Brutella

Brutella (Japanese: オババ Obaba) is a recurring character in the Pokémon anime.

Brutella rebuilding her restaurant

Brutella's first appearance was in Beauty and the Beach. In the episode, she tried to sabotage Moe's restaurant with the help of Team Rocket. She also had Team Rocket attack a beauty contest with their Gyarados submarine. Ash managed to save the day with his Pidgeotto and Charmander. In the process, her restaurant, Brutella's Shop (Japanese: オババの店 Obaba's Shop), ended up getting destroyed.

The second and last time Brutella appeared was on a cameo in Tentacool & Tentacruel. She was rebuilding her restaurant when her cousin, Nastina, fell on top of it and destroyed it once again. She was mentioned a few times in the Japanese version of the episode, but they were edited out during localization because of the events that led to the ban of Beauty and the Beach's. It should be noted that Brutella's English name comes from the Italian word brutta, which means "ugly".

While her Japanese name, オババ, is her actual given name in the original Japanese episode, the characters do not use it in this context; instead they refer to Brutella by using the name as a play on the term 鬼ばば hag, a somewhat rude term to refer to an old woman. This is also the case for Nastina, who shares the same Japanese name. This explains a running joke in the Japanese version as Nastina is often mistaken for Brutella in Tentacool & Tentacruel; however, this was edited out of the dubbed version, as the episode of Brutella's appearance was initially skipped over.

In the Japanese version of the series, Brutella would have a small speech quirk where she would add "baba" at the end of a sentence, like her cousin Nastina. This does not occur in the dub.

Voice actors

Language Voice actor Japanese 坂本千夏 Chika Sakamoto English Kayzie Rogers Norwegian Katrine Blomstrand Polish Renata Berger Spanish Latin America Rommy Mendoza Spain Begoña Hernando

Trivia

Brutella in Dare da?

• In the Japanese version of Beauty and the Beach, the Dare da? featured Brutella.
• Brutella is the only recurring human character in the anime to have made her Japanese and English debuts in different episodes, due to Beauty and the Beach initially being taken out of rotation in the US and only airing years later as a "lost episode".

This article is part of Project COD, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each one-time character of the Pokémon animated series.