Pokalicious posted... From: mnkboy907 | #449 Given B/W's development in removing Team Rocket from many episodes, were they in the Zekrom movie at all? Yes, and they did nothing.
That, and they acted like their old selves. I have no idea what their deal is...
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Anagram posted... I never heard any of those three trainers with the Torterra, Blaziken, and whatever the last one was, have their names said.
Because in the dub version, their names weren't said, even though in the original they were. Their dub names were released afterwards on Pokémon.com. Not sure if they were properly credited as such in the movie, but imdb does have the character names paired with the voice actors.
...Well, one of them, anyway. The other two they don't even have listed as having appeared in the movie. Then again, they don't have Darkrai's English-language voice actor listed either, though they do have his original one.
I don't really mind Piplup so far, guys. I'm sorry. Maybe it'll get more annoying as time goes on.
Yes, it will. I didn't really dislike Piplup that much early on either.
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Okay, time to start the preparations for the next contest. Gotta be almost time for VGMC6, right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KloeGqCPszo
A Stand Up Sit-Down "Let's prepare for my blast off into the World of Win!" "That's not the blast off I'm worried about..." Score: 4/10
The heroes are derping around in a forest when a Glameow and Misdreavus run up to them. Dawn recognizes them immediately, and they lead the heroes to Zoey, whos injured her foot. Brock heals her, but Zoey is still too hurt to move very far, so she talks with Dawn for a while. We also see Zoey's newest pokemon: Shellos.
Zoey mentions that the next contest is a double performance battle, where you use two pokemon at the same time.
Zoey offers to help Dawn's Buizel and Piplup train since she helped her. Her Glameow and Shellos have a series of moves that impress the heroes, but Zoey is unsatisfied, showing that shes way out of Dawns league. Im just saying, come on. At least Ash was actually on Garys level the entire time they knew each other.
Thus, Dawn organizes a plan: Piplup/Pachirisu and Buizel/Buneary for the second stage. Wait, Buneary is one of your choices for the battle stage? Obviously Buizel is the best choice, but Buneary is your second best? Unfortunately, the Pachirisu/Piplup strategy fails, and Pachirisu only succeeds in shocking Piplup.
Ash agrees to a mock double performance contest battle with Dawn, and even though Ash does not specialize in contest battles and Dawn does, Ash beats her. She tries an aqua jet/ice beam combo that only succeeds in freezing Buizel, but everyone tells her that it's a good idea, they just screwed it up.
As they continue to train, Team Rocket shows up. Jessie is in her Jesselina outfit (I rarely mention this, but when Jessie enters contests, she enters as "Jesselina" to stop the heroes from figuring out who she is). Jessie insults Dawn and challenges her to a battle, but Zoey is insulted by Dawn's... insultee status, so she accepts the battle. Yes, Zoey steps forward to defend Dawn's honor.
Dustox/Seviper versus Glameow/Shellos. Jessie has Dustox use poison sting and Seviper use poison tail to knock them into a spin, which shows that with no preparation, Jessie's combos are better than Dawn's. It doesn't work, though, and Zoey's pokemon just use the poison sting to make themselves look better. Jessie loses easily.
The heroes depart, I guess.
This was a really boring episode, guys. Sorry, there arent many jokes to make about it.
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For a person that has yet to win a contest at that point Jessie is a decent coordinator, kind of like how James is a decent battler, but loses because of the plot or because Ash is among the strongest trainers in the world.
Anagram posted... She tries an aqua jet/ice beam combo that only succeeds in freezing Buizel, but everyone tells her that it's a good idea, they just screwed it up.
It's actually true, Buizel did screw it up. Don't worry though, he'll spam that move later on with absolutely no more practice.
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From: mnkboy907 | #460 What do you mean by debut? Like, one of the characters will trade a Pokemon to evolve it? Trip does have a Gurdurr and Bianca does have a Shelmet...
The Electrike Company! "Dashing all hope, putting fear in its place! When everything's worse... Of course it's much worse." Score: 6/10
The heroes are sitting around when an Electrike attacks them. Its trainer, a guy named Jacko, appears and apologizes. Jacko is a pokemon breeder, and examines Ash's Staravia. Right in front of Electrike, he says how much more he likes flying types than electric types. Wow, thats a move worthy of Ash.
Another guy, an old man named Cal, appears, and introduces himself as the head of the Pokemon Training Center, which specializes in electric pokemon. Cal talks about how Electrike has potential, but Jacko has to bring it out so that he can transfer it to the nearby power plant like he has all of the other Electrike. The heroes of course decide to help Electrike because why not, its not like they have an exciting adventure to Be The Very Best Like No One Ever Was to worry about.
So do you know what its time for? A montage.
Gonna need a montage
MONTAGE
Team Rocket looks it over, and Jessie decides to steal Electrike. James and Meowth, however, feel for its budding friendship with Pikachu and side with the heroes, telling Jessie that she can steal other pokemon, so she runs off crying. Instead, James and Meowth agree to help the pokemon train. Jacko accepts their help even though there is literally nothing they can do to help that Brock and Dawn cant also do.
Jacko has Ash, James, and Meowth dress up as walking targets, but Electrike still can't hit them because of how much it sucks. I mean, theyre humans (or at least run as slowly as humans), and Electrike is a pokemon. Its meant to be able to target stuff way faster than the fifteen miles an hour or so that James or Ash can likely run.
Well, it turns out that it doesnt actually matter, because Jessie appears in a custom pink giant robot (complete with bows made out of metal) and steals Electrike. I would call this overly girly, but I actually did know a girl in high school with a pink car, pink purse, and about a dozen pink outfits she switched between every day. She was... kind of an eyesore. Electrike gets angry and evolves into a Manectric, breaking free of Jessie's robot, so Jessie settles for stealing Pikachu. Meowth and James decide to betray Jessie, climb onto the robot and help Manectric target it. Manectric can now control its electric attacks even though nothing has changed in the past minute and a half except its no longer an Electrike, so it blasts Team Rocket off, and James and Meowth defend their action as the right thing, and are satisfied with having helped Manectric. Cal appears and tells Manectric it's succeeded. Now that Jacko and Manectric have grown so close, Cal takes the pokemon and drives off so he can use it in a power plant while Jacko stays behind and never sees it again.
Uh success?
I admit, it is kind of funny to see James and Meowth betray Jessie because they get angry at her for trying to break up a friendship because shes a poor friend to them, and thats most of the reason I gave this episode a good score. Episodes with a high concentration of Team Rocket are usually above average; as Ive said before, theyre the most interesting main characters on the show. Theyre certainly more interesting than Ash (The Hero), Brock (The Mature One), and Dawn (The Girl).
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James has to be my favorite character on the show, and I think you make a great point that Team Rocket, when focused on are better than the main characters. I think that's why they're slowly being written off. The episode where James has a chance to quit Team Rocket, for example is probably one of the best episodes the series has ever made. On his own it only takes days before an entire town likes him and welcomes him as one of their own, while Jessie and Meowth just can't adjust to that.
At least Ash was actually on Garys level the entire time they knew each other.
He was?
I don't think we can say, the first time they battled was before Johto started and while Gary lost earlier in the Kanto tournament than Ash you could say that it was unlucky bracket placement, kind of like those CotD that loses to Ash in the first round despite taking him to his last pokemon yet Ash reaches the quarterfinals.
Then again according to Gary before their Johto league match the closest he came to losing to Ash was when they tied with the pokeball though that was Gary's opinion so whether that's true can be debated.
I always got the impression that Gary was a little better than Ash for most of their rivalry, with Ash ultimately overtaking him, but with Zoey and Dawn, I can't help but get the feeling that the former is just on a different tier than the latter.
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Now that Jacko and Manectric have grown so close, Cal takes the pokemon and drives off so he can use it in a power plant while Jacko stays behind and never sees it again.
Uh success?
I laughed way too hard at this.
And I always had the impression that Gary was way above Ash in the first season, with Ash closing the gap over the course of the Orange Island and G/S/C episodes. Look at how thoroughly Gary was thrashing Viridian Gym before Mewtwo was brought out.
charmander6000 posted... I agree Zoey comes off more mentorish and I'm trying to remember if there was a time when Dawn directly defeated her, but I can't think of a case.
That's because there wasn't. At least by my recollection. There were at least two times when Dawn indirectly defeated Zoey by defeating someone who had defeated Zoey, but I'm almost positive that whenever those two went head to head, Dawn lost.
Malice in Wonderland "This lap of mine is made for a Persian! Evolve or begone!" Score: 9.5/10
Easily the best episode in years.
It starts to rain at night, so the heroes take refuge in an old, decrepit gate that's apparently in the middle of a forest. They notice on the other side of the gate there's inexplicably no rain, so they decide to take that road to the pokemon center... even though there's no reason to think there's a pokemon center this way and oh yeah it's magically not raining fifteen feet from where it is raining and they don't think this is weird. Then again, yeah, I keep forgetting that they have fourth grade educations.
As they wander through a foggy field, they are followed by a Mismagius, and when the fog lifts, they see a pokemon center.
Literally no one thinks this is strange. In fact, the heroes only suspect that something is amiss when Nurse Joy confesses her love to Brock.
(why thank you, Nintendo. I did need another reaction image)
An Officer Jenny appears as well, doing likewise.
Now that Brock's threesome fantasies are being fulfilled, who appears to Dawn and Ash? Why, her mom and Professor Oak, of course! Because having your parent and a mentor figure appear when you've established an air of lust in the scene isn't bizarrely Freudian at all.
Oak and Dawn's mom tell Ash and Dawn that they've been invited to the Ultimate Pokemon Master and Pokemon Contest matches.
Meanwhile, Team Rocket wanders through the field, muttering about how hungry they all are, and sure enough, the fog lifts and they're at a five-star all-you-can-eat-for-free restaurant.
The heroes are taken to the Great Coliseum, which is exactly what it sounds like. We see Cynthia commanding a Rayquaza to defeat a Kyogre. Ash is momentarily unsure because, oh yeah, Cynthia is the strongest trainer in Sinnoh and I guess she also owns a Rayquaza, but Oak explains that his previous winning records in other regions is so strong that the normal channels have been waived. ... That is actually, literally more reasonable than the normal plot of the show that forces Ash to compete against the gyms. Its easy to forget that Ash actually is the Orange Islands Champion, which makes Oaks explanation completely plausible, were it not for how obviously insane everything is around them.
Cut to Team Rocket, and Jessie is asked to star in a brand new reality show by Famous Director (that's his real name). By the way, we later see Jessie acting and reading her lines from a script. Im certain that this was just an oversight, but still, I find it funny that, of all things, Pokemon calls reality TV on being obviously fake. Meanwhile, Giovanni appears and tells Meowth that he's been promoted to his main pokemon and Persian is now for losers, and James finds the rarest bottlecaps in the world.
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Cut back to the heroes, and Dawn is about to compete in her new dress.
Her opponent is her mother because the writers just remembered that they havent yet established any super strong coordinators like Cynthia is to regular trainers, so Dawns mom is technically the strongest in Sinnoh. Meanwhile, Ash battles Cynthias Rayquaza with Pikachu. Meanwhile meanwhile, Batman fights my obese uncle who lives in Sacramento.
Okay, no, but it's about the same odds, I mean, logically.
Dawn sends out Piplup to fight her mother's-- Feebas? Feebas' first move is "evolve," hahaha okay I literally laughed out loud at that, and Dawn loses half her points. Meanwhile, Brock is buried by so many Officer Jennies and Nurse Joys that even he begins to-- no, actually, he's cool with it.
That is, until the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennies all turn on him and pull a Croagunk.
Brock is now terrified, and wakes up screaming. He realizes he's had a nightmare, and only woke up because Croagunk escaped its pokeball and used poison jab on him... Jesus Christ, Croagunk can tell when you're hitting on women in your dreams? Well, he sees Ash and Dawn still asleep, and the Mismagius, and figures out that it's used hypnotize on them. Unfortunately, it immediately uses hypnotize again, putting Brock back into the shared dream. This time, he ignores the Jennies and Joys and runs back to the coliseum to talk to Dawn and Ash.
Dawn defeats Milotic in one hit, and Pikachu defeats Rayquaza in one hit as well. Their awards? Every gym badge and contest ribbon in the world (except Unovas, I guess). Brock runs up and tells the others that it's all a dream, and they instantly believe him. To be fair, Mismagius doesn't hide it once it's been accused and immediately drops the illusion, but still. I like this next part, where Dawn scans it with her pokedex, and it explains that some Mismagius just like to screw with humans, and that is literally the only explanation for Mismagius actions we get during this entire episode.
Mismagius turns into a purple Rayquaza and starts attacking the heroes, and Team Rocket has their illusions drop as well. They then get trapped in an infinite loop of blasting off.
Oh my God, okay, thats brilliant.
The heroes run from Rayquaza and see the gate from earlier, but Rayquaza won't let them escape, so Pikachu, Piplup, and Croagunk attack it. And they lose easily. Then they enlarge to the size of buildings because "everybody's getting what they wished for!" Now that they're huge, they defeat Rayquaza, which morphs back into Mismagius.
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Thousands of badges and ribbons fall from the sky, and the Joys and Jennies appear. Mismagius offers them, but the heroes refuse. Why? Well, 1. Ash refuses because it's not really being the best if he's just given the title. 2. Brock refuses because it's not really love. 3. Dawn refuses because victory makes her feel empty inside. Jesus Christ, show. Way to take a dark-****ing-turn there, episode. Jesus ****ing Christ.
Mismagius agrees to let the heroes go back to the real world, and they wake up. A (real) Nurse Joy appears and asks the heroes if they're okay, and apologizes, explaining that this area is inhabited by Mismagius. She offers to take the heroes to her nearby pokemon center and give them lunch. Meanwhile, Team Rocket is still trapped in the nightmare of infinite blasting off and no one does anything about it.
Okay, so. This episode is good. Its honestly, really, not-ironically-at-all good. This episode has something that is very rare in this show: Actual Effort. Actual Effort. Someone actually put real effort into making this episode clever, original, and funny. I dont know who he was, but he put Actual Effort into things. Even minor, unnoticeable things like the contest announcer being the same voice actor as the narrator (little fourth wall-breaking moment there) or James finding a bottlecap from Kanto-Cola or a director named Famous Director. The only way this episode could have been better is if when Croagunk poison jabbed Brock, Misty and Max appeared in his dream Well, and if either Dawns mom was replaced or Cynthia was replaced. Its just weird to see Dawns mom given the same level as Cynthia And for another way for Rayquaza to be defeated. Pikachu, Piplup, and Croagunk enlarging themselves kind of comes out of nowhere.
I mean, sure, Mismagius doesnt have any motive beyond I like to screw with humans, but hell, thats better than the motives given for half of the movie villains. This is literally the best episode of this show I have seen in hundreds of episodes, and I definitely recommend it.
I also like how Ash and Dawn get what they want, which is to be a pokemon master and top coordinator, but Brock just gets a load of women instead of becoming a pokemon breeder. I know it probably wasnt intentional subtlety, but still.
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Some_Character posted... I recall Zoey getting beaten only like once, by someone we're best off not mentioning.
My god, you're right! She's also seen losing a regular battle to Fantina, but the only time we ever see her lose a contest battle is against...that person.
charmander6000 posted... It was a great episode.
Dawn's mother is probably the best opponent at this point of the anime since she's the only coordinator that has won titles at that point.
True, and remember, these dreams are working out of the characters' psyches. Unlike May, who originally set out on a Pokémon journey planning to become a trainer, then discovered contests and decided that being a coordinator was more fun, Dawn sets out with the express intent of wanting to become a great coordinator like her mother. So it's actually the best possible choice.
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Okay, time to start the preparations for the next contest. Gotta be almost time for VGMC6, right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KloeGqCPszo
That episode was indeed great last time I saw it. There are two coordinators- one male and one female- as strong as/stronger than Dawn's mom, but neither have been introduced at this point, and both kind of serve as plot points/obstacles for Dawn to overcome in the episode they're introduced in so it wouldn't make sense to bring either in now. Still they could've went with Fantina or someone instead but that probably wouldn't work as well. Iono.
Mass Hip-Po-Sis! "You need speaks therapy!" Score: 3.5/10
The heroes finish lunch, but Turtwig has disappeared into the forest. They quickly find it, and it leads them to a Hippopotas trapped on an outcropping on a cliff face. Ash rescues it using a rope, and they feed it an apple before leaving.
As soon as they go, Hippopotas follows them. Rhonda the reporter from Sinnoh Now (remember her?) shows up and tells the heroes that this Hippopotas has been missing from its herd. You see, she was filming a documentary about a herd of Hippopotas when this one got separated, and she came looking for it because it sounds like a better story. Even though her job is to film a documentary and oh nevermind. The heroes decide to take it back to its herd when, of course, Team Rocket appears and steals Pika-- Hippopotas. Uh... why do they want it, exactly?
Ash rescues it,
And leaves. No, he doesn't deal with Team Rocket, he just... leaves. He feels that he doesn't have time to deal with them right now even though time is no concern right now, so he just kind of leaves without stopping them in any way from doing more harm. Bizarrely, Rhonda doesn't follow the heroes even though she was here to film Hippopotas. Yeah, thats definitely a thing, alright.
A few hours later, Team Rocket steals Hippopotas again, but this time it actually does something useful and uses sand tomb to stop them on its own. A few hours later, Team Rocket attacks again, and before Brock (of all people) can blast them off again, they knock Ash and Hippopotas into a river. Buizel is able to rescue Hippopotas easily, and Ash swims to shore. but Hippopotas is now wet and sick, so the heroes go to a pokemon center. Unfortunately, the center doesn't have enough sand to heal it, so the heroes rush out and find some. A boy on the cusp of adolescence learning about himself while he travels the country with his friends, trying to master a skill that he sometimes uses to save the world? Boring.
Digging sand?! I am all over that ****. Ash is seriously so excited about digging sand and rushing it back to Hippopotas like it's the biggest deal ever.
Team Rocket tries yet again to steal Hippopotas (fourth time this episode), so the heroes do their thing.
The heroes finally reach the herd, and Hippopotas rejoins it. Huh. I kind of expected it to join Ash, he put so much effort into making it comfortable and stuff.
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