YMMV / The Legend of Dratini

• Misblamed:
  • A lot of people think 4Kids banned this episode from airing themselves because it was difficult for them to edit the episode with all the imagery of guns, and they get a lot of flak from the plot holes that banning the episode has created. But in actuality, while 4Kids did receive the episode from Japan, they weren't the ones who banned the episode. When they presented the episode to Broadcast Standards and Practices for review, instead of getting back paragraphs of notes on what has to be edited to air the episode on TV like they usually do when dubbing anime, the feedback 4Kids got instead was a prohibition from airing the episode, resulting in them pulling the episode from the series' lineup, airing a different episode in its place, and the episode was never dubbed or edited as a result.
  • In addition to the above point, a lot of people were also confused as to why 4Kids couldn't edit out the gun scenes like they did with Yu-Gi-Oh and the infamous "invisible guns". However, as Dogasu's Backpack pointed out, editing this episode would have been very difficult and expensive to do, even if Broadcast Standards and Practices allowed 4Kids to edit the episode. First, unlike the other episodes with guns, this episode had guns pointed at people's heads at point blank range, were onscreen longer than the others combined (even the guns in Yu-Gi-Oh weren't onscreen for as long as in this episode), no other adult was there to stop Kaiser from shooting Ash and co ^note in other instances, Jenny was there to stop the shooter and one even had herself refrain from firing, whereas the episode where Ash's friends were shot was only in Ash's imagination, and the guns used in this episode are ones a child in the United States can find in their dad's sock drawer. Second, the guns were onscreen for nearly a minute and a half (1:25 to be exact), which was longer than any of the previous instances of guns combined. Networks are strict with a show's length and an episode with this much missing may be too short to air.^note Indeed, when Pokémon was in syndication for its first season, the episodes had a strict 23-minute runtime, where every second 4Kids removed meant another second they had to stitch back in. Third, the guns are props that move about in character's hands, and editing moving props are more difficult than editing out text from a static background. The edits that would have taken place would also have included redrawing the character's arms or rearranging and cutting scenes. It also doesn't help that because the episode was cel animated, the digital paint would horribly clash with the animation. And finally, dubbing an episode can be expensive, and 4Kids back in 1998 was new to dubbing at the time. While in 2001 onwards 4Kids may have the budget to erase guns from people's hands or redesign the gun to look less realistic, in 1998 they may not have that kind of money for what was required to pull the edits off while maintaining the integrity of the episode. It was also worth noting that 4Kids delayed an episode, Princess vs. Princess, because of how much digital paint was required to remove the Japanese text ^note According to Dogasu's Backpack, 34 digital paint edits took place that episode, the highest out of every other episode.
• Values Dissonance: "The Legend of Dratini" was banned from airing outside of Japan for this reason. In countries like Japan, use of realistic firearms as comedy wouldn't be taken so hard on TV. In countries like the United States however, imagery of realistic guns being fired and pointed at people, including children, would be taken as offensive since gun violence is a very controversial subject among American audiences, so much that even just POINTING a gun at people is considered attempted murder. So while Kaiser pointing his gun at Ash and co. would seem Played for Laughs to a Japanese audience, to an American audience, he would be seen as a psychopath who should be in prison for pointing a gun at children.

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