Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 76: Fire and Ice; Episode 77: The Fourth Round Rumble
Still, it's basically my complaint that I stated yesterday -- none of Ash's opponents have any sort of personality, they don't matter, and we don't really even get to see the full fight. I dunno -- even as a kid I've always thought that this episode was very underwhelming, especially compared to episodes 75 and 77, both of which at least made a spectacle out of their respective guest star opponents.
Otherwise, though, 76 was pretty underwhelming.
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That's literally just the appetizer, though, and the battle between Bulbasaur and Scyther is even better, with my favourite part being that overhead shot as Scyther just zips through the battlefield with poor Bulbasaur in the center barely dodging Scyther as it flits around and slices through the air. It doesn't hurt that Scyther's whole deal is using Double Team to make clones -- and while the animation could've utilized the clones a bit better instead of just grouping them together, it's still a neat showcase of Scyther as this speedy, tricky ninja-like monster. Bulbasaur and Ash eventually get the idea of just "attack all the Scythers", which beats Scyther.
And then Jeanette brings out her final Pokemon... a Bellsprout. A Bellsprout which apparently knows judo, and also learns how to dodge from Neo. Again, though, I can totally buy this due to how the animation portrays Bellsprout, having it wiggle around to dodge Bulbasaur's ranged attack and then make use of its arms to basically judo-toss Bulbasaur as he's trying to make a tackle attack.
And that's about it for episode 77, and it's almost purely just the action in the Jeanette fight... but the animation and the fact that the battle felt genuinely tense and epic (for a fight with a Bellsprout) in a way that neither episode 76 nor, honestly, any of the following episodes in the Indigo league is ever going to reach.
Featured Characters:
- Episode 76:
- Pokemon: Nidorino, Pikachu, Togepi, Squirtle, Meowth, Pidgeotto, Bulbasaur, Kingler, Onix, Cloyster, Arcanine
- Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, Gary, Jessie, James, Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny
- Various Pokemon are seen in pictures and as floats.
- Episode 77:
- Pokemon: Golem, Nidoking, Togepi, Pikachu, Victreebel, Meowth, Bulbasaur, Beedrill, Scyther, Growlithe, Bellsprout, Muk
- Humans: Gary, Brock, Misty, Ash, James, Jessie, Officer Jenny, Professor Oak, Delia
Random Notes:
- Also, Misty and Brock are allowed to hang out in the sidelines to yell tips at Ash, which we never see anyone else ever doing. You'd think that would be sort of against the spirit of competition?
- Dub Changes:
- North American broadcasts of episode 76 cut 13 seconds from this episode, showing Ash and Pikachu exploring the bazaar and looking at some Pokemon merchandise, due to a pretty ridiculous rule about advertising actual physical products on a cartoon show -- it's the reason the dub version of Yu-Gi-Oh had to edit every single god-damned card shown on-screen to not resemble the physical cards you can buy on the shelves. In Pokemon's case, the scenes that are cut had Ash and Pikachu interacting with Pokemon-themed merchandise. Which aren't actually real merchandise (I'd love that bobblehead Cubone toy), unlike the TCG that was edited out in episode 73, but I guess they weren't taking any chances.
- The dub of 76 makes a bit of an oxymoronic line: "The battle is about to begin; both trainers are down to their last Pokemon!" due to a bit of a mis-translation -- the battle was about to end in the original dialogue.
- The dub has Misty mention the video game term "hit points" when talking about the Kingler/Cloyster fight. The original version has the less-calculating term of 'taking damage' instead.
- Episode 77 changes Yoshiki, Gary's male opponent, into a lady called Melissa. The character design is androgynous enough, so I suppose the showmakers just wanted to show a couple extra girls fighting in the tournament.
- The episode 77 dub has Jenny mistakenly call her Growlithe an Arcanine. Arcanine's dub voice even gets played at this point!
- Episode 77 marks the last time that the localizers will have to use digital paint to remove the Japanese language from the footage... because the Japanese team stopped putting any in their episodes. That's honestly kind of insane.
- Jeanette's Beedrill uses Tackle at one point -- a move Beedrill can't learn in the games.
- Jeanette comes from "Crimson City", which isn't from the games but actually fits right in with Kanto's colour-based city naming scheme.
- I think one of the reasons why I really liked the Kingler-vs-Mandy fight from episode 75 is because that unlike most of the fights in the Indigo League, it features all fully-evolved Pokemon? As someone who plays the games it's kind of bizarre to see people bringing Bellsprouts and Charmanders into this supposed best-of-the-best end-game tournament.
- More Pokemon: The Movie/Pokemon in Love posters show up in episode 76. I do like that even if the show operates on negative, amnesiac continuity, sometimes little details like this crop up.
- Y'know, a couple of episodes right after Brock's Onix gets compared to a giant, larger Onix, Brock's Onix gets portrayed in an absolutely massively gigantic scale next to the Team Rocket balloon in this one.
- Victreebel makes another glorious return in episode 77! Chopming on James as he's watering it! Slowly but surely, everyone's favourite face-chomping pitcher plant monster is going to worm its way up to show regular status.
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