Koji showed up in Good 'Quil Hunting as a brash young Trainer dead set on catching a Cyndaquil. He and Ash ended up competing for the same one in a forest, and when Ash managed to catch it first, Koji demanded a battle for it—winner takes the Pokémon. Brock thought it was a bad idea, but Ash agreed anyway.
In the match, Koji came across as confident and had a solid Pokémon in his Sandslash, but he wasn't exactly kind to it. He kept pushing it to fight even when it was clearly worn out. Still, Cyndaquil had speed on its side and took him down with some quick Tackles, leaving Sandslash defeated.
Not one to accept losing gracefully, Koji tried to just grab the Cyndaquil with a net instead. That backfired spectacularly—the Cyndaquil hit him with a Flamethrower and sent him running away badly burned. As he took off, Brock got in a final jab, telling him he needed to work on himself as a Trainer before he had any business training Pokémon.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
