Talk:Pokémon in South Korea

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Korean TCG

So, the TCG in Korean has been printed all the way to EX: Power Keepers? Didn't know that! Where can I find more information about older TCG sets in Korea (I'm mostly concerned on Hoenn era, as I want to know the names of characters used on cards, whether or not they're the same as those used in anime/manga)? I am NOT asking about DP era, I know the official website. I'm asking ONLY about pre-DP era cards in Korean! --Maxim 20:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

North/South

Since this article focuses on South Korea and has no mention of North Korea, the article should be renamed "Pokemon in South Korea" to avoid political bias. XVuvuzela2010X 18:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a fine idea to me. *Imagines Kim Jong-il playing Pokémon...* Hehehe... Jo the Marten ಠ_ಠ 18:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Do we... have any information regarding Pokémon in North Korea? If not, it would be an interesting research project for somebody... --P o L i 19:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I do. Pokemon doesn't exist there. --Maxim 19:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Censorship section

It seem that everywhere I look, there is usualy something saying "banned in South Korea", yet there is no mention of any censorship in this article. XVuvuzela2010X 14:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a small note about the banning of anime episodes, but it doesnt elaborate as to why they are banned. XVuvuzela2010X 14:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't find a source finding it, but it is because they have Japanese culture references. I believe. --CoolPikachu! 21:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

A Note For Future Addition

I added the History section, which gives context to why it wasn't until relatively recently when Pokémon in South Korea reached parity with Japan and North America. Y'all are welcome to clean up the text and/or add other facts about it that I missed... but it should remain being about the ban on Japanese cultural imports which prevented Pokémon from gaining an official foothold in South Korea until relatively recently.

The next thing I want to do is possibly replace the "International Pokémon" logo with a "Pocket Monsters" logo used in South Korea. But I gotta upload a good one first... and then I gotta FIND one too. -- Nick15 21:17, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Another note to self: add info about the "Pokemon Story" stores found in Korea. There's one in Seoul and there was one in Busan, but the Busan store just closed. -- Nick15 (talk) 23:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, looks like BOTH closed. :( -- Nick15 (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. I would love to see a Pokémon logo in Korean, rather than the standard one, if we can get a high quality image. Same thing with Greater China although that's harder since there are multiple official names for Pokémon in different dialects. --ZestyCactus 01:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking that we should use the most recent game's logo, and just rotate them out every time a new game is released. That is to say, there doesn't seem to be a single "overall" logo for Korea, apart from "International Pokemon". To which, the Korean logos for X&Y can be found here. -- Nick15 (talk) 03:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I found a PERFECT generic Korean Pokemon logo, and I made the necessary changes. -- Nick15 (talk) 07:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Banned Episodes

Does anyone know the specific episodes that are banned in South Korea?Micamike45 (talk) 00:50, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Most of them are due to cultural sensitivity. --Abcboy (talk) 00:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

EP035

Hey, does anyone know if EP035 ever aired in South Korea? Since their dub is not based on the 4Kids version it seems possible. --ZestyCactus 01:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep; you can actually watch the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss5zLKlt_ro -- Nick15 (talk) 05:07, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

"History" and "Similarities with Foreign Versions" sections

I decided to move the last paragraph from the "History" section into its own section, to discuss the way the Pokémon franchise is similar or not relative to Japan and North America's iteration of it. I felt this is something worth sharing, albeit briefly. If anyone has any additions or changes, etc, or if it should be removed, let's discuss it here.

Speaking of the "History" section, I want it to adhere to a specific narrative. Right now there are four paragraphs, which specifically discuss:

  • That Japanese stuff was banned in Korea once upon a time
  • That this ban was lifted slightly in 1998 and some stuff started to trickle in
  • This ban was completely lifted in 2004, and thus official stuff was officially released
  • Now Pokémon is large and popular in Korea, it is treated as an equal by Nintendo and Game Freak (as opposed to an afterthought), and here is the proof

I think the History section should keep this narrative, and any additions to it should be about those four things. However, if someone has a suggestion for a fifth section, or a new way to write this narrative, I'm open to it. In any case, this was the reason why I decided to move the "Similarities" paragraph to its own section; it wasn't about its "History" and it just didn't fit with the narrative layout. --- Nick15 (talk) 04:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

IMDb disagrees

We know that Japanese media was banned in South Korea until at least 1998-2004, but apparently, the Internet Movie Database doesn't agree with that. As you can see, there are only 36 titles currently listed there, comprising of 25 motion pictures either rated R or NC-17 (of them, only a few still remain banned), 2 unrated adult-only foreign films, 3 South Korean adult-only films, 2 adult animated series, and 4 video games (2 rated M for Mature, and 2 containing depictions of war in North Korea). None of them -- not one single title -- are Japanese media of any kind whatsoever!

If you don't believe me, here's the link to the complete list of (once) banned titles in South Korea:

http://www.imdb.com/search/title?certificates=kr:(banned)

FirePuppy (talk) 10:52, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

  • It was a blanket ban, as opposed to an individual one-by-one ban. Afterall, it's pretty easy to tell whether a movie was illegal in Korea at the time: did it come from Japan? Then it's not legal to be imported/sold. If a specific ban had to be made against a movie, it's likely because it wasn't as easy to determine its status and therefore had to be deliberately banned by the Gov't. ... If this wasn't clear in the article, then I can make it clearer. — Nick15 (talk) 03:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


Inconsistency with Korean Gold/Silver info

According to this page, the lack of an official Korean release of Crystal and the Generation III games is partly attributed to how there was no official Korean version of the Game Boy Color or Advance to play them on (with translation difficulties being the other one), even though the Korean version of Gold and Silver is clearly packaged as a Game Boy Color title. Am I missing something? TheFatPanda (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Since the Game Boy Color was not region locked, the Korean producers of Gold/Silver—Daewon IC—likely expected their audience would simply play their games on an imported console. Consider that Daewon IC imported a lot of Japanese games into South Korea in general, including the Japanese versions of Gen 3 games, so the fact that people were buying those import games clearly meant that they also had the means to play them. I can't remember seeing it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Daewon IC also imported the Japanese GBC/GBA units to play their import games as well. In any case, it's likely that Daewon IC saw how much time and energy it took to produce the Korean versions of G/S and compared it to how much money they got from it, and ultimately concluded that it wasn't worth their time to do it again.
But basically, just because there was no official Korean Game Boy Color units, it doesn't mean there weren't Game Boy Color units floating around in Korea at the time. Think of it like how just because a Japanese dev only releases their game in Japan, it doesn't mean there aren't any Western players of their Japan-only game. — Nick15 (talk) 03:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Transfering Pokémon

With the wonky history of Pokémon in South Korea, is it still possible to bring Pokémon from Daewon C.I.'s imported Japanese language Gen III and IV games to newer generations like in Japan and the West or are the Korean versions only backwards compatible to Gen IV? --EbrithilBowser (talk) 14:48, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Return to "Pokémon in South Korea" page.