Every so often, Henrietta revisits the original "Pokemon" anime series. This time, she was inspired by the suspiciously Switch game case-shaped present under the tree...

In any event, she watched an episode today where there is a trainer-- "AJ"-- who works his and his Pokemons' butts off, in special muscle-building suits, with carefully-mixed custom food recipes, up at the crack of dawn and working all day, and with the jointly-shared dream of becoming the best ever.

Ash gets there, all cocky-like, and gets his ass handed to him. He starts whining, "animal abuse!", and "you must have cheated!", and "your Pokemon are going to leave you once they see how nice I am to Pikachu!" Some stuff happens, and the episode's final message is delivered: "Stop being a pussy Ash, get your ass moving, and git gud!" And so, Ash befriends "AJ", learns, and becomes a better trainer for it.

So, in the 90s they still had things right. Can you imagine if this show was done today? First of all, Ash would be a "trans" who is actually female (like the voice actress), cis-Brock would be staring at men's butts instead of fawning over hot women, and episodes like this one would be replaced with conflict-free, PETA-approved participation ribbons.

Yes: even 90s children's television shows cause today's Left to run for their coloring books.