Pokemon S01E43 Review: Shitty Magician Wannabe

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 43: The March of the Exeggutor Squad

Yeah, definitely one of the worse episodes from the Kanto season, for sure. Our heroes come across a carnival, and while Ash and Brock are goofing off, Misty encounters a loser of a magician who ends up basically smooth-talking her to dress in a skimpy Goldeen-themed magician's assistant outfit and try and make his show work. And honestly, the show tries to pass off Magi (Melvin in the dub) as this sad, bullied performer that just needs a huge break, but Magi has proven himself to be such an unlikable twit and such a loser of a magician that there honestly isn't any real likable qualities to the character that I definitely didn't sympathize with him at all. Sure, it sucks that he's losing his job, but it's not like the carnival people are actually doing anything wrong. His first assistant quits because he didn't pay her, his show is clearly not professional which leads to a very minimal crowd, he's shown to be willing to basically strongarm Misty into helping him out, and honestly, his performance is utterly pathetic. The firing only happens because his fire trick nearly set fire to the audience, and honestly? He should've counted himself lucky they didn't call Officer Jenny on his sorry ass. It's not like Duplica from the Ditto episode where she's genuinely willing and happy to perform, and just one aspect of her show sucks... everything Magi does in his attempt to perform is just crap.

And, let me remind you, that this is the Pokemon world, where lizards and dogs regularly breathe fire, birds unleash tornadoes on command and butterflies spread sleeping powder. Magi's shitty magic tricks honestly pale to what your average Pokemon could do. Honestly, Exeggcute is a psychic-egg-seed monster, and all Magi did with Exeggcute is... juggle it/them? What? Exeggcute is such a bizarre Pokemon, by the way, but this is how they choose to spotlight it/them?

I'm honestly not sure why Ash and company try to help out this unlikable twit either. The weird Aladdin cosplay with the starter trio shoved in a magic box is weird, and in an argument with Exeggcute, Ash ends up getting hypnotized, and... and Magi just basically kidnaps the hypnotized Ash, brings him to a forest and has him fight and capture a giant forest of Exeggutors... for Magi to hypnotize the town? Holy shit. And we're supposed to be rooting for him as a misunderstood man?

Team Rocket arrives, and honestly, mock Magi for honestly being a shittier magician than Team Rocket's effortless hammy performance. Magi's Exeggcute attack Team Rocket and evolve, and use hypnosis... causing the entire forest of Exeggutes to hypnotize each other, and they just stampede for no real reason, wrecking the town. Brock and Misty pull Ash and that criminal Magi out and return to the town, finding out that the ringmaster has set up a time bomb to take out the rampaging Exeggutors that are returning their way. Surprisingly brutal!

Ash then launches his Pokemon at the Exeggutors, and finds out that Squirtle's water does nothing to walking trees, while Bulbasaur's Razor Laef only gives the Exeggutors spiffy haircuts. So... uh... but earelier we saw that apparently hypnotized-Ash was able to defeat and weaken these Exeggutors with Squirtle and Bulbasaur. Silly writers. Of course, it's Charmander that saves the day, using fire to snap the Exeggutors out of their hypnosis. Misty tells Magi to grow some balls and help out, and apparently his fire magic (which apparently is just something he can do without preparation) in conjunction with Charmander is able to take out the entire squad and return them to normal. Oh, and Charmander evolves into Charmelon, and ends up being so angry at being featured in this shitty episode by burning the side of Ash's ear. It's the equivalent of tacking a capture onto the end of a filler episode to make it important, except this is evolution.

Honestly? Part of why the episode sucks so badly is that Magi is similar to that lecherous dude from the beauty contest episodein that the supposed character of the week is genuinely unlikable. But Magi's outright harmful and such an annoying twit of a character that I find it hard to believe that our heroes would tolerate him, let alone help him. He didn't actually get punished at all in the end, despite planning to mass-hypnotize people, something that definitely goes far and beyond just wanting people to see his act. It's a shit episode for Exeggcute and Exeggutor, too -- as a bizarre walking cluster of egg-seeds that evolve into walking coconuts, the episode doesn't really even explore the bizarreness of Exeggcute at all. Overall, a pretty disappointing episode that I walked out of with a mild headache.

Pokemon Index: 

• Pokemon: Venusaur, Dodrio, Machoke, Ponyta, Oddish, Chansey, Butterfree, Pikachu, Exeggcute, Electrode, Meowth, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Exeggutor
• Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, James, Jessie

Assorted Notes:

• In the US, this episode marked the end of the 'first season', leading to a four-month hiatus as Pokemon moved into Kids' WB. We'll be considering series rebrandings with subtitles as actual 'seasons', though, so the first season will run until episode 80, the end of the pre-Orange-Islands Kanto storyline.
• The whole Exeggutor forest thing is weird, huh? Magi is able to capture like a gigantic pile of Exeggutors despite trainers only being allowed only six (then again, that random Charmander trainer also had like 20+ Pokeballs on hand), and later on the Exeggutors just abandon him even though he didn't release them. 
• Dub Changes: 
• Magi/Merlin's dream is to perform in Broadway in the original Japanese, whereas the dub changes it to the more sensible Las Vegas. In both cases, a real-world location is mentioned. 
• In the original Japanese, James actually mentions how Exeggcute could evolve without a leaf stone (the signs of Leaf Forest imply that it's the properties of the forest). In the dub, no mention of evolution stones are made.