Tentacool & Tentacruel – Pokémon Season 1, Episode 19

Plot episodeMisty catches Horsea

Tentacool & Tentacruel is the 19th episode of Pokémon: Indigo League, the first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 19th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 19, Bulbapedia code EP019). It first aired in Japan on 5 August 1997 and in the United States on 1 October 1998. It falls within the season’s The St. Anne & Porta Vista stretch (EP15–EP19).

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

Ash and friends are running late as always and miss the boat they were meant to be on from Porta Vista, while sat around waiting for the next one they see an injured Horsea who Misty is about to capture when there is a huge explosion only to discover that it was caused by a huge number of Tentacool attacking a Ship and paralyzing the sailors. The distraction means Misty leaves the injured Horsea and dispatches her water Pokemon to help rescue the people who had been on the ship. One of the sailors they rescue is insistant on informing “the boss” what has happened. The boss is an unpleasant character called Nastina who thanks the heroes for their help and offers them a stay at her hotel, she advises them that she’s building a massive hotel resort – to do this she needs to destroy the reefs. Nastina asks the trio to exterminate the Tentacool and offers to pay them well with luxury feasts, 1 million dollars and more but there’d be a lot of murdering to do first. Misty strongly objects and walks out.

Misty must have rescued the Horsea behind the scenes as it’s then seen in a paddling pool with Pikachu and Brock notes that the Super Potion they gave it is working. Nastina turns up in a tank offering a million dollars to whoever exterminates the Tentacool, just as Jessie and James show up. Nastina hires Team Rocket to exterminate the Tentacool and they board a boat, setting a course for the construction site of Nastina’s new resort with a plan to pour Tentacool stun source in the water, catch them all and sell them at market (unknowing that they aren’t really edible). They quickly encounter 10,000 Tentacool who fire on the ship, knocking TR’s barrell of substance onto one of the Tentacool to crazy effect…. it becomes a giant Tentacruel and begins to attack the resort. Nastina and her crew start firing at Tentacruel, but the shells simply bounce off him – meanwhile Tentacool’s start to take over the Island, and the giant Tentacruel too begins its approach bringing with it a giant tidal wave.

Tentacruel lays waste to Nastina’s resort entirely and the group realise what Horsea had earlier been trying to communicate to them. Tentacruel captures Meowth and uses his speech ability to communicate what they are doing, telling people that they are attacking and destroying their homes and cities exactly the way their own homes have been devastated by the construction work. Horsea pleads with Tentacruel to stop the destruction and begins to argue with it, Tentacruel hits Horsea hard and Ash’s Pidgeotto rescues it just in time. Ash, Misty and Brock send ALL of their Pokemon to battle the Tentacruel and Tentacool sending many of them back to the sea but Tentacruel is strong and begins to overwhelm the much smaller Pokemon. Pikachu tries to reason with Tentacruel where Horsea failed, Misty appears atop a building and continues to plead with Tentacruel stating that the humans understand they have hurt them, and that they won’t destroy their homes anymore and they are sorry. Tentacruel warns everyone that if this happens again they will not stop, discards Meowth and begins to return to the sea. Nastina emerges from under a pile of rocks and starts to fire on Tentacruel, who promptly knocks her into the sunset and submerges beneath the waves.

A short while later Nastina lands on someone who is building the frame of a new building, it turns out to be Brutella, the restaurant owner from the previous episode who is infact Nastina’s cousin!

Major Events

• — Misty catches Horsea
• Nastina
• Giant Tentacruel floods Porta Vista. Debuts: Tentacool, Tentacruel, Horsea
• Brutella’s dub debut. Pulled by Kids’ WB! after 9/11 and after Hurricane Katrina.

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Tentacool#0072 · EP019
• Tentacruel#0073 · EP019
• Horsea#0116 · EP019

Captures and evolutions

• Horsea#0116 · Misty

Trivia

• The screenplay is by Atsuhiro Tomioka.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• Brutella’s fan kanji (3 shots), 徳用 barrel → Tentacool no-symbol, sunomono and Ryuu’s restaurant signs painted
• Jessie’s earring accidentally erased
• シーフード left
• ¥1,000,000 → $1,000,000
• Pulled by Kids’ WB! after 11 September 2001 (Tentacruel destroys a skyscraper) and again after Hurricane Katrina in 2005
• Nastina’s scene rewritten because dub viewers had not met Brutella
• ¥1,000,000 becomes $1,000,000
• Dub ending: the Kanto Pokérap (Thursday segment)

Part of our Pokémon: Indigo League guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.