RatHat fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Apr 30, 2019

• Battle Aboard the St. Anne/Pokemon Shipwreck/Island of the Giant Pokemon: I like the way the episodes tie into each other instead of being one-off, as well as the relatively serious/intense tone; there should be more eps like these. These eps also show the advantages of deviating from the games: it allows for surprising developments like the Anne sinking. The subtitles in Island of the Giant Pokemon were a cool idea that I wish they'd used again; did 4Kids nix the idea because they felt it defeated the point of dubbing, or did the writers just never use subtitles again because they forgot about this episode?
  
• Charmander – The Stray Pokémon: One of the darker Kanto episodes, but a visceral way (abandonment + threat of death) rather than a "deconstructive" Shudo way. There's a reason everybody remembers this one.
  
• The Flame Pokemon-athon: There may be some nostalgia involved here (the first manga I ever read was the Electric Tale of Pikachu adaptation of this episode), but I also like episodes that focus on Pokemon competitions other than conventional fights. Even though it's technically a character-of-the-day episode, it doesn't feel like one.
  
• Holy Matrimony!: The episodes that humanize the Team Rocket trio are generally pretty good, even if they tend to introduce contradictions (although that's more of a problem with Jessie-centric episodes than James-centric ones). This is a deeply weird episode full of dark humor, but it also establishes some fundamental points about James' backstory and characterization that the show actually sticks to fairly consistently.
  
• The Ultimate Test: Rental Pokemon battles are cool, but I can understand why the anime doesn't show them more often (it would undercut the thematic focus on the bond between Ash and his Pokemon, plus it would take focus away from Pikachu). Like The School of Hard Knocks, this episode focuses on an alternative means of qualification to collecting badges, but here it comes across as a reasonable accommodation for people with health problems or day jobs, as opposed to the more cynical take in The School of Hard Knocks.
  
• Volcanic Panic: One of only three times Ash actually earns a Kanto badge by beating the normal gym leader in a fair fight. The focus on exploiting the battlefield is a good example of anime characters using tactics that don't work in the games but still make sense (and follows an infamous bad example in the previous episode: "Pikachu! The horn!").
  
• Go West Young Meowth: Another episode that humanizes the Rockets. Also another example of those episodes introducing contradictions (are Meowth normally bipedal or quadrupedal?), but who cares?
  
• The Fourth Round Rumble: A tournament episode that features a Bellsprout, of all Pokemon, being totally awesome.

• The School of Hard Knocks: Unlikable characters of the day, a weirdly anti-intellectual message, and cynical undertones that don't really go anywhere. Also Brock's creepiest moment.
  
• Hypno's Naptime: There are episodes that revolve around Ash and his friends being idiots, there are episodes that revolve around everyone except Ash and his friends being idiots, and there are episodes like this one, that revolve around everyone including Ash and his friends being idiots.
  
• Beauty and the Beach: In questionable taste and rather pointless.
  
• The March of the Exeggutor Squad: Another unlikable character of the day.
  
• So Near, Yet So Farfetch'd: Unlikable character of the day, weird plotholes.
  
• Attack of the Prehistoric Pokemon: Rather pointless; as Dogasu points out, we don't really learn anything about the fossil Pokemon in this episode except that they never actually went extinct (which defeats the whole concept of fossil Pokemon). Also a good example of how underutilized Gary is (perhaps because many of the most significant moments involving Blue in the games are tied to the Rocket-centric plotlines the anime omits, so there's not much left for him to do).
  
• The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis: Dogasu views this as basically a less coherent first draft of the second movie, but it would be more accurate to say that they're both examples of one of the anime's standard stock plots, and the second movie just happens to be pretty much the only good version of it. (The Advanced Generation episode Me, Myself, and Time is another example, which combines this plot with elements of the fourth movie's plot and manages to be memorably weird, although I still wouldn't call it good.)
  
• Dig Those Diglett!: One of the anime's weaker stock plots (humans are disrupting Pokemon's habitats, the adults change their minds after being lectured by Ash and friends). Also has a wonderfully absurd moment where Gary claims that Diglett move at the speed of light, and actually gives the speed of light (in metric units in the original, in imperial units in the dub) to make clear that this isn't even intended as hyperbole.
  
• A Chansey Operation: The doctor's behavior towards Misty in this episode makes it feel even skeevier than Beauty and the Beach.
  
• To Master the Onix-pected: Meh.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Apr 30, 2019

Zuzie fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Apr 30, 2019

RatHat fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Apr 30, 2019

RatHat fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Apr 30, 2019

• Between the Stick and Pokemon Refresh, every hit's a crit.
  
• Adamant nature, 31 attack IV and Defiant ability (always hilarious when I manage to get that to proc) to make the most out of that 90 base attack
  
• Bred on First Impression (Farfetch'd getting First Impression via Smeargle egg move shenanigans in USUM was what drew me to going for this as an idea) as well as Quick Attack and Leaf Blade. First Impression and Quick Attack are especially useful because you can ignore speed and just minmax everything into Farfetch'd's one decent stat.