Round One - Begin! (077)

[Leonhart]

I still find it hard to keep a straight face when I remember how Seadra's collision with the bubbles sent it flying. It was such a contrived method of making Satoshi's opponent seem weak.

 

[ᎠᎬȺᎢḤ]

Mandi's parlor tricks seemed cooler than his battling abilities. The guy was a huge prima donna who lost to Ash because he underestimated Ash's own strategies. Good for Ash to win with Kingler.

 

[Leonhart]

Koomu's whole performer style of battling now reminds me of how Coordinators in future sagas would place emphasis on entertaining the audience, which makes Koomu seem like a Coordinator prototype.

 

[FullmetalJackie]

I liked Jessie's sarcastic reaction when she was interviewing that guy who had the Venomoth. Mandi was really stuck up just because he had a small fanbase who liked his magic tricks.I didn't like how Krabby was suddenly so strong and managed to evolve after one single win. Kingler learning and using Hyper Beam against Golbat and winning that way also seemed really suspect. It was bad writing.

 

[Firefo×Fennekin]

I think that Ash should've called back his Muk for this battle since Muk was at least strong from the beginning when Ash caught it unlike Krabby who seemed weak. Of course Krabby ended up proving me wrong when it evolved and swept Mandi's team but Muk still would've been the most reasonable choice. I thought that Mandi was arrogant so his loss made me happy and I thought that the battlefield was great because it made the match more challenging. 7/10

 

[Leonhart]

I think that Ash should've called back his Muk for this battle since Muk was at least strong from the beginning when Ash caught it unlike Krabby who seemed weak.

Betbeton never really got a chance to show what it could do however, not even in its debut episode since Satoshi captured it quickly before it even had a chance to use any attacks. I agree that Betbeton at least looked stronger given its larger size, but we don't know for sure if Crab was genuinely weaker than Betbeton prior to its evolution in this episode. So I felt that Satoshi picking either one for this battle would be a gamble.

 

[Red and Blue]

While I did love seeing Ash's Kingler sweep that arrogant jerk seeing it pull out all of those moves left scratching my head. Early installment weirdness at it's finest

 

[Leonhart]

While I did love seeing Ash's Kingler sweep that arrogant jerk seeing it pull out all of those moves left scratching my head. Early installment weirdness at it's finest

I definitely thought that his Hyper Beam attack was out of left field in the sense that it's not a move that it can learn naturally without a TM. If I remember right he used eight different moves in this episode, which was overkill. Only Yuuji's Kairyu in the Orange Islands had more moves showcased in a single match if I remember right.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Ash, why didn't you use Krabby earlier? This thing comes in, evolves, and sweeps in its first battle. Kingler is a god. COOKIE COOKIE!!!!!!

 

[Cyclone]

Rewatching this episode on the PokemonTV Youtube channel since it first aired in the U.S. when I was a kid... this episode is absurd. After multiple episodes stressing the importance of Ash needing to train for the Pokemon League and Misty & Brock warning Ash for the duration of the episode how important it is he choose 3 well trained Pokemon instead of Krabby who's "never battled" before -- he completely annihilates a trainer using only Krabby/Kingler with zero strategy and subpar attacks like Harden, Leer, and Stomp. Is it supposed to be ironic? I don't get it. As great as it was watching Ash finally use Krabby and its (very unearned) evolution -- both of which I still remember from the first time I watched it 25 years ago -- it really shows the vastly wasted potential of this anime series that could have drawn out this interesting Kingler/Ash arch over the course of several episodes rather than the many junky forgettable filler episodes in this season. But instead they crammed it into the last 1/3rd of an episode where they spend more time on Team Rocket's tomfoolery and Brock talking about his favorite Officer Jennys. Looking back on these episodes I realize how much wasted potential this series was. Each episode is an art in how to waste 20 minutes for 1 minute of really cool action