Yesterday, I reviewed the first season of the ‘Pokémon’
anime, more commonly known as ‘Pokémon: Indigo League’ and one thing that I
mentioned in the review was that there were quite a lot of odd moments that
occurred in some of the episodes. When I say ‘odd moments’, this could mean
anything from an strange animation error (which is understandable in this
show’s case given how many episodes that have been made and how much hours were
probably spent to get them finished on time) or just any instance when a
character does something that is really stupid even though they should clearly
know better. Now originally I was just going to include this part with my main
review of the series itself but then I realized that there were quite a lot of
weird moments that happened during this season that I needed another post just
to talk about them all. So with that said, here are some of the strangest
moments, in my opinion, that occurred during the first season of the ‘Pokémon’
anime.
‘DO THE MACARENA!!’ - CLEFAIRY AND THE MOON STONE
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| This face says it all... |
This has to be one of my favorite moments of the entire
season. The episode revolves around the gang coming across a mysterious rock
known as the Moon Stone and a group of Clefairy who guard it from thieves. The
moment that I’m specifically referring to occurs when Pikachu begins to talk
with the Clefairy and of course because every Pokémon that is not Team Rocket’s
Meowth only says their name, we can’t understand what they’re saying (although
a later episode, which we’ll get to in a bit, fixes this problem). Pikachu then
proceeds to try and tell Ash and his friends that one of the things the
Clefairy do is that they pray to the Moon Stone and of course because they
can’t understand him that well, he tries to have them figure it out via the
process of charades but Ash guesses wrong at the end and thinks that the
“Clefairy collect all of these stones and… Do the Macarena!” I just love this moment for both
the random nature of Ash’s answer as well as Pikachu’s hilarious response to
that answer (as shown above).
ASH CATCHES ALL 3 KANTO STARTER POKÉMON IN JUST 3 EPISODES
In the original Pokémon games, Red and Blue, the main
character gets to choose one of three Pokémon to be their starter; Charmander,
Squirtle, or Bulbasaur. In the anime, Ash misses out on getting to start out
with one of them and instead starts out with a Pikachu. Well, guess what?
Literally in the span of just three straight episodes, Ash catches all three of
the starter Pokémon to add to his team. In Episode 10, ‘Bulbasaur and the
Hidden Village’, Ash and friends come across a secret village where a girl
named Melanie helps sick or abandoned Pokémon with the help of a Bulbasaur,
which ends up coming along with Ash. In the next episode, ‘Charmander- The
Stray Pokémon’, they come across a Charmander that has been abandoned by its
owner so they help it when its life is on the line and Ash ends up becoming its
new owner. Finally, in ‘Here Comes the Squirtle Squad’, they come into conflict
with a group of mischievous Squirtle pranksters known as the ‘Squirtle Squad’
and by the end of the episode, Ash befriends the lead Squirtle of the group who
ends up joining his team, officially completing Ash’s collection of the
original 3 Kanto Starter Pokémon. I just find it to be amazing that Ash managed
to catch all 3 of the Starter Pokémon in just 3 episodes because having played
these games a lot, I know that it isn’t that easy to get all 3 Starter Pokémon
in 1 game and Ash manages to do this in just a short amount of time. And for
the record this isn’t the only time when Ash catches all 3 of one region’s
Starter Pokémon. The same thing happens when the group goes to Johto where Ash
ends up catching a Totodile, a Chikorita, and a Cyndaquil. But I’m not looking
at that season right now…
SUBTITLED POKÉMON? - ISLAND OF THE GIANT POKÉMON
Remember earlier when I noted how we as the audience can
never understand what the Pokémon are saying because all they say is their
name? Well, this episode actually fixes that problem in one of the most surreal
moments in the series’ history. This episode takes place after an episode where
the gang boards the luxury ship, the S.S. Anne, and it ends up sinking. The
trio escapes, with the help of Team Rocket, and end up getting marooned on a
mysterious island separated from their Pokémon. Because of this, all of their Pokémon
end up getting subtitled so that we can actually understand just what they are
saying. The main reason why I find this to be a very odd episode is because, to
my knowledge, there isn’t any other episode in the anime where the group’s Pokémon
are on their own in which they’re subtitled. This is the only instance where
this happened and I do question why they didn’t continue doing this but then
again, I’m guessing that this is probably not that big of an issue in a series
where the main characters are humans. I mean, the episode itself is also rather
weird because it is revealed that the group is on an island that is actually a
‘theme park’ full of giant robotic Pokémon that just so happens to be owned by
Team Rocket. Again, this was just a really odd episode.
CONTROVERSIAL EPISODE #1- BEAUTY AND THE BEACH
There have been a few infamous episodes of the anime that
ended up being banned or removed from the series rotation for various reasons.
‘Beauty and the Beast’ is the first of these episodes as a controversial scene
in the original Japanese version of the episode had to be cut before it could
be aired anywhere else. The episode itself is rather weird because it’s fairly
sexualized, more so than one would expect from a show aimed at children, being
that it mostly takes place at the beach and revolves around a swimsuit beauty
competition… but I’m getting ahead of myself. In this episode, Ash and the gang
get into trouble when they end up crashing a boat and damaging a dock,
resulting in them volunteering to help the owner of the boat, an old man named
Moe (who makes a very odd and creepy remark about how Misty ‘reminds him of his
granddaughter’), so that they can pay for the damage that they caused.
Ultimately, they decide to have Misty enter a beauty contest in order to win
enough money. The main reason why this episode is so controversial is because
of a scene in which we see Team Rocket enter the contest as well… and not just
Jessie but James as well, the latter of whom wears inflatable breasts… I don’t
even know what to say about this, folks. This is just… uh… yeah… and that’s
‘Beauty and the Beast’ for you, an odd episode that I would’ve never have
expected would come from a children’s show like Pokémon then again this show is full of odd moments so
I’m not surprised.
DONUTS? - PRIMEAPE GOES BANANAS
A common food that appears in the anime is a snack known as
a rice ball (shown above). For some odd reason early on, the English dub of the
anime occasionally referred to them as something else, apparently so that
non-Japanese kids could call it something that they were more familiar with.
Notably, in this episode, ‘Primeape Goes Bananas’, they are referred to… as
donuts. I’m sorry, but do these things even look like donuts? No, not really
and yet they’re referred to as such. Heck, in this episode, Ash actually
catches a rice ball in a Poke Ball when he’s trying to catch a Primeape. The strange
thing about this whole scenario is that in some of the other episodes, these
things are properly referred to as rice balls. So in that case, why bother even
renaming these things when you’re just going to end up referring to them by
their proper name?
THIS… - SPARKS FLY FOR MAGNEMITE
Uhhhh…. No comment.
POSSIBLE CHILD ABUSE? - THE KANGASKHAN KID
First off, I just want to note that I do not condone child
abuse in any way and because of that, this episode just rubs me the wrong way.
The main plot of the episode revolves around an explorer couple who are looking
for their son Tommy, who went missing a few years ago in the Safari Zone. The
reason for this… is because of quite frankly one of the stupidest moments ever
committed on any TV show, live-action or animated. The father holds the kid out
of the window of the helicopter that they are in and accidentally drops him…
wow, I’m at a loss for words here at the pure stupidity of this moment and
thankfully the mother scolds her husband for being such a frigging idiot. But
that’s not all… once Ash and the gang come across Tommy in the Safari Zone the
poor kid gets punched by Misty (literally punched, mind you) when he asks her,
“You People or Pokémon?” (Don’t even get me started on how this played out in
the original Japanese cut… trust me you don’t even want to know). Then, the
parents arrive and try to convince Tommy (who now goes by the name ‘Tomo’ by
the way after being raised by a group of Kangaskhan) that they’re his real
parents. When Tommy still believes that the Kangaskhan are his family, the
father then proceeds to bash him on the head to jog his memory. What the f***
is up with this episode??? I feel bad for Tomo and the crap that he goes
through in this episode by those who supposedly care about him.
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| Connection? |
CONTROVERSIAL EPISODE #2- THE LEGEND OF DRATINI
Now we come to the second major controversial banned episode
of the anime but unlike ‘Beauty and the Beach’, this one never even aired in
North America even though there is reportedly an English dub of the episode. In
this episode, Ash and friends meet the supervisor of the Safari Zone… who
almost immediately aims a gun at them. Yes folks, the main controversy for this
episode revolves around the fact that guns are repeatedly used to threaten
people… you know, for kids!! This is one instance where I do agree with the
censors’ decision here because I don’t even see why this episode needed to have
so many moments where the main characters (who are kids, mind you) are
threatened with guns. I mean it’s not like these guns are lasers or anything
like that… these are real guns. However, I am aware that because this episode
was banned, it caused a bit of a plot hole because in this episode, Ash catches
30 Tauros and because of it being banned, American audiences never got to see
Ash catch them. Still, this is just yet another odd moment in this odd anime
series.
MOST CONTROVERSIAL POKÉMON EPISODE- ELECTRIC SOLDIER PORYGON
‘Electric Soldier Porygon’ will go down in history as the
most controversial episode of the Pokémon anime because it literally sent
nearly 700 kids to the hospital. Why? Well, you’ll soon see why. In this
episode, Ash and friends visit a Pokémon Center that is having problems with
its Transfer System that they use in order to transfer Pokémon between Pokémon
Centers. In order to fix this, they are actually sent into the system by its inventor,
with the help of the digital Pokémon Porygon, to solve the problem, which is
revealed to have been caused by Team Rocket. At one point, the group is
targeted by an anti-virus program that thinks that they’re a computer virus. It
fires some ‘missiles’ at them which Pikachu destroys with a Thunderbolt attack,
causing an explosion that then results in a flash of very bright red and blue
strobe lights. In real life, this then resulted in approximately 685 Japanese
kids having to be taken to the hospital due to epileptic seizures. I’m only
showing one of the images of this infamous scene above because I would not dare
show the scene in its entirety (though Wikipedia apparently has the balls to
show the entire scene on the page listing this episode… what the hell?). I’m
not someone who is prone to seizures, but even with that in mind, I can
definitely see why this scene would be a problem to anyone who is prone to them
because even I have to admit that my eyes got sort of bothered when I ‘tried’
to watch this episode. It’s yet another episode of the show that got banned for
a very, very good reason.
YET ANOTHER CONTROVERSIAL EPISODE- HOLIDAY HI-JYNX
And we have yet another one of the controversial episodes of
the anime, which was originally supposed to air after ‘Electric Soldier
Porygon’ but of course after what happened with that episode, this episode got
pushed back. It instead was aired after the episode ‘It’s Mr. Mime Time’, which
caused some confusion in regards to continuity which I’ll get to in a little bit.
As for this episode, this is another one of those weird episodes because it
revolves around Team Rocket kidnapping Santa Claus… yes folks, that is the plot
of this episode. But the main controversy of this episode revolves around the Pokémon
Jynx, who originally had a black face which led to complaints that it was
believed to be representing the very racist art of blackface. Now I am aware
that it might actually be representing the Japanese fashion styles known as
ganguro and yamanba and as I’ve noted before I’m not really one who likes to
talk about racist themes, but it’s pretty hard to argue against the ‘blackface’
thing and as a result Jynx’s face was re-colored to purple in all aspects of
the franchise (games, trading cards, etc…). Now this actually isn’t the episode
that was the most notable for being banned because of Jynx. Instead, it was the
episode ‘The Ice Cave’ but ‘Holiday Hi-Jynx’ was also removed from rotation for
the same dilemma. But now let’s talk about the continuity problem that this
episode caused.
So instead of this episode, along with the following episode
‘Snow Way Out’, airing after ‘Electric Soldier Porygon’ (which of course wasn’t
released outside of Japan), they instead aired after ‘It’s Mr. Mime Time’… 26
episodes later. I’m guessing this happened because they are both winter-themed
episodes and that by the time the show was brought back after the ‘Porygon’
incident it probably wasn’t the winter season anymore. But still, imagine if
you’re an American kid watching this show and it got to these episodes. You’ll
probably be left confused as to why in these two episodes, Ash’s Charizard is suddenly
back to being a Charmander and Misty still has her Starmie and Horsea, which
had been left at the Cerulean City Gym a few episodes earlier. Now we know why…
it’s because these episodes were supposed to air at an earlier time and instead
got pushed back after the whole ‘kids having to go to the hospital’ situation.
It’s a weird chronological continuity error that still stands today. Even
Netflix maintains this order of the episodes (for the record, they also don’t
have any of the controversial episodes that I’ve previously mentioned so if you
want to see these episodes you’re going to have to find them online).
THE GANG DOESN’T RECOGNIZE TEAM ROCKET- MULTIPLE EPISODES
A common running gag in the anime is that Team Rocket
occasionally tries to fool Ash and the gang by putting on disguises and while
to us it’s usually clearly obvious that it’s them, most of the time their
disguises are at least good enough to legitimately fool Ash and his friends.
But there have been not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five
separate instances where Team Rocket is wearing disguises that fool the gang
despite the fact that these disguises are so bad that they should’ve easily
recognized who they really were. These instances of stupidity first occurred in
the episode ‘Showdown at Dark City’, in which Ash and company come to a town
that includes two Pokémon Gyms that are both looking to become officially
licensed gyms. However, these gyms are also fierce rivals resulting in multiple
street fights between them as both gyms look to eliminate the other. While the
gang hides out in a local restaurant, Team Rocket comes in dressed in disguise as
bodyguards for one of the gyms. However, their disguises only consist of them
wearing robes and having their mouths covered. Their hair (and in Meowth’s
case, his face) is sticking out which definitely should have given away who
they are but yet Ash and his friends doesn’t recognize them and act surprised
when they are revealed to be Team Rocket… even though they should have easily realized
that beforehand. I mean by this point they’ve already come across them about 40
times already so they should at least recognize them by their hairstyles by now.
But that’s not the only time when the gang is quite easily
fooled by poor disguises. In the episode ‘The Ultimate Test’, Jessie and James
disguise themselves as Pokémon trainers who, along with Ash, take an Admissions
Exam in the hopes of immediately entering the Pokémon League without having to
collect the minimum 8 badges. Now Jessie at least changes her hair so I can see
how that would possibly fool Ash but James doesn’t change his hair whatsoever.
And then we move ahead to the episode ‘The Purr-fect Hero’ in which Team Rocket
disguises themselves as a pair of magicians, again without changing their hair
and managing to fool Ash and his friends up until they reveal their true
intentions. In the episode ‘Fire and Ice’, they try to fool Ash by pretending
to run a Pokémon Center with James making no attempt at hiding his hairdo when
he pretends to be one of the nurses. Jessie is at least wearing a Nurse Joy
mask. Finally, in the episode, ‘A Friend in Deed’, Team Rocket disguises
themselves as ‘Pokémon Inspectors’, with really no effort at all to disguise
themselves whatsoever. Now I can understand Ash and the gang being fooled so
easily by bad costumes at least once but five times? As I’ve made it clear, the
main problem with their disguises is that they don’t change their hairstyles. Seriously,
I’m pretty sure that not too many people in the world of Pokémon have the same
damn hairstyles as they do. You’d think that by this point in the series, after
facing Team Rocket a least a hundred times, Ash and friends would be able to
see through some of these poor disguises. But NOPE!!!
UNNECESSARY TOURNAMENT- WHO GETS TO KEEP TOGEPI?
In the episode ‘Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon’, Ash
managed to find a Pokémon egg, which in the episode ‘Who Gets to Keep Togepi’
finally ends up hatching into the titular egg Pokémon, Togepi. This results in
Ash, Brock, Misty, and even Team Rocket’s Meowth arguing over who should own
it. They decide to settle this through a tournament which sort of does feel
like they’re over-doing it quite a bit in order to solve something that is simple
as just figuring out who gets to have the Togepi. Ash ends up winning the
tournament by beating both Misty and Meowth but ultimately doesn’t get to own
Togepi; instead, Misty becomes its owner. That is because when Togepi hatched,
the first thing that it saw was Misty so that means that it thinks that she’s
its mother. Ultimately, this makes the entire tournament (the main plot-point
of the episode) that the main characters just had…
Also this episode features a very questionable bit of animation
involving Professor Oak and a Muk that’s now become an infamous GIF and… well,
I couldn’t resist using it here…
…yeah… moving on…
SURPRISED AT JIGGLYPUFF’S APPEARANCE- BEACH BLANK-OUT BLASTOISE
Another one of the series’ running gags began when the team
came across a wild Jigglypuff, a Pokémon with the ability to make anyone (human
or Pokémon) fall asleep whenever they hear its song. After Jigglypuff finishes
its song, realizing that everyone’s asleep, it gets mad and draws on everyone’s
face with a marker that it got from Ash’s backpack which it hides in its microphone.
In this episode, Jigglypuff gets stuck in a Blastoise’s water cannon, resulting
in the Blastoise falling asleep along with the multiple Squirtles and
Wartortles on the island that they all inhabit together. Ash and friends help get
Jigglypuff out of the cannon but once it does get unstuck, Ash acts surprised
that it’s Jigglypuff… despite the fact that just a few minutes earlier, Brock
and Misty realized who it was, said it out loud, and all of this was when Ash
was right next to them. And yet once it comes out, Ash acts like he didn’t hear
what Brock and Misty just said. I don’t know whether to classify this as either
a script error or because Ash was just acting really stupid. In this case, I
hope it’s at least the former but then again this is the same character who
failed to recognize Team Rocket in cheap disguises at least five damn times so
it might just be the latter.
SURPRISING DURABILITY OF THE POKEDEX- THE MISTY MERMAID
In this episode, Ash, Misty, and Brock return to Cerulean
City where Misty reunites with her three older sisters. They ask if she could
be a part of their new underwater stage show because they are having problems
attracting an audience. Misty agrees and the show goes on without a hitch… that
is, until Team Rocket comes in attempting to steal the Gym’s Pokémon. This then
results in an underwater battle between Team Rocket and the gang. During the
fight, Misty’s Sisters’ Seel evolves into a Dewgong. Like he does with every
new Pokémon that they come across, Ash identifies with the Pokedex… while he is
still underwater. Did you know that the Pokedex was water-proof? Apparently it
is according to this episode and to my knowledge it hasn’t been used underwater
in any other episode of the anime since. This episode also starts an odd
practice in regards to the ‘Who’s That Pokémon’ bit that plays during the
commercial break. Usually, this part of the show, in which the audience tries
to guess the Pokémon whose silhouette is shown on-screen, uses the Pokémon that
is heavily featured in that episode. But starting with this episode, the
American dub of the anime decides to use the main Pokémon that is to be featured
in the next episode instead, which apparently went until the Johto storyline.
For the record, this wasn’t the case with the Japanese version; it was purely
an aesthetic choice of the American dub. The reason for this turn of events is
unclear.
JUST HOW MANY BADGES ARE THERE TO EARN, ANYWAY? - BATTLE OF THE BADGE
In the video games and in the anime, the main character has
to collect 8 badges from the Gym Leaders in the area they’re in so that they
can enter the Pokémon League and it seems like you can only get 8 badges in any
given region. Well, this episode, in which Ash heads to Viridian City in order
to compete for his eighth and final badge, apparently proves otherwise. In this
episode, Ash’s main rival Gary battles the Gym Leader, revealed to be the
leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni, before Ash can and brags to him that he
already has… 10 badges? Aren’t there only supposed to be eight badges? I know
that there are some unofficial gyms located in Kanto, which in the anime is
apparently much larger with all of the towns that Ash and the gang visit (most
of which, for the record, are not featured in the games), but is it even
possible to get more than eight badges? Apparently according to Gary it is.
This episode also gives us our first look at the mysterious Pokémon that would
play a pivotal role in the anime’s first feature-length movie (more on that
momentarily); Mewtwo, though he isn’t referred to by name here.
TITLE CARD ERRORS AND… ABANDONMENT OF A FRIEND?? – IT’S MR. MIME TIME +
SHOWDOWN AT THE PO-KÉ CORRAL
‘It’s Mr. Mime Time’ and ‘Showdown at the Po-ké Corral’ both
had title cards that had very noticeable spelling errors. ‘It’s Mr. Mime Time’
was incorrectly titled ‘It’s Mr. Mimie Time’ and ‘Showdown at the Po-ké Corral’
was misspelled as ‘Showdown at the Po-ké Corall’. I’m kind of surprised that
those in charge of the American dubbing of the show didn’t notice this. But I
also want to talk about another odd moment that occurred in the Mr. Mime
episode. In this episode, Ash and friends return to Ash’s hometown, Pallet Town,
and come across a traveling Pokémon circus. However, this circus has a problem
in that one of its star Pokémon, Mr. Mime, refuses to perform. In order to fix
this, Brock suggests that Ash disguise himself as Mr. Mime, which Ash agrees to
do, sort of against his own will. But then Team Rocket comes in and steals Mr.
Mime… but instead they end up catching Ash, who is still disguised as Mr. Mime.
He does manage to escape but I’m just amazed at what Misty and Brock end up
doing in this episode when he gets captured. They don’t try to go and rescue
him and instead go back to Ash’s house and eat. What kind of friends are Misty
and Brock to leave Ash on his own when he’s captured by the bad guys? I mean,
Ash does get away from Team Rocket but he doesn’t even get angry at Misty and
Brock for not trying to rescue him, which for the record I would’ve done if I
was in his situation.
POKÉMON: THE FIRST MOVIE
Of course I can’t talk about odd Pokémon moments without
discussing the anime’s first feature-length film, ‘Pokémon: The First Movie’
AKA ‘Mewtwo Strikes Back’. Watching this film again definitely brings back a
lot of nostalgic memories but as for the film itself… well, this is a case
where the film is more geared to fans of the show and as such is more appealing
to them. This isn’t a case like ‘Serenity’ or ‘Veronica Mars’; if you’re going
into this film new to the series, then you’re really going to get confused at
times. Also, from what I’ve heard, the original Japanese cut of the film was
much different than the American version we got. The main change is that a
sequence in the original cut that was basically the origin of the Pokémon known
as Mewtwo, in which he befriended the clone of a scientist’s deceased daughter,
was cut from the American cut, meaning that Mewtwo’s reasoning for mistrusting
humans that was fairly developed enough in the original Japanese edition of the
film, isn’t really delved on in the American cut. But that’s nothing compared
to some of the stranger moments that occur within this film.
First off, this film has a few errors in regards to properly
identifying Pokémon. One Pokémon trainer refers to his Pidgeot as a Pidgeotto,
Team Rocket think that a silhouette of a Scyther is actually an Alakazam, and a
Sandslash is called Sandshrew and apparently those in charge of the American
cut purposely left these errors in for the fans to point out. But one of the
most baffling elements of this film is its message. The main plot revolves Ash
and friends, along with a few other Pokémon trainers, being ‘invited’ to a
party hosted by the world’s greatest Pokémon trainer, which is revealed to also
be the world’s greatest Pokémon, Mewtwo. Mewtwo then takes all of their Pokémon
from them and has them cloned as he plans to take over the world with his clone
army. But Ash manages to save the original Pokémon as a massive battle ensues
between the real Pokémon and their clones. After a montage of this battle, the
trainers, unable to take any more of it, comment on, basically, how ‘fighting
is wrong’. I mean, it is actually a good message for kids but at the same time
it is very ironic (and actually a bit hypocritical if you really think about
it) that this message is being used in a show that is ALL ABOUT FIGHTING!!! And
by the end of the film, Mewtwo actually erases the memories of all of the
Trainers who were there… which makes the message of the whole movie…
But then we come to ‘that moment’… Pokémon fans, you know
what I’m talking about. It’s the event that happens at the end of the movie,
when Ash tries to intervene during a fight between Mewtwo and Mew, the latter
of which is the legendary Pokémon whose DNA was used to create Mewtwo, and ends
up getting caught in their attacks, resulting in him being turned in stone…
basically killing him. Now I will admit that I did actually cry during this
scene, mostly because of Pikachu’s reaction to it and his attempts to resurrect
his friend. But then we get to one of the strangest moments in not just the
history of Pokémon, but film history in general. All of the Pokémon begin to
cry at the loss of Ash and the collective strength of their tears is able to
bring him back to life… I’m not kidding folks, this really happens. Now, for
the record, this technically was explained as being possible earlier in the
movie when someone mentioned that the tears of Pokémon revived those who had
lost their lives in a huge storm but even then, it’s still a very weird moment
that doesn’t seem at all possible but it happens. And that’s ‘Pokémon: The
First Movie’ in a nutshell for you; a film that is more appealing to fans of
the show but also full of some very odd moments. But then again, as we’ve
already seen, this show has been full of weird moments so it’s not that
surprising.
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| The feels, man... |
A GOLDEN ‘GROWLITHE’? PLUS, CONFUSION OVER STAGE OF GROWLITHE EVOLUTION
- LIGHTS, CAMERA, QUACK-TION + THE FOURTH ROUND RUMBLE
In this episode, Ash and friends meet the famous director
Cleavon Schpielbunk, who is in town looking for Pokémon to appear in his next
movie, ‘Pokémon in Love’, which is basically ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with Pokémon.
Schpielbunk notes that he has previously won the ‘Golden Growlithe’ which
apparently is the Pokémon world’s equivalent of the Golden Globes. But I have
to ask… does this (shown above) look like a Growlithe to you? No, because it’s
an Arcanine, the evolved form of Growlithe. And folks, this isn’t the only time
this season when these two Pokémon were confused for each other although in
this next situation it was the other way around. In the episode ‘The Fourth
Round Rumble’, Team Rocket tries to fool the police by having their balloon
float around while they stay on the ground and capture Pokémon. Two Officer
Jennys notice this and one of them commands her Arcanine to use Flamethrower on
the balloon… although technically she only has a Growlithe and not an Arcanine.
I’m surprised no one working on this episode noticed this error but it’s there,
similar to the misidentification of other Pokémon in ‘The First Movie’.
And those are some of
what are, in my opinion, some of the weirdest moments that occurred during the
first season of the ‘Pokémon’ anime.
