Anime / Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire

Spoilers for all Pokémon: The Series seasons preceding this one will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire (ポケットモンスター　アドバンスジェネレーション Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation) is the second Pokémon anime series that ran from 2002 to 2006 in Japan and from 2003 to 2007 in America. This region has Ash going through Hoenn to take part in the Hoenn League, and later, the Battle Frontier. May, a Pokémon Coordinator, Max, her younger brother, and Brock, returning from the previous series, are his companions.

English dub:

• Season 6: Advanced (Episodes 1-40)
• Season 7: Advanced Challenge (Episodes 41-92)
• Season 8: Advanced Battle (Episodes 93-145)
• Season 9: Battle Frontier (Episodes 146-192)

Japanese version:

• Hoenn League (Episodes 1-134)
• Kanto Battle Frontier (Episodes 135-192)

---

This series provides examples of:

Tropes A to G

• Adapted Out:
  • Professor Birch's child, who would be Brendan if the player picks May as their character, is absent from the series. Brendan does make small cameos in the movies such as Pokémon: Jirachi: Wish Maker and Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea.
  • Wally is absent here though Drew has aesthetic similarities and is May's rival, while Max covers the Kid Appeal, the student-to-the-Player role, and being close to a Ralts (despite not catching it).
  • While Tabitha of Team Magma and Shelly of Team Aqua appear as the frontline Admins for their teams in the anime, the second set of Admins, Courtney of Team Magma and Matt of Team Aqua, do not appear in the anime.
  • Although "Gaining Groudon" and "The Scuffle of Legends" does emulate the climax of Pokémon Emerald with both Groudon and Kyogre fighting each other, it eschews the subplot of traveling to the Sky Pillar and summon Rayquaza to deal with them. Instead, the crisis is resolved when Groudon defeats Kyogre and knocks the Red Orb out of Archie's body with a Solar Beam.
  • The Hoenn Elite Four do not appear in the anime except the Dragon Trainer Drake. Steven Stone, the Hoenn Champion in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, only appears in one episode of the Advanced Generation series without indicating that he's the Hoenn Champion (though his next major appearance in the XY series implies that he eventually got it) while Wallace, former Gym Leader of Sootopolis City and Hoenn Champion in Pokémon Emerald, does not appear until the next series of the anime, Diamond & Pearl.
• Arc Villain:
  • Team Magma and Team Aqua serve as the regional villains for Ash and friends to contend with alongside the inept Team Rocket trio. After the Groudon Vs. Kyogre two-parter, composed of "Gaining Groudon" and "The Scuffle of Legends", ends with the two teams realizing the errors of their ways (and presumably reformed if not disbanded), the Team Rocket organization (not the trio) takes their place during the Battle Frontier arc.
  • Colonel Hansen in the Mirage Kingdom arc, who tries to steal Misty's Togepi in order to declare himself king.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Maxie and Archie are the villainous masterminds behind Team Magma and Team Aqua respectively. However, despite the mutual rivalry between the two teams, they only appear in "Gaining Groudon" and "The Scuffle of Legends", which happens to be the finale for the Team Magma/Team Aqua conflict.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • In both Kanto and Johto, Ash caught all three regional starters. Starting with Hoenn, the starters were divided between him and his companions, with the exception of Unova where he did end up catching all three starter Pokémon again, and the Journeys series, where he doesn't even acquire any of Galar's regional starters at all.
  • Hoenn is the first series where the core cast is made up of more than three people by adding a Tagalong Kid.
  • Hoenn is the first series to use a secondary female player character as a main cast member: May.
    • Additionally, Misty is no longer part of the main cast, being replaced by May.
• But Now I Must Go: Togetic in "A Togepi Mirage" leaves to protect the Togepi's home dimension.
• Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: In episode "Let Bagons Be Bagons" a Bagon tries to learn how to fly. It eventually does so with a jetpack before evolving into Shelgon.
• Clam Trap: In the episode "Clamperl of Wisdom!", a Clamperl (an oyster-like Pokémon) bites down on Meowth's tail at one point. This scene currently serves as the trope's page image.
• Cooking Duel: In "Hail to the Chef", Rhoda and Rhonda face off against each other with their Mr. Mime and Sneasel, respectively, to see who's the best.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In one episode, Shiftry kidnaps Nurse Joy by hitting her with Sleep Powder. However, the gang keeps referring to it as Stun Spore; a move that paralyzes a foe, not put them to sleep. Whoops.
• Elemental Armor: The infamous Thunder Armor debuted here. Ash command Pikachu to fire a Thunderbolt into some clouds while riding Swellow. The blast returned as a solid column of lightning, which somehow gave Pikachu and Swellow a golden coating apparently made of electricity. This "thunder armor" drastically increased their speed and attack power, allowing Ash to pull off a complete turn around from a losing battle against Tate and Liza. Gets lampshaded in the dub when Liza says that she can't believe that worked.
• Establishing Series Moment: May's introduction in the very first scene of "Get the Show on the Road!" not only establishes the character of May, but it also firmly cements the anime as the story about Ash and the friends he meets in one region rather than just the team of Ash, Misty, and Brock traveling across the world.
• Evil Versus Evil: Team Magma vs Team Aqua, naturally. With the Team Rocket trio thrown in the mix for good measure. To a lesser extent, the Team Rocket trio and their rivals, Butch and Cassidy.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: After Archie gets possessed by the Red Orb trying to control Kyogre, Team Magma and the rest of Team Aqua form an Enemy Mine to help Groudon prevent Kyogre from sinking the island that they're standing on.
• Franchise Codifier: The Advanced Generation series established the primary tone, formula, and trends for most future sagas of the anime. Ash leaves behind his current team at Professor Oak's lab and travels each new region with a new outfit and friend group, now rotating in and out of focus with his companions (particularly the female ones, being the first series to seriously focus on the female lead's goal). It also puts a greater focus on arcs and Character Development for both Ash and his companions, over the wacky comedy of the original series.
• Guilt-Tripping: In the episode A Ruin with a View, May tries to get Ash to walk slower since she's not used to long-distance walking. Ash tries to get her to hurry up, but May reminds him she used to have a bike. This guilts Ash and Pikachu, as the ones responsible for ruining her bike, into accommodating her slower walk.

Tropes N to W

• No-Harm Requirement: In "You Can Never Taillow", Ash and Pikachu find themselves having to square off against the leader of a fierce Taillow flock. However, it is a determined Blood Knight and keeps battling despite taking numerous powerful Electric attacks from Pikachu. Fearing that he may cause it too much damage, Ash ends up capturing it.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Despite being villainous bosses, neither Maxie nor Archie actually battle with Pokémon. This is more prominent with Maxie, who doesn't even get to control Groudon to combat Archie and the Kyogre under his thrall (that ends up being Pikachu).
• Otherworldly Communication Failure: In "Absol-ute Disaster," the Pokémon Absol starts appearing around an island town where bridges have suddenly started collapsing, and the local townspeople accuse Absol of causing the bridges to collapse. It's later revealed that Absol can detect oncoming disasters and has been trying to warn the town about the local spring, which is overflowing and in danger of flooding the entire town, but since he can't speak in a human language, the townspeople believe it's to blame.
• Petty Childhood Grudge: One of the reasons Harley dislikes May is that when he was younger, a girl who looked like her ate his cookies.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: At the beginning of the Battle Frontier arc, Giovanni literally reassigns Jessie, James and Meowth to Antarctica, though the trio didn't realize what it actually meant.
• Super Title 64 Advance: The Japanese title, and the first three dub seasons, are named after the Game Boy Advance, the console Ruby and Sapphire were on.
• Third-Option Adaptation: Like Pokémon Emerald, the Advanced Generation series treats both regional teams to be evil jerks, and combines the awakening of Groudon and Kyogre into one event where the two titans clash for dominance. There is, however, no Rayquaza to defeat both of them.^note that won't happen until the Mega Evolution Acts during the XY series as a little promotion of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Mixed with Bizarro Episode, "Time Warp Heals all Wounds!" fits this, featuring May and Meowth traveling back in time in order to stop a man before he takes the train where he will die before his wife can tell him that she is pregnant.
• Uriah Gambit: Giovanni has no confidence in the Team Rocket trio actually set up a permanent base in the Hoenn region. But he allows it because having them away in a distant region means he doesn't have to deal with them at home as well as giving him excellent intel regarding villainous teams like Team Magma and Team Aqua.
• Villain Decay: Excluding Jessie, James and Meowth, who have always been at the bottom of the Rocket hierarchy, the Team Rocket organization has been slipping in terms of efficiency and intimidation.
  • Cassidy and Butch, once competent Rocket agents favored by Giovanni, have been reduced to a bumbling pair who also get blasted off by virtually everyone and are only slightly better than their rival co-workers.
  • Giovanni himself does nothing in the series other than occasionally listening to reports from the Team Rocket trio on a blue moon, causing Meowth's Boss Fantasies (which depict Giovanni as a smiling, muscular figure who uses Pokémon for mundane activities) to likely be the only impressions new fans watching this series first would get out of him.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Archie's possession of the Red Orb, which allows him to control Kyogre, turns him into a full-blown Omnicidal Maniac, willingly to sink the island where his own men happens to be on. Only when the orb is knocked out of his body that he regains sanity (albeit with no memory during his time with the Red Orb).

---