EP017

← EP016 : Pokémon Shipwreck

Original series

EP018 : Beauty and the Beach →

Island of the Giant Pokémon

EP017   きょだいポケモンのしま！？ Island of the Giant Pokémon!?

First broadcast Japan July 22, 1997 United States September 30, 1998

English themes Opening Pokémon Theme Ending

Japanese themes Opening めざせポケモンマスター Ending ひゃくごじゅういち

Credits Animation Team Ota Screenplay 首藤剛志 Takeshi Shudō Storyboard 日高政光 Masamitsu Hidaka Assistant director 岡崎幸男 Yukio Okazaki Animation director 志村泉 Izumi Shimura Additional credits

Screenshots on Filb.de

Island of the Giant Pokémon (Japanese: きょだいポケモンのしま！？ Island of the Giant Pokémon!?) is the 17th episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on July 22, 1997 and in United States on September 30, 1998.

Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.

Blurb

As our heroes and Team Rocket beat the odds by surviving the sinking ship, they are dragged into another potentially deadly situation when they are attacked by the ferocious Pokémon, Gyarados. One Gyarados becomes many and Ash, friends and foe are swept up in a tornado landing them in various locations on an island. Ash loses Pikachu and the Poké Balls containing Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur. Jessie and James from Team Rocket, who land in another remote part of the island, also lose their Pokémon. Thus both Pokémon and their masters are left searching for each other on this strange island, inhabited by gigantic Pokémon. Where could this island be?

Plot

After the attack caused by a group of Gyarados, Ash and his friends end up on an island where they realize that four of Ash's Pokémon, including Pikachu, are missing. On another side of the island, Jessie and James awaken to find their Pokémon, including Meowth, are missing. They try to call for help in a phone booth, but they soon remember they don't have any money. On another part of the island, a separated Pikachu finds the Poké Balls of the separated Pokémon and releases Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. They then see a Slowpoke fishing in the sea with its tail. Pikachu and Charmander decide to ask for help but with little result while Bulbasaur and Squirtle relax on the beach.

While trying to find Ash and the others, Ash's Pokémon are found by Team Rocket's Pokémon, Koffing, Ekans and Meowth. Meowth tells Koffing and Ekans to attack Ash's Pokémon, only to find out they won't battle for him because he is not their master. Each side tells the other about their missing Trainers and Koffing and Ekans get visibly upset when Bulbasaur mentions that their Trainers may have abandoned them. Pikachu immediately refutes the very idea, telling Bulbasaur that Ash would never do something like that. The two sets of Pokémon join together to find their Trainers. Meanwhile Meowth is tied up for what he has done to Pikachu and the others in the past. While they are eating, a giant Rhydon attacks them. The Pokémon escape, accidentally leaving Meowth tied up. Pikachu unties Meowth so he can escape. Meowth shows no gratitude for Pikachu's action, instead pushing him and saying that he could have got out himself. At the same time, Ash, Misty and Brock are being chased by a giant Zapdos. They soon elude it and decide to rest for the night. Ash vows to find his Pokémon no matter what. Meanwhile, Jessie and James are being chased by a huge Moltres. They run into a sign and are both knocked out, causing them to escape the Moltres.

The next day, Team Rocket runs back to the phone booth and Jessie makes a phone call. When James tells her that they don't have money, she says they are calling the boss by collect. They annoy him with their motto, causing him to hang up on them. Jessie and James then use a wire to get help by pulling on it while inside, hoping it will lead to the phone company. They see a Pikachu and decide to catch it, not realizing until it is too late that it is in fact a giant Pikachu. At the same time, Ash and company run behind a rock after being attacked by a giant Charizard. Meanwhile, the Pokémon, still searching for Ash and Team Rocket, come across a giant Blastoise. Squirtle is forced to ask it for directions by the other Pokémon, something that it's not too happy to do. Squirtle tries to start up a conversation with the giant Blastoise but it gets attacked by its Hydro Pump. They then see a Venusaur and Squirtle this time asks Bulbasaur to seek help from it as Squirtle thinks it's one of Bulbasaur's relatives. Bulbasaur is too afraid to ask the giant Venusaur and so says that it's an orphan and has no family, to which Squirtle decides to call it a "coward." Team Rocket, still pulling the telephone wire, are now being chased by a huge Kabutops. They decide to jump into a rail cart to get away. It starts moving but begins to head backwards toward the Kabutops, rather than away from it. It gets its foot tied in the wire and is dragged after Team Rocket. Then Ash and friends find the giant Pikachu, which is then knocked down because of Team Rocket and the trailing wire on the rail cart. Ash and friends fall into the cart with Team Rocket inside. Then they see their Pokémon chased by a giant Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur. The Pokémon manage to jump to their Trainers and are at last reunited. Then the cart is sent flying into the air because of a giant loop in the rail tracks causing them to fly and crash into the giant Zapdos which they then discover to be robotic. Soon all the other giant robot Pokémon crash into each other and lay broken in a massive pile on the beach. Then the rail cart crashes into the water. A Gyarados shaped boat approaches the island. Inside, a woman introduces what appears to be tourists on the boat to Pokémon Island, however on noticing the damaged Pokémon, apologizes and then makes a call. It is revealed that the island is actually an attraction park owned by Team Rocket's boss, Giovanni, who isn't too happy with the destruction of Pokémon Land.

Ash and his friends continue on, ending up in Porta Vista. Meanwhile, the Slowpoke from earlier in the episode is still sitting on the rocks. It stands up, revealing a Shellder attached to its tail. The newly evolved Slowbro looks forward and says its name proudly.

Major events

For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.

Debuts

Pokémon debuts

• Slowpoke
• Slowbro

Characters

Humans

Dare da?

• Ash
• Misty
• Brock
• Jessie
• James
• Giovanni

Pokémon

Who's That Pokémon?

Who's That Pokémon?: Slowbro (US and international) Slowpoke (Japan)

• Pikachu (Ash's)
• Meowth (Team Rocket)
• Bulbasaur (Ash's)
• Charmander (Ash's)
• Squirtle (Ash's)
• Goldeen (Misty's; flashback)
• Staryu (Misty's; flashback)
• Starmie (Misty's; flashback)
• Ekans (Jessie's)
• Koffing (James's)
• Persian (Giovanni's)
• Slowpoke (evolves; debut)
• Slowbro (newly evolved)
• Slowbro (debut)
• Krabby

Giant robot Pokémon

• Rhydon
• Zapdos
• Moltres
• Pikachu
• Charizard
• Blastoise
• Venusaur
• Kabutops

Trivia

• Jessie and James reveal that Ekans and Koffing were given to them as chūgen and oseibo presents, respectively.
• This is the only episode where subtitles were used to translate what the Pokémon were saying.
  • In some non-English dubs, the Pokémon used human language or voice-overs and the English subtitles were kept while in some dubs, the English subtitles were translated into subtitles of the respective languages.
• In the Japanese version of this episode, some Pokémon had their genders revealed through the subtitles: Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Ekans were implied to be male due to using a first person pronoun almost exclusively used by males.
• This is the first episode where "Who's That Pokémon?" is different in the English version than the Japanese version.
• Bulbasaur and Meowth appeared to get drunk at the stand, which is backed up by somebody talking to a "barkeep" in the original episode.
• When the group fell into the water, Charmander was still out of its Poké Ball and its tail was completely submerged. Yet, the flame did not go out. This happened again, as a Charizard, in Charizard's Burning Ambition.
• The music that plays during Pokémon Land- tour is the same that plays when S.S. Anne leaves the port in the game.
• The robotic Moltres that chased Team Rocket and the robotic Rhydon were the only giant Pokémon that were not seen to be destroyed, although Giovanni's phone call implied that they were indeed destroyed as well.
• Even though Ash was never shown to find Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle's Poké Balls, he doesn't seem to have lost them.
• Slowbro says "Slowpoke" at the end of the episode, before realising it had evolved. This implies that even Pokémon without training are able to say some things that aren't their own name, at the very least the names of their previous forms.
• This episode is featured on the Volume 4: Squirtle copy of Pokémon All-Stars.
• The book Island of the Giant Pokémon is partially based on this episode.
• More Pokémon's Pokérap images come from this episode than any other episode, providing the images for Rhydon, Zapdos, Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur, Kabutops, and Slowbro. Out of these, only Slowbro was an actual Pokémon.

Errors

The mechanical Blastoise's miscolored jaw

• One of Squirtle's captions spells Pokémon as "pokémon", without a capital P.
  • Also, as Pikachu stumbles across Ash's Poké Balls, it says "Poké Balls" without the accented "é", making it "Poke Balls".
• When Team Rocket are about to use the brakes on the cart, they say "pull", but they push the lever.
• After all the Pokémon jumped in the moving cart, when Jessie and James are hugging Koffing and Ekans their gloves are missing.
• When Team Rocket sees Meowth, James and Jessie are crying and James has no pupils.
• When the Pokémon jump into the moving cart, Misty catches Squirtle and Brock catches Charmander and Bulbasaur. However, when the cart falls towards the water, Misty is shown holding Charmander while Brock is holding Squirtle and Bulbasaur.
• When James is explaining about their recent run of bad luck, Jessie's earrings and lipstick are gone.
• After the scene when the cable is about to snap, Meowth's paws are brown instead of white.
• When the destroyed robots are shown, the Blastoise robot's bottom jaw is miscolored.
• At the very end, when Brock, Ash, and Misty are seen walking a path, Ash's gloves are missing. Just afterward they reappear, only to disappear once more as the three are running towards Porta Vista.

Dub edits

• In the dub, Jessie and James reveal that Ekans and Koffing were given to them as birthday and Christmas presents, respectively.
• For subsequent dubs, the text and the Pokémon sounds were deleted and replaced with text/sounds clarifying what they're talking about for non-English speakers.
• The scene where Krabby and Slowpoke appear also had them with subtitles in the Japanese version as well.
• Meowth's reaction actually had two interpretations in the Japanese version. One implies that he has a master, and one states that he doesn't have a master.
• The word Oden is removed from the stand.
  • Also, the scene where the Pokémon were at the Oden was not translated. The translation of the scene is as follows:

。。。にんげんなんてさあ

...those darn humans

。。。にんげんなんてさあ

...those darn humans

いないいないばあ

Peakaboo

。。。にんげんなんてさあ

...those darn humans

わるいひとばかりじゃないんだしさあ

Not all people are bad

まあまあ。。。

Now now...

げんきをだして

Cheer up

わかる

I understand

わかるよ

I understand ya

それがよのなかさ

That's just how the world is

な、おやじ。。。

Hey, barkeep...

• There was also a subtitle that told the time.

• In the Latin American dub, when Meowth points out that (the mechanical) Blastoise is the evolved form of Squirtle, he pronounces it "Baltoise".
• Jessie apologizes to the Kabutops mecha when the cart's cable tripped it in the Japanese version.
• The digital effect of Giovanni's voice was dub-only.

In other languages

Language		Title
Arabic		جزيرة البوكيمونات العملاقه
Mandarin Chinese		巨大神奇寶貝之島 / 巨大神奇宝贝之岛
Czech		Ostrov obřích pokémonů
Dutch		Het Eiland Van De Reuze Pokémon
Finnish		Jättipokémonien saari
French	Canada	L'île des géants
	Europe	L'île des Pokémon géants
German		Insel der Giganten
Hebrew		פארק הפוקימונים הענקים park haPokémonim ha'anakyim
Hungarian		Az óriáspokémonok szigete
Italian		L'isola dei Pokémon giganti
Korean		거대 포켓몬의 정체 geodae pokétmon-ui jeongche
Norwegian		KjempePokémon-øya
Polish		Wyspa Pokémonów Gigantów
Portuguese	Brazil	A Ilha dos Pokémons Gigantes
	Portugal	A Ilha dos Pokémons Gigantes
Romanian		Insula Pokémonilor Giganți
Russian		Остров гигантских Покемонов
Spanish	Latin America	¡La Isla de los Pokémon Gigantes!
	Spain	La isla de los Pokémon gigantes
Swedish		Pokémon Land
Vietnamese		Hòn đảo Pokemon

← EP016 : Pokémon Shipwreck

Original series

EP018 : Beauty and the Beach →

This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation.