A Ruin with a View
Episode two and Ash is already into it with May. I actually didn't have a clue they ever had any scrapes, guess it makes sense since he had some with Dawn and Iris early on as well. I thought it was hilarious the way May was telling Ash how she offered him
her help with showing him the way to the next town. It really shows how adventurous and energetic Ash is and how May alludes to how Pikachu baked her bike in the previous episode. I liked how May was pretty ignorant to the idea of out-of-the-ball Pokemon. I enjoyed how May's Pokedex had a feminine voice and going for an Azurill capture right off the bat, but not weakening it first was a nice mistake and it was funny Ash tried to stop her from doing that and explained to it had to be battled and the typical type crap. God, Torchic was so pathetic, Piplup, Pikachu, and Axew were all vastly better off the bat.
Team Rocket being assigned to set up operations in Hoenn and the fact Giovanni is aware that they're spending all their time tailing a Pikachu around the world was an interesting revelation and so that's their "promotion" apparently, also liked Butch and Cassidy. May certainly was hesitant to go to the Petalburg Gym, GEE I wonder why.
Other than that this episode really for the beginning half might as well have been called a "Ash introduces May to Pokemon" type deal with all the type stuff, capture stuff, Pokemon Center tour, etc. Thus this episode debuted May's obsession with food. Having Team Magma appear so earlier off the bat was definitely a smart thing that AG did, wish the other sagas had implemented this. BW seemed on mend with TP's appearance around the 20's. Arbok and Weezing being forced back into their Pokeballs by Roar from Houndoom shows how uncreative and cheaper attack animation was back then.
I liked how May decided to tag along with Ash so she wouldn't "miss out on the adventure" given early on she seems more like a damsel than an adventurous type. Thought it was weird how all the other trainers seemed to magically disappear during the second-half of the episode. Shame Ash never got to confront the Magma Grunts, probably because Pikachu would get killed by those Houndoom and May would be useless. Though he did a good job of defeating Arbok in about 20 seconds and sending TR flying with ease. I have a bit of a hard time believing all that **** they did lasted to morning time, but oh well. The real treasure of the ruins being Relicanth was lame. I also thought at the end of the episode "Alden, no one gives a **** about your research."
