Pokemon, Episode 3: Ash Catches A Pokemon
I originally wanted to combine the three Viridian Forest episodes into a single review, but I guess I'll do the one-episode-per-review format for a while, since I do have a fair bit to say about these introductory episodes. While the first two episodes try their best to introduce the world of Pokemon and our main characters, this episode finally goes with introducing the actual mechanics of Pokemon capture, which is hinted briefly by the Pokedex in episode one, but never really shown.
And while we do get a bunch of stock footages of Ash doing the reverse-hat thing and throwing the ball (which we see like three times in this episode), Ash quickly resolves the cliffhanger of the episode before the title even comes up by capturing Caterpie without much of a fight. But then we get the conflict of the episode, which is the fact that Misty is utterly creeped out by bugs, including Caterpie... and it just leads to a lot of comedy in the first half of the episode, where Ash just wants Caterpie to be buddies, and later on gets angry that Misty hurts Caterpie's feelings. (To be fair, Caterpie, for whatever reason, goes straight to rub his body against Misty's leg the moment he pops out of the Pokeball, but still...)
In one of the more adorable moments, we get Pikachu pat-patting Caterpie on the back to cheer him up, while Misty continues to be utterly mean to Caterpie. And Caterpie straight-up nearly cries at some points in the episode... why do you have to be so mean to Caterpie, Misty?
It's mostly variations of the same scene, with some fun bits being Misty using the bicycle as an excuse to tag on with Ash, and a fun bit where Pikachu and Caterpie spend the night while the humans are asleep just laughing and making Pokemon noises while looking at the moon, including a brief bit where Caterpie looks at a Butterfree flying through the air. It's a pretty fun and touching moments, and depending on the season, we don't really get quite as much Pokemon-and-Pokemon interaction and friendship like this. Hell, the next Pokemon Ash catches doesn't even get the same treatment!
Caterpie wakes up to more verbal abuse from Misty, and honestly... I know she doesn't like bugs and all, but there's one thing to tell Ash to keep it away, and another to drive the poor worm into such depression that he voluntarily hides back inside his own Pokeball. Ash gets distracted by a Pidgeotto, though, and Ash gets a quick game tutorial from Misty that, no, throwing a Pokeball to catch a Pokemon without weakening it first won't work unless it's a weakling like Caterpie.
And I do like that Ash throws Caterpie out immediately because how dare you insult his friend. Turns out, though, that Pikachu and Misty are immediately shocked because, hey, Pidgeotto is a bird, and Caterpie is a bug! Flying-types are very, very advantageous to Bug-types, which is the first real sign we've ever seen of type advantages. The first season is kind of piss-poor at actually following the game's type advantage chart, but hey.
By pure dumb luck (and by recalling Caterpie before he gets impaled by Pidgeotto's beak), Ash manages to cause Pidgeotto to get his beak stuck in a tree, before taking this opportunity to send Pikachu to thundershock Pidgeotto and then capture him. Ash's celebration at getting two Pokemon is ended with a slap from Misty for being a moron and nearly getting Caterpie killed. Misty tells Ash that just loving Pokemon without the actual judgment isn't good for a trainer.
Team Rocket then shows up, because you got to have more conflict than just "Misty hates bugs" and "Ash is a dunce", with Meowth apparently convincing the two humans that Ash's Pikachu is a special Pikachu, starting off a glorious obsession that has lasted some 650+ episodes and is still counting. We get a silly bit where Jessie and James throws out Koffing and Ekans, and Ash refuses to call out two Pokemon because it's against the League rules. Silly Ash! Also, silly Misty for not helping out. Like, I know that the writing team probably wanted Ash to get most of the focus in these early episodes, but I don't think there's a real in-universe reason for Misty to not join in these battles.
At least there's a half-assed reason for Pikachu to sit out on this episode's battles, because you got to show off the new
Ash sends out Pidgeotto, and we get a pretty cool battle between Koffing and Pidgeotto. Pidgeotto performs well, dodging and swooping around, but between Ekans digging through the ground and bursting out, as well as Koffing just bobbing in the air shooting smoke clouds and sludge bombs, Pidgeotto ends up getting double-teamed. There are some bits in this battle where the animation is off -- particularly the scale of Ekans relative to the other two -- but it's still pretty entertaining. After a brief bit where Ash tries to punch Team Rocket himself, he sends out the wounded Caterpie. Again, Misty really should've tried to rub the sludge out of Pikachu's eyes, or, y'know, send out that Starmie of hers, but eh.
Ash ends up telling the very terrified Caterpie (he's not having a good day, is he?) to use String Shot, which is kind of a useless move in the games. But this is anime-land, so String Shot ends up turning Koffing and Ekans into mummies, and then Meowth as well. This freaks Team Rocket out so much that they retreat, leaving behind a rose while dragging the mummified Meowth with them.
Of course, after spending much of the episode establishing capture mechanics, the final scene ends up showing Caterpie shooting string into the air, covering himself with it, and evolving into Metapod! It's a bit of a bizarre take on evolution that the early anime (and early manga, too) tends to use, because instead of glowing lights, it's actually showing Caterpie transforming into Metapod in the same way that a real caterpillar would turn into a pupa. It's pretty neat, though, and I honestly wish more Pokemon would have something extra in their evolution instead of just a bright light.
Anyway, Caterpie's adorable, and the poor little bug is just so afraid and terrified throughout the whole episode. It's one that I didn't expect I would enjoy this much, but actually giving Caterpie a personality as an underdog has really, really endeared him to my heart. Misty and Ash also properly establish their relationship as bickering like kids (which they are), Team Rocket establish that they're basically jokes from here on out, and Pidgeotto... yeah, poor Pidgeotto is basically the most ignored of Ash's early Pokemon. Poor bird. He's got amazing hair, at least.
Pokemon Index:
- Pokemon: Caterpie, Pikachu, Butterfree, Pidgeotto, Meowth, Ekans, Koffing, Metapod, Beedrill
- Humans: Ash, Misty, James, Jessie
Assorted Notes:
- In a bizarre bit of early anime weirdness, we clearly see Pidgeotto eating an earthworm that is not a Pokemon. Some real-life animals sneak their way into the Pokemon world in these early anime episodes, and in this case, it's to illustrate that, yes, birds do eat bugs, without actually traumatizing little kids by showing a friendly Caterpie being murdered.
- Also, after watching a couple of episodes where most of the Pokemon have different names in Japanese (other than Pikachu, of course), it's pretty surreal to see Caterpie also have the same name in Japanese.
- Also funny is when a Pokemon name is just an English word, so Pidgeotto is just "Pigeon".
- The whole bit about Ash not wanting to break Pokemon League rules sort of goes out of the window in a couple of episodes, and is downright hilarious since the Generation III games will introduce double battles as an actual game mechanic.
- Dub Changes:
- Misty slaps Ash after recklessly endangering Caterpie, which is cut in the dub, although the sentiment of the scene is retained.
- Ash's catchphrase after catching a Pokemon, "[x] GETTO DA ZE" is removed from the dub, probably because there's no real way to translate it without sounding silly.
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