Grass Hysteria! – Pokémon Season 7, Episode 33

Plot episodeMay catches Bulbasaur

Grass Hysteria! is the 33rd episode of Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, the seventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 346th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 349, Bulbapedia code AG073). It first aired in Japan on 22 April 2004 and in the United States on 9 April 2005. It falls within the season’s Littleroot to Rubello: Oak, Bulbasaur & the R1 Contest stretch (EP71–EP78).

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

Synopsis

Lost in an uncharted part of Hoenn on the way to Fortree, with their compass and PokéNav both malfunctioning, the group are attacked by a wild Skarmory. When Skitty pops out into its path, the Skarmory snatches May by her waist pack and carries her away. Ash, Brock and Max give chase but are stopped at a huge wooden wall by two cloaked guards, who explain that beyond it lies the Forbidden Forest, where humans may not enter. They take the boys to their village, where Old Man Obee calls a meeting to discuss the problem. While the villagers debate, Ash slips into the forest alone. Meanwhile the Skarmory drops May on a mountainside, where she finds a wild Bulbasaur trying to pick flowers at the edge of a cliff and catches it just as it slips.

May reassures the Bulbasaur and it warms to her, but then a mob of wild Grass-types attacks. Torchic’s Ember clears an escape route, and May runs through the forest until she is cornered against a tree, at which point Ash swings in and Pikachu’s Thunderbolt opens a path. In the village, Obee explains that the forest is a sanctuary: so many Trainers once captured its Grass-types that the Pokémon became hostile to humans, and the villagers built the wall to protect them. The area’s magnetism also explains the faulty gadgets. The villagers agree to help, and Obee opens the gate and tracks the missing pair with his three Poochyena. Team Rocket overhear and sneak in after them, hoping to steal the forest’s Pokémon for Giovanni.

Ash and May are trapped at a cliff edge when a huge Venusaur appears with the Bulbasaur that May saved, which turns out to be its child, and orders the Grass-types to stand down. Venusaur leads them to a spring at the heart of the forest, where Bulbasaur gives May flowers, carries her around with Vine Whip and listens wide-eyed as May describes the world beyond the forest it has never left. Team Rocket then arrive in a giant robot that scoops up wild Pokémon, deflects Thunderbolt, knocks Venusaur aside and drops Bulbasaur and May into a sack on its back. Obee, Brock, Max and the villagers arrive; a Poochyena’s Shadow Ball stuns the machine and Venusaur’s Solar Beam destroys it. As the group prepare to leave, May tearfully says goodbye, but at the last moment Bulbasaur decides to follow her and becomes May’s newest Pokémon.

Major Events

• The Forbidden Forest and Old Man Obee
• May catches Bulbasaur, the child of the forest’s Venusaur and the first Grass-type first partner owned by a companion other than Ash
• First episode with 4Kids’ new production logo

Captures and evolutions

• Bulbasaur#0001 · May · follows her out of the Forbidden Forest

Trivia

• The English title plays on "mass hysteria".
• The screenplay is by Shinzō Fujita.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Hoenn storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• 5 seconds of repeated mecha footage cut
• Jessie’s akanbe kept, unlike in AG072 and AG077
• Pokémon Trainer’s Choice (dub only, in place of Who’s That Pokémon?): which Pokémon evolves into Manectric? Answer: Electrike

Part of our Pokémon: Advanced Challenge guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.