Navel Maneuvers – Pokémon Season 2, Episode 13

Plot episodeSea Ruby BadgeNidoqueen debut

Navel Maneuvers is the 13th episode of Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands, the second season of the Pokémon anime, and the 93rd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 95, Bulbapedia code EP093). It first aired in Japan on 22 April 1999 and in the United States on 11 March 2000. It falls within the season’s Navel Gym & Snorlax stretch (EP93–EP94).

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

Synopsis

Today our heroes are travelling with new purpose; they’re heading to Navel Island where Ash intends on battling for his second Orange League badge. They spot the island in the distance, with a huge mountain in the centre of it and land on the shore shortly after. The whole place seems really quiet, no ones around, until a few moments later they spot a guy windsurfing, he lands on the coast and greets them all, his name is Danny.

Team Rocket are once more stalking our heroes from beneath the waves and are watching from their sub.

Danny leads Ash and gang through the island and eventually they arrive at a huge set of doors, on the other side of which they find a sign welcoming them to the island and instructing all who wish to challenge the Navel Island gym to climb to the top of the mountain on their own without assistance from Pokémon, visitors however can take the cable car.

So Ash, Danny and Pikachu set about scaling the epic mountains, Ash finding it notably more difficult than Danny or Pikachu, Tracey and Misty then whizz past in the cable car on their way up. Just then Ash slips and falls a short way down the mountain but manages to hold on without using a Pokémon (the rules on the sign forbid the use of a Pokémon in scaling the mountain, under penalty of disqualification from the gym challenge). As Ash and Danny reach a point near the top and spend a moment admiring the view Team Rocket appear and snag Pikachu with a plunger on the end of a fishing rod, Danny however casually unhooks it from Pikachu and sends it flying back at Team Rocket, as Team Rocket try to retaliate they fire the plunger at Danny who sticks a boulder to it, fires it back at them and sends them blasting off. Danny and Ash continue their climb, the conditions are now snowy and freezing, Pikachu collapses in the cold and Ash takes off his jacket and gives it to Pikachu, they continue their journey and reach the top shortly after. Misty and Tracey are already waiting at the top in blankets, Misty and Tracey rush toward Ash who is celebrating making it to the top, Misty runs immediately past Ash and greets Danny instead. At the mountaintop Danny finally reveals whats been apparent the entire time; he is infact the Navel Island gym leader!

Danny begins to explain to Ash what he has to do to win a Sea-Ruby badge; basically he has to compete against Danny in three different challenges and has to win two of them. The first challenge is to see who can freeze hot water the fastest, Danny sends out Nidoqueen and Ash chooses Lapras who both use their Ice Beam attacks- Nidoqueen takes the first round for Danny, despite a valiant attempt by Lapras. The second round will be decided by crafting the piece of ice they just froze into a Sleigh, each trainer chooses three Pokemon to help them; Ash chooses Charizard, Pikachu and Bulbasaur and Danny uses Machoke, Nidoqueen and Scyther. Charizard seems to have little to no interest in helping, as expected. Ash starts pulling on Charizards tail and begging him to use the flamethrower, Charizard obliges and incinerates Ash whilst also inadvertantly crafting the sleigh in record time and winning the second round for Ash. The final challenge is a race; The trainer and three of their Pokémon riding in the sleigh’s they just crafted!

The race begins and Misty and Tracey take the cable car to meet them at the bottom. Team Rocket have taken offence to Danny’s attitude and are watching him in the distance, having just set a trap for him which knocks him and his Pokémon out of his sleigh. Danny suspects that this was no accident, Ash confirms it was probably Team Rocket, and they appear shortly after and activate another trap which Ash and Danny fall into. Team Rocket then grab Pikachu with one of their traditional mechanical arm grabbers and begin flying off in their balloon. Some quick thinking from Ash and Danny results in them using all their Pokémon to throw Snowballs into Team Rockets balloon, preventing it from ascending any further, they then launch Danny’s Electrode into the balloon which knocks the captive Pikachu back into the care of Ash and co, and a self destruct then sends Team Rocket blasting off.

Ash and Danny resume their race from the half way point, Ash’s sleigh goes badly off track and almost hits a huge rock, Danny is on course for the finish and seems to be the clear winner when out of nowhere Ash and co fly through the air and overtake him, on whats left of their sleigh.

Danny awards the Sea-ruby badge to Ash, as the sun sets out heroes say goodbye to Danny and they continue on their journey.

Major Events

• Ash wins the Sea Ruby Badge from Danny
• Nidoqueen’s main-series debut
• Every non-Legendary Generation I Pokémon has now appeared in the anime
• Charizard still disobeys but carves the winning sled

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Nidoqueen#0031 · EP093

Trivia

• The English title plays on naval manoeuvres (the Australian DVD menu spells it "Naval Manoeuvres").
• The screenplay is by Shinzō Fujita.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Orange Islands storyline.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Geodude in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Exeggcute in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Danny’s “Sumi-chan” nickname dropped
• The Pikachu’s Summer Vacation closing piece replaced by an instrumental My Best Friends

Part of our Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.