User:Yen01/Pokémon in Vietnam

Below is the "raw" information and my thoughts about Pokémon in Vietnam. I will put the sources and the voice actors of the anime here tomorrow.

History of Pokémon and Pokémon merchandise in Vietnam

I don't know when was the first time Pokémon went in Vietnam, but maybe from late (or very-late) 1990s/early 2000s, Pokémon was somewhat so popular and widely influenced here, (though mostly products not copyrighted or fake or low-quality or smuggled or counterfeited,... (I used Google Translate for the last 2 words), I think). Especially when the anime and manga were introduced. The company that hold the copyright of Pokémon franchise then is unknown (I haven't found it yet), because of it, the manga Pokémon Đặc Biệt was cancelled. In 2002-2003, I could see Pokémon at many things: Children played with stickers or cards printed Pokémon images, or talked about Pokémon. Pokémon or Pokéball toys and figures; Pokémon on school bags, on notebooks or on pencil cases,... I remember there were "Pokémon surprise" (not their actual name) packs sold near my house, which you would never know what were inside: maybe stickers, short comic, cards,... or anything else that relate to Pokémon. Or all of them at once. I'd say, it was the "golden age" of Pokémon franchise in Vietnam. But such a shame, at that time internet in Vietnam is still uncommon, so no or very little information about Pokémon then was posted to the internet, and those "very little" has either been lost or impossible to find now. Old books and other merchandise are very rare/expensive now and can only be seen in big city like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City; living in Pleiku like me doesn't help. Only 2-3 years after (2005-2006) that internet became more and more popular, while the Pokémon phenomenon was starting to fade, especially after the anime and manga discontinued.

After that, Pokémon became less and less popular in Vietnam. The "unknown company" didn't do anything to stop that (or I think so), as if it had never existed. Time flew, and Pokéfans in Vietnam who still be a fan often go to the internet to find news. Poke-mega.org is to be the first Pokémon (and Megaman) fan site in Vietnam (though now it isn't as active as it was), but I don't know exactly the time it was opened. Fans often watch anime subbed by Vnsharing.net subteam or dubbed and subbed by Yumei-Anime group, for free, or read Pokémon Special manga translated by YJVN Group for free. Later on, In early 2015, YJVN Group was accepted by Kim Đồng Publisher to become an unoffical advise team for the "Pokémon Đặc Biệt" manga. The Pocket Monsters manga was also translated by an unknown team and posted to free-web, but it was dropped shortly after. And many other Vietnamese Pokémon fanpages were opened on Facebook.

Like what SnorlaxMonster said, in December 2007, GoGo Entertainment Co., Ltd. was found, and in 2013, this company have gained the rights to own the Pokémon franchise (a source said it do this by buying from the old "unknown company"). This led to the opening of a Pokémon Shop in the "Kid Republic" area on the second floor (the highest floor, distinct from 2 others are the Ground floor and the first floor) of the AEON MALL Tân Phú Celadon on 30 Bờ Bao Tân Thắng, phường Sơn Kỳ, quận Tân Phú, TP. Hồ Chí Minh (I don't understand: the AEON MALL was opened on January 11th, 2014, while it said the Pokémon Shop was opened on January 1st, 2014 on their official website?!). The company also cooperate with HTV3 to air the Pokémon anime on January 25, 2014, and with Kim Đồng Publisher to re-publish the Pokémon Đặc Biệt manga on April 6th, 2015. They also opened an official "Pokémon Việt Nam" page on Facebook on April 2nd, 2015: : https://www.facebook.com/PokemonVietnamJapan

After the return of anime and manga, Pokémon has started to bacome more popular, but I feel like it hasn't been as popular as it was yet.

Anime

- In the past, the anime was aired on VTV3, an official national free-to-watch TV channel of Vietnam, with the name "Pokémon". But information on this is very rare and I don't know if they're reliable. I just rememer that when I 5 - 6 years old (about in 2002 - 2003 or so), I watched it everyday at 5 p.m and then re-watched the same episode at 11 a.m on the following day, And some episodes I remember were in the Original series. And then. It was dropped. At what episode? I have know idea, but I know it was before the Advanced Generation. When? I don't know, either (but I guess in 2002-2003). And it was voice-over translation (all the foreign language TV programs in Vietnam were treated this way at the time). And... I remember nothing else. Some people said that the proper names translation was strange: sometimes it used the Japanese ones, sometimes the English ones, and sometimes it was translated into Vietnamese, based on the species (or maybe from Chinese names); but most are from English, including characters' names, though they're sometimes pronounced wrong. I remember someone said it also had subtitles, but I believe I remember it wrong The moves were translated into Vietnamese, but I don't know from which language. The copyright status at the time is unknown (or at least I can't find). I will update this as soon as I find out more.

- Besides the TV edition, there were a VCD series called "Bửu Bối Thần Kỳ" made by Phương Nam Film, a studio. It's longer, from the first episode to the Advanced Generation series, but I don't know if it's any longer or what the last episode was before they stopped producing the VCDs (some said it's AG087). In this edition, it also used voice-over translation. The audio is Japanese and the translation was from Japanese (or Chinese, which is also translated from Japanese I guess). The proper names (except for Pokémon names) were pronounced the same as Japanese, while Pokémon names were based on the species or the Chinese names (the word Pokémon itself was translated into "Bửu Bối Thần Kỳ", directly from Chinese). I don't know about copyright status of this, neither the produce time (I assume early 2000s to 2005-2006). But some TV channels have aired some of Phương Nam Film-version episodes (like VTC11 aired 11 episodes in Johto part 4-5 years ago).

- in winter 2013, HTV3, a cable (now also have digital) channel for young and family, which is famous for dubbing all of the programs they translated, create a poll on their website for everyone to vote for some programs to be aired on HTV3. The Pokémon anime is one of the given choices, along with Naruto, and if I remember correctly, the Harry Potter movie. And in December 2013 or January 2014, they finally announced that the first air date of the Pokémon anime is to be January 25th, 2014, along with a trailer (Harry Potter got air, too, while Naruto did months later). It's the result of the cooperation of GoGo Entertainment Co., Ltd. and HTV3 (TVM Corp). In some advertisements near the air time, the milk Love'in Farm Kun is also said to companion with the series while showing an image of a Miltank. The anime started from the Best Wishes series, and is dubbed from Japanese (the songs aren't dubbed by Vienamese lyric, unlike other show). The names are the Japanese ones, while the moves are translated directly from Japanese into Vietnamese (not through Chinese, which is likely what Phương Nam Film do, I guess). In the anime, especially in the credit, the character's names was written as the hepburn romaji (such as Satoshi, Dento, Airisu,...) and on rare occasions, the trademarked ones (Satoshi, Dent, Iris,...), while the Pokémon's names was seems to be the trademarked ones (I'm not sure, but I will check this later). But due to some errors, the names was written as the English ones on the site several times. Some were fixed to be the hepburn romaji ones shortly after the series first aired, and some are still not. Some still occured even after that a few months, and hasn't been fixed. I will see if abilities are the case. The anime is called "Pokémon" on the site (I will watch some videos uploaded by fans in the next few days when I'm free to see what the title is in the anime) and aired each Saturday and Sunday at 9:30 a.m and re-air at 17:30 on the same day. The cries of some of the team's Pokémon (except (Satoshi's Pikachu) is dubbed by HTV3, which was criticized by audience/fans, because while the dubbed cries are like the Japanese ones (e.g. (Airisu's Kibago said "Ki-Kibago", not "Ax-Axew"), they were dubbed badly. In a reply on March 14, 2014, they said they would consider some fans' suggestions like "Pokémon anime should be subbed and not dubbed when re-air at 17:30, leaving the Japanese audio only (which is like Detective Conan on HTV3)" and "If the Pokémon's cries are just like the Japanese ones, why'd they be dubbed? - let us hear the Japanese ones!". But I don't know if they had changed now, but I will check soon. For some reasons, the show temporarily didn't continue to air new episodes after the 52th Episode - BW052 (on July 20th, I guess) and replaced by Doraemon. Instead, it re-aired from BW001 from August 7th, on Monday through Thursday each week at 19:00 (the site had mistakenly said 18:00) and re-aired again at 08:30 a.m the following day. After airing the 52 episodes again on November 5th, it returned to the original schedule and continued to air new episodes. By now (April 6th), 96 episodes have aired. The two banned episodes seem to have been skipped, while I haven't known the order of BW037 yet. The series has changed name into "Pokémon phần 2" (means Pokémon season 2) after a number of episodes had aired (I don't know exactly how many because the official Page of "Pokémon phần 2" has occurred a display error (last week it was still normal) but I think it's either 84, like Japan, or 52, when it temporarily discontinued).

Note

- Vietnamese language has a word system called "Hán-Việt", a transliteration based on either Chinese language or "Hán Nôm" - an old type of Vietnamese language that isn't used anymore. This transliteration provides writing the pronunciation of a Chinese word in Vietnamese and treats it like a normal Vietnamese word with the same meaning. Some of Chinese words has become regular Vietnamese words this way. (See more here The translation of the moves in old Pokémon anime and manga was likely to use these "Hán-Việt" words to be more formal and sound better, while some new translation in the HTV3 Pokémon anime and the second edition Pokémon Đặc Biệt manga are more likely to use "pure Vietnamese" words. And in China, the foreign language proper names are often transliterated into Chinese letters, and (in turn) Vietnamese often use "Hán-Việt" way to transliterated those transliterated words into Vietnamese (see more here, which is likely to be the case (I think so) of some of Pokémon names in the Phương Nam Film anime version (some other translated Pokémon names may be based on the species, or transliterated directly from their Chinese names).

- I was into Pokémon right from the first time I saw the anime on VTV3 when I was 5. Some years ago, my family used to pay to watch cable TV channels, including HTV3, but my parents stopped doing that before 2014 because they said my younger sister was too lazy, and she had been only watching cartoons all day (If only she wasn't lazy like that! But trust me, that didn't work: my sister is still lazy, even for now). And when I knew the anime would air on HTV3, I didn't care or save the information, because of you-know-why, and online TV was too lag, plus I had neither been a member of Bulbapedia yet nor thinking about reporting it to any website. And now I'm regretting: finding the information is relatively hard and time-consuming and incompletely now. Very sorry!

Game and TCG

- Like what I said in the first part, Pokémon was somewhat popular in the past in Vietnam. But at the time, Vietnamese people was poor, so very little people could afford to buy any console/handheld (plus games). Even now, when the life-quality of Vietnamese people has increase, not much people own those. Mostly everyone likes playing online games on the PC they already have (e.g. League of Legend,...) rather than "waste money" on purchasing for a handheld to play. Pokémon fans mostly play Pokémon games on Emulator, and those have saved enough money to buy a game system mosly choose to use a Flashcart to play games instead of buying a real game cartridge.

- There are no branch of Nintendo or other companies that are authorized to officially sell or distribute Nintendo products and/or Pokémon games in Vietnam (Go. However, there are some shops (most are in big city like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city) that import those into Vietnam to sell (most systems and games sold this way are US region). As a typical example, nShop | Thế Giới Trò Chơi (Nintendo Vietnam shop | World of Games) is a shop at 66 Thành Thái, phường 12, quận 10, TP. Hồ Chí Minh, opened in April, 2011 that mainly focus on selling US region Nintendo products and games (they also sell flashcarts and some of Sony/XBOX products, too), including Pokémon games. They provide repair (and other) services, too.

- In that "golden age", many children played Pokémon cards. But like other toys and products, most of them are not the real TCG cards, they were just fake or other type of cards that had Pokémon images printed on them (I remember having some circle-shape cards). Most of the cards were printed with Chinese words/letters, implied that they were produced (and maybe counterfeited) from China (believe me, at that time, and even now, Vietnam has always been the target market of China; China participates in producing all kinds of merchandise , including those of Pokémon, and they are sold everywhere in Vietnam with huge number, many of which are fake, low-quality, smuggled or counterfeited, and sold with very low prices. And games, too: don't forget that infamous Vietnamese Crystal hacked game cartridges, which I will very highly doubt if you say it was not imported illegally from China). Starting from some years ago, some shops has begun to import and sell high-quality Pokémon merchandise like toys or figures or real-TCG. In early 2015, under a category/service call "Pokémon Center" (not the real Pokémon Center like in Japan), nShop started to import and sell Pokémon toys, figures and especially TCG, regularly.

Manga and book

- The manga "Pokémon Đặc Biệt" (translated by Ngọc Diệp) has returned to Vietnam, and received some criticized from audience. The partner (Shogakukan, I guess) sent a list of proper names and translated moves and type to Kim Đồng before, and won't let Kim Đồng alter them. The many delayed was due to the many tests of the partner to check if Kim Đồng has followed the list. This was led to some complaints about not familiar with Japanese name, and the translation of move and type names (which is likely to use "pure Vietnamese" words rather than better-sound "Hán-Việt" words) made a lot of complaints when sometimes the translated ones sound very silly. The translation that caused the most anger is of the Fighting-type, which is translated as "hệ Cuộc chiến", (means "the battle"-type, with battle being a noun). Many fans said the partner may have used Google Translate for those translations, while Kim Đồng said they has suggested changing it many times before, but the partner won't listen. A suggestion page was opened on April 7th to collect audience's suggestion for the manga. Due to the criticizes, volume 2 was said to be delayed to fix that issue (the partner will consider this).

- In that "golden age", the manga Pokémon Pocket Monsters used to be translated and published illegally by Kim Đồng, and dropped after Volume 13. Also, the Pokémon anime novelization series was translated in Vietnam. Nothing else is known about these, but I will update as soon as possible.

- Also in that "golden age", other books related to Pokémon were sold, too, including books that let children color many pictures of Pokémon on them (now still available), quiz books, sticker books, and many more. I remember having a series of book that has many activity for children like drawing Pokémon, learning about Evolution, guessing Pokémon based on their silhouettes, deciphering Team Rocket's message, playing Pokémon crosswords... On each volume, there were a lot of Pokémon stickers on the first and last pages that I could use to stick on the respective silhouettes on the pair of center pages, and those pages were removable to make a collection with those of other volumes. And Pokémon had their English names. Ah, memory! They were my favorite books, but they were lost. Do you know what those books are? Or they're just Vienam-exclusives?