POKEMON: ADVENTURES IN THE ORANGE ISLANDS - THE "COMPLETE" COLLECTION

After finishing the Indigo League on DVD, I moved onto the Orange Islands arc, which encompasses the latter part of season 2 and early season 3, in one DVD set. It was originally released back in 2002-03 in three separate volumes, and then as a single 3-disc set in 2009, and once again as this set in 2015. Why mention these other releases? I'll touch on that in a bit.

In general, good video and audio, and hardly any extras. All of the episodes have been stripped of their Pikachu's Jukebox segment, though you can find all of those music videos in the Indigo set. Disc 1 has a POKEMON 4EVER American trailer held over from the original release. Disc one begins with a single intro theme, plays all of the individual episodes, and finishes with the ending theme. The other two discs present each episode with their own opening and ending themes.

Now, after watching this, I was looking though some info about the various "banned" episodes, when I came to the realization -- Two of the episodes were missing from this set! "Complete Collection" my ass. "Stage Fight" and "The Mandarin Island Miss Match" are both missing. And, they both coincidentally contain the Pokemon Jynx (as did an episode removed from the Indigo League, "Holiday Hi-Hynx"). This of course IS the reason they're missing, as Jynx was allegedly considered by some as a racial stereotype (you be the judge). If you want these episodes, they're on the original releases, and supposedly the 2009 set as well.

If you can overlook the absence of the two episodes, it's a pretty good set, for about $20 at Target or other retailers. But personally, I think it's really sad they're not included.

Here's a complete list of the episodes in this set:

84. A Scare In The Air
85. Pokeball Peril
86. The Lost Lapras
87. Fit To Be Tide
88. Pikachu Re-Volts
89. The Crystal Onix
90. In The Pink
91. Shell Shock
93. Bye Bye Psyduck
94. The Joy Of Pokemon
95. Navel Maneuvers
96. Snack Attack!
97. A Shipful Of Shivers
98. Meowth Rules!
99. Tracey Gets Bugged
100. A Way Off, Day Off
102. Wherefore Art Thou, Pokemon?
103. Get Along, Little Pokemon
104. The Mystery Menace
105. Misty Meets Her Match!
106. Bound For Trouble
107. Charizard Chills
108. Pokemon Water War
109. Pokemon Food Fight
110. Pokemon Double Trouble
111. The Wacky Watcher
112. The Stun Spore Detour
113. Hello Pummelo
114. Enter The Dragonite
115. Viva Las Lapras
116. The Underground Round Up
117. A Tents Situation
118. The Rivalry Revival