Also, I like the rivalry between Axew and Scraggy. It's cute how they compete. I actually like the way they're handling Scraggy in general. Instead of it being capable of fighting just seconds after it hatched, they actually treated it like a baby and it's slowly developing over time and getting stronger.
Journey To The Unknown! "Let's battle now!" "With Dialga and Palkia staring at us? ... That sounds like a great idea! Score: 4/10
The heroes have finally arrived in the town with the pokemon contest, the name of which I'm not even going to try to spell. Dawn and Aipom practice swift for the upcoming contest to make it "prettier." Ladies and gentlemen, the heroes: Ash, who wants to be the very best, like no one ever was. Brock, who wants to become a respected pokemon breeder and have a harem of attractive nurses and cops (dont deny it). And Dawn, who wants to be pretty. These These are their stories.
Kenny shows up with his Prinplup. Remember him? Hes the totally-- wait I already did this joke. And I already did the already did the joke joke, too! Dammit. Okay, well, he starts teasing her, and Brock muses that everyone has something "hidden in the closet" while staring directly at Dawn. Haha, Japan.
Kenny mentions that he's going to go visit Dialga and Palkia. We quickly learn he's talking about statues of them in front of abanadoned temple ruins statues being looked over ominously by Team Galactic grunts.
Team Rocket sees them, and has a flashback to being asked to steal the Adamant Orb by the blue-haired guy. Oh, wow! That is definitely something that should have been in the Adamant Orb episode. That is not something that you retcon into the plot. That is-- Dammit. That is just inexcusable. Well, Blue-haired guy knows Team Rocket is following him, but does nothing to stop them because, presumably, he doesnt think theyre a threat. They go into the temple.
Dawn sees some writing in Unown letters on the statue of Palkia: "When every life meets another life, something will be born." Kenny just responds with "that's so true!" like its some homespun wisdom and not silly philosophical nonsense that actual ten year-olds would forget even before they finished hearing.
Kenny wants to battle Ash under the sight of the statues because its only 2009 and Starcraft 2 hasnt come out yet, so Ash decides that since Kenny is using Prinplup, he'll use a grass type instead of Pikachu. I'm not even going to bother calling him stupid. Then Kenny switches it up and sends out a Breloom. Haha, Ash is an incompetent dumbass. Kenny does better than Ash, and his Breloom turns out to know energy ball. Impressed, Ash interrupts the battle and asks Kenny to teach Turtwig it, probably hoping to avoid formally losing to another contest rival (dont forget that Drew beat him early on).
In the temple, the Team Galactic guys set an aqua, iron, and draco plate into a carving in a room with Unown drawn all over the walls. The Unown glow, and the blue-haired guy tells Team Rocket that he's going to transform Sinnoh spacetime into reality. Uh... I dont really know how to correct that since every part of is wrong, not just by itself, but also relative to and combined with the other pieces of the sentence.
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Well, who cares. The Unown drawings come to life, and suddenly there's a golden glowing cube in the center of the room. Blue-haired guy takes it, and the Unown try to stop him. Fortunately, one Bronzor is more than a match for three dozen Unown. Team Galactic escapes, leaving Team Rocket to take the heat for the theft. The Unown freak out and become confused (for some reason?).
The temple starts sealing itself, which catches Dawn in it. The other heroes make it in just in time as well. Meanwhile, the Team Galactic guys, outside, talk about how they're closer to the Spear Pillar. This reminds of early on in MGS2 where Ocelots entire dialogue can be replaced with the words cryptic reference to thing you dont know about yet just over and over again.
The interior of the temple turns into an M.C. Escher painting, and the walls begin to literally breathe and bend using awful CGI. Only Kenny thinks this is a problem. No, I'm not joking. Ash literally has no problem whatsoever with this, he expresses no concern at all and tells Kenny to stop freaking out. Granted, okay, Ash has seen crazier things than this, but still, that he shows no concern over this.
The Unown attack Dawn and the heroes, but fortunately, they're super weak and even Piplup can defeat around a dozen of them in seconds. As soon as they're hit, they act like nothings wrong and they just kind of leave. Still, enough Unown attack to become a problem, and the battle is intense enough that Aipom evolves. Ambipom has an incredibly stupid voice.
Team Rocket meets up with the heroes, and Piplup tells the Unown (and we learn from Meowth) to stop being jerks, so they go away and open a door for the heroes and Team Rocket to leave through. Wow, that was I dont even know what that was.
Do you? Because I dont. I have no idea.
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Team Rocket sees them, and has a flashback to being asked to steal the Adamant Orb by the blue-haired guy. Oh, wow! That is definitely something that should have been in the Adamant Orb episode.
It was at the end.
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charmander6000 posted... Team Rocket sees them, and has a flashback to being asked to steal the Adamant Orb by the blue-haired guy. Oh, wow! That is definitely something that should have been in the Adamant Orb episode.
It was at the end.
... I don't remember that. Crap.
>_>
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Team Shocker! "Quotes are pretty cool mkay?" Score: 6/10
Ash and Kenny are training Turtwig to use energy ball. Tomorrow is the contest, though. Wow, Ash, way to waste Kenny's valuable time on yourself. At night, Jessie talks to James and Meowth about their plan to help her win the contest. Inexplicably, they promise they have a plan and then its never mentioned for the rest of the episode. They appear in the audience for the contest, but they dont actually do anything.
Kenny and Breloom, Jessie and Dustox, everyone does well, et cetera. Dawn and Ambipom do a fancy swift move where Ambipom twirls so many swift stars around itself that it becomes impossible to see, but the move is very pretty.
The judges, however, are not impressed, nor do they think this is remarkable. As a result, Dawn doesn't even get to the second round again. She takes it better this time, though, and congratulates Kenny, who did make it to the second round. Ha, we dont even get stillshots of Kenny and Jessie defeating the nameless trainers. Well, cut to the final: Jessie defeats Kenny and she freaks out, having finally got a contest. Good thing she had James and Meowths plan to fall back on, right? Right?
After the contest, Dawn wonders why she lost a second time and cries to herself when shes alone. The next day, Zoeys shows up, and, hoping to cheer Dawn up, challenges her to a battle. Ambipom uses its swift move, and Zoey reveals why Dawn lost: the swift drowns out Ambipom. The pokemon is supposed to be the attraction, not the move. Then she defeats Dawn, tells her that after losing, she likes to take time off, and continues on her own journey. Dawn decides to continue her contest journey, but not before some more filler.
This was actually a good Dawn-centric episode, Im not doing it credit here.
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It's good that the writers are giving Jessie contest wins, she's not only reached the second round a bunch of times, but has made the finals a few times as well.
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This reminds of early on in MGS2 where Ocelots entire dialogue can be replaced with the words cryptic reference to thing you dont know about yet just over and over again.
oh man did you ever play Xenogears? because the Gazel Ministry puts Ocelot to shame
charmander6000 posted... It's good that the writers are giving Jessie contest wins, she's not only reached the second round a bunch of times, but has made the finals a few times as well.
Yeah, it's pretty cool. I look forward to her being competent at something.
htaeD posted... oh man did you ever play Xenogears? because the Gazel Ministry puts Ocelot to shame
It's been on my game backlist for literally eight years. I own it, but I haven't gotten around to playing it.
One day, though!
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Tanks For The Memories! "I am really doing poorly in my duty to find good quotes." Score: 5/10
The heroes visit a maid cafe, which is something that I know actually exists in Japan; a restaurant where the waitresses dress up as French maids. They sit down at a table, and three waitresses ask what they'd like. When they say Miltank Milk, the maids (named Summer, Spring, and Autumn) take them to a barn to watch them milk the Miltank. Aside from that being really gross, do you really have every customer stand up and walk to the barn after ordering?
Summer's and Spring's Miltank are happy to serve, but Autumn's Miltank won't obey her. Brock offers to help Autumn while Ash and Dawn, dressed as maids, help her sisters serve the customers. By the way, there are literally two other customers. You think I'm going to show a picture of Ash in a maid costume, now, don't you? Nope. I'm not going to force that on anyone else. I will force myself to see it as part of my duty to you gentlemen (and ladies), but if you want to walk into the mouth of Hell, you must do it alone.
Brock tells Autumn to bond with her pokemon, so she goes to her Miltank, who simply ignores her. Brock goes through some trust training with Autumn and Miltank, which results in Autumn nearly falling off of a bridge while Miltank can easily save her, and it does nothing. Fortunately, Brocks Happiny is there to handle the problem.
After the "rush hour" of two people ends, Ash trains with Turtwig, and his energy saddens Dawn, who feels she's failed her pokemon. Amazingly, this isnt resolved during the course of this episode. Yes, thats right. Were in an Arc.
Miltank almost gets everyone killed by some Beedrill, so when Autumn protects it, it comes around and begins to like her. Thats right, kids: if something goes wrong in your life, wait for it to be solved in a dramatic way instead of with hard work and skill. Drama solves everything.
Team Rocket, hoping to start their own maid café, kidnaps Miltank, Autumn, and Brock. They fly by the maid cafe, so Ash and Dawn, who are eating some ice cream, see them. Then the most hilarious thing ever happens.
They go "Isn't that Team Rocket? And Brock is hanging!" Then they finish their ice cream and follow. Yep. Yep, they know that Team Rocket poses so little threat that the ice cream takes priority. Well, theres little more to say. Happiny helps them escape when it learns secret power, Miltankusetackleblastingoffaaaagaaaaaain.
This episode is notable only for being the third in the Ash Crossdresses series of episodes.
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Hot Springing a Leak! "We've been doing more digging than a bunch of music lovers at a rock concert!" Score: 6/10
Ash is still training Turtwig to learn energy ball, but its slow going. There's no pokemon center nearby, so the heroes decide to stop a hot spring hotel where Dawn's friend from childhood (because she's not a kid or anything) lives.
The friend's name is Leona, and at the mature age of ten, she is running a hotel (or so she claims, we later learn her parents run it, but no one questions her claim). Leona owns three Swinub, so Ash challenges her to a battle, but sadly, she must deny the challenge because she doesn't have time for it. Dawn asks to see the hot spring, but Leona says it's not ready. When she hears that, Dawn says it's no problem, she can find the way on her own, and rushes off.
So Im guessing Dawn was that one friend back in school. You know the one.
Well, after the heroes jump into a shallow, cold pool where a hot spring should be, Leona explains that the water stopped flowing a week ago. It flows through a pipe down a nearby mountain, and Leona's parents went to investigate it, and havent returned since. No one is concerned about this.
Leona hopes her Swinub will find new hot springs to use for the hotel, so the heroes accompany her while she looks.
Cut to Team Rocket; unsurprisingly, they're behind the pipe's hot spring water being cut off, and hope to start their own hotel. The Swinub quickly lead everyone to Team Rocket's hot spring, and Leona almost immediately sees through their claim of discovering another hot spring and accuses them of stealing her water. Team Rocket claims it's impossible to prove, but then Leona's parents show up and claim someone tapped a second pipe into their waterline. Realizing the jig is up, Team Rocket reveals themselves.
Team Rocket then attacks with a giant robot that attacks by shooting water and screaming "Badabingbadaboom" (seriously), so Dawn and Leona work together to defeat it.
Later, the heroes have a tag battle of Dawn/Leona versus Ash/Brock because the writers suddenly realize it's only been fifteen minutes and they still have seven minutes to kill. The battle is a tie when everyone is frozen in a blizzard/mimiced blizzard. Everyone celebrates with a dip in the hot spring, and we have a completely tensionless seven minutes until the credits roll because theres nothing at stake and Team Rocket already blasted off.
Ash asks Leona why Dawns nickname is Deedee, and Dawn prevents an answer. I get the feeling well learn that later or something, but who knows?
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Riding the Winds of Change "We'll beat you goons so long as we got balloons!" Score: 6/10
The heroes have arrived at Unnamed City, and Turtwig is still training with energy ball. It's almost got it working, but the training is interrupted by dozens of Gligar, led by a Gliscor, stealing the heroes' food and flying off.
Suddenly Paul appears, and has his Murkrow and Weavile attack. The Gligar and Gliscor simply fly away, but one is left behind. It falls onto Ash, but he lets it escape. Paul is happy the Gliscor appears to be strong, announces his intention to capture it, and leaves. For someone who doesnt care about Ash, you sure announce your intentions to him a lot.
Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy appear, and because she has no pressing need to chase the Gligar down, Jenny explains to the heroes what's happening: the Gligar used to live a forest, but a storm blew Gliscor into the city. The winds are still too strong to escape back to the forest because of the currents between skyscrapers, so Gliscor is stuck here, and because this particular Gliscor is extremely strong, all of the other Gligar followed it into the city, because Gligar dont believe in hipsters.
Officer Jenny plans to use bait to trap the pokemon and return them to the forest, and the heroes ask to help. Because she has no officers under her command, Jenny gratefully accepts their assistance.
Cut to the Gligar hiding in a dark building. All but one of them, presumably the one from earlier, see a truck full of a food driven by Officer Jenny and the heroes, so they follow immediately. Before the trap can spring, Team Rocket appears and traps all of the pokemon in a cage of their own. Even though this is not only legal, it's actually exactly what Officer Jenny wanted to happen, the heroes insist it not happen and attack the cage. The cage is too strong, but luckily, the Gligar that got left behind shows up and frees its friends. It's almost killed when it falls from their balloon, but Ash catches it and blah blah blah the original trap is ruined.
The Gligar start attacking things at random, so Jenny decides the only way to solve this problem is to create a current of air to carry them out of the city. Thus, the heroes just need to use a powerful enough gust attack form the roof of the pokemon center. Paul attacks the Gligar with his Weavile, but Gliscor is just too skilled and escapes with all of its friends except the Gligar who keeps getting left behind. The heroes show up and follow it to its friends and Paul.
Paul attacks Gliscor, but gets his ass kicked. Ash tells Gliscor that he can help it get back to the forest if it comes to the pokemon center and lets itself be carried away, but Paul attacks during Ash's speech and captures it. This leaves the Gligar without a leader, so the Gligar that's obviously going to join Ash attacks Paul, only to get its ass kicked. The Gligar now run around randomly, so Ash has Pikachu use thunderbolt on the electric immune pokemon to herd them to the center, and the remaining Gligar are led there by Ashs Gligar, who senses his plan. I assume its sensed and not understood, since, as we all know, pokemon cant understand human speech.
At the pokemon center, Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny have assembled a whole seven pokemon that know gust, which blows them all several miles into into the forest. Team Rocket tries to attack again, so Ash sends out Turtwig instead of Staravia because it's more dramatic. Energy ball lands, and Team Rocket blasts off again.
The last Gligar that always gets left behind flies back to Ash and asks to join him, and Ash, deciding its been a while since he had a ground pokemon, happily accepts it.
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Sleight of Sand! "Listen, is that the voice of empty threats I hea-- Can we save this for another time, we're way overbooked." Score: 5/10
The heroes come to one of those common Japanese deserts, so they decide this is the perfect place to send their pokemon out for some fun. Because what's more fun than sand?
A Hippowdon shows up, accidentally gets Pachirisu caught in one of the holes in its back, and leaves. Ash recalls all of his pokemon instead of sending Staravia to track Hippowdon, and then they attack using discharge and thunderbolt before Brock finally remembers to tell them that electric moves don't affect it.
The heroes can't find Hippowdon, but they do find a Hippopotas. They quickly identify it as the same Hippopotas from the other episode, and they think it got separated from that Hippowdon.
Team Rocket captures Hippowdon is a net, but it's too heavy to move. The heroes tell them to release Hippowdon when a Team Rocket robot Rhydon appears. The heroes assume it's Jessie and James', but they deny it, and yes! It's the return of Botch and Cassidy. They inform Team Rocket that they're working for Dr. Wily (IT'S PROFESSOR NAMBA) and they need a Hippowdon for his purposes. Ash helps Hippowdon escape, so it's now a three-way race for Hippowdon. The heroes win.
But then they fall into a pit trap by Team Rocket, which captures Hippowdon with their balloon. Burt and Cassidy help the heroes and Hippowdon escape to catch it for themselves. They successfully capture it, but then Jessie and James appear again in a Slowbro robot.
It's now a giant robot fight! Because this is Japan, and how else are you going to settle an argument? Sadly, Billow and Cassidy's robot is better than Jessie and James', and they win with ease.
Pachirisu finally escapes Hippowdon, so it chooses now to use hyper beam on the Rhydon robot, destroying it. Jessie and James show up again, and after a long battle, Hippowdon blasts everyone off.
All in all, a boring episode to showcase the return of Berman and Cassidy.
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After three or so years, evidence strongly points to the possibility that the episode was the last appearance of Cassidy and Blanche in the series. Between the Chronicles subseries and that episode, I think we can safely say that they ended on a weak note.
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FalconPain posted... I will be forced to relay the bad news.
After three or so years, evidence strongly points to the possibility that the episode was the last appearance of Cassidy and Blanche in the series. Between the Chronicles subseries and that episode, I think we can safely say that they ended on a weak note.
Wh-- what?!
I didn't realize that was their finale. That was...
Man.
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