The Pokémon games are special to millions of fans around the world for a number of different reasons, but for us, one of those reasons is the series' music (and yes, the actual gameplay and pure nostalgia are right up there, too).
If you're anything like us and can instantly tell your Bicycle Theme from your Wild Encounter tune, you'll probably be more than familiar with this little ditty found in an advert for LingoAce, a service that teaches children to learn Chinese. Currently unlisted on YouTube, the video has been watched no less than 330,000 times.
Have a listen to this:
Familiar?
Yep, it certainly sounds a whole lot like the Pokémon series' guide music – the track that tends to play when an NPC is teaching you something or taking you on a tour of a new location. You can compare the two by checking out the video below, where you can listen to all variations of the theme from years gone by.
It's not just similar, right? It's pretty much identical. Somebody get Officer Jenny on the line.
Thanks to Vitas for the tip.
Comments 37
It's Chinese, there is no such thing as Copyright laws, they can rip off whatever they want
I feel ashamed as half Chinese Indonesian people to see that. 🙄😒
China is a place of counterfeit, fake things and boring place.
Not cool.
Didn't something like this happen before with some Yoshi music?
They could have licensed it, though being China, they probably didn't.
Not saying this is a bad or good thing, but VGM is used as a matter-of-fact in a lot of mainland media. A lot of Chinese variety shows pepper in all sorts of VGM and sound effects, uncredited. I've definitely heard Dr. Mario, Final Fantasy, Undertale, Pokemon, along with a number of deeper cuts.
It's likely the sound producers on these shows are big game fans and fit this in wherever they can. Of course, it's uncredited, but more or less all bets are off when it comes to mainland media. And this is on larger networks, not just some small company's advertising.
Yeah that’s a dead ass rip off. Grim.
@Anti-Matter There are some good arcades, the food rips and is dirt cheap; China is not what I'd call "boring". But to each their own.
@Anti-Matter also genocide, racism bigotry, and inhumane conditions.
@fragranthills
To see some Chinese peoples mentality like to rip off almost everything especially from Japan, it gave me really bad impression and me as half Chinese Indonesian people felt ashamed to see counterfeit from China at almost everywhere. Not cool and not creative at all.
And it gave me reason to love Japan more than China as i saw Japan is a True Role model, Excited 2 Buy country, unique and very interesting country.
The best renditions of this theme have to go to Gen 1, HGSS, and ORAS, but each games version is great in its own way!
@fragranthills same in Mexico, I've heard TV shows and soccer matches using Smash Bros. Melee's menu sound effects, a horrible live TV show using part of Sonic 1's Emerald jingle and couple of other shows using Super Mario Bros. sound effects.
wow, that's not even subtle.
I almost appreciate the audacity at play here.
Sounds like the blinky do's tune to me 😂
@Funneefox And police brutality that makes America's police problem look like a kindergarten fight.
@fragranthills
Wait, did you change your avatar into Pop'n Music character ?
This isn't too surprising, my wifes family is from China and she watches Chinese TV and YT videos all the time. Almost all of them use video game music and sound effects to some extent, it's pretty funny cuz I will think she is finally getting into video games on her own but turns out it's just some video haha
The general rule of thumb for reusing videogame music is roughly "as long as it isn't Robocop"
@Anti-Matter I did! After being out of it for so long (dang virus and all), I decided to look up what has been going on with Pop'n lately, and just heard about the latest version. The key art of Mimi is too cute not to use.
Our local arcade is still stuck on peace, but any port in a storm, I guess. I'm sure I'll get to play Kaimei Riddles on a brighter day!
Ah yes it's Pills by St. Vincent of course!
@Anti-Matter Its certainly a place full of counterfeits and fakes, but I don't know how one could call it boring. Hell, the fact that it's so oversaturated with weird counterfeits alone makes it a genuinely interesting place. I love seeing the strange things to come out of China because copyright laws have next to no power there.
@Luigi05 Yeah. If I remember correctly some US government agency used the underground theme from the DS Yoshi game in some interactive website about recycling.
Chinese will eventually copy everything
The games they counterfeit is a mixed bag. A computer version of a Chinese created Pokemon Yellow is great, sad thing the transition is better. music is way better. P.S. saw a demake of sword & shield.
Nintendo 'bout to stick it to ya.
Well, kudos to them for using the "teaching" music for their educational product. Clearly there's a Pokemon fan involved.
I feel sad for the Chinese people and their "Holy" government. The whole world watches what they do and labels them all kinds of things. Sad how history will show what they've been doing and most likely what they will do in the future too.
Plot twist: they actually properly licensed the song
They should get sued
1) Pareidolia is a well know, tested, and documented effect that makes us hear what we expect to hear. This doesn't mean consciously make it up, look for patterns, or anything like that. It is subconscious and happens in the auditory cortex BEFORE you "hear" the sound. The brain literally makes us "hear" the sounds we expect/want to hear and it is completely invisible to the conscious brain in the same way you can't tell that a hyalinisation isn't real.
2) Music is based on a small number of predictable, repeatable interval progression and cords. The number of songs created by humans each year significantly outnumbers the possible combinations for short, repeated, simple notes like this, meaning every song that is not adequately complex will be independently created by several different people several times every year with only minor differences.
3) Both songs in question are based on an extremely common and popular musical themes in Asian and Polynesian music. Here is an example of what that means and how it works: https://youtu.be/9bK9h12Qdvs
4) We are subconsciously influenced by previous experience. This means that without adequately complexity a composer will unknowingly create music very close to other music they have heard and enjoyed. Think of this in terms of stories; remove enough complexity and almost every movie you've ever seen is identical to the hero's journey.
Basically ... most of the time we think songs sound the same, it's because our brain is tricking us into thinking they are the same, and most of the time artists "rip off" music it's becasue their brain tricked them into thinking they were coming up with it originally.
@HeadPirate No offense meant, really, but that's the most absurdly earnest effort to defend indisputably clear musical plagiarism since Vanilla Ice's infamous soundbite defending his Ice Ice Baby bassline (https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4).
Anyway, as I was going to post before seeing a wall of text I just had to comment on... at least this ripoff's actually a pretty nice rendition of the tune!
Well, are we really surprised?
Good for them.
I love hurry along, ah good times
... Oh! and plagerism is bad
@swoose or the composer did a really good job of capturing the essence of "fun instructional session" which I think is more likely.
@HeadPirate all true though in this case it's not the case. the basic melody, riffs, and motifs are identical from beginning to end.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@Luigi05 I think that was from a U.S Government game, I could be wrong though.
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