THE BATTLE CLUB AND TEPIG'S CHOICE!
"Tepig tepig tepig!"
Score: 4/10
The heroes have reached Striaton City, and in only four episodes! Very nice. If this was the DP anime, it would have taken twenty-eight episodes and a movie to reach this point. Oh, wait, no, it's Accumula Town, the narrator just... lied to us, I guess. Iris tells Ash about the Pokemon Battle Club, which is an organization that lets you enter your pokemon profile and the type of pokemon you want to battle against. They arrive just in time to watch a Servine lose to a Dewott in one hit. Impressive.
The leader of the battle club is Don George, and don't worry, he comments about the rarity of Pikachu, and a random kid named Ihavenoname challenges Ash because of his rare Pikachu. Oshawott leaves its pokeball on its own and insists on fighting, but steps aside when the kid sends out his Dewott. Well… that’s still better than a lot of Ash’s pokemon.
The battle doesn't finish, however, because Team Rocket tries to break into the facility's storage room in which a "mystery pokemon" is contained. You would think Don George would know the pokemon in his own storage room, but no, he does not. Team Rocket runs off when they trip an alarm, and Don George checks out the security camera footage (and allows the heroes to watch even though, from his perspective, they’re random kids), and see that the pokemon escaped the facility when Team Rocket broke in. The pokemon is hard to see on the camera and appears dark and skinny, so Ash thinks it's an Umbreon. Don George, however, thinks this unlikely, but if it's really an Umbreon, it'll be a huge find, because… I guess… animals are never brought from continent to continent?
Ash finds the pokemon in question - a very skinny and dirty Tepig that's had a rope tangled around its snout, so it has a hard time eating. It runs away from humans, but Ash catches it and helps it. He takes it to Don George and explains the situation, and Don George suddenly remembers Tepig and how its abusive trainer tied it to a stake and left. Before Don George could help it, it tore itself lose from the stake and got the rope tangled around its snout, and I guess it’s been like that for weeks or something, it’s kind of unclear. Team Rocket shows up and does its thing and steals Pikachu with its... flying force field technology, I guess, and Tepig is very impressed by Ash's unsuccessful attempts to save Pikachu, and volunteers to help. It succeeds, and Team Rocket, again, just kind of wanders off. Okay, I admit. I now understand why they had to blast off so often, the alternative is just even more ridiculous.
Iris declares Tepig to be extremely cute, and as she is a girl, she likes cute things, because as we all know, girls have no characteristics other than “likes cute things” and sometimes “likes boys” (and only sometimes, Zoey). She asks to catch it, but it wants to join Ash, which disappoints her.
So, uh… the writers do realize that this is the third fire-type starter Ash has taken from an abusive trainer, right? Like… we have seriously had this plot twice before, and not in filler episodes or with minor pokemon, we had it with Charmander and Chimchar, possibly Ash’s two most important pokemon other than Pikachu. It is impossible that the writers don’t know they’ve done this before, right?
Right?
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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005