Pokémon in the Philippines
| Pokémon in the Philippines | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
| Languages | Filipino and Philippine English | |||
| Continent | Asia | |||
| Original animated series airdates | ||||
| EP001 | October 1, 1999 | |||
| AG001 | April 29, 2008 | |||
| DP001 | April 26, 2010 | |||
| BW001 | November 12, 2012 | |||
| XY001 | ||||
| SM001 | ||||
| JN001 | ||||
| HZ001 | ||||
The Pokémon franchise first arrived in the Republic of the Philippines around 1999, with the first broadcast of Pokémon - I Choose You! in English on GMA.
Pokémon video games
All internationally released main series games have been available in the Philippines, beginning with Pokémon Red and Blue. Ever since Diamond and Pearl, the games have been released during the same day as their release in the United States. Like most video games sold in this country, they are from Region 1 (US, Canada, Mexico) due to most people owning US home and hand-held consoles.
All spin-off games that are released in the United States have been also released in the Philippines. These games are available within weeks after their American releases.
Many pirated copies of hack games, as well as official games, are also sold in the Philippines. Examples of these pirated games include Shiny Gold, ChaosBlack, Darkcry and Naranja Versions. Pirated copies of official games come in a variety of ways. One would be in fan translations of the original Japanese game. For example, a copy of Pokémon Gold and Silver once sold only allowed Pokémon to have a maximum of five letters in their names (i.e. A Typhlosion is named Typhl.) due to certain limitations. The names of locations and people are also translated from Japanese, such as Azalea Town being called Hiwada Town and Jasmine being called Mikan. Pirated games may also just be the games placed in different cartridges and sold at a different price. These cartridges would just be black, not the color the official games' cartridges come in. These types of pirated games were prevalent for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. Nintendo DS games are usually sold legitimately, although pirated versions sold for the same price as official ones have been spotted.
Pokémon anime
The Pokémon anime is currently released into two different languages: the English dub and the Filipino dub. The Filipino dub of the anime is more aimed to Filipinos that naturally can't understand and/or speak in English.
English dub
Cartoon Network is a Philippine cable and satellite channel that airs the English dub of the Pokémon anime in the Philippines.
Original Series
The first episode of the anime first aired on Philippine television on October 1, 1999. GMA aired the English dub every Friday nights to compete against another station which aired the Filipino dub of Digimon at the same time. They continuously aired episodes until the episode Charizard Chills when they suddenly stopped airing the anime.
Years later, Cartoon Network aired the English dub of the anime starting with the first episode on weekdays at 12pm and 7:30pm. It ended after they finished airing reruns of the fourth season on January 30, 2008.
Advanced Generation series
On April 29, 2008, the sixth season of the anime premiered after the final episode of the fifth season. However, the afternoon time slot was changed to 2pm instead. They continually showed the anime until the final episode of the seventh season. Reruns of the fifth through the seventh season was shown again in early 2009.
In early 2009, Cartoon Network continued to air the anime with two new episodes starting with the eighth and ninth seasons, so schedule changed to 2 – 3pm and 7:30 – 8:30pm. The show was later replaced by Dinosaur King, which, coincidentally, had a main character who is voiced by Veronica Taylor, Ash's initial voice actress.
A special segment called Pokémania, which showed reruns of the past seasons, are aired on weekend mornings. It ended with Pokémania 7, which showed the seventh season.
The anime returned to Cartoon Network on January 29, 2010 with the airing of Address Unown! and Mother of All Battles. They will once again rerun the entire Advanced Generation series after they had finished airing the fifth season rerun.
Diamond and Pearl series
The tenth season of the anime premiered on April 26, 2010 with the episode Following A Maiden's Voyage!. On June 26, reruns of the tenth season are aired once again on weekend mornings. After airing the final episode of the tenth season on July 5, the show was then replaced by a mix of the original Japanese dub and the American dub of Metal Fight Beyblade two days later.
A few months later, the first episode of the eleventh season premiered on September 6, 2010. After a month, reruns of the sixth season began to air once more on weekend mornings.
The twelfth season of the anime premiered on April 29, 2011. Starting with the episode The Lonely Snover! (instead of the episode Classroom Training!, unexpectedly), episodes are shown in letterbox format. Starting June 5, Cartoon Network airs reruns of the ninth season once again every Sunday with four episodes consecutively.
As part of Cartoon Network's major overhaul two days prior, the thirteenth season premiered on October 3, 2011 with new episodes airing Mondays – Thursdays. It airs alongside with Power Rangers Samurai and Adventure Time on the same days.
Early on, Cartoon Network aired the episodes as they first aired in the United States, so mistakes, such as the title "Hooked on Onyx", are retained.
Best Wishes series
Cartoon Network premiered the fourteenth season of the anime on November 12, 2012 and ended on February 27, 2013.
It is currently unknown when will they air the fifteenth season.
Pokémon Movies and Specials
Cartoon Network do not normally air specials or movies. This changed with the premiere of Mewtwo Returns in mid 2009. Also, Pikachu Shorts, such as Gotta Dance, started to be shown, though not necessarily before or after their corresponding movie.
Last December 12, 2009, Cartoon Network aired a movie for the first time. They showed Jirachi: Wish Maker to commemorate the Christmas season. On the other hand, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew aired on September 10.
A year after first showing the sixth movie, the seventh Pokémon movie titled Destiny Deoxys premiered on December 25. Later on, Cartoon Network premiered the ninth Pokémon movie, Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, on February 11, 2011 followed by the premieres of The Rise of Darkrai on March 25 and Giratina and the Sky Warrior on April 22.
The twelfth movie, Arceus and the Jewel of Life, premiered on July 9, 2011, just in time for the final episode of the twelfth season on July 11.
It is still yet unknown if the thirteenth, fourteenth, and the fifteenth Pokémon movies are going to air on Cartoon Network despite the Best Wishes series already had started.
Home media
Pokémon episodes and movies are also sold unofficially on pirated DVDs in certain parts of the Philippines. The quality of these DVDs is below normal standards due to compression. For example, a whole season is fit onto one 7.4GB DVD.
Filipino dub
The Pokémon anime is dubbed in the Philippines by Alta Productions and broadcasted on the GMA Network. Pokémon episodes are broadcasted on weekdays on GMA, 8:40 a.m., originally 9:30 a.m. (PST). Pokémon Specials, a collection of movies and Pikachu shorts, also air on Saturdays and Sundays, 10:30 a.m.
No Pokémon movies have premiered in Philippine theaters; instead, they are aired on the GMA Network on Saturdays and Sundays, along with some Pikachu shorts.
The anime series did not continuously air and took several breaks until 2008, when GMA started airing the Filipino dub of the original series. In 2009, the channel finally aired the last episode of the Johto series, Hoenn Alone! last June 19, 2009 and began the next series, the Advance Generation series, which ended after some time afterwards.
Since April 17, 2011, the series started airing only every Sunday mornings. However, last May 9, 2011, the series re-aired during weekday mornings as part of GMA's morning anime block.
Cast and crew
In the Filipino dub, Pokémon that appeared in the anime use the same voices in their English dub, with the exception of talking Pokémon such as Meowth.
The dub director, script writer and translator of the Pokémon anime is Arlene Bacay, who also voiced minor characters such as Tommy. She is also a dub director of the Slayers series and a voice actress of various characters in the Filipino dub of Doraemon.
The main role of Ash Ketchum was given to Klariz Magboo, a professional singer and a model. She also voices Ash's mother, Delia Ketchum. Klariz also dubbed several other one-time character, including Dr. Abby. She also dubs in other anime series, such as Tenma Tsukamoto in School Rumble and Yoko Nakagawa in Cardcaptor Sakura.
Jefferson Utanes voices several major characters in the Pokémon anime: Professor Oak, James, Giovanni, Professor Birch and Drew, as well as the narrator, the announcer and the Pokédex. He also dubbed supporting characters such as Harrison, Mr. Shellby, Anthony and Nicholai and the movie characters Entei and Professor Spencer Hale. Jefferson is a well-known voice actor, voicing numerous role in the Filipino anime including the main roles of Yami Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Red Alert in Transformers: Armada, and Son Goku in Dragon Ball. He lives with his wife and twin children.
Charmaine Cordoviz was hired as the voice of Gary Oak, Jessie and May. She also dubs Kanto Gym Leaders Erika, Lily, Sabrina and Lt. Surge, and the Elite Four Prima. She voiced the movie characters Maren and Lisa. Other characters Charmaine Cordoviz voiced are Lara Laramie, Giselle, Calista, Juliet, Ramona, Rebecca, Marissa, Wendy, Jeanette Fisher, Casey, Mariah, Sandra, Millie and Timmy Grimm.
Misty is dubbed by a longtime voice actress Candice Arellano, who also voices Officer Jenny. She also voices several characters of the day, like Katrina. She is famous for voicing different major characters in Sailor Moon series including Sailor Saturn, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Venus.
The third main character, Brock, and the third member of Team Rocket, Meowth, are dubbed by Julius Figueroa. In Advance Generation series, he started dubbing other characters such as Joshua. His most famous non-Pokémon role in Nobita Nobi in Doraemon.
Ahlee Reyes gave her voice to Nurse Joy, as well as to other characters Carol, Shelly and Princess Sara. Amongst her non-Pokémon role are Natsui Mahana in Bleach, Gundamusai in SD Gundam Force, and various characters in Powerpuff Girls Z and Doraemon.
The voice actors for another main character, Tracey, is Ely Martin, who also voices Lugia in The Power of One and Butch, one of the Team Rocket duo. In Advance Generation series, he voices Dewford Gym Leader Brawly, Shane, and Forrest and Forrester Franklin. Mailes Kanapi voices Butch's partner, Cassidy.
Max, May's brother, and Caroline, their mother, are voiced by Rona Aguilar. She voices various characters of the day such as Alanna, Alyssa, Andi, Grace, Julie, Mary, Michelle, Mrs. Grimm, Natasha, Nicole, Rose and Shauna. She also voice the two Hoenn Gym Leader Winona and Roxanne, and the female variation of the Pokédex's voice. Rona Aguilar's only known male character he dubbed is Max.
Jenny Bituin, a teenage mother and Julius Figueroa's wife, is known to have replaced the roles of the dubbers of Officer Jenny and Caroline, and voiced the Lavaridge Gym Leader Flannery. Aside from them, she have also voiced minor characters like Anita, Janet, Natalie, Rita and Tommy. She also voiced Molly Hale in the Spell of the Unown.
Another voice actress is Hazel Hernan, though she haven't voice any character in the main series of the anime as of yet. Her only known roles are as Domino and Melody.
Two other dubbers started dubbing in the Advance Generation series: Mark Aspiras who voiced Elijah, Guy, Jimmy, Sullivan, Tommy Grimm, and Vito Winstrate; and the dubber of Eliza and Kelly, Rachel Cordoviz, Charmaine's relative.
Pokémon manga
Both Chuang Yi and VIZ Media distribute many of its Pokémon manga translations, including Pokémon Adventures, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, and several manga adaptations of the Pokémon movies, in the Philippines. However, copies from VIZ Media are comparatively more expensive than the ones from Chuang Yi. These Pokémon manga can be found at bookstores such as National Book Store and Fully Booked.
Pokémon Trading Card Game
Many card sets of Pokémon Trading Card Game are sold in convenience stores, bookstores and variety stores, mainly in shopping malls, starting with the very first TCG set, Base Set. Neutral Grounds is a popular place to find Pokémon trading cards. Tournaments are held within the stores' locations.
Pokémon merchandise
Several Pokémon toys, plush toys, and collectibles are available in the Philippines. Toys and other merchandise can be found in many malls, National Bookstore, and at Comic Alley stores. The K-Zone magazine sometimes gives updates with news about the franchise. Occasionally, the magazine also comes with promotional items. McDonald's has also distributed Pokémon Happy Meals in the Philippines. These merchandises are licensed by Top Insight International Co., Ltd.
Trivia
- Similar to Veronica Taylor and Sarah Natochenny, Klariz Magboo voices Ash as well as his mother.
- On Cartoon Network, an eyecatch of Dawn throwing a Poké Ball during her Piplup fantasy in Following a Maiden's Voyage! and an eyecatch of Alan's Probopass were shown before the Diamond & Pearl series had premiered in the Philippines.
- A commercial on Cartoon Network for the earlier episodes of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Galactic Battles, such as Hold the Phione!, mispronounces Buneary by pronouncing the first syllable as boo.
External links
- Cartoon Network Philippines
- Top-Insight International
- Anime News Network Encyclopedia (Original series cast)
- Anime News Network Encyclopedia (Advanced Generation series cast)
- Neutral Grounds Philippines
- PKMN-ph: Pokémon Philippines, an unofficial Pokémon site for the Philippines
| The Pokémon franchise around the world | |
|---|---|
| Africa: | South Africa |
| The Americas: | Brazil • Canada • Latin America • United States |
| Asia: | Greater China • Indonesia • Japan • Malaysia • Philippines • Singapore • South Asia • South Korea • Thailand • Vietnam |
| Europe: | Albania • Belgium • Bulgaria • Croatia • Czech Republic • Denmark • Finland • France • Germany • Greece Hungary • Iceland • Ireland • Italy • Latvia • Lithuania • Netherlands • North Macedonia • Norway • Poland Portugal • Romania • Russia • Serbia • Slovakia • Spain • Sweden • Ukraine • United Kingdom |
| Middle East: | Arab world • Israel • Turkey |
| Oceania: | Australia • New Zealand |
|
This article is part of Project Globe, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon franchise around the world. |
