-Today, Ash and Pikachu are staring at a notebook. ...aww, Ash's pen has a pokeball at the end of it. :3
-Meanwhile, Iris and Dento are...whoa! Dento's not wearing his tuxedo vest thing! He...looks kind of weird without it. Anyway, Iris and Dento are saying stuff and I have no idea what.
-Wait, is Ash...planning a strategy ahead of time? Did he get replaced with a robotic twin when we weren't looking?!
-Ash decides to bring someone back into his rotation for the gym...I presume it's Palpitoad, what with the "actually thinking about how he'll battle ahead of time" thing and all.
-Everyone rides the rollercoaster into the gym again. Ash and Iris are acting like a normal person would on a rollercoaster...but Dento is just calmly smiling. There's such a thing as TOO calm, man!
-Ash leaves Pikachu with the other two, and Pikachu is just kind of sad about it. Gee, I don't remember it acting like that
any other time Ash didn't use it in a gym. Why the sudden drama queen act?
-I still have to question where all the dudes are in Elesa's screaming horde of fans.
-Hey, the Elesa cosplayer is there again!
-The battle's about to start, and it looks like Pikachu got over itself already. Good.
-Elesa leads with Zebstrika. Considering how thoroughly it kicked Bianca's *** last time, combined with the fact that it's out first...I'm guessing we won't be seeing a whole lot of it now, if you catch my drift.
-Ash sends out Palpitoad. Ash? Using type advantages? He really HAS been replaced with a robot double!
-And suddenly a map of Japan appeared on Pikachu's head...oh wait, it's just a weather warning.
-Elesa has Zebstrika use...Flame Charge? I know that electric moves will do jack here, but doesn't it have Double Kick? Why not use that?!
-That weather warning can go away any minute now. It's in the waaaaay.
-Paliptoad uses Hydro Pump, but oh wait! Those Flame Charges made Zebstrika faster!
-And NOW Zebstrika uses Double Kick!
-...wait, WAS that double kick? Because Palpitoad seems confused now. Or is it just reeling from being kicked in the face?
-Ahahahaha Zebstrika's confusion after being hit with Supersonic is GLORIOUS.
-Aaaaand the zebra just got launched into a wall.
-And Dento kills the mood by noting how much damage it took.
-Next up for Elesa is...Emolga! It sounds
very slightly different from Iris' Emolga.
-Oh hey, Attract! Who would have guessed that the animators would want to reuse that animation?
-And Palpitoad's down!
-Iris looks downright shocked by all this. What, did she think her Emolga was the only one that could spam Attract?
-Ash thinks about who to use next, and...runs out of the gym? What the hell?!
-Apparently "what the hell" is what's going through Elesa's head too.
-Ash returns, and Elesa wonders if he healed Palpitoad, but of course that's not what he did. (Although...is that explicitly against the rules? I mean, if Ash leaving the gym in between rounds is kosher...)
-Ash sends out...Snivy! Elesa has Emolga use Attract, and Ash has Snivy do the same.
-...neither one is affected! Elesa wonders if Ash's Snivy is female...which it is...which gets a rather amazing reaction shot from Iris and Dento.
-Ash is still confident since Grass types resist electricity...but Elesa reminds him that Emolga is part flying. This is looking like a worse choice every minute!
-Snivy's getting pretty beat up by Acrobatics, and Pikachu...is going nuts and releasing electricity everywhere! Did it wake up on the wrong side of the bed today or what?
-Snivy's down!
-Ahaha, Pikachu knocked itself over by flipping out so much.
-Ash has another thinking session...which is displeasing the referee. Not that I blame her, since she already had to wait god-knows-how-long when he went out to get Snivy. But Pikachu cuts Ash's thinking short with a zap. And then it goes and yells at him!
-It looks like the issue here is that Ash was thinking too much, when we all know that he gets his wildest successes when he's flying by the seat of his pants. That's great. It's like it was specifically calculated to piss off all the people who go "omg why isn't Ash more focused on type advantages/planning strategies?!"
-Pikachu's turn is now! It uses Electro Ball, and...so does Emolga! ...you know, I'm surprised it took this long for us to see actual electric attacks in the electric gym.
-One Quick Attack, and Emolga's down!
-Elesa compliments Ash, and sparkles fill the air(but she's talking about sparkling or something, so it's okay!)...and the camera pans down to her legs before panning back up...oh,
fanservice. Anyway, apparently she said something weird since everyone(including Ash) is kind of taken aback by it.
-What the hell is with Dento's facial expression after he answers Iris'...actually, I'm not sure what she's asking, but I think it involves whatever Elesa's fans are saying?
-...okay, I must be mishearing something, because I SWEAR Elesa called her last Pokemon her "electric cream." Anyway, it's Tynamo! Which floats in midair because
shut up. (and because its ability is Levitate, I guess)
-Everyone seems kind of confused by it. I'm not sure why, since this show has established over and over that a Pokemon's size/appearance really have nothing to do with how strong it is.
-Holy hell, the thing's like a goddamn bullet!
-...Elesa's going to have some pretty large wall repair bills once this match is done.
-Ash decides to have Pikachu go all-out with...Thunderbolt. Oh
Ash.
-Wait, it's attacking the floor and walls? Including areas dangerously close to the balcony...what is this supposed to accomplish other than forcing Elesa to completely renovate her gym after the match is over?
-Oh, apparently there was only one non-dusty area left, which Tynamo naturally went through, which let Pikachu dodge it & then smack it with Iron Tail. Thus sending into the wall & KOing it. Funny how there's only ever the one hole in the wall behind her despite having three Pokemon smashed into it...
-Elesa tells Ash where the next gym is, and he runs off...but then Elesa remembers that the drawbridge is still up. Looks like they're stuck here for a while!
-...the Subway Masters are announcing the next episode preview? What sorcery is this?!
A pretty damned good episode, if only for Ash's main trouble being
himself instead of Elesa. Most of the comedic moments were pure gold; the facial expressions were
especially amazing. And really...
Ash ran to swap in a new Pokemon in the middle of a gym battle. That's just...wow. Though I'm surprised that he actually rotated out one of the starters, even if it was only used for comedic effect when he swapped it back in.
My only major complaint is that Pikachu felt out of character. The whole drama queen act about not being used/Ash doing poorly in the battle felt forced. I guess it makes sense that Pikachu'd be the one to yell at Ash for screwing himself over by using a strategy that's just not
him, but other than that...yeah, no. I do appreciate the attempt at giving Pikachu a personality again, but this was just jarring.
I suppose the battles themselves weren't that good, but they were mostly used as vehicles to point out that Ash does better as an improviser than a planner. And the episode as a whole entertained me, so
eh. Though I'm kind of amused/bewildered that Elesa used a grand total of one electric attack here. I get that Ash only used Pokes that resisted electricity, but really now?
The 4th KIRA said:
How come everyone loves her reviews, yet mine are totally ignored? *Forever alone*
I read your reviews!
...is it cheating if people only pay attention to yours because I said that I read them?
dman_dustin said:
- Palpitoad is male. I mean why give it such a feminine voice? I mean it was very feminine in this battle, even more so than it has been in the past few episodes. So yeah, not really cool. But I expected prior to this episode that Palpitoad was male, way to cheapen it here. And I'll get to why this is even worse down the line.
Feminine voice? Its voice sounds pretty neutral to me(bearing in mind that its voice does a few funny things since it's supposed to sound vaguely frog-ish). And how did it act "feminine"? It seems to me that you're just hunting for things to complain about. Would it kill you to stop *****ing and moaning about
almost everything that happens in
every episode? There's a point where I have to wonder why you even watch the show since you seem to disapprove of everything that happens in it.
And before you go "it's just constructive criticism!" or something similar: I know what constructive criticism of the show is. I appreciate disagreements and differences of opinion in the community, since those are what spur discussion. I do not, however, like it when there are people who seem to do nothing
but complain, since they drag an air of negativity into almost every thread they post in.