In one of the earlier episodes of Pokemon Journeys: The Series, the anime got caught censoring a small detail on one character in the internationally-aired version of the episode, for alluding to what some consider a sensitive topic.
Pokemon has a history of censorship in the United States. Often times, content that is sent from America to Japan is censored in some way if it’s deemed inappropriate for its citizens in the East. Pokemon, however, frequently sees the opposite result. Some of the most well-known edits include the episode “Tentacool and Tentacruel” being removed in the wake of 9/11 as it showed a Tentacruel destroying buildings and skyscrapers, and Jesse from Team Rocket getting implants and showing off a bikini; the episode “Beauty and the Beach” was simply banned in the United States. Even Pokemon Gold & Silver were forced to make some very minute changes, such as a female swimmer no longer winking at the player character.
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And now, some Pokemon Journeys fans are noticing a very tiny change from an earlier episode as it may have been upsetting for some international residents. In the fourth episode, Ash and Goh need to traverse further into the region of Galar, and they speak to an unnamed train station timekeeper. He’s simply an innocuous, nervous man, with seemingly nothing amiss about him. But looking at the Japanese version of “Settling the Scorbunny!” fans will notice that he used to have a square mustache on his upper lip, resembling the style made famous by Adolf Hitler many decades ago.
While there are certainly some other notable figures who have used the same style of mustache, such as Charlie Chaplin, the look has become known as the “Hitler ‘Stache” which could easily be misconstrued by some international viewers, and the censors felt it best to trade out the facial hair for a clean-shaven look. While some Twitter users felt the censorship is trivial and unnecessary, some commenters feel better about the mustache being removed from the train clerk’s face.
As noted on the app, Pokemon Journeys Part 2 is coming to Netflix on September 11th, with other chunks of the series slowly being dropped on Netflix, such as Indigo League. After a brief stall in production due to Covid-19 restrictions, the next set of episodes will begin with “The Climb to Be the Very Best!” The episode has been out in Japan since February, but viewers who prefer the English-dubbed version of the episode will get to continue Ash and Goh’s journey very soon.
Pokemon Journeys: The Series will return to Netflix on September 11, 2020.
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