The Four Color Media Monitor: What makes Pokemon very embarrassing in retrospect when it comes to Misty

In this 2016 article recorded from Screen Rant, they tell some quite embarrassing details about how Pokemon cast member Misty was handled in the famous cartoon series based on the franchise co-developed by Nintendo:

Many episodes of the Pokémon anime had to be censored in order to be shown on American television. The most notorious of these was "Electric Soldier Porygon", as it made international news (before Pokémon was even being considered for a Western release). This was due to a sequence of flashing lights during the episode, that caused children across Japan to suffer epileptic seizures.

Outside of "Electric Soldier Porygon", the most famous of the banned episodes was "Beauty and the Beach". When clips of this episode leaked online in the early days of the Internet, a lot of fans thought they were fake. During the episode, a beauty contest is held on the beach for girls. James of Team Rocket enters, and he wears a suit with a set of inflatable breasts. Of all of the banned episodes, "Beauty and the Beach" did eventually see an English release. The episode was heavily censored, and the run-time had to be cut down considerably.

During the English dub of the episode, Misty is accosted by a creepy old man, who claims that he wishes Misty was his granddaughter. In the original Japanese version of the episode, he tells her that he was thinking about "having fun" with her in eight years time. This old man is the first in a long line of creepy men who lust after the 10 year old Misty on this list.

I don't support censorship, but this is awfully tasteless, and disgusting how they put in something so monumentally embarrassing as an old geezer telling something like that to a girl who's supposed to be just 10 years of age, and he's apparently not the only one. If anything, it makes you wonder what's the use of adapting something for broadcasting to children's audiences overseas if it's that morally vulgar? (On the other hand, what if SJWs today would despise that the baddie team's member dressed in drag?)

And it seems that, over the years, Misty was later dropped from the cast as a regular, and producer Masamatsu Hidaka had no interest in bringing her back on a regular basis:

So, will Misty ever return to the show? His answer was a flat out no – not as a main character, anyway. If she is to ever return to the show, it will only be in a minor role as something like as a rival for a tournament, similar to May returning for a few Diamond and Pearl episodes. But no, “Kasumi-san” would never return as a main character again, unfortunately. I heard him mention “Pokemon Contests” in his response to my question, but the translator did not tell me what he meant.

As explained here and here, he didn't seem to have much caring for the character, and if he couldn't do for her what he could do for the crooked Team Rocket, it's disappointing. I've been familiar with absurd positions taken by writers in USA comicdom in the past who act as though the villains are what matters, and pretend it's impossible to give any organic depth to the heroes. I must fully disagree with this, and besides, what should really matter is the entertainment value anyway, not whether you can make the heroes compelling in all aspects of personality. Such failures are exactly why mainstream superheroes wound up becoming stagnant.

For all the advantages Japanimation does have in terms of ability to deal with more complicated subjects, in contrast to US animation, where they dumb it down often in their refusal to market it to more than just children (except as deliberate LGBT/political propaganda, as seen in recent years), Japan still unfortunately has a problem with understanding why cheap sensationlism of this sort is crude, and decidedly insulting to the intellect. I honestly wish they could refrain from this kind of stuff that's just skin-crawling.

Labels: animation, Europe and Asia, licensed products, manga and anime, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, msm propaganda

Yeah, and they didn't even have Misty leave with dignity either. They forced her out by having her sisters abruptly leave the gym in her care so they could go on a three month cruise due to winning a raffle, leaving her with absolutely no choice in the matter. Sort of like what happened when Barbara Gordon got shot by the Joker in The Killing Joke. And to make matters worse, they made the Gym Leaders in Advanced Generation out to be complete pansies with the exception of the first two Gym Leaders in game order, easily losing to rookies, which created a lot of negative implications of how Misty was ultimately going to fare while acting as Gym Leader. Wasn't even allowed to pursue her goal of Water Pokemon Master either. In fact, similar to Barbara and her becoming Oracle, it took nearly two decades for Misty to even come close to actually demonstrating any regained potential at the gym.

Personally, I thought that May and Dawn, her successors, were worse in that regard. At least with that old man, he was edited in the dub, and the only other possible red flag I can think of was that Grey's Anatomy protagonist doctor expy in A Chansey Operation, and even there, his reply could be interpreted as him admitting he can't say no to little girls, so it's a gray area. Not to mention Misty in overall design at least LOOKS like how an actual 10 year old would look in real life, while May and Dawn look more like sixteen year olds, with May arguably being the worst offender where she had huge breasts ESPECIALLY for her canonical age (also 10). Let's just say that May as she was designed wouldn't look out of place regarding most of the female fighting cast in the Dead or Alive franchise. And based on what Hidaka claimed in that interview, this was deliberate to give "eyecandy" to what was supposed to be an audience composed of prepubescent kids.

Posted by eotness | 6:54 PM

I thought you liked Japan and its morals. Why the sudden 180?

Posted by Anonymous | 4:26 PM

Here's something: https://www.deviantart.com/devilkais/art/The-Truth-behind-Pokemon-338108548

Posted by Anonymous | 6:49 PM

"I thought you liked Japan and its morals. Why the sudden 180?"

Just because Japan currently has some good going about with its media doesn't mean that it has no bad sides. To be fair, NO place in existence outside of Heaven lacks bad sides.

"Here's something: https://www.deviantart.com/devilkais/art/The-Truth-behind-Pokemon-338108548"

Let me guess, you and that guy are villain worshippers who think they are more moral paragons than the heroes? I'll acknowledge the cast really didn't do so well especially by AG, but that's no excuse, period.

Posted by eotness | 7:49 PM

Pfft. Screw all your "complex and deep meaning" stuff. Look, morally gray characters are fine IF they are entertaining or compelling... if not, then the so-called one note characters pack a lot more of a punch emotionally speaking and make me care. Besides, what's wrong with a villain actually being a villain rather than dressing him or her up in fake anti-hero clothing?

Besides which, whoever said the question was for you eotness?

As for my tastes, to give an example: I'll take either Golden Age Superman or Post-COIE Superman (86-99) over that boring twat Silver Age Superman. But if you really want an accurate live-action Superman, try 1995's Village of the Damned starring Christopher Reeve.

Posted by Anonymous | 12:05 AM

You know guys, this honestly reminds me of that old British cartoon The Dreamstone where like in this anime, the only characters with actual personality were the bungling trio of villains.

Posted by Anonymous | 12:32 AM