Indigo League, Episode 8: “The Path to the Pokémon League”

Season 1, Episode 8, Original Air Date: May 20, 1997 (JP), September 17, 1998 (US)

Ash, Brock and Misty are on their way to Vermilion City, and Ash is kind of acting high and mighty after his 10th victory.

After showing off his badges, his opponent mentions another trainer nearby known as AJ, who has never lost a single match. He also has his own unofficial gym, and a highly competitive attitude to boot.

Favoring his Sandshrew over most of his other Pokémon as his first, AJ handily defeats Ash to claim his 99th win. Ash does not take it well. This is definitely not the last time he reacts this way either, but he admittedly did get better with time. I also find the "lion tamer" remark amusing in hindsight, since it took them a while to come up with Entei, and even longer to come up with the Pyroar line.

 

Ash and AJ are also at odds over their respective training methods, with Ash favoring friendship between his Pokémon while AJ wants to bring out their sheer raw power. This is also one of the first big appearances of the comedic Team Rocket, with their scheme seeking to catch Pikachu in an oversized rubber ball, but they end up bagging Sandshrew by mistake!

Anyway, AJ's goal is to get 100 consecutive wins before he starts competing for badges; and after reclaiming Sandshrew from Team Rocket; he decides to take them on. He wipes the floor with them, getting his 100th win! So, we close on Ash and AJ going their separate ways, with AJ going to earn badges his own way as Ash continues on his way to Vermilion City.

"The Path to the Pokémon League" is a silly, overall decent first filler for the series. I will get into how I feel about the necessity of filler when I get to Johto; but for now, it's definitely interesting to see how far we've come after all this time. This writing marks the start of the series' 22nd season, so there's definitely plenty to talk about before then. For now, let's just say that AJ is one of the many reasons I subconsciously list competitiveness as a flaw on my resume. The animation is solid for the time, and though the plot is definitely very strange by modern standards; it's definitely not a bad episode at any rate. It's definitely not my favorite early episode by any means, but it's definitely worth watching whenever one isn't doing anything for 22 minutes. Feel free to skim through it, I know I will. Next time is an even weirder and crazier episode: "The School of Hard Knocks!"
To be continued...