Website / Pokémon Learning League

Where you can play to learn with Pikachu.^note From left to right: Quinn, Ada, Lex, Siara.

Pokémon Learning League was a Flash-animated web-based educational by Scott Traylor, 360Kid, and Entropy Multimedia based on Pokémon: The Series. The premise of the site is that Ash and his friends would be in scenarios where they teach the viewers on what is right or wrong while learning various subjects such as math, language arts and science. If this sounds familiar, this is mostly made to capitalize on Brain POP, only with Pokémon characters.

The episodes have three sections: Watch, Try, and Apply. In the Watch section, Ash and his friends encounter a problem and ask one of the Mission Guides using the PokéPilot for help. They teach them, and by extension the viewers, the episode's topic, which helps them solve their problem. The Try section then has the viewer test out what they've learned through a game or a quiz, usually helping Ash and co. along the way, while the Apply section presents a bigger challenge for them.

The site was originally free when it was launched in the Fall^note in the Northern Hemisphere of 2006, but like with BrainPOP was made into a paid subscription at the start of 2007. Sadly, the site was shut down in August 2008 and the content was lost for a while with only old uploads of some of the videos on YouTube. However in 2021, amet_cal managed to archive all of the flash videos and uploaded them to the internet while LARG started a channel that archives the videos every Tuesday and Thursday.

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This website features examples of the following:

• Adaptational Dumbass: While the main characters already have had their Idiot Ball moments in the anime, here, they're reliant on the Mission Guides' help to solve simple math and science problems, even Brock and Max. In fact, Brock calls Siara in "Rock Cycle" for help in telling Graveler and rocks apart, despite being a Rock-type Gym Leader himself.
• Adaptational Modesty: Dawn wears long white sleeves and black leggings in every video she's in.
• All Balloons Have Helium: In "Respiratory System", May and Brock inflate balloons for Ash's Surprise Party, which float despite their breaths not containing helium.
• Alphabet Soup Cans: The Try and Apply segments are the interactive parts of the episodes, and sometimes they're minigames or puzzles related to the lesson that the viewer/player has to solve to advance the plot.
• Animation Bump:
  • It's subtle, but Ash and Pikachu's heads move more smoothly in "Appreciating Differences" compared to other episodes, where they jumping from one position to the next.
  • Eevee's walk cycle is much smoother than the others' in "Hyperbole, Personification, Onomatopoeia".
  • Siara also moves her arms more smoothly than in her previous appearances in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".
• Beach Episode: Several videos take place at the beach.
  • "Percents" has Ash and his friends competing against Brawly in a surfing competition.
  • "Nutrition Labels" has Ash and his friends having picnic at the beach, only for Team Rocket to steal their food.
  • "Tides and Waves" has Ash and Misty training their Pokémon at the beach and learning about how tides move from Siara.
• Another Dimension: It's implied that the Pokémon Learning League Lab isn't located in the Pokémon World, but rather in an Earthlike world, when Misty says in "Tides and Waves" that the Tidal Theory "probably applies to [their] world, too." Ash and co. use the PokéPilot as an interdimensional communication device to talk to the Mission Guides.
• Bedsheet Ghost: In "Point of View", Team Rocket overhears May being afraid of ghosts when she and her friends have to take shelter from the rain in an abandoned house. Meowth then decides to pretend to be a ghost by putting a white blanket over his head to kidnap Pikachu in the house.
• Big Damn Reunion: After going separate ways in the anime episode "Gotta Catch Ya Later!", Ash reunites with Misty in "Introduction to Algebraic Expressions", saying that he misses traveling with her. They catch up with each other and investigate the mass stealing of Pokémon at Cerulean City.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: In "Point of View", when Ash, Max, and Pikachu fall into the basement of the abandoned house, it's so dark that only their eyes could be seen.
• Call-Back:
  • In "Types of Triangles", Ash and Brock recall the names of the angles that they learned from "Angles", which help them solve the Trick House's triangle puzzle.
  • Quinn briefly references his previous lessons from "'I' Messages" and "Expressing Emotions" when he teaches Ash about self-control during the fair.
  • May recalls using similes and metaphors from the eponymous episode when Lex discusses other figures of speech in "Hyperbole, Personification, Onomatopoeia".
• Camping Episode: "Angles" has Ash and Brock asking for Ada's help on pitching their tent by reading and measuring angles.
• Canon Discontinuity: While the series uses the characters and settings from the anime, it doesn't seem to be connected to the anime as the latter series doesn't mention any events from it.
• Canon Foreigner: Ada, Lex, Quinn and Siara are made for the website. There's also Vanessa from "Expressing Emotions" and Lainea from "Giving Back", who are also made for their respective episodes.
• Canon Marches On: In "Peer Pressure", May learns to love her Eevee the way it is and not feel pressured to evolve it like the other Coordinators. However, the anime episode "A Full-Course Tag Battle!" reveals that May's Eevee eventually evolved into Glaceon offscreen.
• Carnivore Confusion: It's never addressed in the "Food Pyramid" video where meat comes from, even if the anime is already inconsistent with its depiction of it. However, some Pokédex entries mention humans eating Pokémon, such as Farfetch'd being nearly overhunted to extinction for its meat.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: In "Good Sportsmanship", James sabotages the first round of May's Contest Battle by having his Cacnea attack her Eevee, even if the former's not a contestant. This makes Jessie, disguised as "Jessandra", qualify for the next round and win the Contest, but she's promptly exposed as a cheater and disqualified. Instead of accepting their loss like May did, Team Rocket just high-tails out of the Contest Hall.
• Circling Birdies: Happens to Tracey at the end of "Factors" when Ash's Muk hugs him and accidentally pushes him against a shelf, knocking all the Poké Balls he reorganized after Muk made a mess in the storage room. Several Poké Balls circle around his head as he gets up.
• Cliffhanger:
  • "Plant Cells" ends with May declaring that she and Ash will catch Team Rocket for setting up the Pit Trap for them, with Ash sending his Pikachu to attack them, but the conclusion isn't shown.
  • In "Introduction to Algebraic Expressions", Ash and Misty catch Team Rocket stealing the Water-type Pokémon for their own aquarium, and Ash sends his Pikachu to attack them just before the episode ends.
• Clueless Aesop: In "Appreciating Differences", Ash and May learn to stand up against prejudice after Quinn gives May a pep talk when an older Trainer excludes her from the Contest for her age. While Ash said that everyone loves their Pokémon despite their differences and that they shouldn't judge each other, he didn't directly address why May was excluded in the first place. She could've applied what she learned from "Peer Pressure", but since the episode didn't address the complexities of prejudice in real life, such as minorities being forced to assimilate themselves into the dominant culture to feel accepted, she didn't and felt weighed down by the bully. Quinn also should've taught the lesson to the bully so he can learn to stop being prejudiced towards others, so in the end, the bully got away with judging May by her age alone.
• Continuity Cameo: Fittingly for the episode's topic, the Narrator shows up at the end of "Point of View" to narrate Ash and co. leaving the abandoned house on their next journey.
• Contrived Coincidence: In "Respiratory System", it just so happens that Siara was working on a computer simulation of the eponymous body system when May called her about Brock's hiccups, prompting Siara to teach them about it.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In "Weathering and Erosion", Max uses a 200-year-old map to find the group's way to May's next Contest, but they get lost because the landscape has changed since the map was first made. They ask Siara to explain why, but after her lesson, Max realizes that they could've just used the PokéNav to go where they want to at the start.
• Cultural Translation: Zig-zagged in "Discounts", where both US dollars and the Pokémon World's PokéDollars are used, but the latter currency is based on the former, unlike in the games, where it's based on yen.^note 100 PokéDollars in the games = 100 yen, while 1 PokéDollar in this episode = 1 US dollar
• Damned by Faint Praise: In "Subject/Verb Agreement", Ash and Pikachu help Brock revise his love poem for the girl of his dreams, even if Ash doesn't like it. After which, Brock asks Ash for his critique, and he just says that the girl will at least be "impressed" by Brock's subject-verb agreement. Brock then runs off lovestruck, and Ash wishes him luck... because "[he's] gonna need it."
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Tracey Sketchit, one of the supporting characters, gets some of his own episodes, mainly involving helping Professor Oak in his research:
    • In "Scientific Method", he investigates why the Lickitung aren't eating the apples off the tree.
    • In "Mean, Median, Mode, and Range", he's assigned by Professor Oak to gather data about the Pokémon in the area.
    • He's also tasked by Professor Oak in "Ordered Pairs on a Coordinate Grid" to study the Primeape in the area and mark their habitat using a coordinate map.
    • In "Factors", he asks Ada for help in reorganizing the Poké Balls that fell out from their shelves after Ash's Muk made a mess in the storage room.
  • Misty also gets her own episodes in "Area of a Circle", "Decimals", and "Key Words in Word Problems", all of which involve her maintaining water tanks. She also co-stars with Ash in "Introduction to Algebraic Expressions", where they investigate the mass stealing of Pokémon in Cerulean City, and "Tides and Waves", where they train their Pokémon at the beach.
  • While Brock sometimes appears with Ash and his friends, he gets his own episode in "Context Clues", where he asks Lex for help in deciphering what Officer Jenny means through context clues.
  • May often shares the spotlight with Ash or Max in the Life Skills episodes, but she gets a solo appearance in "Peer Pressure", where she asks Quinn for advice when she feels pressured to evolve her Eevee like the other Coordinators.
  • Max often co-stars with May, but he gets his own episode in "Prefixes", where he asks Lex for help on identifying the prefixes used in Roxanne's manual.
• Delayed Reaction: In "Weather Maps", Ash encounters a Castform, but despite it transforming into its Rainy Form to alert him of the weather, Ash doesn't notice the rain until he looks up, thinking that there's not a cloud in the sky.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "Introduction to Algebraic Expressions", Team Rocket plans to steal Pokémon for their aquarium using a list that obscures their names so that the heroes won't know what Pokémon they stole. Meowth then gets the boat to haul their catch, but Jessie points out that they don't know if it can hold all the Pokémon because all they have are their heights and weights in algebraic expressions, so they just get a bigger boat instead.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The version of "Story Elements" used in the pilot program is drastically different from the final version. Instead of calling Lex, May calls her dad Norman to give her the lesson◊. Mission Guides wouldn't be featured until the full version of Learning League was released.
• Easter Egg: If you're viewing the episodes on a Flash player, extending the window reveals some hidden drawings made by the animators in some of them:
  • There's a blue rabbit hidden outside the frame◊ of the Apply section of "Exercise", which is presumably a beta version of Pikachu reacting to your answers. It grows red fangs if you get the answer wrong, and they disappear when you get it right.
  • There are two hidden◊ monsters◊ outside the frame of the Apply section of "Hyperbole, Personification, Onomatopoeia".
  • Pocoyo can be found hiding beyond the frame◊ of the Apply section of "Giving Back".
  • Beyond the frame of the Apply section of "Rounding Decimals" hides a group of monsters peeking above the "Apply Audio" box.◊
  • Hiding past the frame of the Apply section of "Dealing With Anger" is a yellow gargoyle-like creature holding up the "Responses" sign.◊
  • "Suffixes" has three hidden graphics beyond the frames. In the second part of the Try section, there's a cake that serves as the border for the placeholder text◊ and an unused graphic for the hints◊, while there's a purple whale◊ in the Apply section.
  • The Apply section of "The Earth's Axis" has a cow◊ and a sheep◊ hiding beyond the frame.
• Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: Whenever pizza is used as an analogy for fractions and decimals, it's always topped with pepperoni.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Happens several times at the end of some episodes after Ash and co. solve the problem of the day.
  • At the end of "Respiratory System", Ash, Brock, and May laugh together after Ash cures Brock's hiccups by scaring him with a balloon pop.
  • Ash and Misty share a laugh after Ash gets splashed from behind by a big wave at the end of "Tides and Waves".
  • Both parts of "Simple Machines" end with Ash and co. laughing together after helping Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny in fixing up the Pokémon Center in Part 1 and moving the boulder out of the way in Part 2, respectively.
  • Ash and co. also share a laugh at the end of "Volume of a Rectangular Prism" when Brock tries impressing Nurse Joy by carrying the donation boxes for her.
  • They laugh again when they enjoy Brock's sandwiches at the end of "Area of a Triangle".
  • In "The Three States of Matter", Brock makes tea for Ash and May after their battle, but May has her Squirtle use Ice Beam on the kettle to make it ice cold. It ends up freezing the entire kettle, and Ash remarks that it's now iced tea, and everyone laughs at the joke before the episode ends.
  • Ash, May, and Max laugh at the end of "Weathering and Erosion" after Max realizes that they could've just used the PokéNav instead of his old map to go to May's next Contest.
• Everyone Hates Fruit Cakes: In "Rock Cycle", Siara compares the change from sedimentary rocks to metamorphic rocks to baking fruitcake, but then remembers that not everyone likes it, so she compares the process to baking chocolate chip cookies instead.
• Exposed to the Elements: In "Problem Solving", May and Max get caught in a freak blizzard and have to rescue some Bellsprout from it. They manage to brave through the snow in their regular clothes, which are just short-sleeved shirts and short pants.
• Fight Unscene:
  • The "Food Pyramid" video begins with Ash training Pikachu to use Quick Attack, but the very next scene cuts to the end of the session without transitions, with Ash just congratulating Pikachu for a good job before taking a snack break.
  • "Area of a Rectangle" has Ash practicing Sceptile's new moves at the park, but we don't actually see it using its moves. Instead, it cuts to Officer Jenny reprimanding Ash and Sceptile for accidentally tearing up the grass.
• Five-Token Band: Among the Mission Guides, Quinn is Asian, Lex is White, Ada is Hispanic, while Siara is Black.
• Forged Message: At the end of "Helping a School or Community Problem", everyone signs their names on the pledge that people who litter near the Goldeen lake must partake in community service to clean it up. Team Rocket, who had been littering there, deny their crimes, and Jessie signs the pledge under the name "Nurse Joy" in front of the crowd and without disguising herself. For once, Ash sees right through the trick, so Team Rocket's forced to clean up the lake.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Quinn likes to come up with catchy acronyms in his lessons:
    • He defines teamwork as "Together, Everyone Achieves More", or TEAM for short.
    • He also provides four tips on how to COPE with stress: Communicate how you're feeling, be Optimistic about your chances, Play and relax a little, and build your Esteem by treating others with respect.
    • His advice to FREE yourself from falling into the anger trap is the following: Find names for your emotions, Respect others, perform Emotional release, and put your Energy to good use.
    • He gives bullying victims and bystanders the POWER to stand up against bullies: Play it cool, Open yourself to options, Work together, Eliminate hate, and Resolve to solve.
    • He also gives some SMART advice on setting a good life goal: it has to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Rewarding, and Teachable.
    • Additionally, he advises you to keep your YAPPY off the net: don't yap about Your full name, Address, Phone number, Password, or Your plans online.
    • According to him, you can make a difference in your community through CHANGE: Clarify what the problem is, Hope for the best possible outcome, raise Awareness about the problem, find out what you Need to solve the problem, Gather people to fix the problem, and make the Effort to fix the problem.
  • Lex also likes to do the same in his lessons:
    • He provides four EASY tips on how to read context clues: look for Eamples, Antonyms and contrasts, Synonyms and definitions, and Your experience or sense of the sentence.
    • He also turns Brock's "WHOA!" in "Persuasive Writing" into an acronym: What is the opinion you're going to express? Hold up your claim in supporting your evidence, Organize your ideas for your reader, and Answer the questions your audience is asking.
    • Additionally, he advises Ash to focus on COD when making peer feedback: Content, Organization, and Delivery.
    • Adding to that, he calls the five parts of a business letter "HA(G)GIS": Heading, Address To, Greeting, Information, and Signature.
    • He also "plants" TREES to brainstorm, or develop ideas that grow in his head. Brainstorming has five important steps: Topic, Related Words, Elaboration, Examination, and Subject/Solution.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In "Area of a Triangle", Max insists on getting the biggest sandwiches, but when you distribute the sandwiches in the Apply section, their sizes don't matter as long as each character gets a total of 20 square inches of sandwiches.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The Mission Guides are composed of two guys (Lex and Quinn) and two girls (Ada and Siara).
• The Ghost:
  • Ash mentions Jeff, Lizzie, and RJ competing in the surfing contest in "Percents", but they're never seen.
  • In "'I' Messages", Quinn mentions having an older sister that he used to fight with, but she's never seen. He also mentions a tall friend named Josh in "Appreciating Differences", but he's never seen either.
  • In "Giving Back", Lainea says that she's donating Pokémon dolls to the children's hospital while visiting her sister there. Ash and co. volunteer to help the sick children too, but they and the viewer never see said sister.
  • Lex mentions his friend Jane in "Writing a Business Letter", who asked him to help proofread her letter. Like the other characters only mentioned by the others, she remains unseen.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Ada, being Hispanic, says a few Spanish words in her later episodes.
• Green Aesop: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" has Ash and co. learning about the Three R's of waste management after hearing that Brock is helping out at Officer Jenny's recycling program.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • In "Story Elements", Ash and co. climb the mountain to get a better view of where to go next, only for it to rain. They take shelter and ask Lex for help on how to tell a good story, but suddenly, Team Rocket kidnaps Pikachu. After rescuing him, Ash and co. continue on their journey... only for it to rain again.
  • In "Area of a Rectangle", Ash's Sceptile accidentally tears up the park grass, so Ada teaches Ash how to calculate the area of a rectangle so he can patch them up... only for Pikachu to zap the patches after Ash covered them all up. Not that he minded that, but at least he knows how to patch things up.
• Hiccup Hijinks: In "Respiratory System", Brock gets the hiccups after Officer Jenny checks on him while he's blowing balloons for Ash's Surprise Party. Officer Jenny tells him to hold his breath, but it doesn't work, so she leaves to check on him later. Brock accuses her of giving him the hiccups because he was smitten by her, but May tells him that it must have something to do with his lungs, so she calls Siara for help on how to cure his hiccups. After teaching them about the respiratory system, Siara says that while some people have home remedies for hiccups, they usually go away on their own. She then signs off, just when Ash, who knew about the party all along, scares Brock's hiccups away by popping a balloon near him.
• Hidden Depths: Besides teaching Ash and co. various subjects, the Mission Guides have hobbies they do in their spare time: Quinn goes skateboarding and tries out different sports, Lex composes songs on his electric guitar, Ada tutors other students in Math, while Siara takes care of the garden in the lab.
• I Meant to Do That: In "Speed", Siara says this word-for-word after accidentally throwing her ball backwards and breaking the tools in the lab.
• If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: Quinn's life lessons advise against stooping down to the bully's level because that would make you just as bad as them.
• Internet Safety Aesop: The video "Online Safety" has Dawn reuniting with her Contest rival Zoey, who shows her how she uses the Internet to connect with other Coordinators. Dawn then chats with "Coolgirltrainer", who claims that she wants to hang out with her in person, but Ash gets suspicious because no one knows who "Coolgirltrainer" really is even if she sent a lot of messages to the other Coordinators. However, Dawn doesn't believe him and continues chatting with "Coolgirltrainer", so Ash calls Quinn for advice on how to stay safe on the web such as avoiding giving away personal information and informing a trusted adult of your online session.
  
  After Quinn finishes his lesson, Dawn comes back to the group and says that she had already made plans to meet with "Coolgirltrainer", who claimed that she would help train Dawn's Pokémon. She leads them outside, only to find that "Coolgirltrainer" is actually Team Rocket, who stole her Pokémon instead and plans to do the same to the other Coordinators they met online. Ash teams up with Zoey to take back Dawn's Pokémon and defeat Team Rocket, and Dawn learns her lesson to be more careful about her personal information online.
• Jerkass Ball: In "Self-Control", Ash gets impatient at the fair and cuts lines and also assumes the worst when he sees Team Rocket. Brock promptly calls him out for losing self-control, so they call Quinn to teach Ash how to stay calm and not make rash decisions.
• Lame Pun Reaction: In "Mixtures & Solutions", Siara teaches Ash and May the topic so they can learn why their grape jelly-water mixture didn't become grape juice. Ash then says that he "knows the solution" to their problem, and May comically sweats and falls down.
  May: [flatly] Haha, not funny.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Nutrition Labels", Team Rocket steals Ash and co.'s picnic food, upsetting Max because they took "all the good food away". The gang then calls Quinn for help in identifying which of their remaining food is healthy, and Max realizes that Team Rocket stole their unhealthy food all along. The scene then cuts to them too full to get away from the "twerps" because they ate all their junk food.
• Lethal Chef: May's questionable cooking skills are brought up in "Adding and Subtracting Fractions", which become a problem when she has to bake dessert for her friends while Brock's cooking dinner. Subverted since the cake turned out good thanks to Ada's help in measuring.
• Library Episode: In "Cause and Effect", Max checks out the whole library for books about other Trainers so he can learn how to be one when he grows up. He spends the day at the library calling Lex to ask for help on how to find the cause and effect in each story.
• Limited Animation: The characters' movements are less fluid than in the anime so that the episodes could load faster in schools running on slower internet speeds.
• Literal-Minded: In "Sound Energy", Siara instructs Max to put his fingers on his throat and "say something" to feel the vibrations of his vocal cords. He does so, but says, "something".
• Mini-Golf Episode: In "Friction", Ash and Pikachu build their own course that involves rolling a ball down some ramps with different surfaces and into the hole in as few turns as possible. Ash calls it "Sticky-Friction Ramp-Ball", which is mini-golf but without using a club.
• Mistaken Identity: At the beginning of "PEMDAS (Order of Operations)", Team Rocket has a stakeout outside Professor Oak's lab to steal his chest full of Poké Balls. James thinks that he saw Oak through his binoculars, but Jessie takes a closer look with hers and finds that he mistook an oak tree for the Professor.
• Multi-Part Episode: "Simple Machines" and "Media: Fact or Opinion" are the only topics that are discussed across two episodes, being labeled with "Part 1" and "Part 2".
• Multiple Endings: There are two possible endings for "Story Elements", both of which happen after Team Rocket's hot-air balloon gets popped: the first one has Brock swinging from his rope and yelling like Tarzan to rescue Pikachu, while the second has Ash running out of the bushes to catch Pikachu.
• Mundane Utility: When Ash and co.'s speedboat breaks down in "Rounding Decimals", Ash orders his Pikachu to use Thunderbolt on the motor to jumpstart it. After they reach the dock, May tells her Beautifly to use Gust on Brock to keep him from falling backwards into the lake.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In "Personal Narrative", Ash tries recalling his favorite memories such as battling with Ritchie in the anime episodes "Friend or Foe Alike" and Falkner in "Fighting Flyer with Fire", but can't decide which memory is the best. With Lex and the viewer/player's help, he's able to retell his battles with Lt. Surge in "Electric Shock Showdown" and Spenser in "Ka Boom With a View!" to his friends. May also remembers how Harley nearly sabotaged her Contest Appeal in "New Plot, Old Lot!" in the Apply section of the lesson, and in the end, Ash also reminisces his first meeting with Pikachu in "Pokémon — I Choose You!".
  • Meowth's backstory in "Go West Young Meowth" is brought up in the anti-bullying episode, where he recalls being ostracized by the other Meowth just because he learned to walk on twos and talk like a human.
  • In "Brainstorming", Ash and May's path gets blocked by a sleeping Snorlax, but they don't have a Poké Flute to wake it up.
  • In "Writing for Different Audiences", Brock tells Lex about the time when the former's younger brother Forrest took over Pewter Gym while Brock was out in the anime episode "Grating Spaces", and how Forrest evolved Brock's Onix into Steelix by training it.
• Oblivious to Love: Whenever Brock tries flirting with Ada or Siara, they don't notice and just continue with the lesson or laugh but don't react any further than that.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: "Commas" begins with Ash exiting the Pokémon Gym and talking about how awesome the battle was to Brock, though the viewers never see the battle itself.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Max's ancient map in "Weathering and Erosion" was made by "Ye Olde Mappe Shoppe". May even makes fun of the name by saying, "how oldee is this mappee?"
• "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: In "'I' Messages", after May and Max forgive each other over May's Skitty destroying Max's book, the camera pans up to the sky before the episode ends.
• Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: In "Peer Pressure", May asks Quinn for advice because she feels pressured to evolve her Eevee because the other Contest Coordinators evolved theirs. Downplayed since the pressure isn't necessarily negative, but May learns to be herself and love her Eevee the way it is instead of rushing to evolve it.
• Performance Anxiety: While May does her best in Pokémon Contests, she gets nervous when she has to do an opening speech or an interview, so she asks Lex for help in composition. Her stage fright then comes to a head in "Managing Stress", when she discovers that she'd be up against Milotic because the last time she competed against one, she lost. Ash and Max try but fail to calm her down, so they ask Quinn for advice on how to help her stay confident, and she wins the Contest with her Beautifly.
• Pit Trap: In "Plant Cells", the flower garden that Ash and May are walking in turns out to be a pitfall trap set up by Team Rocket. Ash and Pikachu don't realize that the flowers were marked with the letter R and fall in, and May needs the viewer's/player's help in rescuing them by identifying the parts of the plant cell to lower the rope.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: In "Teamwork", May and Ash have an argument after losing a Double Battle and split off to look for new battle partners. They team up with "Winnie" and "Jamie", respectively, unaware that they're Jessie and James in disguise. As a result, Jessie and James steal Ash and May's Pokémon after the battle, so Max asks Quinn to give them advice on teamwork so they can get them back.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • In "Dealing With Anger", Team Rocket breaks out into an argument about Meowth's pit for Ash and co. because he dug a hole without Jessie or James' knowledge. Ash and May overhear them and declare that they wouldn't want to get into a fight like them, and they ask Quinn for tips on anger management so they can help Team Rocket get over their situation.
  • In the anti-bullying episode, Meowth storms away from Team Rocket because they took their noodles away from him, called him names, and laughed at him. When Jessie and James find Meowth at the end of the episode, they tell him that they weren't bullying him: they were going to split the noodles between the three of them when Meowth left, and James laughed at how funny Meowth looked when he got upset over nothing but noodles. Meowth realizes that they still care about him, so he rejoins them and leaves with them.
• Power Nullifier: In "Probability", Team Rocket captures Pikachu in a safe that prevents him from using Electric attacks.
• Prejudice Aesop: In "Appreciating Differences", May feels bad about herself because an older Trainer told her that the younger Trainers like her are "babies who can't do well in these Contests". So Ash calls Quinn for advice, who tells May that people should look beyond stereotypes, not judge people just because they belong to a specific group, and stand up against prejudice. Ash then stands up for May by reminding everyone that despite their differences, they all have one thing in common: their love for their Pokémon.
• Pun: The characters, especially Brock, sometimes make puns related to the episode's topic, like when Siara thanks the viewer at the end of "Magnetism" by complimenting their magnetic personality.
• Riding into the Sunset: "Point of View" ends with Ash and co. walking into the sunset and leaving the abandoned house they took shelter in from the rain, with the Narrator explaining that they're off to their next adventure.
• Scavenger Hunt: In "Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases", Nurse Joy hosts a stamp rally, where the teams are given clues to where the stamps are, and the first team to find the final stamp and return to Nuse Joy wins.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • In "Key Words in Word Problems", Misty get's Ada's help in solving the word problems to better distribute her Pokémon's weight for her tanks. She manages to fix them all up at the end... only for her Psyduck to jump into one of them, making the floor under the tank crack.
  • In "Parts of Speech", Dawn struggles with writing a poem to impress Professor Oak on his show, so she calls Lex to help her. He teaches her how to use the different parts of speech to make her poem, but after she's done, she reads the announcement that Professor Oak can't come over due to bad weather.
  • In "Factors", Tracey asks for Ada's help in reorganizing the Poké Balls that fell off their shelves after Ash's Muk made a mess of the storage room. After rearranging them, however, Muk hugs him and accidentally pushes him against a shelf, knocking all the Poké Balls down at the end of the episode.
• Sore Loser: In "Good Sportsmanship", May doesn't take losing to "Jessandra" (actually Jessie in disguise) in the first round of the Contest Battle well, so she feels tempted to get back at her for taunting her. Thankfully, Max calls her out for it since doing that would make her as bad as "Jessandra", while Quinn teaches May that it's okay to lose and that she should congratulate "Jessandra" for the good match. However, "Jessandra" was exposed as a cheater after winning the Contest, so she was disqualified, with the Ribbon going to Regina and her Rapidash.
• Spinning Clock Hands: Done in "Rounding & Estimating" to fast-forward time to when the customers arrive for Brock's meals, where the clock's hands remove themselves from the clock and spiral several times before reattaching themselves and stopping.
• Strong Family Resemblance: In "Heredity", Nurse Joy points out that May and Max look like their mother and father, respectively, prompting them to call Siara to teach them genetics.
• Tame His Anger: In "Dealing With Anger", Ash and May call Quinn for anger management tips after overhearing Team Rocket arguing over their botched plan. Quinn compares anger to the trap Team Rocket made, and failing to control one's anger will lead them to falling deep into the trap. Ash and May then decide to help Team Rocket with their anger issues just so they won't bother them again by helping them fill up the trap. Team Rocket still argues about the botched plan, but decide to walk it off until they're ready to talk to each other again.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In "Story Elements", when Ash and co. reach the top of the mountain, Brock remarks that it's "such a beautiful day, [with] only one cloud in the sky." Cue the thunderstorm.
  • At the start of "Simple Machines (Part 1)", Ash tells May how it would be nice to relax at the Pokémon Center, only to quickly find out upon entering that it had been destroyed by a Trainer's Larvitar using Sandstorm.
    Ash: Whoa... Maybe I spoke too soon...
• Terrible Artist: In "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", Ash, May, and Max get inspired by Tracey and draw Pokémon. While May's Squirtle drawing looks decent, Ash's Pikachu drawing is just a stick figure.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry:
  • In "'I' Messages", Quinn advises May and Max to openly express their feelings about the situation so it won't turn into an argument, with the format, "I felt _____ when you _____ because _____." May and Max try using this the first time, but they end up turning it into a "'you' message" by expressing their feelings and then blaming or insulting each other.
  • Quinn also helps Vanessa express her emotions to help her train her Ralts, who ran away from her because it detected her negative feelings.
  • "I" messages continue to come in handy in "Self-Control", where Quinn advises Brock and Ash to identify their feelings with them so they can think rationally on how to react to the situation.
  • In "Dealing With Anger", Team Rocket outright say to each other that they're angry about getting trapped in the pit Meowth dug for Ash and co. Also, during Quinn's lesson, he brings up "I" messages again as a good way to expend one's emotional energy in a good way.
• Time Keeps On Ticking:
  • The Apply section of "Pronouns" is timed, and you'll be graded not just on how many correct answers you make, but how fast you complete it. However, the timer still runs even when Ash is reading the questions out loud, but thankfully it stops whenever he tells you if you got it right or wrong. Because of this, it's possible to finish the section with zero seconds on the clock.
  • The Try section of "Suffixes" is also timed, and forcing the right answer after getting it wrong three times will not stop the timer.
• Timed Mission:
  • Some of the quizzes require you to get as many answers right within the time limit. Some of them just move on to the next question if you don't answer the previous one on time. You're usually graded based on how many correct answers you've made and how fast you completed the quiz, but in the Apply section of "Elements", Siara will still congratulate you even if you didn't answer anything.
  • Subverted in the Try section of "Suffixes", where the kitchen timer counts down for 50 seconds, but just resets and keeps going when time is supposed to be up. Regardless of your performance, Brock will still congratulate you even you didn't get anything right, like with Siara in "Elements".
• Unfortunate Item Swap: In the Apply section of "Scientific Method", Siara investigates why Ada's hair turned bright green from the hair conditioner she used after swimming in a chlorinated pool. While chlorine can tint Ada's hair green, it turns out that she accidentally used Quinn's soccer fan face paint instead of her conditioner.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • In the Try section of "Contractions", asking for a hint will softlock the entire section but the hint button due to a bug, forcing you to start the lesson over.
  • The Try section of "Motion" is also bugged like in "Contractions". Pressing the hint button after getting the right answer will softlock everything, forcing you to reset the lesson.
  • In the Apply section of "Volume of a Rectangular Prism", getting the wrong answer three times will force the right answer but softlock the entire lesson.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In "Brainstorming", Ash and May get blocked by a Snorlax, so they call Quinn for help on how to come up with a plan to move it out of the way. They discuss step-by-step on how to move the Snorlax onto a pair of skis and have it slide down the road, but when they execute the plan, Snorlax falls on May's feet and pins her down. Ash then asks for the viewer's help to free May from Snorlax in the Apply section.
• Very Special Episode: Besides teaching math, science, language arts, and pro-social lessons, the web series occasionally tackles some serious topics:
  • "Appreciating Differences" has Ash and May learning to stand up against prejudice after a bully excluded May from the Contest for being too young.
  • "Giving Back" has Ash and co. helping Lainea out at the children's hospital by organizing a Pokémon playdate with the kids hospitalized there. Quinn teaches them about volunteering and supporting a cause, and the episode ends with a link to the Starlight Children's Foundation.
  • The anti-bullying episode opens with a disclaimer that the advice given is intended to only provide helpful tips on how to recognize bullying behavior, and that the episode's not an intervention plan. It also advises parents and teachers to preview the topic before discussing it with their children and students. Notably, this is the only episode in the web series to have a disclaimer.
    
    In the episode itself, Pikachu bullies Meowth by stepping on his tail, and Meowth laments on how much he's bullied by the other Meowth and even Jessie and James for his unique ability to walk and talk like a human. Unlike most episodes with Team Rocket, Meowth here is portrayed sympathetically because he talks about how Jessie and James only keep him around to make fun of him, and Ash and Pikachu feel sorry for him even if Team Rocket tried kidnapping Pikachu several times. They call Quinn for advice on how to stand up for Meowth against bullying, and Quinn explains not only tips on how to stop bullying such as telling a trusted adult right away, but also why bullies hurt others the way they do. They feel threatened by the victim's uniqueness, so they become defensive and bully them to feel better about themselves.
    
    In the end, Ash and Pikachu stand up against Jessie and James for bullying Meowth, but it turns out they weren't bullying him after all, and he stormed off because he assumed that they were. Meowth, relieved that they didn't turn against him, rejoins them and leaves Ash and Pikachu behind. Ash remarks that they're "back to being Team Rocket", but hopes that Meowth still learned his lesson.
  • Similarly to "Giving Back", "Helping a School or Community Problem" has Ash and May learning to make change to better the community by raising awareness about the issue, like organizing a clean-up drive at the Goldeen lake that's being polluted by Team Rocket.
• Voiceover Letter: Professor Oak narrates the instructions he gave to Tracey in "Ordered Pairs on a Coordinate Grid" by voiceover.
• A Weighty Aesop: Quinn also teaches lessons about taking care of your health such as using the food pyramid to determine how much from each food group you should eat and exercising regularly.