Pokemon 9: Pokemon Victory Manual / The School of Hard Knocks
Another episode, and the trio is still lost on the way to Vermilion City. We do start off the episode with a pretty pointless but fun scene where Brock pulls out an entire dining set, complete with chairs, table, foreign tea set and even a coffee-maker out of his backpack, totally being a parent to the other two more clueless kids. I do like the hilarious line about Brock telling them that "kids are too young for coffee, drink tea instead".
This lasts basically just to buy time before Ash gets sent off to gather firewood and meet the character-of-the-week, who is Jun/Joe... who is a member of your typical "highly abusive elitist snobbish school" trope in anime. A member of the prestigious "Pokemon Semi", Jun is being kinda-bullied by his fellow classmates, being forced to jog on a treadmill in the middle of a misty jungle while having to recite facts about Pidgey as a bizarre bit of quiz. All the while, the supposed bullies are holding candles to look extra weird for some reason. It's honestly a bit of surreal scene, and sort of like that random scientist man from the Clefairy episode, this is just kind of absurd.
Ash and company chase off the snobbish bullies, and Jun tells us some backstory about this super-awesome institute where the super-rich kids can enroll, and apparently they can bypass the eight gyms requirement to go straight to the Pokemon Leagues. Money money, people!
All while this is going on, Pikachu accidentally finds himself running on the treadmill and falls off it, and oh nooo poor baby
But apparently, Jun actually knows all the fact about Pidgey, but doesn't want to answer because the 'bullies' will be more strict and ask him even more questions... and then he goes on and says that "papa and mama worked hard to get me here". What the hell, little boy? Be somewhat consistent in your mentality! Do you want to succeed? Or do you just want to slack off? Jun becomes even increasingly unlikable, telling our heroes that he's being bullied particularly by a pretty girl that's also the smartest kid around. After some rather unfortunately lewd comments from Brock and Ash, Misty calls Jun out on carrying around a picture of this girl. Jun brushs it off as "its fine, she's cute"... no.
We then get a brief bit of Team Rocket looking at the whole conversation before bemoaning that apparently Jessie and James fail to get into this prestigious school, which is a nice bit of backstory, but we never go anywhere with that. No one really acknowledges the whole "money makes this world unfair" theme that we kinda have, either.
Jun, meanwhile, continues being a twit by showing off this huge row of giant game boys that allows you to play simulations against gym leaders. Despite Ash, Misty and Brock going out of their way to befriend him, Jun is a complete asshole to them, belittling Ash's badges and telling Misty that her gym sucks and he won in simulations multiple times. Because, yeah, playing, like, Tekken or Street Fighter makes me straight-up qualified to talk to a Judo instructor and tell him that he sucks.
Thankfully, the episode isn't on Jun's side, as he gets essentially humiliated when Misty's nice-girl gloves come off, and she unleashes Starmie on Jun's supposedly-advantageous Weepinbell, and it's a very satisfying one-hit KO. Honestly, we're supposed to feel some sympathy to Jun, especially when resident Alpha Bitch Seiyo shows up to talk shit about Jun... but considering Jun's horrid attitude throughout the episode, the only reason I feel any sympathy to him is because Seiyo one-ups him in being an asshat.
Seiyo, at least, has the skills to back up her boasts, though, showing that unlike Jun, she at least has the skills to back up her bitchiness. Intentionally using a Pokemon that Misty's Starmie is strong against, Seiyo uses a Rock-type Graveler to throw Starmie out into the pool. Of course, this is apparently a matter of levels, but still. Seiyo is intent on humiliating Misty even further, wanting to fight her in the pool, but Ash steps in. Seiyo does the ohohoho mockery of using facts to act superior over Ash, taunting him for only having three Pokemon, for not taming Pikachu properly, and basically being a bitch.
...and for all her smack talk about using a Pokemon Misty is strong against, she uses the Ground-type Cubone against Pikachu, where, once more, electricity has no effect against the Ground-type Cubone. And this whole segment with Pikachu pulling a dumb face and going towards Cubone, only for Seiyo to tell Cubone to "BONE CLUB!" and Cubone whacks Pikachu in the head... that's funny.
Of course, Ash does the patented Shonen Anime trope of "use your instincts!" and tells Pikachu to just go do wahtever. Pikachu spins Cubone's skull (that's his mother's skull, you dick!) around, blinding Cubone, before biting and scratching him, distracting Cubone long enough for him to be hit by his own Bonemerang. And then Cubone cries, and I honestly feel bad for Cubone. It's not his fault his trainer's a bitch!
Seiyo and Jun basically hail this whole bit as "oh my god, this isn't in the textbooks, it's incredible!" which honestly reeks of pretty bad anti-intellectualism to me. Like, sure, burying your head in textbooks and not getting practical experience is a bad thing, but being a dunderhead who refuses to train (as established in the previous episode) or learn (as established here) is a pretty shitty role model. I do feel like the conflict this episode is handled a lot better than the previous one, though.
Pokemon Index:
- Pokemon: Pikachu, Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Pidgeot, Meowth, Starmie, Weepinbell, Graveler, Cubone
- Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, Jun, James, Jessie, Seiyo
Assorted Notes:
- I've previously not specified which version of the episode title I've used because they've all been the same. This is the first one where the English dub uses a completely unrelated title
- The battle simulator is sort of similar to the battle screen in the original games, albeit with more colour.
- Speaking of the games, Seiyo and Jun recites some facts about Pokemon and their learn-sets based on Pokemon Levels in the game. This is actually one of the rare times that Levels are acknowledged in the anime. According to Seiyo, Pikachu should be Level 25.
- Apparently it's been two months after Ash left Pallet Town. Like, yeah, that's two months since the show's been airing, but Ash does like very little in the course of sixty days, doesn't he?
- Seiyo/Giselle and Jun/Joe make cameos in the anime-based Pokemon Yellow, being a pair of Junior Trainers on Route 6 (which is indeed between Cerulean and Vermilion) with a Cubone and Weepinbell respectively, with Seiyo talking about textbooks and Jun clearly being smitten.
- Dub Changes:
- Brock's infinitely more creepy "I'll look forward to her in eight years" comment to Seiyo is changed to the still flirty, but a lot less creepy "she can violate my rights any time" in the English dub. That still-dodgy line would later be cut in some versions of the dub broadcast.
- The scene of Misty hitting Brock's head with a log is cut from the dub.
- The pretty silly sounding "Pokemon Semi" (short for Seminar) is replaced with the posh-sounding "Pokemon Technical Institute" in the dub.
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