PokeRecap – The Path to the Pokemon League

To celebrate the Pokemon anime’s 20th anniversary, we’re recapping an episode of the series every Saturday!

Episode Title: The Path to the Pokemon League

Original Air Date: May 20, 1997 (Japan); September 17, 1998 (US)

Episode Synopsis: As Ash, Brock, and Misty make their way to Vermillion City, they hear of an unsanctioned gym run by a “wild Pokemon trainer” named AJ. Ash learns that AJ has a 98 victory streak and is holding off going to real Pokemon gyms until he reaches 100 victories. Ash feels that he’s the superior trainer because he has two badges and cockily challenges AJ to a Pokemon battle. However, the battle is over in a flash after AJ’s Sandshrew quickly dispatches both Pidgeotto and Butterfree.

Afterwards, Ash discovers that AJ uses intense methods to train his Pokemon and accuses him of cruelty. AJ counters that Ash isn’t nearly hard enough on his Pokemon. Team Rocket arrives at AJ’s gym and mistakenly kidnaps AJ’s Sandshrew instead of Pikachu. Ash suggests that Sandshrew ran away because AJ is a jerk, but when Sandshrew escapes and returns to AJ, Ash realizes that AJ really does care about his Pokemon.

AJ challenges Team Rocket to a battle and defeats them using Sandshrew for his 100th victory. Before setting off on his own journey, AJ vows to meet Ash again, but only after Ash gets a bit stronger.

Ash’s Episodic Moment of Idiocy: Ash acts like a cocky idiot through most of the episode and repeatedly gets embarrassed for it. In particular, he tries to start a mutiny among AJ’s Pokemon, which spectacularly backfires on him.

Characters Introduced: AJ

Locations: Route 9

Another filler episode, “The Path to the Pokemon League” firmly establishes that Ash is still an amateur at Pokemon training despite earning two gym badges. Although Ash’s heart is in the right place when it comes to his criticisms of AJ, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to pick a fight with a dude who’s twice his size and carries a bull whip for fun.

Like most filler episode characters, AJ never makes another appearance in the anime, but he does make a cameo appearance in Pokemon Yellow. When traveling down Route 9 in the game, you can battle a trainer who only uses a (relatively) high level Sandshrew that knows the move Fissure. If you beat the trainer, he references having to start his 100 win streak over again.

The other notable part of this episode is that James actually switches voice actors near the episode. Original voice actor Ted Lewis did most of James’s lines throughout the episode, but he’s replaced by Eric Stuart (who also voices Brock) during the battle. Stuart became James’s permanent voice actor and kept that role until 4Kids lost the licensing rights to the anime.