To Train, or Not to Train! – Pokémon Season 24, Episode 1

Plot episodeChloe catches EeveeChloe’s Rotom Phone

To Train, or Not to Train! is the 1st episode of Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series, the twenty-fourth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1129th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1135, Bulbapedia code JN049). It first aired in Japan on 11 December 2020 and in the United States on 10 September 2021. It falls within the season’s Chloe’s Eevee & a new year of research stretch (EP49–EP55).

The first episode of Netflix’s Part 1 (JN049–JN060), released in the US on Friday 10 September 2021; Teletoon had premiered it in Canada on 12 June 2021, followed by e.tv in South Africa on 3 August 2021 and POP in the UK on 1 September 2021. The Pokémon Company International had announced the season’s exclusive US premiere on Netflix on 7 July 2021.

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

Synopsis

Chloe catches her first Pokémon, a curious Eevee that will not evolve, after it runs away from the Eevee Evolution Lab and finds her at school. At the lab, a female Eevee watches its evolved relatives and tries to copy them, tripping while strutting like Sylveon and nearly drowning while swimming like Vaporeon; lab head Pinery’s tests with a Fire Stone and a Thunder Stone produce no Evolution at all. On the way to school, Goh asks Chloe why she has never caught a Pokémon of her own. She admits she does not want to feel pushed into following her father, Professor Cerise, into research and would rather find her own path in her own time. Goh is in class only because he promised his teacher to attend on test days, and the teacher has the students leave their Pokémon in the schoolyard, where Sobble bursts into tears and even Cinderace struggles to calm it. Watching from the bushes, Team Rocket put on school uniforms to steal every Pokémon in the yard.

Meanwhile Yamper wanders away from Ash on a walk and passes the lab, and Eevee slips out to follow him, imitating his waddle, his sneeze and even his intimidation until the two become friends. Lab assistants with a net chase them to the school, where Yamper sniffs out Chloe. She leaves her test, finds Eevee in the rose garden and hides her from the searchers, then calls Goh, who explains that Eevee has eight possible Evolutions and boldly confronts the “bad people” so that Chloe can escape. In the schoolyard, Team Rocket are vacuuming up the students’ Pokémon, Sobble and Cinderace among them, and Ash and Pikachu, arriving in search of Yamper, tumble into a pitfall trap. The assistants finally explain that they are researchers from the Eevee Evolution Lab, Ash shouts what is really happening, and Team Rocket throw off their disguises and recite their motto.

The Rocket Prize Master refuses to work, so Pelipper has to battle alone, knocking Yamper back with Wing Attack and shrugging off his Spark. When Yamper falls, Eevee jumps out of Chloe’s arms, copies his electricity with Copycat, and the two blast Pelipper away with a double Spark that overpowers its Hydro Pump; Pikachu’s Iron Tail frees the captured Pokémon and Thunderbolt sends Team Rocket flying. That evening Cerise apologises to Pinery for the mix-up, but as the researchers prepare to leave, Eevee leaps back into Chloe’s arms. Pinery explains that this Eevee has not evolved in any experiment, perhaps because it is reluctant to choose among its forms, and asks Chloe to look after it. Goh hands Chloe a Poké Ball and Eevee climbs in willingly, becoming her first catch, and Cerise gives his daughter a pink Rotom Phone. Chloe scans her new partner and promises that they will take things one step at a time, together.

Major Events

• Chloe’s first Pokémon. Chloe catches a female Eevee from Pinery’s Eevee Evolution Lab that will not evolve with stones, and receives a pink Rotom Phone from Professor Cerise
• Eevee copies Yamper’s Spark with Copycat
• The Rocket Prize Master jams, so Pelipper battles alone
• The first female Eevee shown with its gender difference
• The first pitfall trap of Journeys
• The last episode with the Nishikawa-kun and Kirishō version of 1·2·3, and the last Japanese episode before Secrets of the Jungle

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Eevee#0133 · JN049

Captures and evolutions

• Eevee#0133 · Chloe · her first Pokémon, from the Eevee Evolution Lab

Trivia

• The English title plays on Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be”, as Chloe weighs whether to become a Trainer.
• The screenplay is by Aya Matsui.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto, Galar & beyond storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• In the Polish dub, Chloe’s Eevee is called male until JN069
• Debut of the English opening Journey to Your Heart (Haven Paschall); Netflix plays its instrumental over the credits, though the captions still show the lyrics, while Teletoon plays the vocal version
• The last episode with the Nishikawa-kun and Kirishō version of 1·2·3
• On its first Japanese airing, Strange and Wonderful Creatures plays before Pokémon Shiritori (as it does through JN054)

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