Man, my throat's sore today. But you know what they say: The best cure for a sore throat is watching a children's cartoon!
-We start with...Ash battling a random dude!
-Blitzle's as adorable as ever. It sounds adorable too!
-Oshawott's positively GLEEFUL about shoving Pikachu out of the way. Ash, meanwhile, seems worried that Oshawott's shellsword(scallsword? Scallchop? HAVE WE AGREED ON A NAME FOR THIS THING YET?) is kind of loose.
-Oshawott seems ten times smugger than it usually is. This can only bode well for it!
-...or not. Its aim with Aqua Jet is still horrid.
-And then Oshawott ran into a rock & probably gave itself a concussion.
-Blitzle and Oshawott square off with Razor Shell and Stomp, and...TEAM OSHAWOTT'S SHELL IS BLASTING OFF AGAIN?!
-I laughed at Oshawott's sheer panic. I may be a terrible person, but...dammit, that was funny!
-Ash runs off, Trainer of the Day is disappointed, then...Cilan saunters in pondering the "case." (maybe trying to calm down TotD? But if that's the case, it doesn't work.)
-Hey GUYS. You might want to help Ash with Oshawott instead of standing around chatting with the fat dude! God, this is almost as bad as when you were all blatently ignoring Iris' search for her lost Emonga a couple eps back.
-Apparently fat dude's agreed to hold off on the battle until tomorrow. Yeah, sure, whatever. Why is he so pissed, anyway? It's HIS POKEMON'S FAULT that Oshawott lost its shell!
-Meanwhile...silly Oshawott, bottlecaps aren't shells!
-Ash and Pikachu arrive and start to help it look, and...silly Ash! Those sparkles were a Joltik, not a shell!
-Oh, now Ash's friends are all caught up with him. Great. How do they expect to find a small shell among the acres of forest & fields, anyway?
-Iris seems like she has a plan? I'm guessing it's her "sixth sense" again.
-...or she's just giving Oshawott an Iapapa berry? How's THAT supposed to help?
-Aww, Oshawott's trying it out as a replacement scallchopswordknife.
-...but alas, it doesn't work that well for blocking Electric attacks. On the bright side, Cilan & Iris seem to think the roasted berry's delicious(and that's the exact word Cilan used. In English.).
-Cilan busts out his crochet(or however the hell you spell it) as the next victim replacement for the shell slicey thingie.
-Oh wait, metal conducts electricity. Now Oshawott's fried again, and Cilan's crying over his fried crochet. (although this time it's his own damned fault that it got wrecked!)
-Cilan sends out Dwebble. What's he planning THIS time?
-Aha! It's carving out a new weapon for the 'wott!
-...that's a pretty huge shell. It's bigger than Oshawott!
-It blocks electricity just fine, but Oshawott can barely lift it! NEXT. (although why Dwebble couldn't just make a smaller rock shell will forever remain a mystery)
-Everyone takes a break from their failures, and Cilan starts babbling about tastes(of course).
-TRAINING MONTAGE! With an instrumental of the OP as BGM!
-Pffft, Cilan and Iris are just GAPING as Oshawott keeps getting blasted back by Thunderbolts.
-Now it's time for a night scene! And...awwww, Oshawott really misses its shell. It's also terrified of getting electricuted!
-And now Oshawott's training all by itself! It may be a pushy, egotistic, occassional-coward of an otter, but it's a determined, pushy, egotistic, occassional-coward of an otter!
-The next day, Ash and co. head off to find the trainer of the day's camp. When they get there...he's using a weird bike to generate more electricity for Blitzle? I don't think that's exactly ethical, but none of the characters seems to have an issue with it, soooo...
-Luckily for Oshawott, extra electricity seems to mean jack squat against a shell made out of solid rock!
-...except for the part where the rock's starting to crack.
-Things aren't looking good, but Ash remember something Cilan said...Ash has a plan, which means that victory is near!
-It turns out that Oshawott's pretty agile!
-Aqua Jet still veers off wildly, but it's still good enough to get Oshawott away from certain doom.
-Oshawott wins!
-...and then Axew runs in with the shellsword. What convenient timing. (I didn't even notice that it wasn't around for the battle. I guess I assumed it was in Iris' hair or something?)
In conclusion: Oshawott is adoooorable.