"They say luck is an important skill too!"
Score: 2/10
The heroes just barely reach the boat to Mossdeep Island, which is good, because who wants more filler? Get to the damn gym episodes, am I right?
Naaaaaah, I'm just screwing with you. They get on the wrong boat, one that's going to "Bomba Island." How did they board the wrong boat when boats generally require tickets? Well the answer is shut up.
They reach Bomba Island, but sadly, there's no direct route to Mossdeep Island, so they'll have to go island hopping. If this sounds familiar, it's because this was the entire Orange Islands arc and also the Whirl Cup arc. Somewhere in Japan, there is a professional writer who, upon hearing the word "island," always thinks to himself "Yes. This is good for at least seven or eight episodes of pure filler."
They come across a guy named Jimmy, and his Wartortle, Charmeleon, and Ivysaur. He's going to the Pokemon Battle Judge Training Institute school. Wait, there's a school for that? Brock has judged over legitimate gym matches before, was he unqualified for the job?
No time to ask questions, upon learning that the heroes are trainers, the school's principal, Professor Serena, asks them to help her out by battling each other in a double battle. Corphish and Swellow versus Lombre and Mudkip while Jimmy judges. Jimmy makes some bad calls during the match, which by the way we don't get to see the end of so we'll never know who won.
At night, Jimmy pouts to himself and his pokemon, so the heroes come up to him. He tells the heroes the story of how he caught his pokemon while he was still a regular trainer: he was given a Squirtle, he fed an Ivysaur, and he traded a shiny Magikarp for a Charmeleon. He's worried that he'll never be a good trainer or a good judge, and that while he's lucky, he's nothing else. Professor Serena shows up and tells him that he's wrong: he has a good, kind heart. Well, that's definitely relevant.
Team Rocket attacks and steals Jimmy's pokemon.
They try to escape in their giant robot, but Jimmy attacks them. They defeat him easily, and then the weirdest scene takes place.
Serena tells Jimmy that "Luck didn't bring your pokemon to you! It was your destiny that brought you all together!" Now, aside from the utter insanity of that statement, and the fact that it was indeed pure luck that he ran into Ivysaur and caught a shiny Magikarp, it has nothing at all to do with the fact that Team Rocket is stealing his pokemon.
Well, whatever. Seeing Jimmy fail to stop Team Rocket causes Wartortle to evolve into Blastoise. With his new, stronger pokemon, Jimmy blasts them off. Serena then expels Jimmy out of the institute and tells him to be a trainer instead, because his good, kind heart will no doubt do him well in that.
Jimmy takes the boat back to Lilycove City. You would think the heroes would go too, since there's another boat to Mossdeep and they could just avoid the island hopping adventure, but nope. Nope, it's time for more filler.
This is an awful episode by its own merits, but don't forget that it's also the season finale. We get an irrelevant character who gets more character development and screen time than the actual heroes and who never shows up again after this episode, and the only relevant thing we do get is set up for filler.
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Started: July 6, 2005