Pokémon in Italy

The Pokémon franchise first reached  on January 7, 2000, with the first broadcast of L'inizio di una grande avventura in Italian on Italia 1.

Pokémon video games
All Pokémon video games of the main series have always been sold in Italy and translated in Italian. Pokémon event are released for Italian gamers as well.

Pokémon anime
On January 10, 2000, Italia 1 (Italia Uno), a commercial Italian TV channel owned by, started airing the Pokémon anime from Mondays to Fridays every afternoon, around 5 P.M. The series that year was successful in Italy and it was also broadcast at prime time on Saturdays. From the fourth season on, however, Pokémon lost more and more Italian fans. On Christmas 2001 it was even suspended for one year, possibly for dub problems, and when in the end of 2002 it started again, its popularity was even lower.

In 2003, Pokémon: Master Quest began around 4 P.M. With this fifth series, Italia 1 chose to divide the episodes into two halves for the premiere, creating, in this way, two 10-minutes episodes broadcast from Monday through Friday. However, when the episodes were re-aired, they were transmitted fully. Nevertheless, Pokémon started being broadcast later and later (Pokémon: Advanced at 4:30 P.M., Pokémon: Advanced Challenge at 5 P.M.) until the eighth season started to be broadcast at 6 P.M., always for ten minutes on February 2006. After a few months, Pokémon was moved to Saturdays and Sundays, imitating the TV schedule of. The main problem facing this was that Italian children attend school on Saturdays. Due to this choice, some Italian Pokémon sites chose to make together a petition against Italia 1. Perhaps because of this petition or maybe due to the lower audience, Pokémon returned in the afternoon at 5:15 P.M.

With the beginning of Pokémon Chronicles, however, the show was broadcast once again in the weekend, although later in the morning. The same happened for Pokémon: Battle Frontier, which was not only was transmitted in the weekends, but also for 10 minutes only. In Summer 2007, Pokémon landed every morning at 8:30 A.M. In September 2007, Italia 1 decided on give another chance to the show and, exploiting the success of, Pokémon came back in the afternoon with the new series, Pokémon: Diamante e Perla. The first episodes were successful, similar to the ones of the first seasons, but after a few episodes the success decreased and so, also because the series was going too much near the U.S. airings) in January 2008 "Diamante e Perla" went back to the weekend.

Like most rerunning cartoon series and movies coming from Italia 1, the Pokémon anime has also been aired by Boing and Hiro, two Italian digital television channels, broadcast via DTT technology, owned by.

In 2009, Walt Disney Company's channel, Jetix, obtained the rights for broadcasting the eleventh season. The Pokémon anime from Battle Dimension onward is also broadcast by "K2", a syndication channel. In 2010 Jetix changed name to Disney XD, that mainly premieres the episodes in Italy, but sometimes alternates with K2 (for example, the last episodes of the fourteenth season). From 2012 onwards, K2 always premieres the episodes (it also happened for the XY sneak peek of October 19th, two days after the Japanese airing), Disney XD airing them after some months.

The fourteenth season was also broadcasted on Toon Disney in 2011.

Also, in 2009 the first seasons were redubbed in an Italian dubbing which is more faithful to the English one and aired on K2. The original English Pokémon themes and texts (only for the "To be continued" and the title of the first about 20 episodes of the Indigo League series) are dubbed and translated in Italian as well. Since June 30 to August 4, 2014 the first season was broadcast; the second has been skipped for rights issues and the third one has been aired since August 5 to September 7, 2014.

The first episodes of Pokémon the Series: XY has premiered on K2 on October 19, 2013 as a sneak peek. Instead the current season is aired on Disney XD since April 14 and since April 23, 2014 on K2.

Pokémon the Series: XY - Kalos Quest has premiered on K2 on April 25, 2015; Pokémon the Series: XYZ has premiered on May 7, 2016 on the same channel, although the first two episodes premiered on the official Pokémon site on May 3.

Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon has premiered on K2 on November 19, 2016 as a sneak peek, with the season airing starting on April 29, 2017.

Pokémon movies
All the Pokémon movies have been released in Italy so far. On February 28, March 6 and 13 2004, the first three movies were supposed to be broadcast, for the first time on TV, on Italy 1 in prime time. However, due to the low audience, only the first two movies aired. One year later, finally, the third one was broadcast, this time on Sunday afternoon. After almost four-and-a-half years without any movie release (except for the events' cinema projections of the eight and tenth movies), the movies started to air again in 2009: the eight and the ninth were aired on Hiro (respectively on January and November 2009), Fratello dallo spazio was aired for the first time on Boing in July 2010, and The Rise of Darkrai premiered on July 2011 via online broadcast on the official site; most recent movies (from the eleventh onward) regularly air on Disney XD and K2 every year, following the seasons' path.

Only the last two movies of haven't been released in DVD yet, while during 2011, the four films of the  were released from Universal Pictures; Miramax released the first two Advanced Generation movies in 2012, along with Universal's release of the fourteenth (Universal Pictures currently releases the new movies every year).

The sixth movie aired for the first time on March 16, 2012 on Sky Cinema Family (also in 720p-HD version), becoming the "Italian" movie with the longest gap from the Japanese and American releases (almost eight years from the American release, eight-and-a-half years from the Japanese).

On February 21, 2015, the seventeenth movie premiered in the Italian cinemas with its special Pikachu episode, being the first Pokémon movie to be shown in cinema since almost fourteen years. Hoopa and the Clash of Ages was first released in January 2016 on iTunes, then premiered in TV (K2) on May 2. Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel aired for the first time on K2 on November 19, 2016; and I Choose You! premiered in cinemas on November 6, 2017. So far, the DVD versions of those movies haven't been released yet.

Music

 * For more information, see Category:Italian songs.

Traditionally, Mediaset, since its origins, has always created openings for cartoons and anime, some independent from the Japanese and North American opening themes. For Pokémon, nine themes have been made (for the first ten seasons and for Pokémon Chronicles). For Pokémon: Advanced and Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, and for Pokémon: Advanced Battle and Pokémon: Battle Frontier, the same opening themes have been used. This makes Italy one of only three known dubs outside of Japan and the United States to create original music for the Pokémon anime, the other two being and.

Although the Italian dub has its own music, an Italian-language translation of the Pokémon 2.B.A. Master soundtrack was also released, entitled , including the first Italian opening as a bonus track.

Italy has started to dub the official American themes of the Advanced Generation series in 2015. Many episodes are available on the official Italian Pokémon site and on Nintendo Anime Channel for Nintendo 3DS as well.

Right now, in Italy many seasons of the anime are also available on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Cast and crew
The main role of Ash Ketchum is dubbed by Davide Garbolino. Other minor roles Garbolino had on Pokémon include Jared. , the second main character in the series, has been dubbed by Alessandra Karpoff, who also dubbed Lilian Meridian, J, and Cynthia.

's role was taken by Nicola Bartolini Carrassi (also known as Nicola Ryan Carrassi; born August 1, 1971 in ), the man who brought Pokémon to Italy. He is also a journalist, scriptwriter, anime expert and anchor. He has been chosen by Warner Bros, 4Kids, Pokémon INC., Nintendo Games Freak and Buena Vista in order to become the Italian voice of Brock and for this he has been rewarded as the best European voice of Brock. Nicola left the cast after the character's temporary departure, and starting the Johto saga, the role was taken by Luca Bottale.

The Team Rocket trio of Jessie, James, and has been voiced by Emanuela Pacotto, Simone D’Andrea, and Giuseppe Calvetti (also known as Beppe Calvetti) respectively. Starting with AG041, the role of Meowth was passed to Pietro Ubaldi.

, (Vera) in Italy, is dubbed by Serena Clerici, who also voiced Janina. May's brother Max was dubbed by Federica Valenti, who also voiced and.

(Lucinda) was dubbed by Tosawi Piovani in seasons 10th and 11th (and their respective movies); she was also the voice of and. After her retirement, the role passed to Ludovica De Caro, who had also previously voiced Solana, and has later voiced Carlita, Virizion, Viola, Valerie and Lisa.

and, known as Lem and Clem in Italy, are voiced by Simone Lupinacci and Valentina Pallavicino, respectively. is voiced by Deborah Morese.

Other notable voice actors in the Italian dub include Riccardo Rovatti as Professor Oak, Patrizio Prata as Tracey Sketchit, Renata Bertolas (and many others) as Officer Jenny, Tiziana Martello and Laura Brambilla (plus many others) as Nurse Joy, Massimo Di Benedetto as Gary Oak (although he was initially voiced by Nicola Bartolini Carrassi in EP001, and Paolo Sesana voiced him up to his first appearance in Sinnoh), Paul (only for a season, then replaced by Maurizio Merluzzo), Drew and Trip and Stefano Pozzi as, Luke, Cameron and.

A redub of the original series has been in the works since 2009, finally premiering on K2 in June 2014. Benedetta Ponticelli, who had already provided the voice of, provided the voice of Misty; both Brock, Gary Oak and Meowth have been voiced by their current dubbers. Almost every secondary character received a new voice.

Pokémon manga
Italy is one of only a handful of countries outside of Japan to publish a translation of the Pokémon Gotta Catch 'Em All manga series. It was released by Play Press Publishing under the title Pokémon.

There is also an Italian version of Pokémon Adventures (). The first ten monthly issues were translated by Planet Manga, a subsidiary of Panini Comics. Planet Manga also translated an Italian version of Magical Pokémon Journey (), though only the first two monthly issues were translated.

In autumn 2013, Italian manga publisher J-POP e GP Manga announced at the comic book convention that they would be publishing the  of the Pokémon Adventures manga in Italian with the title . This release is based on VIZ Media's mini volumes of the magazine version. The first Italian volume is due to be released on August 27, 2014. In 2016, they also began releasing a new edition of Adventures called . the and the  were released in November 2016, while the  was released in November 2017.

Pokémon merchandise
The Pokémon merchandising in Italy immediately reached one of its highest points right after the anime started, in January, 2000. Five stickers album were released during the corresponding seasons (from the first to Master Quest). In early 2000s, Pokémon Trading Cards series 1 and series 2 were available, published by Topps. During the Original series' years, several types of merchandising products were released in every way: lots of very popular school equipments, bottle caps featuring the Johto Pokémon ( fruit juices), various types of lollipops and candies, anime VHSs and many others. With the start of the Advanced Generation, Pokémon's popularity in Italy quickly fell; however, a last sticker album featuring the Hoenn Pokédex's Pokémon was released, Pokémon Advanced Action Cards were available in 2005, and various type of new action figures were released (more than in other generations), but didn't have a great success. Diamond and Pearl seemed to have the same destiny, but from Battle Dimension on, with new TV airing times, its popularity raised again: new DP toys were released from Giochi Preziosi S.p.A., the DVDs of the first two seasons were re-released, and minor merchandising such as Easter Eggs were available. From February 2011, with the ending of Sinnoh League Victors, the first Italian Pokémon Official Magazine was released; Pokémon gadgets (action figures and TCG cards) also came back to McDonald's after many years. Pokémon's new popularity is represented by the fact that 7 Pokémon Movies (6-7-10-11-12-13-14) were released in DVD for the first time during the span of only 2 years, 2011 and 2012, after 6 years (2005-2010) without any type of home-video release. Also Movie 4 and 5 have been re-released in 2011.

Community
Notable Italian Pokémon fansites include Pokémon Central, which has its own wiki, Pokémon Central Wiki.

Events
has been celebrated in Italy every year since 2005 until 2014. Pokémon Camp, a tour organized by Nintendo, was held in 2011.

Trivia

 * The Pokémon 's name is sometimes translated in Italian by error as '. A similar error is in the episode EP006 of the 2014 Italian redub, in which a group of are called '.
 * In the episode EP016 of K2's 2014 redubbing, Squirtle is accidentally dubbed with the sentence Squirtle pronto! which literally means Squirtle ready!.
 * The series has aired only on Mediaset channels from 2000 to 2008, with the new episodes only on Italia 1. Since 2009, after Mediaset's decision not to renew the rights for the series, it airs on K2 and Disney XD. Various Mediaset channels kept on repeating the first 10 seasons until half 2013, when the rights for them finally expired.

Related articles

 * List of Italian Pokémon themes

イタリアにおけるポケモン