Ash Ketchum vs Charles Darwin/Rap Meanings

Ash Ketchum:
'''Darwin wants to battle? Doesn't seem like a fight!'''

("_____ wants to battle" is a phrase used during the start of Pokémon battles in the video games, matching with how the battle starts from a location matching those used during Pokémon battles. Ash uses this to say Charles Darwin isn't a challenge for him.)

'''But this should be fun! I've yet to catch the Ghost type!'''

(Throughout the anime, Ash Ketchum has never officially caught a Ghost-type Pokémon, the closest to owning one being when he got a Haunter to accompany him from Lavender Town to Saffron City before it left him. Charles Darwin is deceased, making him, essentially, a ghost as he is facing Ash. Thus, Ash plans to "catch" Charles Darwin, or "own" him, meaning to beat him in a rap battle.)

Got the highest speed stat, drop raps lightning fast,

(In Pokémon games, the Pokémon with the higher speed stat is the one that goes first. Ash Ketchum says this as he is the first to rap.)

Open my pockets and go Charizard on your ass!

(Pokémon is short for "pocket monsters", as they fit within one's pockets when inside of a Pokéball. Ash opening his pockets would mean letting out his Pokémon, one of which is a Charizard. Charizard is a fire-type, thus Ash uses his name to say he plans to burn Charles Darwin.)

Cause I'm Ash! And that's A-to-the-shush!'''

("Shush" is typically used to tell someone to be quiet. Ash makes a play on his name, using the "sh" portion of his name to tell Charles Darwin he shouldn't try to rap.)

I don't care how many beetles and butterflies you squoosh!

(Darwin tested his theories by performing vivisections and dissections of different insects, such as beetles and butterflies, and Ash says he isn't affected by this fact.)

Your earthworms can't beat these magical beasties!



Your shit-talking mouth is the origin of feces!

("Shit-talking" means making things up. Ash asserts that Darwin's claims are all fabricated and fanciful, and makes a pun on his published work On the Origin of Species that the origin of feces, the scientific word for shit, was Darwin's shit-talking.)

You got candy raps: Reese's Pieces!

(Reese's Pieces are a type of candy. Reese's is a pun on Rhesus, a type of monkey, which Darwin's theory of the evolution of mankind suggests man evolved alongside to and from the same roots as. This saying that Darwin's raps are nothing more than sweetness, with no actual body.)

In this ecosystem, I'm the dominant species!



'''When it's time to train, I turn to Pikachu! (Pika!)'''

(Pikachu is Ash's closest and most often used Pokémon throughout the series, so when he trains his Pokémon, Pikachu is the one most often trained for battles.)

But when I need a weak verse, I choose you!

("I choose you" is a popular phrase used when letting out a Pokémon in a battle. He claims Darwin's raps won't be good, and that he'll pick Darwin if he wants this.)

Charles Darwin:
Hello there, welcome to a world called Earth,

(The beginning of Pokémon games typically start with a professor introducing the player to the world of Pokémon. Darwin reuses this, instead introducing Ash to Earth, the real world, as Ash lives in a fictional universe based on the geographocal layout of Japan.)

Where actual minds do groundbreaking work!

(Darwin is a renowned scientist with a brilliant mind who delveloped the ideas of evolution and pioneered the theory of 'natural selection', which is considered as a game-changing idea among the science sectrum, as he was one of the few people who propsed the theory to the world.)

If you're looking for the fittest, I'm the natural selection!

("Survival of the fittest" and "natural selection" are part of Darwin's theory of evolution. He says that he is himself a "natural selection", or ideal choice, for the fittest rapper and thus will outlast Ash in the battle.)

You're so ineffective you couldn't even turn 11!

(Despite the Pokémon anime having aired for years, Ash Ketchum has remained ten years old throughout the series' run. Darwin also calls Ash ineffective similar to how weak Pokémon attacks are deemed "not very effective".)

What you spit's just not hard hitting enough!

(Darwin deemed that Ash's raps are weak.)

'''It's kids stuff! You're soft like a Jigglypuff!'''

(Jigglypuff is a balloon Pokémon, known for being squishy and able to deflate itself. Ash is only a ten-year kid.)

You got no Game, Boy, so you'll get the broom quick!

(Darwin claims that Ash has no game, or no skill as a rapper. The first Pokémon games were featured on the handheld Game Boy device.)

The real Ash packs a much bigger BOOMSTICK!

(Ash Williams, a character from the Evil Dead films who shares Ash's first name, uses a shotgun he calls a "boomstick". However, this is a double entendre, as it suggests that Ash Williams has larger genitals than Ash Ketchum. Further, Ash Williams is "the real Ash" because he predated Ash Ketchum by 16 years.)

I'm a masterful naturalist!

(Darwin is a naturalist, person who studies or is an expert in natural history. Naturalist could also mean a person who believes that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world, and Darwin seemed to be both.)

What I've glimpsed will outclass all the crap on your laughable list!

(Darwin supposedly glimpsed the origin of all life, which is far more impressive than the 721 Pokémon on the list of the Pokédex, a device that Ash has which lists all the different Pokémon. The Pokémon on the list are crap because they are all fiction, which is inherently less valuable than the true origins, as fiction is made up.)

My research reversed the first words of the Church!

(It is suggested that Darwin's research, compiled in his Origin of Species, contradicts the first words of the Bible, Genesis 1, that God created the heavens and the Earth and all the creatures on the Earth, whereas Darwin suggests that this happened through evolution, not an overt act of God. He says this far outclasses anything Pokémon has ever done.)

You measure your worth by the sales of your merch!

(The success of the Pokémon franchise has led to massive sales of Pokémon merchandise, including video games, playing cards, and action figures. Darwin asserts that Ash, like the rest of the Pokémon anime, is only valuable as a means of selling more merchandise.)

Ash Ketchum:
Yo, ummm, real quick?

(Ash pauses the beat to quickly comment on Darwin's research in an attempt to undermine it, leading into the next line.)

'''This dude spent eight years studying barnacle dick! Kick it!'''



'''You think I'm impressed by your boat trip? Please!'''



You're the most annoying thing on a Beagle since fleas!

(Between 1831 and 1836, Darwin went on a sailing expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. A beagle is also a type of dog, and dogs are often annoyed by fleas, though Ash deems Darwin even more annoying.)

You're a glitchy old man best left out at sea!

(Ash is referencing a glitch known as "the MissingNo (Old Man) glitch" from Pokemon Red and Blue versions. Ash is letting Darwin know that he is as meaningless and should be ignored at sea like missingNo. Ash refered as Darwin being glitchy could also mean him being cranky and not able to move quickly.)

Set sail and Galápago-suck on these!

(Ash suggests that Darwin leave the battle and go back to the high seas, as well as creating a pun on the Galapagos islands where Darwin spent many years studying evolution. Ash suggests that Darwin instead suck on his penis by implication.)

Charles Darwin:
Look, Mighty Morphin' Michael Vick,

(Michael Vick is an American football player who served prison time for participating in illegal dog fights, similar to how Ash participates in Pokémon battles (something Darwin elaborates on in his next line). "Mighty morphin'" refers to the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers which is, like Pokémon, a Japanese-originated franchise aimed at young boys involving monster fights. "Morphin" is used as a reference to evolution.)

Your animated slave fights make me sick!

(Because Pokémon are kept in small PokéBalls and made to fight each other, Darwin considers them slaves to their trainers, an idea he finds morally sickening. There was also an episode of  Pokémon  that induced epileptic seizures in many Japanese children.)

When I battle a foe from so simple a beginning,

(Ash was born and raised in the much removed from civilization backwater town of Pallet Town. Darwin says that this simple beginning suggests that Ash is vastly unequipped to battle him. He also references the final words of On the Origin of Species, "...and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless froms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved".)

I'm not Charles Sheen, but I am Dar-winning!

(Charles Darwin and Charlie Sheen share the same first name. Charlie Sheen's catchphrase, "winning", is played on as a pun on Darwin's surname. While Darwin is not Charlie Sheen, he is still coming out victorious, Dar-winning, as a result of Ash's uncivilized origins.)

Ash Ketchum:
Man, if that's true, then nature is cruel,



'Cause the only thing you're winning is your cousin's gene pool!

(Darwin married and fathered ten children with his cousin Emma Wedgwood.)

You lost three children while they were still small!

(Two daughters and one son of Darwin's died while they were still young children, and Ash mentions this as a lead-up to the next line.)

TB and scarlet fever; gotta catch 'em all!

("Gotta catch 'em all" is the catchphrase of the Pokémon franchise, and one "catches" a disease. Ash suggests that by catching TB (tuberculosis) and scarlet fever, Darwin's children were simply trying to appease the slogan of "Gotta catch 'em all".')

Charles Darwin:
It took millions of years for mankind to evolve!

(Under Darwin's theory of evolution, mankind evolved through numerous ways across many millenia, from single-celled organisms to the modern world. They went from being beings hunched over on hind and forelegs to the erect man we have today. This is a build-up to the next line.)

Now they're hunched over cell phones playing with your balls!

(Darwin asserts that this has all been useless as the Pokémon franchise game Pokémon GO, a mobile app, has caused mankind to go back to their primitive ways of being hunched over, though this time to get a better view of their cellphone screens than because they could only walk that way.)

And it was hard losing my daughters and their brother,

(Darwin acknowledges Ash's comment about the loss of his children, and the emotional difficulty of this, as build-up to the next line.)

As hard as the wood that Oak gave your mother!

(Professor Oak is a Pokémon character who was the first to give Pikachu to Ash and who lives in Pallet Town alongside Ash's mother, Delia Ketchum. The Pokémon fandom often jokingly asserts that Oak only gave Ash Pikachu to get him out of Pallet Town so that Oak could commence a sexual relationship with Delia. Oak is a type of wood, and giving someone wood means having intercourse with them.)