The opening theme is just a copy/throwback to 4Kids' old one, but it beats "With You," mixed on it- not impressive with anything standing out about it at all, but I don't hate it unlike how I did with most of TPCI's dub OPs. It's just "there" for me, it doesn't leave a good or bad impression on me (really hate TPCI restricting the dub OP lengths to 30 seconds, 4Kids would at least have their own running from 45 seconds to 1 full minute when they dubbed the Series from 1998-2006).
Michele Knotz as Misty is still...quite frankly, really bad, after all these years, yikes. She sounds like she did in the SM dub, just a very nasally woman's voice and it's got nothing on Rachael Lillis' take after all this time, IMO. I much preferred the voice she did in late Gen 3 in the Mastermind Special, the Lillis' imitation seemed like a pretty good performance in comparison to the ones from SM onward to me. The clear worst voice-over performance in this episode, easily.
Sarah Natochenny's Ash has grown on me somewhat (especially compared to TPCI's selections for both Misty and soon to come Brock), but I have to say, whenever he has to emote or laugh she still loses the voice entirely-- and it turns into a gruff young woman's instead. She still can't laugh very well "eh-ha-ha-ha-ha," either, but I think she was okay/decent here overall performance-wise, surprisingly.
Oddly, Ash got hit hardest at the time of the initial change with the infamous "chain-smoker" voice for the first 2 years she had the role post-MoMP Redub, but now is the least bad out of the original trio...though Sarah Natochenny sadly still isn't quite as good as Veronica Taylor's Ash, despite doing so for far longer. I think this may have to do with Taylor receiving better vocal direction in the original English dub, than Natochenny did in the current English dub.
Bill Rogers' Corphish still sounds rather forced compared to Maddie Blaustein's (you can't top perfection there to be fair, RIP), in fact I think it's worse here than in BF, he sounded less strained back then I feel: still better than his Brock became from DP onward, but still a bit throaty and unnatural. He sounded better in the first half of the episode in the role, as Ash's Corphish started sounding really gruff and scratchy in the second half.
Clauncher sounds AWFUL, oh my god...no comment: just a deep, gruff, strained voice.
On the Team Rocket side of things, James' VA was actually worse in this one than the last episode, but Meowth's was better?
Edward Bosco has potential to be much better than JCC ever was as Meowth, his first episode was pretty rough but over here he seems to be channeling Blaustein's more than JCC's and his pitch has gone notably higher: I'm liking this direction, keep it up, not quite as good as either 4Kids' era dub Meowth but a lot more serviceable than JCC's Meowth was for most of his run to me in this episode despite trying to imitate him (prior episode, he was REALLY deep & bad at it).
Not sure what happened to Callagy's James, he sounded a bit TOO nasally and goofy at times, and I think his performance was better in the prior episode on the flip side so far: he's still leaving a better impression than JCC's did on me but "Which is why it's number one on our menu!" slips into the DP dub voice for him & that was the worst of English dub James overall...save XY-present for JCC so I hope he drops that tone altogether- he sounds way better when just throwing out JCC's interpretation of the window, and doing his own thing, IMO.
Michele Knotz as Jessie is a LOT better than her Misty, at least, but she has moments of getting way too shrill and high-pitched whenever the character gets angry or upset here. This was one of her better performances in a while, but Rachael Lillis, she still quite isn't here sadly.
Ed Goldfarb and Akhil Gopal did a much better job than usual with the music, the Pokémon English dub has been at its very worst over its 25-year long run musically objectively from XY onward into JN but keeping 6 pieces (while normally nothing to be excited over) in this JN episode is the best things have been in about 4 years in that department.
It's pretty sad that's a "ceiling" for the current dub these days, considering even 4Kids had a higher ceiling in their last season than TPCI does nowadays & Loeffler even did in Season 16 of BW before his successor took over, but still...take what you can get, considering the rather dismal state of the dub these days.
There are script changes/rewrites in this episode, supposedly, will have to compare them side by side but TPCI has always done them just like 4Kids did (I wish conventional wisdom wasn't so incredibly wrong about this, people's anti-4Kids bias prevented them from conceding this back in the day but they didn't want to so...?), and most pertain to Misty with the dubisms here (besides TRio, you know their dialogue is rewritten, TPCI is infamous for that):
- Dub Misty does appear to specify that the red thread of fate means using her fishing rod to pull it out, for some reason?
- Instead of simply saying Misty is noisy, Ash says Misty wrote the book on noise, prompting Misty to shout his full name.
- When Ash asks why Misty is following him, to emphasize that Misty wasn't prepared, she asks "Uh? Me??"
- When Ash asks about the red thread of fate, Misty says its because she caught it with the Misty lure.
Overall: The voice acting is a mixed bag with Misty, Ash's Corphish, & James probably being the worst in this one, with Ash & Jessie the best but both still aren't as good as their old 4Kids VAs after all this time as a caveat despite doing the roles for longer.
Meowth is somewhere in the middle, shockingly, last episode you could flip around James & Meowth though vs this one in what I'm hearing, getting better while James got a little worse here. The music situation is still bad, but not godawful like it usually is. The intro is still forgettable/bland, but not cheesy, there's that. Lastly, the script rewrites seemed to hit Misty most in this episode, for some reason, and Team Rocket was expected as a TPCI dubbed episode.
-- END REVIEW --
