Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 001:  "Pokemon I Choose You!"
American Episode 101:  "Pokémon I Choose You!"
Pokemon Dare Da?  Pikachu
Japanese Air Date:  April 1st, 1997
American Air Date:  September 8th, 1998
Important Characters:  Satoshi (Ash Ketchum), Shigeru (Gary Oak), Orchid-Hakase (Professor Oak)
Important Places:  Masara Town (Pallet Town)

Satoshi is a young boy in Masara Town who cannot sleep on the night before his tenth birthday.  That's because on this day, children become eligible to receive a starter pokemon from Orchid-Hakase and can travel the land as Pokemon Trainers.  However, on the fateful day, Satoshi oversleeps and arrives at the laboratory after all the starter pokemon had been handed out!  The young boy pleads with the professor to give him any pokemon he has left, so Orchid-Hakase apprehensively gives Satoshi the ill-tempered Pikachu.  The electric mouse pokemon doesn't want anything to do with the young trainer at first, but Satoshi doesn't give up on being its friend.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at catching his first pokemon, Satoshi accidentally upsets a wild Onisuzume.  The bird pokemon calls on its flock, and before long both Satoshi and Pikachu are running for their lives!  After borrowing a young girl's bicycle, the beginning trainer stumbles and finds himself surrounded by the flock of pokemon.  Seeing no other way out of the situation, Satoshi stands up for the battered Pikachu, impressing the pokemon and finally earning its trust.  Pikachu steps up and unleashes a powerful Thundershock attack, wiping out the entire flock and saving the two from the angry pokemon.  The next morning, Satoshi carries his injured pokemon toward Tokiwa City, home of a Pokemon Center.

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Thoughts
By this point, we all know the story of this first episode.  I've seen it, you've seen it, even most of the non-fans have seen it...what more could I say that hasn't been said already?

This episode starts the whole series, and I have mixed feelings about it.  It does a good job of setting up the entire world of pokemon, and I guess it's a faithful to the game as one can expect.  However, it's apparent in this early episode that without a traveling companion, Satoshi just isn't all that interesting.  I mean, let's face it; he couldn't carry an entire series by himself if he tried.

As far as the dub goes, I have a soft spot for these first episodes.  While they have their problems, to be sure, the dub is generally better here than it is later down the road.  Veronica Taylor said in an interview that they were really careful about the first ten episodes or so, taking more effort than usual to translate every line as closely as they could.  They'll start taking more liberties as the series progresses, but for now, everything's more or less the same in both versions.

This episode also introduces 4Kids to the world of anime.  A lot of the editing practices they become famous for later on get their start here, and that includes the insane practice of removing Japanese writing from the screen.  To this day, I've never understood the company's borderline racist vendetta against written Japanese.  The company would probably defend their actions by saying they're making the show more accessible for American kids, but I honestly can't see kids changing the channel or even being the least bit bothered by seeing a foreign language on the screen.  Despite all this, though, 4Kids kept a few Japanese symbols untouched in this episode.  The spines of Satoshi's books as he wakes up, the sign outside Orchid-Hakase's lab, the establishing shot of the three Monster Balls...all untouched.  Strange.

The opening theme for this episode is Mezase Pokemon Master, and the ending theme is Hyaku Gojuu-Ichi.

Pikachu, Dodrio, and the three starter pokemon all keep their Japanese voices.  When the starter pokemon all get their proper debuts, their voices will change for the dub, but in this episode, the noises they make are the same in both versions.

Music Edit
About half of the music in the dub is replaced by music created by 4Kids.   While the company keeps a lot more of the music intact then they end up doing later on, we're still only getting a measly 50% of the Japanese music intact.  The stuff 4Kids makes up admittedly does a good job of blending in with the Japanese music, so at least it's not as bad as, say, the stuff FUNimation came up with for the Dragon Ball Z dub.

Side Note
I want to point out that the first season episodes have almost dead-on title translations.  "Pokemon I Choose You!" works as the title for both the Japanese version of the episode and as the title of the dubbed episode, and that's very rare in non-Cartoon Network TV-dubbed anime.  Later, 4Kids goes for stupid puns for their titles ("Good 'quil Hunting" comes to mind), but for now they're sticking to literal title translations.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

Paint Edit
During Orchid-Hakase's TV program, we get the first of many, many paint edits in the series:

Paint Edit
Each of the Monster Balls containing Satoshi's potential pokemon have their names written on them in Japanese.  In the English version, the name is erased.  I wouldn't be surprised if 4Kids just edited one shot and then reused the same footage for each of the three times Satoshi holds the ball up.

Dialogue Edit
Prof. Oak gives us a slew of crappy dialogue:

And then about one line later:

Haha...electricity puns...4Kids, where do you come up with this stuff?

Paint Edit
When Satoshi's mom brings all those people to Orchid-Hakase's laboratory to cheer him on, these people are holding a banner that says Ganbare Satoshi! (Good Luck Satoshi!).  It got translated for the dub.

Cut--1 second
When Kasumi fishes Satoshi out of the water, she says "Are you OK?"  Satoshi says that he's fine and Kasumi slaps him, saying that she was asking about his pokemon, not him.  In the English version, the scene freezes on Ash's face to remove the actual slap.

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