Ha, fourth wall jokes in the beginning. At least this one isn't groan-inducing, but as I've mentioned previously, 4KIDS seems to have a knack for writing jokes, though it varies greatly from dub to dub. Pokémon seems to have most of the good jokes, which shows it was cared for even while it suffered from edits that in most cases aren't necessary. (I say “most”. We'll get there when we get there, today's not it.)
This personally is a hard episode to look back on, not because it's forgettable (it's anything but, even though it feels like everything's just halted in place here), but because there's just too many “technical” things going on. It could be because I never truly understood all of it as a kid (I didn't get Pokémon Yellow until I was eight—this aired when I was six), and yet to this day, it still makes me tilt my head. This is where we get mentions of “leveling up”, an obvious reference to the games to try and connect the two universes together, or at least in a marketable way. This has become a bit infamous over time when it comes to Pikachu: here it's mentioned he may be at about level 25, and it's episode nine. If they kept the concept of levels throughout the entire Pokémon series, Pikachu really and truly should be at level 100 today, but he keeps “resetting” at the start of every new region. However, if my memory is correct, we stop hearing about Pokémon “leveling up” by the time we reach the Orange Islands, or even sooner probably because of the problems the writing faced—probably. So levels are never mentioned again, and yet fans are quick to bring it up time and time again.
That is how memorable the episode is, even if it's one of the harder ones to explain.
For the characters, Brock is noticeably more energetic than he was in the past few episodes. We see here that he apparently has almost an entire kitchen in his knapsack—how he carries it around without slouching is beyond me, but anime logic, let's go with that. And yet despite this, the characters starve as much as we've seen them eat Brock's cooking. Around the time of Johto, we stop getting mentions of starvation except amongst Team Rocket. Who speaking of which we learn were tech students themselves at the same school, but got the lowest scores in the school's history. This would come to play later in the season with the well-known (filler?) episode “The Ultimate Test”. In here, they just seem to goof around and not scheme a plan—and Meowth was up in the air for about seven minutes, give or take. So they're the butt monkeys again for this episode, and are chased away by being pelted with PokéBalls by the students. Okay, then... though call me crazy, I thought the animation during their motto with the hair blowing through their hair was pretty.
Oh, forget Brock's “She can violate my rights” comment, we have this: “We frolicked that night for our future seemed bright.” OH DEAR GOD THE DOUBLE ENTENDRE.
As for the school itself, it's a bit of a shame they didn't focus on technical schools much (though there probably was a reason for it), but it explains why there are few trainers one can run into, and yet we see a large amount of trainers that gather at the Pokémon League every year. It's safe to say that it may be split down the line as to who were students and who actually traveled from city to city, but it feels a bit... off that we don't get to see a lot of trainers who are aiming for gym badges throughout the show. You would think we'd see more and more trainers with similar goals as Ash, but oh well.
(Speaking of, this sentence by Ash: “I don't know about this school of yours, but if it's turning out students like you, I'd have to say the standards are pretty low!”
Ha, you better have Burn Heal! Though odd how Ash seemed to care about the system even though he probably didn't go to a school like that.)
Joe's not very memorable, honestly. I guess it doesn't help I keep forgetting his name, and that he's just such a bland character-of-the-day. Giselle really is the only one everyone remembers. But you know, she is pretty much a bitch when it comes to her mannerisms, even if she knows what she's doing (even going so far as to foreshadow Lt. Surge and Pikachu's strength). I think that's why she's so memorable, her conceited nature is hard to forget, and it does make her a more interesting character when compared to Joe. She appears to have a change of heart at the end, but that to me feels like it came out of nowhere. She was mean towards Joe the entire time, and yet they're now on good terms? Um... okay...
Oh, and Ash crushes on her while Misty gives jealous looks (which is another episode that Pokéshippers tend to point out, even though Misty was more-or-less trying to protect her reputation). Apparently this is the only time Ash is shown to crush on anyone, which is strange. You'd think he'd crush on more pretty girls in the future, but he doesn't.
Of note is this is the one episode where Rachel Lillis voiced Pikachu. I forget why they did this, whether the audio for Ikue Ohtani was messed up, or they wanted to try it once and see how it comes out. Obviously, it was very easy to notice, and it wasn't that good. (Sorry, Rachel Lillis. I do like your Jigglypuff voice, though.) This is also where we get an estimated period of time from the first episode to now: Ash has been on his journey for about two months. Has it really? It honestly does not feel that way, but they have been in Viridian Forest for about... I'd say no more than a week, and they did stay a night in Pewter City, so... it's mostly just guesses for how long he has been on the road, but it gives the illusion of time passing, a detail that is sadly overlooked as time goes on (but not forgotten amongst the fans, again).
And on the wings of another promise that's hasn't been held up, we head on to the next episode, never to see Joe and Giselle ever again. Seriously, I wonder why the writers backed off from holding up to these promises if they thought Pokémon would only last 82 episodes.