Did Pokemon Really Censor Its History of Interspecies Marriages?

Pokemon has been hit with its fair share of memorable censorship. From the anime to the video [...]

Pokemon

has been hit with its fair share of memorable censorship. From the anime to the video games, the issue has plagued the fandom for years. A slew of facts have come from fans who've translated Japanese Pokemon games without any intense localization, but some of these facts have been lost to lore. That is why one fan decided it was time to revisit a truly surprising fact about Pokemon and human romances.

And yes, you did read that right. Pokemon addressed a topic the fandom only made theories about for years. In the Japanese versions of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, fans could learn about this phenomenon if they did a bit of digging.

When players went to the Canalave Library, they would read Sinnoh Folk Story 3. The English translation of the story simply said Pokemon once were very close to humans and even ate at the same table. This is a very tame translation to what the Japanese text translated to more literally.

Pokemon Mistake Card
(Photo: OLM Inc)

"There once were Pokemon that married people," the text reads. "There once were people who married Pokemon. This was a normal thing because long ago people and Pokemon were the same."

Obviously, the English translation did quite a bit of work to take out the mention of Pokemon marrying humaans. This bit of censorship is curious, and fans are still unsure to this day why it was needed. The Pokemon Company may have chosen to alter the translation to prevent any backlash about beastiality.

Others wonder if the use of marriage in the Japanese texts refers to the country's own ancient marriage practice of Muko-iri. The system was very common during aristocracy and involved the groom being adopted into his wive's family and offer labor to them in exchange for being brought in. This would only happen after the groom's family passed away or had a child with his wife. This 'work contract' could represent the work that Pokemon do for humans after being brought into a family. But given Muko-iri's isolated use, translators decided against explaining the practice and localized this folk tale differently in English.

HT - Legends of Localization0comments