removed from the names and replaced with less explicit counterparts prompting many to conclude that this was censorship being put in place to comply with china's very strict rules especially seen as how pokemon games have only recently been able to even be in the country at all beginning with pokemon sun and moon and the pokemon company would probably like to continue releasing games there moving forward which makes the censorship make a lot of sense even if it is pretty ridiculous to us well there you have it those were some wild examples of pokemon censorship if you enjoyed be sure to like and subscribe if you're new and if you'd like to support the channel further which makes a huge difference you can do so by listening to my pokemon remixes on spotify and other music platforms and also by watching my pokemon cardinal series here on youtube which is massively appreciated with that said i will see you all soon with another video and until then as always i love you all and i will smell you guys [Music] later [Music] you

Channel: HoopsandHipHop

Views: 542,002

Rating: 4.8459449 out of 5

Keywords: pokemon, pokemon censorship, banned pokemon episodes, pokemon facts, pokemon trivia, pokemon anime, pokemon controversy, pokemon sword and shield, pokemon25, pokemon 25th anniversary, pokemon diamond and pearl remakes, pokemon rumors, pokemon leaks, nintendo, nintendo switch, hoopsandhiphop

Id: ay5Zw1-HRnY

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021