In honor of tomorrow's Pokémon Day, I watched Mewtwo Strikes Back, both the Japanese and English versions.
The Japanese version was beautiful, made me emotional at some parts and got me thinking a lot. This is the Pokémon movie I will always stand by, and I recommend it to other fellow Pokémon fans.
The English version, on the other hand, just wasn't the same. They butchered it with jarring errors and wiped out the existentialism themes of the Japanese version with an inconsistent plot + ironic moral that felt like it was tacked on at the last minute. There was zero emotional impact there. I guess the only good things I could say about that version are Mewtwo's iconic "circumstances of one's birth" quote and some of the songs the played during the credits, but that's not saying much.
The Japanese version was beautiful, made me emotional at some parts and got me thinking a lot. This is the Pokémon movie I will always stand by, and I recommend it to other fellow Pokémon fans.
The English version, on the other hand, just wasn't the same. They butchered it with jarring errors and wiped out the existentialism themes of the Japanese version with an inconsistent plot + ironic moral that felt like it was tacked on at the last minute. There was zero emotional impact there. I guess the only good things I could say about that version are Mewtwo's iconic "circumstances of one's birth" quote and some of the songs the played during the credits, but that's not saying much.
