Comic-con again

EDIT #2: A new Pokemon was revealed again today. Image comes from here. According to Filb.de, its name will be Korobooshi.

EDIT #1: LOL, I just realized I recorded the ENTIRE Lucario movie. I thought I only got the first ten minutes or so because the battery on my laptop was so low, but I got the ENTIRE thing, plus an hour of me at Comic-con talking to people. I don’t want to type up the entire script if I don’t have to, but if you guys really want me to, post in the forums and I may if there is enough people who want to read it.

Back from Comic-con… and it’s 2 AM in the morning. Thank you, Porygon, for keeping everyone updated for me. Now that I am home, I will go into the specifics of everything. Tomorrow I will update with pictures, audio, and video.

Voice Actors Panel – After we got our passes, we ran over the voice panel room, and surprisingly, there was barely anyone in there. They had so many chairs set up, and they had goodie bags on all of them, each containing two PokeDolls and other stuff. I began to setup my laptop and microphone, and PUSA reps came over to me and asked me what site I was representing. I told them, and they started to bombard me with kindness and goodies (I ended up taking home 19 PokeDolls and two backpacks). They also gave me their cards, and wanted to talk to me afterwards. Anyways, about 10 minutes later, the room was PACKED. Everyone, including the PUSA reps, were surprised out how much people showed up, and they commented that it showed how much fans really cared. I’ll post the entire audio tomorrow, but right now, I’ll just go over what everyone wants to know about… the voice actors.

Both of them were extremely friendly and energetic, and they got along together extremely well (you’d think they were husband and wife). When they showed the Mastermind clip and the new voices, the audience gave an extremely positive response. I thought that Ash’s voice was just a bit too girly and a bit unemotional, but I am sure that as Sarah practices Ash more and more, she’ll hit his voice perfectly (after all, Mastermind was her first official dub voice of Ash). Brock did a much better job that his original, old-man Mastermind voice, and I am confident that both voice actors will meet fan’s expectations. They sounded, more or less, just like the originals, and with more practice, they will be absolutely fine.

PUSA Promises a Better Dub – When talking to PUSA in private, they informed me that they were going to go the extra mile and make the dub AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the original, unlike 4Kids. They will be keeping in MOST of the original Japanese background music, and will be composing extra music pieces for “quiet” moments in episodes. It looks like we will have a better dub under PUSA.

Lucario and the Mystery of Mew Movie

• Oy! THEY REMIXED THE REGIS VOICES!!! That got me so mad. They sounded less scary than the original. Regirock barely said “Regirock,” but mostly made those grunts and gear sounds, while Regice’s beeping was taken out. Registeel was more or less the same, with whatever few parts he had in the movie.
• The beginning title sequence was pretty much the same as the original.
• The Battle Frontier song in the original battle scene in the beginning was replaced with an extended version of the current Pokemon theme song.
• Most of the changes in the script were humor changes (not all – some things were completely changed).
• Kid was so unemotional. When Brock, Max, and May got eaten, she said something like “Your friends were eaten” (something like that – in the Japanese she originally said “Everyone was eaten – by that”) and me and a few other people couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. She just said it so… uncaring. Her other lines were pretty unemotional too.
• Most Pokemon in the movie were done by Eric Stuart, Jr. Mime only said “Mime,” Mew’s voice was changed in a lot of scenes and sometimes where it originally spoke there was nothing, most of Lucario’s grunting (whatever that sound effect is when he doesn’t talk) was taken out, Ho-Oh’s voice was randomly changed in one scene to being Pidgeot’s. o_O
• Pidgeot was pronounced Pid-jit.
• As far as I could tell, none of the video was edited, although I think one or two scenes were sped up just a bit (not entirely sure).
• All of the background music stayed.
• In the original when Ash was screaming for Pikachu, his screaming would practically blow your ear drums out. He had more realistic screaming in the dub.
• In the Time Flower scene where Aaron gives his Aura to Mew, there was an extremely annoying echo sound effect that blew out everyone’s ears.
• It was in full screen with a panning effect in most scenes.
• Ash actually said the Pokemon below the tree would die if he didn’t do anything. Kid said Ash would “destroy himself” if he tried to save the tree.
• In the credits where Ash is looking at the Aaron and Lucario picture and talking, there is no dubbing.
• Overall, 4Kids did an okay job.

Why the 4Kids/PUSA Switcharoo Happened – I talked to several PUSA reps about this, and I have talked to several 4Kids voice actors about this, and in combining their two stories, the reason why the change happened is clear. PUSA took away the rights from 4Kids to dub the show because they asked for too much money, and 4Kids knew they asked for too much money. Thus, PUSA decided to take the dubbing of the show back to TAJ Studios, which did the dubbing for the first five or so seasons of the show. PUSA then approached the main voice actors of the show, such as Meowth and Ash, (despite what the VAs say), but 4Kids WOULD NOT let them go work for PUSA. When Veronica Taylor found out she was losing her job, she phoned PUSA almost every single day begging them to make 4Kids change their contracts, but PUSA could not do anything about it since they were under contract with 4Kids. When I e-mailed Taylor and told her about what I heard about her talking on the phone to PUSA a while ago (since I had heard this story before and had it retold to me today), she replied with “I feel my privacy has been invaded and I will no longer talk to you (something like that).” PUSA also informed me that while the VAs constantly are denying the fact that PUSA approached them to do the voices, THEY DID, and they were in contact with some of the actors, such as Taylor on a constant basis. Thus, if you want to blame anyone for this, blame 4Kids, not PUSA or the voice actors. As a PUSA rep put it today, “It’s no one’s fault, everyone is a victim (in reference to the old VAs and PUSA).”

Also, no matter what ANYONE does or says, PUSA WILL NOT be changing the voice actors back to the originals (they specifically mentioned that certain individual’s radicalism towards trying to save the old voice actors would not sway them, especially when they did not even have their facts straight). They CAN’T, since it was 4Kids’ decision. They have already settled in with their new VAs, and nothing will be changed in the future, no matter what a select few fans do (stop wasting your time, folks). The end. Everyone needs to learn to adapt to change, and if you cannot even get used to a couple of voice actors, then you are going to have some real problems in the real world. PUSA said they understood why fans were upset, saying that they were upset too and it is completely understandable for fans to be upset. However, there was nothing they could do to get the original actors to dub the show, and thus, they had to go find new ones. It was even said that at one point, they were seriously considering canceling the show, but instead, they decided to take it into their own hands. The general consensus was that they were sick of people “beating the dead horse,” and that they have moved on to working on the show now, not worrying about the old VAs anymore. They will not be returning to the issue.