ENGLISH NAME	JAPANESE NAME	POKEMOPOLIS NAME	DODGINESS RATING	ANIMATION	STORY	TEAM ROCKET	MORAL LEARNT
010: Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village	010: Kakurezato no Fushigidane	Ash Finally Captures A Good Pokémon None of This Butterfree or Pidgeotto Crap			Ash finds a "village" of sick Pokémon and catches a surly Bulbasaur.	Their traps need work	Never mess with a pissed off green thing

AWWWWWWWW! Lookit the koot wickle Pikachu with it's koot wickle yellow fur and koot wickle round belly and beaming face and awwwww it's sooooooo koooot!

AWWWWWWWW! Lookit the koot wickle Pidgeotto with it's koot wickle feathers and beak.

AWWWWWWWW! Lookit the koot wickle Butterfree with it's koot wickle wings and podgy body!

If you're done puking from a nauseating overload of cuteness, we have good news for you. Today Ash meets a different kind of Pokémon, one that isn't cute and sweet and gentle but mean and angry and completely, unnecessarily surly. And we love it!



The kids are, as per usual, heading through a forest trying to make their way to Vermilion City. Ash is leading them by using his own natural orienteering skills, which as the narrator notes can only mean trouble. An infuriated Misty is determined to rub Ash's face in his own ineptitude, and when he notes that he's sure the path is this way she exclaims that he said the same thing an hour ago. Ash, of course, isn't going to take such a horrible thing as the truth lying down, and he snaps back that it was her idea to come this way. Misty retorts that if she was leading them they'd have made it by now, and as both glare daggers at each other Brock chooses the appropriate moment to throw out some modern slang.

"Chill, chill," he coolly proclaims, which remarkably enough does have a calming effect. However, Misty - being a woman - can't resist a parting shot and asks Ash to remind her to yell at him some more when they eventually do get to Vermilion City. Their lost state stops bothering them however when they come across a small, bluish Pokémon that resembles some form of radish lapping up some water from a small puddle nearby. It stares up at them as Ash uses his Pokédex to get some information on what this peculiar, armless little Pokémon is, and maybe whether you can eat it too.

"Oddish, this Pokémon is typically found roaming the forest, scattering Pollen as it walks around," Dexter informs them. Well, a walking radish that can't hold it's pollen, eh? Well in that case Ash has got to have it! Before he can do battle, though, Misty interferes, insisting that since they found it around water - which is her speciality - she should be the one to capture it.

"Oddish, Oddish?" asks Oddish. Misty answers him by sending out Starmie, which instantly hits the weak little plant with a Water Gun Attack that sends an almost instantly dazed Oddish spiralling about in the air before a Tackle Attack knocks it down. Thrilled by the comparative ease of this victory (and yet not at all concerned that she's capturing a weak-ass Pokémon) Misty throws a Pokéball which..... is promptly slapped out of the air! Astonished, the kids look down in shock as a squat, stubby Pokémon that looks like a cross between an angry turtle and a cabbage stomps out to meet them.

"Woah! What's that?" asks Ash, despite the fact that it is one of his Regions most popular 'Starting Pokémon' and one he was given a choice to have in the very first episode. The angry looking Pokémon growls it's name to him, it is in fact a Bulbasaur, and a wobbly-eyed Ash can't believe it! It's a Bulbasaur! Pulling out Dexter for the second time in as many minutes, we get the lowdown on the new, much tougher Pokémon.

"Bulbasaur, it bears the seed of a plant on it's back from birth, the seed slowly develops, researchers are unsure whether to classify Bulbasaur as a plant or animal. Bulbasaur are extremely tough and very difficult to capture in the wild."
Unlike most Pokémon, however, Bulbasaur isn't content to just stand around and wait to be identified. It shows off it's talents by charging forward and Headbutting Starmie into Misty's arms, where it wilts against her body. This formidable display of strength serves only to excite Ash, who calls out Butterfree, possibly to annoy Bulbasaur into submission with it's plaintive cries of, "Freeee! Freeee!"

Butterfree swoops up high and tries to use Sleep Powder to knock out it's opponent, but Bulbasaur simply sucks in air and blows it back out. This causes the powder to wash over Butterfree instead, however, and send the annoying little bug down to the ground. A desperate Ash pleads with his sucky Pokémon to hang in there, but as it attempts to shake off the effects of it's own Attack, Bulbasaur tackles it, smashing Butterfree backwards before it follows Oddish into the bushes with a angry exclamation of Bulbasaur! Ash reacts with typical maturity by bursting into tears like a little baby, proclaiming that it isn't fair, he wants it!

With a sudden mood swing a pregnant woman or a lunatic would be proud of, Ash quickly recovers and in fact becomes ecstatic, sure now that it must be his destiny to catch a Bulbasaur. He stomps stupidly across a wooden bridge they come across, fists clenched, legs rising and falling awkwardly, eyes clenched shut as he tells Misty and Brock that there are sure to be plenty of Bulbasaur all over this place. Pikachu sits on Ash's backpack resting against his neck as Misty asks exactly where 'this place' is, while Brock tells them he can't find the bridge anywhere on his map. Suddenly a massive wind blows up and rocks the ropes, startling and scaring the kids as one rope snaps and spills the bridge over on it's side. Ash grabs onto the bridge with one arm as Misty clutches herself to his upper thigh (oh you would too) and Pikachu clutches onto him with it's chubby little digits. Brock is holding onto the bridge as well but apparently he lacks the mighty strength of 10 year old Ash, as he slips and falls to his death in the water below.

So long Brock, nice knowing you.

Misty demands that Ash pull them up but quite rightly the boy tells her he can't. She is adamant though, and apparently he does it as the next time we see them, they're on the other side of the chasm on their knees panting and gasping.

Make of that, what you will.

Ash mutters he is totally wiped out while Misty insists they can't rest now, they have to find Brock's corpse (after all, he had all the food!). Nodding grimly, Ash, Misty and Pikachu set out on their grisly quest to find their dead comrade. Somehow they get down to the bottom of the chasm (negating Ash's heroic effort to pull them all up the bridge earlier) and rush to find the corpse before wild Pokémon strip the backpack of it's delicious goodies. As they run, a hole opens in the ground beneath Misty, dropping her down onto her ass. Ash rushes back as she sits there rubbing her butt (oh you would too) and asks her stupidly how she got down there. "I fell down, how do you think!?!" growls Misty, snapping at him to help her back up.
"This just isn't our day," sighs Ash.

After getting her out, they continue on, looking about as Ash calls out for Brock on the off-chance that he not only survived the hundred foot fall but also avoided drowning despite breaking all his bones and then somehow made his way on-shore and managed to retain consciousness and fend off both hypothermia and hungry wild Pokémon. Ash and Pikachu step past a tree root but Misty does not, stepping into it and triggering yet another trap, whipping them all in the air as a net scoops them up and dangles them from a tree.
"How did we get up here?" growls Ash, who really is quite remarkably stupid.
"It's another trap," snaps Misty, quite rightly asking just how the hell he thinks they got up there. She demands he get them down somehow but what the hell is he supposed to do? One suggestion she has is that he wriggle, which is a certainly a bizarre idea, and even Ash figures out how ridiculous it is after trying it for a few seconds.
"This is dumb!" he grunts at her, causing her to growl back that she's like to hear any better ideas that he has. As this rage builds cute little Pikachu sadly begs them to stop fighting and think of the children, but before Ash and Misty can come to blows or start making out like rabbits (depending on your personal AAML beliefs) they're interrupted by a cry of, "BULBASAUR!"

Stomping out of the bushes, Bulbasaur grins up at them, then walks off with a slow, satisfactory, "Saur, Saur."
"Ahhh Bulbasaur!" cries Ash, begging it to come back because he wants to have a match. He kicks and jerks about trying to get out of the net and fight with the angry Pokémon, as Misty screams out words that we wouldn't expect to hear until her eventual honeymoon,"Now you're wriggling too much! Ouch! You kicked me!"

As these non-coital thrashings continue, the camera pans up then trucks in on the hill-tops rising up around the forest. A conspicuously dark green bush emerges over the side of one of the hilltops and, who should pop out? Why, none other than Team Rocket of course! Apparently they're looking for a village, evidently one that can be found just beyond the bridge the kids crossed over earlier. As Jesse and James look about with their binoculars, a giggling Meowth raises up between them, telling the delicious village to just wait until they get their hands on it.

With that bizarre interlude out of the way, we return to the net, where Ash and Misty have calmed down enough to sit side by side looking out over the forest. Both are wondering what happened to Brock, and Ash ponders that maybe Brock was carried downriver to the ocean, where he was found by pirates, and one of the pirates has a wooden leg!
"You have a vivid imagination," sighs Misty.
"And then came the storm," Ash grins, casting a sly, sidelong glance at Misty that makes us wonder if he's as stupid as he makes out. Before his tale can progress to it's inevitable conclusion of pressing naked flesh against naked flesh to fight off hypothermia though, a familiar voice beneath them calls out, "AHOY!" - It's Brock!

Why he's not dead at all, and neither is he a Pirate's Cabin Boy.... unless of course he's a Zombie Cabin Boy sent ashore to capture slaves.... in any case, he cuts them down with his worryingly large bowie knife and lets them fall hard onto the ground. As Pikachu sits dazed and confused, Misty asks if next time he can let them down a little more gently. He apologises as he rubs his bruised and battered head, probably suffering from a concussion after his long fall. They ask him what happened and he explains how he fell and was shot downriver by the current. Before he could reach the ocean and lonely, lonely pirates though, a beautiful girl grabbed his arm and pulled him onto the riverbank, saving him from a fate worse than death.

"A beautiful girl huh?" asks Ash, "That's even better than pirates, unless she was a pirate in disguise?"
Misty sighs that Ash needs a reality check, and Brock leads them to the small village where the girl lives. Little more than a cabin sitting by a tiny pool, the village is home to one beautiful women (who may have had a history in children's television considering her red overalls) and a large number of Pokémon. Melanie (that's her name after all) explains that this is a place where sick or abandoned Pokémon can come to be looked after. She's not qualified to be a Pokémon Doctor and this isn't a Pokémon Centre, it's more like a Health Spa.... or a Summer Camp that goes all year long. Melanie knows all about the herbs and plants that can be used to help cure sick Pokémon, and Ash figures that this means both her and Brock love Pokémon. Brock agrees and a smirking Misty notes that this may not be the only thing Brock loves. A frantic, red-faced Brock slaps his palm over her mouth and tells her to be quiet.... she might hear! With this admission of true lust from Brock, Ash asks the question on everybody's mind..... who set that net-trap they were caught in earlier?
"Probably the same person who dug that hole I fell into," Misty surmises. Melanie apologises, it was her who set the traps to capture any trainers before they could get to the village. Yes, even the bridge was a trap designed to kill..... ahem, we mean dissuade.... those who would try to capture any of the many injured Pokémon staying in the village. But who would sink so low as to try and capture injured Pokémon?

Why Team Rocket of course!

Jesse, James and Meowth carefully make their way across the half hanging bridge, Meowth on all fours moving with cat-like skill over the thin strip of wood. Jesse is understandably excited about all the easily captured Pokémon waiting on the other side of the bridge while James merely wants to know how they're going to carry them all.
"We'll cross dat bridge when we come to it," quips Meowth, and to punish him for the horrible pun, God snaps the other rope holding the bridge up, swinging them down into the side of the cliff. They lose their grip on the bridge and fall down into the river, though luckily Jesse and James keep such slim figures that they float down like falling feathers.

Back at the Hidden Village (hence the title, Gentle Dodgers) Brock explains to his companions that he promised Melanie they wouldn't attempt to capture any of the Pokémon.
"And did you seal the promise with a kiss?" giggles Misty goofily, teasing Brock.


WHAM!

He punches her in the head like a pimp disciplining an uppity ho. She recovers quickly though, giggling that he must really love her, and WHAM! Another blow to the head from Brock, administering home correction straight out of the 1940's. Ash agrees to 'try' not to capture any of the Pokémon, causing Misty to admonish him, since only a real loser would try and capture a sick Pokémon. But then again, would the traps really stop 'real' robbers, ponders Ash, after all, you'd have to be pretty stupid to fall into one of those holes. Misty growls with fury and....

WHAM!

No it's not Misty bitch-slapping Ash, rather it's Team Rocket, proving Ash's theory by falling into not their first, nor second, but third hole in a row! An infuriated Jesse wants to know why the hell nobody ever falls into their traps as she lays uncomfortably at the bottom of the hole next to James.

"Well this one was cleverly hidden, well made......" starts James.
"I'm glad you're enjoying it!" hisses Jesse, unaware of just how much James likes certain ho.... ahh feggit it, we ain't going there.
"Meowth," sighs Meowth, apparently depressed over the band-aid currently covering his asshole.



Just look for yourself, kiddies, and pray your mother doesn't walk into the room while you're doing it.

They continue on after getting out of the hole, and walk promptly into a net which leaves them dangling from a tree branch. They angrily try to fight their way out, Meowth screaming at them to stop pulling his tail, and we just know the claws are going to come out soon.

Back in the Hidden Village (The title Gentle Dodgers, the title), a Magikarp swims while Brock pours water over a HHAAAHH'ing Staryu and Misty makes amends with Oddish. She apologises to the little vegetable-like Pokémon and then rips up some delightfully painful memories by asking if it's true that it's former owner got rid of it.

Tactful Misty, tactful.

She tells Oddish that some trainers can be mean, apologises again and then starts brimming over with tears for absolutely no discernible reason. Oddish wipes away her tears with a leaf and she confesses that lately all she thinks about is winning, she is worried that she's becoming heartless.
"You were always heartless!" guffaws Ash stupidly, running into shot simply to abuse the poor little girl.
"Mind your own business!" she snaps, jumping to her feet.
"BULB-AH-SAUR!!!!!!!!!" roars Bulbasaur, charging in and tackling her directly in the ass for absolutely no other reason than the fact that it's an angry, surly little bastard.

We love it!

"HEY! It's rude to tackle people!" growls Misty, glaring back at the satisfied looking Bulbasaur.
"She's right," agrees Ash.
"Bulba...." growls Bulbasaur, pawing at the ground and not backing down an inch. Ash decides that the surly demeanour of the angry Pokémon can only be it's way of covering up it's shame at running away from a battle earlier that Ash would have surely won.

The pirate story was more likely, Ash.

Misty agrees though, purely because she dislikes the angry Pokémon, but before Ash can challenge it to a battle again, Melanie rushes in and begs them to back down. Apparently Bulbasaur is the self-appointed ass-kicker for the Village, protecting all the Pokémon when they are attacked. It simply perceived Misty's sudden movement earlier as an offensive move and headbutted her ass to dissuade her from such action. In truth, Bulbsaur is the bravest, most loyal of Pokémon. Ash is extremely enamoured of the idea of having a Pokémon that offered up it's asskicking services to a Village, but apparently the Plant/Animal doesn't return the respect. It stomps up and slams it's head angrily against Ash's legs, trying to push him away as it growls, "Bulbasaur, Bulbasaur!"

Ash insists he's not there to pose a threat but Bulbasaur, bless it's surly heart, doesn't care, it just wants him and any other threat gone from the village. But while it concentrates on a scrawny ten year old boy as the primary threat, it ignores the obvious secondary threat. A giant stadium roof floating through the air, suspended by balloons.

A common mistake indeed.

"Prepare for trouble."
"And make it double."
"To protect the world from devastation."
"To unite all peoples within our nation."
"To denounce the evils of truth and love."
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
"Jesse."
"James."
"Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light."
"Surrender now or prepare to fight."
"Dat's right!"


Yes it's Team Rocket, who have stolen a Stadium Roof from somewhere (James' idea) and attached giant balloons to float it (Meowth's idea). They lower the massive roof down over the village, crashing down to the ground where Jesse promptly takes the credit for her companions good thinking. A giant hose snakes out of the stadium (delightful symbolism in this show) and instantly begins sucking in like a giant vacuum, pulling at the horrified Pokémon. Brock calls for the Pokémon to rush into the protection of the cabin while Ash captures Staryu before it can be sucked up. Little Oddish though, isn't as lucky and is pulled into the air, pulled towards the hose and capture by Team Rocket.... until Bulbasaur's Vine-Whip catches it and pulls it back down to the ground. Then the squat, angry little Pokémon begins pushing Oddish back towards the cabin as Ash hands off Staryu to Misty and rushes in behind Bulbasaur, helping it to push Oddish. They get inside the cabin and slam the door shut, infuriating Jesse who can't believe that Ash, the little pest, has foiled their plans again. James looks on the positive side though, all Ash has done is gather all the various Pokémon into one place, and by placing the hose above the cabin they can tear open the cabin and suck out the Pokémon. What they didn't count on though was an invisible sun-roof, which Bulbasaur climbs out off to get onto the roof. Whipping aside the hose with it's Vine-Whip gives Ash the time to run outside and release Pidgeotto into the air.

What follows next is a vile bastardisation of physics, as Pidgeotto flaps it's small wings and kicks up a gust which creates a front of air that somehow turns the sucking vacuum into a twister. James angles up into a pitchers pose, apparently for no other reason than to show off his well defined buttocks, while Jesse and Meowth worry about just what way that Twister is going to twist. Well we can all guess, can't we, and soon Team Rocket and their stolen Stadium Roof are being sucked up and spun around and around and around until Meowth lets out with the obligatory,"Looks like Team Rockets blasting off again!"

And then Team Rocket's blasting off again!

Bulbasaur is, admitted, very pleased with the ass-whipping it just handed out. It beams happily and proclaims,"Bulba-Saur!" even despite a horrendous quip from Ash about getting the 'wind knocked out of him' The kids comment on what a great bodyguard Bulbasaur is, which prompts Melanie to ask Ash to take it with him on his Pokémon Journey.

You can say wa-hat? now.

Yep, it seems Bulbasaur does his job a little TOO WELL, as he's made the Village such a safe place that none of the Pokémon actually want to leave there. The entire point of healing them is to allow them to get back out there into the big bad old world, and maybe with the safety blanket of Bulbasaur gone they'll be more likely to venture out.
Yeah Melanie, and get captured immediately! There is a reason they got sick and smacked around in the first place, they're pussies! They're wimps! They're the nerds! Bulbasaur kicks ass because they can't, and you're removing their only protection. Perhaps realising how ridiculous her request is, Melanie covers up by droning on and on and on and on and on to explain herself, rendering Ash cross-eyed with stupidity (even more so than usual). In any case, Bulbasaur isn't entirely keen on joining the team of such a wimp as Ash and instead demands that the little bastard-child actually beat him in a battle before he'll deign to join them. Of course Bulbasaur's reasoning is that there is no way Ash can possibly beat him, so he'll be able to stick around being King Shit of Turd Mountain.... unfortunately there are just a couple of things that the surly little Pokémon didn't figure on.

1. God favours drunks and morons.

2. Pikachu can be an evil little fuck when it wants to be.

Bulbasaur and Pikachu face off after Ash shoots down Misty's pleas to take on Bulbasaur herself (after all, she all ready had her chance at Oddish and screwed that up). Pikachu avoids a Vine-Whip with it's Agility but fails to get out of the way of a Tackle that sends it flying, and before it can get up and counter, Bulbasaur violates Anime Convention Number 27854 - stand around doing nothing while your enemy prepares an attack - and Tackles again, sending Pikachu's chubby little body crashing into the ground. Going ape-shit French-Style, Pikachu slams into Bulbasaur with a tackle of it's own, but this serves only to infuriate the surly little Pokémon which wraps it's Vines around Pikachu, squeezes, then begins to slam Pikachu hard into the ground over and over again.

You can almost hear the litany of, "Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!"

Ash stares on in shock, then growls at Pikachu to counter with a Thunder-Bolt. Pikachu does so, shocking the squat little Bulbasaur and knocking it over, where it lays smoking and prostrate. Ash throws a Pokéball, pulling Bulbasaur inside. The Ball falls to the ground and rocks back and forth as Ash and the others watch on, waiting to see if Bulbasaur will go quietly into that good night or rage, rage against the dying of the light. Apparently the light turns off with no dispute, as the Pokéball comes to a rest and an ecstatic Ash realises that yes, he's just caught the first of his 'cool' Pokémon!

Melanie will, of course, miss Bulbasaur, but with him gone it frees her up to do other things, such as sell her weak Pokémon to immoral scientists for instance...... there's good money in that type of thing you know!

Regardless, Ash and the kids leave the Hidden Village behind, Bulbasaur now out of his Pokéball and wandering along beside Ash as the nerd Pokémon wave goodbye. Brock tells Bulbasaur that it will see them again, once they get better they'll leave the village and spread out around the country, so maybe he'll come across them again. The stoic Breeder (snicker) then allows a slight sigh for his long lost Melanie, prompting a giggling Misty to ask him how Melanie reacted when he told her he luuuuuuuuvvved her and..... Brock slaps his palm to her face (avoiding the previous gross physical abuse) and tells her to quit it, while it's true he found her cute that doesn't mean he loved her and besides....

"Did I miss something?" asks a confused Ash, who has trouble retaining long term memory, in fact he's probably wondering even now where the Bulbasaur came from.
"Bulba-Saur?" asks a confused Bulbasaur as it watches Brock dragging Misty around and Ash standing stupidly watching it all. Yes, it's finally come to the realisation of just what it's done.

Bulbasaur has left one group of nerds for another.

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