Pokémon in Indonesia

Pokémon in Indonesia
Flag of Indonesia
Language	Indonesian
Continent	Asia
Original anime airdates
EP001
AG001
DP001
BW001
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise was first introduced officially in Indonesia in March 2001 through the broadcast of the first episode of the Pokémon anime around March 2001, along with the first Pokémon games.

Pokémon video games

The first Pokémon games, Pokémon Red and Blue, were released in Indonesia in limited numbers. The first truly well-known Pokémon game for Indonesia was Pokémon Yellow, which was released in 2001.

So far, all internationally released main games until Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver have been available in Indonesia. Usually, these games are available within several months to one year after their North American releases.

Many pirated copies of hack games, as well as official games, are also sold in Indonesia, especially the infamous game ChaosBlack and Quartz, which at first was mistaken by people as official. Pirated copies of official games come in a variety of ways, such as the lack of license or the color difference of game cartridges.

Spin-off Pokémon games that are available in English language such as Pokémon Pinball, Ranger and the Mystery Dungeon series, have been released in Indonesia as well.

Pokémon anime

The first episode of the Pokémon anime was aired in March 3, 2001 every Saturday and Sunday at 19.00 - 19.30 (GMT +7) by Surya Citra Televisi Indonesia, a commercial TV station owned by Bimantara Citra.^[1] Suddenly, the broadcast was moved on every Sunday at 9.30 - 10.00 around June in the same year.

The Indonesian dub was mainly based on the Japanese version; however, proper names from the English version were used. Most characters of the day are renamed in the dub, as well as main character Ash Ketchum, who was given the dub name Ali. In a short period of time, Pokémon became well-known amongst children and young people. However, from the third season, the Pokémon anime lost its popularity. Soon after the Orange League saga, the show was stopped indefinitely.

The anime series did not continuously air until December 26, 2004, when Indosiar Visual Mandiri, took over and began their first broadcast from the beginning of Johto saga on Sundays from 7.30 a.m - 8.00 a.m. (GMT +7).^[2] Unfortunately, the inconsistency began when Indosiar retained all Japanese names for main characters, towns, and items (eg. Poké Ball is referred as Bola Monster, while Pallet Town as Kota Masara). The most controversial for the fans was the retaining of Pokémon name to Japanese. Despite the controversy, many fans still support this positive effort for retaining the main character's Japanese names.

Indosiar continuously airing the first episode of season Pokémon: Advanced until the final episode of season Pokémon: Advanced Challenge on April 27, 2008.^[3]

In early February 2010, for unknown reasons, Indosiar skipped half of the Advanced Generation series (until the end of the Battle Frontier saga) and started over from the first episode of the Diamond & Pearl series.

In Indonesia, no Pokémon movies have premiered in any theaters. Instead, several Pokémon movies were aired on TV. As SCTV era, only the first Pokémon movie was aired. As Indosiar took over, they aired several movies from Revelation of Lugia until The Guardians of Altomare around June 2008 on the consecutive days. Finally, the two most recent movies in Indonesia, Wishing Star of the Seven Nights: Jirachi and Sky-Splitting Visitor: Deoxys premiered around November - December 2008.

Almost all of the special series, such as Pokémon Chronicles (including The Legend of Thunder!), as well as the Pikachu shorts were aired in 2009 between Pokémon: Master Quest and Pokémon: Advanced season.

Unlike the other dubs, the Indonesian dub has not any banned episodes so far, other than the infamous episode that banned in worldwide.

Several Pokémon episodes and movies are also sold in DVDs and CDs on some regions of the Indonesia, although most of them are not exactly official or being pirates. Most of them are dubbed in English or Mandarin and subtitled in Indonesian.

Pokémon manga

Indonesia is one of the countries that publishes a translation of Pokémon Pocket Monsters by Kosaku Anakubo. It is published by Elex Media Komputindo. At the first, the main character Isamu Akai was given the same dubbed name for Ash, while Clefairy was renamed as Kleferi (The Indonesian pronounce of Clefairy). This releases was stopped in April 21, 2003 when volume 12 was running in publish until April 21, 2010, where Elex Media Komputindo continued the next volume. Like the anime incidence, the Pokémon names was completely retained to its Japanese name after the recent releases.

There is also a translation of The Electric Tale of Pikachu, under the dubbed name Kisah Pikachu yang Menggetarkan.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Before the Pokémon franchise, especially Trading Card Game that was introduced officially, the Pokémon cards was introduced when they was imported by Sucianto, the founder of Planet Comics, the famous and the oldest Indonesian Comic Store.^[4]

Many card sets and theme decks of Pokémon TCG have been sold in the Indonesia's convenience stores and malls starting from the very first TCG set, Base Set, until the recent Unleashed, both in English and Japanese versions. Tournaments are held within the stores' locations in several cities such as Jakarta and Bandung.

Pokémon merchandise

Pokémon anime novelizations in Indonesian

There have been Indonesian translations of the Pokémon anime novelization series.

External links

• Elex Media Komputindo's official website

References

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