Recap: Training Daze

Hello everyone, and welcome to my look at my least favorite episode of Pokémon Chronicles. Seeing as how this month marks the 1,000th episode of Pokémon; I thought I would do my least favorite episode of my least favorite incarnation of the franchise. Unconventional way to start this celebration as it is, I watched every episode of the show in the time since I did my look at “The Legend of Thunder” last year, and I determined which episode was the one I disliked the most from both the perspective of an 11-year-old and a 25-year-old. Let’s open up “Training Daze” and talk about it.

Even though I can understand how not everyone likes the first BW or DP themes, I find the former relaxing and the latter enjoyable for its cheesiness (the DP rap is still better than the One Piece rap or Transformers Cybertron rap, at least). However, the Chronicles theme is one of my many problems with this anime, and my least favorite Pokémon theme in general. It sounds less like an adventure in the Pokémon world and more like a sitcom theme, like the opening to Perfect Strangers. 

We open on Team Rocket blasting off for the umpteenth time, and one of James’ bottle caps flies onto Meowth’s face! Yuck! Not more Faygo!

Actually, it turns out that the bottle cap is a memento from when everyone first enlisted in Team Rocket; and here is a key reason why I decided on this episode as my least favorite of Chronicles: while the intention was to make an anime not directly connected to the main series; many of the people involved seemed to play fast and loose with the canon of that series. Much like “The Legend of Thunder,” this episode is basically a small sample of all my problems in just around 22 minutes.

Least of all, the series had a decent premise that wouldn’t be done justice until a decade or more later with Origins and now Generations.

We then flashback to Jessie in a Mission: Impossible-like training simulation, and it turns out she’s gone through an obscene amount of potential partners, as shown by this hapless trainee with a Mankey. 

I just wanted to be a botanist! I didn't sign up for this!

While Jessie is eager, her attitude draws the ire of Viper, voiced by my good friend Mike Pollock! Also, apparently Butch and Cassidy enlisted around the same time, even though this is somewhat at odds with their introduction in “The Breeding Center Secret.” Sure, they are still rivals with Jessie and James; but this uses their characterization after villain decay took hold, rather than being more competent individuals.

Further evidence is seen with Meowth just showing up with a bindle in his hand on Giovanni’s doorstep. Did they just forget the whole thing in Hollywood? I sure didn’t.

Elsewhere, it turns out one of the few consistent things in this episode is how competitive Jessie and Cassidy are; shown with their treadmill race. 

After this (as well as a bit with Meowth and Poké Chow that’s not too bad), the problems really start; where James appears here as Jessie’s new partner. … I know what you all are thinking, and yes; I am on the same page, so allow me to really start tearing this episode a new corn chute.

When the Hell did all this happen? What happened to Meowth being a Hollywood drifter? What happened to Jessie and her being an orphan after what happened with her mother? What happened to James running away from the pressures of his upbringing and his crazy fiancé? What happened to the two of them being Pokémon Tech washouts turned bike gangsters? I mean, if you’re going to show the early days of their tenure at Team Rocket, it would be nice if you followed their already established backstory!

I mean, this is a series that many people watched as an alternative to the main series, which actually wouldn’t be that bad; or at least if this episode didn’t seem to go out of its way to disregard the canon established by the main series. It’s not quite the “Principal and the Pauper” of the series, but it’s close in terms of how polarizing it is. It’s not like this ‘verse has an obsessive fanbase that would over-analyze this! Sorry, need to calm down, this should help.

Yet, this does lead to a somewhat cheesy sequence that I can’t help but admire even in something I don’t like all that much: a training montage between them.

Still, the episode is similar to “The Legend of Thunder” in one of my big problems with Chronicles: despite the concept they had, they didn’t really do a whole lot with it. It’s a big reason why I compare watching this anime instead of the main one to getting a tooth pulled in an alley because someone doesn’t like dentists: it’s rationale that doesn’t really make much sense overall. Reading some of Takeshi Shudo’s old blogs all this time after his passing, it’s interesting to see how many ideas that were never implemented; but this somehow was. He also had mixed feelings towards how Team Rocket was written after his retirement, and I don’t think he was all that pleased with this. I never met or knew the man, but I still submit the parts of the series I’ve enjoyed most after he left and passed away owe a huge debt to him.

My point is, they could have done a lot more to distinguish this from the main series; but most of they time, they didn’t really try. Even the animation isn’t really up to snuff, and I’ve looked at some pretty lousy stuff both in and out of this franchise for this blog. 

Anyway, after a training exercise in the wilderness and the usual BS that entails; Viper then gives Jessie, James, Cassidy and Butch one final test: to steal a red Snorlax from a high-security location by midnight. Why couldn’t we be watching a story about how the red Snorlax came to be?

Also, James is able to shake off being in the infirmary in an earlier scene. Honestly, the only thing that could kill these guys at this point is the heat death of the universe. He’s probably going to outlast more presidencies than Castro did in his lifetime.

To be fair, the heist is okay; with the silliness of the setup being somewhat marred by the off-model animation and the discrepancies with the script. Still, the fact that one of my favorite songs from the 2BA Master album is playing, “Team Rocket’s Rockin’” is one of the few things I like about this episode. 

Also, I admit some of the traps in the training simulator are kind of over-the-top; such as a boulder in the hall. Is Viper secretly the King of all Cosmos?

Butch and Cassidy reach the red Snorlax, but they’re caught in a pitfall trap!

Butch and Cassidy got caught. Who fights next?

So, Jessie and James rig up the cage holding Snorlax on balloons to try and steal it; but wind up in this position. Kiss her, you fool- there will never be a better time.

Yet, despite all the pretense in this episode, everyone is still awarded full membership; effectively rendering any tension null and void. This is a bigger ripoff than Robopon! 

Even with all the cheering, the continuity alarm is off the scale. Furthering the irony, the episode ends on how low they’ve fallen since their desire to become the best team ever. Cue the Price is Right music.

This episode, much like “The Legend of Thunder,” is essentially a microcosm of all my problems with Chronicles in a single package. The animation is lacking, the show doesn’t take advantage of the premise it has, and the storytelling is inconsistent within its own series, let alone the main one. Even though there are some people who didn’t care for how Team Rocket became darker in Best Wishes, at least that was doing something that made more sense than this slog.

Now, if I may play Darkrai’s advocate once again, there is one way that this could have been salvaged. The premise of the early days of Jessie, James and Meowth enlisting in Team Rocket could be easily improved by sticking to the already established backstory they have. Jessie being an orphan because of her mother’s disappearance, James being ostracized because of his aristocratic upbringing; as well as both of them enlisting because of previously being Pokémon Tech washouts turned bike gangsters. Meowth’s backstory in Hollywood would also be all right to follow-up on. Still, as I said before, however, they didn’t really try. I am immensely thankful that later attempts at this premise, such as Origins and Generations fared significantly better by focusing on doing their own thing and not worrying so much about carrying the weight of its seniors on their shoulders. Even the Mega Evolution Specials, for all my mixed feelings towards them, at least tried something different, the whole can of worms at the Lumiose Conference be damned.

On November 9, the 1,000th episode of Pokémon will air in Japan, and that is no small accomplishment for any series, let alone one made for children. There are entire anime that don’t even get to a fraction of that, and I am eager to see what they have in mind. I know the series has had its ups and downs even before I started this blog, but I guarantee that no TV show lasts that long if absolutely no one likes it. With that in mind, I have an episode from the Sun and Moon series that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and one I absolutely love for not only that occasion, but for the release of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. You’ll just have to wait and see what it is. After that, I will also do the XY trilogy of movies before I watch the I Choose You movie on November 25, with my full recap of the movie coming around Christmas. That will be all for now. See you, space cowboy.