×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
INTEREST: Rica Matsumoto Denies Reportedly Leaked Pokémon Document on End of Ash/Pikachu Era




Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
animaters



Joined: 21 Apr 2022
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 8:22 pm Reply with quote
that's just how show biz doublespeak is. the leak been confirmed as legit by credible sources
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
YackDe



Joined: 23 Apr 2024
Posts: 137
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 8:25 pm Reply with quote
Too few people have approached what was posted with skepticism. There was no link to the associated materials in Japanese, just plain text that anybody could have written. The mention of George Lucas seems specifically targeted at an English-speaking audience, and the random mention of Serena is way too inside baseball for the Anipoke fandom. And it was posted by someone notorious for just grabbing anything they can, including stuff people make to mess with them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
IceKirby



Joined: 15 Jan 2009
Posts: 126
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 9:33 pm Reply with quote
YackDe wrote:
There was no link to the associated materials in Japanese, just plain text that anybody could have written.


I really wanted to see that document in japanese, because from the english one I saw I can't tell if they meant "strained relations between the Matsumoto and Ootani" or "strained relations between the anime producers and the voice actress".
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
malvarez1



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 2055
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:11 pm Reply with quote
To be honest, that rumor never made sense. Would they really drop Ash the money-cow for that? I feel like you wouldn’t even need to bring Ikue in to record new sounds anymore.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 13353
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:11 pm Reply with quote
Well, it would be nice if the voices of one of the most iconic duos in anime got along well.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
James02



Joined: 10 Sep 2014
Posts: 214
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:46 pm Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:
Well, it would be nice if the voices of one of the most iconic duos in anime got along well.


And they do, they totally do.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2416
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:47 pm Reply with quote
animaters wrote:
that's just how show biz doublespeak is. the leak been confirmed as legit by credible sources


Even if the leaked discussion in question turns out to be real (keep in mind a lot of fake leaks keep getting mixed in with the real leaks), the document does not actually say Matsumoto-san and Ohtani-san were fighting with each other, nor that the anime would end because of any fighting.

I'm not really fond of the idea of sharing leaked text, especially if it does turn out to be fake, but for the sake of context seriously needed in this discussion, here is the quote at the core of the controversy:

Quote:
Miyahara-san: Ishihara has always pushed for new challenges. At one point, there was even a suggestion to keep Ash and Pikachu but change the voice actors. There were also internal discussions about parting ways with Rica Matsumoto and Ikue Ohtani due to strained relations.


People literally cannot read. I'm still waiting to find the original Japanese document to confirm any language quirks that might've been missed in the translation, but for now, this is all I have and it insinuates nothing like the rumors being spread.

This leak has been nothing but a headache of misinfo for a translator like me. People are taking machine translations at full face value, getting excited over minute details and words, and then getting angry when actual translators and Japanese speakers chime in to correct them and debunk their theories or headcannons. Y'all, this stuff isn't canon. It's neat, and I think it's fun to see the process of how lore and assets in a game are developed, but almost everything coming out was scrapped. Treat it as such.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
DolFun The Dolphin Vtuber



Joined: 16 Jun 2024
Posts: 31
Location: Phinland/Australia
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:59 pm Reply with quote
Not sure why the bothered ending Ash & Pikachu.
Main character of new show has a Pikachu & Charizard.
Same thing different day.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
YackDe



Joined: 23 Apr 2024
Posts: 137
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2024 11:15 pm Reply with quote
DolFun The Dolphin Vtuber wrote:
Not sure why the bothered ending Ash & Pikachu.
Main character of new show has a Pikachu & Charizard.
Same thing different day.


Friede is not the main character, he's a mentor figure who hadn't even been in the show for the last 22 episodes.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ryu Shoji



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 675
Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Oct 15, 2024 1:55 am Reply with quote
I think Juno016 raises a number of important points. I never interpreted the document as referring to strained relationships between Matsumoto and Otani (more, they had individual strained relations with the anime team. However, we haven’t seen the original Japanese for any of these leaked documents, so even if the original documents are legitimate, the accuracy of the translations could still be in doubt.

DolFun The Dolphin Vtuber wrote:
Not sure why the bothered ending Ash & Pikachu.
Main character of new show has a Pikachu & Charizard.
Same thing different day.

If we take the reported leaked document at face value, then there were a number of reasons. Chiefly, ratings of the show were declining, and there were concerns about where else was left to take Ash’s character arc. Pikachu and Charizard are franchise mascots in their own right, so it makes sense that they would continue to be prominent after Ash. Heck, Ash didn’t even have his Charizard for the majority of his time as the protagonist.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message MSN Messenger
FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 618
PostPosted: Tue Oct 15, 2024 10:21 am Reply with quote
Ryu Shoji wrote:
I think Juno016 raises a number of important points. I never interpreted the document as referring to strained relationships between Matsumoto and Otani (more, they had individual strained relations with the anime team. However, we haven’t seen the original Japanese for any of these leaked documents, so even if the original documents are legitimate, the accuracy of the translations could still be in doubt.



Yeah, wasn't the whole thing machine translated? Yeah, that's gonna demolish any kind of actual context (see: the Taroshima/Horii interview from a few weeks back).

I know the technology "is getting better", but in the here and now machine translation is nevertheless painfully unreliable, ESPECIALLY with regards to official info like this.

animaters wrote:
that's just how show biz doublespeak is. the leak been confirmed as legit by credible sources


There's a lot of wiggle room between "Satoshi Tajiri confirms 2600 employees got doxxed" and "document that implies beef between Pokémon VAs is authentic", especially in a repository of info that's already riddled with more than a few Fakemon designs being passed as "beta designs".
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
psh_fun



Joined: 22 Oct 2023
Posts: 88
PostPosted: Tue Oct 15, 2024 12:59 pm Reply with quote
FinalVentCard wrote:
Yeah, wasn't the whole thing machine translated? Yeah, that's gonna demolish any kind of actual context (see: the Taroshima/Horii interview from a few weeks back).


I'd say this is different because with the Horii interview the full original Japanese stream is easily available so there's no way to remove context in that regard. English translation quality wouldn't matter if we're referring to what the original reaction to it in the Japanese community for fluent Japanese speakers was. That was more of a case of Horii and Torishima said stuff they shouldn't have so higher ups got upset and they deleted the VOD, scrubbed the Japanese websites that transcribed and were covering the original Japanese interview before it took off in English, and are now pretending the interview never happened because they spoke too candidly and it resulted in bad PR. People have since re-uploaded the full 6 hour VOD so context is easy to find for that interview.

With this if the leaker is English then we can only rely on their machine translation and have no context for the original text. Although even if this information was true no one would ever admit to it due to how bad it looks from a PR standpoint so it's natural for the involved parties to deny it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 618
PostPosted: Tue Oct 15, 2024 11:47 pm Reply with quote
psh_fun wrote:
FinalVentCard wrote:
Yeah, wasn't the whole thing machine translated? Yeah, that's gonna demolish any kind of actual context (see: the Taroshima/Horii interview from a few weeks back).


That was more of a case of Horii and Torishima said stuff they shouldn't have so higher ups got upset and they deleted the VOD, scrubbed the Japanese websites that transcribed and were covering the original Japanese interview before it took off in English, and are now pretending the interview never happened because they spoke too candidly and it resulted in bad PR.


That isn't what happened, especially not when that interview was first spread among English-speaking circles. We will not argue this further in this thread.

Again, there's really no reason to be taking machine translations at face value. People really like claiming whatever is convenient to them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group