The Fortune Hunters – Pokémon Season 3, Episode 41

Plot episodeSeason finaleButch & Cassidy return

The Fortune Hunters is the 41st episode of Pokémon: The Johto Journeys, the third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 157th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 159, Bulbapedia code EP157). It first aired in Japan on 27 July 2000 and in the United States on 19 May 2001. It falls within the season’s Len Town & the Day Care finale stretch (EP156–EP157).

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

Synopsis

Today our friends find a Pokemon Center, where they find a group of kids talking about a book called the Pokemon Fortune Telling book, in which you look up your birthday and it tells you what type of Pokemon you are. Misty asks if she can have a look but the kids say they aren’t allowed to give it to anyone; but they tell Misty she can get one herself at a nearby Day Care centre.

Misty drags her friends over the Day Care centre immediately to get a copy of the book, the day care owners also say that if your fortune says you are a Nidoking, and you have a Nidoking, then you’ll have good luck. Misty heads outside and begins to look up her friends birthdays; Ash’s birthday makes him a Bellsprout meaning he is easily swayed by the opinions of others, Brock’s birthday means he’s an Onix meaning he is hardworking and will also have good luck because he has an Onix himself, Misty finds that she is a Gyarados; making her stubborn, grouchy and irritable – something to which she takes major offence and decides to dismiss the book entirely.

As the group is walking along Ash, Brock and a very angry Misty find themselves captured in one of Team Rocket’s pitfall traps. Team Rocket appear in spacesuits above them and send out two mini Meowth balloons, before they can even say what they are for Misty has already sent out Staryu to burst the balloons before it sends Team Rocket blasting off with it’s water gun. It seems they messed with Misty on the wrong day.

Team Rocket land a while away after a rough landing and find the Pokemon Fortune Telling book next to them, they start to check their birthdays in the book; Jessie is an Eevee type based on her birthday cuddly and adorable, Meowth wants to know what Pokemon personality type he is but Jessie dismisses him because he IS a Pokemon, she looks up James and to her surprise and Meowth’s James is a Moltres type meaning he always prevails and like the real Moltres, soars above all others. Jessie reads James the moltres types fortune for the day “you will have good luck with money and find something lost”… seconds later James finds a rare old dollar that might be worth something and then his lost bottle cap comes out of his shoe! Just as the fortune predicted! Jessie adds that there’s one more thing; there will be danger near water, just then James walks up to a water fountain and gets sprayed in the face.

James realises that the book must be right after first dismissing it, and the thought of him being the mighty Moltres type goes quickly to his head. James the Moltres makes the assertive decision to go and rob the local Pokemon Day Care centre and they head straight in and tell the owners to hand over their Pokemon. However unfortunately the elderly daycare owners are infact Butch and Cassidy of Team Rocket who then take them captive. But James read all about how the Moltres type always prevails no matter what, and believes it enough that he breaks the ropes they are held by, before breaking the door down and leading Jessie and Meowth out.

Back at the Pokemon Center Misty is feeling a little down about losing her fortune telling book, even though she didn’t like it when a kid approaches her and asks if she wants to trade her Poliwhirl for his Gyarados; as he is a Poliwhirl type and he overheard that she was a Gyarados type. Misty asks how the kid knew what type she was supposed to be and he said he overheard Brock talking to Nurse Joy about it, Brock is still talking to Nurse Joy when Misty heads over to berate him. Misty is angered once more and decides to head back to the Day Care Centre to demand answers about their book, when they get there no one is around, so they go around the back of the Daycare centre to look for the owners, they spot them and head inside and it’s there they see that the owners were infact Butch and Cassidy of Team Rocket. The “Day Care Centre” is full of sad looking Pokemon in horrible cages that have been stolen from young Pokemon trainers.

Ash and friends hide behind some boxes while they watch Butch and Cassidy speaking to Giovanni via videolink, once the call to Giovanni ends Misty confronts Butch & Cassidy about the book. Butch & Cassidy recognise Ash and co as the little runts who ruined their two of their previous plans. A battle begins; Cassidy’s Raticate vs. Ash’s Totodile, Butch also sends out his Primeape against Misty’s Staryu. Staryu starts well but a Dynamic punch from Primeape has it beat, just then there is a rumble and the wall of the Day Care centre is destroye.

James the Moltres makes his entrance, he’s there primarily to steal Butch and Cassidy’s Pokemon but when he spots Ash and co he vows to take all of their Pokemon too. James the Moltres goes on to explain that an amazing little book he found helped him discover that he has the soul of a Moltres; both Butch and Cassidy and Ash and friends soon realise exactly what book he is talking about. James heads straight at Butch and Cassidy and sends out his Victreebel, it does its usual and tries to attack him but he sternly kicks it and reminds it who it belongs to; it then seems to actually fall in line and take on Cassidy’s Raticate for him, making pretty quick work of it too.

Butch and Cassidy state their disdain for what a lunatic he is before telling James that the whole book he read is fake, and they made it all up. James realises that the part of the book about him being a Moltres type is also a lie, he falls to the ground, falls out of character and becomes relatively useless once more. Jessie then starts to battle Butch and Cassidy with her Wobbuffet, James is broken by the news about the book and fails to help her, resulting in them both being beaten pretty quick and getting them sent blasting off.

In the midst of the confusion Ash, Misty and Brock managed to find the keys to the cages that all of the stolen Pokemon are in, Butch and Cassidy confront them but between Misty’s Poliwhirl and Ash’s Pikachu they are quickly defeated, Officer Jenny and her comrades arrive shortly after to arrest Butch & Cassidy and promise they will get all of the stolen Pokemon back to their trainers.

Officer Jenny finds a copy of the fake fortune telling book and states what a bad job they did of copying the real one; which she just happens to have with her. Misty asks to take a look… but we didn’t get to see what type of Pokemon Personality type she was. Team Rocket also come across a copy of the genuine version of the book and James exclaims “Oh no! It can’t be” – it doesn’t show what the book said he was, but I’d put money on it being Magikarp.

Major Events

• Butch & Cassidy return
• Butch’s Primeape
• Heroes first see and hear Giovanni
• Totodile’s Tackle, Victreebel’s Stun Spore
• New ED Takeshi’s Paradise
• Dub-season finale
• Last Karaokémon, last original dub title card
• Not on R1 home video until 2015

Trivia

• The English title plays on “fortune hunters, for the fortune-telling craze and Butch and Cassidy’s scam”.
• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Johto storyline.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Gyarados in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Girafarig in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Left off the original Region 1 VHS/DVD volumes; first released in the 2015 Complete Collection.
• James’s “I am a flaming Moltres!” — Eric Stuart’s favourite line; in Japanese the line parodies Kamen Rider Stronger.
• New Japanese ending: Takeshi’s Paradise (Brock, Yūji Ueda). Last Pokémon Karaokémon segment — the dub’s final music-video segment.
• Pokémon Karaokémon: “You & Me & Pokémon” (Élan Rivera & PJ Lequerica).

Part of our Pokémon: The Johto Journeys guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.