I had already seen the (Japanese) trailer for today's episode, so, frankly, I was a bit sceptical when I started to watch it:
My first concern was which voice Aaron would get. But, thank God, my fears were unfounded: PUSA did a great job and gave Aaron a voice worthy of an Elite Four-member!
Now let's take a closer look at the single scenes:
Jenny freaking out when seeing or talking about Aaron reminds of me because I always go crazy as well when my queen Cynthia is mentioned
I liked Aaron being so kind as to allow our heroes to accompany him and show his home to them.
The mere fact that an Elite Four member was shown while doing fitness training was kinda startling. He even has a flatscreen! did you notice that? ^^ Quite a cosy home he has!
Today's "Funniest Moment" -Award undoubtedly goes to Ash for overdoing his training. Why was I expecting exactly that to happen? :XD2:
And now to my only point of critism which, however, is a major one and will influences this episode's rating:
How in the world is it possible that TWO ELITE FOUR(!!!) Pokemon are hit by the ridiculously weak Pokemon of Team Rocket and that Aaron can be tricked by a Haze-attack from Seviper and crashes like a plane???.
This was so awfully disappointing...
As Sceptile 726 said quite rightly:
An elite pokemon being hit by TR's pokes? Blasphemy
I wouldn't call it blasphemy, but something that just MUST NOT happen! I'd understand it if Aaron was just an ordinary gym leader, but considering that he is an Elite Four member..NOOOOO!:saiyan:
Thinking of the upcoming battle for the title of Champion(!!!) against Cynthia, I'm slowly but surely starting to wonder whether that battle is going to be somewhat unworthy..
To cut a long story short, I just wanted to see a much stronger Elite-Aaron...Man, that bothers me so much...
Finally, the background of Wurmple and Aaron was heart-warming and moving, though. A welcome change and quite a successful plot. I was also impressed by Beautifly's powerful Solar Beam. The first one which came down from the sky all of a sudden almost looked like a glaring flash of lightning. Awesome!
All in all, it would be a great episode, if it hadn't been for that aforesaid messed up scene in which Aaron's great Pokemon got hit quite hard.
7.5 out of 10 points