I'm a huge fan of the Twisted Translations YouTube channel. Malinda and her friends take popular songs, famous works of literature, and even general life advice, and run them through Google Translate until the English translation is nonsensical comedy gold. Seeing her do things like the normal Pokémon theme as well as fan-given pickup lines inspired me to make this blog. So, let's dive in, and see what a few of our favorite Pokémon are like when we run them through translate.
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Of course, no Pokemon can ignore everyone's favorite overly represented non-dragon fire dragon. Charizard is a beloved mon to many, a nostalgic icon and a valued teammate. The Red and Blue dex entry states:
Spits fire that is hot enough to melt boulders. Known to cause forest fires unintentionally.
That sounds like a pretty scary Pokémon. It's breath is strong enough to even defeat Rock, one of the Fire-type's many weaknesses. But in the Google Dex, it instead says:
Wildfires are known to extinguish crushed stone fires
Yeesh, not so scary any more, is it? It's no longer a massive beast with powerful flames... This is just life advice for how to extinguish fires. Using fire. As you do.
Maybe Yellow version's translation will be more forgiving. The original claims:
When expelling a blast of super hot fire, the red flame at the tip of its tail burns more intensely.
Not quite as intimidating, but still an interesting thing to know. Charizard, like the rest of his line, survives thanks to the flame on their tail. This means that the brighter burn, the more energy it has. It'll live a long, healthy life... Right? Well, let's check in with Google Dex again...
If you put a very hot fire on the red top of the tail, it will heat up.
Well... I don't know what else we'd expect to happen. You've heard it here first, folks: Charizard heats up when you set its tail on fire.
Now, in Gold and Silver, Charizard has different entries per game. When read in tandem alongside Crystal they say:
If CHARIZARD becomes furious, the flame at the tip of its tail flares up in a whitish-blue color. Breathing intense, hot flames, it can melt almost anything. Its breath inflicts terrible pain on enemies. It uses its wings to fly high. The temperature of its fire increases as it gains experience in battle.
What a beast. Charizard is one fiery monster, with intense flames and a need to keep getting stronger, in order to get hotter fire, in order to keep beating enemies. Surely the ferocity and power of this creature won't be diminished by Google Dex this time, right?
The lizard got angry and the fire burned the tail. There is nothing you can do about it. Enemy breathing causes severe pain. Flies high on the wings. The fire will increase to see the blow.
Well, this time it seems less like a Pokedex entry and more like an ancient Chinese proverb... with a fatalist twist, as there's apparently nothing we can do about being in severe pain thanks to our enemies and an angry lizard. At least it's honest?
Generation 3 had Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and the Gen 1 remake games Fire Red and Leaf Green. All together, here are their dex entries:
CHARIZARD flies around the sky in search of powerful opponents. It breathes fire of such great heat that it melts anything. However, it never turns its fiery breath on any opponent weaker than itself. Its wings carry this POKéMON close to an altitude of 4,600 feet. It blows out fire at very high temperatures. It spits fire that his hot enough to melt boulders. It may cause forest fires by blowing flames.
Here we learn a bit more about this fascinating Pokémon. It has honor, and won't hurt weaker mons, despite how we see it so often used in memes about the video game. We all know a Charizard would burn a Metapod to a crisp in real life, but apparently it wouldn't do so by choice. Can this interesting lore be preserved when we check the Google Dex?
The villain is in the air looking for a strong opponent. Otherwise, you will never be able to beat your weak opponent. His hand holds this Pokémon at an altitude of 4600 feet. He threw a stone at the fire to melt it. Extinguishing a fire can cause a forest fire.
Er, no, evidently not. Now it's another weird proverb about being weaker than our weakest opponent, melting stones, and causing fires by putting out fires.
Sadly, after that, the Pokedex information begins to repeat. I'm a little surprised that such a famous and recurring mon isn't given more lore, but maybe it doesn't need all that lore to be cool. As long as we keep Charizard out of the hands of Google Translate, that is...
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