Pokemon, Episodes 93-96
Episode 93: Navel Maneuvers
We're moving things a bit more quickly this time around, because... well, the Orange Island episodes are mostly just 'filler', yeah? Still, 'Navel Maneuvers' is a gym battle, making it technically a bit more important than the rest of the Orange Island episodes, I suppose. Team Ash bugger off to Navel Island, and there they meet a kid called Danny, who tells them about how the Navel Gym tests the trainer's own strength by forcing them to basically go through a nature trail. Which... okay, that sure is a nice twist, but we don't really get much out of it beyond a couple of requisite scenes of Ash sort-of bumbling through the course and nearly falling off of a cliff. I dunno, I kind of expect there to be like a lesson or something (like Danny saying that the real test is sportsmanship or Ash's care for his Pikachu), but nothing of the sort really happens. It's also certainly not OSHA-compliant, but I suppose having Danny (who's clearly experienced and actually the gym leader) pretending to be a competitor is the safety precaution needed in case some dude fell off the mountain or something.
The episode is also very much remembered by having the gym leader, Danny, actually flirt with Misty and making Ash jealous, but while watching this, while there certainly are a couple of lines here and there where Misty is clearly happy cheering Danny on, the 'jealousy' subplot is honestly barely there that I'm surprised that people made such a big deal out of this. Although maybe I shouldn't be, knowing fandoms.
The actual gym fight ends up being more of a mini-game sports competition, which is neat, I suppose, being a multi-part sequence of making a sled out of an ice chunk and then racing with it. It's neat stuff, but ultimately nothing particularly noteworthy. It's kinda neat to see the Pokemon doing something else other than battling, although it's not quite interesting enough to grab my attention. Charizard loafing around and accidentally making the perfect sled is neat. There's the obligatory Team Rocket battle which is, as usual in gym-centric episodes, feels like an afterthought and a distraction.
Ultimately, a decent if not particularly memorable episode. It was a neat watch, but I really don't feel like this is going to be one I'll be remembering any time soon.
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Episode 94: Snack Attack
Oh, hey, it's a capture episode! I know Ash catches his famous Snorlax in the Orange Islands season, and I think I vaguely remember watching this episode, and it's... it's certainly a better showcase of Snorlax compared to Snorlax's previous spotlight episode? When Team Ash arrive in the Seven Grapefruit Islands, they arrive at the sight of the locals panicking over fruit thieves... which turn out to be Snorlax! There's a bit of a fun bit of everyone having no idea what to do with Snorlax. Attacks don't faze Snorlax at all (poor Bulbasaur gets turned into a pancake), their attempt to rapidly harvest the fruits is thwarted by Snorlax's ability to swim between islands, and we get a bunch of fun gags as Team Rocket even gets in on the zaniness, pretending to be Snorlax's mom and using hypnosis at one point. Snorlax also straight-up tries to eat poor Goldeen, in one of the few times we actually see Pokemon try to eat other Pokemon.
While it's nothing particularly spectacular, I also like that there are some stakes in this with the grapefruit trees being chowed down by Snorlax serving as a bit of a timer. Eventually Team Ash ends up realizing that Jigglypuff has been following them, create a makeshift stage, and get a happy Jigglypuff to sing along, and the power of plot allows Ash and Pikachu to resist falling asleep long enough for Pikachu to unleash a thunder attack and Ash to capture Snorlax in a Pokeball. In a lot of episodes Jigglypuff's singing ends up being a bit of an eye-rolling deus ex machina, but this time it actually fits with the storyline, and the fact that our heroes got the idea to use other means to get Snorlax to fall asleep is also neat.
Ultimately, "Snack Attack" is very simple, and the only real notable thing about it is the Snorlax capture, but it's still a pretty solid episode that has a nice concept, follows through with it, and is a good spotlight for the Pokemon featured in it.
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Episode 95: A Shipful of Shivers
Kind of a solid episode, if, again, also a filler-y one. Team Ash arrive in Moro Island, and there's this whole excitement about a three-hundred-year-old official Orange League Winner's trophy that got discovered and is in a museum. We get a fun bit of Team Rocket breaking into the museum and stealing it, which of course involves some fun tomfoolery (the dub gets a lot of fun lines in this episode and the previous one for Team Rocket, there's a fun line about James's trust fund in this one). Of course, our heroes chase them, and both teams get lost in a foggy sea and find themselves on an abandoned ghost ship. Togepi gets lost while they are jostled around, but of course the little baby is un-harmed and finds a bunch of sheet ghosts floating around.
And that's the whole bit of the episode -- there's a pair of Gastly and Haunter haunting this ship, having been trapped in pokeballs there for the last 300 years. They're guarding the trophy and have stolen it back from Team Rocket, and we get some fun 'scare the main cast' moments as Gastly and Haunter dick around with them. Via using Meowth as a focus for their telepathy, Gastly and Haunter give their backstory, how their deceased trainer was the owner of the trophy and they're guarding it since it's the last command from their trainer, and it's... it's certainly an interesting story, and I could've very easily seen a version of this that has a moral about how you should move on from grief and how the ghosts could share the glory of their dead trainer to the world... but at the same time, I also find the actual moral that the episode has, which is to not be selfish and steal something that clearly has a much more personal value to other people and claim it for your own.
Ultimately, after Team Rocket gets sent blasting off again by the ghosts, Team Ash bugger off and leave the ghost ship to sink to the ocean floor. I didn't really mind this one, but it could've been a bit more interesting is all.
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Episode 96: Meowth Rules
Team Rocket episodes are always fun because of how different they feel, and this one is... an interesting one? The setup of this episode is quickly given to us -- while repairing the Magikarp submarine (Karpmarine? Subkarp?) Team Rocket asks Meowth why he can't use Pay Day, and Meowth notes that he spent so much time learning to talk that he is now unable to use Pay Day... okay, sure, I guess in the games all your Pokemon, even the god-like ones, can only ever do four things, and they can forget how to 'growl' or 'lick'. It's a stupid reason, but I'll buy it.
A quick confrontation with Team Ash causes Team Rocket to be sent blasting off again, but this time Meowth gets separated from Jessie and James and arrive in Golden Island, where the dumb islanders are worshiping a giant Meowth statue called the "Great Meowth of Bounty", and, just in luck, our unique, talking Meowth quite literally drops out of the heavens just as they are praying to the Great Meowth of Bounty.
Of course, Meowth being Meowth, he immediately takes advantage of everything that comes with being a god, which means an endless supply of fruits, and a bunch of skimpy belly dancers with cat make-up. Okay. There's a bit of Meowth and his new cult chasing off Ash, but then when Team Rocket comes and meets Meowth, Meowth ends up betraying them, telling the villagers that, no, he doesn't know who these people are, toss them to the sea. Of course, the whole worship thing has gotten into Meowth's head, and while it's not like, anything particularly groundbreaking, I do like just how conflicted Meowth's face is animated to be when he made the decision to dunk his friends away. (Also, of course the giant Meowth statue is a robot. Why wouldn't it be?)
Jessie and James work their way back into the island, and watches from the bushes as Meowth enjoys his luxuries, but then the villagers decide that 'it's time', and the Great Meowth of Bounty is supposed to give them money with Pay Day. It's a nice little nod to the setup done earlier in the episode, and when Meowth claims that he can't do it, the villagers toss Meowth to a stadium so that he can gain experience and learn the move, which is kind of hilarious if poor Meowth didn't get so beaten up by the Onix and the Nidoking. Despite the prior betrayal from Meowth, Jessie and James decide to help out and toss whatever meager coins they have -- including James's valuable bottle caps (which is another thing the episode brings up in its first scene), which convinces the villagers that this truly is the Great Meowth of Bounty. I do like how the episode makes it clear that it's not just merely a way to save Meowth's life, but in order to help Meowth maintain his cover and be happy. And they didn't even tell Meowth! It's not until later that Meowth sees the bottle cap and realizes that it's his buddies that has been helping him, and Meowth escape from the village and reunite with Jessie and James, leading to a reunion.
I do like this episode a lot. It's not one I remembered ever watching, and I don't think anyone ever brings this one up. The concept is admittedly kind of silly, and bringing in video game rules (with all this wacky 'experience points' and 'levels') is a bit jarring, but the final parts of the episode, while cheesy, is a lot of fun Team Rocket interactions. And this is why Team Rocket is really so fun -- they don't get the spotlight all the time, but when they do, the fact that they're ultimately decent people and loyal friends to each other, and the fact that Jessie and James are satisfied with helping Meowth out even without the cat knowing is really a neat scene. Also, of course Jessie and James are still dicks enough to sic Arbok and Weezing at Meowth on the end just in the off-chance that the villagers are on to something with the experience points thing. A good episode.
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We're moving things a bit more quickly this time around, because... well, the Orange Island episodes are mostly just 'filler', yeah? Still, 'Navel Maneuvers' is a gym battle, making it technically a bit more important than the rest of the Orange Island episodes, I suppose. Team Ash bugger off to Navel Island, and there they meet a kid called Danny, who tells them about how the Navel Gym tests the trainer's own strength by forcing them to basically go through a nature trail. Which... okay, that sure is a nice twist, but we don't really get much out of it beyond a couple of requisite scenes of Ash sort-of bumbling through the course and nearly falling off of a cliff. I dunno, I kind of expect there to be like a lesson or something (like Danny saying that the real test is sportsmanship or Ash's care for his Pikachu), but nothing of the sort really happens. It's also certainly not OSHA-compliant, but I suppose having Danny (who's clearly experienced and actually the gym leader) pretending to be a competitor is the safety precaution needed in case some dude fell off the mountain or something.
The episode is also very much remembered by having the gym leader, Danny, actually flirt with Misty and making Ash jealous, but while watching this, while there certainly are a couple of lines here and there where Misty is clearly happy cheering Danny on, the 'jealousy' subplot is honestly barely there that I'm surprised that people made such a big deal out of this. Although maybe I shouldn't be, knowing fandoms.
The actual gym fight ends up being more of a mini-game sports competition, which is neat, I suppose, being a multi-part sequence of making a sled out of an ice chunk and then racing with it. It's neat stuff, but ultimately nothing particularly noteworthy. It's kinda neat to see the Pokemon doing something else other than battling, although it's not quite interesting enough to grab my attention. Charizard loafing around and accidentally making the perfect sled is neat. There's the obligatory Team Rocket battle which is, as usual in gym-centric episodes, feels like an afterthought and a distraction.
Ultimately, a decent if not particularly memorable episode. It was a neat watch, but I really don't feel like this is going to be one I'll be remembering any time soon.
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Episode 94: Snack Attack
Oh, hey, it's a capture episode! I know Ash catches his famous Snorlax in the Orange Islands season, and I think I vaguely remember watching this episode, and it's... it's certainly a better showcase of Snorlax compared to Snorlax's previous spotlight episode? When Team Ash arrive in the Seven Grapefruit Islands, they arrive at the sight of the locals panicking over fruit thieves... which turn out to be Snorlax! There's a bit of a fun bit of everyone having no idea what to do with Snorlax. Attacks don't faze Snorlax at all (poor Bulbasaur gets turned into a pancake), their attempt to rapidly harvest the fruits is thwarted by Snorlax's ability to swim between islands, and we get a bunch of fun gags as Team Rocket even gets in on the zaniness, pretending to be Snorlax's mom and using hypnosis at one point. Snorlax also straight-up tries to eat poor Goldeen, in one of the few times we actually see Pokemon try to eat other Pokemon.
While it's nothing particularly spectacular, I also like that there are some stakes in this with the grapefruit trees being chowed down by Snorlax serving as a bit of a timer. Eventually Team Ash ends up realizing that Jigglypuff has been following them, create a makeshift stage, and get a happy Jigglypuff to sing along, and the power of plot allows Ash and Pikachu to resist falling asleep long enough for Pikachu to unleash a thunder attack and Ash to capture Snorlax in a Pokeball. In a lot of episodes Jigglypuff's singing ends up being a bit of an eye-rolling deus ex machina, but this time it actually fits with the storyline, and the fact that our heroes got the idea to use other means to get Snorlax to fall asleep is also neat.
Ultimately, "Snack Attack" is very simple, and the only real notable thing about it is the Snorlax capture, but it's still a pretty solid episode that has a nice concept, follows through with it, and is a good spotlight for the Pokemon featured in it.
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Episode 95: A Shipful of Shivers
Kind of a solid episode, if, again, also a filler-y one. Team Ash arrive in Moro Island, and there's this whole excitement about a three-hundred-year-old official Orange League Winner's trophy that got discovered and is in a museum. We get a fun bit of Team Rocket breaking into the museum and stealing it, which of course involves some fun tomfoolery (the dub gets a lot of fun lines in this episode and the previous one for Team Rocket, there's a fun line about James's trust fund in this one). Of course, our heroes chase them, and both teams get lost in a foggy sea and find themselves on an abandoned ghost ship. Togepi gets lost while they are jostled around, but of course the little baby is un-harmed and finds a bunch of sheet ghosts floating around.
And that's the whole bit of the episode -- there's a pair of Gastly and Haunter haunting this ship, having been trapped in pokeballs there for the last 300 years. They're guarding the trophy and have stolen it back from Team Rocket, and we get some fun 'scare the main cast' moments as Gastly and Haunter dick around with them. Via using Meowth as a focus for their telepathy, Gastly and Haunter give their backstory, how their deceased trainer was the owner of the trophy and they're guarding it since it's the last command from their trainer, and it's... it's certainly an interesting story, and I could've very easily seen a version of this that has a moral about how you should move on from grief and how the ghosts could share the glory of their dead trainer to the world... but at the same time, I also find the actual moral that the episode has, which is to not be selfish and steal something that clearly has a much more personal value to other people and claim it for your own.
Ultimately, after Team Rocket gets sent blasting off again by the ghosts, Team Ash bugger off and leave the ghost ship to sink to the ocean floor. I didn't really mind this one, but it could've been a bit more interesting is all.
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Episode 96: Meowth Rules
Team Rocket episodes are always fun because of how different they feel, and this one is... an interesting one? The setup of this episode is quickly given to us -- while repairing the Magikarp submarine (Karpmarine? Subkarp?) Team Rocket asks Meowth why he can't use Pay Day, and Meowth notes that he spent so much time learning to talk that he is now unable to use Pay Day... okay, sure, I guess in the games all your Pokemon, even the god-like ones, can only ever do four things, and they can forget how to 'growl' or 'lick'. It's a stupid reason, but I'll buy it.
A quick confrontation with Team Ash causes Team Rocket to be sent blasting off again, but this time Meowth gets separated from Jessie and James and arrive in Golden Island, where the dumb islanders are worshiping a giant Meowth statue called the "Great Meowth of Bounty", and, just in luck, our unique, talking Meowth quite literally drops out of the heavens just as they are praying to the Great Meowth of Bounty.
Of course, Meowth being Meowth, he immediately takes advantage of everything that comes with being a god, which means an endless supply of fruits, and a bunch of skimpy belly dancers with cat make-up. Okay. There's a bit of Meowth and his new cult chasing off Ash, but then when Team Rocket comes and meets Meowth, Meowth ends up betraying them, telling the villagers that, no, he doesn't know who these people are, toss them to the sea. Of course, the whole worship thing has gotten into Meowth's head, and while it's not like, anything particularly groundbreaking, I do like just how conflicted Meowth's face is animated to be when he made the decision to dunk his friends away. (Also, of course the giant Meowth statue is a robot. Why wouldn't it be?)
Jessie and James work their way back into the island, and watches from the bushes as Meowth enjoys his luxuries, but then the villagers decide that 'it's time', and the Great Meowth of Bounty is supposed to give them money with Pay Day. It's a nice little nod to the setup done earlier in the episode, and when Meowth claims that he can't do it, the villagers toss Meowth to a stadium so that he can gain experience and learn the move, which is kind of hilarious if poor Meowth didn't get so beaten up by the Onix and the Nidoking. Despite the prior betrayal from Meowth, Jessie and James decide to help out and toss whatever meager coins they have -- including James's valuable bottle caps (which is another thing the episode brings up in its first scene), which convinces the villagers that this truly is the Great Meowth of Bounty. I do like how the episode makes it clear that it's not just merely a way to save Meowth's life, but in order to help Meowth maintain his cover and be happy. And they didn't even tell Meowth! It's not until later that Meowth sees the bottle cap and realizes that it's his buddies that has been helping him, and Meowth escape from the village and reunite with Jessie and James, leading to a reunion.
I do like this episode a lot. It's not one I remembered ever watching, and I don't think anyone ever brings this one up. The concept is admittedly kind of silly, and bringing in video game rules (with all this wacky 'experience points' and 'levels') is a bit jarring, but the final parts of the episode, while cheesy, is a lot of fun Team Rocket interactions. And this is why Team Rocket is really so fun -- they don't get the spotlight all the time, but when they do, the fact that they're ultimately decent people and loyal friends to each other, and the fact that Jessie and James are satisfied with helping Meowth out even without the cat knowing is really a neat scene. Also, of course Jessie and James are still dicks enough to sic Arbok and Weezing at Meowth on the end just in the off-chance that the villagers are on to something with the experience points thing. A good episode.
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Featured Characters:
- Episode 93:
- Pokemon: Lapras, Pikachu, Togepi, Meowth, Nidoqueen, Lapras, Bulbasaur, Charizard, Machoke, Scyther, Geodude, Electrode, Squirtle, Victreebel
- Humans: Ash, Tracey, Misty, Danny, Jessie, James
- Episode 94:
- Pokemon: Lapras, Pikachu, Togepi, Jigglypuff, Butterfree, Snorlax, Bulbasaur, Staryu, Meowth, Squirtle, Goldeen, Arbok, Lickitung, Victreebel, Psyduck
- Humans: Ash, Tracey, Misty, Jessie, James
- Episode 95:
- Pokemon: Lapras, Togepi, Pikachu, Meowth, Gastly, Haunter, Marill, Staryu, Bulbasaur, Victreebel, Arbok, Beedrill
- Humans: Misty, Ash, Tracey, Professor Oak, Jessie, James
- Episode 96:
- Pokemon: Meowth, Lapras, Pikachu, Togepi, Squirtle, Nidoking, Onix
- Humans: James, Jessie, Ash, Tracey, Misty
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Random Notes:
- With Nidoqueen making her debut in episode 93, all of the non-legendary Kanto Pokemon have finally appeared in at least one episode of the anime.
- Also... really? Nidoqueen, who isn't even an ice-type, manages to freeze the water spout faster than the ice-type Lapras?
- Victreebel gets a lot of mileage in these episodes, I feel, for gags. In one of the episodes it actually goes for Meowth instead of James, which is a bit of a rarity. In regards to Team Rocket's Pokemon, too, Lickitung makes a rare appearance and has his poor tongue be used by Snorlax to wipe his mouth.
- The whole bit of everyone being surprised that the plants are growing after Snorlax razed the fruit trees... I think it's meant to be a PG version of saying that after a bunch of animals eat through a forest, their droppings make for good fertilizers? That's really the only explanation I can have, because I don't think Snorlax has any sort of plant-growing properties.
- With Snorlax and Lapras, Ash finally has the full six-Pokemon-team for once after releasing Pidgeotto.
- Notably, the Pokedex is shown to have data on Haunter when Ash scans them with his Pokedex, when it doesn't have any data on them in "Tower of Terror". Ash also re-scans the two Pokemon despite meeting them (and traveling with a Haunter, too) in previous episodes, but this is going to be commonplace in the series moving forward. Got to make sure the kids know what toy to buy!
- The timeline of an Orange League 300 years prior to the start of the series will be a bit questionable considering that everyone's using modern pokeballs in Gastly and Haunter's flashback, and we would see scenes later on showing people using primitive versions of Pokeballs... but I'm not about to get into a discussion about the Pokemon anime's non-existent timeline.
- Dub Changes:
- The dialogue in episode 93 is altered a bit to make Ash sound a bit more jealous that Misty is only mentioning Danny. On the other hand, Danny's Japanese counterpart also gives Misty a cutesy nickname that makes it a bit more obvious that he's flirting.
- They're not even bothering with replacing some of the Japanese writings, yeah? The sign in Navel Island is just blurred instead of being left blank or replaced with English.
- Navel Island is really interesting, huh? A couple years down the line, Navel Rock actually shows up as an event-exclusive location in the Generation III games, supposedly located in the Sevii Islands, a group of islands very loosely based on the Orange Island. There's absolutely nothing in common between the two, but I thought I would point it out.
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