Pokémon in Italy

Pokémon in Italy
Flag of Italy
Language	Italian
Continent	Europe
Original anime airdates
EP001	January 7, 2000
AG001
DP001
BW001
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise first reached Italy on January 7, 2000, with the first broadcast of EP001 in Italian on Italia 1.

Pokémon anime

On January 7th, 2000, Italia 1 (Italia Uno), a commercial Italian TV channel owned by Mediaset, started airing the Pokémon anime from Mondays to Fridays every afternoon, around 5 P.M. The series that year was successful in Italy and it was also transmitted on prime time on Saturdays. From the fourth season on, however, Pokémon lost more and more Italian fans. On Christmas 2001 it was even suspended for one year, possibly for dub problems, and when in the end of 2002 it started again, its popularity was even lower.

In 2003, Pokémon: Master Quest began around 4 P.M. With this fifth series, Italia 1 chose to divide the episodes into two halves for the premiere, creating, in this way, two 10-minutes episodes broadcast from Monday through Friday. However, when the episodes were re-aired, they were transmitted fully. Nevertheless, Pokémon started being broadcast later and later (Pokémon: Advanced at 4:30 P.M., Pokémon: Advanced Challenge at 5 P.M.) until the eighth season started to be broadcast at 6 P.M., always for ten minutes on February 2006. After a few months, Pokémon was moved to Saturdays and Sundays, imitating the TV schedule of Kids WB!. The main problem facing this was that Italian children attend school on Saturdays. Due to this choice, some Italian Pokémon sites chose to make together a petition against Italia 1. Perhaps because of this petition or maybe due to the lower audience, Pokémon returned in the afternoon at 5:15 P.M.

With the beginning of Pokémon Chronicles, however, the show was broadcast once again in the weekend, although later in the morning. The same happened for Pokémon: Battle Frontier, which was not only was transmitted in the weekends, but also for 10 minutes only. In Summer 2007, Pokémon landed every morning at 8:30 A.M. In September 2007, Italia 1 decided on give another chance to the show and, exploiting the success of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Pokémon came back in the afternoon with the new series, Pokémon: Diamante e Perla. The first episodes were successful, similar to the ones of the first seasons, but after a few episodes the success decreased, and so in January 2008 "Diamante e Perla" went back to the weekend.

Like most rerunning cartoon series and movies coming from Italia 1, the Pokémon anime has also been aired by Boing and Hiro, two Italian digital television channels, broadcast via DTT technology, owned by Mediaset.

Pokémon movies

Only the first five Pokémon movies of the original series have been released in Italy so far. On February 28, March 6 and 13 2004, the first three movies were supposed to be broadcast, for the first time on TV, on Italy 1 in prime time. However, due to the low audience, only the first two movies aired. One year later, finally, the third one was broadcast, this time on Sunday afternoon. From that day, however, the films have not been transmitted anymore. Some sources affirm that Mediaset has treated for getting the rights of transmission of the all first ten movies.

Music

Traditionally, Mediaset, since its origins, has always created openings for cartoons and anime, some independent from the Japanese and North American opening themes. For Pokémon, nine themes have been made (for the first ten seasons and for Pokémon Chronicles). For Pokémon: Advanced & Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, and for Pokémon: Advanced Battle & Pokémon: Battle Frontier, the same opening themes have been used. This makes Italy the only known country other than Japan and the United States to create original music for the Pokémon anime.

In 2009, Walt Disney Company's channel, Jetix, will obtain the rights for broadcasting the brand new eleventh season.

Cast and crew

The main role of Ash Ketchum is dubbed by Davide Garbolino. Other minor roles Davide had on Pokémon include Jared. Misty, the second main character in the series, has been dubbed by Alessandra Karpoff, who also dubbed Lilian Meridian, J, and Cynthia.

Brock's role was taken by Nicola Bartolini Carrassi (also known as Nicola Ryan Carrassi; born August 1, 1971 in La Spezia), the man who brought Pokémon to Italy. He is also a journalist, scriptwriter, anime expert and anchor. He has been chosen by Warner Bros, 4Kids, Pokémon INC., Nintendo Games Freak and Buena Vista in order to become the Italian voice of Brock and for this he has been rewarded as the best European voice of Brock. Nicola left the casr after two seasons, and starting the Johto saga, the role was taken by Luca Bottale.

The Team Rocket trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth is has been voiced by Emanuela Pacotto, Simone D’Andrea, and Giuseppe Calvetti (also known as Beppe Calvetti) respectively. Starting AG041, the role of Meowth was passed to Pietro Ubaldi.

May, who is named Vera in Italy, was dubbed by Serena Clerici, who also voiced Janina. May's brother Max was dubbed by Federica Valenti', who also voiced Casey and Melody.

The newest main character, Dawn, is called Lucinda in Italy. Her voice actress is Tosawi Piovani, who was also the voice of Casey and Marina.

Other notable voice actors in the Italian dub include Riccardo Rovatti as Professor Oak, Paolo Sesana as Gary Oak, Patrizio Prata as Tracey Sketchit, Marcella Silvestri and Monica Bonetto as Officer Jenny, Sonia Mazza and Laura Brambilla as Nurse Joy, and Massimo Di Benedetto as Paul and Drew.

Pokémon Schedule*

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