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Pokémon is no stranger to bizarre episodes, but one of the oddest saw Ash's companion, May, traveling through time and altering the fabric of reality. Incidentally, it also happens to be one of the best, not only for May, but for the series in general.
The Pokémon anime has had several episodes dedicated to time travel before, but generally these episodes revolve around a Pokémon known to time travel, such as Celebi. These time travel episodes are also usually about trying not to change the future, or at least don't see any impact to the present when all the time traveling is said and done. Both of these facts make the Ruby and Sapphire-era episode "Time Warp Heals All Wounds" a rather bizarre one, in that no time-traveling Pokémon is involved in the plot of the episode, and the present is substantially changed.
May's Time-Traveling Solo Adventure Changed the Future
May Changed the Circumstances of the Past
In the episode, Ash, May, Brock, and Max arrive in Fuschia City and visit the Pokémon Center. May's Squirtle runs off, so she chases it down to an abandoned train station, where she meets an old woman named Edna. Edna says to May that she's waiting for someone, but there are clearly no trains running. Edna's granddaughter arrives and explains that Edna had once been married to a man named Jonathan, who left town aboard a train to study medicine and passed away before returning. Tragically, Edna was already pregnant at the time, and was left to raise the child on her own.
Team Rocket's Meowth, meanwhile, was eavesdropping on all this. After returning to the Pokémon Center, Squirtle runs off yet again, and May follows it to the train station once more. There, she finds Meowth contemplating Edna's story, and Squirtle appears, finding Edna's lost pendant, containing a picture of Jonathan. Suddenly, the locket glows, and all three are sent back in time to when the station was active. Realizing it's the day that Jonathan leaves town, the unlikely trio set about trying to reverse fate.
May and Meowth are kept from talking to Jonathan directly by train attendants, so May resorts to using Squirtle's Ice Beam to freeze the falling rain, causing it to snow and delaying the train long enough for Edna to catch up to Jonathan. She informs him of the baby, and he agrees to stay. Sent back to the present day, May, Meowth, and Squirtle realize the train station is now operational again, and that the future has been changed: Edna and Jonathan have now had a long and happy life together thanks to their intervention. Edna and Jonathan, now Pokémon Doctors, help May's egg hatch into an Eevee.
The Time Traveling Episode Breaks All the Rules
Pokémon Presents a Very Different Take on Time Travel
While in many works of fiction, time travel is treated as a perilous thing with the possibility of causing grave disasters, that's rarely the case in Pokémon. May and Meowth don't need to worry about the Butterfly Effect (or should it be the Butterfree Effect?) causing unintentional changes to the present day. They don't wind up in an alternate timeline and have to find a way to return home. In fact, things have exclusively gotten better thanks to their intervention, as the town is now more lively than ever and the trains are once again running.
In some ways, the straightforward nature of the time travel in the episode is refreshing, even if it goes completely unexplained. While some viewers may dismiss the episode's happy ending as a pat resolution intended for a children's show, there's something nice about seeing a time travel plot where what once went wrong is now righted by the heroes, and there are no terrible consequences for doing the right thing. May never considers not changing the past; her first concern upon arriving back in time is to immediately change Edna's fate, and that's a very heroic thing to do.
The Episode Offers a Great Character Moment
May and Meowth Get Their Chance to Shine
"Time Warp Heals All Wounds" was originally aired as part of a Christmas special in Japan, perhaps indicating that the time travel was a Christmas miracle. Whatever the case may be, the episode gives some great character moments to both May and Meowth, with the latter showing a very different side to his character than the scheming that fans usually see. Meowth is moved by Edna's plight long before he has an opportunity to do anything about it, and afterward, he tells Jessie and James that he's not interested in trying to steal Pikachu at the moment, as he has more important things on his mind.
For May, the episode goes to show just how big her heart really is, with her lack of hesitation to help change Edna's fate. May's lack of caution regarding changing the future is actually a positive quality--she's less concerned about her own ability to return to the present she left than she is about altering fate and giving Edna the life she deserved. It's a deed worthy of Celebi's respect, and May's selfless actions were rewarded by allowing her to save Jonathan and alter the course of history for the better, not just for Edna and Jonathan, but for everyone who lives in Fuschia City.
While the episode may not have the raw drama that convoluted time travel rules can sometimes produce, it's still a quality story that reveals quite a bit about some of the series' major characters at the time. The Pokémon world is one that's full of mysteries, even beyond the Pokémon themselves, and this episode stands out for allowing its questions to remain unanswered, simply providing May and Meowth with exactly what they needed. By eschewing things like the Butterfly Effect, alternate timelines, and stable time loops, this episode was able to focus on what's really important to a story: the characters.
This is one episode of Pokémon that's absolutely worth a watch for any fan, if only to see a new side of Meowth.
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Ash Ketchum, a ten-year-old from Pallet Town, embarks on an adventure to become a Pokémon Master. With his first Pokémon, Pikachu, Ash sets out to capture and train Pokémon while battling other trainers in Pokémon Gyms to earn badges. Joined by his friends Brock and Misty, Ash consistently thwarts the plans of the nefarious Team Rocket, all while making new friends and encountering Pokémon across various regions.
Release Date April 1, 1997
Main Genre Adventure
Finale Year November 30, 2022
Network TV Tokyo , TV Osaka , TV Aichi , TVh , TVQ , TSC
Cast Rica Matsumoto , Mayumi Iizuka , Yūji Ueda , Tomokazu Seki , Kaori Suzuki , Fushigi Yamada , Megumi Toyoguchi
Character(s) Pikachu (voice) , Satoshi (voice) , Aipom (voice) , Pichu Younger Brother (voice) , Self , Pichu Older Brother (voice) , Kasumi (voice) , Gou (voice) , Narrator (voice) , Serena (voice) , Haruka (voice) , Shigeru Oak (voice) , Dent (voice) , Citron (voice) , Eureka (voice) , Iris (voice) , Hikari (voice) , Maamame (voice) , Mao (voice) , Suiren (voice) , Kaki (voice) , Wanpachi (voice)
Creator(s) Naoko Takeuchi
Producers Takemoto Mori , Tsunekazu Ishihara , Keisuke Iwata
Seasons 25
Writers Takeshi Shudo , Junki Takegami , Atsuhiro Tomioka , Aya Matsui , Shoji Yonemura , Dai Saito
Directors Kunihiko Yuyama , Daiki Tomiyasu , Jun Owada , Saori Den
English (US) ·