Pokemon S01E01 Review: I Wanna Be The Very Best, Like No One Ever Was

Pokemon, Episode 1: Pokemon! I Choose You!

So yeah, this has kind of been a long time for me, at least. I've been really wanting to talk a bit about Pokemon on this blog, and I've ended up just talking about the designs of the monsters themselves as I thought that's a bit more unique than just reviewing the anime and/or the Adventures manga, which... there's been a fair bit of those online. But the recent surge of Pokemon stuff, from the Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee games, to the Detective Pikachu movie, to the revelation that Generation VIII is coming at the end of this year... yeah, it's a lot of stuff to re-kindle some real nostalgia in me. I ended up watching the Japanese version with English subs online, so... yeah.

I grew up with the English-dubbed versions, of course, and I still have a stack of old VCD's (god I am old) in my basement somewhere, but I thought that it's actually a neat incentive for me to go back and watch this original version. As a side-note, though, I'll still use their English names primarily, because you don't grow for two decades with these characters and not reflexively call them by that.

And this episode starts off pretty neatly, with the transition from the original Game Boy Red/Blue/Green 'cutscene' of Gengar fighting Nidorino rotating around and going from pixelated to pretty neat animation. The animation has aged pretty well for being 20-something years old, and I really do love this reference to the actual games that the series is based on. Sure, especially in earlier seasons, we do have a lot of continuity snarls with the game's rules, but hey. It's actually a pretty neat opening of what a Pokemon battle looks like, with Nidorino fighting with a Gengar, and then a trainer recalling Nidorino and summoning Onix to the battlefield.

We then get to see our main hero, Satoshi (or, as the dub calls him, Ash Ketchum), watching all of this televised Pokemon combat on television. It's a simple enough world-building piece -- and I really do love the little shots of Ash's room. Poliwag sharpeners, Clefairy coin cases, posters, a Voltorb-Pidgey cuckoo clock thing... and Ash is just very, very excited that he's come of age and is able to properly start his Pokemon journey. Of course, in the Pokemon world, apparently the legal age of going around, wandering and capturing monsters that breathe fire and lightning is ten, but, hey, kid's franchise. Got to appeal to the actual kids!

It's kind of a silly bit as Ash proves himself to be lovably dumb. I'm genuinely not sure why so many Japanese material aimed at young boys tend to portray their main characters as blockheads, but while Ash does kind of get a bit better throughout the series, watching this episode made me go "man, you are duuuumb". Apparently, while sleeping, he accidentally smashes his adorable Pidgey cuckoo clock and his mom doesn't care enough to wake him up for what basically amounts to, like, high school entrance examinations or something in this world. Silly mom!

We also get the brief introduction to Ash's rival, Gary Oak (Shigeru in the original Japanese), who... who's actually a lot less smarmy in the original Japanese. The English dub really plays up his jackassness and cockiness. And, sure, a lot of them still does come from the original script, but the Japanese delivery is more condescending and subdued. He still has a goddamn sports car and an army of short-skirted cheerleaders, and delights in telling Ash that he's the grandson of the renowned Professor Oak and mocks his jammies, so there's still gloating, but I am actually slightly surprised at how subdued the voice acting is.

Oak admonishes Ash for being late, because, of course, you really don't have any excuse for being late. We do get a particularly cruel bit as Oak just waits for Ash to slowly open one of the three supposed starter Pokemon that he would've gotten, only to go one by one and say "that one has been taken by someone who's not late". Oak, you snarky ass. I mean, Ash does deserve it, but still, that's kinda mean.

Of course, this leads to the fateful encounter that Ash has with the mascot of the series, the problem child, the little chubby electric rat Pikachu. God, he's so fat in these older episodes. And I really cannot understate how adorable Otani Ikue's voice for Pikachu is. And in this first episode... Pikachu is such a lovable asshole! He shocks Ash, and then Ash and Oak, and then the entire crowd that comes to see Ash off. Pika pika, indeed, and he looks so happy zapping everyone. Also adorable is Ash trying to get Pikachu into his poke ball, ending with the two of them basically batting the ball back and forth. That was fun.

And honestly, this first episode actually does a decent job at both focusing on the Ash/Pikachu dynamic as well as doing some world-building about Pokemon. We next see Ash literally dragging Pikachu along with rubber gloves and rope (Pokemon abuse, nooo!) along some nondescript countryside, before trying to properly befriend and understand Pikachu. "Do you hate me?" "Pika-pika". Thanks to the exposition machine that is the Pokedex (or Pokemon Zukan in the original Japanese), we learn that while most Pokemon do go into pokeballs... some really hate small places. Like Pikachu.

Pikachu just plain refuses to have anything to do with Ash, and he ends up going off to try and catch a Pidgey all on his own... but fails. Causing Pikachu to go hihihihihi on top of his perch, and it's adorable. He later tries to use his pajamas to wrap the Pidgey up, but ends up getting tossed around by Pidgey's Gust attack. And while he's being humiliated by a tiny pigeon, a Rattata goes off and steals Ash's food, and we get a particularly snarky bit from the Pokedex, who tells Ash that "Rattata sometimes comes out of their normal habitat to take food from careless travelers." Oh, man, the Pokedex is a snarky ass.

I also like, by the way, the slight attempt at deconstructing the concept of Pokemon trainers in general. Supplies being stolen, disobedient Pokemon, being physically thrown around by wild Pokemon... yeah, it's actually a neat little aspect of the episode I do appreciate.

Ash's next attempt, of course, involves throwing a rock (this ain't the Safari Zone!) and it hits a Spearow! Which the Pokedex quickly establishes as the meanest motherfucker around. The Spearow attacks Ash, and we get a pretty cool black-and-white "from the Pokemon's vision" bit of Spearow swooping around. It's a pretty fun scene, and Spearow ends up attacking poor, confused Pikachu on the tree. The Pokedex notes that wild Pokemon often attacks those with trainers out of jealousy? Pikachu uses all those thundershocks he's been lobbing around to zap Spearow to the ground, but the Spearow just calls an entire flock of Spearows from a tree.

In the first agreement they have had since leaving Pallet Town, Ash and Pikachu decide to run away from the massive flock of Spearow. And while doing this, Pikachu runs ahead and gets pecked by a bunch of them and gets severely wounded. And after spending half the episode being an irresponsible twit or a dumbass, Ash finally does something actually heroic, and cradles Pikachu and continues running, including a bit where he jumps into a river and narrowly avoids colliding with a motherfucking Gyarados. That's kinda scary.

This leads to a brief encounter with a red-headed girl fishing near a stream -- this is Misty (or Kasumi, in Japanese, which also means 'mist' anyway), our female lead... but her role in this episode is basically just quite literally fishing Ash out of the river, slapping him for being an irresponsible trainer and injuring Pikachu... and then as the Spearow flock arrives, Ash just 'borrows' Misty's bike and zooms off to Viridian City, wanting to go to the nearest Pokemon Hospital.

Like, okay, as a kid, I cheered for Ash to get away from those Spearows, but shit, considering that we've seen that the Spearows have no qualms of exchanging their target of ire, it's pretty horrible for Ash to leave Misty right there as the Spearows are encroaching, huh? It's a good thing the Spearows are still focused on Ash and Pikachu, and not flock and peck Misty to death.

And as some nice rainy weather hampers their way, the Spearows knock Ash and Pikachu off of their stolen bicycle, and the animation team really makes sick, wounded Pikachu look really... really injured. It's pretty well done! And Ash ends up telling Pikachu to, hey, get into the poke ball, even though you don't like it. That way, Pikachu can at least survive while Ash basically tanks the entire Spearow swarm by himself. It's a pretty ballsy move, especially as a last resort, and this self-sacrificial willingness from Ash's part ends up inspiring Pikachu enough to actually get his fat ass off the ground and do something. In a pretty neat frame-by-frame style of animation, Pikachu climbs up Ash's body and jumps towards the middle of the Spearow flock, channeling all of the actual lightning bolts from the storm and zapping the entire swarm away. Oh, and turning Misty's bike into a mangled mess in the process. Also, at this point, the anime's soundtrack uses a remix of the Red/Blue wild Pokemon battle theme, which is something that I'm not sure they did in the dubbed version, and it's something that I definitely appreciate a lot.

Cheesy as hell, but hey, it's a kid's show, and it's actually a pretty neat, dramatic end to the Spearow chase. I'm pretty sure this episode also made me extremely suspicious about large flocks of birds, because holy shit, Spearows are mean motherfuckers.

And as Ash and Pikachu slowly walk towards the Viridian City in the horizon, they get to see a majestic, golden-coloured bird trailing sparkles in the sky. We now know that it's (an off-model) Ho-Oh, one of the main legendaries from Generation II, but I definitely remembered being confused, looking at the 150 Pokemon poster I received with the VCD purchases, because this definitely doesn't resemble Fearow, Pidgeot, Moltres or any of the birds in the original 150. The Pokedex notes that this is a Pokemon with "unknown data", hinting that there are many more creatures to be discovered in the world. And also being a stealth prequel to the sequel series Gold and Silver, which are presumably in development while the anime adapting the first series of games are in production. I was confused as all hell as a kid, but it's actually a pretty cool cameo.

Anyway... that's a pretty neat first episode! I'm not sure how far I'll go through with reviewing Pokemon. I'm pretty sure that after the first couple of episodes we'll basically lump them into two or three episodes together, especially when we get to the more filler-y stuff. We'll see. It's actually a pretty neat, if standard, meeting between a dumb but kind-hearted boy and his little jackass rat partner, and honestly, even after 20+ years, it's still a pretty solid entry point to the world of Pokemon. Anyway... see you guys for the next episode, where we prepare for trouble, and make it double.

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Gengar, Nidorino, Onix, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Dodrio, Pikachu, Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Sandshrew, Mankey, Magikarp, Gyarados, Ho-Oh
• Humans: Ash, Delia, Professor Oak, Gary, Misty

Assorted Notes: 

• We're not going to do a segment as extensive as this particular review every episode, but hey, since it's the very first episode, I figured... why not? 
• Game Easter Eggs:
• The biggest one, of course, has to be the first shot of the episode, which is a recreation of the pixelated Gengar-vs-Nidorino fight that was the opening animation before the title screen of the original Pokemon Red & Green, before rotating around and replacing the sprites with actual animation. One of the downright coolest shit when I was a kid. 
• Nidorino's trainer is completely obscured, but he seems to borrow the appearance of Bruno of the Elite Four.
• Dub Changes:
• In addition to changing everyone's names and Japanese language in signage to English, the dub team also have to localize some jokes and censor some things. I'm not going to exhaustively list everything, but some of them that I do notice:
• A full on scene of Misty slapping Ash in the face for letting Pikachu get injured was cut from the dub version.
• A joke lost in translation with Ash telling Pikachu to 'talk' (hanashi) to him ends up with Pikachu showing off his teeth, a pun on ha nashi also meaning 'toothless'. In the dubbed version, this is actually pretty smartly turned into Ash realizing that, yeah, Pikachu can only say his name and can't really talk to him. 
• Theme Songs!
• The Japanese version is Mezase Pokemon Master (Aim to be a Pokemon Master) by Rika Matsumoto, which I still have nostalgic feelings for because as a kid, I watched the Johto seasons aired in their original Japanese version, so I am familiar with this fun, little peppy theme with short, speedy chorus. It's fun! My only complaint is the "through the girl's skirt" bit, not mostly because of the skirt but more because of the loud high-pitched scream that just bugs my ear. Still, I really do like it...
• ...But my preference still has to be Jason Paige's more bombastic rock theme of Pokemon Theme (Gotta Catch 'Em All), which is just... there's just something about how great it is, y'know? It just makes you get amped to watch the series and play the game and be the very best, like no one ever was. 
• Dare da? Pikachu! Or, in the dubbed version... Who's That Pokemon? Pikachu! An honestly charming little advertisement bumper that I felt was done far better than most other kiddy anime out there, and one that also gets the audience to learn about the 150+ Pokemon in the world. Most other anime tends to just have a brief clip of their main characters waving or some shit. 
• Ho-Oh was really off-model, huh? Apparently they just used whatever in-development sketch of Ho-Oh they had, which is why he looks so weirdly different. 
• The Bruno lookalike in the TV tournament uses a weird green Pokeball, which doesn't actually match any Pokeballs in the series. 
• Also, the Bruno lookalike keeps ordering his Nidorino and Onix to use Normal-type moves against Gengar (Horn Attack and Tackle, respectively), and as a Ghost-type, Gengar's completely immune to those. Silly show writers!