Talon87
03-23-2007, 06:27 AM
Has anybody else watched the first two episodes (in Japanese) as fansubbed by Dattebayo? I downloaded these after a friend gave them rave reviews, and here's what I thought: still a lot worse than Kanto ... still about as bad as the new Pokemon episodes are ... yet made better by its authenticity.
The Japanese voice actors weren't as bad as the American ones. Satoshi's VA reminded me of Edward Elric's from FMA, and Takeshi's VA really rocked. Some of the voices were a little worse than ours imo (Professor Oak's), but others were far, far better (Kojiro's, Musashi's).
The animation's as crisp as those of you who still watch Pokemon are used to. For me, who quit watching regularly back during USA Season 4 (a.k.a. some time between Morty's ghost gym in Ecruteak and Jasmine's steel gym in Olivine), it's really nice to see that the animation frequently looks as resplendant as the frames from the first few movies. The colors feel a lot purer and brighter (probably because it's all done in CG these days, no more inking), but the creatures (especially Pikachu) seem a lot more emotive than they did in the original show.
The plot is as wretchedly mindnumbing as when I dropped it. I miss the days of Indigo, where the story felt like it was going somewhere and we weren't watching Ash, for the third time, declaring that he was setting out on a quest to become a Pokémon Master. The one thing I sort of like is that, much like with Johto, he's left behind all of his Pokémon except for Pikachu and Aipom. Aipom is pretty cool in the anime (even if he does suck hardcore in the games), and I really like that Ash ends up getting a Turtwig (Naetoru) and whatever the cool bird is called (Mukkuru). Ash is almost as much a grass-type trainer as he is anything else. Kickass Bulbasaur. Kickass Bayleef. Kickass Sceptile. And now a Turtwig. Man, I look forward to seeing "Ash the Grass Trainer ... plus Pikachu" in the sequel to DP. ;)
Is it worth continuing to watch? Probably not.
Does it make me want to find the original Kanto episodes in Japanese? Oh yeah.
So ... anyone know how I might try to go about doing that? The only options I see are downloading American episodes from the Internet (blegh) or buying American DVDs from stores that don't have Japanese audio on them (blegh).
The Japanese voice actors weren't as bad as the American ones. Satoshi's VA reminded me of Edward Elric's from FMA, and Takeshi's VA really rocked. Some of the voices were a little worse than ours imo (Professor Oak's), but others were far, far better (Kojiro's, Musashi's).
The animation's as crisp as those of you who still watch Pokemon are used to. For me, who quit watching regularly back during USA Season 4 (a.k.a. some time between Morty's ghost gym in Ecruteak and Jasmine's steel gym in Olivine), it's really nice to see that the animation frequently looks as resplendant as the frames from the first few movies. The colors feel a lot purer and brighter (probably because it's all done in CG these days, no more inking), but the creatures (especially Pikachu) seem a lot more emotive than they did in the original show.
The plot is as wretchedly mindnumbing as when I dropped it. I miss the days of Indigo, where the story felt like it was going somewhere and we weren't watching Ash, for the third time, declaring that he was setting out on a quest to become a Pokémon Master. The one thing I sort of like is that, much like with Johto, he's left behind all of his Pokémon except for Pikachu and Aipom. Aipom is pretty cool in the anime (even if he does suck hardcore in the games), and I really like that Ash ends up getting a Turtwig (Naetoru) and whatever the cool bird is called (Mukkuru). Ash is almost as much a grass-type trainer as he is anything else. Kickass Bulbasaur. Kickass Bayleef. Kickass Sceptile. And now a Turtwig. Man, I look forward to seeing "Ash the Grass Trainer ... plus Pikachu" in the sequel to DP. ;)
Is it worth continuing to watch? Probably not.
Does it make me want to find the original Kanto episodes in Japanese? Oh yeah.
So ... anyone know how I might try to go about doing that? The only options I see are downloading American episodes from the Internet (blegh) or buying American DVDs from stores that don't have Japanese audio on them (blegh).