Myuutsuu is the Japanese counterpart of Mewtwo. As you would expect, being the same character, they are very similar. However, there are a few cultural differences.

General Differences

Mewtwo's mental conflict with Mew was removed. So Mewtwo's longing to battle Mew isn't very clear unless you read the Drama translation.

In the Drama, it sounds like the scientists tried to make Mewtwo as much like Mew as possible, but were not entirely successful. They hope, however, that their result is even stronger than the original Mew. In the dub, it is stated that Giovanni wanted an enhanced clone of Mew, not an exact replica.

Young Myuutsuu's voice in The Birth of Mewtwo CD Drama sounds, at the oldest, like a three year olds. Young Mewtwo's in the dub sounds around the age of eight.

In the dub, Aitwo, Mewtwo, Squirtletwo, Bulbasaurtwo, and Charmandertwo are in like a dream world, floating above where the original Ai lived when she was alive. In the Drama, Ai and Mewtwo seem more inside their test tubes, talking about what they see outside.

In the drama, Squirtletwo, Charmandertwo, and Bulbasaurtwo are minor roles, unlike in the dub, where they are much more prominent.

In the drama, there is also a cloned Meowth and a cloned Pikachu that aren't in the dub.

In the dub, Amber's clone is portrayed as a blob of glowing energy inside a tank. This was done to avoid showing her naked body, like they did in illustrations for the drama. This is a cheap cop out if you ask me. You can't clone someone's lifeforce, just the body, so Amber being a blob of light doesn't make sense. And why didn't anyone protest the blatent display of naked Pokemon?

Even though they never say it, Dr. Fuji's name in the dub apparently becomes Professor Smith. Another cheap cop out. Smith is the last name you give someone when you don't feel like thinking of a creative one. And, would it really even matter if they left his name Fuji? They never even say his name...

The original Ai's death was also left out. That, of course, is too tragic for little kids. Too bad about the Halley's Comet part though. I thought that was so sad.

The cute counting part was left out.

Cake and Milk were not included. I guess that part wasn't too important. It would have messed up the dream world. However, that part hinted at the cruelty of cloning, a message that we will definately need in the future.

The part about God was removed, in order to remain politically correct.

Mewtwo's tears were included in the dub, but later in the The First Movie they didn't bother telling us Mewtwo's promise never to cry and his false belief that he is too strong to have ever cried.

In the Drama, Dr. Fuji isn't very upset when Ai dies, because he has the DNA he needs to create as many clones as he wants. In the dub, he is terribly upset and says "My Amber is gone forever!"

In the Drama, Mewtwo grew angry because Dr. Fuji treated Ai as an object to use for his own will, not as a living human being. In the dub, he just got angry because she left. The Drama was a lot deeper there.

Differences of the First Movie

In the dub, all lines involving God were changed in order to remain politically correct.

In the dub, the woman at the pier talks about the legend of a terrible storm called the "Winds of Water" that nearly wiped out all life, but the few surviving Pokemon cried for those who died and brought them back to life. She's canceled the ferry because "the prophets" predict the storm's return. All of this is really corny. In the Japanese version, the woman has lived on the pier so long that she knows a bad storm when she sees one, and therefore will not endanger anyone's life. The whole legend thing was added probably to explain or forshadow the Pokemon's tears saving Ash at the end. If they left in the Birth of Mewtwo, Amber would tell us that a Pokemon's tears are full of life and thus save us from all the mumbo-jumbo...

There weren't any hypocritical anti-war messages in the Japanese version like there were in the dub. Nurse Joy, Brock, Misty and the other spectators of the epic battle actually had lines that originally were not infused with The Moral of the Day. Instead of crying because they were fighting, they cried that the Pokemon would fight to the death to defend their territory. That does get across the message of the pointless battle and the senseless loss of life, and implies that the Pokemon should find a way to accept each other, but it doesn't scream, "MORAL! MORAL!" And it's much more meaningful than "fighting is bad."

In the Japanese version, Mew was the one who proposed having a battle without special abilities. Mew felt that the originals would eventually win out because the others were just copies. Although I kindof prefer the peace-loving dubbed version of Mew, this in the Japanese version helps show the conflict of the clones being seen as inferior merely because they are clones.

A lot of people, when comparing the English and Japanese versions of the movie, point and scream when we reach the clone fighting sequence and hear the song "Brother, My Brother." I think the song actually fits, talking about how the clones and originals really are the same, like brothers, and should find a way to get beyond their differences besides fighting to the death. Plus, the peacefulness of the song really contrasts with the fierce images on the screen. However, I have also heard the Japanese music for this scene, and it is very effective as well. It sort of takes the gym battle music from the TV show, jazzes it up, and adds to it, giving a whole feeling of an epic battle and general badness. Then, whenever it switches to slow motion, the music goes real soft, and you get that sort of angelic "awwwwwaaaaahhh" singing, which makes the whole situation sound very, very sad. Then, once Ash sacrifices himself and "dies," all background music stops, highening the drama of the event, to make you feel that something crucial is missing, that everything, even the final battle between two arch-nemesises, now must stop.

Some major differences are listed here, but just about every line in the movie was changed in some way. I suggest you read through the side-by-side comparison of the English and Japanese scripts.

Differences of Mewtwo Returns

The only blatant evidence of poor dubbing that has been discovered thus far was Mewtwo and Giovanni saying "leave this world" instead of just "die." I'm not sure what was said on the Japanese version though. In fact, Mewtwo saying something like that is a definate possibility. So I don't know if this even counts. Heh.

Some editations were made to make the commercial breaks a bit less obvious, but as far as I can tell, these were minor changes. And it cut out some of the annoying narrator, which is definately a plus.

Got anything I missed? Send it to me.