Pokémon in New Zealand

Pokémon in New Zealand
Flag of New Zealand
Languages	English
Continent	Oceania
Original anime airdates
EP001	September 1998
AG001	2003
DP001	August 2007
BW001
XY001
SM001
JN001
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise first reached New Land in late 1998 with the release of Pokémon Red and Blue Versions and the airing of the anime.

Pokémon video games

All Pokémon games that have been released in the United States have also been released in Canada, with the exception of the Pokémon mini. New games are always released on the same day that they are released in the United States. Pokémon games sold in Canada are direct imports of the American versions, so spelling variations such as color and center are not changed to colour and centre for the Canadian releases. While bilingual packaging and French-language instruction manuals are required by law to be included with the sale of all video games, no French-language Pokémon games have been released in Canada.

Typically, Nintendo does not distribute event Pokémon in Canada, although Canadian players may download Wi-Fi events. The recent introduction of Wi-Fi events has allowed Canadian players access to many previously unavailable event Pokémon.

Pokémon anime

In English

TV2's current logo, in use since ...

The English dub of the Pokémon anime has aired in Canada on YTV since September 1998, when Pokémon - I Choose You! debuted. In addition to airing the anime series, YTV also airs the Pokémon movies on occasion during their weekend "Moovibot" segment. Pokémon is very well received by YTV's viewers.^[1]

Currently, YTV airs six episodes of Pokémon: Advanced Battle per week.

When the anime debuted on YTV, it aired on weekdays at 4:00 PM. When The Adventures in the Orange Islands debuted in the US, YTV continued to air Indigo League episodes until Wherefore Art Thou, Pokémon? aired on Kids' WB!. This is due to YTV's policy of not airing new episodes until there are enough new dubbed episodes to air five days a week until the end of the season. Back around this time, Pokémon sometimes received blocks of "back to back to back to back" specials. The first time this occurred, the block was called "Pokemania".

YTV began airing new Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl episodes on Saturdays in August 2007. A 3:30 PM weekday timeslot starting with Following A Maiden's Voyage was added on April 7, 2008. Eventually, these 3:30 PM episodes surpassed the timeline of the Saturday episodes, starting with Buizel Your Way out of This!. Thus, Canada started getting five new episodes per week. The episode that made the weekday afternoon episodes pass the Saturday ones was Buizel Your Way out of This!. The first season of the Diamond & Pearl series had finished its chronological airing on Tuesday, June 17, meaning that Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension should have started on the next Wednesday or possibly Saturday. However, this did not happen, as YTV began rerunning season 10 from the beginning. This is due to YTV's episode policy as stated above.

Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension briefly appeared for three weeks, airing on Fridays at 8:00 AM starting November 7, 2008. At one point, YTV was constantly changing their schedule around from Pokémon: Battle Frontier and Diamond and Pearl episodes at the times of 3:30 PM and 8:00 AM. On Monday, March 2, 2009, YTV began to air Battle Dimension regularly and only aired Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl episodes on Saturdays. On Wednesday, June 3, 2009, YTV aired the last episode of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension. On Saturday, October 10, 2009, YTV began airing episodes of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Galactic Battles.^[4] On the same day, they aired Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Darkness at 12:00 PM, and also Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky - Beyond Time & Darkness at 12:30 PM (just one day after the US airing).^[5] On November 20, 2009, YTV stopped airing episodes of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension and began to air only Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Galactic Battles. On November 28, 2009, YTV aired the Canadian premier of Arceus and the Jewel of Life. Movies 8 through 11 have yet to air on the channel, however.

Currently, YTV is airing reruns of Pokémon: Advanced Battle.

Bionix On Demand logo

In 2005, YTV launched an on demand anime channel simply named YTV Anime On Demand. The channel contained new and old programs, including series that do not air on the normal YTV. The Pokémon anime was also available on this service. In 2008, YTV renamed its on demand service to Bionix On Demand, which continues to offer Pokémon in its line-up to this day.^[6]

While some episodes such as The Tower of Terror, Tentacool & Tentacruel, and Holiday Hi-Jynx were aired and later banned in the United States, they have not been banned from YTV's schedule. However, the channel has not aired any episodes which were also never aired in the United States, such as The Legend of Dratini and The Ice Cave.

In some areas of Canada, The WB (now The CW) is available on cable. With this, Canadians were able to watch the newest English-dubbed episodes on Kids' WB! before they aired on YTV. Since Cartoon Network became the USA's provider of the Pokémon anime in 2006, Canadians must now wait until the dubbed episodes air on YTV to watch them due to the fact that Cartoon Network is only available in the United States.

Cast and Crew

The voices used in the english dub shown in New Zealand are exactly the same as the United State version.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Cards for the Pokémon Trading Card Game have been sold in Canada since the introduction of the Base Set. English-language cards are imported from the United States to be sold in Canadian stores. Originally, only English-language cards were available, but many French-speaking parents felt this was unfair to their children, who also did not have a French-language Pokémon video game. As a result, Wizards of the Coast, which had recently started selling Pokémon cards in France, began to import these French-language cards for sale in Québec. Today, both English- and French-language cards are recognized as tournament legal in Pokémon Organized Play.

Pokémon merchandise

Canada receives most of the same Pokémon merchandise that is available in the United States, such as plush toys and foods. All four Burger King promotions were available at Canadian Burger King outlets. Per national laws^[7], all Pokémon toys and other merchandise come with bilingual packaging and instructions.

Several Pokémon books that have been released in English in Canada and the United States have been translated into French by Le Groupe Syntagme Inc for sale in Québec. Examples include many of Tracey West's Pokémon chapter books based on the anime, the Pokémon Adventure Series (Pokémon Collection Adventure), Pokémon Pop Quiz (Pokémon Questions-pièges) and Extreme Pokémon: The Guide for the Ultimate Fan (Extrêmes Pokémon: Le guide ultime des vrais mordus). VIZ Media exports all of its Pokémon manga to Canada, however, no Pokémon manga have been released in Canadian French.

All Pokémon board games released in the United States, such as Pokémon Master Trainer and Pokémon Yahtzee Jr., have been released in Canada in fully bilingual versions.

In the year 2000, YTV featured Pokémon Theme on their first Big Fun Party Mix CD.^[8]

Trivia

• Scott Ramsoomair, the author of the webcomic Super Effective, is Canadian.^[9]
• Pokémon.ca used to redirect to Pokémon.com.
  • It is possible that Pokémon.com will create a website for Canada via this page. Currently if the user selects Canada as their country, a 404 error page appears.^[10]

References

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