Class is in Session: Episode 9 – "The School of Hard Knocks"

Welcome back to the official blog of The Pokémon Snapshot! We are thrilled to have you here for another deep dive into the world of Pokémon.

Now, let's get into Episode 9, "The School of Hard Knocks" (originally titled "Pokémon Victory Manual" in Japan). This episode originally aired in Japan on May 27, 1997, and hit the United States on September 18, 1998.

As a quick warning: our hosts had wildly different opinions on this week's adventure.

Tyler: "I'm just gonna forewarn you, Jeff and I had a little bit of a disagreement on this particular episode. I disliked it strongly. It's very dialogue-heavy, not a lot of action, and what action there is is very short-lived and anticlimactic."

Jeff: "What Tyler isn't telling you is that he said he didn't like it for that reason, and I said it's because it was an 'intellectual' podcast because of all the words and none of the action scenes. But I actually like this episode because I feel the characters are more interesting than last week's episode."

Let's break down this highly debated, "intellectual" episode and see exactly what broke Tyler's spirit!

Crepe Expectations

We begin our episode with Ash, Misty, and Brock walking down a forest road. Ash and Misty are, yet again, at each other's throats. Misty loudly declares that she isn't taking another step until Ash buys her a new bike. Ash mocks her whining, pointing out that her bike is literally the only thing she ever talks about.

Honestly, Misty has been incredibly transparent that the destroyed bicycle is her singular motivation for following Ash around. Tyler is firmly on Misty's side here: Ash just needs to wire his mom for some cash, visit a pawn shop, and pay off his debts so this episodic bickering can end.

As the two argue, Brock seamlessly slides into his role as the group's den mother. He scolds them, pointing out that their constant fighting is slowing them down and that they could have already reached Viridian City by now.

In the original Japanese version, Misty actually hits Brock in the head with a massive log when he says this! It was completely cut from the American dub due to violence. As Tyler noted, it's a shame they cut one of the only physical action scenes from such a dialogue-heavy episode.

Brock decides it's time for a break and proceeds to set up a literal dining table in the middle of the woods. He pulls out a tablecloth, a lovely purple floral centerpiece, and a full spread of food.

Breaking out the "Official Pokémon Tea Set" to assert middle-school dominance over Ash and Misty.  

Tyler: "I'm not sure where he was actually storing all this stuff in the bag that he was carrying."

Jeff: "My thought was maybe he had one of those carpet bags like Mary Poppins, you know, where she just pulls everything out of the bag, including a lamp."

Tyler: "If Brock becomes more Mary Poppins-ish, I'm gonna be very happy. Like that's what we're missing from this show. We're missing a Mary Poppins-type figure."

Brock offers the group coffee, but quickly retracts it, noting that Ash and Misty are too young. Considering Brock is a grizzled twelve-year-old and only two years older than them, this is a hilarious flex of middle-school seniority. Instead, Brock breaks out his "Official Pokémon Tea Set" (yes, he calls it that) and starts whipping up some French crepes.

This innocent breakfast scene sparked a massive, deeply personal tangent on the podcast. Misty loves crepes because they are French and romantic. Tyler, however, harbors a deep, burning hatred for them.

Tyler and Jeff both attended the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), but worked at rival dining centers. Tyler worked at the Rialto, where "Crepe Night" was a recurring nightmare of long lines, whining college students, and impossibly thin pancakes constantly tearing on the griddle. Jeff, on the other hand, fondly remembers crepes as an easy way to get cheap fruit while studying abroad in Japan (where he once witnessed a tiny watermelon being sold for $60).

Tyler: "I just want to throw out that there is never a time that a crepe will beat a loaded pancake. Why would you throw fruit and all that into a crepe when you could just slather it on top of a pancake? Pancakes are better, they're fluffier, they're more filling. I hate crepes."

Treadmill Traumas

Back to the woods: Ash is chewing his food too loudly, causing Misty to yell at him. Like a scolding parent, Brock tells Ash he needs to go fetch firewood.

Ash wanders off, and in a display of pure incompetence, begins searching for wood by walking through a dense forest looking up at the sky and calling out, "Here firewood! Here firewood!" It instantly reminded Jeff of his days as a college camp counselor, sending kids into a heavily wooded area only for them to return empty-handed, completely oblivious to the trees surrounding them.

While wandering blindly, Ash stumbles upon a bizarre scene. A group of school kids is gathered in the thick fog. One boy is running frantically on a treadmill while the others stand around him holding candles, shouting Pokémon trivia questions at him.

When a study group turns into a bizarre hazing ritual involving fog, candles, and a treadmill.  

Jeff: "I put that this looked like some sort of hazing ritual."

Tyler: "Right. It definitely does. Like I understand if kids are just out there studying, but it's just like you have him on a treadmill. That is just weird."

One of the trivia questions is about Pidgeot. Jeff admitted that thanks to a misprinted 1990s Pokémon handbook, he spent the last two decades pronouncing the Pokémon's name as "Pidget" rather than "Pidge-ee-ot." Don't trust 90s handbooks, folks!

The exhausted kid fails a question and falls off the treadmill. The other boys cruelly tell him he doesn't belong with them. Ash, ever the impulsive hero, rushes in and tells the bullies that their standards must be really low. Misty catches up and agrees with Ash, which naturally prompts Ash to tell her to butt out.

Thankfully for Ash's physical well-being, the schoolboys declare that fighting with fists is barbaric and "this is not the Stone Age." They arrogantly claim that beating up Ash would be an embarrassment to "Pokémon Tech," giggle to themselves, and walk away. Tyler was genuinely disappointed, noting that a quick shove from these kids might have knocked Ash down the four hundred pegs he desperately needs to fall.

Ash stepping up to defend Joe, completely oblivious to the fact that his own strategy for gathering wood was to look up at the sky and yell at the trees.  

Brock arrives, casually whisking food in a bowl, and Misty whips out a brochure for the Pokémon Technical Institute. It's a prestigious prep school that allows students to graduate and enter the Pokémon League without ever having to endure a long, difficult journey to collect gym badges.

Tyler: "This school serves as a replacement for sending your children out onto wild adventures by themselves in order to earn badges. This school exists to earn badges in an academic setting, which I respect. Also, I think it's funny how nobody in this group seems to have heard of it before..."

Jeff: "Yeah, and that kind of made me think of how maybe Pallet Town is like the Alabama of the Pokémon universe. They are cut off from the rest of the world and a few years behind in the trends."

While they read the pamphlet, Pikachu curiously investigates the abandoned treadmill. He accidentally turns it on, speeds it up, and gets violently thrown off. Tyler felt incredibly validated by this scene, as it perfectly mirrors his own intense distrust and avoidance of all exercise equipment (including swimming, which Jeff had to save Tyler from in college!).

When Pikachu gets thrown off the treadmill, he actually has a different voice actor! Usually, Ikue Ōtani's original Japanese voice recordings are used for Pikachu globally. However, in the Japanese version of this specific scene, Brock's voice actor spoke over Pikachu's cries. The English dub couldn't isolate the audio, so Rachael Lillis—the voice of Misty and Jessie—stepped in to voice Pikachu for just this one moment!

The Courtyard of Broken Dreams

The fog finally clears, revealing that Ash and the gang have been standing in the middle of the school's central courtyard the entire time. An intercom blares, announcing a grueling "snow training" session.

Tyler is officially giving Pokémon Tech a five-star review just for keeping unsupervised children out of the wild and putting them in an academic setting.  

The boy from the treadmill, who introduces himself as Joe, nervously admits that his classmates will probably use him as a snowman tomorrow. He explains that his parents worked incredibly hard to save enough money for his tuition, so he has to endure the abuse. If he quits, he shames his family.

To illustrate how tough the school is, Joe points to an unhinged, dead-eyed adult man sitting under a tree. Joe explains that this grown man is still in the "beginner" class.

When you flunked the Pokémon Tech entrance exam so bad you ended up in Team Rocket, but at least you didn't end up like this guy.  

The school operates on a bizarre system where academic levels equate to actual Gym Badges. A beginner has the equivalent of two badges. Ash, realizing that he also has two badges (that he didn't really earn), gets defensive.

Ash demands to see the student in charge. Joe pulls out a photograph of the top student—a girl named Giselle. Brock and Ash immediately start drooling over the photo.

Brock's reaction to Giselle is heavily censored. In the English dub, Brock starts to say she can "violate his rights" before being cut off. When the show re-aired on Kids WB, this line was completely muted. But in the original Japanese version? Brock looks at the picture of this young girl and says, "I'll look forward to her in eight years." Yikes, Brock. Yikes.

Ash cruelly tells Misty that looking at Giselle's picture is much better than dealing with girls who treat you badly and look ugly at the same time, staring directly at Misty. Furious, Misty stomps off to find this Giselle and prove a point.

Meanwhile, up on a nearby hill, Team Rocket is peering at the school through binoculars. We get some fantastic character backstory here: Jessie and James reveal that they actually tried to enroll at Pokémon Tech, but received the lowest entrance exam scores in the history of the school! Team Rocket's lingering bitterness makes them some of the most fleshed-out characters in the show.

Giselle’s Burn Book

Ash and Misty track Joe down to a computer lab. Joe, completely beaten down, brags that even though he is the worst student in school, his simulation software shows he can easily defeat the Cerulean City Gym Leader.

When you trust a 1990s Kanto desktop simulator to teach you how to be a Pokémon Master.

Misty, the actual Cerulean Gym Leader, takes this personally and challenges him to a real battle. Misty sends out Starmie. Joe sends out the Grass-type Weepinbell. In the games, Grass beats Water. In the anime? Starmie hits Weepinbell with a Water Gun and knocks it out instantly. Joe is completely baffled by his software failing him.

Just then, the top student, Giselle, enters the room. She immediately begins berating Joe for underestimating his opponent's real-world experience. Ash and Brock go starry-eyed, but Giselle quickly proves to be an absolute nightmare.

Regina George wishes she had the sheer, unadulterated audacity of Giselle entering a room just to roast the lowest-ranked student.

Jeff: "I thought how she introduces herself was very interesting. It was actually very Mean Girl-ish... She just goes on and says, 'I'm the top student in the beginner class of the most exclusive prep school in the world, Pokémon Tech. It's sad that others aren't blessed with my beauty, my talent, my humble attitude. People call me a star, but I'm just Giselle.'"

Tyler: "She's definitely got some Mean Girls vibes going on, and I firmly believe that Mean Girls was based off of this character because it's pretty much spot on."

Misty steps up to defend Joe, telling Giselle that beauty is only skin deep. They initiate a battle. Giselle sends out the Rock/Ground-type Graveler, explicitly stating that she has leveled it up so high that it can defeat Water types despite its natural weakness. (Tyler fully endorses this brute-force over-leveling strategy). Graveler slams into Starmie, sending the starfish flying completely out of the room and into a nearby swimming pool.

Giselle turns her attention to Ash, and what follows is one of the longest, most rambling lectures in anime history.

Ash admits he has been a trainer for two months. Giselle is horrified that Pikachu isn't in a Pokéball yet, mocks Ash for only having three other Pokémon, and lectures him on Pikachu's evolutionary line, level caps, and stats. She mansplains Pokémon to him for what feels like an eternity.

Tyler: "Giselle's lecturing goes on and on and on... I was fiercely typing what she said, and I'm like, you know what? We're just gonna summarize this as she was rambling on about Pikachu facts."

Ash finally snaps and challenges her to a battle to shut her up.

Bone-Headed Defeat

Ash sends out Pikachu against Giselle's Cubone. Despite being lectured for the last five minutes about type advantages, Ash immediately commands Pikachu to use an electric shock on the Ground-type Cubone. It fails completely.

The exact moment Giselle’s perfect, calculated simulation data goes completely out the window because Ash has never read a rulebook in his life.

Cubone retaliates by throwing its bone like a boomerang, smacking Pikachu in the face. Ash screams that this is a "cheap trick."

Jeff: "Again, I feel like Ash is coming up with an excuse on why he is losing. Cubone throwing his club is cheap, but Ash won one of his badges by setting off the sprinkler system."

Pikachu dodges the next boomerang throw, rushes in, and starts biting and scratching Cubone's face. The boomerang bone circles back around and smacks Cubone in the back of the head. Cubone drops to the ground, crying. The battle is over.

When you realize you're wearing a skull but you're still just a sensitive little guy who needs a hug.

Giselle starts whining about her loss just as Team Rocket dramatically bursts onto the scene! Meowth purposefully jumps into the swimming pool for a "splashy entrance" (a pun that caused Tyler physical pain).

Giselle recognizes them as the lowest-scoring applicants in school history and challenges them. Team Rocket gets nervous. In response, the entire student body of Pokémon Tech surrounds Team Rocket and literally starts pelting them in the head with heavy metal Pokéballs. Team Rocket screams and runs away.

Tyler: "That was it? Like that was the whole showdown... We're expecting this big showdown. And then they, you know, throw some Pokéballs at them and they're like, 'I'm outta here.'"

The episode abruptly shifts to a mystical sunset accompanied by 90s soap opera music. Joe approaches Giselle and announces he is dropping out to go home and train properly. He asks if he can keep her picture. She says yes, and that she has a picture of him too because they are "friends now."

Tyler: "Joe, my man, you've been friend-zoned hard. Like, holy cow. Moment of silence for Joe, who is now deep in the friend zone... Also, at what point did this relationship dynamic change? She has literally been nothing but awful to him this entire episode."

Jeff: "It was kind of an abusive relationship where he really liked her and she just kind of used him."

Watching this toxic exchange, Ash turns to Misty and asks why they can't get along like that. Misty coldly reminds him that it's because he owes her a bike. The "To Be Continued" screen flashes, putting an end to this incredibly dialogue-heavy filler episode.

Tyler was completely drained by the end of this one, noting that the constant talking forced him to pause the episode three or four times just to keep up with his notes. While the last episode had terrible messaging regarding animal abuse, Tyler argued that this week's pacing and anti-climactic ending made it a structurally worse viewing experience.

Thankfully, the filler episodes are over for now! We have some massive story developments coming up, so pack your bags and join us next week as we trek deep into the wilderness to discover "Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village"!