Pokemon S01E14 Review: GOD DAMN

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 14: Electric Shock Showdown! Vermilion Gym!

This is definitely an episode that I found to be a lot more memorable in its original Japanese version, thanks to the pretty fun trope of boisterous foreigner in Japanese fiction. It's perhaps also a bit more memorable due to the whole "Pikachu is better than Raichu!" mentality that this ends up causing, dooming poor Raichu to never, ever be as popular as his pre-evolved form for years.

Anyway, the trio finally reach Vermilion City, and single-minded Ash wants to go straight for the gym. But they end up making a stop in the Pokemon Center, and I do like the little foreshadowing to how horrifying the gym leader of this town, Lt. Surge (or "Mathis", as he's known in Japan) is. Rows upon rows of wounded Pokemon, including one that's brought in as Ash and company is talking to Nurse Joy, ends up really setting up Surge as this brutal badass, and makes Pikachu straight-up afraid to fight Lt. Surge.

And Lt. Surge shows up, and he's... he's a huge foreigner man! He speaks in an accented Japanese that's short-hand in anime or Japanese television for "foreigner accent", and we get a brief scene where Surge randomly hugs Misty, noting that she's a cute challenger (SHE IS TEN, SURGE). With a confused English exclamation of "then who?", Ash goes off and introduces himself as the challenger with an "it's me da!" Surge quickly tells his groupies about how his current challenger is a BABY, and up until his defeat, Surge constantly refers to Ash with the English word 'baby'.

The battle, of course, starts off with Ash sending in Pikachu, and Surge mocking that Ash's pokemon is a baby like him... and, of course, unleashes his own Pokemon -- Raichu, the evolved stage of Pikachu. After a bizarre "you right???" Surge notes how you really should evolve your Pokemon as soon as possible, unless you want to keep them as a pet. Ash retorts that making them as powerful as possible isn't the same as properly raising them. Pikachu himself is pretty pissed off at the bigger Raichu, and this first fight actually ends with Raichu victorious after a single blast of thunder-shock, establishing that Raichu's electrical attacks are far, far more powerful than Pikachu's, before beating him down with Mega Punch and Mega Kick.

(I have a suspicion that Mega Punch and Mega Kick are given to Raichu just so Lt. Surge can shout out some English-sounding attack names)

Ash forfeits the match and brings Pikachu to the hospital, while Team Rocket is panicking, wanting Pikachu to win so that they can validate their pursuit of this special Pikachu. It's actually heartwarming, especially with how they show up in the hospital to give Meowth a way to help translate what Pikachu is saying. Nurse Joy, who happens to have a Thunderstone, gives it to Ash, noting that he could be on equal grounds with Surge if his Pikachu has evolved too. But, of course, you can't make all the Pikachu merchandise obsolete in 14 episodes, so Pikachu refuses to evolve. And... and the reasoning is somewhat simplistic. Ash doesn't want Pikachu to evolve just for the shallow reason of making it stronger, while Pikachu (as Meowth tells us), wants to beat Raichu without evolving, because if it beat Raichu when it evolves, it will always view this particular fight with regret.

As Pikachu gets better and they leave the Pokemon Center, we get a pretty bizarre -- but heartwarming -- moment as Team Rocket shows up in weird Kujo Jotaro esque getups, before cheering for Pikachu and escaping. Misty quickly figures out and thanks Team Rocket for their cheers, which is... kinda weird, but also sweet.

I really wish we had a scene where Ash and Pikachu think up of a plan to actually defeat Raichu instead of that random affirmation of determination, though, because I always felt that Pikachu suddenly pulling off Agility and whatnot is a bit bizarre. But hey. Ash tells Surge that in his rush to get Raichu to learn all those fancy electrical moves, Raichu skipped out on all the speed-based attacks that Pikachu would've learned, causing Lt. Surge to scream out GOD DAMN in the original Japanese version, which is insanely hilarious.

Surge and Raichu panics and unleashes his thunderbolt everywhere... but apparently Raichu ran out of electricity (what? I guess it's the Pokemon world's equivalent to PP?) while Pikachu has grounded himself by stabbing his tail into the ground. Raichu needs to charge before his next attack, and Surge apparently forgot about all the Mega Punches, Body Slams and Mega Kicks Raichu can do, causing Pikachu to zip in with a Quick Attack and knock Raichu down.

With an "UNBELIEVABLE!", Surge concedes defeat to Ash in a pretty gracious way, before handing him the third badge, the Thunder Badge (Orange Badge in the original Japanese). It's... it's an all right episode, I suppose. The themes of the episode is pretty solid, wanting to defeat a theoretically stronger opponent with nothing but guts, and wanting to win as yourself instead of just going for a shortcut. But at the same time, I kinda wish that the episode was more consistent. Maybe show Raichu using more electrical moves all the time instead of resorting to body slams and mega kick/punches? Pikachu using his tail as a lightning rod is also a bit bizarre and out of nowhere, and I also wished that we've seen Pikachu use Agility earlier in the series or episode as foreshadowing. It's still fun to watch, but I wish that the final battle didn't feel as much of an ass-pull as it ended up being. 

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Pikachu, Rattata, Caterpie, Oddish, Sandshrew, Chansey, Pidgey, Raichu, Meowth, Koffing
• Humans: Ash, Brock, Misty, Nurse Joy, Lt. Surge, James, Jessie

Assorted Notes:

• GOD DAMN. 
• Brock's line about how a Pokemon's personality can change drastically upon evolution is exclusive to the dub (in the Japanese version, that scene had Brock talking about the same "Pikachu can learn some extra moves if you don't turn him into Raichu immediately" sentiment)... but it also ends up being a nice foreshadowing to Charizard. 
• While the show doesn't explain it particularly well, in the original Red/Blue games, a lot of Pokemon that rely on evolution stones to evolve are indeed unable to learn many moves after they evolve. The episode notes that Raichu learns electric moves more readily, but skips out on moves like Agility that it would've otherwise learnt. 
• So I know it's definitely a coincidence, but did Pikachu essentially do the much-later-introduced Lightning Rod ability there? 
• Dub Changes:
• The pokedex notes how Raichu can shown an Indian Elephant (???) in the Japanese version, but the dub changes it to a Dragonite instead.
• Raichu gets extra scenes of trying to body slam Pikachu in the dub version. 
• There's an untranslatable pun, where Jessie notes how Pikachu uses his tail to ground himself, with 'earth' being pronounced as asu, whereas James immediately goes for a pun and holds up Koffing... or, well, Dogasu, Koffing's Japanese name. In the dub version, Jessie and James just makes random puns unrelated to Koffing at all, making Koffing himself a non-sequitur.