Pokémon in Russia: Difference between revisions

Pokémon in Russia
File:Pokemon logo Russian.png Flag of Russia
Language	Russian
Continent	Europe
Original anime airdates
EP001	December 18, 2000
AG001	Never aired
DP001	September 20, 2008
BW001
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise first reached Russia in December of 2000. Unlike many other countries, the Pokémon anime premiered on ORT (now called Channel One) before the games were released. In Cyrillic script, Pokémon is written as Покемон.

Pokémon anime

First wave of Pokémon in Russia

Pokémon was originally brought over to Russia by Sargona Ltd., which sold English-language cards from the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The Pokémon anime was first shown on ORT (now known as Channel One), which is the main television station in Russia.

The rights to the series were purchased in early 2000 and episodes began to appear by December of the same year. The Russian translation of the anime, which was conducted by the Kievan Pilot studio, is based on the English dub. The Russian version of the anime retains all of the English character names to match the Pokémon TCG cards that had been already released.

While the translation quality of the Russian dub is good, a few changes had been made. For example, some locations had slightly different names, such as Dark City being retitled Мрачный Город. The lyrics of the opening theme were changed considerably from the English dub as well, with a mention of things such as the protection of the Earth. Later Pokémon theme was remade with better text (for example, words about world saving were removed) and used in last episodes of Indigo League. Any episodes of the anime which were banned in the United States were also banned in Russia.

Many of the voice actors had noticeable Ukrainian accents.

In an interview with "Afisha" magazine, the management director of children's programming on ORT, Sergey Suponev, assured viewers in the harmlessness of Pokémon:

«То, что мы хотим его показать, может быть, это можно назвать неким поступком. Шуму вокруг этого сериала было много по всему миру. На самом деле довольно безобидная вещь. Милая история, как мальчик спасает зверушек, учит их воевать за добро и справедливость. И есть плохие ребята, которые отправляют за большие деньги в зоопарк, — все, что в этом фильме скандального.».

Within a day of the anime's television premiere, the management of public relations of ORT had invited journalists and children from an Otradnoye shelter to a Rolan cinema for a presentation of the series. The children received the presentation well, and then took a quiz organized by ORT.

From December 18, 2000 to January 25, 2001, the anime was broadcasted by ORT. In February 5, 2001 they began to show the series again until August 2001. The last episode to air on ORT was Charizard Chills. 104 episodes were shown.

After this, the Pokémon anime was not aired in Russia for seven years. Many fans wrote to TV channels asking them to air the anime, but the only appearance of Pokémon on Russian TV was the airing of The Power of One and Pokémon 4Ever on ORT at 5:00 am.

Many rumors have circulated in speculation of why ORT stopped airing the anime, including:

• A Japanese channel may have shown ORT in an unfavorable light. This has been unproven.
• Some believe that ORT canceled the show because Sergey Suponev, the director of children's programming of ORT, died in a snowmobile accident, and the new director supposedly did not like Pokémon.
• Others believe that Russian newspapers and the yellow press pressured the station to cancel the show. Some reported that Pokémon was causing epileptic seizures, others wrote that Pokémon "brainwashes children". ORT didn't want its reputation to fall, so they stopped airing Pokémon.

The return of Pokémon

On September 20, 2008 TNT, another Russian channel, premiered the first episode of the Diamond and Pearl series. The tenth season was shown fully.

Pokémon has also recently aired on Jetix. Unlike TNT, both the tenth season and Battle Dimension have been aired fully.

Pokémon games

Since handheld consoles are not popular in Russia, Pokémon games are rarely found in shops. Usually games become available with great delay after European release. Latest games, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver in fact will never be sold officially, since official Nintendo's distributor, Новый диск, rejects selling.^[1] All Pokémon video games are sold in English, however, there have been fan translations of the games circulating among Russian fans. The games have been translated and sold by pirates as well, although these translations contain notoriously poor grammar.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

The Pokémon Trading Card Game was released in Russia, and obtained "the same cult status" as it did in Britain.^[2] The Russian government attempted to ban or, in the least, censor the game in late 2001-2002, but it seems that this was not carried through.

The Trading Card Game was evidently released in English, as the government wanted the cards to be translated into Russian as part of the censorship.

Trivia

• Some episodes Pilot Studio dubbed from Polish version, that's why Pallet Town and Viridian City called Alabastia and Vertania. Also there was a dub error in third episode where Polish words can be heard. ^[3]
• The actress who dubbed Dawn is registered at the Russian Pokémon League. ^[4]
• The Pilot Studio also dubbed Pokémon anime in Ukrainian with same actors.

External links

• Pokémon.ru - The site is dead and redirects to Nintendo.com
• Русская Лига Покемонов (Russian Pokémon League) - Since there is no official Pokémon site in Russia, it is the most popular Russian fan Pokémon site.
• Sargona official site
• Pilot studio official site

References

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