The Legend of Blue Shell Man Guy (Starter Squad)
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"The Episode that changed the series forever."
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The Legend of Blue Shell Man Guy is the 10th Episode of the web-series Starter Squad made by Shippiddge and uploaded on October 23rd, 2021.
Plot
Ten years after the events of the previous episode, the episode starts in Sinnoh region with a Chimchar fighting against six Bidoofs in order to bring "Anarchy" to the "Beaver Society". Suddenly, Squirtle and a Turtwig appears to help Chimchar who has been defeated after by several Water Guns.
Chimchar is very angry at being saved by Squirtle and Turtwig as he wants to evolve independently. He snatches and throws Squirtle's pendant (which was holding an Everstone) away. It is revealed to us that Squirtle is now level 98. Frustrated by Squirtle's method of progress, Chimchar decides to climb the "literally the highest mountain in the entire world" ( Presumably the snowpoint side of Mt. Coronet ) as Squirtle won't be able to climb as easily. Hoping to bring back Chimchar, Squirtle is hellbent on sticking together as a team and Turtwig agrees to accompany Squirtle.
Squirtle tells Turtwig the full story long before he arrived Sinnoh, and also what happened after Charmander's death: Leader Caterpie started brainwashing him and Squirtle kept blindly following her, even though her orders went against his better judgement and prevented himself from evolving. Later they are met by a Snover. The Snover offers to guide them to Snow Way, where there is "snow in the way". However, when Turtwig suggests that they leave Chimchar, since the latter clearly doesn’t want to be followed, Squirtle tells him to shut up, but absent-mindedly calls him Bulbasaur. Angry at the realization that Squirtle only kept him and Chimchar around to relive his childhood, Turtwig leaves Squirtle on the mountain and walks away. Snover them brings over another Snover to replace Turtwig.
The three then arrive at snow way, and when the pile of snow is revealed to be an Abomasnow, the two Snover leave. The Abomasnow reveals himself to be the "Emissary of the Gods" guarding the path towards the mountaintop of Mt. Coronet. Squirtle ensues in a fight to defeat the Abomasnow, certain that the Chimchar has gone through him. When Abomasnow laughs it out for believing in the previous interloper, he reveals that he in fact had killed Chimchar under block of solid ice, only because he claims to follow the orders of the gods by not letting any mortals to defy them, including him. Brokenhearted by Chimchar's death, Squirtle realizes that he had pushed Chimchar too far in sticking together with rules due to coping up with the loss of Charmander, apologetically. With nothing else to decide, he agrees to leave under Abomasnow's order as the guardian has spared him for his realization (even telling Squirtle to tell the tale of his legend about his failed encounter).
Squirtle then has a flashback to Kanto's utter destruction after the war between the Caterpie race and the birds had reached its limit and beyond in demise. Realizing that it was her responsible for the calamity and that Squirtle had warned him about the consequences of sheer power and mutual survival of her race, the Leader Caterpie desperately struggled to seek help from Squirtle whom he expected to follow as full loyalty towards her. But, as she knew that loyal Squirtle was just as afraid as she was to give orders, she agreed to free Squirtle to be passed among others and she left. Receiving an epiphany, Squirtle openly declares that they always had a choice, as Abomasnow simply made his choice to kill the trespassers, which the gods had nothing to do with their actions. As a last straw to carry out his only choice, he relinquishes his Everstone, throwing into the Snow's jowl. Triggered by Squirtle's another strike, Abomasnow smashes him into solid ice.
Then, Squirtle bursts out of the ice as he has evolved into a Wartortle, wielding the god-like strength. Holding the guardian's arm that is attempting to strike him down, Wartortle declares that the gods are not present since it is the battle between him and the Abomasnow. He pulls the arm off and launches a massive shell impact from the air before the amputated Abomasnow finishes the F-bomb. Cheered by Wartortle's impressive power to overwhelm Snow, the Snover returns to tell the legend of “Blue Shell Man Guy”. Wartortle retrieves Chimchar’s corpse from the block of ice and decides to venture to the top of the mountain, as whatever is up there has made him suffer time and time again through rules. He begins his journey to overthrow the gods.
Why This Is Legendary
- This episode is a huge improvement over Episode 9, for many reasons. Mostly due to the 2 years of working on the episode, since 2019.
- The models are mostly improved, including the textures. (Which can be noticeable in Squirtle's Flashbacks)
- The special effects are also improved, notably Squirtle's water gun, the snow, and the fog.
- The camera angles have also gotten better.
- Great voice acting like usual from Dreux Ferrano Jr, Jill Harris, and Marissa Lenti and many new actors such as River Kanoff (Who is a voice actor since 2010), Jess Floam, Dane Powroznik, and Jeffrey Hunt.
- Seeing a episode mainly about Squirtle is a nice touch, to focus on his character more.
- He calls Chimchar as "Char" since he remembers Charmander of being his friend.
- Squirtle at first didn't want to evolve since "It was his strategy", but later on did to defeat Snow (The giant Abomasnow) to save Chimchar.
- Funny dialogue such as "I'm a bird! Tweet Tweet!"
- Great soundtrack, mostly done by Dreux Ferrano Jr, Ori Schlesinger, Josh Burke, and Jedediah Jenk. Most of the music here is originally composed this time.
- This episode is considered to be the darkest episode yet, focusing on the war in form of flashbacks, and Chimchar's death.
- Squirtle finally evolves after 9 episodes, now as a powerful Wartortle.
Bad Qualities
- Jumping The Shark: The episode takes place 10 years after the events of Episode 9, in which skipped a bunch of things that the episode could resolve. Instead, it tells some of it via flashbacks.
- Due to this, some people will be confused and will think this came from a completely different series.
- Slow Pacing: The episode mostly shows Squirtle walking up the mountain for most of the run-time, and there are very few action scenes.
- While seeing a episode all about Squirtle is good, it is not the same without Charmander and Bulbasaur.
- In fact, Bulbasaur only gets mentioned a few times in the episode. And it is unknown what happened to him, did he survive the fire in Episode 9, did he change after 10 years. As mentioned by the creator in the comments section on "Two Episodes Left" he mentions that Bulbasaur will have a big role in Episode 11, meaning he might be still alive.
- Charmander who is the main character since the first episode is revealed to be dead, in which received a mixed reaction from viewers.
- Additionally, considering that the Leader Caterpie has shown to be a weakling in previous episodes. How could it do that final blow and stab Charmander to death successfully, without fail in Episode 9. (Sure Charmander got unconscious from Squirtle's water gun attack after he was hit multiple times, but the Leader Caterpie was not shown to even attack anyone at all or even do much of anything besides use other people to do the work for it. Meaning it would've been a low-level, and it would have not be effective enough to kill him.
- Some footage of Episode 11 has been leaked online from Shippiddge's Twitch Stream, which the second scene shows Leader Caterpie being knocked out and one of the Caterpie use a revive crystal on the Leader Caterpie. Which could mean Charmander somehow survived and escaped or Squirtle used water gun to attack it.
- Additionally, considering that the Leader Caterpie has shown to be a weakling in previous episodes. How could it do that final blow and stab Charmander to death successfully, without fail in Episode 9. (Sure Charmander got unconscious from Squirtle's water gun attack after he was hit multiple times, but the Leader Caterpie was not shown to even attack anyone at all or even do much of anything besides use other people to do the work for it. Meaning it would've been a low-level, and it would have not be effective enough to kill him.
- Chimchar feels like a rehash of Charmander according to some people. As he also has the same hot-headed personality, and just wants to evolve. He didn't even last long in the episode anyway.
- Unlike Charmander, he doesn't have any empathy and just kills other Pokémon for no apparent reason. While Charmander did kill multiple Caterpie (Once in Episode 2, because he wanted XP unfairly) in the previous episode he did this to save Squirtle so he doesn't end up with the Caterpie Army.
- Leader Caterpie is a unlikable character in this episode, since it ordered Whiskers and Squirtle to kill Leonard for retreating during the war. (In which Whiskers refuses because she was Leonard's friend, and Squirtle doing it to follow it's orders), and abandoning Squirtle after Whiskers was killed. This is the cause of Squirtle's depression in the episode, as well as PTSD.
- As for Leader Caterpie, it wears the severed head of Charmander as a hat after killing him in the previous episode. And this is rather hypocritical, since in "Fight Fire With Fire" it tells Bulbasaur to stop wearing Parlo's servered head as a hat.
Trivia
- This is the very first episode in which Charmander and Bulbasaur do not appear in (apart from the flashing images at the beginning of the episode).
- This is the second episode in which a Pokemon evolves.
- This episode started development in 2019, and was later released 2 years later on October 23, 2021.
- Shippiddge announced development for Episode 11 on October 25th, 2021. He also said he will try making the episode in 1 and a half years, as a possible release in 2023. It is currently in the animation stage with most of the scenes being finished. It will most likely be released this year.
- So far, there is only a few seconds of footage of Scene B online for Episode 11 which was shown off in Shippiddge's Animation Streams, more footage would later release as the animation streams go on.