Pokemon S01E10 Review: Hidden Leaf Village

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 10: Bulbasaur of the Hidden Village

So in this long stretch as we go to Vermilion City (to be fair, it's going to last a mere 6 episodes, which isn't that much compared to some filler arcs) our heroes once again find themselves lost... but that doesn't matter, because they quickly get distracted by an Oddish drinking water near a stream. Misty and Ash argue about who gets to capture the Oddish, with Misty going in with Starmie based on the logic that "it's near water, so a water specialist should capture it". Of course, they get interrupted by the star of the week.... Bulbasaur! Bulbasaur quickly makes good on being a badass by whacking Starmie silly, and then when Ash's Butterfree joins in, apparently Bulbasaur can blow Butterfree's sleep powder back at the poor bug. Yes, in these merchandise-driven shows, if you're the subject of "new toy syndrome", you can basically beat anyone who comes your path in your debut episode.

Bulbasaur and Oddish escape, causing the trio (well, mostly Ash) to be resolved to capturing Bulbasaur. However, they quickly find themselves caught in pitfalls and eventually a collapsing rope bridge... and Brock falls off to his seeming doom into the river! Well, not really, although the episode plays with Brock being MIA for longer than I thought. Ash and Misty later find themselves trapped on a little net trap, and Brock walks up to cut them loose -- telling them that he was rescued from drowning by a lady called Midori (Melanie in the dub).

We get some backstory that Midori runs a hidden off-the-maps village that works like a Pokemon Sanatorium, where she looks for injured or abandoned Pokemon, and I do like the idyllic nature of the location -- what little we get to see, anyway. Interestingly, we get to see Brock all flustered and panicked when Misty observes that Brock like-likes Midori, which I thought was kinda hilarious at how subdued this was and how panicked Brock gets, especially considering how... exaggerated Brock's reaction to ladies would get in future seasons.

We learn that Midori is also the one who set up all those deadly traps (complete with cuts to Team Rocket, hunting for the village, falling into all those traps)... which... wow, that's pretty horrible of her, huh? If this wasn't working on cartoon physics, people could've died just crossing the road.

We get a genuinely nice scene of Misty apologizing to the Oddish, who was apparently abandoned by its trainer, but this gets interrupted when Bulbasaur tackles Misty from behind, and then just keeps growling and pushing for Ash and Misty to get the fuck out of his village. Midori tells them that Bulbasaur is the protector of the village, and he will always be hostile to any threat. Realizing this, Ash decides to abandon getting Bulbasaur.

But then Team Rocket shows up with a ridiculously gigantic metallic dome with balloons... if they had that for the episode, what was the point of walking down the road and falling into all the traps? (Slapstick. Slapstick is the point). Apparently this giant dome mecha thing is also a vacuum machine, so is it the same one as the one they used in Cerulean City? Our heroes rescue all of the injured Pokemon, with a slightly extended scene of Bulbasaur and Ash rescuing Oddish, before everyone runs into the cabin. And then the counter-attack begins, with Bulbasaur vine-whipping the vacuum machine, and Pidgeotto's gust attack... somehow breaking physics, combines with the suction from Team Rocket's machine and creating a big-ass cartoon tornado that sends Team Rocket blasting off again.

After this brief crisis is dealt with, Midori tells Ash to take Bulbasaur to help it grow beyond just protecting the Pokemon of their hidden village, and waxes lyrical about how everyone there is actually ended their treatments and rehabs long ago... but they just refuse to move on because things are so comfortable, and that Midori notes that they really should return to their homes since it's the best for them. (But... they're abandoned Pokemon. Maybe they just physically can't return home?) The logic is questionable, but the point of the episode isn't about the hidden village, it's about Ash getting Bulbasaur.

I do really like that Bulbasaur actually refuses to go with Ash, though, and he wants a proper fight to see if Ash is worthy of training/catching him. The battle between Bulbasaur and Pikachu is relatively short, mostly consisting of tackles before we get a vine whip/thunderbolt exchange... but Bulbasaur gets turned into stir-fried salad by that thunderbolt, and Ash captured the Bulbasaur.

We get a new friend, and one that, like Caterpie before him, gets a full episode to showcase his personality a fair bit as a grumpy protector. And... the episode is all right, I guess? Bulbasaur's personality as the grumpiest onion frog is established pretty well, but I have always felt like the concept of the hidden village was concluded in a genuinely hand-wavey moment -- if anything, Team Rocket's attack should make Midori need a better protector. The whole trap sequence was also obvious filler, and it's not one that would end up being particularly memorable had it not been the acquisition of Bulbasaur.

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Pikachu, Oddish, Starmie, Bulbasaur, Butterfree, Meowth, Paras, Weepinbell, Rattata, Caterpie, Staryu, Magikarp
• Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, James, Jessie, Midori

Assorted Notes:

• It's interesting how catch-crazy Misty is early in this episode, huh? I guess the whole "Gotta Catch 'Em All" motto still sort of applies to most of the cast, even if catching Pokemon is honestly something that doesn't happen very often. 
• This episode would be the basis of a lady in Pokemon Yellow that gives you a Bulbasaur. This lady (who also appears in the two Let's Go games) lives in Cerulean City, though, not the endless plains between Cerulean and Vermilion. 
• Absolutely love that line of James commenting on how the build of this pitfall is "exquisite" while the other two members of Team Rocket are complaining that they got trapped. 
• For once, Pidgeotto does something other than getting his bird ass whupped!
• Dub Changes:
• While watching this episode in the dub, James randomly goes into a weird baseball pose as Pidgeotto's gigantic Gust-tornado is formed. In the original Japanese version, James is making a reference to baseball player Hideo Nomo, who is also known by the nickname "Tornado". The dub just ignores this and James just strikes a pose while the banter is replaced with generic grunting. 
• It's at this point that I realize that Japanese Misty really likes to say "Go, my steady!" when she calls out her Pokemon, which... which I assume is just random English words to sound cool. In the dub, this gets translated into "Misty chooses... [X]!"
• A couple of the bickering between Ash and Misty are altered. Ash makes a crack on Misty being heavy while on the bridge in the original Japanese version. While they are struggling on the net trap, Misty complains that all this shuffling around will cause Ash to touch her in inappropriate places.