Pokémon Season 4: Johto League Champions — 52 episodes, three Badges and a long-awaited evolution

Two badges in 41 episodes last season: things had to speed up. Season 4, "Johto League Champions," has 52 episodes, well ahead of the previous season's 41 but behind the 80 of the Indigo League and the 65 of Master Quest, and it's the one where Ash finally crosses the region for good — three badges won, a Pokémon that evolves after months of holding out, and a team that settles into its final shape. The trio of Ash, Misty and Brock stays unchanged from the first episode to the last, which isn't all that common in the series.

Contents

• Where season 4 fits in the series
• Broadcast and episode count
• Johto from east to west: the season's route
• Ash, Misty and Brock: a stable trio from start to finish
• Three badges: Whitney, Morty and Chuck
• The season's standout Pokémon
• Team Rocket, somewhere between gag and interlude
• The French broadcast and VHS tapes that became rare
• What season 4 brings to the series
• Season 4 at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Where season 4 fits in the series

Season 4 is the second-to-last season of cycle 1, known as Pocket Monsters. It picks up directly from season 3, The Johto Journeys and precedes Master Quest, which will close out both the cycle and the Johto chapter. Its exact French title is "Pokémon: Les Champions de Johto", known in English as Johto League Champions, and it spells out its agenda plainly: this season is all about taking on Gym Leaders.

A useful reminder to avoid the usual mix-ups: this season split is Western, not Japanese. In Japan, episodes 158 to 209 ran back to back with no season boundary. For once, the English and French splits line up perfectly: both count 52 episodes.

On the game side, the season still follows Pokémon Gold and Silver, whose map and Gym Leaders the series adapts freely. The match-up is never mechanical, though: the series picks its own Gym order and invents most of the episodes in between, as shown in our guide to the Pokémon generations.

Broadcast and episode count

The season covers 52 episodes, from 158 to 209, making it the second-longest of the first four seasons of the series, behind the 80 episodes of the Indigo League. In Japan, they aired from August 3, 2000, with "A Goldenrod Opportunity," to August 2, 2001, with "Machoke, Machoke Man!": exactly one year on the air.

In the United States, the season began on August 18, 2001, and ended on September 7, 2002. In France, the first episode aired on September 29, 2001, on Fox Kids — later renamed Jetix — and TF1, which cut the theme songs short. Switzerland followed in 2002 on TSR2, and Gulli ran three rounds of reruns, in 2009, 2011 and 2013, this time with the full theme songs.

The theme song changes again, and this time it covers both the opening and the ending: it's Born to Be a Winner. The movie released during this period is Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi - Voice of the Forest. As always, the movies are not seasons and don't fit into the episode numbering, as explained in our complete guide to the Pokémon movies.

Johto from east to west: the season's route

The season starts in exactly the right place. Ash arrives in Goldenrod City, Johto's big city, and the opening episode puts him right in front of the local Gym. It's a sharp contrast with the previous season, which let 41 episodes go by for just two badges.

The journey isn't limited to Gyms. The Goldenrod Radio Tower, the ruins of Mount Remoraid, a dojo, a lighthouse, a festival, a wrestling tournament and an oasis in the middle of the desert dot the route, and the series uses its length to pile up standalone episodes. The group even goes on the air in episode 160, after Ash's win over Goldenrod City's Gym Leader, while Team Rocket accidentally ends up starring in a ventriloquism show.

🌞 The road through Johto doesn't only run past Gyms: it also crosses an oasis in the middle of the desert, a setting with barely any shade. Your own trek ends at the bottom of the backyard, but a Pokémon bucket hat makes the blazing sun a lot more bearable out there.

The journey ends on the coast, in Cianwood City, where Ash earns his fifth badge in the very last episode. The stage is already set for the next season: episode 208 introduced Gym Leader Jasmine, whose sick Ampharos has put the Olivine City Gym out of action, and Janina spends episode 209 bringing back the medicine meant to get it back on its feet: that's the Gym that will award the next badge. The region's full geography is laid out in our overview of the regions of the Pokémon world.

Ash, Misty and Brock: a stable trio from start to finish

On this point, season 4 is simple, and that's exactly why it needs saying clearly: the team is Ash, Misty and Brock, with no change at all from the first episode to the last. No swaps along the way, no passing companion promoted to a regular. That's the exception rather than the rule in a series where lineups rotate often, as shown in our feature on Ash.

Misty keeps her team from the previous season: Goldeen, Staryu, Psyduck, Poliwhirl and the inevitable Togepi, which she still carries in her arms. Her Psyduck keeps popping out of its Poké Ball at the worst possible moment, and Togepi remains the group's emotional barometer. Her role in Gym battles stays marginal, but she's there for every bit of advice before a match.

Brock, for his part, sees his team evolve. His Zubat becomes Golbat and then Crobat over the course of the season, and his Pineco, caught in Johto, becomes a permanent fixture. He still has Onix and Geodude. Gary, the rival, stays off-screen for most of the season: their showdown will come later, at the Johto League.

Three badges: Whitney, Morty and Chuck

Ash earns three badges this season, bringing his total to five of the Johto League's eight. Each one comes in a different style, and none of them is easy to win.

The first is the Plain Badge, earned in episode 159 against Gym Leader Whitney. The Gym match, in Goldenrod City, had ended in defeat the day before, and episode 159 opens with Ash healing his Pokémon at the Pokémon Center. Whitney then takes him to the Miltank farm run by her uncle Milton, where the group learns to look after the cow Pokémon and watches the milking: it's there, not at the Gym, that the rematch that wins him the badge plays out.

The second is the Fog Badge, won in episode 182 at the Gym in Ecruteak City, against Morty, a Ghost-type specialist. This time Ash plans his strategy ahead of time, with help from Brock, Misty and Nurse Joy: he opens with Noctowl and its Foresight move, which makes ghosts visible, against the Gym Leader's Gastly , before rotating through his team.

The third is the Storm Badge, snatched in episode 209 in Cianwood City, against Chuck — a Gym Leader the group finds fighting bare-handed against a Machoke on the beach. The match is two Pokémon each: the Gym Leader's Poliwrath first gets the better of Pikachu, and Ash has to rethink his strategy to come out on top. The exact role of these Gym Leaders in the League hierarchy is covered in our feature on the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four.

A whole episode is even devoted to how fragile this haul is. In episode 184, a flock of Murkrow, known for stealing shiny objects, make off with Ash's badges during a lunch break, and it takes half the episode to get them back. An elegant way of reminding us what these little metal plates stand for after dozens of episodes on the road.

🚗 It takes Ash dozens of episodes on the road to collect these metal plates, and one lunch break in episode 184 is all it takes for a flock of Murkrow to carry them off. Your own trips happen by car rather than on foot, and a Pokémon neck pillow keeps you from arriving with a stiff neck.

The season's standout Pokémon

Ash starts the season with a team already in place: Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile and Noctowl, with Snorlax and Heracross rotating in from Professor Oak's lab. It barely grows at all: the season works in depth rather than breadth.

The big event of the season is Chikorita's evolution, and it's a long time coming. It's in episode 199, "Current Events," that Chikorita becomes Bayleef: Team Rocket has kidnapped her, Ash ends up facing Jessie's Arbok without a single Pokémon available, and it's seeing her Trainer in trouble that finally pushes the Grass-type Pokémon to take the leap.

This evolution deserves a mention for one specific reason. Bayleef is the only Pokémon of Ash's that evolved in Johto, and the only one of his Grass-type starters to have evolved just once. The adjustment doesn't come easily, either: in episode 200, "Turning Over a New Bayleef," Bayleef keeps acting like a Chikorita and doesn't realize how big she has become, which causes a temporary falling-out with her Trainer.

All around them, the second generation keeps parading by. Miltank, Murkrow and Remoraid each get their own episode, in the standalone-story format the season's length makes possible: a dairy farm full of Miltank, the Murkrow that steal shiny objects, and the dried-up ruins of Mount Remoraid, while Brock's Pineco , caught back in season 3, stands out mostly for its repeated explosions.

Team Rocket, somewhere between gag and interlude

The trio gets through the season without changing its team: Arbok and Wobbuffet for Jessie, Weezing and Victreebel for James. Jessie's Arbok and James's Victreebel remain their two safe bets, while the Wobbuffet picked up by mistake in the previous season has settled in for good as the gang's fourth member.

The season's length does, however, give them more room. They go on the radio by accident under the name "Trio Triopikeur" (the "Dugtrio Trio" of the French dub), disguise themselves as reporters, performers and shopkeepers, and their schemes sometimes fill an entire episode without Ash having much to do. It's also one of the seasons where they unwittingly trigger a decisive moment: kidnapping Chikorita is what makes her evolve.

Their dual nature — comic trio on the surface, criminal organization in the background — is covered in our feature on Team Rocket. Giovanni, meanwhile, stays off-screen for the entire season.

The French broadcast and VHS tapes that became rare

Season 4 reached France as early as 2001, with the first episode airing on September 29, split between Fox Kids — later renamed Jetix — and TF1, the latter airing cut-down theme songs. Switzerland got it on TSR2 in 2002. Gulli reran it three times, in 2009, 2011 and 2013, with the full theme songs.

The home video release, on the other hand, is incomplete. Between 2002 and 2004, TF1 Vidéo released six VHS volumes covering episodes 158 to 187, and three DVD volumes stopping at episode 167, at five episodes per volume. The VHS tapes came with an information booklet, and sometimes a giant poster.

One detail will interest collectors. The last volumes of this season are very hard to find today: by 2003, VHS was in steep decline and few stores still stocked them. As for streaming, the season was available on the Pokémon TV service until it shut down, and was later picked up by Amazon Prime Video.

📱 TF1 Vidéo's six VHS volumes stop at episode 187: you can catch the rest of the season on Prime Video, on the screen you carry around all day, the one a Pokémon iPhone case keeps in one piece.

What season 4 brings to the series

This is the season where the series gets its pace back. After a deliberately contemplative season 3, the production picks up speed: three badges, a region crossed for good, and a course set for the Johto League. It also marks the return to a long format after the 36 episodes of the Orange Islands and the 41 of The Johto Journeys, with around fifty episodes per season becoming the norm from then on.

It also proves that a stable cast is no handicap. Fifty-two episodes with the same trio, no newcomers and no departures, and yet the characters grow: Brock evolves his team, Misty comes into her own as a battle advisor, and Ash learns to prepare for a match before fighting it instead of improvising, as his strategy against Morty clearly shows.

Finally, it leaves the series exactly where it needs to be for the end of the cycle. Five badges out of eight, a full team and an Olivine City Gym Leader already introduced in the second-to-last episode: the next season, Master Quest, will only have to win the three remaining badges and bring Ash to the tournament, where his lifelong rival is waiting.

Season 4 at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• How many episodes are in Pokémon season 4?
  52 episodes, numbered 158 to 209, making it the second-longest of the first four seasons, behind the 80 episodes of the Indigo League. For once, the French and English season splits match exactly. In Japan, these episodes aired from August 3, 2000, to August 2, 2001: exactly one year.
• Who travels with Ash in season 4?
  Misty and Brock, from the first episode to the last, with no changes at all. It's one of the few seasons in the series where the cast stays completely stable. Tracey Sketchit, who had replaced Brock during season 2, has stayed at Professor Oak's lab since the end of the Orange Islands arc.
• How many badges does Ash earn in season 4?
  Three, bringing his total to five of the Johto League's eight. The Plain Badge is won in episode 159 against Whitney, in Goldenrod City; the Fog Badge in episode 182 against Morty, in Ecruteak City; and the Storm Badge in episode 209 against Chuck, in Cianwood City. The last three badges will be won in season 5.
• In which episode does Chikorita evolve into Bayleef?
  In episode 199, "Current Events." Team Rocket has kidnapped Chikorita, and Ash ends up facing Jessie's Arbok without a single Pokémon available; it's seeing her Trainer in trouble that makes Chikorita evolve. Bayleef is the only Pokémon of Ash's that evolved in Johto.
• What is the last episode of season 4?
  Episode 209, "Machoke, Machoke Man!", first aired in Japan on August 2, 2001. Ash takes on Chuck, the Cianwood City Gym Leader, in a two-on-two match and wins the Storm Badge. The same episode shows Janina coming to fetch the medicine for the Ampharos of Jasmine, the Olivine City Gym Leader introduced in the previous episode: what happens next is season 5's business.
• Why are the French VHS tapes of season 4 so rare?
  Because they came out too late. TF1 Vidéo released six VHS volumes between 2002 and 2004, covering episodes 158 to 187, but by 2003 the VHS format was in steep decline and few stores still carried the last volumes. Only three DVD volumes were released, stopping at episode 167.
• Which movie goes with season 4?
  Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi - Voice of the Forest. Like every feature film in the franchise, it isn't part of the season or episode numbering: it's a separate production, released in theaters alongside the TV broadcast.

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