Pokemon S01E17 Review: The Monsters' Day Out

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 17: Island of the Giant Pokemon

So after the huge cliffhanger of the previous episode, our heroes and villains end up getting themselves stranded on a nondescript beach, with Ash, Misty and Brock waking up to find that Pikachu and three of Ash's Pokeballs not being around, whereas Jessie and James are rudely awakened by a pinchy Krabby to realize that, they, too, are separated from their Pokemon.

The first real indication that this episode will be different is that the Krabby that crawls up to James and Jessie has "[???]" to translate his Pokemon-speech. And, indeed, this is the first time (and maybe the only time? I haven't seen all 600 episodes) that the Pokemon have almost the entire episode to themselves with subtitled speech to translate what they are talking about. We'll have some episodes starring mostly Pokemon with little to no human characters, but these episodes tend to not have subtitles, or at least only have Meowth going on to help translate.

And as Pikachu gets reunited with the three starter Pokemon, I do like how the writers do make their personalities a bit more distinct. Squirtle is very cheerful and playful, Pikachu and Charmander are far more worried and very faithful that Ash will return for them, while Bulbasaur is almost instantly pessimistic, noting that they might very well be abandoned again. This all relates to their respective origin stories and how they meet Ash, and I thought it's definitely a fun, nice touch. I do also love how Charmander panics at the notion of being abandoned again, whereas Pikachu, who's been with Ash the longest, refuses to believe this even for a moment. I kinda wish we get to see more of Pikachu growing from a jackass to a bro, honestly... it's always something that I felt was lacking. Oh, and they attempt to ask a random Slowpoke where they are, but Slowpoke is... a slowpoke.

And as Pikachu and company walk around, they encounter Meowth, and Meowth orders Ekans and Koffing to attack the good guys' Pokemon. Except that... none of them want to take orders from Meowth. Ekans elaborates that Meowth isn't their master, and Koffing just bobs around and repeats what Ekans has to say. Ekans notes that "no Pokemon is a bad guy, they only do bad things because their masters are bad"... which is interesting. Future seasons would definitely prove this to be un-true, with evil, independent Pokemon, and Meowth himself lampshades how he doesn't need a human master to tell him to do evil things. It does establish that at least everyone's favourite snake and floating smiley gas bag aren't actually bad guys.

Ekans and Koffing even join Pikachu and company for a campfire dinner, and that dick Bulbasaur and all his talk about being abandoned causes even Team Rocket's Pokemon to panic and get worried at the thought of being abandoned. Of course, it's at this point that the titular island of giant Pokemon starts to live up to its name. It's a bit of a shame that the sizes of, say, Rhydon or Zapdos or whatever hasn't been established, so there really isn't a reference to why we should be that surprised. But giant Rhydons, Moltreses and Zapdoses start to harass our heroes in the various places of the island... up until we cut to the Pokemon characters hanging out at a random yakitori stand getting drunk as the Slowpoke shopkeeper serves them food and drink. It's... it's weird, with a couple of fun bits like Bulbasaur being an angry drunk and Pikachu pat-patting the crying Ekans. It's a genuinely surreal scene.

Jessie and James call the boss on the random telephone booth on the island, but their insistence at saying the motto causes Giovanni to lose his patience and slam down the phone. Jessie and James get the bright idea to just follow the telephone line, but even more giant Pokemon attack them! This is the first time we see an actually gigantic version of a Pokemon we've seen in the show. A giant Pikachu stomps on the telephone booth. We get a funny bit of our Pokemon cast meeting a giant Blastoise and Venusaur, with the group pushing Squirtle and later Bulbasaur to try and ask their bigger cousins for directions. Bulbasaur's attempts to play it cool and go "I am how you say a loner" is kinda fun.

It's a bit of an awkward writing as everyone just sort of bumps into each other while being chased by the giant Pokemon, with Jessie and James riding on a bizarre Indiana Jones cart (with broken handle!). The cables attached end up dragging the giant Kabutops and Pikachu robots along, and after everyone is reunited in the cart and go through a loop-the-loop (who builds those for mine carts?) the giant Pokemon all crash onto each other thanks to this, and we get a fun segment as Team Rocket deadpans about what the "worst scenario would be", with everything that happens next being a pretty accurate depiction of this.

Of course, turns out that the giant Zapdos that they smash through is a robot, and so is everything else on the island. Turns out that this island is called the Pokemon Land of Aopluco Resort, and that it's an attraction where people can go and see giant pokemon walking around... except, y'know, our heroes destroyed those giant fancy robots. Also, it's Giovanni's resort, and apparently it went bankrupt after this single incident. Okay? The episode ends with our heroes arriving on the resort on the other side of the island, leading to the next episode. Oh, and Slowpoke evolves into Slowbro.

Overall, the setup of the episode and the introduction of how our Pokemon characters do actually have personalities beyond being cute animals is pretty fun... but the conclusion of the episode feels a bit lacking, and the last act of the episode just honestly feels pretty lackluster all around. Next up, though, is a duo of episodes that also take place on this island, and one of them is a banned episode!

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Krabby, Pikachu, Charmander, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Slowpoke, Ekans, Meowth, Koffing, Rhydon robot, Zapdos robot, Moltres robot, Persian, Charizard robot, Blastoise robot, Venusaur robot, Kabutops robot, Slowbro
• Humans: Brock, Misty, Ash, James, Jessie, Giovanni

Assorted Notes: 

• We learn in this episode that Jessie and James apparently received their Ekans and Koffing as seasonal gifts.
• It's a bit telling that Pidgeotto and Butterfree are basically sidelined, huh? They really want to sell those starter Pokemon merchandise!
• It really is a fun, sneaky way for the showmakers to give a little sneak-peek at Zapdos and Moltres and other sorts of huge Pokemon while also saving them for future, grander appearances, huh?  
• The dub's Pokerap borrows a lot of footage from this episode in particular. 
• Dub Changes:
• An interesting one this time around, because the "Who's That Pokemon" segment was changed from Japanese to English from Slowpoke to Slowbro. Presumably this was because the Slowpoke image used had a random, non-Pokemon fish biting on Slowpoke's tail. 
• While most of the Pokemon's dialogue subtitles are translated in the dub, the segment where they clearly get drunk and are just rambling at Slowpoke's bar is left untranslated to remove any references to drunkenness.