Pokémon in Turkey

The Pokémon franchise first reached  in late 1999 or January 31, 2000 with the airing of Pokémon! Ben seni seçiyorum!

Games
Though the games and consoles themselves have been sold by private retailers previously, after the release of Wii and DS, a distributor for Turkey, Nortec Eurasia, took the mantle of Nintendo Turkey, releasing the DS titles, Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, which went on to become bestsellers in Turkey. However, after the bankruptcy of Nintendo Turkey, no Pokémon games were released until 2018. In April 2018, CD Media, the current distributor company of Nintendo Turkey, announced that they made a contract for the Turkish market, which, according to the CEO of CD Media, will allow Nintendo to send games from various franchises such as Pokémon.

Pokémon anime
The exact date of the Pokémon anime's debut is unknown, but some Turkish fan websites claim it was first shown in Turkey on January 31, 2000 on ATV, though others claim it was the end of 1999.

In Turkey, there were two separate reports of kids flying off their windows while claiming to be Pokémon in late 2000. One of these was Ferhat Ağırbaş, a four-year-old child from Mersin on October 30. Another was Seyda Aykanat, a seven-year-old student from Kilis on November 25. After this incident, ATV stopped airing Pokémon on December 13, 2000.

In early 2001, RTÜK, or Radio and Television Supreme Council of Turkey, declared a ban on the anime as a part of Article 4 of Act No. 3984, due to having "a negative influence on the physical, psychological and moral development of children" after doing several studies on the effects of the anime. This was due to the aforementioned reports of kids flying off their windows. Even though its popularity had begun to dwindle in 2002, many fans were excited when Pokémon had been silently relaunched on December 9 by Star TV. The first few seasons were aired from that date until June 2005, when RTÜK found out about this and forced Star TV to stop airing Pokémon. The magazine of Presidency of Religious Affairs, Diyanet, has reiterated similar claims by RTÜK on March 2, 2005 (shortly before they shut down the production). After this, Channel 1 and Channel 7 began to broadcast the first episodes of Pokémon for a while. The airing dates for the are unknown, though it is believed that it began airing sometime around 2006; the  began airing sometime in 2009 on  shortly before it transformed into ; and the  began airing sometime in 2011.

The anime fully started re-airing on September 1, 2014, beginning with the seventeenth season. It carried on through the subsequent years, and on April 7, 2018, the twentieth season was released on Netflix. In Turkey, the anime is available on Netflix.

Cast and crew
Ahmet Taşar has voiced the main character Ash Ketchum from 2000 to 2016. Kerem Kobanbay has voiced Ash Ketchum from 2016 to 2018. Birtanem Coşkun Candaner provided the voice of while Tugay Erverdi has provided the voice of. Jessie was voiced by Figen Harman while James was voiced by Levent Sülün and then by Aydoğan Temel. Murat Keskinoğlu provided the voice of. Officer Jenny was voiced by Mehpare Özlük, while was voiced by Tunç Ozdil.

Pokémon movies
Almost all of the Pokémon movies until the nineteenth were translated and dubbed into Turkish as well. Only the eighth and tenth movies have never been dubbed into Turkish. The first movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back, was shown in theaters on June 18, 2000, and the second movie, The Power of One, was shown in theaters in February 2001. The third movie, Spell of the Unown, was released on DVD in 2003. Disney XD aired the Turkish dub of the eleventh and twelfth films at an unknown date. In 2011, Zoroark: Master of Illusions and White—Victini and Zekrom and Black—Victini and Reshiram and were released on DVD in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Mewtwo Returns was also released in Turkish with the title .

Music
Until the twelfth season, the dub used the English version of the opening themes. However, since the twelfth season, Turkish dubbed opening themes have been used for the series.

The Turkish CD version of Pokémon Theme was sung by Ahmet Taşar. The first album was released in 2001. It was adapted by Sibel Erülgen, engineered by Fuat Güney, and produced by BMG MÜZİK A.Ş. Gülşen Karanlık and Kerem Akaydın also provided vocals for a majority of the songs featured in the album.

Related articles

 * List of Turkish Pokémon themes