Foul Weather Friends – Pokémon Season 3, Episode 21

Filler / stand-alone episodeHoppip debut

Foul Weather Friends is the 21st episode of Pokémon: The Johto Journeys, the third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 137th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 139, Bulbapedia code EP137). It first aired in Japan on 2 March 2000 and in the United States on 10 February 2001. It falls within the season’s Between the Gyms stretch (EP135–EP140).

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

Synopsis

Ash and friends are continuing their journey through a place filled with grass type Pokemon when they are approached by a little Hoppip. A sudden breeze sweeps the hoppip into the air and Ash and friends give chase; they witness the Hoppip getting caught in a net by a girl who introduces herself as Mariah.

Mariah takes the group back to see her place, where she looks after seven Hoppip’s, and it turns out that she’s a weather forecaster and uses the Hoppip to help her predict the weather. Just then a very strong breeze blows all the Hoppip away; except one…. The one runs along and tries to jump from a rock to be with its friends. It turns out this little Pokémon is an Oddish but its spent so much time with Hoppip for friends that it wants to be just like them. It looks really sad that it can’t fly like its friends.

Team Rocket are watching nearby and plotting about the things they could do with a group of Hoppip. Just as Misty is giving Oddish a little pep talk, Team Rocket cut a hole in the nets that help to contain Mariah’s Hoppip before using large manual fans to launch the Hoppip into the air.. but it doesn’t work. Meowth then unveils a huge super powered fan which they use to try and blow the Hoppip away. With a good couple of attacks from Chikorita and Pikachu Team Rocket are sent blasting off. Oddish was praised for his heroics too (he stopped one of his friends being blown away). All of a sudden the Hoppip huddle together and lock their leaves together…. Mariah believes this is because a terrible wind storm is on its way and rushes the group and her Hoppip inside her cabin and unfortunately shes right, the wind storm rips the roof off her cabin and the twister takes the Hoppip and even Oddish with it.

The next morning when the storm has passed Mariah finds Oddish in the wreckage of her home, it’s a little dizzy but otherwise OK. The group, led by Oddish set out to find the missing Hoppip. They find one stuck in a tree and Brock climbs up to get it down. Next they find one stuck to a branch in treacherous waters, Brock again volunteers to get it to impress Mariah. They then spot one more Hoppip flying over and chase it, meanwhile it seems that the remaining four floated right into Team Rocket’s path and got captured. The one Ash and gang were chasing then meets the same fate, but Mariah along with Ash and friends confront them to try and rescue the Hoppip, Misty sending her Staryu to tackle the balloon, sending it blasting off into the woods. The group give chase and find the balloon’s wreckage, and the four Hoppip; the usual battle ensues and Ash sends his Heracross, Misty her Staryu to battle Arbok and Victreebel…. However Oddish has other ideas and wants to save its friends itself.

Oddish demonstrates a really powerful tackle and kick and stunspores Victreebel, it then takes on Arbok and using a combination of impressive jumps and sleep powder and defeats him too before sending Team Rocket blasting off (again, again). The group give Oddish another peptalk about its super performance in battle, and the great job it did finding its friends and it doesn’t appear to be sad anymore that it can’t fly, instead taking great pride in what it CAN do, not worrying about what it CANT.

The group help Mariah rebuild her home before walking off into the sunset to continue their journey.

Major Events

• Hoppip debut
• Team Rocket blast off three times

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Hoppip#0187 · EP137

Trivia

• The English title plays on "fair-weather friends", for Mariah’s weather-forecasting Hoppip (reused for AG083).
• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Johto story.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Hoppip in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Gligar in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Instrumental OK! as background music; the dub adds “Viridian City”.
• Pokémon Karaokémon: “You & Me & Pokémon” (Élan Rivera & PJ Lequerica).

Part of our Pokémon: The Johto Journeys guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.