Japanese Title: Pokémon League! Final Battle!
Original Airdate: January 21st, 1999
US Airdate: November 27th, 1999
The one where... Ash learns that failure is not the end.
It's the sixth round match at the Pokémon League Competition, and Ash, Misty and Brock are in the stands cheering for their new friend, Richie. When an unfortunate turn of events happens, Ash learns a valuable lesson that he will take with him on the rest of his journey as a Pokémon trainer. Finally, Ash and Richie get to march with the athletes for the closing ceremonies of the Competition where they add a Pokémon League Badge to their cherished collection.
Tropes:
- An Aesop:
- Sheer blind luck and scrappy pragmatism can only carry one so far; if you truly want to succeed at something, you must buckle down and work hard for it. Broken by the fact that a lot of this was down to Team Rocket.
- Failure is not the end of the world. Yes, it will sting for a while, especially for a major event, but life goes on. All you can really do is pick yourself back up and learn from it.
- Both Sides Have a Point: On one hand, Ash really had it coming from the beginning. He was completely cocky and arrogant throughout the league, and everyone was right that if Ash had trained Charizard better, he wouldn't have lost. Plus, he could've switched out his team and used Kingler in place of Squirtle (super-effective against Ritchie's Charmander) , or even Bulbasaur (resistant against Ritchie's Pikachu, plus it hadn't taken that much effort for it to stall Team Rocket in the last episode) and Pikachu (super-effective against Richie's Butterfree). On the other hand, Ash has every right to be depressed since he worked hard to make it to the Pokémon League, and he was put into a situation where he has to use Charizard because of Team Rocket's interference, which ends in humiliation.
- Brutal Honesty: Both Misty and Professor Oak note that Ash was arrogant and hadn't studied his Pokémon’s abilities enough (while conveniently ignoring Team Rocket's interference). While Professor Oak takes the calm route regarding getting brutal with Ash, the same can't be said with Misty, who ends up in yet another heated argument with Ash.
- Character Development: Ash realizes he can learn from his defeat and improve in the next competition. Also, Ash understands that he can't keep relying on luck and has to work really hard to be the best.
- Grand Finale: To the Indigo League saga.
- Guilt by Association Gag: When Ash and Misty's argument reaches a boiling point, Pikachu intervenes by using his Thunderbolt to break it up. Unfortunately, his action ends up shocking everyone in the room. Professor Oak reacts by yelling "Don't shock us, too!". It's worth noting that Pikachu may have been expressing his frustration with the insensitivity shown towards Ash's loss in his own way.
- Heroic BSoD: Ash is in despair after his defeat as his friends and mother tried to cheer him up, which didn't go well. However, after seeing and listening to Richie about losing, Ash gets out of his depression and realized his behavior in dealing with his own loss.
- Innocently Insensitive: Misty's attempt to cheer up Ash backfires and leads to a nasty argument.
- Jerkass Realization: After spending most of the episode being upset about his loss and seeing along with listening to Ritchie deal with his loss, Ash not only realizes that his friends and mother were right about his actions (bad luck aside) but also sees that he was acting like a big baby. Through those events, Ash vowed not to make the same mistake in future Pokémon League competitions and to work harder to achieve his goal.
- Mistakes Are Not the End of the World: This is the way Ritchie is able to help Ash overcome his depression, along with his own, from their respective losses at the Indigo Conference. He states that, like Ash, he underestimated how competitive Pokemon Leagues can be, leading to their respective losses. However, he also states that those losses can make them both better pokemon trainers in the long run as long as they learn from them.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Despite their constant bickering during the Kanto Arc, Misty tries to lift Ash's spirits after his embarrassing defeat in the previous episode. Unfortunately, Ash's rude response sparks a heated argument between the two.
- Pit Trap: Team Rocket gushes over how much they love using it.
- Second Prize: Sayuri defeats Ritchie in the Indigo Pokémon League Competition. A silhouette that looks a lot like her is visible in the second-place position during the awards ceremony.
- Sore Loser: Ash wasn't upset that Ritchie beat him so much as he was that he got eliminated after coming so far (Team Rocket kidnapping him and forcing him to fight under a handicap didn't help matters). His friends and mother called him out on this attitude, noting he had mostly been scooting by on just pure luck alone, and his attempts to battle with his particularly stubborn and disobedient Charizard as a last-ditch effort showed how little time he took in trying to get the big lug back to helping him while dismissing the fact that a large part of it was Team Rocket's fault.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Pikachu's decision to shock everyone in the room with Thunderbolt seems to have been his way of calling out Ash and Misty for their quarrel and expressing his frustration with their lack of sensitivity towards Ash's loss.
