Pokemon S01E47-48 Review: Quack Doctors and BDSM Dungeons

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 47: A Chansey Operation; Episode 48: Holy Matrimony

Episode 47 isn't the most exciting episode, and one that has another pretty unfortunate character-of-the-week in a completely assholish excuse of a doctor that is clearly lazy, unmotivated, and only really works because he's trying to get into the good graces of ladies like Misty, Jessie and Nurse Joy. And... yeah, that does have the unfortunate moments where Misty is concerned. The sheer laziness on Dr. Doc is also pretty nasty in a hilarious way, considering how he just deputizes a bunch of clueless kids and just shoves doctor's coats and forces them into helping.

After a brief bit of Pikachu being taken to a human hospital when the little rat nearly chokes on a goddamn apple, we encounter the pretty skeevy Dr. Doc. Who then gets roped into helping to cure a gigantic Pokemon-related accident, leading to our heroes (and Team Rocket, later on) being roped in as additional doctors. Chanseys are also heavily featured, but honestly don't feel like the 'focus' of the episode per se. There's a generic "doctors must help everyone regardless of whether they are good or bad guys" argument thrown in when Ash actually refuses to help Jessie's Arbok (cold, Ash)... which is really ruined by the doctor clearly doing it to score points with Jessie.

The episode mostly relies on the visual gags of the treatment of the Pokemon, and how 90% of Dr. Doc's treatment just involves superglue. We've got the doctor using defibrillator to charge up Pikachu, untangling a poor Dodrio with its necks in a knot, pulling out a Voltorb stuck into a Weepinbell's mouth, gluing a Pinsir's horn together... there's also a huge lost-in-translation joke and running gag of Meowth's forehead coin being lost.

The doctor accidentally stabs himself with an anesthetic, leaving our heroes to wing it (and, of course, succeed), including the pretty ridiculous way that Ash "subdues" the uncooperative Dodrio. Zap it to submission! Team Rocket's attempt to attack with robot stretchers is interrupted by the Chanseys blocking their way, and both Arbok and Weezing refuse to attack their benefactors. Overall... ultimately an episode that really stretched out a joke of funny Pokemon injuries for far, far longer than it should have been.

Episode 48, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of 47, which si throwaway. 48 is heavily remembered due to how it suddenly gives context behind bumbling old James, when our heroes end up coming across a wanted poster for James... and Team Ash ends up being escorted to James's massive mansion by his family butler, finding out that James comes from a super-rich, upper-crust family with a ginormous mansion... for their pet dog Growlithe. Their actual mansion is even more ginormous.

There's this whole wacky plot about how James's parents have passed away, and they are looking for James to reclaim his inheritance, and this must happen in 24 hours otherwise the estate will be donated to charity. Oh, and also, James must marry some lady as per his parents' wishes. Obviously it's all ridiculously wonky and not at all realistic, particularly the 24 hour deadline, but instead of general Pokemon anime contrivance, turns out that it is a trick by James's clearly insane and hammy parents, who just wants their son to go home and marry the girl of their choosing. Hell, they even do a parody of the Team Rocket pose! It's hilarious.

James also tries his best to feign amnesia, spinning a yarn tale about how he and his pet Growlithe Growlie totally died in the snow and ascended to heaven, such a tragic tale, which fools everyone except for Misty. He keeps freaking out with "OH NO AMNESIA" while trying to avoid being pulled into his family home. While Team Ash (who honestly is mostly irrelevant) wants to help out and give James "one last chance to say goodbye" to his supposedly-dead parents, Jessie and Meowth just wants to make James take the inheritance to get all that sweet, sweet money. And they pretend to use some camouflage costume to render themselves invisible while they puppeteer James.

Turns out that James is supposed to be wed to Jessebelle, who is... kind of a bitch! Also, looks identical to Jessie but the hair, which is never really brought up again.  It's a parody of high-crust society, and in addition to wanting to force James to basically live the way they dictate him to. This, apparently doesn't just involve a forced marriage, but also what appears to be some insanely kinky BDSM torture dungeon. That the parents are completely okay with, and it's implied heavily that Jessebelle had done this to James before, complete with Vileplume stun spore. Oh, those silly rich people and their sex torture dungeons!

(I am genuinely surprised, by the way, at how the dub doesn't even try to play down any of the references to death or torture in the dungeon, not trying to handwave it with some sort of "game room" or whatever. Japanese words and rice balls have to be censored, but rich sex torture dungeons are a-okay, it seems.)

While the whole situation is more ridiculous than serious drama, it's actually great to see James be allowed to be more than just the most bumbling member of a trio of bumbling villains. He is adamant at not wanting to be imprisoned and wants to be free, this is one of the few times he actually yells at the normally more dominant Jessie and Meowth, and he straight-up calls out his parents and his fiance for their manipulation.

James's family throws out Jessie, Meowth and Team Ash, and they decide to get James back from his psychotic family. And who else to save James than his childhood pet Growlithe? Our heroes release Growlithe from his massive dog mansion, who charges into the sex dungeon and blasts Jessebelle's Vileplume with flames and drives away the bitch and her fake accent. And as interesting as James's backstory is... I kinda really wished we got to see more of Growlithe other than "James's childhood pet".

James ends up leaving Growlithe at his family estate, ostensibly to take care of his parents, and we get a genuinely well-done moment of Growlithe howling while watching its master walk away in samurai costume, and James later catches up to Jessie and Meowth on the Team Rocket balloon, telling them that money is less important than the freedom to do what he wants to. It's a genuinely well-done moment, even if we all know the real reason James doesn't take Growlithe with him is that the animators probably want Team Rocket to consistently have the evil-looking Pokemon.

Overall, it's a bit messy and perhaps puts too much focus and time on James's fake backstory and the parental hi-jinks, but it's a pretty neat, standalone little story that actually paints a character in a different light. Sure, it's not particularly complex or anything, and the backstory can ultimately be summarized into a single sentence, but the Pokemon anime tends to be filled with so many generic filler episodes that the rare ones that actually show some character development and growth will always be more appreciated.

Pokemon Index:

• Episode 47:
• Pokemon: Pikachu, Nidorino, Oddish, Venonat, Parasect, Chansey, Dodrio, Meowth, Arbok, Weezing, Sandslash, Pinsir, Cubone, Bulbasaur, Raticate, Poliwhirl, Weepinbell, Voltorb, Squirtle, Tauros, Rhyhorn, Kakuna, Ivysaur, Hitmonlee, Nidoking. Multiple others appear in stock footage scenery change screen-wipes. 
• Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny, James, Jessie
• Episode 48:
• Pokemon: Pikachu, Meowth, Growlithe, Vileplume, Oddish, Magikarp
• Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, Jessie, James, James' family, Jessebelle

Random Notes:

• So from here on out, I'm watching the dub, for reasons I've explained before -- there aren't any really good English subs out there, and in any case, we're past the more... heavily-edited early episodes anyway. S'not ideal, but eh. 
• Still, holy shit, considering how heavily censored dub versions of previous episodes are, these two really aren't, huh? The borderline-pedophile doctor still openly flirts with Misty and Jessie in episode 47, Jessie says 'kill' in episode 47; whereas death, coffins, crosses and angels are uncensored in episode 48, as is the whip/BDSM dungeon. 
• Dr. Proctor's Japanese name, Dr. Doku, is a dual pun -- while obviously a shortening of the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "doctor", Doku can also mean "poison". 
• The Jigglypuff song plays in the background when the doctor anesthesizes himself. That's funny.
• Episode 47 features several screen-wipes where stock artwork of Pokemon are seen, among the Porygon, making this one of the only times Porygon is shown in the anime after the Porygon incident. 
• James' fake flashback in episode 48 is a homage to the novel and anime A Dog of Flanders, featuring a homeless child and his loyal dog freezing to death on Christmas Eve and being taken to heaven by a choir of angels. 
• James's amnesia has him say that the only things he remembers are flunking out of Pokemon tech and joining a bicycle gang, referencing episode 9 (School of Hard Knocks) and 36 (Bridge Bike Gang).
• Dub Changes:
• In a bit of a weird error, the scene where Team Rocket is arguing at a Raticate that's scaring Jessie's Arbok, James' dialogue has him shoo Arbok instead of Raticate. 
• Some versions of the dubbed scene cuts out or crops out the scenes where the doctor's injected with the anesthetic needle. Curiously, it's okay to portray the sound, and the dialogue isn't changed, and scenes of Pokemon being injected are also cut out. 
• The scene where Chansey brings Meowth a bunch of random assortment of things is completely changed in the dub to Chansey just being absent-minded, whereas in the original Japanese it's a pun on Meowth's coin (Koban), while Chansey brings in a bunch of things that are puns with the coin -- rice (gohan), Go board (goban), police station (koban) and Venonat (konpan). The dub manages to make the rice and police puns work, but the other two are random. 
• Episode 48 has Jessie and Meowth dress up in Kuroko, black-suited costumes worn by stage hands in Japanese opera and stage plays. The cultural reference which would be lost to international audiences is replaced with them claiming it's a 'special invisibility suit' and handwaving it away as general Team Rocket goofiness. 
• Another dub error has Thundershock be translated as Electric Shock again. 
• The whole "you're not doing X properly" to amp up Jessebelle's snottiness is added in the dub.