Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snorunt! (385)

The singing of the title was cruel and unusual punishment. Ignoring that, this episode was very amusing. Snorunt's pranks were very funny. Team Rocket had some good lines too. I liked the scene in the cave where Ash was suspicious of Snorunt offering him fruit.

 

So we finally saw Yukiwarashi debut in the anime, and it was worth the wait. Yukiwarashi's habit of freezing things and being a kleptomaniac was a fun little gimmick, but it had a good heart as well, as seen when it built the igloo for Satoshi and brought Satoshi's cap back to his friends. Wakasyamo unfreezing Heigani was funny too.

 

This was a standard 'befriend a wild Pokémon who joins the Hoenn cast' episode. I loved Snorunt and Torkoal could have come in handy, so it's odd that it didn't come out of its Poké Ball until the end.

 

Since Houen only had one icy location in the games (Shoal Cave), I wonder why the Yukiwarashi subplot in this episode didn't happen there.

 

It was so cool to have another episode with snow in it, no pun intended. Ash finally completed his Hoenn team and it's amazing that it took all the way until the end of Hoenn to finally have a full team of six Pokemon. Snorunt is a decent addition though and provides a powerful asset. And apparently 4Kids keeps editing Ash's badge case even though we can see it in the title screen for every episode this season.

 

They had been doing this since Satoshi first got his badge case in Houen's third episode, possibly due to FCC guidelines.

 

I hadn't noticed but man, that seems excessive and if it was such an issue I wonder why 4Kids didn't ask the Japanese animators to change the badge case design.

 

I love this episode very much. In a way, Ash was suspicious of Snorunt when it gave him the apples, and yet he let his guard down when it grabbed his hat. Ash probably didn’t realize that Snorunt took his hat to give his friends to let him safe and for Ash to eat to replenish his strength.

 

He really should've suspected that Yukiwarashi was up to no good, but I suppose that this was another instance of Satoshi giving Pokemon the benefit of the doubt since one his recurring traits is that he seems to trust Pokemon more than humans.