You could have called this game "Bird vs. Camel" and no one would have argued with you
Here's a list of the differences between the Japanese and English versions of the Pokémon anime. Why? Because I thought people might be interested, and because I'm bored. I'm only focussing on the original series here, so everything before Advanced Generation.
First, name changes:
Satoshi became Ash Ketchum.
Shigeru Orchid became Gary Oak.
Orchid-hakase (lit. Professor Orchid) became Professor Oak.
Kasumi became Misty (like in the games).
Takeshi became Brock (ditto).
Musashi and Kojirō became Jessie and James.
Nyarth became Meowth.
Rocket-dan (lit. the Rocket Gang) was renamed to Team Rocket.
Kosaburō and Yamato became Butch and Cassidy.
Sakaki became Giovanni (again, like in the games)
Most of the town names are just translations (i.e. Tokiwa City, literally "tree-coloured city", became Viridian City, viridian being a shade of green).
Nurse Joy's name was unchanged (though she was just called Joy or Joy-san in the original).
Junsar became Officer Jenny.
Hanako became Delia Ketchum.
The gym leaders had their names changed to match the translation of the games.
Matis became Lt. Surge.
Erika's name was unchanged.
Kyō and Anzu became Koga and Janine.
Natsume became Sabrina.
Katsura became Blaine.
The Pokémon Zukan (lit. Pokémon Encyclopaedia) became the Pokédex.
Monster Ball became Poké Ball.
Super Ball became Great Ball.
Hyper Ball became Ultra Ball.
Safari Ball and Master Ball kept their original names.
Interestingly enough, the dub of the anime refers to the ship as the St. Anne, which is its Japanese name, rather than the S.S. Anne as it was called in the English translation of the games.
A lot of Pokémon names were changed too, as in the games, but I'm not going to list every single one of them here. Some noteworthy ones:
Hitokage became Charmander.
Zenigame became Squirtle.
Fushigidane became Bulbasaur.
Arbo became Ekans.
Arbok kept its original name.
Dogas became Koffing.
Matadogas became Weezing.
Hitodeman became Staryu.
Starmie kept its original name.
Isitsubute became Geodude.
Iwark became Onix.
Koduck became Psyduck.
Utsubot became Victreebel.
Barrierd became Mr. Mime.
Most of the Gym badges were renamed as well:
Grey Badge became Boulder Badge.
Blue Badge became Cascade Badge.
Orange Badge became Thunder Badge.
Rainbow Badge kept its original name.
Pink Badge became Soul Badge.
Gold Badge became Marsh Badge.
Crimson Badge became Volcano Badge.
Green Badge became Earth Badge.
Team Rocket's motto is slightly different. In the original version, their lines are:
Nanda kanda to kikaretara... (If you ask us this or that...)
Kotaete ageru no ga yo no nasake! (The pity of the world is what responds!)
Sekai no hakai wo fusegu tame! (To prevent the destruction of the world!)
Sekai no heiwa wo mamoru tame! (To protect the peace of the world!)
Ai to shinjitsu no aku wo tsuranuku! (To stand by the evils of love and truth!)
Lovely, charmy na katakiyaku! (The lovely, charmy villains!)
Musashi!
Kojirō!
Ginga wo kakeru Rocket-dan no futari ni wa! (The pair from Team Rocket soars through the galaxy!)
White hole, shiroi ashita ga matteru ze! (A white hole, a white tomorrow awaits us!)
Followed by Nyarth saying "Nyante nya!", which roughly translates as "What they said!" or "Something like that!"
In the dub, these lines were changed to:
Prepare for trouble!
And make it double!
To protect the world from devastation!
To unite all peoples within our nation!
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
To extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie!
James!
Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
Surrender now or prepare to fight!
Followed by Meowth saying "Meowth! That's right!"
When the protagonists mimic the motto in episode 37, in the original version, Satoshi says "Ai to shinjitsu no seigi wo tsuranuku!" (To stand by the justice of truth and love!), prompting Kojirō to angrily correct him that it's "Ai to shinjitsu no aku wo tsuranuku". In the dub version, Duplica (named Imite, from "imitate", in the original) says "To ignite all peoples within our nation" instead of "unite", again prompting James to angrily correct her. Also, in the original version, Kasumi says "Lovely, charmy na shujinko!" (The lovely, charmy protagonists!) and Takeshi refers to them as "Pocket-dan" (Team Pocket, as in Pocket Monsters). In the dub, they simply say the Team Rocket motto verbatim, not counting Duplica's slip-up.
In the original version, whenever Team Rocket were sent flying, they would simply shout "Yana kanji!" (What a bad feeling!), which was changed into the more memorable "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!" in the dub.
Kosaburō and Yamato's motto was also slightly different in the original compared to the dub, though still had the theme of being the "correct" version of the one that Musashi and Kojirō used. Their original motto went as follows:
Yamato: Nanda kanda to kikaretara... (If you ask us this or that...)
Kosaburō: ...kotaenai no ga futsuu da ga. (...we usually don't answer.)
Both: Maa toku betsuni kotaete yarou! (But we'll make an exception this time and answer!)
Yamato: Chikyuu no hakai o fusegu tame! (To prevent the destruction of the Earth!)
Kosaburō: Chikyuu no heiwa o mamoru tame! (To protect the peace of the Earth!)
Yamato: Ai to seijitsuna aku o tsuranuku! (To stand by evil with love and sincerity!)
Kosaburō: Cute de ochamena katakiyaku! (The cute, mischievous villains!)
Yamato: Yamato!
Kosaburō: Kosaburō!
Yamato: Uchuu o kakeru Rocket-dan no futari niwa! (The pair from Team Rocket soars through the universe!)
Kosaburō: Shocking pink, momoiro no ashita ga matteru ze! (Shocking pink, a pink tomorrow awaits us!)
In the dub, these lines became:
Cassidy: Prepare for trouble!
Butch: And make it double!
Both: Here's our mission, so you better listen!
Cassidy: To infect the world with devastation!
Butch: To blight all people in every nation!
Cassidy: To denounce the goodness of truth and love!
Butch: To extend our wrath to the stars above!
Cassidy: Cassidy!
Butch: And Butch, of course!
Cassidy: We're Team Rocket, circling Earth all day and night!
Butch: Surrender to us now, or you will surely lose the fight!
The dub often replaced typical Japanese food like rice crackers and rice balls with more American food like sandwiches and donuts, or occasionally just had the characters refer to them as those things, leading to one particularly memetic scene where Brock is clearly holding a rice ball, yet repeatedly refers to it as a "jelly-filled donut".
Some of the dialogue is changed too. I don't have the patience to go through every episode and analyse each line, though there are a few examples.
For one, in the first episode, originally Ash asks his newly-acquired Pikachu "Do you hate me?", to which Pikachu nods. In the dub, Ash instead asks "Is your name all you can say?"
The Pokédex became a lot more snarky and jerk-ish in its attitude towards Ash in the dub compared to the original, especially in the first episode when it says that Rattata often steal food from "stupid" travellers, prompting Ash to get angry at it. In the original, it just reads the standard Pokédex entry on Rattata (Koratta in the original), and Satoshi yells at the Rattata trying to steal from his bag rather than at the Pokédex. In fact, in the original it didn't have much of a personality at all and was a lot more like just an encyclopaedia with a voice. Its attitude was quickly toned down in the dub as well, though.
Ash and Gary's relationship was also made a lot more antagonistic in the dub, with the two being presented as more or less enemies and Gary often mocking Ash or picking on him. In the original, they were actually close friends as well as rivals, and Shigeru had a more sympathetic attitude (though still quite cocky).
In the original, Nyarth speaks more like a cat, turning any "na" sound into "nya" (the Japanese word for a cat's meow) and also ending his sentences with "nya" a lot. In the early episodes of the dub, they tried to bring this over by having him end his sentences with "meow", but quickly dropped it, so in the dub he talks mostly normally.
A number of episodes were cut out of the dub. The most infamous one was episode 38, "Den'no Senshi Porygon" (Computer Warrior Porygon, commonly known as Electric Soldier Porygon), which was banned from being aired on TV after numerous reports of Japanese children suffering adverse effects, such as epileptic seizures, vomiting, irritated eyes and other related symptoms while watching it, due to a strobe effect used in the episode. By the way, if you've ever watched anime and seen that warning at the beginning:
"Televi anime o miru toki ni wa, heya o akaruku shite chikazuki suginai yō ni shite mite kudasai ne."
"When watching anime, always do so in a brightly-lit room and do not sit too close to the television screen."
This banned episode is the entire reason that warning exists. Strobe effects were removed from all following episodes in the Pokémon anime, and the series went on a four-month hiatus following the ban of this episode. Though a dub of it was never officially released, Maddie Blaustein and Eric Stuart (dub voice of Meowth and James respectively - Eric Stuart was also the voice director at the time) said that an English dub of the episode was recorded. Contrary to rumour, 4KiDS did not reduce the speed and intensity of the flashing explosion to make it safer to watch.
Another cut episode was episode 35 of the original series, "Miniryu no Densetsu" (The Legend of Dratini). This episode involves Satoshi and his companions going through the Safari Zone, and Satoshi ending up (accidentally) catching 30 Tauros that all get sent to Professor Orchid's lab. The episode was most likely cut due to multiple scenes of characters wielding and using firearms, though strangely the Tauros from this episode appear in a later dubbed episode, meaning that for dub viewers they seem to come completely out of nowhere.
While the eyecatch is the same in both versions (having a silhouette of a Pokémon and then revealing it after the commercial break), the original version does not have the Pokémon's cry played after it's revealed. The original version has a chorus of what sounds like children saying "Dare ga?" (lit. "Who is it?"), while the dub has the voices of the main characters saying "Who's that Pokémon?"
The dub had almost every Pokémon's cry incorporate their name in some form or another, whereas in the original this happened far less often, with many Pokémon making more animal-like noises such as chirps, growls, roars, chatters, etc.
Interestingly enough, while Pikachu's Japanese dialogue was used for the English version, his lines were occasionally rearranged in the dub. A few other Pokémon, such as Caterpie and Arbok, also retained their Japanese voices in the dub.
In the original version, it was mentioned that both of Brock's parents abandoned him when he was little. 4KiDS evidently thought this was too sad, so the dub edited it to say that his father abandoned him and his mother died. Apparently no one at 4KiDS was counting on his mother making an appearance in a later episode...
The original version had a gag where everyone would call Kosaburō "Kosanji", which made him angry. The dub expanded this into a full-on running gag where characters would mangle Butch's name in various ways, including Biff, Bill, Buzz, Bob, etc.
The dub would occasionally have the wrong attack names used, such as Ash saying "Thunderbolt" instead of "Thunder Shock" or vice versa.
First, name changes:
Satoshi became Ash Ketchum.
Shigeru Orchid became Gary Oak.
Orchid-hakase (lit. Professor Orchid) became Professor Oak.
Kasumi became Misty (like in the games).
Takeshi became Brock (ditto).
Musashi and Kojirō became Jessie and James.
Nyarth became Meowth.
Rocket-dan (lit. the Rocket Gang) was renamed to Team Rocket.
Kosaburō and Yamato became Butch and Cassidy.
Sakaki became Giovanni (again, like in the games)
Most of the town names are just translations (i.e. Tokiwa City, literally "tree-coloured city", became Viridian City, viridian being a shade of green).
Nurse Joy's name was unchanged (though she was just called Joy or Joy-san in the original).
Junsar became Officer Jenny.
Hanako became Delia Ketchum.
The gym leaders had their names changed to match the translation of the games.
Matis became Lt. Surge.
Erika's name was unchanged.
Kyō and Anzu became Koga and Janine.
Natsume became Sabrina.
Katsura became Blaine.
The Pokémon Zukan (lit. Pokémon Encyclopaedia) became the Pokédex.
Monster Ball became Poké Ball.
Super Ball became Great Ball.
Hyper Ball became Ultra Ball.
Safari Ball and Master Ball kept their original names.
Interestingly enough, the dub of the anime refers to the ship as the St. Anne, which is its Japanese name, rather than the S.S. Anne as it was called in the English translation of the games.
A lot of Pokémon names were changed too, as in the games, but I'm not going to list every single one of them here. Some noteworthy ones:
Hitokage became Charmander.
Zenigame became Squirtle.
Fushigidane became Bulbasaur.
Arbo became Ekans.
Arbok kept its original name.
Dogas became Koffing.
Matadogas became Weezing.
Hitodeman became Staryu.
Starmie kept its original name.
Isitsubute became Geodude.
Iwark became Onix.
Koduck became Psyduck.
Utsubot became Victreebel.
Barrierd became Mr. Mime.
Most of the Gym badges were renamed as well:
Grey Badge became Boulder Badge.
Blue Badge became Cascade Badge.
Orange Badge became Thunder Badge.
Rainbow Badge kept its original name.
Pink Badge became Soul Badge.
Gold Badge became Marsh Badge.
Crimson Badge became Volcano Badge.
Green Badge became Earth Badge.
Team Rocket's motto is slightly different. In the original version, their lines are:
Nanda kanda to kikaretara... (If you ask us this or that...)
Kotaete ageru no ga yo no nasake! (The pity of the world is what responds!)
Sekai no hakai wo fusegu tame! (To prevent the destruction of the world!)
Sekai no heiwa wo mamoru tame! (To protect the peace of the world!)
Ai to shinjitsu no aku wo tsuranuku! (To stand by the evils of love and truth!)
Lovely, charmy na katakiyaku! (The lovely, charmy villains!)
Musashi!
Kojirō!
Ginga wo kakeru Rocket-dan no futari ni wa! (The pair from Team Rocket soars through the galaxy!)
White hole, shiroi ashita ga matteru ze! (A white hole, a white tomorrow awaits us!)
Followed by Nyarth saying "Nyante nya!", which roughly translates as "What they said!" or "Something like that!"
In the dub, these lines were changed to:
Prepare for trouble!
And make it double!
To protect the world from devastation!
To unite all peoples within our nation!
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
To extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie!
James!
Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
Surrender now or prepare to fight!
Followed by Meowth saying "Meowth! That's right!"
When the protagonists mimic the motto in episode 37, in the original version, Satoshi says "Ai to shinjitsu no seigi wo tsuranuku!" (To stand by the justice of truth and love!), prompting Kojirō to angrily correct him that it's "Ai to shinjitsu no aku wo tsuranuku". In the dub version, Duplica (named Imite, from "imitate", in the original) says "To ignite all peoples within our nation" instead of "unite", again prompting James to angrily correct her. Also, in the original version, Kasumi says "Lovely, charmy na shujinko!" (The lovely, charmy protagonists!) and Takeshi refers to them as "Pocket-dan" (Team Pocket, as in Pocket Monsters). In the dub, they simply say the Team Rocket motto verbatim, not counting Duplica's slip-up.
In the original version, whenever Team Rocket were sent flying, they would simply shout "Yana kanji!" (What a bad feeling!), which was changed into the more memorable "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!" in the dub.
Kosaburō and Yamato's motto was also slightly different in the original compared to the dub, though still had the theme of being the "correct" version of the one that Musashi and Kojirō used. Their original motto went as follows:
Yamato: Nanda kanda to kikaretara... (If you ask us this or that...)
Kosaburō: ...kotaenai no ga futsuu da ga. (...we usually don't answer.)
Both: Maa toku betsuni kotaete yarou! (But we'll make an exception this time and answer!)
Yamato: Chikyuu no hakai o fusegu tame! (To prevent the destruction of the Earth!)
Kosaburō: Chikyuu no heiwa o mamoru tame! (To protect the peace of the Earth!)
Yamato: Ai to seijitsuna aku o tsuranuku! (To stand by evil with love and sincerity!)
Kosaburō: Cute de ochamena katakiyaku! (The cute, mischievous villains!)
Yamato: Yamato!
Kosaburō: Kosaburō!
Yamato: Uchuu o kakeru Rocket-dan no futari niwa! (The pair from Team Rocket soars through the universe!)
Kosaburō: Shocking pink, momoiro no ashita ga matteru ze! (Shocking pink, a pink tomorrow awaits us!)
In the dub, these lines became:
Cassidy: Prepare for trouble!
Butch: And make it double!
Both: Here's our mission, so you better listen!
Cassidy: To infect the world with devastation!
Butch: To blight all people in every nation!
Cassidy: To denounce the goodness of truth and love!
Butch: To extend our wrath to the stars above!
Cassidy: Cassidy!
Butch: And Butch, of course!
Cassidy: We're Team Rocket, circling Earth all day and night!
Butch: Surrender to us now, or you will surely lose the fight!
The dub often replaced typical Japanese food like rice crackers and rice balls with more American food like sandwiches and donuts, or occasionally just had the characters refer to them as those things, leading to one particularly memetic scene where Brock is clearly holding a rice ball, yet repeatedly refers to it as a "jelly-filled donut".
Some of the dialogue is changed too. I don't have the patience to go through every episode and analyse each line, though there are a few examples.
For one, in the first episode, originally Ash asks his newly-acquired Pikachu "Do you hate me?", to which Pikachu nods. In the dub, Ash instead asks "Is your name all you can say?"
The Pokédex became a lot more snarky and jerk-ish in its attitude towards Ash in the dub compared to the original, especially in the first episode when it says that Rattata often steal food from "stupid" travellers, prompting Ash to get angry at it. In the original, it just reads the standard Pokédex entry on Rattata (Koratta in the original), and Satoshi yells at the Rattata trying to steal from his bag rather than at the Pokédex. In fact, in the original it didn't have much of a personality at all and was a lot more like just an encyclopaedia with a voice. Its attitude was quickly toned down in the dub as well, though.
Ash and Gary's relationship was also made a lot more antagonistic in the dub, with the two being presented as more or less enemies and Gary often mocking Ash or picking on him. In the original, they were actually close friends as well as rivals, and Shigeru had a more sympathetic attitude (though still quite cocky).
In the original, Nyarth speaks more like a cat, turning any "na" sound into "nya" (the Japanese word for a cat's meow) and also ending his sentences with "nya" a lot. In the early episodes of the dub, they tried to bring this over by having him end his sentences with "meow", but quickly dropped it, so in the dub he talks mostly normally.
A number of episodes were cut out of the dub. The most infamous one was episode 38, "Den'no Senshi Porygon" (Computer Warrior Porygon, commonly known as Electric Soldier Porygon), which was banned from being aired on TV after numerous reports of Japanese children suffering adverse effects, such as epileptic seizures, vomiting, irritated eyes and other related symptoms while watching it, due to a strobe effect used in the episode. By the way, if you've ever watched anime and seen that warning at the beginning:
"Televi anime o miru toki ni wa, heya o akaruku shite chikazuki suginai yō ni shite mite kudasai ne."
"When watching anime, always do so in a brightly-lit room and do not sit too close to the television screen."
This banned episode is the entire reason that warning exists. Strobe effects were removed from all following episodes in the Pokémon anime, and the series went on a four-month hiatus following the ban of this episode. Though a dub of it was never officially released, Maddie Blaustein and Eric Stuart (dub voice of Meowth and James respectively - Eric Stuart was also the voice director at the time) said that an English dub of the episode was recorded. Contrary to rumour, 4KiDS did not reduce the speed and intensity of the flashing explosion to make it safer to watch.
Another cut episode was episode 35 of the original series, "Miniryu no Densetsu" (The Legend of Dratini). This episode involves Satoshi and his companions going through the Safari Zone, and Satoshi ending up (accidentally) catching 30 Tauros that all get sent to Professor Orchid's lab. The episode was most likely cut due to multiple scenes of characters wielding and using firearms, though strangely the Tauros from this episode appear in a later dubbed episode, meaning that for dub viewers they seem to come completely out of nowhere.
While the eyecatch is the same in both versions (having a silhouette of a Pokémon and then revealing it after the commercial break), the original version does not have the Pokémon's cry played after it's revealed. The original version has a chorus of what sounds like children saying "Dare ga?" (lit. "Who is it?"), while the dub has the voices of the main characters saying "Who's that Pokémon?"
The dub had almost every Pokémon's cry incorporate their name in some form or another, whereas in the original this happened far less often, with many Pokémon making more animal-like noises such as chirps, growls, roars, chatters, etc.
Interestingly enough, while Pikachu's Japanese dialogue was used for the English version, his lines were occasionally rearranged in the dub. A few other Pokémon, such as Caterpie and Arbok, also retained their Japanese voices in the dub.
In the original version, it was mentioned that both of Brock's parents abandoned him when he was little. 4KiDS evidently thought this was too sad, so the dub edited it to say that his father abandoned him and his mother died. Apparently no one at 4KiDS was counting on his mother making an appearance in a later episode...
The original version had a gag where everyone would call Kosaburō "Kosanji", which made him angry. The dub expanded this into a full-on running gag where characters would mangle Butch's name in various ways, including Biff, Bill, Buzz, Bob, etc.
The dub would occasionally have the wrong attack names used, such as Ash saying "Thunderbolt" instead of "Thunder Shock" or vice versa.
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