Pokemon S01E19 Review: Kaiju Attack

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 19: Tentacool & Tentacruel

Right, it's at about this point where I think I'll try and adopt a less recap-y version of reviews. It's one of my personal weaknesses as a reviewer, I think, how I sometimes end up just recapping the episode. I think we've been through enough episodes of the original Pokemon anime that we've sort of entered a mostly filler-y set of episodes... not that Pokemon really has much of a central plot, but you know what I mean.

As a kid, I've always loved this episode, mostly due to how surprisingly high-action it ended up being. The episode, of course, is kind of a homage to kaiju movies in the vein of Godzilla and Gamera, with giant monsters embodying the rage of mother nature itself rising up against all the pollution and industrialism that us nasty humans are making. And since Tentacruel was mutated by Team Rocket's jellyfish-killing secret stun sauce, it's even sort of karma. Hell, we even have Misty standing in as the one human who is able to sympathize with the mighty beast, which tend to show up especially in older kaiju movies. I really do wish that Misty and Horsea would more actively befriend Tentacruel, though, instead of just insisting that they're cute because they're Water-types, and later crying in the background and not really having any interaction until the climax of the episode.

This episode sort of forms the final part of Ash and company's journey in this resort island, too, with some call-backs to the previous episode with the character of the week being Obaba, sister of the Obaba from the previous episode. This Obaba has a harem of pretty boys in briefs, though, which... best not to think about it too much. The English dub, having skipped the previous one, doesn't have this problem. She's initially introduced as a generic businesswoman and she's about to create a brand-new watery resort, but her workers keep getting attacked by mysterious underwater Pokemon, as Misty and Ash ends up saving a bunch of workers whose ship gets blown up. 

After Team Ash refuses, Obaba ends up calling the entire town to help out in dealing with the Tentacool infestation, leading to Team Rocket leading the charge with their Super Secret Stun Sauce... which ends up with the side effect of mutating a Tentacool into a gigantic, kaiju-sized Tentacruel that's 30 times the size of a normal Tentacruel, who begins to wreak havoc, unleashing a tidal wave onto the town and just smashing buildings apart. It's actually pretty horrifyingly animated, and, sure, no one died, but still. Also creepy is Tentacruel getting ahold of Meowth and using him as a mouthpiece to basically condemn the human race. It's... it's a bit bizarre since Tentacruel isn't psychic, but eh, we'll chalk it up to the ambiguous kaiju powers that turns Tentacruel gigantic.

And then we get the full force of the good guys' team, with everyone except for Charmander, Geodude and Onix unleashed to fight the Tentacool army, and it's pretty cool... until Tentacruel bats everyone away. Of course, it takes Pikachu pika-pika ing angrily, and Misty's speech to finally get Tentacruel to back down, causing it to return to the ocean and promise that the devastation won't be limited to a single city should the humans continue polluting the water. Meowth gets tossed into the ruined Ferris wheel, and dumbass Obaba, who shoots Tentacruel with a bazooka, gets swatted away to the other side of the island where she smashes and destroys the beach hut of the previous episode's Obaba.

The B-plot of this episode has Misty befriend a Horsea that was apparently beaten up by the Tentacool swarm, and the two of them are the ones that end up calming down the giant Tentacruel. Misty ends up adding Horsea to her party, which is pretty neat -- Misty hasn't really done a whole on other than be sassy in a lot of these early episodes, so it's nice to have her take a slightly more active role in this episode.

Overall, a pretty solid episode. Obaba is a pretty annoying villain, but I think that's in keeping with the relatively simple moral of "pollution is bad". Or, well, "if you keep polluting the waters, Cthulhu will fuck you up." We get some genuinely well done action scenes in this episode, both on the side of the Tentacruel/Tentacool swarm and the good guys.

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Pikachu, Horsea, Staryu, Starmie, Goldeen, Tentacool, Meowth, Tentacruel, Pidgeotto, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Butterfree, Zubat
• Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, Obaba, Jessie, James, the other Obaba

Assorted Notes:

• More non-Pokemon fishes in Obaba's aquarium!
• The Pokedex makes a point about how apparently Horsea males are the ones that lay eggs. Definitely a reference to real-life seahorses, although it'll be a bit weird when Johto seasons arrive and everyone acts like they don't know what Pokemon eggs are.  
• Misty being outraged at Obaba calling Tentacool 'icky' really is the pot calling the kettle black, considering how mean she was to Caterpie, eh? 
• Pikachu and Horsea hanging out at a rubber pool is adorably cute.
• Due to the 9/11 attacks, this episode was taken out of circulation temporarily due to the many, many destruction of skyscrapers by Tentacruel. Strangely, though, the English dub opening has a segment of Tentacruel smashing a skyscraper, and that wasn't touched at all. 
• Dub Changes:
• In the original Japanese, both Team Ash and Team Rocket end up confusing the Obaba in this episode for the Obaba in the previous episode, causing Nastina-Obaba to get angry for being mistaken for her relative. Since the previous episode was cut out of international airings, the dialogue and why "Nastina" gets angry is altered. 
• Actual jellyfishes are used in some imaginary spots, which is thanks to a pun that doesn't translate well into English. Tentacool's Japanese name, Menokurage, contains the word "kurage", which means real jellyfishes. Considering real fishes are featured in the episode, the dialogue seems to imply that Obaba is hiring people to exterminate jellyfishes, and that Team Rocket ends up being surprised that it's Tentacool that shows up. 
• Team Rocket's "Super Secret Stun Sauce" was originally a vinegar concoction in the original.