Is Pokémon The Same In Japan As It Is In The United States?

That’s a good question, I’m glad I asked it. The answer is yes and no. The basic game is pretty much the same. You still have to catch the Pokémon and train and evolve them. You still have to battle gym trainers.

However, most of the names are different. Just as the English version of the names sorta sounds like a character—Snorlax, for instance—the Japanese names also mean something. And your character is not called Ash Ketchum in Japan, he’s called Satoshi!

Here are some other names that have been changed in the game and television show when Pokémon came to America.

Professor Oak		Professor Okido
Meowth		Nyase
Gary		Shigeru
Misty		Kasumi
Brock		Takeshi
Jessie		Musashi
James		Kojiro
Officer Jenny		Officer Junsa

One name that hasn’t changed is—Pikachu! When we think of Pika we think of a cute little yellow guy. The name in Japanese—pika—means spark or flash. And that pretty much describes him, doesn’t it?

Also, there are different-colored games in Japan. In America, Pokémon comes in Red and Blue—and, yes, Yellow! When it was first introduced in the U.S., you could either get Red or Blue. However, when it was first introduced in Japan back in 1996, the two colors were Red and Green. Later, they added a Blue version for Japanese kids.

So are they different? Well, sort of different. The Red versions in the U.S. and Japan are pretty much the same. The Blue version in the U.S. is similar to the Green version in Japan. There are some small differences, such as the names of the Pokémon and some of the situations, but the basic Pokémon characters—the pictures—are pretty much the same.

By the time you read this, Japanese kids will have two new Pokémon colors—Gold and Silver. These games won’t be released in the U.S. for months and months. There are a lot of rumors flying around about the Gold and Silver versions. I don’t like printing rumors, but I do know this for a fact: the new versions are in color and there are a lot more Pokémon characters. There is also a clock that you have to set when you start playing and the time of day changes. So there are daytime Pokémon and nighttime Pokémon. Pretty cool, huh?

The Japanese Game You Will Probably Never Play

Last year Japanese kids got a real video game treat. It was called Pikachu Genki Dechu. That means, “Pikachu is feeling good” in Japanese. The game was designed for the Nintendo 64 (N64) system and it features a headset with a microphone as well as a standard N64 controller.

The game works like this: you go looking for Pikachu in the woods. Once you find him you talk to him by using the headset microphone and he responds to your commands. You can make him happy or sad, depending on what you say. And you can play some simple mini-games with him.

It sounds like a lot of fun, but even if you managed to get a game, it would be very difficult to play. Why? Because it is programmed so that Pikachu only responds to Japanese words.

What Do All Those Weird Names Mean, Anyway?

Okay, maybe you don’t care what any of the names mean and you just like playing the game. But it’s fun to see how things are named in a video game. When Pokémon was brought over from Japan to be sold in the U.S., they renamed a lot of things. That’s because a lot of the Japanese names just wouldn’t make sense to American kids. Plus, they would be really hard to remember.

For instance, Koffing (#109) does sound a lot like coughing. And Krabby (#98) does look like a crab. And then there’s Horsea (#116) and his name fits him perfectly, because he does look like a sea horse! And Hypno’s (#97) name fits him, because he can hypnotize during his attacks. And Arcanine (#59) does look like a dog, otherwise known as a canine!

And if you reverse the letters in Ekans, look what it spells! Same thing with its evolved form, Arbok—backwards it’s KOBRA (—though the correct spelling of the snake is “Cobra”). Cool, huh?

So the names do mean something. They either describe what the Pokémon looks like or the kinds of powers it has. Personally, I think this is pretty cool. This is also a great idea because it helps players to remember attributes about their Pokémon without having to go back to a book or the Pokédex every two minutes.

Even the people have pretty cool names, like Ash Ketchum—well, yes, the last name is Ketchum, as in “catch them,” but his first name, Ash, is a type of tree that is very strong. Professor Oak is also named after a strong tree.

Some of the names are not quite as simple. For instance, Jesse and James. Well, Jesse James was an outlaw back in the Old West and not such a nice guy.

Now, unless you have really been doing your Poké-homework, I bet you don’t quite realize what a colorful place the Poké-world is. Here’s a little dictionary of what the place names mean in the game.

The Colorful World of Pokémon

Pallet Town: There’re a lot of different meanings for the word “pallet.” Usually it is a tool, like for making pottery. It helps to round out the clay as it goes around and around. But it can also be a wooden platform to hold things. If you have ever seen a warehouse and the wooden things on which boxes are stacked, they are called pallets.

Viridian City: Viridian is a kind of paint color that artists use. It’s mostly used to describe a color that is blue and green.

Pewter City: Pewter is a kind of metal that has tin, lead, and brass in it. When you see it, pewter is usually silver in color.

Cerulean City: Cerulean, yep, a dye that is usually sky-blue.

Vermillion City: Vermillion, like viridian, is a kind of paint dye that artists use, but it’s bright red, so the color of that kind of bright scarlet red is often just called vermillion.

Lavender Town: Lavender—yes, it’s another color, kind of a pale or faded purple color.

Celadon City: Celadon, yep, it’s another color—this one is sea-green.

Fuchsia City: Well, fuchsia is a type of flower—but guess what?—yes, it’s also used to describe a color: purplish-reddish.

Safari Zone: Everyone knows that safari is a hunting trip in Africa, but the word is really a Swahili word—that’s a language and a people in Africa—and it means a journey or trip.

Cinnabar Island: Cinnabar is a bright red color, and as a matter of fact, many people use Vermillion and Cinnabar to describe the same color.

Indigo Plateau: Indigo is another type of dye or pigment used by artists. It is kind of a deep blue.