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| Season | Pokémon: Johto League Champions (Season 4) · A new look in Japan: Wobbuffet, sumo & Crobat arc (EP192–EP196) |
| Episode | Season 4, episode 38 · English episode 195 · Japanese episode 197 · Bulbapedia code EP195 |
| English title | The Poké-Spokesman |
| Japanese title | ポケモンとはなせます!? ポケモンのことばポケモンのきもち! Pokemon to Hanasemasu!? Pokemon no Kotoba Pokemon no Kimochi! — “You Can Speak with Pokémon!? The Words and Feelings of Pokémon!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 26 April 2001 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 23 March 2002 · Kids’ WB |
| Screenplay | Takeshi Shudō |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Mezase Pokémon Master (Whiteberry version) – Whiteberry · Maemuki Rocket-dan! (Face Forward Team Rocket!) – Team Rocket |
| English opening | Born to Be a Winner – David Rolfe |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Wooper (US) · Magneton (Japan) |
| Previous episode | Ring Masters (EP194) |
| Next episode | Control Freak! (EP196) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeTakeshi Shudō script
The Poké-Spokesman is the 38th episode of Pokémon: Johto League Champions, the fourth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 195th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 197, Bulbapedia code EP195). It first aired in Japan on 26 April 2001 and in the United States on 23 March 2002. It falls within the season’s A new look in Japan: Wobbuffet, sumo & Crobat stretch (EP192–EP196).
Synopsis
An old man who claims to talk to Pokémon is arrested as a con artist, until his heartfelt words to a swarm of Magnemite prove him sincere. Pikachu is drained by the electricity-sapping soil of a mountain trail, and Simon, who runs a roadside rest stop, “translates” his fatigue and hooks him to a bicycle generator. Team Rocket, lurking as pensioners for a discount, are intrigued, though Meowth cannot understand a word of it.
Officer Jenny arrives to arrest Simon as the interpreter behind a string of swindles, dismissing the idea that Pokémon can understand people. Smoke bombs scatter everyone and the real fraudsters, a gang of fake interpreters, abduct Simon to force him into their racket. Eavesdropping, Meowth grows unexpectedly tearful about frauds who cheapen honest Pokémon speech. Simon escapes, admits to Ash that he senses feelings rather than words, and recalls the Pidgey, Rattata and Oddish that talked to him in a storm cellar sixty years earlier.
The con men surround the Pokémon Center with half-starved Magnemite and Magneton ordered to drain its power. Simon pleads with the Pokémon to spare their fellow patients, and they settle calmly on the grass; Pikachu re-energises them and they shock the crooks as the police arrive. Simon’s belief is confirmed next morning when a passing Meowth answers him back.
Major Events
- Simon, the Pokémon interpreter
- 29 seconds cut in the dub
- Butch and Cassidy’s wanted-poster cameo
- Screenplay by Takeshi Shudō
Trivia
- The screenplay is by Takeshi Shudō.
- 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 Magneton in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Wooper in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.
Changes in the English Dub
- 29 seconds cut: Team Rocket fire a three-rocket bazooka at the gang’s cabin, two rockets bounce off the roof and the third blasts the trio away. Dogasu’s Backpack suspects Kids’ WB objected to rockets hitting a building two months after the September 11 attacks.
- The man’s Japanese name, Lang, becomes Simon, losing its pun on “language”.
- Magneton is misnamed “Magnetun”.
- An unusually large amount of the Japanese score is replaced.
Part of our Pokémon: Johto League Champions guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.