Anime Grindhouse: The First Three Pokémon Movies (In Japanese with Official English Subs!... Sort Of)

On February 27, 1996 Nintendo released a pair of new games for its aging Game Boy portable console, which had long stopped feeling like the revelatory handheld gaming product that it once was looked at as. That pair would be "Red" & "Green" variants of a game titled Pocket Monsters, or simply "Pokémon" for short. Created by Game Freak co-founder Satoshi Tajiri, who took inspiration by his childhood days of discovering & capturing insects, Pokémon tasked players with capturing the titular Pokémon via battle with their own group of Pokémon, with the ultimate goal of both capturing at least one of every Pokémon in the game (which, at the time, totaled only a meager 151) & defeating the gym leaders spread throughout the game's world to become a "Pokémon Master". The paired release was done so that it was literally impossible to get all 151 Pokémon on your own, since each version had its own exclusive Pokémon, so by using the Game Boy's link cable players could both battle each other as well as trade Pokémon with each other.

Needless to say, Pokémon Red & Green were a massive success in Japan, revitalizing the life of the Game Boy single-handedly, & when it saw international release over two years later in 1998 (where Green was replaced with an updated Blue variant) the same happened around the world. Today, Pokémon is one of the biggest media franchises in the world, and one part of why the franchise became such an instant hit was because of the anime that followed, which debuted in Japan on April 1, 1997... and the movies that came later. Time to re-open the grindhouse!

Really, there's no need to go over the history of the Pokémon TV anime, which is still running to this very day with nearly 1,400 episodes in total across multiple series/seasons & is still beloved by many, both young kids of today as well as adults who first saw it as kids over the decades. Instead, I want to focus on the various theatrical films, which saw a yearly run of new productions between 1998 & 2020, as well as a Hollywood-produced live-action film spin-off. One thing about the Pokémon anime productions is that, as anime fans have gotten older, there has always been the occasional wish that the anime would one day see something beyond the dub-only releases they get outside of Japan. It's something that makes sense, as anime fandom has only grown over the decades since the first English-dubbed episode debuted on Kids' WB back on September 8, 1998, and other children's anime of the past have since received subbed and/or dual-audio releases, like Digimon, Monster Rancher/Farm, Mon Colle Knights, Medabots/Medarot, etc. Unfortunately, The Pokémon Company has been very staunch about never offering any sort of dual-audio release when it comes to Pokémon, even if only for the movies... except for that single year when they actually DID allow dual-audio releases of some Pokémon movies, even if only in Japan.

Yes, on June 23, 2000 Kadokawa Media Factory & Shogakukan teamed up to release the first Pokémon movie on DVD over in Japan, with the cover promoting that it included both the original Japanese audio & the English dub. However, instead of simply offering both versions as their own separate videos it instead only offered the original Japanese video, creating a true-blue dual-audio DVD release of the film where the dub was synced to Japanese footage. Then a few months later, on November 22, 2000, the two companies did the same exact thing for the second Pokémon movie, creating a second true-blue dual-audio DVD for a Pokémon movie. Finally, on July 7, 2001, Kadokawa Media Factory & Shogakukan performed a hat trick by giving the third Pokémon movie a true-blue dual-audio DVD release, though unfortunately this would be the last dual-audio DVD release ever for Pokémon, as all home video releases of later Pokémon movies in Japan wouldn't include the English dub. However, the most interesting thing about these three dual-audio DVD releases is that they not only include Japanese & English audio... but also Japanese & English subtitles... well, sort of. The way the DVDs are encoded mean that the subs are locked to their respective audio language when played on any standard DVD (or BD) player, i.e. you can't actually have English subs with the Japanese audio. Because of this the English "subs" aren't actually a translation of the original Japanese script, but rather are simply the English dub script in written form; they are proper subs, though, so they don't include closed captioning. However, one can bypass the "sub language must match audio language" restriction by playing these DVDs on a computer, using a program like VLC to force which subtitles are being used, which technically does mean that one can officially watch the first three Pokémon movies in Japanese with English subtitles, even if the subs themselves don't exactly match 100% to the Japanese audio; and, yes, this also means that you can watch the English dub with Japanese subs.

I've managed to get my hands on these three dual-audio DVDs, so let's begin a new April Fools' Day tradition by having me tackle something that's indisputably popular & iconic by covering the first three Pokémon movies in their original Japanese versions... but with (sort of) official English subs!

An Overview the Early Years of the "Modern Day Late-Night Anime Infomercial": 1998

Back in January I gave a general overview of the origins of late-night anime, briefly covering the initial (more or less) isolated examples that happened between 1963 & 1995 before going over the early days of the "modern day late-night anime infomercial", from Those Who Hunt Elves in October 1996 to all of 1997, up through Fortune Quest L. While it initially started off as a simple experiment to see if otaku would be willing to watch TV anime at that late of a time slot, which in turn would essentially act as a giant advertisement for said otaku to buy stuff, it quickly started growing into something much more lucrative throughout 1997. However, while we went over 13 brand new late-night anime in that year-plus of time in the previous part of this general overview... it would literally more than double the following year. At first I had planned on covering 1998 & 1999 together for this next part, but 1998 alone had 26 brand new anime that debuted in late-night, one re-run that had originally debuted in 1997, & eight (mostly) short-form anime that ran as part of TBS' Wonderful program, the introduction of which was covered last time. 1999 had an additional 15, plus another 10 Wonderful titles, so I think it'll be better to just cover 1998 on its own here & we'll cover 1999 & 2000 (the latter of which is shockingly sparse) together next time.

So welcome to 1998, the year where late-night anime first truly exploded.

The year begins on "January 7 at 25:15" over at TV Tokyo with the show that replaced Next Senki Ehrgeiz, following a one-week break for New Year's Eve, El-Hazard: The Alternative World. On May 26, 1995 the first OVA episode of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World saw release in Japan, which was an isekai story, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Princess of Mars, conceived of by director Hiroki Hayashi & writer Ryoe Tsukimura where a bunch of high school students find themselves teleported to the world of El-Hazard. Alongside Tenchi Muyo! & Battle Athletes, El-Hazard was part of Pioneer LDC & AIC's big push to make Laserdisc a big deal in the anime market during the 90s, & in turn El-Hazard would be a media mix project, as alongside the OVA was a three-volume manga adaptation & a 26-episode TV anime series (known abroad as El-Hazard: The Wanderers) from 1995 to 1996 in prime time (it aired between seasons of Slayers) that told its own alternate timeline story. Now, in 1998, there was a 13-episode TV anime that was a direct sequel to the two-part, 11-episode OVA that started it all, now with the characters finding themselves in yet another alternate world, the militant Creteria. While it sounds just a little bit confusing, the timing for The Alternative World actually made sense, since the final episode of The Magnificent World 2 came out in Japan the prior October, so fans of the original storyline didn't have to wait long for another sequel to come about. Also, if nothing else, The Alternative World truly shows just how much luster the OVA format had lost come the start of 1998, as instead of going with yet another straight-to-video release it was decided that a late-night TV time slot made more sense; to be fair, though, this show's later home video release included a bonus OVA in 1999.

Considering how big of a deal Pioneer & AIC wanted El-Hazard to be, it's no surprise that it would see release outside of Japan, as all of the anime versions & even the manga interpretation would see English release. The Alternative World, in particular, came out first via Geneon in 1999 & 2000 via both subbed & dubbed VHS as well as dual-audio DVD, with a DVD box set in 2003, followed by a re-release on dual-audio Blu-Ray by Nozomi Entertainment (alongside the rest of the anime productions) in 2022.

Diagnosis: Filler: One Piece's G-8 Arc

Debuting in Issue #34 of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997, One Piece by Eiichiro Oda took almost no time whatsoever in becoming Jump's next smash hit, which the magazine truly needed in the year after the end of Slam Dunk in 1996, which marked the end of "The Golden Age of Jump". However, One Piece wouldn't be your "standard" type of smash hit, as after the initial unsurety of things for the first eight chapters the manga has only ever seen another 11 chapters since Chapter 8 in late 1997 appear below the fifth spot in its respective issue of Jump... and the manga is still running to this day, with nearly 1,180 chapters to its name. In terms of "performance" in Jump's Table of Contents One Piece is the undisputed champion, with an average "rank" of around 2.35 (i.e. it's almost always either the first, second, or third manga to appear in any issue), and while something like Dragon Ball is often looked at as the "face" of Shonen Jump worldwide the simple fact of the matter is that One Piece has long surpassed it, whether it's in length (second only to Kochikame), relative popularity in the magazine, sales (One Piece is the best-selling manga of all time), & staying power when it comes to anime.

Speaking of which, there's Toei's TV anime adaptation of One Piece, which first debuted on October 20, 1999 (following a 1998 anime pilot done by Production I.G.) & ran on a weekly basis (mostly) consistently for just over 1,120 episodes until October 13, 2024. At that point it was decided that the One Piece anime would start having long hiatuses from weekly TV, mainly due to the fact that the anime had long caught up very close to the manga & therefore have many episodes in which very little of note would really happen. It got so bad that many episodes literally only adapted a single manga chapter, or even less, in an effort to avoid catching right up to where the manga was at; this was a problem that had been around for the better part of at least 15 years, at least. The One Piece TV anime most recently returned from April to December of 2025 to finish off the Egghead Arc, & is currently set to return once again this April to start the Elbaph Arc. Now some might wonder "Why not just do a filler arc to allow the manga to move on?", but the simple fact of the matter is that the One Piece anime isn't really known for doing filler arcs, despite its sheer length. There have been a number done throughout the show's history, but most of them wind up only being around two to five episodes long, and a number of the later ones were made simply to act as advertisement prologues for various movies. Still, there are a handful that actually went beyond a mere handful of episodes, & I want to focus on the longest one of them all right now. Namely, from June 20 to October 10 of 2004 Toei produced what is officially titled Escape! The Marine Fortress but is often simply called the G-8 Arc, an 11-episode filler arc (Episodes 196 to 206) that took place between the end of Skypeia & the start of the Davy Back Fight with the Foxy Pirates at Long Ring Long Land. Not just that, but the G-8 Arc would actually mark the end of an era, production-wise, as Episode 206 (the final episode of the filler arc) would also be the final episode of the One Piece TV anime to ever be produced in 4:3 aspect ratio, as after a two-week hiatus the anime would return to TV on October 31, 2004 with Episode 207, the first one to be produced in 16:9 widescreen, which the show has maintained ever since.

Today the G-8 Arc is often cited by fans as the absolute greatest filler arc One Piece has ever had, regarded so highly for its quality that some even prefer it to the immediate canon story arc that followed it, the Davy Back Fight. In fact, it's the only filler to get acknowledged in one of the Episode of TV specials that recap earlier events, namely Episode of Merry (where the arc even got brand new animation). So, with the One Piece anime on the verge of returning to Japanese TV once again, let's dive into the longest filler arc this series has ever had & see if the G-8 Arc still holds up after nearly 22 years.

Showing No Mercy for 35 Years! Monthly Shonen Gangan's Original [United] Era Part 2 (1997-2001)

Upon the very creation & launch of Monthly Shonen Gangan the direction & image of the magazine itself wasn't exactly what people seemed to assume it would be. Since it was published by Enix it was apparently first thought of as a manga magazine based around video games & fantasy, because Dragon Quest was Enix's biggest IP.  In reality, though, aside from the two Dragon Quest manga that did run in the magazine upon its debut (Emblem of Roto & the four-panel gag strips) it was really more or less the same kind of general manga magazine aimed at boys, similar to Shonen Jump, Shonen Magazine, or Shonen Sunday. Yoshihiro Hosaka, Gangan's first Editor-in-Chief, even stated that as his goal for Shonen Gangan back in late 1991, and come 1996 Hosaka still felt that way, though in reality the magazine had already started becoming something else. Namely, Shonen Gangan wound up finding a more consistently older audience than its fellow shonen manga magazines, while the kinds of manga that ran were generally seen as being more of a fusion of shonen & shojo manga, with some even calling it "Gangan Kei" or "Enix Kei" to emphasize the magazine's unique feel.

However, come 1997 a shift would happen over at Shonen Gangan, one that went completely against what Hosaka had stated in interviews just a year prior. Now Gangan was going to go more in with "game-like" manga being serialized, as well as more direct video game adaptations, despite Hosaka stating that he had no intention of doing such a thing; of the 14 manga covered in this part five are game adaptations, three of which are Dragon Quest-related. This shift in focus looks to be what would eventually lead to a mass exodus of talent in the latter half of 2001... but, for now, we're still in what could be called a "united" era of Monthly Shonen Gangan, so let's see what notable manga debuted in the magazine right up until that very exodus was about the happen.

We start by jumping nearly an entire year ahead from Toki no Daichi's debut in early 1996, with the only stuff of minor note from that time being Mine Yoshizaki's Guardian Eight, a pre-Sgt. Frog series that has mostly been forgotten with time, & a short-lived Pokémon gag manga (which, again, emphasized Gangan's shift over to featuring more game-based manga). Instead, we start with Issue #4 of 1997, which saw the serialized debut of Renjuro Kindaichi... who was literally only 17 years old at the time & still in high school. The reason why Kindachi managed to find herself a serialization in Shonen Gangan as such a young age was due to a one-shot she submitted in 1996 that became the runner-up at the 3rd Enix 21st Century Manga Award, which she then expanded on for her serialized debut, Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu/The Jungle Was Always Sunny, Then Came Guu, better known abroad as simply Haré+Guu. The manga told the tale of Haré, a young boy who lives with his widowed mother Weda in the jungle until, one day, Weda welcomes a young girl named Guu into their household. In reality, though, Guu is a highly sarcastic liminal being that's beyond true comprehension & is capable of all manner of things, from swallowing people whole (she even has a Japanese couple who essentially just live in her stomach) to causing natural disasters. Luckily for most, Guu simply just likes hanging out with Haré... and while Haré himself eventually comes to truly befriend Guu it's not as though his life will ever remain anything but simple after meeting Guu. Yeah, as you can tell from that concept, Haré+Guu was a surreal comedy manga that generally saw Guu creating some sort of havoc in Haré's life, though there were also story arcs involving things like Weda's relationship with a man named Clive who lives in the city, Weda becoming pregnant with a new child, Haré finding love in a girl named Rita, & all manner of various hijinks & insanity, including time travel shenanigans. Upon reaching 100 chapters (across 10 volumes) in the January 2003 issue of Shonen Gangan Haré+Guu technically ended... only for it to continue on in the very next issue under the new name HaréGuu (again, the OG Japanese title was much longer, but the change still makes a fittingly weird sort of sense with the simplified international title), and we'll get into that series next time.

While the Haré+Guu manga has yet to see official English release, there was a 2001 TV anime adaptation that actually did see release in North America via AN Entertainment (the short-lived licensing division of now-defunct anime retailer Anime Nation), which released the entire 26-episode TV series & the first OVA series (Haré+Guu Deluxe) via dual-audio DVD singles throughout 2006 & 2007; unfortunately, AN Entertainment never managed to release the other OVA series (Haré+Guu Final) in English.

Showing No Mercy for 35 Years! Monthly Shonen Gangan's Original [United] Era Part 1 (1991-1996)

Originally founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima as a real-estate tabloid publisher called Eidansha Boshu Service Center on September 22, 1975, the company would eventually get renamed to Enix (a portmanteau of ENIAC & phoenix) on August 30, 1982 & shift over to video games, which was a burgeoning market at the time. Enix made an early name for itself via its Enix Game Hobby Program Contest, where people could submit game prototypes & the winners being published as full games, and it was through this that Enix found talent like Yuji Horii, Koichi Nakamura, & Kazuro Morita, which in turn eventually led to the creation of games like The Portopia Serial Murder Case, Door Door, & Morita's Shogi, respectively, which were all early hits for Enix. However, Enix would truly hit pay dirt with 1986's Dragon Quest, which was co-designed by Horii & Nakamura, while Horii used his connections with Kazuhiko Torishima (an editor for Weekly Shonen Jump he had befriended back when he was a freelance writer) to have Dragon Ball's Akira Toriyama do the character designs for the game; combine all of that with music by the venerable (& later controversial) Koichi Sugiyama & you have a hit. By the end of the 80s Enix was a major game publisher/developer, but it wanted to be more than that... so the company decided to re-enter the world it initially got its start in: Book Publishing.

At first Enix started simple by publishing books about Dragon Quest, most notably strategy guides, while also continuing its relationship with Shueisha to launch Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai in late 1989, which was an original series by Riku Sanjo (story) & Koji Inada (art), with Yuji Horii supervising it. However, Enix knew that for it to truly succeed in book publishing it needed to have a manga magazine of its own, & while it did initially publish a series of four-panel manga based on Dragon Quest in 1990 (that'd later become its own, multi-game series of works), it was on March 12, 1991 that Enix truly got into the manga business with the release of the very first (April) issue of Monthly Shonen Gangan; the magazine would always release on the 12th of every month. The name of the magazine was said to be a reference to the command "Gangan Ikouze" first seen in 1990's Dragon Quest IV, which has your party automatically use their most powerful abilities on the enemy, regardless of MP cost; eventually the command would be localized into English as "Show No Mercy!". Over the course of the next 35 years Monthly Shonen Gangan would become a home for a variety of manga, some of which have gone on to become iconic works, others simply the starting points for mangaka who'd become more well known later on, & even a number of manga that were based on various pre-existing IP, whether that be anime, video games, & whatnot.

The history of Shonen Gangan, however, also has its own ups & downs, as a major exodus from within Enix's publishing division in 2001 would result in the creation of rival publishers & magazines, the size of Monthly Gangan itself would notoriously exceed over 1,000 pages at points (with Enix even jokingly advertising not to drop an issue on someone), Enix would later merge with Square to form Square-Enix, and it's a history that admittedly isn't as well known in English, especially when compared to the likes of its most well known rivals, i.e. Jump, Magazine, Sunday, or even Champion. So, to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Monthly Shonen Gangan's debut, I'm dusting off the ol' Ages of Jump format as we go over the history of Shonen Gangan by way of what (I can tell) look to be its most iconic/notable manga. This will be a six-part series comprised of three "eras" that I've (admittedly) determined primarily based on the life of arguably Gangan's most iconic manga around the world, but it still results in a roughly even spread where each "era" takes up ~10-11 years, as this series technically will only cover up to 2022.

So, without further ado, it's time for us to "Show No Mercy" as we start with the first half of Monthly Shonen Gangan's "Original [United] Era". Gangan Ikouze!