The Big Al said:
Skitty maybe a super but don't even think Pikachu would still be standing after that kind of punishment. Not mention Pikachu has been around for years and uis very well trained. Skitty's been around for a half dozen episodes and takes a Focus Punch, deflects another, and then take two Hyper Beams. Like I said, even Pikachu would be a shadow on a wall after that.
Wow, I'm siding with a detractor for once (though I still can't comprehend how Cloud Strife found the Torkoal capture episode to be bad, let alone WORSE then this).
Before going on with my criticisms, I should note one thing that I feel in unjust in detracting this episode, the Hyper Beams. To me it didn't look at all like Skitty was hit directly by them, more like it was dodging and just got hit by the edge of the beam (like when one gets a cut from a bullet nearly hitting them). Thus it makes sense Skitty took little damage from that. However, it would have helped if they had showed Skitty trying to dodge rather than reusing the same scene of it getting hit.
More pros:
I liked how they showed the many uses of Psychic (i.e it can manipulate matter and energy and fire as a blast of energy), and Jessie's appeal was beautiful.
The story of why the mother hated the thought of her son being close to Pokemon was fairly touching, if scant on details.
HOWEVER.
I found May's appeal to be very disappointing. Skitty's juggling was so simple and plain, it should have shown more energy. It is super cute though so it must have won over the judges just on looks. At least they had May get the lowest score of those who passed, but the way it was shown May shouldn't have passed, unless all the others that didn't were really bad (and from what we saw it was hard to tell).
While I can understand the Hyper Beams, I do not see how Skitty took so little damage from a Focus Punch right in the face, unless its head has some armor playing or something that we don't know about. It does look like it has a thick skull, but still the attack was so direct and seemed to hit it quite hard (though it looked weak compared to other Focus Punches we've seen) and yet it took away so few points. They should have had it take away and lot and then just cut out or have Skitty dodge most other attacks it was hit by in the battle.
The Hyper Beams were incredibly weak, I can't recall ever seeing ones before that were so small and did so little damage to the surrounding area (just look at the Hyper Beam used by Dusclops in the sixth movie for comparison.)
Everyone's powers seemed just so screwed up against each other, and without any explanations. If they had explained strange effects more like they usually do this would have been better.
The most awful thing is that they could have had Skitty win the battle well if the writers had simply had May use one of those clever strategies the writers are usually so good at. Heck, knocking the Will-O-Wisp back into Dusclops was a good start. They could have made it so Dusclops was badly Burned and all its attacks became much weaker because of it (a bit like in the games and believable for the anime). Instead we get a bunch of random saves from Assist (some made sense, some didn't) and an incredibly powerful Blizzard.
Finally, the animation wasn't much to look at. The attacks were generally simplistic in design and the Pokemon moved little during the battles. Normally this wouldn't be absolutely horrible, but here they made the poor battles even worse.
It had so much potential with its story and all but the poorly done battles and Skitty's appeal ruined it... If I had to say there was a bad Hoenn episode then this would be it simply given how much one expects from a Contest episode.
*is sad, but knows this episode is a big exception to the rule*
why must they always go back to their old fearful selfs 
