Pokémon in Hungary

Pokémon in Hungary
Flag of Hungary
Language	Hungarian
Continent	Europe
Original animated series airdates
EP001	June 10, 2000
AG001	2007
DP001	2009
BW001	Not Aired
XY001	Not Aired
SM001	Not Aired
JN001	July 1st, 2021
HZ001

The Pokémon franchise arrived in Hungary with the release of Pokémon - A népszerű TV-sorozat zenéje in late 1999. This was followed by the animated series with the airing of Téged választalak, Pikachu! on June 10, 2000.

Pokémon video games

Pokémon games are sold in Hungary in English. From the 1990s, Hungary was in the distribution network of the Austrian company Stadlbauer, until 2013. From 2014, products are sold by ConQuest Entertainment.^[1]

Pokémon animation

The first three seasons were first broadcast on RTL Club from June 10, 2000 to early 2004, with episodes airing every Saturday and Sunday. The titles for episodes of those seasons were localized with the intros. After S03, for unknown reasons, they stopped localizing the episode titles, as well as dubbing the Intros until Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl.

During 2001, a controversy similar to those made in the Arab world and Turkey around the same time, made by ORTT, stated that Pokémon brainwashed children and that it had a negative impact on them and their brain development. This controversy eventually caused the show to be shut down. The show had initially continued to air the show because RTL Club believed, at the time, that dropping it would have caused them to lose up to about 50 million Euros in revenue as well a majority of their audience, which were mostly of ages 4-17.^[2]

Beginning in early 2004, a new animated series-specific channel known as A+ began to re-air S01 in its starting lineup. Instead of re-airing S02 and S03, S04 aired from around early to mid-2005 until mid-2006, when the company was sold and changed its name to Animax. Animax aired S05 and S06 through mid-2007 and mid-2008, respectively, though the exact air dates for these seasons are unknown. These seasons were also broadcasted on RTL Club at around the same time, as well as S07 though after the airing of AG043, it was removed from TV altogether.

It would not return until early-2009 when S10 and S11 began to air on Jetix (previously named Fox Kids and later renamed Disney Channel) though with most of voice actors having been replaced, which caused great outrage amongst fans, who criticized the poor quality translations. However, when Jetix changed into the Disney Channel, S12 was released with many of the original voice actors reprising their roles. The animated series continued to air until mid-to-late 2011. However, like in Romania, S13 was skipped. Anything beyond S12 hadn’t been dubbed, due to ORTT discontinuing the show. The show made, however, its official return to Hungary on July 1, 2021 with the release of Pokémon Journeys: The Series.

The only opening themes of the animated series that were translated and dubbed into Hungarian were of S01 through S03, S10 through S12 as well as S23 and S24. The intros of S04 through S07 were left in English due to ORTT making claims that the theme songs were making product placements via the lyrics since commercial advertising in anime shows were illegal at that time.

Movies

In total, M01 to M08, as well as M10 and M11, were released in Hungary. All of the other movies were skipped due to unknown reasons. On November 9, 2000, M01 saw its theatrical release. M02 was released on April 5, 2001. On March 28, 2004, RTL Club aired M03 before releasing it in theaters. RTL Club aired M04 and M06 on March 19, 2011, which were later re-aired on May 18 and May 25. On June 16, 2011, the same channel aired M05, and it was released and also rerun on August 25. M07 was also made watchable on December 2014 and February 2015. The release dates for M08, M10, and M11 are unknown. Its also unknown as to why there was a big discrepancy between M03 and M04. No other movies would be made or released in the country until the showing of the Hungarian dubbed version of POKÉMON Detective Pikachu in cinemas on May 9, 2019. Also, a Hungarian dub of M22 was released on Netflix on February 27, 2020.

Cast and crew

SDI Media Hungary has been responsible for production of the animated series and its movies since around 2011.

Music

The Pokémon soundtracks 2.B.A. Master and Totally Pokémon were made and dubbed into Hungarian. The first Pokémon soundtrack 2.B.A. Master was made by Gold Stúdió and was distributed by, marketed by, and made available on CD under the name of Pokémon - A népszerű TV-sorozat zenéje by BMG Hungary (formerly known as BMG Ariola Hungary) in 1999.^[3] The lyrics for the 1st soundtrack were written by Székely Anna, engineered by Tőzsér Attila, produced by Berkes Gábor and sung by Németh Attila and Fehér Adrien. Németh Attila and an unknown voice actor also sung the lyrics of the 3rd soundtrack: Totally Pokémon which was released under the name Pokémon - Utazások Johto-ba also by BMG Hungary in 2002.

Related articles

• List of Hungarian Pokémon themes
• List of international voice actors

References

This article is part of Project Globe, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon franchise around the world.