One thing about Ekans in Japan. if you reverse the romanized letter of Arbo you get Obra but if you reverse the Katakana you get Boa. Which makes a little more sense.
A lot of the Japanese sprites look like they were made to be as large as possible while fitting in a square, so a lot of them are awkwardly hunched over
On the subject of the drunk old man, I've been to Japan a few times for extended periods of time. I noticed they treat drunk people alot different. There was a guy who appeared to be absolutely plastered off "juice box" sake(he still had one in his hand) as he was being carried by the police. Once they got him to a relatively isolated area under some stairs, the cops let go of him and talked to him for a couple minutes, made him sit down, then walked away. He chilled out there for awhile and finished his drink in peace. Overall it seemed like a pleasant, cordial experience lol
Politeness is such an ingrained concept for most Japanese people that even drunk people usually don't act out or get violent. Japanese nightlife streets on a Saturday night are usually calm and orderly even with all the drunk people around, where in western countries they're usually utter chaos.
@@CaptainFalcoyd Drunk people will just act without the filter and be who they truely are. And many people are terrible inside, as they never were taught how to interact properly.
@@Kkubey I think "terrible inside" is an exaggeration, it lowers your inhibitions and makes you more emotional. If you grow up in a society where crime is social suicide, and you are always expected to uphold strong manners then your version of "lower inhibitions" will vastly differ from our society's.
I'm pretty sure they were going for the fetus look for Mew. I can't remember if Sugimori did the art before the final sprites or after but either way I don't blame them for changing it.
Mew's art was done by Satoshi Tajiri -- along with everything else about mew -- in between the rest of the team finishing the game, and the game shipping.
Cool thing: Kanto in Gold/Silver/Crystal used the Japanese original environmental spritework, which is why Kanto probably felt a little bit weird for non-Japanese Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal players
They might have needed to for storage sake. Wasnt gold and silver the ones that almost didn't happen because they couldn't fit it all until Iwata came along and got it all to fit? They might have originally wanted to do the updated graphics but there was just not enough room to do so. Still early tech so even just the one extra frame of animation for the flowers could have been too much storage space to have made it in
@@hanakoisbestgirl4752 the tiles have negligible impact on storage. The compression story, whilst nice to tell, is a little overstated: it was used to compress the monster battle graphics, however the compression ratio on RGBY was actually greater than GSC, so it sounds like a case of GameFreak removing compression during development and coding themselves into a corner where they couldn't add it back in (I imagine due to it being dependent on constraints on the monster artwork itself), so Iwata ported his LZ compression routine from Kirby NES to GameBoy for GameFreak to slot in. This supposedly awarded enough space to fit a more detailed version of Kanto into the game, with some areas still needing to be cut for size. The original Gold/Silver games had a sort of minimalist, artistic take on Kanto which compressed it all into a single town, so Kanto was planned to be revisited from the get-go (Gold/Silver was originally set across all of Japan)
Pretty sure the US Machoke sprite is supposed to be winking as he flexes. Like a muscle guy would if he was hitting one someone at a gym or perhaps even kinda going for a Popeye situation.
@Super Top Secret Area I don't think it was misscolored. I think they went for a shadow ob the upper eyelid. Like the head is also lighted on the nose.
At 22:45 you missed the main difference of Cloyster being that it’s whole shell is oriented differently, with the main centre spike still positioned in the middle! It went from vertical opening to horizontal in the US.
Thanks for mentioning this! I'm shocked that the author did not catch this considering how much detail they were going into otherwise. Is it true that the artists changed it for looking too much like a vagina? I heard a rumour like that a while back.
@@straightupanarg6226 could be. And it was in my ignorance to call it a vagina-lookalike. I believe the correct term is "vulva". Hey... You know, that would have made a great name for a Pokémon! Kind of reminds me of Vulpix.
Apparently the artists were forced by the commissioning of the Anime to make a design bible, developed simultaneously with Blue. That helped standardize the Pokemon designs. And indeed, seeing scale difference and motion for the animals they designed also helped further refine things for Gen2.
@@NonisLuck in addition to the original sprite art depicting the arms that he calls out, there's a bandai pocket monsters trading card set that depicts kakuna with its arms extended, the art of which was also done by Ken Sugimori.
When I was younger I always thought of how cool it would be if you could trade between versions of a game being the EN and JP and they would keep the sprite from their original game.
Oh that would've been awesome. I couldn't even find a normal kid to trade pokemon with in America where I lived, let alone someone from Japan to trade with haha.
I doubt there was enough space for on the cartridge to have both versions of the sprite on them. Also don't forget that the Japanese version was released before they made these changes in the US version. It would have been pretty neat tho.
english red and english blue are built on a completely different set of code than green and japanese red, so if you got a japanese cartridge to trade with itd just break im p sure haha (english red and english blue are based off of japanese blue, which is basically a less buggy ver. of japanese red and green, and why the stuff between jpn blue and eng blue are so similar but the reds are so different)
For clarification The international Red and Blue versions use the Japanese Blue version as a base for the art and Cerulean Cave design. However, the international Red and Blue have the same Pokémon appearance rates and locations as the Japanese Red and Green. So, technically speaking, we did get all four versions that Japan originally got if we include Yellow.
I mean Japanese Blue had different in game trades and encounter rates. We missed out getting Gengar and Golem as in game trades. The reason the one trainer claims "Your Raichu evolved" after you trade him one for Electrode is because Japanese Blue you trade Kadabra for Graveler and American Red and Blue used Japanese Blue's script as a base
To be pedantic, international Red and Blue were based off the source code of Japanese Blue, with the encounter tables and version exclusives of Red and Green added in. (Fun fact, allegedly they literally had no choice but to do it this way because the source code for Red and Green was in such shambles that it couldn't handle having the English text swapped in.)
If you've played FRLG more recently than Red and Blue, that might explain why you found the Red/Green cave easier to navigate. Cerulean Cave in FRLG is based on the original Red/Green cave but with some added blockades to cover up a lot of the dead ends. If you're familiar with the path to Mewtwo in FRLG, you can easily make your way there in Red/Green. The layout of Red/Blue actually differs significantly from FRLG.
It should be pointed out that the Japanese version of the "fainted" status is completely different, the word they use for it is hinshi which means "near death". Pretty brutal, and it's still used to this day to occasionally remind us how gritty G1 was.
Like the alcohol change, its simply that American ratings boards are more harsh about certain things. Death is a big no no in childrens media, so you see it all the time in Japanese media and never in American. Public drunkardness is also socially accepted in Japan and super negative in the west in general.
Fun fact: That cool map from the Japanese handbook DID get an American release in 1999's "The Official Pokémon Handbook." I had a pair of copys as a kid and I remember loving looking at that map.
I THOUGHT so! I had a copy of that map that I had hung on my wall when I was 10. I was confused when he said the game didn't include it because I HAD it, so I figured it must have came with the handbook (which also came with stickers of every Pokemon to use in the booklet that came with the actual game!)
That international gen 1 Mew sprite, is to me the most iconic representation of Mew. Mew is my favorite Pokémon, and whenever I think of its design or just remembering fond childhood memories of wanting and obtaining it, this is the sprite I think of.
People born in the early 90s know how iconic it was. We got gen 1 when we were really young. Also it was crazy that the Pokédex went to 151 but nobody had any clue how to get mew
Kakuna actually DOES have arms. It's often misunderstood and assumed to be a weird sprite error but there's actually other media showing off his two claw-like arms at times too. I think more often than not they're just tucked away but still !!
@@alexandreiss0agr276 Diglett learns Scratch, and we still have no idea how that works, save for potentially a reference in the original Mystery games alluding to it having feet.
the 'udders' on mew are just pixels of that violet shading color, next to black pixels. That's the style of line dithering/anti aliasing back then. even in more modern pixelmon games, you could see anti aliasing on a lot of the lines that looked out of place from time to time. especially in black and whtie
Also it’s not often mentioned but the sprites used in the American version are actually the sprites used in the Japanese Blue version, the Green and Red version were released as a set and the Blue version was an updated version of the two which made changes to the sprites among others. So the “American version” sprites are actually still Japanese version sprites.
The American Red and Blue versions were completely based off the Japanese Blue version, since there was a major glitch known as Item Swap that Blue was released to fix.
A great first step to a crappy Pokemon creepypasta. Add in buying the cartridge at a garage sale, the game knowing the player's name, and some mention of blood somewhere and we're good to go.
What I find interesting about the Nidorino/Nidorina in the Japanese version is, their poses seem to be indicative of their transition from their 4 legged first forms, to standing upright in their final forms. The poses look like they're just starting mature to the point of being able to maneuver on just two legs.
The reason for the sprite change in vermilion from a little girl (JP) to an old guy (US) would also be explained by cultural differences. Here in the US, when you think of a fan club, you might think of an older, nerdy person running it, especially back in the 90s While in JP, fan clubs were definitely a young people pop culture thing.
I am surprised at how mixed my stored memory of gen 1 sprites are-meaning most of the time between the Japanese and American releases, there’s usually only one I really recognize, but it doesn’t stick to one version. Fun.
Great work on the video. The design on Alakazam’s head is a six pointed star because in Japanese media, the hexagram is used to represent magic and “dark magic” the same way western media would use a pentagram.
There’s also the possibility that it’s a nod to Houdini. Alakazam’s Japanese name is a reference to him and he was ethnically Jewish. In addition, Kadabra’s Japanese name is a reference to *another* Jewish illusionist, Uri Geller. (Which he later sued Pokemon over)
@@zannibunny4028 It's also really messed up that the symbol on Kadabra's head was two S's. The SS was a branch of Nazi's. In 1940's Germany, before their mass genocide, the Jewish people were forced to wear the Star Of David symbol on them to identify them for racist purposes. This means that the original Pokemon is anti-semetic, since both Houdini and Geller are Jewish, thus these details were meant to ridicule them in Pokemon for being Jewish. But this isn't really that surprising when you realize that there are still a lot of Japanese traditionalists who believe they have nothing to apologize for when siding with Nazi Germany in WWII. Japan still low-key supports or still references their role in the war, even in modern days since. Brocken Jr from Kinnuman is a "sympathetic nazi good guy", and Von Strolheim in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is also a "Nazi with a secret heart of gold" and also a good guy. And a Japanese boy band also once dressed up in Nazi gear. There is still some Nazi support in Japan, that people still easily forget about.
@@alexcallender The Japanese are no less racially supremacist (see GATE) than the Han Chinese with their genocides. Only difference is Japan has bread and circuses... and American airbases on their soil.
I can't believe you completely ignored Drowzee and Hypno getting human hands in the American version, its even more creepy seeing them next to each other.
I'm surprised there was no mention of Cloyster's change in orientation from vertical in the Japanese to horizontal in the American, despite vertical remaining the canon look.
Congratulations on making 151 Pokemon differences feel like only a few seconds. I honestly thought I'd skip that part, but you did it in such a way that I didn't even realise I was watching ALL of it! So so entertaining- great work!
4:25 it only looks like that when viewed on a black background. Sprites in gen 1 and 2 just used transparency for any white spots, and in some gen 1 sprites there isn't a point where they definitively "end" so to speak. So the white pixels that make up the "whiskers" wouldn't have even showed up against the white background in gen 1, so I doubt it was intentional.
Mew in Japanese looks weird because it was originally meant to resemble a fetus if I recall correctly. I'm happy that they went for the cuter look in the end though
The coffee joke is a great workaround because kids'll assume he needs coffee because he's grumpy, but adults may assume he needs coffee because he's fighting off a mean hangover lol
I prefer the Japanese Pokedex, not because of the sprite art but because the Pokemon's size and weight are measured with the superior metric system! I have no idea what it means when it says Charizard is 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds. But I *do* understand what it means when it says that Charizard is 1.7 metres tall and weighs 90.5 kilograms.
The reason why the Mew sprite appears to have whiskers and an udder is because the image is shown with a black background, which makes the outline sorta disappear leaving only the antialiasing. When you view it with a white background it looks a little more normal (still pretty weird though). Edit: Also, the old man being changed to a young girl is a change that was not introduced in the US version, it was introduced in the Japanese Pokemon Blue. Similarly, all the 'US' sprites also originated from Japanese Blue. Also, fun fact in the Pokemon Lab, in Japanese Red and Green version, there's a trade for an electrode for a Raichu. This was changed in Pokemon Blue to be a Kadabra for a Golem, they even wrote a new line of dialogue stating that the Kadabra evolved. When making the American Red and Blue, they used pokemon encounters and trade data from Japanese Red and Green, but used Japanese Blue's script. The result is an NPC erroneously claiming that Raichu evolves through trade.
@Arirang Astatine Studios I think it really was just an oversight in localization. In Japanese Red and Green you trade him a Raichu for an Electrode and he says nothing about evolution. In the Japanese Blue version you trade that character a Kadabra for a Graveler. Afterwards he exclaims that the Kadabra you traded him evolved. The localization had the trade from Red and Green, but accidentally kept in the dialog from Japanese Blue, so he exclaims that the Raichu you traded him evolved. It's a pretty crazy coincidence though that Raichu was actually planned to have an evolution at one point.
RUclips's algorithm hasn't been giving me notifications for your channel for a whiiile so I had no idea region break was a thing. I love this and am gonna watch the rest of them after this one
Holy crap the environment details, I never realised how different they were! The flowers I only noticed recently, the Japanese ones look so awful since one side is wider than the other and it’s just terrible, but the rest of the graphics really surprised me, they are different (and usually superior in US I think) but they are still similar enough that I never noticed the difference. The water is the most surprising one, I distinctly remember the Japanese water but I don’t remember the wavy American water at all, I had no idea that was even a thing.
I was thinking the exact same thing about the water so I went to check my game to see if it was an EU thing but nope, we did have the wavy water. however after checking around more, I realised - caves keep the original water from japanese red and green. so if you ever got stuck in seafoam islands or cerulean cave, you're definitely going to remember the original japanese water. it's weird because I could've sworn I remembered seeing the original water when I was surfing the coast of cinnabar island doing the missingno glitch all those times as a kid but I guess not.
8:27 サンドパン is more like "Sand Bun," actually, since パン means bread. This is especially evident because the Japanese word バス・パン means "Bath Bun," which is a type of sweet roll known as a teacake; it is named after the Bath area of England, and it is vaguely similar to dorayaki, the Japanese pastry made with red-bean paste.
@@TheArceusftw Well, y'know, I never knew what a pangolin was, but after a quick Google search, I'd say your explanation makes more sense! ...Japanese people like to use (many) portmanteaus in their language.
Really enjoying these region breaks just as much as the boundary breaks! Even as a kid I loved comparing the differences between games depending on its version of region when I could get my hands on them
The reason Alakazam had a star of David on his forehead is that the symbol is also one used in alchemy and other old occult stuff. It represented the 4 elements when drawn in the triangle arrangement.
Maybe someone has already commented on this, but Ekans' Japanese name (アーボ) is a long "a" syllable and a "bo" syllable, so reading it backward wouldn't be "Obra", but rather something like "Boa" (which is also snake-themed, like Ekans).
I remember getting a green version from a neighbour who's brother lived in Japan, I'd played Red/Blue so much that I could complete the game without understanding a word of it.
Well you left out a lot of name comparisons but considering you did sprite comparisons for EACH ONE instead of only the significant changes, i mean damn, we don't want you to die. Well done.
Another one! I love this series, so cool to see the differences! Looking at all 151 sprites was definitely interesting, a very long section but super cool to see
Great video! One thing I’d say for future reference that’s not super important but just some nice info is that cross hatching in pixel art is called “dithering” :)
4:57 "He looks like he's about to fire his Lazer or go pog." 6:05 "And a crying orphan that will sell more copies." 16:52 "And that toung is M O I S T."
21:28 The US Sprite looks really high quality! The face is spot on, it has nice shading - even includes a shadow on the floor. And overall looks like the Slowpoke we know today. It's probably my favorite Gen 1 Sprite!
It's also interesting that a lot of the artwork from the original Pokémon Trading Card Game looks to have based most of the Pokémon's posing and designs directly off of the Japanese sprites.
Some of the og sprites looked really familiar, even more so than the new versions, about halfway through it hit me that I've seen them on the TCG and other promo artwork back then.
Don't worry, front-facing Shellder doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. Front-facing Shellder: 22:40 Also, a lot of people say Hitmonchan's Japanese sprite is, and I quote, "A Togekiss spying on a defecating Doduo."
I like how the intro specifies that US Red and Blue were built from Japanese Blue, but it still feels weird calling the versions 'Japanese' and 'American' for instances that don't talk about translations like the sprite work. Japanese Blue and US Blue would still be a good comparison still, as there's a different change in spawning rates and locations between both Blues.
It's really wrong that he called the JP Blue as ''US version'' cuz it has nothing to do with USA particularly. It was an international release, not a release exclusive for USA
Mew was a last-minute decision according to the developers, replacing an at the time unused pokemon "Omega". This explains its quite early ID, and might as well explain its strange sprite.
What I've gathered here is that a lot of the Pokémon danced their way from Japan to the US. A wonderful analysis of even the most minute details and an interesting video to watch this was.
The character in that vermilion city being a different sprite is probably due to the fact that the US red version was basically the Japanese blue version with a few slight changes. Some things slipped through the cracks, however, so that sprite is probably a carryover from blue.
3:15 So strange though, I always kept hearing from people that the dungeons were simplified from the Japanese release to the North American release. I definitely heard that the Power Plant dungeon is easier in NA than Japanese.
I'm really digging Region Break as a series. Sure, I was already pretty familiar with the old Gen 1 sprites, but it was still fun seeing the side by side breakdown like this. The one thing I wish you had covered though is the one Hiker in Rock Tunnel who just sings Pat Benatar in English. I'm curious what he says in Japanese.
Oh, interesting… I never even realized that! I guess “hit me with your best shot” just seems like a normal line for him to have without context (and I don’t think I was familiar enough with the other words from that song lol)
Sorry I missed this when it first came out. This was fascinating to watch! I knew of a couple of these things from other videos but MAN, I didn't realize how many differences there are!! Thanks for showing off all the sprites! That was SO cool!
Speaking on the Power Rangers comment about Poliwrath's Japanese pose, it most closely looks like Kamen Rider V1's pose considering how much of a pop culture icon the franchise is over there alongside Super Sentai
"So I'm gonna shift the hues" *creates demonic Alakazam*
No not the demonic alakazam!
*demonic Alakazam creepypasta ensues*
It does look awesome tho got to give it that 👊
@@MrTrombonebandgeek AND THERE WAS PHOTOREALISTIC BLOOD!!!!!
It's funny how he's talking about pokémon Red and Blue and the two lights in the background are red and blue
One thing about Ekans in Japan. if you reverse the romanized letter of Arbo you get Obra but if you reverse the Katakana you get Boa. Which makes a little more sense.
Interesting! In France this pokémon is called Arbo too, never understood why exactly.
@@tz1839 That's pretty cool. I'm assuming Arbok is unchanged in France as well?
@@tz1839 It's actually "Abo" in French. And yeah "Arbok" is also Arbok.
Was about to comment this
Thank you! Stood up from my bed just to comment this .
A lot of the Japanese sprites look like they were made to be as large as possible while fitting in a square, so a lot of them are awkwardly hunched over
So what have we learned?
We learned that Gen 1 Golbat is horrifying no matter what country you get it from
There is a reason why I don't evolve certain pokémon...
His face lol 😅 so expressive! 👁 👁
👅
Imagine running into a gen 1 Golbat in a dark cave as a little kid while secretly playing Pokemon under your blanket..
If you were from where that Golbat was from, you'd be fuckin' dead!... I don't know where to start with you.
@@TakaG Have you tried Crobat? :D I LOVE using Crobats! Yes... Zubat > Golbat > Crobat. Yes it IS terrifying!
On the subject of the drunk old man, I've been to Japan a few times for extended periods of time.
I noticed they treat drunk people alot different. There was a guy who appeared to be absolutely plastered off "juice box" sake(he still had one in his hand) as he was being carried by the police.
Once they got him to a relatively isolated area under some stairs, the cops let go of him and talked to him for a couple minutes, made him sit down, then walked away. He chilled out there for awhile and finished his drink in peace. Overall it seemed like a pleasant, cordial experience lol
Politeness is such an ingrained concept for most Japanese people that even drunk people usually don't act out or get violent. Japanese nightlife streets on a Saturday night are usually calm and orderly even with all the drunk people around, where in western countries they're usually utter chaos.
@@CaptainFalcoyd Drunk people will just act without the filter and be who they truely are. And many people are terrible inside, as they never were taught how to interact properly.
@@Kkubey I think "terrible inside" is an exaggeration, it lowers your inhibitions and makes you more emotional. If you grow up in a society where crime is social suicide, and you are always expected to uphold strong manners then your version of "lower inhibitions" will vastly differ from our society's.
@@Weimerica8841 And you clearly lost 50% of your brain cells by sniffing glue as a child.
@@Weimerica8841white people? lol
I'm pretty sure they were going for the fetus look for Mew. I can't remember if Sugimori did the art before the final sprites or after but either way I don't blame them for changing it.
Mew's art was done by Satoshi Tajiri -- along with everything else about mew -- in between the rest of the team finishing the game, and the game shipping.
I thought morimoto designed mew.
This Mew does look actually like you'd find it under the truck lol
To me it looks a lot like the alien creatures from the War Of The Worlds movie, the one with Tom Cruise.
@@kirbyofthestarsfan Holy shit this is hilarious lmfao
Cool thing: Kanto in Gold/Silver/Crystal used the Japanese original environmental spritework, which is why Kanto probably felt a little bit weird for non-Japanese Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal players
Toshino Kyoko
@@TheGameCreator13 Tomato.
@@BakaTaco Rum Raisin!
They might have needed to for storage sake. Wasnt gold and silver the ones that almost didn't happen because they couldn't fit it all until Iwata came along and got it all to fit? They might have originally wanted to do the updated graphics but there was just not enough room to do so. Still early tech so even just the one extra frame of animation for the flowers could have been too much storage space to have made it in
@@hanakoisbestgirl4752 the tiles have negligible impact on storage. The compression story, whilst nice to tell, is a little overstated: it was used to compress the monster battle graphics, however the compression ratio on RGBY was actually greater than GSC, so it sounds like a case of GameFreak removing compression during development and coding themselves into a corner where they couldn't add it back in (I imagine due to it being dependent on constraints on the monster artwork itself), so Iwata ported his LZ compression routine from Kirby NES to GameBoy for GameFreak to slot in.
This supposedly awarded enough space to fit a more detailed version of Kanto into the game, with some areas still needing to be cut for size. The original Gold/Silver games had a sort of minimalist, artistic take on Kanto which compressed it all into a single town, so Kanto was planned to be revisited from the get-go (Gold/Silver was originally set across all of Japan)
Pretty sure the US Machoke sprite is supposed to be winking as he flexes. Like a muscle guy would if he was hitting one someone at a gym or perhaps even kinda going for a Popeye situation.
Oh I can see that!
That's always how I parsed it too, it seems obvious to me that he's doing a flex and winking to show off
Oh, so i am not the only one that always saw that? XD
@Super Top Secret Area I don't think it was misscolored. I think they went for a shadow ob the upper eyelid. Like the head is also lighted on the nose.
Actually he's winking in both versions
At 22:45 you missed the main difference of Cloyster being that it’s whole shell is oriented differently, with the main centre spike still positioned in the middle! It went from vertical opening to horizontal in the US.
Thanks for mentioning this! I'm shocked that the author did not catch this considering how much detail they were going into otherwise. Is it true that the artists changed it for looking too much like a vagina? I heard a rumour like that a while back.
I remember the vertical one in uk
@@Hexumonium It looks _just_ like a vagina - look how that horn is positioned.
Not at all surprised they changed it.
@@Hexumonium I'm thinking he noticed it and _very specifically_ decided to just not mention it.
@@straightupanarg6226 could be. And it was in my ignorance to call it a vagina-lookalike. I believe the correct term is "vulva". Hey... You know, that would have made a great name for a Pokémon! Kind of reminds me of Vulpix.
Apparently the artists were forced by the commissioning of the Anime to make a design bible, developed simultaneously with Blue.
That helped standardize the Pokemon designs.
And indeed, seeing scale difference and motion for the animals they designed also helped further refine things for Gen2.
thats what was great, the anime brought the game to life
chunky gengar giving me the wink made my day
Chonk
😉
@@aidendavid2680 not gonna do an edit just for a typo error 😅 anyway im sure everyone gets it
This is why I love the comment section of these videos. The amount of wholesome is so wholesome
_Heeeyyy!_ 😉👻
Fun fact, Kakuna actually does have arms, they're just tucked in to make that necktie looking structure on the front of its body.
Source?
@@NonisLuck in addition to the original sprite art depicting the arms that he calls out, there's a bandai pocket monsters trading card set that depicts kakuna with its arms extended, the art of which was also done by Ken Sugimori.
When I was younger I always thought of how cool it would be if you could trade between versions of a game being the EN and JP and they would keep the sprite from their original game.
Oh that would've been awesome. I couldn't even find a normal kid to trade pokemon with in America where I lived, let alone someone from Japan to trade with haha.
Would have made different language pokemon more collectable.
I doubt there was enough space for on the cartridge to have both versions of the sprite on them. Also don't forget that the Japanese version was released before they made these changes in the US version.
It would have been pretty neat tho.
They would need 302 sprites
english red and english blue are built on a completely different set of code than green and japanese red, so if you got a japanese cartridge to trade with itd just break im p sure haha (english red and english blue are based off of japanese blue, which is basically a less buggy ver. of japanese red and green, and why the stuff between jpn blue and eng blue are so similar but the reds are so different)
For clarification
The international Red and Blue versions use the Japanese Blue version as a base for the art and Cerulean Cave design.
However, the international Red and Blue have the same Pokémon appearance rates and locations as the Japanese Red and Green. So, technically speaking, we did get all four versions that Japan originally got if we include Yellow.
JP Blue and Rad/Blue also have some bug fixes, although they still missed quite a few of them.
I mean Japanese Blue had different in game trades and encounter rates. We missed out getting Gengar and Golem as in game trades. The reason the one trainer claims "Your Raichu evolved" after you trade him one for Electrode is because Japanese Blue you trade Kadabra for Graveler and American Red and Blue used Japanese Blue's script as a base
To be pedantic, international Red and Blue were based off the source code of Japanese Blue, with the encounter tables and version exclusives of Red and Green added in.
(Fun fact, allegedly they literally had no choice but to do it this way because the source code for Red and Green was in such shambles that it couldn't handle having the English text swapped in.)
Yeah, a lot of the differences in the video are not localization differences, they're Red/Green vs Blue differences.
Just watched a man run through all 151 Pokémon sprites in 20 minutes. This is the content RUclips needs.
If you've played FRLG more recently than Red and Blue, that might explain why you found the Red/Green cave easier to navigate. Cerulean Cave in FRLG is based on the original Red/Green cave but with some added blockades to cover up a lot of the dead ends. If you're familiar with the path to Mewtwo in FRLG, you can easily make your way there in Red/Green. The layout of Red/Blue actually differs significantly from FRLG.
Correct.
Yup and yellow even has a 3rd different map for it!
@@ssjduelistDD I recall the yellow cave being the easiest in gen 1. Just a straight shot to the end.
The drunk old man made the Japanese Mew. You can’t tell me he didn’t!
No sober person could make that design.
🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
The Mew was under the drunk man the whole time
You have to be as drunk as Demoman to even get the design, lol
He... he just hasn't had his coffee yet okay?!?
It should be pointed out that the Japanese version of the "fainted" status is completely different, the word they use for it is hinshi which means "near death". Pretty brutal, and it's still used to this day to occasionally remind us how gritty G1 was.
To be fair, that is a good reason why the trainer first blacks out for a hot minute and then rushes to the pokemoncenter.
@@lpfan4491 And also.... Lavender town.... just... ALL of it.
Like the alcohol change, its simply that American ratings boards are more harsh about certain things. Death is a big no no in childrens media, so you see it all the time in Japanese media and never in American. Public drunkardness is also socially accepted in Japan and super negative in the west in general.
@@fearedjames in the US it's heavily influenced by the stereotype of violent drunks.
Fainted means passed out. They didn't want death to be strong in children's media when Pokemon Red and Blue were first released in the States.
Fun fact: That cool map from the Japanese handbook DID get an American release in 1999's "The Official Pokémon Handbook." I had a pair of copys as a kid and I remember loving looking at that map.
I THOUGHT so! I had a copy of that map that I had hung on my wall when I was 10. I was confused when he said the game didn't include it because I HAD it, so I figured it must have came with the handbook (which also came with stickers of every Pokemon to use in the booklet that came with the actual game!)
That international gen 1 Mew sprite, is to me the most iconic representation of Mew. Mew is my favorite Pokémon, and whenever I think of its design or just remembering fond childhood memories of wanting and obtaining it, this is the sprite I think of.
People born in the early 90s know how iconic it was. We got gen 1 when we were really young. Also it was crazy that the Pokédex went to 151 but nobody had any clue how to get mew
Kakuna actually DOES have arms. It's often misunderstood and assumed to be a weird sprite error but there's actually other media showing off his two claw-like arms at times too. I think more often than not they're just tucked away but still !!
having learn scratch in game would solve this missconception
Kakuna's original design had arms, but it hasn't been shown in official content since Gen 1.
@@alexandreiss0agr276 Diglett learns Scratch, and we still have no idea how that works, save for potentially a reference in the original Mystery games alluding to it having feet.
I can’t tell how many of Blue’s sprites are actually an improvement or not.
Mew looks way more like Mewtwo in the Japanese one.
Mew looks even more like the fetus it was based upon in the original. It's sort of grotesque
I was thinking the same thing! The darker bit on the bottom of the Japanese sprite looks like the purple on Mewtwo’s tail
Definitely agree
inbred Mew clone?
👀
the 'udders' on mew are just pixels of that violet shading color, next to black pixels. That's the style of line dithering/anti aliasing back then. even in more modern pixelmon games, you could see anti aliasing on a lot of the lines that looked out of place from time to time. especially in black and whtie
Also it’s not often mentioned but the sprites used in the American version are actually the sprites used in the Japanese Blue version, the Green and Red version were released as a set and the Blue version was an updated version of the two which made changes to the sprites among others. So the “American version” sprites are actually still Japanese version sprites.
The American Red and Blue versions were completely based off the Japanese Blue version, since there was a major glitch known as Item Swap that Blue was released to fix.
Demonic alakazam isn't real, he can't hurt you...
Shesez: I'm gonna shift the hue
A great first step to a crappy Pokemon creepypasta. Add in buying the cartridge at a garage sale, the game knowing the player's name, and some mention of blood somewhere and we're good to go.
@@lilwyvern4 Not just blood, HYPER-REALISTIC blood, makes all the difference XD
Hey hey hey cool it with the antisemitism
Jk jk
Surprised that you didn’t mention Hitmonchan’s sprite looking like Doduo taking a shit with a Togekiss watching
Damn it, now I can't unsee it
Hahahhaha wtf
That's quite an eloquent idea of what it looks like. I sure wouldn't have seen that.
Lmao this is severely underrated
24:42 cannot be unseen thank you.
What I find interesting about the Nidorino/Nidorina in the Japanese version is, their poses seem to be indicative of their transition from their 4 legged first forms, to standing upright in their final forms. The poses look like they're just starting mature to the point of being able to maneuver on just two legs.
The reason for the sprite change in vermilion from a little girl (JP) to an old guy (US) would also be explained by cultural differences.
Here in the US, when you think of a fan club, you might think of an older, nerdy person running it, especially back in the 90s
While in JP, fan clubs were definitely a young people pop culture thing.
I am surprised at how mixed my stored memory of gen 1 sprites are-meaning most of the time between the Japanese and American releases, there’s usually only one I really recognize, but it doesn’t stick to one version. Fun.
Great work on the video. The design on Alakazam’s head is a six pointed star because in Japanese media, the hexagram is used to represent magic and “dark magic” the same way western media would use a pentagram.
There’s also the possibility that it’s a nod to Houdini. Alakazam’s Japanese name is a reference to him and he was ethnically Jewish.
In addition, Kadabra’s Japanese name is a reference to *another* Jewish illusionist, Uri Geller. (Which he later sued Pokemon over)
@@zannibunny4028 It's also really messed up that the symbol on Kadabra's head was two S's. The SS was a branch of Nazi's. In 1940's Germany, before their mass genocide, the Jewish people were forced to wear the Star Of David symbol on them to identify them for racist purposes. This means that the original Pokemon is anti-semetic, since both Houdini and Geller are Jewish, thus these details were meant to ridicule them in Pokemon for being Jewish. But this isn't really that surprising when you realize that there are still a lot of Japanese traditionalists who believe they have nothing to apologize for when siding with Nazi Germany in WWII.
Japan still low-key supports or still references their role in the war, even in modern days since. Brocken Jr from Kinnuman is a "sympathetic nazi good guy", and Von Strolheim in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is also a "Nazi with a secret heart of gold" and also a good guy. And a Japanese boy band also once dressed up in Nazi gear.
There is still some Nazi support in Japan, that people still easily forget about.
@@the-NightStar My respect for the Japanese just increased tenfold.
Based Japan
@@alexcallender The Japanese are no less racially supremacist (see GATE) than the Han Chinese with their genocides.
Only difference is Japan has bread and circuses... and American airbases on their soil.
"so what's your favourite pokemon?" "sand."
Pocket sand!
Throws a Sandshrew at someone’s face
…I think Dale would approve lol
Palossand.
"rare coil"
"Its course rough and gets everywhere"
My favorite pokémon is Showers
24:42 hitmonchan's japanese sprite looks like a togakiss looking at a doduo pooping
This is a well known Fact.
Now I can't unsee it. :O
oh my-
I'm not seeing what everyone else is seei-
* suddenly clicks *
God dammit.
@@AlexParry95 Okay, I can see the Togekiss, but where's the do- Oh my god, I see it, AHHHH.
I can't believe you completely ignored Drowzee and Hypno getting human hands in the American version, its even more creepy seeing them next to each other.
I'm surprised there was no mention of Cloyster's change in orientation from vertical in the Japanese to horizontal in the American, despite vertical remaining the canon look.
Pokemon Red has one of the most iconic box arts of all time imo
Fax
I feel the same way about all gen 1 games
Congratulations on making 151 Pokemon differences feel like only a few seconds. I honestly thought I'd skip that part, but you did it in such a way that I didn't even realise I was watching ALL of it! So so entertaining- great work!
You know. This might be the first time yt actually gave me a notification and I didn't have to go digging for your videos. Thank you! This is so cool!
So relieved to hear that
😌👍
You should really compare the US Red and Blue to the JP Blue, as they saw a lot of changes in that game specifically
Great video. I've never seen a direct comparisons between the Japanese and US sprites before, thank you.
"Even the water's different!" I can relate to this excitement he has
24:53 the Japanese hitmonchan looks like a doduo pooping while a togekiss is looking over it
That killed me
I can't unsee it now.
I was thinking that the whole time he was showing the hitmonchan sprite lol
epic
It took me a few seconds but yup. That is what that is .
I've never heard of someone refer to dithering as cross-hatching, but that is a strangely accurate art technique to compare it to.
both can technically be considered variations of pointilism. it's ultimately the technique used to make the shading
Therapist: demonic Alakazam isn’t real, it can’t hurt you.
Demonic Alakazam: 3:51
24:44 Japanese Hitmonchan looks like a Togekiss watching a Doduo take a dump
You just ruined hitmonchan
Oh my god… I can’t unsee this now 😂
4:25 it only looks like that when viewed on a black background. Sprites in gen 1 and 2 just used transparency for any white spots, and in some gen 1 sprites there isn't a point where they definitively "end" so to speak. So the white pixels that make up the "whiskers" wouldn't have even showed up against the white background in gen 1, so I doubt it was intentional.
Both Blaine and Bellsprout's sprites always looked like grey aliens to me.
Mew in Japanese looks weird because it was originally meant to resemble a fetus if I recall correctly. I'm happy that they went for the cuter look in the end though
Last I heard it wasn't even planned for inclusion but someone snuck it in before release
I think it looks more mouse-like.
I thought fetus too. It’s pretty dark when you think about it
I don't understand how Shesez thought its arms were udders.
@@primrosevale1995 the underbelly has a few pixels that could be mistaken for udders depending on how you look at it
The coffee joke is a great workaround because kids'll assume he needs coffee because he's grumpy, but adults may assume he needs coffee because he's fighting off a mean hangover lol
I prefer the Japanese Pokedex, not because of the sprite art but because the Pokemon's size and weight are measured with the superior metric system! I have no idea what it means when it says Charizard is 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds. But I *do* understand what it means when it says that Charizard is 1.7 metres tall and weighs 90.5 kilograms.
It's a shame that the US still hasn't moved towards the metric units. They don't even have plans for doing so.
@@BlisterKitten They and two other countries are the only ones still using imperial measurements.
Thanks for hearting my comment pal.
You need to understand the U.S are still in a mental stoneage
@@Krispen_Wah IKR!
The reason why the Mew sprite appears to have whiskers and an udder is because the image is shown with a black background, which makes the outline sorta disappear leaving only the antialiasing. When you view it with a white background it looks a little more normal (still pretty weird though).
Edit: Also, the old man being changed to a young girl is a change that was not introduced in the US version, it was introduced in the Japanese Pokemon Blue.
Similarly, all the 'US' sprites also originated from Japanese Blue.
Also, fun fact in the Pokemon Lab, in Japanese Red and Green version, there's a trade for an electrode for a Raichu. This was changed in Pokemon Blue to be a Kadabra for a Golem, they even wrote a new line of dialogue stating that the Kadabra evolved. When making the American Red and Blue, they used pokemon encounters and trade data from Japanese Red and Green, but used Japanese Blue's script. The result is an NPC erroneously claiming that Raichu evolves through trade.
That last part about the Raichu may be because there was a planned evolution, called Gorochu. It was scrapped though
@Arirang Astatine Studios I think it really was just an oversight in localization. In Japanese Red and Green you trade him a Raichu for an Electrode and he says nothing about evolution. In the Japanese Blue version you trade that character a Kadabra for a Graveler. Afterwards he exclaims that the Kadabra you traded him evolved. The localization had the trade from Red and Green, but accidentally kept in the dialog from Japanese Blue, so he exclaims that the Raichu you traded him evolved. It's a pretty crazy coincidence though that Raichu was actually planned to have an evolution at one point.
RUclips's algorithm hasn't been giving me notifications for your channel for a whiiile so I had no idea region break was a thing. I love this and am gonna watch the rest of them after this one
I like this series and and am great-full for the amount of work that went into this. Keep up the great work👍
Holy crap the environment details, I never realised how different they were! The flowers I only noticed recently, the Japanese ones look so awful since one side is wider than the other and it’s just terrible, but the rest of the graphics really surprised me, they are different (and usually superior in US I think) but they are still similar enough that I never noticed the difference. The water is the most surprising one, I distinctly remember the Japanese water but I don’t remember the wavy American water at all, I had no idea that was even a thing.
its just all green. how is that good? localisations ruin the game. i would never play fake game. i play fan translations of original game
I was thinking the exact same thing about the water so I went to check my game to see if it was an EU thing but nope, we did have the wavy water. however after checking around more, I realised - caves keep the original water from japanese red and green. so if you ever got stuck in seafoam islands or cerulean cave, you're definitely going to remember the original japanese water. it's weird because I could've sworn I remembered seeing the original water when I was surfing the coast of cinnabar island doing the missingno glitch all those times as a kid but I guess not.
@@NormalExploiter it's not a localisation thing, those changes were made in japanese Blue, which became the base for international Red and Blue
Real talk, Alakazam with red replacing white looks terrifying. Amazing how much of a difference it makes by just changing one color
My man flexing them original boxes SO hard
💪💪💪💪💪💪💪
@@BoundaryBreak I along with so many people are jealous. But man, you very much deserve them!!!
8:27 サンドパン is more like "Sand Bun," actually, since パン means bread. This is especially evident because the Japanese word バス・パン means "Bath Bun," which is a type of sweet roll known as a teacake; it is named after the Bath area of England, and it is vaguely similar to dorayaki, the Japanese pastry made with red-bean paste.
Really? I thought the "Pan" part of Sandpan was from "Pangolin".(And before you ask yes i know "Pan" is the Japanese word for bread.)
@@TheArceusftw Well, y'know, I never knew what a pangolin was, but after a quick Google search, I'd say your explanation makes more sense!
...Japanese people like to use (many) portmanteaus in their language.
@Øivin Fjeldstad Sandshrew Sandwhich Sandshrew Sandwhich Sandshrew Sandwhich
サンドパン＝sandpan→ sandwich🥪
sandpan is double meaning
(There are many well-thought-out double meanings in Japanese versions of Pokemon names.)
@@Shiromochimochi Yeah, I thought about it after the fact. It's, like, “Sandwich Bread,” right?
yeah, the JP version is very different from the US version
one of the biggest differences is that one is in Japanese, and the other is in English
**Shocked Pikachu face**
Respect for reviewing all 151 Pokemon and giving some opinion on each. Def liked and subscribed
Poliwrath in the US version looks like he’s winding up to backhand slap you
Really enjoying these region breaks just as much as the boundary breaks! Even as a kid I loved comparing the differences between games depending on its version of region when I could get my hands on them
That Mew Sprite reminds me of that scene from Family guy where Brian shaves off all his fur, he has all those dog teets
it reminds me of something that was created in a lab.
No not Mewtwo
I am excited that this is finally being covered!
And I love how a lot of these changes were reverted to the Japanese versions in Yellow
The reason Alakazam had a star of David on his forehead is that the symbol is also one used in alchemy and other old occult stuff. It represented the 4 elements when drawn in the triangle arrangement.
It actually represented the astrological planets in that arrangement.
the star of david isn't an occult symbol though?
"looks like he's gonna fire his laser or go pog" thank you for covering a wide generational range lmao
I actually really liked the US hunched over, intimidating Mewtwo sprite.
Maybe someone has already commented on this, but Ekans' Japanese name (アーボ) is a long "a" syllable and a "bo" syllable, so reading it backward wouldn't be "Obra", but rather something like "Boa" (which is also snake-themed, like Ekans).
20:00 I'm pretty sure they intended to show Machoke winking his eye.
I remember getting a green version from a neighbour who's brother lived in Japan, I'd played Red/Blue so much that I could complete the game without understanding a word of it.
This is so cool! I really enjoy videos like this showing the changes between regions. Awesome video!
I loved the descriptions for the differences between each version's pokemon sprites.
Well you left out a lot of name comparisons but considering you did sprite comparisons for EACH ONE instead of only the significant changes, i mean damn, we don't want you to die. Well done.
I wonder why he didn’t add Jolteon but did have Vaporeon and Flareon.
@@iPhone-bz6qt yeah it's interesting they have both Thunder and Thunders.
Another one! I love this series, so cool to see the differences! Looking at all 151 sprites was definitely interesting, a very long section but super cool to see
Great video! One thing I’d say for future reference that’s not super important but just some nice info is that cross hatching in pixel art is called “dithering” :)
4:57 "He looks like he's about to fire his Lazer or go pog."
6:05 "And a crying orphan that will sell more copies."
16:52 "And that toung is M O I S T."
gengar wink got a chuckle out of me.
Gangar looks a lot more like a shadow in the Japanese version, which I actually like better. The purple solid dinosaury thing never sat right for me
for me as a pixel artist, this is super interesting - those sprite differences
21:28 The US Sprite looks really high quality! The face is spot on, it has nice shading - even includes a shadow on the floor. And overall looks like the Slowpoke we know today. It's probably my favorite Gen 1 Sprite!
I loved seeing all the differences in sprites, thanks for the hard work man!
21:27 That Japanese Slowpoke is freaking out!
Also, I notice that they used the metric system in the Japanese version and Imperial in the US version.
Localization is way more than just plain translation.
FINALLY! I've been watching on Twitch waiting for this! Gonna enjoy during my lunch break
It's also interesting that a lot of the artwork from the original Pokémon Trading Card Game looks to have based most of the Pokémon's posing and designs directly off of the Japanese sprites.
Some of the og sprites looked really familiar, even more so than the new versions, about halfway through it hit me that I've seen them on the TCG and other promo artwork back then.
Don't worry, front-facing Shellder doesn't exist, it can't hurt you.
Front-facing Shellder: 22:40
Also, a lot of people say Hitmonchan's Japanese sprite is, and I quote, "A Togekiss spying on a defecating Doduo."
I like how the intro specifies that US Red and Blue were built from Japanese Blue, but it still feels weird calling the versions 'Japanese' and 'American' for instances that don't talk about translations like the sprite work.
Japanese Blue and US Blue would still be a good comparison still, as there's a different change in spawning rates and locations between both Blues.
It's really wrong that he called the JP Blue as ''US version'' cuz it has nothing to do with USA particularly. It was an international release, not a release exclusive for USA
@@PrimeGamator wdym? There is still regional and version differences it is not the same cart
These videos are so good you could put a show like this on streaming service
Yeah, i just realized he hasn't hit 1mil subs yet and that's an absolute crime right there.
Mew was a last-minute decision according to the developers, replacing an at the time unused pokemon "Omega". This explains its quite early ID, and might as well explain its strange sprite.
Awesome comparrisons!
Appreciate the effort of going through and cataloguing these differences. =)
What I've gathered here is that a lot of the Pokémon danced their way from Japan to the US.
A wonderful analysis of even the most minute details and an interesting video to watch this was.
I'm gonna be honest; when the All 151 Pokèmon section began, I just set the playback speed to 2x and speedran the video..
The character in that vermilion city being a different sprite is probably due to the fact that the US red version was basically the Japanese blue version with a few slight changes. Some things slipped through the cracks, however, so that sprite is probably a carryover from blue.
3:15 So strange though, I always kept hearing from people that the dungeons were simplified from the Japanese release to the North American release. I definitely heard that the Power Plant dungeon is easier in NA than Japanese.
Can't believe you didn't call attention to Cloyster's shell opening differently between its original sprite and the redone sprite
I'm really digging Region Break as a series. Sure, I was already pretty familiar with the old Gen 1 sprites, but it was still fun seeing the side by side breakdown like this.
The one thing I wish you had covered though is the one Hiker in Rock Tunnel who just sings Pat Benatar in English. I'm curious what he says in Japanese.
Oh, interesting… I never even realized that!
I guess “hit me with your best shot” just seems like a normal line for him to have without context (and I don’t think I was familiar enough with the other words from that song lol)
I love how the Japanese jigglypuff just looks like its about to just say "I'm not fighting anything til I've had my coffee"
11:46 This one time where age was actually lowered in western version from Japan.
Stranger danger maybe? "Don't go into a strange man's house to trade Pokémon?" But having another kid there is fine?
Just wanted to point out that Hitmonchan's Japanese sprite looks like a Togekiss creeping on a Doduo taking a dump 24:52
That is all
This would be funny if I didn't just see someone make the exact same joke.
"Hey bro can I copy your homework?" "Yeah, but make it look a lil different."
Sorry I missed this when it first came out. This was fascinating to watch! I knew of a couple of these things from other videos but MAN, I didn't realize how many differences there are!! Thanks for showing off all the sprites! That was SO cool!
Speaking on the Power Rangers comment about Poliwrath's Japanese pose, it most closely looks like Kamen Rider V1's pose considering how much of a pop culture icon the franchise is over there alongside Super Sentai
Many Showa Riders had some kind of henshin pose with arms like that
slam dunks a comment here for the algorithm to feast upon