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| Challenge of the Samurai
|
サムライしょうねんのちょうせん！
Challenge of the Samurai Boy
|
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First broadcast
| Japan
|
April 22, 1997
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| United States
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September 11, 1998
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|
English themes
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Japanese themes
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Credits
| Animation
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Team Ota
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| Screenplay
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園田英樹 Hideki Sonoda
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| Storyboard
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鈴木敏明 Toshiaki Suzuki
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| Assistant director
|
大原実 Minoru Ōhara
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| Animation director
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平岡正幸 Masayuki Hiraoka
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| Additional credits
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Challenge of the Samurai (Japanese: サムライしょうねんのちょうせん！ Challenge of the Samurai Boy) is the fourth episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on April 22, 1997 and in USA on September 11, 1998.
Synopsis
Ash, Misty continued their travel through the Viridian Forest on the way to Pewter City. Suddenly, Ash spotted a Weedle and decided to catch it. He tried to use Pikachu against it, but it was more interested in sleeping rather than battling, so he sent out his Pidgeotto. Pidgeotto managed to defeat Weedle but just when Ash was about to toss a Poké Ball to capture it, a person dressed as a samurai arrived on scene. The samurai asked Misty if she was from Pallet Town and when she replied in the negative, he turned to Ash. The wild Weedle escaped and the samurai rebuked Ash for it. The two then engaged themselves in a Pokémon battle.
Ash used his Pidgeotto and the samurai battled with his Pinsir. The two battled for sometime and finally, Pinsir managed to defeat Pidgeotto. Ash then sent out his Metapod. Metapod broke Pinsir's pincers with Harden and won the round. The samurai then sent out his Metapod! The two Metapod continued to harden themselves leading Misty and Pikachu to wonder whether the match would ever finish. Suddenly, a swarm of Beedrill arrived and lifted Ash's Metapod away. The samurai took Ash, Misty and their other Pokémon to a safe place.
In the samurai's hiding place, the samurai furiously rebuked Ash for putting his Metapod in danger. Ash kept mum and promises to himself that he would find out Metapod the next day and look after it from then on. During the night, he was unable to sleep and can only think about his Metapod.
The next day, the group started their search for Metapod. They soon find it on a tree among many Kakuna. Ash joyously goes to Metapod to take him back in his team. He however saw a look of sorrow on Metapod and realized that he had lost its trust. He apologized to it and promised to take better care of it next time and managed to regain its trust. To show that it has faith in him, Metapod saved him from a Beedrill which was about to attack him from behind. It then started glowing and evolved into a Butterfree. Ash happily looked at his first fully-evolved Pokémon, and even Misty didn't feel her normal fear of bugs and remarked on its beauty.
Ash and the others are then once again attacked by the swarm of Beedrill, but this time, Ash was prepared for them. He ordered his newly evolved Butterfree to use Sleep Powder and which puts the bee-like Pokémon to sleep. They then escaped from the area.
Later, Ash and the samurai parted as friends, but promised to battle again. He and Misty then went on and finally reached the end of the Viridian Forest. Ash ran at full speed towards Pewter City to earn his first Gym Badge, with Misty close behind.
Major events
Debuts
Pokémon debuts
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: Metapod
Trivia
- This is the first episode in which Ash participates in a "fair" battle.
- This is the first time the lines "Prepare for trouble!" and "And make it double!" are included in the Team Rocket's motto.
- Samurai is based on a bug catcher trainer class.
- Samurai is the first anime character of the day.
- In this episode, Metapod's and Kakuna's evolutions are depicted as their shells cracking and their evolved forms emerging. In later episodes, however, Metapod and Kakuna are shown to evolve like any other Pokémon.
- When Ash, Misty and Samurai are sleeping down for the night and Ash is wide awake worrying about Metapod, his Japanese name, Satoshi, is written on his sleeping bag and not painted over.
- Ash tries to capture a Weedle, but fails. Later on, however, he would succeed in capturing its evolved form, but he would give it away shortly afterward. Incidentally, in that episode, Ash tries to capture another Weedle and fails.
Errors
- When Ash sets out the next morning to look for Metapod, Meowth kicks Ash in the head and scratches him. After he starts crying Jessie and James are shown on top of the cliff above him. Ash runs off after they recited their motto, during this time Meowth was still next to him. When the camera cuts to Jessie and James jumping off the cliff and running after them, Meowth is shown jumping off with them.
- In one scene, when Ash is arguing with Samurai, his gloves disappear.
Dub edits
- Ash getting in a cow costume and suggesting that a bug is a "cowterpie" makes more sense in the Japanese pun: Misty says "Mushi! Mushi! Mushi! ...Mushi!" which means "Bug! Bug! Bug! ...Bug!". Ash then says "Ushi?", meaning "Cow?".
- The word "Mika" on Jessie's Kakuna disguise is painted out in the dub.
In other languages
- Czech: Souboj se samurajem
- Dutch: De Samoerai Uitdaging!
- European and Brazilian Portuguese: O Desafio do Samurai
- Finnish: Samurain haaste
- French: Le défi du Samouraï
- German: Die Herausforderung
- Italian: La sfida del Samurai
- Latin American Spanish: ¡El desafio del Samurai!
- Iberian Spanish: El reto del Samurai
- Mandarin: 武士少年的挑战
