Dude, Pidgeotto was EXHAUSTED from PULLING A HOT AIR BALLON. Inputting Bulbasaur instead makes sense, but not Pidgeotto. I forgot who chose their pokemon first. Actually Pikachu should have went first with its aggressiveness, have Charizard clear Zippo, and then use Bulbasaur to beat Leon (er I mean Sparky, right).
The pokemon that is sent out from the Hazuki battles is usually based on the initial victor. This was the only Satoshi loss where he had the initial lead. Usually the idea is come back from behind, and so Hazuki did that instead. Anyhow, he wouldn't send out a Hypno after his Kecleon was defeated by a Pikachu. The speed wouldn't match up and Kecleon is a chameleon with visual blurs, and Hypno causes confusion and hypnosis, which are also visual blurs. No, you send in Sneasel and quickly finish it off then try to finish off the next real fast. The only thing I would say would be that Bayleef should have been retreated to send out Charizard. Then Bayleef beating on a completely beaten Blaziken would seem more suitable rather than it trying to beat two fully powered fire types. Vine Whip on Houndoom was ingenius but trying that on Blaziken, who has hands, wasn't as smart. Of course Noctowl was just Steelix fodder. >_>
To balance Sceptile since Satoshi's didn't evolve yet, it was easiest to have a giant Ice Beam and a giant Solarbeam collide for a dual knockout. Though, this contradicts Liza & Tate's Ice Beam with Solarbeam collide which NEUTRALIZED instead of EXPLODED. That's probably the main contradiction with that.
Metagross was rather strong in the anime. Clearly it takes a full pokemon cancel out or two pokemon to take it out.
Meowth's Thunderbolt cancelling out was stupid. It made Pikachu look really weak since its electricity wasn't being superior and its iron tail was inferior to Meowth's. Of course you can think of Metagross weakening Pikachu prior, but that only weakens the endurance mostly, it doesn't reduce electrical output.
Oh, and you're not going to be able to get switch outs to be that perfect. In the game that's clearly obvious since the opponent isn't allowed to switch for the most part, but in the anime you're forced to relatively stay with your selection.
I mean sheesh, there were good trainers Satoshi faced that could have had more reasonable losses.
These were alright battles, but ALL of them felt like Satoshi could have won. It felt like he got jipped in every single one. TR weakening, Blaziken uber showcase, and the half invincible Metagross (oh and the piles of Steelix, which in the anime are incredibely strong.).
