Pokemon S01E76-77 Review: Bellsprout Stronk

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 76: Fire and Ice; Episode 77: The Fourth Round Rumble

Oh, hey, speaking of filler episodes... episode 76, "Fire And Ice"... doesn't really have a whole ton to do with the Indigo Plateau league. We get two matches that are truncated and really short -- we see the tail-end of Squirtle beating up a Nidorino on the rock field in the beginning of the episode, and likewise we also only see the final stages of the ice field battle. What we got was decent -- Arcanine trying to melt the footing of Pikachu on the ice is a neat showcase of strategy that's unique to the anime's setting, even if it's admittedly a dumb move as Pikachu immediately demonstrates by zapping the heck out of Arcanine. I've also always remembered Kingler straight-up cracking part of the opponent Cloyster's shell to be unnecessarily brutal; you never really see any actual damage done to these Pokeymans other than them getting Looney Tunes fried!

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.

The rest of the episode is... it's just throwaway stuff. I don't mind actually showing us that we've got a little small town where the trainers get free food and accommodation and stuff. That's neat world-building! What I do have a problem with, though, is the fact that it's literally the entire episode. It's just Ash sort of dicking around looking for a restaurant, then looking for a Pokemon Center because all of the Centers are full, leading to your typical "Team Rocket bamboozles Team Ash with funny disguises" plot. The animation with Onix is nice, but the whole storyline seems to be building up to something with Ash being cocky and irresponsible and not trying to heal his non-Pikachu Pokemon up until the last minute... and it's literally dropped halfway through the episode. There's Brock's running gag of lusting after the Jennies and Joys and being able to tell the minute differences between the Joys and Jennies of different cities, which is kinda funny, I guess.

Otherwise, though, 76 was pretty underwhelming.
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77, on the other hand, finally delivers us what's probably the action highlight of the Kanto season's final episodes. It's no Charizard-vs-Magmar, for sure, or anything resembling the movie budget of Mewtwo Strikes Back, but compared to what we get in the next couple of episodes, or the serviceable-but-not-impressive Kingler battle in 75, "The Fourth Round Rumble" was a genuinely fun episode to watch, and I can totally see why they picked the un-evolved Bellsprout to be the spotlight Pokemon... the things they do with Bellsprout's animation as it kung-fu kicks around Ash's Pokemon and weaves and wiggles its way to avoid attacks is pretty damn great. Iwane Masaaki directs this episode, and we previously saw him directing the Magmar/Charizard Blaine gym battle (which was awesome) and the Slowbro one (which didn't have a lot of battle scenes). I've never been for the technical side of things when watching these cartoon episodes, but dang, I'm definitely going to be watching out for Mr. Iwane from now on.

Anyway, the episode! Episode 77 focuses almost its entire runtime on the actual battle. Sure, there are cutaways to Team Rocket's antics, which is more of a montage of what they're up to more than an actual B-plot, but most of episode 77's runtime is devoted to Ash's fight. The episode opens with the unthinkable, too -- Gary Oak, built up acros the past 76 episodes as Ash's rival, who talks a big game and clearly has some kill to back it up? He just straight-up loses without even battling Ash once, being beaten by some dude/chick with a Golem! Part of me does like the subversion to regular shonen anime tropes... but the other part of me kind of wishes that this was done a bit better with some sort of payoff. Thankfully, this isn't the last we see of Gary Oak, even if he bows out of the Indigo League.

And then Ash faces off against this kimono-clad girl Jeanette, and it's just non-stop Pokemon action from then on. And the way that the fights are showcased here is pretty damn awesome. Bulbasaur finally shows up in the Indigo league and he faces off against a Beedrill. The fight starts off kinda tame, with the Beedrill just trying to sting Bulbasaur and Bulbasaur just dodging, but the little sequence where Bulbasaur lobs aroud razor leaves and Beedrill just counters with its flying around and unleashing twineedle attacks is pretty cool, and even moreso when Bulbasaur beats Beedrill by launching a Leech Seed that unleashes a whole ton of vines that wraps around Beedrill like a bola and sending it crashing it down to the ground. No, Leech Seed in the games doesn't work like that, but it's shown in a way that makes sense and you don't question it. This isn't some "Thunder Armour" nonsense.

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.

Pikachu's up next, and the anime does apply a bit of its own personal unique logic by noting that Bellsprout rooting itself to the ground doubles as a lightning-rod that makes it immune to Pikachu's thunderbolts. Which is complete B.S. by game rules, but considering how Pikachu's been zapping Ground-types left and right throughout this series, it's about time Pikachu got a taste of his own medicine. Pikachu and Bellsprout's actual physical boxing sequence is likewise pretty amazingly animated, eventually leading to Bellsprout out-maneuvering Pikachu and whacking him silly.

Who else can Ash send out against this deceptively powerful little flower? Well turns out that Krabby isn't the only forgotten Pokemon that Ash captured that's allowed a chance to shine in the Indigo league, because Ash tosses out... Muk! And I absolutely love just how Bellsprout's kung-fu kicks and razor leaves are absolutely useless against Muk's liquid body, and even the judo toss doesn't do Muk much harm as it just blobs itself back together. It's hilarious, and Muk just does a simple body slam as it smothers poor Bellsprout with its goopy body.

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.