Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 44: "Paras and Parasect"
American Episode 42:  "The Problem with Paras"
Pokémon Dare Da?  Paras
Japanese Air Date:  May 14th, 1998
American Air Date:  February 13th, 1999
Important Characters:  Kiyomi (Cassandra), Grandma (Lacy)
Important Places:  Matsumo Town (Mossgreen Village)

Satoshi and his friends arrive in Matsumo Town, a small village that invites our heroes to stock up on potions and other medicinal items. As our heroes look for the local pharmacy, the Rocket-Dan's Nyarth collapses from a fever! Musashi and Kojirou are about to leave the pokemon behind when Kiyomi, a local medicine woman, happens to walk by and fixes up a medicine that brings down Nyarth's fever. Once the cat pokemon is better, Kiyomi returns to the medicine shop where Satoshi and the others are waiting. As they talk, Kiyomi explains that she dreams of making a miracle potion that is able to cure any illness but that in order to do so she'll need her Paras to evolve into Parasect. The problem, however, is that Paras is such a weakling that she's afraid it'll never gain enough experience to evolve! Satoshi decides to help out by having his pokemon throw battle after battle, hoping that a “winning streak” will boost Paras' confidence. Unfortunately, Satoshi's Lizardo doesn't go along with this plan and actually manages to scare Kiyomi's pokemon off instead! Later, the Rocket trio finds the frightened Paras and decides to help it out for their own selfish reasons. Thanks to Matadogasu's and Arbok's uncanny ability to consistently lose, Paras finally gains enough experience to evolve into Parasect! Kiyomi's pokemon is now even strong enough to single-handedly take out Satoshi's Lizardo! Now that Kiyomi's problem has been solved, our heroes leave Matsumo Town for their next adventure.

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Thoughts
The general idea of the Pocket Monsters TV series is to sell you a bunch of crap, and one of the best way to do that is to devote entire episodes on one of the show's titular creatures. I like to imagine the staff of the TV series look at the character artwork, the moves it can learn, its Pokémon Bestiary entry, and any in-game story events and use those as a jumping point for story ideas. You look at a pokemon like Metamon, see that its gimmick is being able to transform into any pokemon, and make a story around that.  A pokemon like Porygon is said to be made up entirely of computer code, so you make an episode where our heroes enter a computer. But then...you get something like Paras.

Oh it's...a crab lice thing with mushrooms on its back. OK... Well, maybe its Pokémon Bestiary entry has something interesting we can work with...

Japanese Red & Green:  The mushroom that grows on this bug's back is called caterpillar fungus. As this pokemon grows up its mushrooms become bigger. むしの せなかに はえているのは とうちゅうかそう という キノコ。そだつと キノコも おおきくなる。

Not much here either, is there?

The TV staff eventually went with a Chinese medicine woman wanting to use the pokemon's mushrooms to make a miracle potion, which is probably the best story we could have hoped for given what little they had to work with back then. Whenever I watch this episode I can't help but think "Aw, they tried their best..." and though this isn't my favorite Kanto episode by a long shot I do appreciate it for what it is.

Another thing I remember this episode for is the weird crush the cat pokemon Nyarth has on the human woman Kiyomi. This was years and years before the Diamond & Pearl games dropped that bombshell about humans marrying pokemon, by the way! The whole thing's pretty icky but at the same time it's not like she reciprocates his feelings or anything so at least we were never any danger of this turning into a 2006 Sonic The Hedgehog situation. Still, though.

This is also the first we're getting to see of the whole "Lizardo / Lizardon doesn't obey Satoshi" storyline that'll be a big part of the TV series for the next year or so. It's one of the first "big" storylines this franchise tries to do and, like most first attempts, there are quite a bit of hiccups along the way. The abrupt beginning to the plot coupled with the fact that absolutely no progress is made until late Orange Islands is an issue but hey, at least they're trying something new, right? I wonder if the idea this episode's writer, Atsuhiro Tomioka, of this episode had was that Satoshi's Lizardo is starting to look down on its Trainer because one of the first things it's asked to do after evolving is throw a match to such a weak pokemon but I have a feeling that might just be me overthinking things.

The first 40 episodes of the English dub debuted in syndication in the U.S., which meant that the network it aired on varied depending on where you lived. For some people, Pokémon aired on their local Fox station while for others, it was UPN or ABC. For me, Pokémon aired on my local WB! affiliate at 6:30am, Monday through Friday. But as of this episode, Pokémon officially moved to Kids' WB! and secured itself a stable network for years to come. Not a lot of shows made the jump from syndication to a real, actual network and so the fact that Pokémon was able to do so in such a short amount of time is actually quite remarkable. Less remarkable is the dub, which more or less continues doing the same it did for the first 40 episodes, for better or for worse.

Both Paras and Parasect keep their Japanese voices.

Dialogue Edit
Ash and Misty are hungry:


Originally, Satoshi wants to eat hamburger curry while Kasumi prefers to eat katsudon.

After the title screen, Jessie and James prepare to leave Meowth behind:


4Kids' version is actually a pretty decent equivalent of the Japanese version, believe it or not. In the original, Musashi tells Kojirou not to worry because Nyarth is a bakeneko (化け猫), a term that literally means "monster cat" but is more often used to describe how cats are stubborn and refuse to die. You know, falling from tall distances but always landing on their feet, being dexterous and capable of avoiding danger that would kill other animals, etc.

In English we have the phrase "a cat has nine lives" to express the same sentiment; cats are so stubborn when it comes to death that it's as if they live nine lives. Jessie's quote here in the English version plays with that idea.

Later, Jessie and James become "superheroes":

Japanese Version	English Version
Kojirou:  "We were on our way to take care of some urgent business anyway."	James:  "Don't you recognize superheroes when you see them?"
Kiyomi:  "Urgent business?"	Cassandra:  "You're superheroes?"
Musashi:  "We are travelers on a mission."	Jessie:  "Sometimes we both go undercover..."
Kojirou:  "And when there's trouble on the road...we can't stop..."	James:  "But our enemies soon discover..."
Musashi and Kojirou:  "...for every little thing!"	Jessie and James:  "We're the Team Rocket Super Squad!"
Kiyomi:  "How can you look at what's going on and say this is any little thing!?"	Cassandra:  "You're super losers if you'd leave a sick Pokémon!"
Kojirou:  "Ko-chan is scared."	James:  "I guess you're right."
Musashi:  "Mu-chan's scared too."	Jessie:  "We're...sorry."

The dialogue could have been kept as-is without any issues whatsoever but I guess 4Kids felt like they couldn't let this scene go without at least trying to explain why the duo's dressed the way they are. And it's not like American kids are going to recognize those outfits as traditional clothing worn by travelers during Japan's feudal eras, y'know?

Still, I think just letting the visuals go without any attempt at an explanation would have been fine. "We're on a journey so we're busy" is the reason they want to leave their cat pokemon behind in both versions, right? Shoehorning some superhero nonsense in all that isn't necessary.

Paint Edit
The kanji for kusuri ("medicine") is painted away from the front of the shop, as are the words Kampo-dou  (カンポ― 堂), or "Traditional Chinese Medicine Shop ".  This edit occurs about nine times in this episode.

The white kanji there is kusuri (薬), or "medicine."
The text on the green sign is Kampo-dou (カンポ―堂), or "Chinese medicine."

Because of this, it kind of looks like Cassandra's shop permanently has a spotlight shining on it, doesn't it?

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This page was last updated on April 1st, 2017