Ahh, Pokémon! It was a new world of childlike adventure and wonder. A world brimming with
new life, new experiences, and it is one that I have slowly over time let fall by the wayside.
Not that Pokémon has stopped just because I’m not paying attention to it.
Pokemon is nothing less than a massive worldwide phenomenon that few can truly encapsulate,
one that has been in the works continually since the original release of Pocket Monsters
Red and Green back in Japan 1996. It has spawned generations of games, films, albums, and books.
But we here at Glass Reflection like talking about one particular kind of medium, and that
is what we are going to be focusing on today.
THE VHS TAPE!
...or more specifically, what's on the VHS tape and everything like it.
I’m called this video “Remembering Pokemon” because, as I said, the Pokemon anime has
not stopped airing just because at some point in my young life I stopped watching it. At
the time of recording this video, Pokemon has been on the air for 22 seasons and has a current
total of 1,058 episodes. That’s a lot. Take that One Piece.
But today, we are really only caring about the first 82-ish. Or 77, if we decide to exclude
the episodes banned in North America due to guns, seizures, and inflatable breasts.
While Pokémon was not my first anime, nor did I watch it at a time when I really knew
what Anime was, I cannot argue its importance to my childhood and its influence on me.
But it has been quite a while since I actually sat down to properly try to enjoy
and watch the series. So how does this initial season hold up? Is it still worthwhile to watch,
or is it only palatable with a heavy glass of nostalgia juice?
Let’s find out.
The original baseline plot of the Pokémon
anime is quite similar to the video games released only a year prior. A young 10-year-old
boy, Satoshi – or, as we know him, Ash Ketchum – prepares for his 10th birthday when he
is finally old enough to head to the local Pokémon professor’s laboratory and receive
his first ever Pokémon. This small pocket monster will accompany him through his journey
across the country in a competition that defines his entire existence. Where the anime differs,
however, is quite apparent from the get-go. Not only does Ash arrive too late to receive
one of the three original starters (Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle), but Professor Oak
really only has one Pokémon left: a small electric rat Pokémon Pikachu, a Pokémon
that even Oak is reluctant to hand over due to its poor temperament. But Ash is nothing
if not stubborn, and if he’s going to base his entire self-worth on being able to capture
and train these creatures, then bad temperament is nothing he shouldn’t be able to handle.
Pikachu disagrees.
"It's also known as an electric mouse. It's usually shy but sometimes can have an electrifying personality."
"I see what you mean."
"Shocking isn't it?"
Throughout the show’s first episode Ash
literally drags Pikachu through the countryside outside his home town and tries his best to
deal with this Pokémon who would much rather be anywhere else.
This was just episode one and, while it didn’t establish the status quo that would soon come
to light over the next few episodes, it clearly lays out several facts that remain prevalent
throughout the series’ first season. First, Ash is a horrible trainer. I’m not
the first person to say this, but it bears repeating. Ash constantly measures his worth
by trying to become a “Pokémon Master”, which in this world involves catching Pokémon,
training them to challenge gym leaders for badges, and to attend the Pokémon League
and compete to be the very best…..like no one ever was.
And this is identical to the same journey that players take through the original games.
There’s only one problem. By Ash’s own metrics, he fails constantly and very rarely
succeeds. Out of the original 150 Pokémon, try and guess how many out Pokémon Master Ash
caught during his time in the Kanto region?
Eleven. And even that’s being generous and
counting the Tauros that we in North America didn’t actually see him catch because it
was in a banned episode. Now let’s take a look at the other metric upon
which Pokémon Masters are usually judged: number of gym badges. By the end of the series,
it is true that Ash physically owns all eight Kanto badges required for entry into the Pokémon
league. But if you were a fervent watcher, you will recall that Ash…didn’t earn most
of them. At least not really. Let’s go through them real quick shall we?
Bolder badge against Brock: Ash fails in his first attempt, and after hooking up Pikachu to a
nearby watermill to charge his electricity, faces Brock again. Only this time…Pikachu
still fails, but a stray electric bolt activates the building’s sprinkler system
which showers Brock’s rock Pokémon Onix with water, which you know it is weak to, and that
makes him more susceptible to Pikachu’s electricity. That’s not actually how that
works, but okay, fine. So Brock gives him a badge. Bonus, he joins Ash on his journey.
and to become one of Ash's closest friends.
Badge #2 Cascade badge. Ash’s rival Gary Oak has already swept through the city and
wiped out the gym’s Pokémon supply. But hey, it just so happens that the girl who’s
been following Ash around, Misty, is the sister of the gym leaders and challenges Ash to a
battle in their stead. Now Ash should be able to wipe the floor here. Electric Pikachu vs
Misty’s water Pokémon, no contest right? Well unfortunately for him, Pikachu doesn’t
want to fight a friend and refuses to participate. Leaving Ash stuck to only fight using the
other Pokémon at his disposal. Which…isn’t good enough. Then Team Rocket barges in, has
their moment in the sunshine when they capture all of the Pokémon in the gym, but then fail spectacularly
because they were fighting against the literal god of thunder that is Pikachu…and Ash gets his
badge. Not for defeating the gym leaders, but because Pikachu is OP as hell.
In fact, this is kind of a theme that you might start to notice. Ash is not succeeding because
of his own personal ability as a trainer or battler, but because he won the lottery in
receiving a Pikachu who holds the power of Thor.
Badge #3, Pikachu vs Raichu. To further demonstrate how OP the little rat is, he defeats
his own evolved form through sheer tactics, because Pikachu is a better battler than Ash
himself. True Story.
Badge #4, Saffron city and Sabrina. Ash
fails twice overall, and after literally DYING and befriending a Haunter, said Haunter makes
the Psychic demon of a gym leader laugh, which apparently is good enough for a badge. Who knew?
Badge #5, Ash insults the gym leader and
then has to cross-dress with the help of Team Rocket to get into the gym itself. He fails
to actually defeat the gym leader, but luckily for him Rocket sets the
gym on fire. You know, the Gym for...Grass Pokemon.
So then Ash is able to save the gym leader’s Gloom. Earning him a badge.
Uh huh.
Badge #6, now this time I would like to be perfectly fair. This is one where I can't really
fault Ash’s skills. This is the first time he legitimately defeats the gym
leader in question and earns the soul badge. It’s just odd that Koga, being the poison type
gym leader, doesn’t actually use any poison moves and much more emphasis is instead placed
on him being a ninja? But sure, this one Ash gets. Fair enough.
Badge Seven. This one occurs around the time Ash’s Charmander has evolved into a Charizard
and has begun his proper teenage rebellion phase. As such, Ash has zero control over
Charizard, because again he’s not really good at what he does. Charizard eventually
helps fight because, while he’s enjoying not listening to Ash at the moment, he also
doesn’t want to be one-upped by Blaine’s Magmar. So technically this is another one
where Ash wins in a legitimate battle, but only because Charizard decided to cooperate,
not because Ash is in any way a good trainer. Badge Eight was basically a throwaway. Instead
of fighting Giovani like in the games, or like Gary had to do, Ash faces off in a gym
battle against Team Rocket. You know, the same trainers that Ash has been fighting since
episode two who he has never lost to because Pikachu is a god.
Now I’m not going to continue very far after this, but the point is that by Ash’s own
metric of success he’s a constant failure and does things against the grain in hopes
that everything just works out. and it just so happens that it does...most of the time.
He constantly fights opponents going against type advantage,
without actually training his Pokémon, instead relying on their own innate intuition and abilities
to win fights on their own.
However, I think this is mostly just a problem
with him and how he views himself and his self-worth. He constantly proceeds under the
impression that battling and earning badges and their equivalents is the only thing worth-while
in his adventure, despite the fact that he has been shown to be very adept in other Pokémon-related
professions. His Pokémon absolutely adore him as a person, and he takes great care of
them. To him, they are not mere tools to be used to win battles, but friends with which
to face challenges, and that’s a worthwhile trait to have. For like a Pokemon Breeder.
But a Pokémon Master he ain’t.
One of the reasons I never enjoyed watching Ash as a protagonist is because he just seems
to be failing upwards through life. He keeps running into great Pokémon that are so enamored
by him they just want to follow him, badges are mostly given to him without great challenge,
and he is living a life that us watchers can only dream of. Like seriously, they never
explain how he can afford to continually feed himself, or make money at all really, doing
what he does. So it's quite literally a dream for most of us regular folk. But at least I can
talk solace in the fact that we regular folk, unlike Ash, can actually beat Brock and Misty
without bullshit tactics and instead just pummel them with sheer force and an adequately
levelled Charmander. Like I did!
Dooooooooooon't
"That's what I'm talking about!"
In fact, what kept me watching Pokemon for
as long as I did wasn’t Ash at all, but rather...
because of Team Rocket.
Team Rocket is the group of three failures who appear in basically every episode of Pokémon
after the first, who constantly try to capture Pikachu because they are one of the few who
recognize this electric god’s power. Unfortunately though, because they keep trying to face a
literal god of thunder, they almost never succeed, and them blasting off again every episode
is played mostly for laughs. But I would posit that Team Rocket, often,
are shown to be better trainers than Ash himself. Now I am not saying that they are always good
people. Their first introduction shows them raiding a Pokemon hospital to steal sick and
defenseless Pokémon, not something good people would generally do. But as characters, they
are the ones who grow the most over time. Their constant ideas and inventions get more
and more grandiose, and honestly, while their success rate is near 0%, if they weren’t
constantly up against the god of thunder that is Pikachu, they’d probably find much more
success for the effort they put out on a regular basis. Team Rocket is the team of loveable
losers that I’ve grown more attached to as I’ve grown older, because it’s hard
to relate to this kid that has a lot of things handed to him when instead you can relate
to these three shmucks who fail constantly but never let that get them down…well, at
least not for long. Hell after almost two decades worth of episodes,
they actually manage to succeed in defeating Ash fair and square in a battle, Pikachu included,
and it is such a good moment to watch. Yes, they are the token villains, but their villainy
is just cartoonish in nature. No one is really threatened by them and they don’t actually
harm anyone, but they have the capacity to learn and grow, which is something I never
felt Ash was able to properly do. Now this all comes back to determining how
enjoyable the show as a whole now is, whether or not it has stood the test of time and can
still be enjoyed by those who have never watched it before now. To which I say….ehhhhhh,
probably not. As a test, I watched several episodes beyond
the initial 80-some-odd to try and get a feel for how the series progressed and how enjoyable
the Pokémon formula actually is, while somewhat removing my nostalgia googles by watching
episodes I had never seen previously. I watched some episodes from the era of the Orange Islands,
only to discover that I was suddenly a lot less lenient towards many aspects of the series
that I otherwise was able to brush off. The tone, the pacing, the puns. My god, the
English dialogue is so full of puns that it would make a committee of the most cringe-worthy
dads cringe.
"Stop pussyfooting around!"
"Just biting my time!"
"Ahhhhhh! The moment of tooth!"
Now in fairness, the closer you get to present day, the
less jarring this becomes. Many sections in the X-Y era up until the current seasons appear
to be a lot more enjoyable considering. Though I have to admit, it feels a little odd for me after
that unfortunate voice actor swap that happened back in 2006.
But we're not gonna get into that.
But classic Pokémon as I grew up with it is a bit more of a relic. Something that doesn’t
really stand up unless it is as steeped in nostalgia for you as it is for me. I am a
kid who grew up watching the series religiously, memorized the PokeRap (in the wrong order)
just because I was watching it at the end of every episode, and it wasn't necessarily in order back then
I went to go see the first two films, because
A) watching a Pokémon movie in the theater was nuts as a concept back when I was a kid and 2)
Lugia is my favourite legendary. Fight me. It’s a product of its time that I will rewatch,
not necessarily because it’s a good series, but because for me it reminds me of better
times. The kind of times when this naive little kid, who played N64, drank juice out of a
box, and collected Pokémon cards, had not a care in the world.
I do have a holographic Charizard though, so I have that going for me.
This little card made me king of the playground!
...That's a lie I was never a king of the playground.
Downside to all of this, if you truly love Pokémon and want to watch it, your options
keep changing over time. At the moment the original series is available on Netflix but
we don’t know how long for and even then it doesn’t contain all of the original series,
only going up to episode 52 by my count. Surprisingly though A bunch of Pokémon episodes are available
on the official Pokémon Website, but only up until somewhere in Joto for the classic
episodes, and the most recent Sun and Moon episodes. Still huge swaths of Pokémon anime
history left undisturbed. But if all you want is the nostalga those will do you fine.
Lastly, a very special thank you to my patrons, who not only support my work in general, but
who also allow me to do what I do. I love and appreciate you all. Specifically though,
as I like to do, I want to give particular shout-outs to patrons Matthew Robertson, Hector
Montemayor, Siri Yamiko, Ryefan Boneapart, Rune Jachobson, Joshua Garcia, and Calhoonboy
for being especially awesome. You guys are great! And until next time – ladies, gentlemen,
and others – watch more anime…and stay frosty.