#sm092

Espm when it comes to Royal Mask hype.

Gosh I love Burnet so much~

Also hi Kimi no Boken I miss Mirai Connection AH NAGISAAAA

i know i talk about how much i hate the dub a lot, like i know that’s kinda my thing, i know you’re all sick of it, but would you believe there are actually like, few things on my list the dub does that actually make me downright upset? for the most part my relationship with it is like, me regarding an annoying co worker i’d rather avoid.

but this one thing, this tiny detail, it has such BIG ripples on my autistic heart, and i’ve been stewing in rage over it for a while.

guys, i really love the fortune hunters. that episode where james pranced around in a fursuit for the entire second half? that ha ha funny joke episode? i love it. it means a lot to me. 

james is one of my favourite characters, he’s been my biggest comfort character for almost two decades now. for most of my life. and he’s a dude who is timid and cowardly and runs from most of his problems, with occasional bouts of bravery. even at his bravest, it’s easy to overlook his more bold traits next to his partners, who are far more volatile in their boldness. i’m not saying he’s nothing but a doormat, but he is the more peaceful pure heart of the TRio, rivaled in his calm waters only by wobbuffet.

fortune hunters was a big deal because james just did that. on his own. it was all him. someone put the right thought in his head--that he was a glorious flame of a person who was destined to take charge, to thrive, to never back down--and it was all he needed to become that. he wasted no time at all embracing his best self, wasted no time at all transforming into what he’d been lead to believe he was. all because a little horoscope told him he was more than he ever could have known. it took a single shred of positive reinforcement and james became legendary.

predictably, i am emotional about this. about what he could have been if he were not a boy from an abusive family, beat down and beat down and beat down again. 

some background for dub watchers: gen 1 pokemon have pretty funny names in japanese. most of them are just english words, in the same way my sister named her cat ‘neko’ cause it sounded cool to an american teenager. krabby is... crab. drowzee is... sleep. sandshrew is... sand. haunter is... ghost. legendaries aren’t exempt, and in japanese, moltres is simply called ‘fire.’ in the original episode, kojirou runs around calling himself ‘fire kojirou’ and screaming ‘FIRE!’ at the top of his lungs like a pokemon would. it’s adorable, yes.

so what i’m getting at here, is... this episode from sun and moon, sm063, it takes place some time later. 845 episodes later, in fact. when presented the opportunity to don a disguise in front of half the alola region, james chooses to invoke that image again. he still hasn’t forgotten about it. he still carries moltres within him, even after he was told that wasn’t who he is, and to me that speaks volumes just... about him as a person, as a character, about the way his mind works.

is it probably just a cute callback? yeah. but i’m the queen of interpreting things as far deeper than they’re meant to go, and authorial intent is fake anyways.

i feel like every bolt of courage and every moment of leadership is james invoking moltres, and as such that’s why i feel like he chose it for the role of an MC--bright and charismatic and someone who draws all eyes and hypes up the crowd. and his team went along with it, cause hey, why not?

anyways, that brings me back to the dub. either they’re dense as hell and didn’t realize that ‘fire’ was moltres (and that ‘thunder’ was zapdos, and that ‘freezer’ was articuno... doubtful) or they just didn’t think the callback was worth making. in the dub, james literally just calls himself ‘fire james’ rather than what the english equivalent would have been--james, the mighty moltres.

it hurts, cause unless dub watchers... really pay attention, really read into it, a lot of them might not ever know--that he’s held onto that flame for this long, that it’s still a part of him. and i think that takes away so much. it’s such a small thing, but man, if i were a dub watcher, i’d be so angry to find out this was hidden from me, idk.