Pokemon, Episodes 109-112
Episode 109: The Wacky Watcher
We're almost done, we're almost done! Two more batches of episodes. It's just such a shame that this one is kind of a boring one. On paper, the idea of a kooky animal-watcher who's obsessed with documenting the changes in Magikarp is pretty fun. But... but that's all we get. The Magikarp lore is sure neat, but it's basically just 'salmon swimming up a river' and both Ash and Misty learning to respect the diversity in nature or something. And I'm not sure if it's just the voice the dub gives Quackenpoker, but he's just so bland.
The Magikarp visuals as they try to climb the waterfall is neat, but the episode really doesn't carry enough content even for the short runtime that these Pokemon episodes have. Quackenpoker's lack of characterization just drags on and on that it's almost a relief when Team Rocket does their typical weekly spiel of catching Pokemon. Bulbassaur rescues Pikachu almost immediately, then Team Rockets gets absolutely bamboozled and gets sent blasting off again when the Magikarps turn into Gyaradoses. Very boring.
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Episode 110: The Stun Spore Detour
As Misty and the team of James-and-Meowth hunt down the weed, they find a Poliwag with the weed wrapped around its tail, and James sics Victreebel on the thing. We get a battle where Goldeen (!) and Staryu beats the shit out of James' Victreebel and Weezing, while Psyduck uses a headache-confusion thing to blast Meowth and James away. Poliwag helps Misty get the weed, but then waddles off after her. James and Meowth keep trying to trap Misty to get the weed, but she easily sees through their disguises and leaves some of the weed for them after beating them up, which is a nice moment.
A nice little episode for Misty, James and Meowth. I do think that we've had a lot better "aww, Team Rocket cares for one another" episode even in the Orange season, but good Misty focus episodes are few and far between. This isn't honestly a particularly spectacular one, but I did like it.
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Episode 111: Hello Pummello
This one starts off pretty well, too, with the foreshadowing of our heroes witnessing Dragonite flying around the seas at high speed (and one-shotting Team Rocket, though that's not much of an accomplishment), as well as the Hall of Fame being shown to Ash to see what he stands to gain. The gym leader Drake also gets a brief appearance, even if his personality is, uh... he exists for Ash to fight. Shame that they didn't try to give him anything else, honestly.
I did like that Ash swaps out Snorlax (who's in a literal food coma) for something else. We get a nice little cameo from Muk and Kingler, but ultimately Ash withdraws Tauros, who he captured forever ago, and wants to go for a bit of a beginner's luck thing. I'm not sure about that strategy, but I've always been a fan of how much of a poor underdog Ash's Tauros horde is, so yay for that.
Pummelo gym is the first official match that Ash has where he needs to use all six Pokemon, which is certainly something that I do like and felt like it was missing from the past bunch of battles. I think while the anime's gym battles will still tend to be 3v3, this sets a precedent that each 'season finale' will be a far more elaborate affair. The fight starts with a pretty fun one, between Ash's Pikachu and Drake's Ditto, who turns into Pikachu! Despite the repeated animation it's still pretty fun to see two Pikachus fight each other, though apparently Ash's Pikachu wins out because it's "in better physical condition". Yeah I'm going to have to call cop-out on that, I kinda hoped that there was a better explanation for that even if it's just "Ash and Pikachu have a better bond and understanding of Pikachu's abilities" or some crap like that. But oh well.
The next battle is pretty neat, too. Squirtle vs. Onix isn't anything particularly spectacular since we've seen Onixes before, but we get some nice visuals as Onix bursts out of the ground with Dig, then wraps around poor Squirtle's shell, before Squirtle uses Hydro-Pump out of his shell-holes and then Skull-Bashing the shit out of Onix. While they didn't call it out explicitly, I did remember that the Hydro-Pump-spin-then-Skull-Bash combo was something Squirtle learned in the Rudy gym battle, so nice callback there.
The episode ends with the third of Drake's Pokemon, a Gengar. Gengar fights Tauros, but the poor cow's Fissure attacks are repelled by Gengar's Levitate floating. Poor Tauros is disabled by Confuse Ray, so Ash brings out Lapras and we get a pretty cool bit of Lapras using the water to hide before we get a pretty well animated Night-Shade vs. Ice Beam explosion for the cliffhanger.
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Episode 112: Enter the Dragonite
Bit of a cop-out there, but both Lapras and Gengar just faint at the beginning of the episode. The fourth match is Venusaur vs. Tauros, and poor Tauros's Fissure just isn't hitting because of the terrain. Venusaur charges its Solarbeam, while Tauros's Take Down is also nullified by the terrain. Tauros manages to toss Venusaur into the air, survive the Solarbeam, then Takes Down Venusaur. Okay, that's pretty cool, in no small part due to me really rooting for Tauros, who's kind of the underdog here.
Next up is Bulbasaur vs. Electabuzz, where poor Bulbasaur barely has a chance to do anything before he gets Thunderpunched to the ground. Ash sends out his biggest and final gun, Charizard, who dodges all of Electabuzz's attacks before doing a Seismic Toss and bashing Electabuzz to the ground. I did really like the Electabuzz fight, as short as it is.
And, of course, the final bastion of the Orange League, Dragonite, shows up. The fight between Dragonite and Charizard is pretty damn intense, first exploding with elemental blasts clashing at each other as Dragonite just summons one attack after another. Even Charizard's famed Seismic Toss is something that Dragonite breaks free of and actually uses against Charizard, which is pretty dang cool. After a Dragon Rage clash, Charizard is the one that falls down.
And I do like what follows next, even if it's kind of a prolonged one. Every other one of Ash's Pokemon is weakened from an earlier battle. (There's also a Team Rocket interlude here where they try to net Dragonite, but it's just a distraction). Squirtle's perhaps is the one that's the most desperate-looking since poor Squirtle is an itty-bitty tortoise that keeps weathering Thunderbolts and Body Slams onto poor Squirtle. Tauros also gets taken out, but not before whittling some of Dragonite's health with the terrain-trick from before.
And it comes down to Pikachu, who avoids Dragonite's deadly Hyper Beam by using its tail as a spring to jump into the sky, latch onto Dragonite's antennae, and just clings on for dear life because Dragonite's big stubby fat hands can't reach his head. I also absolutely love that Dragonite's weakened after using the Hyper Beam, something straight out of the games. This allows Pikachu to unleash Thunder straight to Dragonite's head, and I do like the cliched glaring staring contest before Dragonite falls to the ground.
And Ash wins his first (and for nearly two decades, only) league, even if it's in a huge filler arc! But that's okay. It's honestly a pretty awesome battle, and one that I remembered catching on live television (despite missing a huge chunk of the Orange Islands) as a kid. And the stadium, the Pokemon being used -- fully evolved monsters like Venusaurs and Gengars and Dragonites! Rarely-seen members of Ash's party like Lapras and Tauros doing things! And while the huge fanboy moment is obviously the Charizard-vs-Dragonite fight, I did really enjoy these two episodes. Perhaps not the best fight the Pokemon anime has got to offer, but I really did enjoy this. Shame Drake's kind of a bland cardboard cutout, but at least what he and Dragonite represents -- a really tough battle -- is something that the anime delivers well.
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Featured Characters:
- Episode 109: The Wacky Watcher
- Pokemon: Lapras, Togepi, Pikachu, Magikarp, Gyarados
- Humans: Ash, Misty, Tracey
- Episode 110: The Stun Spore Detour
- Pokemon: Pikachu, Vileplume, Togepi, Psyduck, Meowth, Poliwag, Victreebel, Goldeen, Weezing, Staryu, Arbok, Lapras
- Humans: Ash, Tracey, Misty, James, Jessie
- Episode 111: Hello Pummello
- Pokemon: Lapras, Pikachu, Togepi, Dragonite, Meowth, Lapras, Squirtle, Charizard, Bulbasaur, Snorlax, Chansey, Kingler, Muk, Tauros, Ditto, Onix, Gengar
- Humans: Ash, Tracey, Misty, Drake, Jessie, James, Nurse Joy, Professor Oak
- Episode 112: Enter the Dragonite
- Pokemon: Lapras, Gengar, Pikachu, Togepi, Meowth, Venusaur, Tauros, Electabuzz, Bulbasaur, Dragonite
- Humans: Ash, Drake, Misty, Tracey, Jessie, James
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Random Notes:
- Man, "the Wacky Watcher" has a whole lot of Lake of Rage vibes, huh?
- The 'Hall of Fame' is mentioned a lot of times in 111 and 112, and that is certainly something that you do in all the games since the first one, where the trainer and the team that beats the champion is immortalized there in photographic form for all eternity.
- Misty reads the title card for episode 110 in both English and Japanese versions. The title of the Japanese version actually is "Nyoromo to Kasumi" (Poliwag and Misty) which makes it a lot more significant sounding.
- Oh hey all those dub-watchers who never got to watch the Safari Zone episode are really baffled at Tauros, huh? Though the Orange Island episodes aired notoriously out of order, so maybe they're just assuming an episode would explain it later on?
- Despite catching Tauros in a Safari Ball, Ash will always call out Tauros with a regular Poke Ball.
- I found it hilarious that Ash gets surprised at the idea of a "FULL BATTLE!!" with all six Pokemon. I didn't quite realize that none of Ash's formal battles have really extended beyond a 3v3. I guess it's because the anime simply never had the budget, or something?
- Gengar floats over Tauros's attack, something that was originally impossible in the games... but hey, turns out that Gengar would later get Levitate when Abilities were implemented in the third generation, making this a completely and totally valid thing that the anime coincidentally stumbled upon!
- Everyone and their mother keeps calling Dragonite a 'legendary' Pokemon over and over again, confusing a young me back when I first watched these two episodes.
- I completely forgot that there's a weird 'field change' thing going on with the Drake fight, which really don't amount to anything but neat visuals.
- Ditto transforming without bead-eyes really bamboozled me; I keep forgetting that the button-eyes is supposed to be a flaw of Duplica's Ditto that became so popular that Nintendo basically shrugged and said it applies to all Dittos.
- Dub Changes:
- In the dub, Tracey yells out that there's no move that's strong against a Ghost-type. The original Japanese one has Tracey actually know that Gengar's a Ghost/Poison, and tells Ash to use Psychic or Ground type moves, which is why Ash brings out Tauros's Fissure.
- Confuse Ray gets mis-spoken as "Confusion Ray". Other mis-naming of attacks had Charizard's Fire Spin being referred to as Ember, and Squirtle's Bubblebeam being referred to as Bubble. Dragonite also uses Skull Bash to beat up Team Rocket when the Japanese version never specifies the move (and the move was exclusive to the Squirtle line in the games).
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