Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 002:  "Showdown! Pokémon Center!"
American Episode 102:  "Pokémon Emergency!"
Pokémon Dare Da?  Dogas
Japanese Air Date:  April 8th, 1997
American Air Date:  September 9th, 1998
Important Characters:  Joi (Nurse Joy), Junsa (Officer Jenny), Kasumi (Misty), Musashi (Jessie), Kojirou (James)
Important Places:  Tokiwa City (Viridian City), Pokémon Center (Pokémon Center), Tokiwa Forest (Viridian Forest)

After being attacked by the flock of Onisuzume the previous night, Satoshi takes his injured Pikachu to the Pokémon Center in Tokiwa City.  There, he waits patiently as his pokemon is being taken care of by the center's nurse, Joi.  To pass the time, Satoshi calls his mom and Orchid-Hakase, telling the latter about the mysterious bird pokemon he had seen earlier.  Orchid-Hakase doesn't know anything about the pokemon and believes that Satoshi was mistaken, but the young trainer swears that what he saw was real.  Suddenly, the girl whose bike Satoshi had borrowed the day before bursts into the Pokémon Center and starts yelling at Satoshi!  She reveals that her bicycle had been destroyed during Pikachu's fight against the Onisuzume and demands the young trainer replace her bike immediately.  Before Satoshi can respond, a trio of thieves - Musashi, Kojirou, and a talking Nyarth - appear at the Pokémon Center and attempt to steal all the pokemon there!  As Joi transports the pokemon from the Tokiwa City Pokémon Center to the Nibi City Pokémon Center, Satoshi and the young girl, whose name is revealed to be Kasumi, battle against the trio.  Before long, Satoshi's Pikachu appears, fully healed, and joins with the other Pikachu in the building to send the team of villains - who are collectively known as the Rocket-Dan - blasting off.  The next day, Pikachu's wounds have finished healing, so Satoshi and Kasumi head into the Tokiwa Forest.  There, the young trainers encounter a wild Caterpie.  Can Satoshi capture his first pokemon?  To be continued!

---

Thoughts
I don't think there's a more important episode in the entire series.  I mean, just look at what happens in this episode.  We are introduced to the Pokémon Center, Kasumi (unofficially) joins the party, and we're introduced to a slew of new characters, including the villains who will be in every episode from here until the end of time.

The dubbed version comes out relatively unscathed as far as edits go.  The big thing in this episode is the debut of the English voices for Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny, and Team Rocket.  Joy and Jenny's voices are good enough, but their acting in this episode is just flat-out terrible.  And as far as Team Rocket goes, two of the three members will end up getting a voice change anyway, so it's kind of pointless to whine about their performances here.  While Meowth's VA change will be for the better, I really enjoy Ted Lewis' performance in these episodes.  Sure, he's a bit too serious for his own good, but I'm sure he would have been able to get the comedic parts down-pat if he had been given the time.  It's not hard to do better than Eric Stuart James, at least.  Rachel Lillis' performance is a bit weird when compared to her later versions of the character, but it's still a solid performance.

Dialogue Edit
4Kids just wasn't paying attention:
In the Japanese version, the dialogue's the same in both episodes.

Side Note
In the Japanese version, when Hanako answers the phone, she answers it as Satoshi no haha, or "Satoshi's mom!"  The strange thing about this is that the name Hanako can be seen in the ending credits to the first episode, so we know the anime producers could have just used that.  So why didn't they?

The dub's "Ketchum residence" makes a lot more sense even if Satoshi isn't really supposed to have a surname.

Dialogue Edit
When Ash's mom is about to hang up on Ash, she makes sure to ask him if he's been changing his underwear every night.  In the Japanese version, she just reminds him to brush his teeth in the morning.

Why is Delia obsessed with Ash's underwear habits?  Was some staff member traumatized as a kid by their parents harassing them about their underwear?  Is Ash's mom's underwear fetish a sign of some deep seeded psychological trauma she suffered as a child?  Or is this just one of many examples of 4Kids thinking they have a really funny joke on their hands and not realizing how wrong they are?

Dialogue Edit
This edit occurs when Orchid-Hakase calls up the Pokémon Center, asking to speak to Satoshi.  When the video comes on the monitor, Satoshi says Ramen desu ka, Ookido-Hakase, which means "Isn't that ramen, Orchid-Hakase?"  That's because all Satoshi can see is the ramen, which is that stuff boiling in the beaker.  Well, 4Kids wanted to protect kids from the evil that is ramen, so they had Ash say "No professor, I didn't recognize the back of your head" instead.

Later,


Originally, Orchid-Hakase was running off because he just remembered that he was in the middle of cooking ramen.  4Kids changes this to have him running off to get a pizza and even adds a doorbell sound that wasn't in the Japanese episode. 

So ramen becomes "the back of Professor Oak's head" and "anchovies and spinach and pineapple pizza," beginning 4Kids' tendency to edit out Japanese food.  At least they didn't digitally edit his ramen into a sandwich or something...

Dialogue Edit
During Misty's fight with Team Rocket, we get this.  My translation of the Japanese dialogue is on the left, while the dub dialogue's on the right:

Japanese Version	English Version
Kasumi:  "Mr. and Ms. Villain, I'll be your opponent."	Misty:  "I'll take care of these three clowns"
Musashi:  "Oh?  And the reason you'd be doing this is...?"	Jessie:  "That's pretty big talk coming from such a little lady."
Kasumi:  "I am the world's most beautiful girl.  The name's Kasumi."	Misty:  "At least you're right about the pretty part.  Thanks for the compliment."
Kojirou:  "'Beautiful girl?'...'Kasumi?'"	James:  "The girl thinks she's pretty."
Musashi:  "Kasumi?  As I thought, you don't really have a reason.   Besides, I'm the only beautiful girl here."	Jessie:  "I agree with her.  I think she's pretty, too.  Pretty pathetic."

The thing to notice here (other than a complete rewrite) is that this is the point in the episode when Kasumi finally reveals her name to us.  In the dub, however, Joy is the one to reveal her name, and that's not until the end of the episode! 

Was a "pretty pathetic" pun really worth it?

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