Yes, I know I just said I wasn’t going to be doing many or any episode-posts. So sue me.

Anyway, a while back famed fansub group Dattebayo announced that they were dropping Naruto in favor of subbing Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and released a fansub of the ninth episode, also stating that they would later go back and sub the previous episodes. Surprising no one who has ever paid the slightest bit of attention to their antics, this news post was a troll, and Dattebayo continues to sub Naruto to this day.

Much more surprisingly, they recently actually released a fansub of the first episode of the series. This prompted me to download and watch it, since I clearly have too much free time.

Surprisingly, to me at least, the main character turns out to be a girl named Hikari, who is just about everything you’d expect for being the main character of a Pokemon show. Or at least, everything I’d expect. Who knows what you’d expect?

The most amusing thing about the episode was, by far, the episode watched like an almost-perfect transcription of the beginning of a Pokemon game. I suppose that’s to be expected, but almost every line of dialogue even can be imagined as being delivered in the game. I swear I could even point out exactly where the player gets to name the new character.

Incidentally, I was actually mildly surprised that it turned out that Hikari went with the water Pokemon as her initial choice. Up until they fought together for the boss fight in the first sub-quest, I was expecting it to be the fire Pokemon, since it was the mischievous one and fire powers generally go with being the main character in anime.

Then again, maybe Hikari ultimately won’t be the main character, since late in the episode it abruptly switches to the more familiar Ash… err, Satoshi for a couple minutes. Apparently, he’s in this new region to become the champion, yadda yadda; Team Rocket follows him; they capture Pikachu; they lose Pikachu, but he remains separated from As- Satoshi.

Surely, these two plots will unite at some point, and it might be interesting to see how and which is dominant. Interesting enough for me to watch more? Well, that would depend on how bored I am if/when Dattebayo comes out with the second episode…