Pokémon in Indonesia

Pokémon in Indonesia
Flag of Indonesia
Language	Indonesian
Continent	Asia
Original anime airdates
EP001	March 3, 2001
AG001	April 27, 2008
DP001	February 7, 2010
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 (known as SCTV), a commercial TV station owned by Bimantara Citra. Suddenly, the broadcast was moved to every Sunday at 9.30 - 10.00 on July 8, 2001, due to the issue of infamous banned episode in worldwide.

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 episode around Orange League saga, the show was stopped indefinitely in 2002.

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). 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.

After Pokémon: Master Quest was finished, Indosiar continuously was airing the first episode of Advanced Generation series from April 27, 2008. The special series Pokémon Chronicles, as well as the Pikachu shorts were aired around July 2008 between Pokémon: Advanced season. The Legend of Thunder!, another part of anime series, was also aired in 16^th and 23^rd November 2008.

In early February 2010, 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. This issue was related to fans who gave request to the Indosiar for the broadcasting Sinnoh saga immediately, due to the fact the difference time of episodes compared with Japan was very far—about 5 years.^[1]

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 and Lord of the Unknown Tower around June 2008 on the consecutive days. Then, Celebi: A Timeless Encounter and The Guardians of Altomare were also broadcast on 30^th November - 7^th December and 14^th - 21^st December, respectively. Finally, the two most recent movies in Indonesia, Wishing Star of the Seven Nights: Jirachi was aired on 28^th December 2008 and 4^th January 2009, while Sky-Splitting Visitor: Deoxys premiered on January 11, 18, and 25, 2009.

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 were stopped in April 21, 2003 when volume 12 was running in publish until August 8, 2008, where Elex Media Komputindo published the volume 14. Later, volume 13 was running in publish on March 3, 2010. Like the anime incidence, the Pokémon names was completely retained to its Japanese name after the recent releases.

Pokemon PiPiPi Adventure and Pokémon Get da ze! (altered as Pokémon Petualangan Baru), are also released under the comic publisher m&c.

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.^[2]

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 Undaunted, both in English and uncommon for Japanese versions. Most of these cards can be found in Indonesia's Toys "R" Us franchises.

After the popularity began to widespread, several unofficial tournaments are held within the stores' locations in several cities such as Jakarta and Bandung.

Pokémon merchandise

Pokémon anime novelizations in Indonesian

Indonesia is the one of 85 companies around the world make officially licensed Pokémon products. The various types of merchandise other than games, trading cards also available in Indonesia.

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

External links

• SCTV Broadcast Pokémon Series
• Indosiar - Pokémon
• Elex Media Komputindo's official website
• Pokémon PiPiPi Adventure - m&c

References

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