I think it's a misconception about Pokemon being extremely better in Japanese. That's partially true, but here's how it really is.
Pokemon, in the beginning, is slightly better in Japanese everything's translated well,(apart from names of Pokemon and characters being changed), but the story is not hurt as the same plot points are kept and even the same words from the Japanese version are repeated in the English version. The voices aren't bad either, for the people in the main cast, the side characters and guest stars have horrible voices in English. The only out of place Main charter voices in the English version I would say are Meowth's, Officer Jenny's and Gary's. The Japanese version makes Meowth sound like a talking cat with fits more to me, since his a cat and not a New Yorker. Officer Jenny's and Gary's English voices are just bad in comparison to Japanese though. The original music is kept for the most part. There are times when the music breaks in the Japanese version. The English version fills those in with "in-house" music. The "in-house" music is decent but you can tell the difference between the original music and the in-house music because the quality is drastically different. The original music would be anything that you hear in the Pokemon video games. There are a few originally made musical pieces for the anime too, and they are left in the English version too,(minus the vocal songs). The sequences where they say, "Who's that Pokemon" are really in the Japanese version. They are called, "Dare Da?", which means, "Who is it?". The only things that are different about them are that the video is different and they make them English. The video is also uncut in the beginning too(minus the paint edits). And there are a large handful of episodes that could have been dual-audio(Japanese language & English Language selectable) because everything is shown.
However, Once you start getting into the era where, Pokemon the Movie 2000 comes out, everything the English version does a 180 degree turn and gets embarrassing to listen to. They add way too many silly puns and jokes and the Japanese version overtime gets a bit more serious but the tone in the English version is still "comical". I know that this show is marketed for kids, but this same show was doing so well with keeping the original plot line and tone and was still marketable to kids, but it makes the Japanese version look bad past a certain point. That certain point would be after the Orange League. After the Orange League, in both versions, it seems like every episode's goal is to, "show the Pokemon from the game in the anime", rather than story, but the English version handles that a lot worse.
Pokemon overall is still slightly better to watch in Japanese though. You really could watch the English version for the first two seasons once Johto happens then you're screwed if you liked the English version. The Japanese version is better in the presentation and voices, but for you're one of those people who think, "The Japanese version's gonna p*** over the English version because the dub is crappy", that's not going to happen.
Pokemon, in the beginning, is slightly better in Japanese everything's translated well,(apart from names of Pokemon and characters being changed), but the story is not hurt as the same plot points are kept and even the same words from the Japanese version are repeated in the English version. The voices aren't bad either, for the people in the main cast, the side characters and guest stars have horrible voices in English. The only out of place Main charter voices in the English version I would say are Meowth's, Officer Jenny's and Gary's. The Japanese version makes Meowth sound like a talking cat with fits more to me, since his a cat and not a New Yorker. Officer Jenny's and Gary's English voices are just bad in comparison to Japanese though. The original music is kept for the most part. There are times when the music breaks in the Japanese version. The English version fills those in with "in-house" music. The "in-house" music is decent but you can tell the difference between the original music and the in-house music because the quality is drastically different. The original music would be anything that you hear in the Pokemon video games. There are a few originally made musical pieces for the anime too, and they are left in the English version too,(minus the vocal songs). The sequences where they say, "Who's that Pokemon" are really in the Japanese version. They are called, "Dare Da?", which means, "Who is it?". The only things that are different about them are that the video is different and they make them English. The video is also uncut in the beginning too(minus the paint edits). And there are a large handful of episodes that could have been dual-audio(Japanese language & English Language selectable) because everything is shown.
However, Once you start getting into the era where, Pokemon the Movie 2000 comes out, everything the English version does a 180 degree turn and gets embarrassing to listen to. They add way too many silly puns and jokes and the Japanese version overtime gets a bit more serious but the tone in the English version is still "comical". I know that this show is marketed for kids, but this same show was doing so well with keeping the original plot line and tone and was still marketable to kids, but it makes the Japanese version look bad past a certain point. That certain point would be after the Orange League. After the Orange League, in both versions, it seems like every episode's goal is to, "show the Pokemon from the game in the anime", rather than story, but the English version handles that a lot worse.
Pokemon overall is still slightly better to watch in Japanese though. You really could watch the English version for the first two seasons once Johto happens then you're screwed if you liked the English version. The Japanese version is better in the presentation and voices, but for you're one of those people who think, "The Japanese version's gonna p*** over the English version because the dub is crappy", that's not going to happen.