Welcome, one and all. Grab a glass of beverage. Have a snack of food. Pull up a furniture. And join me as we reminisce on the Indigo League and prepare for our adventures in the Orange Islands.
Fewer things are as nostalgic to my generation as the first season of Pokémon. One of the best dubbed theme songs ever. Such a unique premise. Exciting battles. Amazing creatures. Not to mention playing the games as you watched the show. It was an entirely new experience for kids across the world, and it was the start of a media juggernaut.
It was so great and unique that most people didn’t realize at the time what an utter mess the first season was. Being fair, it’s not as bad as you might think. My list of episodes to put as potential entries into the worst list was actually shorter than the one for the best list. But, man, when this season was bad, it was damn bad.
There is so much to love about the first season despite its pratfalls. And the evolution (hehe) it went through was interesting to look back on.
How Pokémon Changed from the Early Days
The Characters: Pokémon, somewhat ironically, takes a bit of time to actually evolve throughout the years. Changes are made, no doubt, but when it comes to big shake ups that aren’t just adding a new gen of Pokémon, it’ll take another few years before we get any that substantial. That doesn’t mean that Pokémon didn’t change at all over its first outing.
I like seeing Misty and Brock change over the episodes. Misty became less abrasive (in some episodes, not as much) and Brock became goofier and much less stoic.
Ash didn’t change so much. I can’t even say he changed at all. He went from a naive overly cocky rookie to a naive overly cocky slightly more experienced amateur. He has his moments where he shows he’s learned some stuff and has matured a little, but they’re few and far between. Pikachu evolved more than he did, shifting from a brat who wouldn’t do a thing Ash said to Ash’s best friend.
Ash, Misty, and Brock becoming a great group of friends was very natural. It’s always been a bit odd that Brock and Misty being Gym Leaders barely ever comes up, though. You’d think that’d be a bigger thing and that some people would recognize them. Some Gym Leaders are practically celebrities, but no one ever notices Brock and Misty.
Speaking of them being Gym Leaders, it did irk me that Ash never takes advantage of that. He does get useful advice from them, and they do coach him in the Indigo League tournament, but the training they could have done with him and the knowledge they could have imparted could have been invaluable.
It’s kinda funny (read: sad) that I’m now realizing that Ash never would have made it anywhere near as far as he got if it weren’t for their advice and Brock taking care of his food needs and Pokémon. I do rag on them for never getting anything to do in most episodes, but imagine where Ash would be without them.
These three melded into being a tight-knit group of friends extremely naturally. They barely make it into double-digit episodes when I start to feel like they’ve known each other a lot longer than they have. That’s a pretty impressive feat. Much most impressive given that the characters have no relation whatsoever to each other in the games, so their relationship was made from scratch.
It was interesting that Team Rocket had a moment where they were more of a serious threat, and I’m not sure how much I’m irritated by the fact that they became almost pure comic relief. The show might have been more boring if it stayed with them being more serious threats.
Their backstories are a mess, mostly in regard to Jessie and James as Meowth’s is pretty consistent. It doesn’t really affect anything, but it’s sloppy.
Gary…..*sigh* What a waste. In this season anyway.
Gary will continue to come back once Johto starts, but it’s just a travesty to set up a rival for Ash and never once have him actually battle him.
Gary’s only purpose in this season was to insult Ash and leave. Oh, and get absolutely curbstomped by Mewtwo and have him forget about that entire incident forever.
It’s such a shame. Even Gary’s off-screen duties as being a measuring stick for Ash so he’d get off his ass to actually train and capture some Pokémon don’t amount to anything. The most that happens as a result of that is Ash catching Krabby.
Charizard: Yeah, Charizard gets a whole section to himself. Charmander literally and figuratively evolved in the opposite direction as Pikachu, going from a loyal sweetheart to a fire-breathing jerk after evolving to Charmeleon and then Charizard. That’s one character change I definitely didn’t enjoy.
I am all for Ash struggling with trying to control a powerful Pokémon. That, in my opinion, is a very interesting and realistic recurring storyline to pursue. But why they chose Charmander/eleon/izard is, in my opinion, one of their worse decisions in Kanto.
All to no end, as I explained in the finale. Oak calls him out on not training Charizard being a deciding factor in why he lost, and that’s it. Ash doesn’t reflect on his failings with Charizard, he doesn’t vow to properly train Charizard in the future – nothing. I would have been so much more understanding of this storyline if Ash did either of those things. He’s still a kid, so I can understand him reaching this point, but you need to have the consequences sink in. I don’t need a big to-do. Just an acknowledgement by Ash and a promise to do better would have sufficed. But no.
And, like I mentioned, it will take another 25 episodes before Charizard finally chills (*wink*) and starts obeying him. I would have been understanding of that too since stuff like this takes time, but he never once tries to train Charizard in those 25 episodes. It was such a good storyline idea completely wasted.
Then you have to return to the problem of why Charmander’s attitude problem even started. He immediately became a problem child after evolving into Charmeleon and only got worse when he evolved into Charizard.
It’s weird that Charmander was originally so loyal to Damian, a Trainer who treated him like shit. He nearly died in his efforts to be loyal to him. But when it comes to Ash, a Trainer who treats him well, he suddenly starts disobeying him, even though he had obeyed just fine before he evolved.
I guess that does happen with children. Like if they were abused and followed rules with their parents, and then they were adopted out or sent to foster care they might rebel or develop behavioral problems due to that abuse. But if that was the intent with Charmander they really didn’t convey that well at all.
They state a couple of times in the series that evolution changes Pokémon with some implications that personality changes come with evolution, but this really doesn’t seem like a tried and true rule. Most Pokémon who evolve keep their personalities intact, like Caterpie/Metapod/Butterfree and even Mankey/Primeape. Maybe they get a little more confident because they’re bigger and stronger, but they don’t completely change who they are most of the time. Why was Charmander an outlier?
Well, in my opinion, I believe they originally wrote this storyline for Primeape, but switched to Charmander/eleon/izard because it’s the cooler choice as Ash’s go-to powerhouse, and it’s more of a face of the franchise given that it’s a starter and displayed on Pokémon Red’s packaging and cartridge.
Primeape was already uncontrollable from the instant Ash met him as a Mankey, and the one time he considered using Primeape in a battle, he opted against it because he was so crazy. It would make perfect sense for Ash to have to slowly build up the courage to let out Primeape and figure out a way to make him calmer and more of a team player.
Instead, they chuck him off the show almost immediately after capture and then evolve Charmander and have him be the rowdy disobeying teenager without caring whether it made sense.
And like I’ve said before, I don’t buy that Ash commanding Charmeleon to take a dive against Paras is what set him off. One of the first things he did after evolving was blow fire in Ash’s ear with a smile. Charmander would never do such a thing. Not on purpose. If he ever did it on accident, he’d be extremely remorseful.
Even analyzing the circumstances of Charmander’s evolution doesn’t help, because the last things that happen between Ash and Charmander before he evolves is showing deep concern for Charmander overexerting himself with too many Flamethrowers, being encouraging, and being proud that he helped save a town from a bomb. It was one of those rare moments in the early days when Ash was being a good Trainer.
The other thing that was brought up was Ash just not having the experience to handle Charmeleon/izard, which reflects an issue from the games where you have to have a certain amount of Badges to handle higher level Pokémon. That would be understandable if it actually followed game logic, but he had more than enough Badges to handle a Charmeleon by that point. He’s already gone through the Indigo League, and Charizard still won’t obey.
If you just mean general experience without Badges….that still doesn’t make sense. Because he handled Charmander just fine. He also handles Kingler and Muk just fine. It’s like saying that it’s understandable that a dog doesn’t obey you when you trained it perfectly fine as a puppy. That’s not how that works.
I dunno. We’ll never learn what happened there from a story standpoint. I doubt even the writers knew.
The Format: The first handful of episodes of Pokémon were much more linear than they eventually became. Once they clear the Cascade Badge, it becomes more episodic. There are a few two and three-parters to keep linear consistency across several episodes, and one confusing instance of Todd just existing in three episodes in a row making a strange kinda-three-parter, but it’s mostly just contained stories outside of capture, Badge, and League episodes.
Still, you have to wonder how the show would have been had it maintained its more linear style all the way through. I imagine it would have been….bad.
Or maybe more to the point just not as beneficial to Pokémon as a whole as opposed to a more episodic style.
Episodic shows are easier to keep in syndication. You don’t need to be following the overall story all that closely when you catch a rerun out of nowhere, which is especially beneficial in kids’ show syndication.
You also get more freedom with storytelling in episodic shows than you do with linear storylines, which is very much necessary when you’re trying to showcase essentially every Pokémon in existence. I really like the episodic style. I like episodic shows in general. They can be very chill. All I ask for is, if there’s still an overarching storyline, that said overarching storyline doesn’t suffer because the writers care more about the little fun weekly adventures than the plot.
Which seems to be exactly what the problem was with Indigo.
Let’s be real. It’s a good thing that the show wasn’t linear. Because it wasn’t just that the writers cared more about a grab bag of stories rooted in Pokémon lore and showcasing the Pokémon of the week. It was that they tended to not give a Rattata’s ass about that stuff when they did get around to having episodes centered on them.
Sure, there are some really good Gym matches. Sure, there are some decent captures. Sure, there’s a good League episode. Sure, training….uhh…..Okay, training was a total wash, but there was some workable stuff in that regard.
The three-parters are some of the best episodes of the season, and those are mostly linear. But those episodes also tend to have a lot of difficulty either sticking the landing or fitting into the overall story. Remember when Delia just didn’t remember that her son was declared dead in a shipwreck for several days and didn’t react at all upon seeing him immediately after?
They could handle linear two and three-parters, but they wouldn’t be able to handle a linear-styled show from start to finish.
I know that the series eventually does become more linear, way way way further into the future. But at this point? No way. I just don’t think it would have worked.
Not to mention that I don’t think they had the material at this point to really make a fully linear show and still have 80 episodes. It needed to have a better balance, no doubt. But that’s what first seasons are for. This is basically the training wheels year of Pokémon.
How 4Kids Evolved: Speaking of training wheel years, this is also the case for good ol’ 4Kids. It’s somewhat endearing to see 4Kids in their dubbing infancy. You can see them trying to feel out how they should change the soundtrack, how they should change the characters, what voices fit best in their view of how they want the show to be, what should be censored and Americanized, what should be changed or left alone, how they want to deal with the Japanese text on screen, etc.
Even hearing the voice actors change and either get more comfortable or make conscious decisions to sound different based on what they’re learning about the characters is intriguing. Considering most of the 4Kids regular cast members were more or less newbies themselves to voice acting at the time, they did a very admirable job.
Meowth and James eventually changing voice actors was fairly seamless, even though you could tell there was a different spin being added to the character when they did change. Since the characters themselves changed, that probably helped with the transition.
4Kids didn’t take much time at all settling into their trademark style. The first handful of episodes are fairly loyal, and it really seemed like they made more of an effort to meet FCC standards, have their own style, and be loyal to the Japanese version at once when they were just starting out. Like…first ten or fifteen episodes. After that, pfft. It’s the wild west. Just do what we want and see what sticks.
It obviously worked for them because the Pokémon anime was insanely popular in America for many years, but one has to wonder what could have been if 4Kids skewed more towards being more loyal than doing their own thing. Obviously, they still have to meet western broadcast standards, that’s fine, but that doesn’t account for a huge chunk of what they changed or removed, so a more loyal Pokémon could have been on the table. Would that have been for the better or the worse overall? Hard to determine.
But let’s loop back around to the stuff about the main storyline of Pokémon since I want to address another big issue with the Indigo League episodes.
Pity Badges
One of the biggest gripes I have with the Indigo League’s Badge progression is the fact that half or more of Ash’s Badges weren’t earned through battle. These Badges have been nicknamed “Pity Badges” though maybe it’s more apt to call them “Golly, Ash, you saved my Gym and/or Pokémon. Here’s a Badge! Badges” but that’s a little long.
As far as I know, Indigo is the only season with Pity Badges. Why is that? Well, I suspect it circles back around to how the focus of the show has evolved through the years. When they were first starting out, it was clear that the writers were more interested in stories about exploring individual Pokémon, playing around with various one-off characters, and being very laid back rather than focusing on battles. Maybe they weren’t confident in their abilities to have a battle take up a majority of an episode and have it be interesting.
It’s quite possible that it was also a budgetary reason. Battles are obviously very movement-heavy on the Pokémon’s part and include a wide variety of other moving parts like fire, water, electricity etc. So having battles be a bigger part of the series is a more expensive option.
That’s very understandable, especially back in the 90s.
But, still, even if you’re dialing the battling back for the sake of saving money in the long run, you’d think you’d splurge on the Gym Battle episodes. Like how in many action-oriented anime you’ll notice that there are episodes where the budget is clearly low, but then later it’s apparent that they saved the budget for important big battle episodes.
That theory doesn’t even make sense in some Pity Badge episodes, like “Pokémon Scent-Sation” where there’s a giant fire involved, meaning a lot of constant animation for a long time.
Or maybe they wanted to keep driving home the idea that Ash is just such a goshdarn swell guy that he deserves a lot of accomplishments he didn’t technically earn.
I was thinking back on this, and, man, it really doesn’t help Ash’s image as a lazy Trainer at all to have a bulk of this season not centered on battling and giving him so many Pity Badges from the start. I’m so glad that will be changing……In Johto.
Yeah, even though he doesn’t get Pity Badges in Orange, this general less-focused-on-battles trend doesn’t really change in Orange. From what I recall, it’s very much the same vibes with just as much training and capturing. It may actually be MORE laid back given the tropical aesthetic and the fact that most of the Badges are won via competitions instead of battles.
Being completely fair, even though Ash does get increasingly entitled to getting Badges without battling for them as the season goes on, the show does eventually address this. Thank God for Blaine not putting up with that shit.
However, it really doesn’t help that, following him being called out for his expecting Pity Badges…..the next and final Gym Match is basically a Pity Badge episode. Yeah, he battled for it….but he battled Jessie and James, and they once again bullshitted a matchup with Pikachu against a Ground Type for it….Again, immediately following a Badge battle where they did that same thing….
The Tragedy of the Indigo League Tournament
Hot damn, where do I even begin?
Look, I’ve already said my piece on this pretty thoroughly so I won’t talk your ear off (err…type your….eyes…out?) but let’s sum things up.
Let me just start by saying, if you know me, you know I LOVE Tournament arcs. They’re the best. They’re some of my favorite things in anime. They’re awesome. How the Indigo League conference did not spoil my love of tournaments before I even became a full-fledged anime fan, I don’t know.
This was the series’ first foray into Pokémon League Tournaments, and to say it went badly would be a horrific understatement. Skipping matches, completely bullshitting some of the matches they did show full out, and that final match was one of the most humiliating scenes in Pokémon ever.
I just think about other shows with tournaments and how the protagonists are typically gung ho about training their asses off before a tournament. They’re even obsessed with training during them sometimes because they’re that determined to win or the game means that much to them. And then I look to Ash who just seems to coast a lot on “I’m friends with my Pokémon, and that means I win I guess!”
It just sucks so much for his lack of training to matter so little in the long run. So he was humiliated in round five. Gary couldn’t get through round four – no, I’m not going to let that go! It’s an absolute miracle upon miracles (*coughcoughImeanbullshitcough*) that he made it beyond round two. And Ash will brag about getting in the top 16 far more often than he’ll be shamed for his ridiculous lack of training his Charizard causing him to lose his fifth match. And, like we already know, even this giant heaping helping of humble pie, with fucking whipped cream and a cherry on top didn’t teach him a thing.
If someone knows of a worse Pokémon League Tournament arc, please warn me because I only got through Johto back when I was watching regularly, and I barely remember the Johto tournament (Probably because it took so long to get there.)
Just such a waste. Such a damn shame.
The Other Two Pallet Trainers
I didn’t know where else to put this, and I feel like I’ll never have a chance to bring this up again, so as a final note for Indigo, what happened to the other two Trainers who left Pallet Town? I know we’re told near the end of the season that they gave up on their journeys because they just didn’t have what it took or whatever, but who were they? Pallet is a small town. You’d think they’d at least name-drop them.
I just wanna know why they quit, and what became of them. Did they change career paths to other Pokémon-related ventures like Gary will much later down the line? What hardships did they face that made them quit when they were so far ahead of Ash and keeping pace with Gary? What became of the Pokémon they captured? It’s just something that’s really nagged me over the years. Seems like wasted potential for at least a brief storyline.
Conclusion (Part 1)
Indigo has a lot of problems. Like, a lot. But I can’t deny that it’s a classic and a nostalgia bomb that, if I felt I had time, I would go back and rewatch yet again at some point. I probably still would rewatch an episode here and there, especially those on my favorites list, but for now we have to move on to more orange pastures.
Before we do that, though. I want to crown my top ten and pbbbt my bottom ten episodes of the Indigo League.
Top Ten Indigo League Episodes (In My Opinion)
10 – Holy Matrimony
9 – The Path to the Pokémon League
6 – Island of the Giant Pokémon
5 – Riddle Me This
4 – Volcanic Panic
1 – The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak
Honorable Mentions: Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden, The Fourth Round Rumble, Ash Catches a Pokemon!, Clefairy and the Moon Stone, Who Gets to Keep Togepi?, The Electric Shock Showdown, The Bridge Bike Gang, The Legend of Miniryu/Dratini, Here Comes the Squirtle Squad.
Bottom Ten Indigo League Episodes (In My Opinion)
10 – Fire and Ice
8 – So Near, Yet So Farfetch’d
3 – The March of the Exeggutor Squad
Dishonorable Mentions: Bad to the Bone, All Fired Up!, Sparks Fly for Magnemite, Beauty and the Beach/Holiday at Aupulco.
Badge Episode Rankings (Based purely on the match itself, not the episode)
10 – Earth Badge
9 – Marsh Badge (Attempts three and four)
8 – Cascade Badge
7 – Soul Badge
6 – Rainbow Badge
5 – Boulder Badge
4 – Marsh Badge (Attempts one and two)
3 – Thunder Badge
2 – Volcano Badge (Attempt one)
1 – Volcano Badge (Attempt two)
Orange League Preamble
Despite being the first (And only?) ‘filler’ season of the Pokémon anime franchise, I’ve always really loved the Orange League episodes, and I’m so happy I’ve reached this arc in my review series. There are a lot of things to look forward to, such as:
A New Setting
The island and ocean setting is a nice change of pace from the endless forest that was Kanto. I love that they don’t travel by boat, usually, and instead they travel on one of the best Pokémon ever – Lapras.
Lapras being here is also a huge plus. I can’t emphasize enough how much I love Lapras. It’s adorable, beautiful, I want one so badly, why is reality a disappointment?
The New Gyms Present Unique Challenges
As stated before, instead of basic battling, most of the Orange Island Gyms have a series of different competitions and challenges that the Trainer and their Pokémon must be able to overcome in order to earn the Badges. While I did feel a bit disappointed that the Gyms in the Orange Islands didn’t have actual Gym battles, with some exceptions, the idea of challenges and competitions instead of battles is fun and interesting. And, in the end, I was actually disappointed that the last Gym Leader did just work on the basic Pokémon battle structure after all that.
A Trainer who actually trains their Pokémon should be able to meet these challenges…..Well…okay, one of the challenges is kinda bullshit. We’ll cross that bridge later.
Some challenges are more understandable, focusing on accuracy or teamwork, while others can be classified as silly, but at least they’re creative and fun.
The Gym Leaders are called the Orange Crew in this season, which I thought was cute.
The Badges are also unique in that they’re all made from seashells, which is pretty cool.
The Orange League “Tournament”
Okay….so….the Orange League Tournament…..isn’t a tournament. And, BEING COMPLETELY FAIR….they never say it is (I don’t think they do, anyway. If they slip up, I’ll catch it). We have to get that out of the way. I spent a while as a kid being salty because I was expecting a tournament in the Orange League just because I figured League=tournament, but it’s not. It’s just a single six-on-six battle with the leader of the Orange Crew, the Supreme Gym Leader, Drake.
However, despite being a little miffed back then about there not being a tournament, I was, in no way, disappointed by the outcome, because the final battle against Drake is, by far, in my opinion, the best battle of the series to that point and one of my absolute favorites of the franchise. I’ll go more into detail when we get there, but I am very much looking forward to the Orange League finale.
Tracey
Ahhh…..hmmmm…
Am I looking forward to Tracey’s introduction? Not really. But I’m also not dreading it or anything. I don’t have anything against Not-Brock. Honestly. I never did. I like that he draws a lot, I like that he’s into Pokémon research, I like his small assortment of Pokémon.
One could argue he’s blander than Brock, and…yeah, there’s a grain of truth in that, but it’s not that bad. He’s just, ya know….Not Brock. My opinion may change on the rewatch. We’ll have to see.
As a kid, I never liked major cast changes in regard to people leaving. I still don’t, to be honest, but I’ve gotten a little better about it…..Just a little. I’m a grump stuck in my ways. It’s hard to accept major changes in something you love.
Back when Tracey was introduced, we had no idea Brock would ever return. That’s one of the major reasons why Tracey got such shit when he was introduced. It wasn’t just that he was bland or replaced Brock, it was that we felt like we’d never see Brock again, and we blamed Tracey for it. Up until this point, no character, Pokémon or human, who has departed the show had ever returned.
Plus, there is that slightly iffy part we’d only understand as adults where Tracey/Kenji was created purely to have more of a white guy representation since someone somewhere considered Brock/Takeshi’s design to be too stereotypical of Japanese people, and the show was going global.
But Tracey’s fine. Really, he’s fine. I will miss Brock when we say goodbye to him, but now we know it’s temporary (At least until the next time he leaves which will be hundreds of episodes later), so we can cut Tracey some slack and enjoy his company.
Charizard Behaving
As annoying and confusing as Charizard’s shift to a brat who doesn’t listen has been, he’ll finally start listening midway through Orange. I am looking forward to this because, my god, every time I rewatch this series getting through Charizard’s bitchy phase is always a trial on my patience. This went on for way too long. It shined the brightest light on Ash’s awful training practices without giving any payoff. And even the episode where he finally listens will have its own set of problems. But, yes, Charizard will finally mend bridges with Ash and start listening to him, becoming a proper powerhouse ally in Ash’s roster.
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That’s all I wanted to say. It will be sad to bid Indigo farewell, but Orange is quite a bit of fun, so it won’t be too painful of a band-aid to rip off.
….Speaking of pain, though, Orange does have quite the bummer of an opening episode. It’s time for Pidgeotto to say goodbye. But it’s not all bad because it finally gets some love after so many episodes of basically being treated only slightly better than Ash’s B-Squad (I mean, hell, by this point, even Ash’s B-Squad is in better shape because Krabby became Kingler and basically was Ash’s best Pokémon in the Indigo League. Then Muk won round four for him. Only Tauros hasn’t gotten any proper love yet.) I’ll miss the little ol’ bird, especially since it would have kicked ass for Ash to have a Pidgeot, but it will be better off in the wild.
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