day 280 ash meets bruno (Kanto elite four 1/4) {ep71} day 300 ash gets to the league {almost} {ep73}
Besides Bruno, there's really no point to 71 so it verges on bad, and 72 is another filer, but it has a giant monster fight so that's cool. One last vagueish time skip to rest up and off we go. 73 is the precursor to the finale with a samurai/marrowak combo, so you know, good stuff.
Backing up a bit the 3rd major thing that happened in the first season, was that they changed the movie so that it would not act as a finale to the show as originally planned. Details aren't exactly concrete as to what the original would have been like but may have involved Misty narrating the story to her and Ash's daughter at the end. This is all sophistry though, as obviously that never happened. My point is this, when the movie came out, Gold and Silver still had a year of development left and Pokémon wouldn't go global for another two months... so this was a pretty ballsy marketing choice all things considered, but they didn't trade Ash in for a new model and the rest as they say is history.
day 301-5 ash gets to the league/league opening ceremony/1st-4th round {ep74-77}
Ok you guys, we are finally here, and OHSHIT did James just try to incinerate Ash with the Olympic torch, isn't it Jessie who's the more violent one? No wait, the blaze spontaneously became a Moltres and flew away false alarm everyone. “Gee, it sure is a good thing I'm Ash Ketchum, otherwise I would be dead.”
Other than that, Ash finally uses his muk against a ninja bellsprout, and his krabby which promptly evolves into kingler after one fight, now if we ignore the fact that levels don't exist in the anime Ash caught krabby by Bill's lighthouse on route 25, so at lvl 15, meaning it gained 13 levels at once. Cool.
day 306-8 ritchie shows up/ash vs. ritchie/league closing ceremony (finishes in top 16) {ep78-80}
day 314 pidgeotto evolves/ash heads for orange islands {ep81-82}
Let's get the good out of the way first, that montage at the end of ep 80 that reuses the theme song to show Ash's first league experience, that's a great moment. There's a feeling of yeah I didn't make it but I did my damn best, and I'll come out on top next time, so kinda just like Rocky. I also enjoyed the callback to those spearow from the first episode, and Ash flying on the newly evolved Pidgeot was awesome.
You know when I got to this point in the re-watch I assumed I would be super pissed at Ritchie, tawny haired, blue hat wearing, Mary-Sue clone that he is, but really I'm not. Ritchie isn't a real boy, he's the plot made manifest in the very image of its star attraction existing only to get Ash plodding along again. No, the one I'm really mad at is fucking Charizard, and his STUPID LAZY DRAGON ASS!
Right, so TR do what they always do, and they get away with it this time so Ash has to chase after them the whole day exhausting both himself and his Pokémon and he only makes it back to the stadium that night, way too late for his match, but Ritchie was too stubborn to accept a win by forfeit and he gets his chance. The officials don't ask where the fuck he's been or if his Pokémon are even fully healed, or even just postpone the match till tomorrow nope, they just say go.
So first squirtle gets eliminated because the butterfree put him to sleep. WHAT? does this referee even know what status effects are? Then Ash beats the guy's butterfree, leaving Ritchie with his charmander and pikachu while Ash's Charizard is the only one with any energy left. Ritchie switches charmander out for his pikachu when he sees Char, which eliminates the charmander... again, what kind of match is the ref calling? Finally, oh yeah here we go dragon vs rat final battle of the season! And Char just refuses to fight, so Ash loses without even having a chance to prove himself... what the actual fuck
The topper for this whole mess though, is nobody questions Ash about the strange circumstances around his entrance, in TR's beat up balloon, and treats the match as perfectly normal and legitimate; furthermore blaming Ash's loss solely on him not having trained Charizard enough to obey him and I'm left with a question, when and how would Ash have had the time or effort to do that? Seriously, Brock and Misty you know this kid and how he is and more importantly you know what his dragon's temperment is like, so fucking when could he have trained him?! Stupid dragon, I can't wait till you get off your damn ego trip. It's all your fault there's 700 more bloody episodes! ARRGHGH!
Themes: It's the original Pokémon theme, it's probably stuck in your head right now, and it will never ever leave you alone. It does what any great theme should do, get the point of the show across, and get the audience pumped to watch this week's episode.
Character Bios:
Ash Ketchum (10): OG Ash is an idiot. Full-stop. He leaves on his journey with patently little info about well everything useful for wandering the earth, like Pokéfacts, cooking, geography (see desert), or even what the Pokémon league is. So he's just like kid Goku from Dragonball, except Ash wasn't raised on a mountain in the middle of the wilderness by himself. I need to stress again though that Ash is one courageous little shit, he ninjas himself down into the clone laboratory rescues all the Pokémon leads them all on an assault against Mewtwo, and tries to punch him in the face. And what does Ash do when Mewtwo tosses him aside, he gets up and tries to punch him harder. Respect.
Misty (12): Ash's HBIC, the ginger with an attitude. Besides acting as romantic potential, Misty serves as voice and hand of restraint for Brock's libido, and Ash's conscience... not in a right or wrong way, more in a should I really do this stupid thing way. When togepi is introduced, Misty does keep her tsundere-ness, but at a more muted setting owing to the fact that she's now a parent. Nice move by Ash, get that chick a baby so she'll stop bothering you about relationships and weddings and love, so you can focus on what's really important... playing children's card games. Now wait there's more than one thing wrong with that sentence, I just can't quite put my finger on what it is.
Brock (15): Brock is Ash's mentor/older brother figure/comedy relief/only reason Ash hasn't starved to death. Simple enough right? Honestly though, Brock's past sucks. He gets his Onix for a starter right on his 10th birthday and his mom soon abandons the family after that to go off to see the world without telling her husband, who had already left to find a better job to help his family. He then forgets all about that and chases after her fruitlessly for awhile. This leaves Brock to take care of his 9 younger siblings by himself for about 4 to 5 years till his dad comes home. He needs to buy new parents. No wonder he's a raging pervert, he's getting all of his pent up hormones out at once.
Jessie+James (18-20???) and Meowth (???): They're Team Rocket. Good, bad, really kind of sad. What more is there to say. A spoiled effeminate rich kid, a vain bipolar girl from the projects, and a mangy alley cat from Hollwood who can build mechs on no money. They suck at being evil, they're alright at being good, but if nothing else they'll never quit till Pikachu is in their grasp forever. As a side note, does Giovanni ever wonder what the hell his former best operations team is doing, cuz I don't think they've said anything about the kid they're always stalking in their mission reports.
Kanto ep.1-82 evolved Pokémon count as being diff. Just like the dex in game so Char=3 diff pok
17/145 (pikachu, butterfree, pidgeot, bulbasaur, charizard, squirtle, kingler, primeape, muk, haunter, tauros) out of 151 + 3 johto Pokémon Ash caught/seen (ho-oh,togepi,donphan) missing persian, lickitung, jynx, lapras, articuno, zapdos
200/60 Pokémon Gary caught/seen (see ep 65. what, was he OCD about all those damn zubats?)
- times ash should have died=5 (2 explosions, ghostly encounter, mewtwo+mew attack, moltres)
- of battles/badges ash won on technicality or cheating 5/3
- of battles/badges ash won fair and square 28/5 (battles involving Team Rocket are not counted at all)
- of battles lost 5 (battles that are interrupted or uncompleted or that end in a tie are not counted at all)
- times ash saved world=1 (stopped mewtwo)
best eps IMO ep1 "Pokemon-I Choose You", 14 "Electric shock showdown", 37 "Ditto's mystery mansion", spec. "Snow way out", 42 "Showdown at Dark City", 45 "The Song of Jigglypuff", 48 "Holy Matrimony", 58 "Riddle Me This", 59 "Volcanic Panic", 70 "Go West Young Meowth", 77 "The Fourth Round Rumble", 80 "Friends to the End"
Next Time... "Now Ash, I know your dreams were just crushed, but would you mind being a delivery boy? On the bright side hey tropical paradise, you can get closer to your girlfr— Oh hi Tracey, what are you doing here?" Eps 82-91
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