Pokémon in the Arab world

Pokémon in the Arab world
Flag of the Arab League
Language	Arabic
Continent	Arab world
Original anime airdates
EP001	September 2000
AG001	December 24, 2005
DP001	Never aired
BW001	Never aired
XY001	Never aired
SM001	Never aired
JN001	February 27, 2021* July 1, 2021*
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise widely reached the Arab world in late 2000, with the first broadcast of بوكيمون، لقد اخترتك انت! in Arabic language on MBC Channel. However, Pokémon video games were initially distributed in various places, particularly within the GCC countries, since 1998.

The word Pokémon is written as بوكيمون and pluralised as بوكيمونات. Pokémon are always referred to as either male or female, since Arabic has no neutral grammatical gender.

While almost all characters, Pokémon, and most of the locations have kept their English names in the Arabic version, some objects in the franchise received Arabic names. The Poké Ball, for example, has been dubbed as كرة البوكي (Kurt Al-Poké), the Poké Flute received the name مزمار البوكي (Mizmar Al-Poké) and so on. One of the Arabic names that is different from the English dub is Team Rocket, which has been translated as: عصابة الرداء الأبيض 'isabat Ar-Redda Al-Abiadh. Additionally, the name of Pallet Town got translated as قرية شورباك Qaryat Shoreback.

Controversy

Promoting "Unislamic" Values

A flyer warning against the Pokémon franchise, depicting Pokémon names and their supposed translation from Hebrew. These types of flyers were handed out by several fundamentalist Muslim groups in schools and mosques.

Similar to the Pokémania phenomenon experienced in America, the introduction of the Pokémon franchise to the Arab world in 2000 resulted in an unprecedented surge in popularity, almost reaching the status of a cultural phenomenon. Swiftly, stores were inundated with an abundance of Pokémon products, and the anime series rapidly found its way onto television stations in every country across the region.

Amidst the heightened interest in the Pokémon series, certain parents and schoolteachers have raised concerns regarding children’s over attachment to the series while others started to criticize the franchise asserting that it primarily functions as a commercial ploy, strategically designed to entice children into frivolously spending their money on toys, trading cards, and various other related products. The franchise was then accused of promoting "unislamic values" such as violence, but most importantly gambling, as well as anti-creationism ideology: the theory of evolution and survival of the fittest with some accusing the series of trying to promote Atheism among Muslim youth, meanwhile rumors started spreading that the Pokémon names in the series were in fact Hebrew words meant to insult Islam and that the franchise is a part of a Zionist conspiracy. From there the controversy escalated, and Pokémon products especially the TCG started to get banned in schools while several TV stations took the anime off air as the franchise was blacklisted.

The whole controversy gained major public attention to the point that the Japanese embassy in Saudi Arabia had to issue a statement explaining the Japanese origins of the franchise and denying any relation to any political or religious ideology.^[1]

Some theorize that certain rival companies who were trying to conquer the toys and merchandise market in the Middle East, might have felt threatened by the popularity of the Pokémon franchise and might have had hand in escalating the controversy and lobbying for the ban, but all of this remain speculations as there is no substantial evidence to these allegations.

Claims of Zionist Jewish plot

Some outspoken, fundamentalist Muslims claimed that Pokémon is a Jewish conspiracy intended to get Muslim children to renounce their faith.^[2][3][4][5] These same groups claimed that the word "Pokémon" means "I am Jewish", with the claimers and their followers generally unaware of the franchise's Japanese origin. The "Evolution vs. Creationism" conflict was also commonly brought up.^[6][7][8]

In 2001, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who is the highest religious authority in the kingdom, issued a fatwā banning the Pokémon franchise. It claimed that the franchise promoted Zionism by displaying a six-pointed star that resembles the Star of David as well as other religious symbols such as crosses they associated with Christianity and triangles they associated with Freemasonry in the TCG and encouraged gambling in the games due to the inclusion of gambling elements, which is in violation of Muslim doctrine.^[9][10]

High Muslim authorities in Qatar and Egypt then joined the ban. As this happened during the second Intifada, a Jordanian newspaper printed a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sitting in a tank and laughing at an Arab man chasing a Pokémon. This is meant to convey that Arabs are distracted from their conflict with the Israelis by popular franchises, with Pokémon as an example of such "distractions."^[11][12]

Despite the initial banning, which quickly wiped away Pokémon merchandise, especially the card game, from markets in Saudi Arabia, Pokémon video games quickly returned to be sold normally, but under much less demand from local consumers. Some Pokémon merchandise, such as the Expedition Base Set, reappeared in certain stores a few years later, but newer sets were never brought. Games from Generation III on seem completely unaffected by the ban.

Bulbanews has an article related to this subject:

BattleZone to hold first National Championships in United Arab Emirates

A fatwā was also issued in the U.A.E. emirate of Dubai, however no bans officially occurred.^[13] Although the U.A.E. takes its Islamic identity seriously like most Arab states, actions based solely on fatwā would however violate its federal constitution. Regardless of this, the licensed local distributor ceased importing Pokémon cards into the U.A.E. until the early 2010s, when the TCG experienced a resurgence among local players. In 2016, the U.A.E. became the first Arab country to be officially sanctioned by The Pokémon Company International to hold official Play! Pokémon events.

Pokémon video games

Before the earliest Pokémon games, Nintendo's products did not have much presence in any Arab country, as most countries faced various political and economical challenges that made them unattractive markets at the time. Throughout the 1980s, most demographics considered 8-bit home computer products a preferable choice for gaming before their gradual decline. However, by the early 1990s, as particular economies in the GCC countries thrived, various independent distributors based in those countries pushed to introduce gaming consoles after becoming hot and competitive commodities in Western markets, including Nintendo's products. Albeit the video game market grew in the GCC countries, for many years there was little effort for standardization among distributors and retailers, causing a discrepancy as both PAL and NTSC hardware and software were sold off the same shelves. Consequently, by the time Pokémon Red and Blue launched the first time in 1998, units available were imported from both Europe and North America. To this day, Nintendo-published products, including Pokémon video games, remain the only gaming products to be imported from both regions into the GCC, despite other publishers focused on importing units solely from Europe.

Nintendo have long considered the GCC markets as part of the greater Asia, thus officially opting to localise NTSC-U North American (NA) products for these markets de jure by the late 1990s, albeit both PAL and NTSC^[14] Nintendo products de facto continued to co-exist. Itochu Corporation's Dubai branch was originally assigned to officially distribute Nintendo's NA products within the GCC markets,^[15] before ending its collaboration in 2000. By the early 2000s, Active Boeki, distributor for Southeast Asian countries, gradually took over NA distribution duties, albeit it took a while to release Pokémon games due to the controversy against the franchise after the 2001 fatwā was issued against it. No official bans against the games were made however in any country. Working alongside the local resellers, in 2010 Active Boeki founded Dubai-based affiliate Active Gulf to represent them alongside Nintendo and The Pokémon Company within the GCC markets. Albeit the NA Wii and Nintendo DS hardware did have localized packaging made for the U.A.E., the NA Nintendo 3DS became the first Nintendo console officially released under Active Gulf, and it launched in all GCC countries on the same day as the United States in March 2011. However, it was not until the NA launch of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire became the first Pokémon games authorized by The Pokémon Company to be distributed specifically by Active Boeki for the GCC and Southeast Asian markets.

In August 2016, the GCAM introduced the official video game age rating system for Saudi Arabia; Pokémon Sun and Moon were the first Pokémon games released under Saudi Arabia's official age rating, although Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were the first to feature the age rating hard-printed on the case cover. In January 2018, the NMC introduced the official video game age rating system for the United Arab Emirates; Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were the first Pokémon games released under the U.A.E.'s official age rating.

In the 1990s, Nintendo Co., Ltd. were involved with distribution in Africa,^[16] although did not particularly focus on the Arab countries. In 2002, Nintendo of Europe took on executive control to supply Nintendo's PAL products for various low-key distributors within the GCC and other Arab countries in the Levant region and Egypt. In the case of the latter two, the markets remain mixed for gaming in general, let alone Nintendo and Pokémon, due to on-going political and economical challenges. Regardless, NOE continues to import its products into all these countries to this day.

Pokémon anime

Dubbing

Production

Venus Center logo.

The Arabic dub of Pokémon is based on 4Kids Entertainment's English dub, the anime was initially dubbed to Arabic in 2000 by Syria-based Venus Center (مركز الزهرة), and licensed in the region by Km Productions. But due to the controversy in 2001, Venus Center (which is known for being a very conservative company) no longer wanted to be associated with the Pokémon franchise, and ceased production after Season 02. Km Productions then moved the dubbing to its own studios in Lebanon.

After that Lebanon-based Super M Productions took over dubbing the anime starting with EP106, and dubbed Season 03 and Season 04 between 2001 and 2002. Production on the dub then went on hiatus for nearly 3 years and was resumed in 2005 when they dubbed Season 06 starting with EP263, Season 05 (Master Quest) (EP210 to EP262) was skipped for unknown reasons.

Production on the dub was eventually cancelled around 2006 due to various reasons, mostly due to 4Kids Entertainment losing the dubbing rights, and the Lebanese company not coming to an agreement with the new rights holders.^[17]

IPH Studios logo.

Sometime later the four Pokémon movies that were distributed by Miramax (Celebi: The Voice of the Forest, Heroes: Latios & Latias, Jirachi: Wish Maker and Destiny Deoxys) were also dubbed into Arabic, but featured an entirely different cast of voice actors from the series and were released straight-to-DVD.^[18]

In 2019 after acquiring the distribution rights of the anime in the region, Netflix revived the Arabic dub of Pokémon, and released Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution, the first Pokémon-related media dubbed into Arabic in over a decade. Netflix later released Season 23, Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, Season 24 and The Arceus Chronicles. The new dub was produced in Lebanon by Image Production House Studios (partners of Iyuno-SDI Group),^[19][20] and featured some old voice actors from the Super M production reprising their roles.

Venus Center's censorship

Much like 4Kids Entertainment's tendency to edit some parts of the anime to make it more appropriate for the American audience, Venus Center also adopts a similar approach by modifying their works to cater to a Muslim audience. This typically involves the removal or alteration of scenes featuring any sort of display of affection or female characters wearing bathing suits, as well as scenes depicting any non Islamic religious symbolism like the Christian cross.

Misty holding a Christian cross in EP020, one of the many scenes that were removed in the original broadcast of the episode.

The prime example of this censorship is EP020, where the entire plot of the episode was altered by creating new storylines to avoid elements related to the supernatural and the mention of ghosts and other aspects of Japanese mythology with several scenes being cut completely, another example is EP022 where one scene was removed because it featured a character holding a card that had a six-pointed star that resembles the Star of David, this resulted in these two episodes being re-dubbed when S01 was added to Netflix in 2017.

Due to the conservative nature of the culture, the Arab audience deems all forms of affection and romance as inappropriate, particularly in children's programming. Consequently, Brock’s interactions with female characters such as Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny are often dubbed into a normal conversation without him displaying any kind of Romantic interest. This type of censorship can also be seen in other episodes such as EP070, EP100 and EP103.

In contrast to Venus Center's dub, Super M Productions' dub remained remarkably faithful to the English version, with the dialogue being translated almost word for word, and even the voice actors were instructed to imitate the performance of the American actors when delivering their lines.

Cast and crew

Venus Center

Buthaina Shaya, the original voice actress for Ash in S01 and S02.

Marwan Farhat

Ash Ketchum was voiced by Buthaina Shaya (بثينة شيا), Misty was voiced by Majd Zhazha (مجد ظاظا), and Rafat Bazoo (رأفت بازو) provided the voice of Brock. For Team Rocket, James was voiced by Zeyad Errafae'ie (زياد الرفاعي), Jessie was voiced by Fatima Saad (فاطمة سعد), and Meowth was voiced by Adel Abo Hassoon (عادل أبو حسون). Professor Oak was voiced by Marwan Farhat (مروان فرحات). Other notable voice actors include Amal Saad Alden (امال سعد الدين) as Nurse Joy and Fadwa Souleimane (فدوى سليمان) as Officer Jenny.

Technical setup: Hanna Yusuf (حنا يوسف)
Revision: Shafeeq Bitar (شفيق بيطار)
Proofreading: Dr. Hamoud Younis (د.حمود يونس)
Sound Engineer: Nadeem Souleimane (نديم سليمان)
Mixing: Louis Abu Asali (لويس أبو عسلي)
Montage: Hassan Ateka (حسان عاتكة), Mustafa Qalaaji (مصطفى قلعجي)
Computer: Mohammed Mazin Ramadan (محمد مازن رمضان), Fahed Najem (فهد نجم)
Executive: Miyada Awada (ميادة عودة)
Technical supervision: Redwan Hejazy (رضوان حجازي)
General supervision: Mannaa Hijazi (مناع حجازي)

Super M Productions

Abdo Hakim, voice actor for James in the Lebanese dub, he also voiced Max and other minor characters.

Jihad Al Attrash

The team of voice actors was led by Jihad Al Attrash (جهاد الأطرش ) who played the role of the Narrator and provided the voice of the Pokédex, Ash Ketchum was voiced by Mona Majzoub (منى مجذوب), Misty was voiced by Joumana Zonji (جمانة الزنجي), and Nabil Assaf (نبيل عساف) provided the voice of Brock. For Team Rocket, Jessie was voiced by Claudia Marchalian (كلوديا مرشليان), James was voiced by Abdo Hakim (عبدو حكيم) and Meowth was voiced by Hasan Hamdan (حسن حمدان).

Other notable voice actors include: Tariq Kaakati (طارق كعكاتي), Iman Bitar (إيمان بيطار), Fadi Rifai (فادي الرفاعي), Jihan Malla (جيهان مّلا), Naji Shamil (ناجي شامل), Ismail Nanoua (إسماعيل نعنوع ), Wissam Sabbagh (وسام صباغ) and Jamal Hamdan (جمال حمدان).

Computer: Jalal Masoud (جلال مسعود)
Montage and mixing: Jamal Mokalled (جمال مقلد)
Executive: Mohsen Awada (محسن عواضة)
Technical supervision: Walid Merie (وليد مرعي)
General supervision: Mufid Merie (مفيد مرعي).^[21]

By the time the production on the dub of S06 started in 2005 many actors had either left the company or were busy working on other projects, therefore some characters such as Ash, Misty and Meowth received new voice actors.

Netflix

Rana Al Rifai, current voice actress for Ash.

Several cast members from Super M Productions return to their roles: Joumana Zonji as Misty, Abdo Hakim as James, Hassan Hamdan as Meowth, Jihan Malla as Nurse Joy and Iman Bitar as Officer Jenny.

With new voice actors: Rana Al Rifai (رنا رفاعي) as Ash Ketchum, Hisham Abu Suleiman (هشام أبو سليمان) as Brock, Asmahan Bitar (أسمهان بيطار) as Jessie, Lama Maraachli (لمى مرعشلي) as Goh, Ghadir Bazzi (غدير بزي) as Chloe with Raymond Francis (ريمون فرنسيس) as The Narrator and Fadi Rifai (فادي الرفاعي) now as Professor Cerise.

Other notable voice actors include: Sam Ghusen (سام غصن) as Mewtwo, Ibrahim Madi (إبراهيم ماضي) as Giovanni, Osama Oley (أسامة العلي) as Dr. Fuji, Rania Mroueh (رانيا مروة) as Koko, Ali Saad (علي سعد) as Dada and Mahdi Fakhreddin (مهدي فخر الدين) as Dr. Zed.

Translation: Marie Thérèse Ghaya (ماري تيريز غيا), Jihan Malla (جيهان مّلا)
Technical supervision: Alaa Bitar (علاء بيطار), Ghadir Bazzi (غدير بزي).

Cast members

Fadi Rifai, voiced multiple Characters of the day in the Original series before taking over the role of the Narrator in the Advanced Generation series, he currently voices Professor Cerise in Pokémon Journeys.

Jihan Malla provided the voice for Nurse Joy as well as several one time characters, she also wrote and recorded Pikachu's Jukebox and Pokémon Karaokémon songs for Super M productions.

Joumana Zonji, voice actress for Misty in the Lebanese dub.

Iman Bitar voiced multiple characters throughout the series, most notably Officer Jenny and May.

Asmahan Bitar

Broadcasting

Season	Original broadcaster	Time slot	Debut episode	Final episode	Dubbed episodes
Pokémon: Indigo Leage	MBC	Daily at 12pm GMT	!بوكيمون، لقد اخترتك انت 2000	مركز تدريب البوكيمونات 2000	52
Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands	MBC	Daily at 12pm GMT	نجمة مهرجان التسوق 2001	تجمد تشاريزارد 2001	52
Pokémon: The Johto Journeys	ART Teenz	Daily at 5pm KSA time/ 2pm GMT	حرب البوكيمون المائية 2001	البحث عن الشهرة 2002	52
Pokémon: Johto League Champions	ART Teenz	Daily at 5pm KSA time/ 2pm GMT	فرصة ذهبية January 1, 2003	البوكيمون ماتشوك February 21, 2003	52
Pokémon: Master Quest	None	None	Unaired	Unaired	None
Pokémon: Advanced	New TV / ART Teenz	Daily at 6:30am Lebanon time* Daily at 10pm KSA time/ 7pm GMT*	الانون المجهول December 10, 2005* September 24, 2006*	AG040 February 1, 2006* November 14, 2006*	52
Pokémon: Advanced Challenge	New TV	Unknown	AG041	AG092	52
رحلة البوكيمون: المسلسل	Netflix		!دخول بيكاتشو July 1, 2021	!النجاة بأعجوبة July 1, 2021	48
رحلة سيد البوكيمون: المسلسل	Netflix		!أن نتدرب أو لا نتدرب September 1, 2022	‏مواجهة عند بوابات وورب!‏ September 1, 2022	42
‎رحلة البوكيمون القصوى: المسلسل	Netflix		JN091	JNS05	54

Season 01 premiered on MBC in September 2000, and then was broadcast in syndication starting from November 27, 2000.
Seasons 01 and 02 aired between 2000 and 2001.
Season 03 premiered sometime later around late 2001 or early 2002.
Season 04 premiered on ART Teenz a year later on January 1, 2003.
Season 06 premiered on New TV on December 10, 2005,^[22][23] and later aired on ART Teenz starting from September 24, 2006 as part of the channel's special Ramadan programming.
Season 23 aired on e-Junior in February 2021 before being released on Netflix later that summer.^[24]

MBC logo.

The anime initially aired exclusively on MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Center), an independent free-to-air pan-Arab channel broadcasting via satellite.^[25] But due to its immense popularity it spread rapidly to other channels, mainly local government-owned stations in different countries such as Egypt, Syria, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco among others. As it is customary for Arab Television channels to air new and exclusive programming during Ramadan, many of these stations like Qatar TV started broadcasting the series from November 27, 2000 (the first day of Ramadan that year) right after S01 had concluded its run on MBC.

Then in 2001 due to the controversy and the boycott many TV stations dropped it from air to avoid backlash. MBC terminated its contract with KM productions and the rights were picked up by a Saudi Private network, the Arab Radio and Television Network.

ART Teenz logo.

Starting with Season 03 the anime now aired mainly on ART Teenz, a children's channel and part of the ART Network, and on New TV (تلفزيون الجديد), an independent Lebanese TV channel that targets mostly a Christian Arab audience. With syndicated reruns being aired occasionally on few other channels such as ART Eye, Al Andalus TV (an Arabic-speaking private-owned satellite channel broadcasting from Spain) and the government-owned channels in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, meaning no official ban was issued in those countries.

New TV logo.

New TV started airing the series In 2004, reruns of the first 04 seasons would air every morning at 6:30am (Lebanon time) so that kids would watch it before they go to school. And by December 2005 Season 06 started airing exclusively on the channel, but because of the inconvenient time slot this broadcast of the season didn't attract much attention and went almost unnoticed, Season 06 would later air on ART Teenz the following Ramadan to a much wider audience reception. Sometime later Season 07 premiered on New TV, this makes New TV the only channel to have aired the Arabic dub of Season 07.^[26]

ART Teenz kept airing reruns of S03 to S06 daily from 2002 until 2007, and from 2006 the channel started airing Pokémon twice a day with S04 airing at 7:30pm KSA/4:30pm GMT and S06 airing at 10pm KSA/7pm GMT. While its sister channel ART Eye a general entertainment channel aired reruns of S01 to S04. Both channels were shut down in 2008.

Moroccan channel 2M is notable for being the most recent TV channel to have officially aired the Arabic dub of the Pokémon anime when it aired S06 in 2010. This channel also aired the Pokémon anime in French.

Since the late 2000s, none of the Arabic-language TV stations in any country is airing or rerunning the Arabic dub of the Pokémon anime, most likely due to broadcasting rights expiring and complicated copyrights issues between ShoPro and KM Productions. Although the English version of the anime did air on a few premium channels such as Disney XD and most recently the UAE based channel e-Junior, this broadcast of the anime series is not well-known though, most likely due to, if not for the language barrier, then to the relatively low participation of the expensive subscription TV model in the region overall. Regardless, Disney XD's airing of the anime is not officially recognized for the MENA region specifically.

In 2021, following the Arabic dubbing and subsequent release of S23 on Netflix, an unauthorized transmission of the season occurred on several Arabic satellite channels, most prominently on the Algerian network Echorouk TV. This illegal broadcast garnered considerable viewership interest, as it signified a noteworthy event in the realm of the Pokémon anime, being the initial instance in more than a decade that the series graced the screens of a prominent Arabic-language television network.

MBC 3 another prominent children' s channel in the region and also part of the MBC network would sometimes broadcast different Pokémon movies (M02 to M07) in the English dub with Arabic subtitles, with the most recent one being POKÉMON Detective Pikachu in 2022. Despite of frequently broadcasting the Pokémon movies (as well as the other works distributed by KM Productions like the Yu-Gi-Oh! series) it's unclear why this channel has never aired the Pokémon anime series.

MBC 3 logo.

Songs

Rasha Rizk in 2022

The Season 01 opening was written and recorded by Rasha Rizk (رشا رزق), with additional vocal support of Tarek Alarabi Tourgane (طارق العربي طرقان) and Bassam Al-Hassouni (بسام الحسوني). The first version of the theme song which uses the lyric (على خير الصنيع) was used for the first 12 episodes ("Pokémon - I Choose You!" to "Here Comes the Squirtle Squad"), and then replaced by a "more grammatically correct" second version with the lyric (سلاحي المنيع) for the remaining episodes ("Mystery at the Lighthouse" to "Charizard Chills"). Both versions of the song were performed by Rasha Rizk which she confirmed herself in a Q&A.^[27]

Pikachu's Jukebox songs were also written and recorded by Rasha Rizk.

When the dub was moved to Lebanon, new versions of Pikachu's Jukebox were recorded for the remaining episodes of the Orange Islands arc by the new cast of voice actors, except for the song 2.B.A. Master which was replaced by Pokémon Karaokémon in the episodes "The Stun Spore Detour" and "The Rivalry Revival" for unknown reasons, Pokémon Karaokémon songs were also recorded.

An Arabic version of Pokémon Johto was also recorded and used for the initial broadcast of Season 03, but then it was replaced by the Season 01 theme during reruns and on the DVD release, probably due to the original theme song being more popular. This combination of the Pokémon Theme and the footage of Pokémon Johto was reused for all the subsequent seasons dubbed by Super M Productions.

The opening themes for seasons 04 to 07 were never dubbed, instead they used the Season 01 theme song along with the footage of Pokémon Johto. The opening footage for those seasons was replaced due to their opening themes being 45 seconds instead of 01 min, making them incompatible with the season 01 theme song.

Home media and digital release

Physical Media

VHS Vol. 1, 5 and 6 released by MEGASTAR in Saudi Arabia.

• Season 01 was released on VHS in different countries in the region by various local home media distributors such as the KSA-based MEGASTAR,^[28] the Egypt-based E.H.E and Flash Video Film,^[29] and the Kuwait-based IVC: International Video Co. (شركة الفديو الدولي).^[30]
  • The season was divided into different volumes with each volume containing 3 or 4 episodes.
  • M01 to M03 were also released on VHS by these companies but containing only the English audio and Arabic subtitles.^[31]

• Season 03 was later released on DVD by the UAE-based distributor Al Wadi.
  • This release follows the television definition and contains all 52 episodes from EP106 to EP157.

DVD cover for the Arabic release of M04.

• M04 to M07 were also released on DVD by Miramax International featuring an Arabic and an English audio, although the exact release dates are currently unknown.

• Seasons 04 to 07 didn't receive any form of home media release, and they are currently completely unobtainable. Complicating matters further, because of legal issues preventing any chance of re-airing or commercial distribution to alternative television networks. KM Productions facing the inability to profit from these seasons, made the unfortunate decision to recycle the tapes and re-purposing them to store other projects thus scrapping the Pokémon episodes and losing them completely.^[32] With no recordings of the episodes to be found on the internet since they haven't been re-aired in over a decade, the Arabic dub of these seasons is now considered by many fans to be a Lost media. It's unclear whether or not Al Jadeed (formerly known as New TV), 2M and the ART Network still have copies in their archives, but since both Al Jadeed TV and 2M TV stopped airing children's programs years ago while ART Teenz was defunct in 2008, it's most likely that they disposed of their copies as well. Out of 312 episodes dubbed to Arabic approximately 156 episodes (from EP158 to AG092) are now potentially completely lost, and only a couple of short videos have made their way to the internet.^[33]
  • Season 02 also seems to have never been officially released on home media, and it was for many years considered lost as well. However in 2011 fan-recorded episodes were illicitly uploaded to the internet, and presently these unauthorized recordings constitute the sole means by which the Arabic dub of Season 02 can be viewed.

Digital

In 2019 Netflix acquired the distribution rights for the franchise in the region and released:

S23 thumbnail from Netflix titled رحلة البوكيمون: المسلسل

The first season titled دوري إنديغو (Indigo League) is also currently available on Netflix retaining the original Arabic dubbing done by Venus Center, except for the episodes "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak" and "Abra and the Psychic Showdown" which were re-dubbed since they were heavily censored in the original Syrian dub.

The anime can also be legally accessed for free via the Pokémon TV app since it's not regionally locked, however as of 2023 the app has not yet added the Arabic dub of the series.

Pokémon movies

Pokémon movies were released in some capacity in Arab countries throughout the years. All of the movies that were distributed in American theaters by Warner Bros. were also released in theaters in certain Arab countries by Warner Bros.' Middle East agent Shooting Stars LLC (also known as Joseph Chacra & Sons in Lebanon).

Pokémon merchandise

After the Pokémon anime started airing in the Arabic language, it became one of the most popular anime series in the Arab world. Therefore, the demand for Pokémon-related merchandise among Arab children was high. Thus, several video game retailers began to sell a wide variety of Pokémon merchandise as they were best sold. Additionally, many restaurants offered promotional toys with their meals, such as Burger King in 2000. Due to the controversy in 2001, however, a lot of the merchandise was withdrawn from the main retail shops. After the controversy subsided, many game stores started selling Pokémon goods again without incident.

As of the 2010s, various distributors imported certain official Pokémon merchandise from either Europe or North America, such as Toys "R" Us outlets selling Poké Dolls and other kinds of toys. Many high-end bookstore chains, especially those that rely heavily on imported materials, may sell an assorted variety of books and magazines. For example, a Kinokuniya outlet situated in The Dubai Mall (the sole Kinokuniya outlet in the entire region), which is known to sell large volumes of varied stock, has been retailing children's magazines, video game guides, game books, film novelizations, as well as most of the Pokémon manga series, available in both English and Japanese, with the latter being distributed exclusively via this store.

In early 2013, Active Gulf, Nintendo's officially licensed distributor in the Middle East, have collaborated with their retail partners to locally sell authentic packs for the Pokémon Battle Disc Game.^[35]

Many smaller toy and variety stores found in the grey market may often sell unlicensed and counterfeit products, with many of them imported from China. It is also possible to find pirated trading card packs, but in much smaller volumes than when initially released, as in prior to the 2001 controversies. Overall, the current legal status of the official trading card game itself remains vague in any case.

Events

Pokémon Live!

Despite ending its run in January 2001 in the United States, Pokémon Live! was invited to perform on an open stage in Al Mamzar Park, Dubai, U.A.E. in the duration of the whole month of March that same year, coinciding with the annual Dubai Shopping Festival.^[36] Whilst the musical was mostly identical to its performance elsewhere, the female actors had a slight change to their wardrobe which covered their exposed abdomens and thighs, likely to abide with Dubai's public dress code. Since the musical featured the same cast from its American run, it was performed solely in English. The musical, albeit received very positively by its audience, ended its run just days before the 2001 controversies began in the region overall.

Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions

Bulbanews has an article related to this subject:

Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions to be performed in United Arab Emirates

On March 31, 2017, Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions was performed at the Corniche in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates as part of the Mother of the Nation Festival. It is the first Symphonic Evolutions concert to be performed in the Arab world.

Related articles

• List of Arabic Pokémon themes

References

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