Pokemon Emerald: Does Camper Lawrence switch pronouns before and after battle? [JPN vs ENG]

From Koh’s playthrough.

Today’s post is a small one from a reader request:

I was on Bulbapedia, and the Hoenn Route 113 page said this:

“In the Japanese version of Pokémon Emerald, Camper Lawrence uses feminine first person pronouns after battling him, even though he uses masculine first person pronouns before battling.”

Is that true? If so, was that a mistake on their part?

This was pretty interesting to hear, and would be an oddly specific quirk for a one-time trainer to have, so I took a quick look.

Short answer: This is false. Camper Lawrence does not switch pronouns. In fact, he only uses one masculine pronoun after the battle.

Let’s take a deeper look!

Below is Camper Lawrence’s dialogue (キャンプボーイのユウゴ “Camp Boy Yuugo” in Japanese), taken from a Japanese transcription of trainer dialogue in Emerald.

■Before battle
もしかして　かざんばい　あつめの
とちゅうだった？
■When player wins in-battle
えへへ　まけちゃったね
■After battle dialogue
ぼくも　はいに　もぐっちゃおう　かしら

Untranslated, but I highlighted the single pronoun use here of “boku”, a masculine pronoun for referring to one self, just to show an example.

There is no feminine pronoun usage anywhere.

There is the use of “kashira” (highlighted green) which is more “feminine speak” for “I wonder”, but is not a pronoun, nor does it change the earlier pronoun in the sentence. I considered if this quirk was because the camper is a young boy, or if perhaps this really is what may have been mistaken for the pronoun. Often we see this more feminine speak on quirky men, such as Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter.

So, perhaps the trivia writer had been confused with a different trainer, so I took a look at some nearby trainers on Hoenn Route 113 as well to see if they got Lawrence mixed up with someone else.

The nearby PokeManiac Wyatt (かいじゅうマニアのミチオ Kaiju Maniac Michio) was my first suspect, as he uses notable male pronouns before battle, and is near Lawrence.

■Before battle
ぼ　ボクと　たたかうって　いうんですか！
まだ　つかまえた　ばかりなのに！
■When player wins in-battle
か　かって　うれしい　ですか！
こんな　ボクに　かって　うれしいですか！
■After battle dialogue
はいしゃに　こえを　かけて　くれるって
いうんですか！
か　カッコいい　ですね！　ふん！

He uses “boku” here too (written in katakana rather than hiragana like Lawrence), which certainly makes it quirky but nothing less masculine.

I then looked at the rest of the trainer dialogue on Route 113, and the only use of feminine pronouns were from Twins Tori & Tia (female), and Parasol Lady Madeline.

So, I am not sure where this line of trivia came from. If it was from a trainer on another route with a different name, I do not know –but that would mean the trivia as it is currently written is completely false.

The only limitation to this research is that I did not see the after battle dialogue in video format, so if the transcription was inaccurate, then the above dialogue may be off. However, the fact there is no pronoun usage from Lawrence before battle (confirmed on video), I am confident that the transcription is accurate.

It shows not to trust everything you read online, especially without a source!

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That’s it for this post! Is there something I missed? Let me know!

I will continue to look at fun differences between the versions of sorts of games when I get time.

Any dialogue you’re interested in? Feel free to send in comments or via email!