Live Blogs The Great Walk to Masterhood: "Gotta Ketch'um": The Story of Ash

Kaoz2014-04-26 10:47:31

Bare Bones for Johto... 117,119,126,131,134,141,144,146,147,151,154,m3,159,181+182,199,208+209,224+225,228,230,238,251-254,265-274 (end) (plot gets even choppier lose some great char. bits like Kanto/ then again, it skips whirl islands)

Johto (117-274) ...417 is 12th birthday, 782 is 13th birthday

day 391 ash gets to new bark town {ep117} day 394 ash meets casey {ep118}

Casey marks a milestone in Pokémon, she's the first important side-character that isn't a professor or a main character's family member. She exists for two reasons, to show how Ash has grown from being the textbook example of a newbie who has no idea what he's talking about, into an actually competent trainer, and to lay the groundwork for Charizard to leave the party by way of Misty giving Ash grief over using the dragon to power through everything. Pr. Elm is dumb and needs to shut up. Lastly a Suicune appears to be shadowing the group.

(2013) You know, if Pokémon was a character driven narrative epic instead of a merchandising engine that I've put way too much thought in to, one might think that the impetus for Ash never steamrolling over the new regions with his old team(s) might come from this conversation... but that's neither here nor there.

day 400 ash catches heracross {ep119}

Ash's Heracross was always one of my favorites and would probably be on my dream-team for Ash if he ever wanted to go all out. Johto, has a lot of filler, as well as a number of episodes that would be filler, if not for 1 thing that happens in them, thus explaining the gaps in the time-line. As such my summaries are lacking in essence... there wasn't much to work with.

(2013) So in hindsight, I'm glad my opinion about Ash's heracross was validated, because when I wrote this I had never even glanced at the DP series yet. Now back to slogging through filler... at least you guys don't have to watch it.

120 is just bad filler with some donpan although by the low standards some episodes will set it gets bumped up to mediocre. 121 merits an ok filler rating by its own merits, but seeing as how Gary shows up, it becomes not-filler then, 122 is more bad filler with some sunflora, and 123 is bad except for the Team Rocket parts where they dress up like phantom thieves, 124 would be bad filler except it introduces the snubbull that chases after Meowth for the whole season so is unskippable unless the viewer doesn't mind being mildly confused to avoid boredom, and finally 125 is the first good filler episode of the season as it is a Brock focus episode wherein he helps out a stantler, hooray for that.

day 422 ash catches chikorita (ash is 12 by now) {ep126}

Ignoring my opinions on Pidgeot and Lapras, Chikorita is the first canon female Pokémon Ash catches and the only one in Johto, and in my opinion at least is the least memorable of said Johto Pokémon and is the second least interesting of all of Ash's pokemon except for that weird crush she has on her trainer (#1 is glaile). Well that's enough plot, back to the filler.

127+128 is more bad filler, but 127 is at least kinda watchable for the funny quagsire, the ledyba in 128 add no such positive to the dull-fest. 129 is thankfully a TR episode focusing on Jessie who sometime before/after flunking school as per ep9 and joining a biker gang ep36 also tried to go to Pokémed school, that's not even considering that while she still lived in Hoenn she tried her at coordinating... times like this I can appreciate how much less convoluted baggage Meowth has for a backstory as compared to his human teammates (Yes, James' is also messy)

130 has the group finally arrive in violet city and ascend the bellsprout tower. 130 also has this annoying 6-year old brat who calls Ash a loser for only getting top 16 at Indigo and only getting a trophy at Orange, he also tries to catch Pikachu using one of Ash's own pokeballs. Luckily he gets some sense shocked into him.

day 434 ash gets first badge {ep131}

Comparison time, League registration to getting 1st badge in Johto, 7 weeks or 14 episodes. Trainer registration to League registration in Kanto, 6 days or 5 eps, to 1st badge win, the very next day and that same episode. Why the fuck did it take so long? Also of note, Ash totally trolled Falkner with Charizard. That's what he gets for assuming Ash is a begginner... he's dumb still yes, but the writers wouldn't club him over the head totally for another 500 or so episodes. (still bitter)

132+133 are the rare but appreciated good filler, 2 has its Ash/Misty moments and the first instance of a girl actually returning Brock's affections which adds a bit to the now trite joke, while 3 has a share of lulz, because Togepi steals and joyrides around in Team Rocket's newest mech.

Comments

Mysterion Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 1st 2013 at 10:11:05 AM

That thought about why Ash doesn't use his old teams in new regions occurred to me too, but it really needs to be explicitly stated.

WorldTurtle Since: Dec, 1969

Mar 8th 2014 at 11:47:36 AM

You know in the Donphan episode Ash (and Brock) wanted to catch it. Later, Ash gets a Phanpy. Just some bit of trivia to throw out there. This seems to happen every now and then: Ash encounters a Pokemon-doesn't catch it, but then catches another one of the species (or at least part of it's evolution line later) later. Pidgey (first episode), later catches Pidgeotto. The Corphish in AG 21, then catches one in AG 23. I suppose Flannery's Torkoal and Ash's Torkoal might count as an example as well. In Sinnoh the Gible Khoury caught, while Ash soon caught his own. In Unova we had Sandile (though unlike the others that was the same one).

EeveeMistress Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 7th 2014 at 1:41:14 AM

^ I'm torn between accepting Unova as canon and invoking Fanon Discontinuity.