Pokémon in Brazil: Difference between revisions

Pokémon in Brazil
Flag of Brazil
Language	Brazilian Portuguese
Continent	South America
Original anime airdates
EP001	March 7, 1999
AG001	2004
DP001	February 9, 2008
BW001
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise arrived in Brazil on May 10th, 1999, with the broadcast of Pokémon, Eu Escolho Você! during a morning TV program called Eliana & Alegria in Rede Record.

Pokémon anime

Pokémon started airing on Rede Record on May 10, 1999. It aired daily in the morning. Some months after, it also began to air on the Brazilian Cartoon Network channel, along with Dragon Ball Z. Both channels noticed the great sucess that they had in hands, and after several reruns of the first season, the second season began to air on both channels, first on Record, and then on Cartoon Network starting the week after.

Cartoon Network logo.

The second season had also big audience, but was not as successful as the first. This was due to the broadcast of the Digimon series on a rival channel of Record, Rede Globo, in the same time slot. Eventually, Rede Record acquired seasons three and four as well.

Since Rede Record had "spent" its episodes in a short period of time, it started to reair episodes frequently, a fact which lowered its overall audience ratings. As of such, Rede Globo then purchased the rights to season five in 2005. Pokémon was so successful in the mornings on Globo that it also acquired the sixth and seventh seasons. When they too ran out of new episodes, Globo reran them a few times and eventually took Pokémon out of its morning schedule.

In 2008, RedeTV! needed a temporary cartoon to fill a space which would be taken by a new show, and acquired the first season to do so. However, Pokémon was so successful that RedeTV! acquired other seasons to display at night on the channel at 18:00. Nowadays, Pokémon is on the animation block TV Kids, at almost the same hour. In 2009, RedeTV! was the first to air season 11, even before Cartoon Network, which normally aired new episodes first (since season 3).

Music

All of the Brazilian dub opening themes are translated versions of the North American ones. The first was sung by Jana Bianchi and became a great success at the time of the "Pokémon boom".

Pokémon 2.B.A. Master was released in Brazil in two versions: the English-language 2.B.A. Master, and a Porgugese-language translation entitled Pokémon: Para Ser um Mestre. A Portuguese-language translation of Totally Pokémon was also released, entitled Totalmente Pokémon.

The Pokémon the First Movie and Pokémon the Movie 2000 soundtracks were released in Brazil as well. The soundtracks were identical to the English releases, but with the corresponding Portuguese-language movie opening theme added as a bonus track. The third movie soundtrack was also released in Brazil, featuring the Portuguese-language songs from Totalmente Pokémon in place of the English ones, as well as the Portuguese opening theme for the film.

Dubbing

When Pokémon arrived in Brazil, the Latin American distribution of Pokémon (Swen and Televix) led it to be dubbed by Master Sound Studios in São Paulo and then offer it to a open TV station. Master Sound did a good job, despite some blunders, and chose a great voice cast for the protagonists. After the success achieved in Brazil and the world, the distributors brought the 2nd season of Pokémon, this time was dubbed the BKS. BKS committed more errors than Master Sound did and even changed the voices of the Narrator and Meowth. In addition, many voice actors in the series refused to dub at BKS and it took a lot of work to convince the original cast coming back.

The following year, Swen Televix and decided to change the dubbing studio, especially after the controversy dubbing Sailor Moon R the BKS. The new studio that hosted the 3rd season of Pokemon was Parisi Video, also from São Paulo, who also voiced the 4th, the 5th and 6th season. The Parisi brought the entire cast of the series around and between each other and blunders, has achieved a voiceover good, but did not pay its employees, ended up going bankrupt. Thus, Swen and Televix brought the anime to be dubbed in another studio in São Paulo.

Centauro took anime from the 7th season and although this brings the main voice cast back, changed the voices of almost all the supporting cast and extras, but did such a good job who won an Oscar Dubbing (Yamato Award 2006) Award for Best Continuing/Redubbing. The good thing is that some of these changes proved for the better. Centauro also dubbed the mini-series spin-off Pokémon Chronicles, which changed the voices of almost all supporting characters, but still did a good job on issues of translation and audio. After that, the 8th season (Pokémon - Advanced Battle) arrived in Brazil and was in charge of Centauro again! With a troubled dubbing, full change of voices, translation errors and an horrible opening song, raised much criticism from fans.

The 9th season (Pokémon - Battle Frontier) arrived at the studio soon after and with the same scheme dubbed the 8th season, but with many improvements and a voice cast more stable with the return of some former players, oblivious to the 7th season and Chronicles. From the middle of the 9th season, the site Poképlus started to help the studio that there were no more failures, which was very positive for the series. Centauro was also the first studio to dub the anime as well as movies (the eighth onwards), in addition to the special payment in the United States in 2005 and 2006.

External Links

• A Longa Trajetória de Pokémon no Brasil (In Brazilian Portuguese)

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