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The School of Hard Knocks! (009)

Alloutℯ

Banned
I liked how the kid with the Weepinbell had a crush on Giselle, although she was petty and unlikable. I wish Ash had taken classes at the school in this episode so he'd learn something.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I wish Ash had taken classes at the school in this episode so he'd learn something.

Even as a beginner himself, I found Satoshi's knowledge to be sufficient, and his own methods were superior to what the academy was teaching.
 
Giselle ended up being one of my least favorite characters in Kanto because of how she was mocking Ash. It wasn't his fault that his knowledge of Pokemon was below Giselle's.
 

gentwoer

Well-Known Member
A much better filler episode than the previous one. The concept of a school made to give an alternative to getting to the Pokemon League without badges was interesting and I wonder how many of the 256 trainers that participated in the Indigo League Championship were Poketech graduates.

The episode as a whole seems to be the way of the anime to say "Yes, we do in fact know how the games work but we're doing things our way" right down to Ash's Pikachu winning unconventionally.

Also a bit weird that Jessie attended this school in her youth. This is suppose to be for rich kids which makes sense for James but we later find out that Jessie came from poverty. I understand the anime probably didn't come up with their backstories yet and just thought it was amusing that the two bad guys flunked out of this school or something but still. It's a fun episode but you have to ignore a lot of things it says and establishes.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
The fact that the academy was an alternate way of entering the Pokemon League was honestly a great idea. Sadly, I don't think we saw anyone from this academy when Satoshi fought in the Sekiei League.
 

Pokegirl Fan~

Liko>>>>>Ash
I liked this episode, Pikachu getting hit in the head by Cubone's bone club was hilarious. Too bad this is the only time Giselle appears as I would have liked to see her again.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
A meh episode. The students were really annoying, especially Giselle. Graveler seemed overpowered, but then Misty almost never used her Starmie in battles, either. The mention of actual levels puzzled me. I liked Ash having a crush on Giselle.
6/10
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Pokegirl Fan~ said:
I liked this episode, Pikachu getting hit in the head by Cubone's bone club was hilarious. Too bad this is the only time Giselle appears as I would have liked to see her again.

I kind of wish she had shown up at the League since she was almost certainly qualified to compete given her high ranking at the academy.
 
The academy in this episode was full of elitist snobs, so I'm glad that Ash proved to Giselle that he didn't need to attend a school just to be a good trainer. Pikachu vs Cubone was one of the better battles of early Kanto and I even liked that Jessie and James were past students of the academy even though that messes with the show's timeline later on.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
FullmetalJackie said:
The academy in this episode was full of elitist snobs, so I'm glad that Ash proved to Giselle that he didn't need to attend a school just to be a good trainer.

The irony being that he'd eventually attend a school himself in SM, although not one as glamorous as the Pokemon Seminar school.
 

PineapplePizza

Well-Known Member
This was a weird episode for a number of reasons.

The whole reference to levels from this games. It was pretty much dropped after this one episode. Maybe Takeshi Shudo (who wrote the episode) was making fun of the ludicrous idea of levels even being in the more realistic, comparatively speaking, anime?
The fact that the levels are being quoted off by these elitist snobs who don't know much as they think might have been the point.

Ash crushes on a girl for the first and only time. Not only that but James also expresses heterosexual attraction.

The whole subversion of type advantages theme in the episode. A water-type beats a grass-type. A rock-type beats a water-type and an electric-type beats a ground-type. Given the Kanto saga's almost fetishistic display of Pokemon beating types that should have an advantage against them I guess Mr.Shudo really had it out for the whole rock-paper-scissors system of the games.

And on the dub side Pikachu sounds way different up until it fights Cubone. Evidently some of the original audio wasn't salvageable so Rachel Lillis had to fill in
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
PineapplePizza said:
The whole reference to levels from this games. It was pretty much dropped after this one episode. Maybe Takeshi Shudo (who wrote the episode) was making fun of the ludicrous idea of levels even being in the more realistic, comparatively speaking, anime?

I took it more as levels being an early concept in the anime that were originally planned to be referenced to in other episodes, but that the writers just decided not to bother with them after this episode since they had no place in an anime like this.
 
I didn't think that there were schools in the Pokemon world because it looks like every kid just kind of learns the facts of the world on their own. I thought that the academy had a really hot lead student and she was even pretty enough to catch Ash's eye which is a rare thing. I thought that the episode suffered from having too many weird life lessons like luck being more important for battles than knowledge and actual skill. 7/10
 

Ubermuk

Sticky & Sweet
And on the dub side Pikachu sounds way different up until it fights Cubone. Evidently some of the original audio wasn't salvageable so Rachel Lillis had to fill in

You mean Pikachu's high pitched voice? It sounded off to me too but I thought it was just my audio messing up. Why have Rachel fill in when they could've just slapped on some of Pikachu's old audio?
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Ubermuk said:
You mean Pikachu's high pitched voice? It sounded off to me too but I thought it was just my audio messing up. Why have Rachel fill in when they could've just slapped on some of Pikachu's old audio?

I think that they simply lacked a voice track with just Pikachu's voice that would fit that scene. Given that this was an early episode and 4Kids had just started dubbing the anime, it makes sense that they wouldn't have a spare audio track available for Pikachu.
 
This is one of the worse episodes of the anime. It is boring plus levels dont exist in the anime. Giselle is a b*tch and Ash falling for her kind of made me mad since I want him to show affection to Serena and that's the only time he did show that at all until XYZ, even if that was subtle.
Joe is cool though, I feel bad for him.
 
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