Won't You Give us a Dance Dance Evolution? (1025)

[Leonhart]

This episode, to me, was rather boring and predictable as far as Pokemon episodes go..

To be fair, most evolution episodes are predictable, especially this one since it involved dancing, which we've seen used as an evolution subplot with Serena's Eievui.

 

[Mega Altaria]

Really the only difference is Steenee wasn't seen practising her dance for an extended period and only took an interest since she liked the Pa'u style dance from the berry lady's Oricorio. And she didn't seem to apply her dancing techniques once she has evolved into Tsareena.

 

[lemoncatpower]

So happy that Steenee evolved into Tsareena even though we knew it was going to happen, I still really enjoyed it. I'm more excited to see it on the main cast with the rest of the pokemon though. Hopefully it retains it's amount of random screen time even though Steenee didn't do much, it was still always there in the background at least.

Also omg Steenee dancing and singing/humming was SOOO adorable.

 

[Mega Altaria]

Also omg Steenee dancing and singing/humming was SOOO adorable.

Yeah I really liked seeing Steenee singing and dancing for a bit there. It shows how devoted she was to her dance. And I felt that the focus there was a bit foreshadowing to the evolution.

 

[Jangobadass]

I just hope this episode isn't banned because of James' crossdressing (he went full Frankenfurter this time! ) or because of Passimian (though at least when we'd know if it's the whole species that's the problem or the unfortunate appearance the animators gave Ash).
I'm certainly fearful of edits...

 

[Mega Altaria]

I just hope this episode isn't banned because of James' crossdressing (he went full Frankenfurter this time! ) or because of Passimian (though at least when we'd know if it's the whole species that's the problem or the unfortunate appearance the animators gave Ash).
I'm certainly fearful of edits...

That would definitely be too far if this ever got banned. I don’t think one of the other ones got banned because of the costume he wore and the rest of them aren’t. So I can’t see why this one will.

 

[DatsRight]

I'm at least hoping this isn't TR's token 'caught all the twerps' Pokemon temporarily' episode of the series, because it's definitely their most underwhelming. Even compared to XY's Pokeball Factory episode which at least had Meowth putting up a persistent creative fight and Pikachu just proving how awesome a character he is even when stagnant.

 

[Satomine Night]

I have to say, I'm enjoying the magical girl anime references when it comes to the Bounsweet line's evolutions. Steenee's evolution into Tsareena was just as perfect a homage to the magical girl anime genre as Bounsweet's evolution into Steenee was. That scene was probably the highlight of the episode for me. And the evolution made sense. Steenee learned Stomp to free Mallow and the others from the cage, and learning Stomp triggered her evolution.

IMHO, the writers didn't take full advantage of the potential of a dance-themed episode. I appreciated the reference to Kiawe's game self with his and Marowak's fire dance, and the dance itself was fun; I wish the writers hadn't decided to make Kiawe the buttmonkey by Marowak accidentally setting him on fire (even if his over-enthusiasm was in character). Shiron's figure skating was creative on Lillie's part. But Lana and Popplio's "dance" was hardly a dance at all; Sophocles spent too much time designing his mecha to choreograph a dance; and we didn't see Ash's performance at all.

So Team Rocket decides to kidnap the twerps' Pokémon because...Jessie wants to make them (and Moani's Oricorio) her backup dancers for their doughnut stand advertising campaign. Really? Kidnapping Pokémon is what the Team Rocket organization does, and the TRio has been after Ash's godly Pikachu for ages now. They don't need any other reason.

And I'm with those who say logic was thrown out the window during the climax. There was nothing stopping Ash (or anyone else) from grabbing Meowth while he was climbing the cage; and there was nothing stopping Ash and his friends from recalling their Pokémon back into their Pokéballs. And revealing the weakness of the trap was something even Team Rocket wouldn't normally be dumb enough to do.

 

[DatsRight]

And I'm with those who say logic was thrown out the window during the climax. There was nothing stopping Ash (or anyone else) from grabbing Meowth while he was climbing the cage; and there was nothing stopping Ash and his friends from recalling their Pokémon back into their Pokéballs. And revealing the weakness of the trap was something even Team Rocket wouldn't normally be dumb enough to do.

You can tell when they hash in TR as clunky plot devices or padding because barely anything about the conflict is well written. They were there to pad ANOTHER Mallow episode and set off Steenee's evolution and job to her. That's it.

It's especially obvious in SM where things often at least try to avoid being too plot/formula driven or some of the stupid moments by the twerps are deliberate or played for humour (eg. Torracat falling for Faint Attack in the previous episode was dumb as hell but it was a deliberate and hilarious gag, the twerps doing nothing to break through TR's crappy trap this episode was dumb as hell but....because the plot wouldn't remotely function otherwise).

 

[Ryu Taylor]

It's clever of each dance to incorporate each Pokemon's type, body shape, and abilities. And this may be odd to say, but TR was actually used properly here. They actually mattered to the episode as they caused the events that led to Steenee evolving. Speaking of which, man, what a sequence that was. It started off hilarious with that closeup of her butt (the expansion of which broke the net; that was clever), got a bit creepy with a closeup of her chest, and the rest of it was gorgeous. Why can't all Pokemon have elaborate evolution sequences like that?

So the old lady's name is Anella. I remember SM064 being when her JP name was revealed, so dub fans like me had to wait just a bit longer to find her name out.

Gotta be real here: Tsareena's JP voice made me throw up in my mouth when I heard it in one of those Eevee shorts. My God, I thought 4kids made Rouge the Bat sound like a slut, but that's got nothing on Tsareena's JP voice. It's like the casting director thought "hey, Hartman hips = slut! LOL!" Tsareena's dub voice is the biggest vocal improvement over the JP version the SM dub has ever seen. That's a royal voice worth respect right there.

Team Rocket's crossdressing and Tsareena's butt closeup are here to stay in the dub. Another wrong guess by... well, you all know who by now. Though ironically, the thing that did get censored was the most obvious thing, yet still no one suspected: Tsareena doesn't dig her heel into Meowth's back; instead, she just rests her foot on him (the dub freeze-frames that heel-digging shot).

Man, the music was spectacular in this one, except for the usual lingering JP leftovers that think they belong, and except for the beginning of Popplio's dance using the dub's chase theme for some reason. It was fun for the majority of it, which makes perfect sense considering the subject matter. Not to mention so many new cues, one of which being for TR's motto. That was brilliant. Oh, and Tsareena's theme heard during her evolution sequence was as majestic as she herself is. She got a good voice and a good theme. It's not the absolute best-scored episode of SM (or even Ultra Adventures), but it's a top 5'er for sure.

Honestly, episodes like this are what the SM saga is all about; just people having lots of fun. This is a top 5 placer for me.

 

[DatsRight]

It's clever of each dance to incorporate each Pokemon's type, body shape, and abilities. And this may be odd to say, but TR was actually used properly here. They actually mattered to the episode as they caused the events that led to Steenee evolving.

I don't think that makes them anymore relevant than the other cases they barged into a plot line, especially the tons of other cases they sparked an evolution or move learn. In all those cases it was a faux climax to set up a plot armour boost in place of actual character driven training. Mallow hasn't really done anything to remotely bulk up Bounsweet from the beginning and relied on the convenience of Team Rocket sending her into 'burning justice' twice over to get a fully evolved Pokemon she never earned.

This is actually one of the elements I get truly sick of with Team Rocket, even if Mallow is at least the only character in SM to rely on them consistently as a short cut for not doing anything effective as a trainer, compared to earlier series like XY where nearly every damn episode spammed TR as a constant plot device or "burning justice" pivot. "Burning justice" is dull, it's a cheap implication that the protagonist has enough spirit to justify the cosmic forces giving them new powers to make them OP over actually just making them effective and resourceful with what they have. If anything it's at least something I appreciate SM's more sporadic boosts and use of Team Rocket for, the twerps often have to just flow a plot on their own through actual character agency and having interesting personalities, and it's glaring that so far Mallow's only had ONE episode showing she is capable of doing that (and even that was padded with her comic relief brother).

 

[LilligantLewis]

They do too many random projects at this school and not enough actual learning

Ash's giant stack fell and failed

Classic Sarah and Harper calling him her boyfriend
Wow Sarah and Harper are part of her dance as well!!

I feel sad for Turtonator that it's not part of the dance

Charjabug became Transformers Robots in Disguise

If Lana thinks evolution is so cool, why isn't she ever trying to evolve Popplio?

Ash broke the floor

Ash and Mallow never got to go on their dances

was the first real episode where Mallow was the centre of focus.

Then what are episodes 18, 39, 59, and 72 lol

there is but....

Spoiler

only hulu japan and amazon japan

why lol.. why would they make a part of the episode exclusive to streaming? I get the whole movie thing, but what I mean is, why wouldn't the streaming versions also have the same movie thing?

Type:Null breaking its helmet doesn't really count...they really shouldn't be considered two separate Pokemon in the first place.

Um, they are though lol. They are 2 different Pokémon. It's a fact and not opinion thing lol.

On the other hand, Tsareena in any form (bounsweet, stenee) never had a proper battle, even a TR one.

She evolves by learning Stomp, not by battling.

Torracat falling for Faint Attack in the previous episode was dumb as hell but it was a deliberate and hilarious gag

It wasn't funny at all. As SM has so few battles, it would be nice if they could at least take the few they do have seriously.

So the old lady's name is Anella. I remember SM064 being when her JP name was revealed, so dub fans like me had to wait just a bit longer to find her name out.

I don't think so. If you read this thread (this thread we're in right now) and all the older posts from when the episode first aired, everyone is talking about her name reveal so I'm pretty sure it happened in this same episode.

 

[Lord Starfish]

I don't think so. If you read this thread (this thread we're in right now) and all the older posts from when the episode first aired, everyone is talking about her name reveal so I'm pretty sure it happened in this same episode.

Yeah, this was the episode where her name was revealed. The episode itself even lampshades ( https://imgur.com/a/ySqTG9e ) the fact that we didn't know before. When I first watched the episode, I was like "Wait, is this the first time they've said this character's name? And then when that line came up... "Okay yes, it's definitely the first time they've said this character's name."

 

[LilligantLewis]

Yeah, this was the episode where her name was revealed. The episode itself even lampshades ( https://imgur.com/a/ySqTG9e ) the fact that we didn't know before. When I first watched the episode, I was like "Wait, is this the first time they've said this character's name? And then when that line came up... "Okay yes, it's definitely the first time they've said this character's name."

Yup the same thing happened in the dub.

 

[Bguy7]

Meowth: "Gotta dance! It's deja vu!"
Did Meowth just make the reference I thought he did? Is he really referencing the Gotta Dance Pikachu short? If so, that would be crazy and amazing.
A little later: "Kick it, kick it! Make your move and stick it!"
Okay, this can't be a coincidence. While this isn't a direct line from the theme of Gotta Dance, it fits perfectly into the song. Listen here if you don't believe me. It fits the rhyme scheme and syllabic pattern perfectly. It even sounds like Meowth sings it in the right tune. This is a wonderful reference to be made. It makes me very happy. Even better, because Gotta Dance was one of my favorite Pikachu Shorts.

Otherwise, I wasn't too thrilled with this episode at all. Whenever Sun and Moon does a "Pokémon (insert activity here)" episode, you know it's not going to be good. Pokémon baseball, Pokémon ping-pong, Pokémon diving, etc. They're all some of the worst episodes in all of Pokémon, and Pokémon dancing was no exception. These episodes all rely on the same formula, and it's a bad formula. They pad the episode with just showing the cast randomly practicing/playing the event in a way that has no discernible plot, and then they have some sort of minor finale where we see a "more important" instance of the activity, still without any plot importance. If we're lucky, Team Rocket might come in to at least make things a little interesting. This episode was no different. The first half was just instance after instance of "why should I care?" and the second half (not counting the Team Rocket portion), was just extremely boring dance routines. They could have at least given some sort of spectacle to the routines. Also, we don't even get to see Steenee's routine, which seemed to be the entire point of the episode.

Team Rocket, as seems to often be the case in Alola, was this episode's only saving grace. Between the Gotta Dance references I discussed above, and the return of Jessie and James cross-dressing, they were fun. I was never that big of a fan of cross-dressing gag, but to see any reference like that to classic Pokémon will always be fun.

 

[Vipsoccermaster]

Yes, this episode was very predictable. Only a few hilarious moments in the episode, but nothing really entertaining. Dancing isn't something everyone enjoy doing, mainly viewers, but alas. Lillie's performance was good, though. The only highlight was seeing Steenee evolve into Tsareena, and that alone stops it from being filler. Team Rocket was weakly used here, they didn't do too much once they captured Ash and friends and the Pokémon. They didn't even try to run away with the captured Pokémon. Bad Meowth for breaking the secrets to breaking the cages! Seeing Anela and her Pokémon was nice as well.

 

[Ryu Taylor]

Yup the same thing happened in the dub.

I don't usually read older posts in episode threads (and I've barely even touched the SM064 thread), hence my mistaken memory about Anella's name being revealed before this episode.

Meowth: "Gotta dance! It's deja vu!"
Did Meowth just make the reference I thought he did? Is he really referencing the Gotta Dance Pikachu short? If so, that would be crazy and amazing.
A little later: "Kick it, kick it! Make your move and stick it!"
Okay, this can't be a coincidence. While this isn't a direct line from the theme of Gotta Dance, it fits perfectly into the song. Listen here if you don't believe me. It fits the rhyme scheme and syllabic pattern perfectly. It even sounds like Meowth sings it in the right tune. This is a wonderful reference to be made. It makes me very happy. Even better, because Gotta Dance was one of my favorite Pikachu Shorts.

James Carter Cathcart wrote the English lyrics to that song, so it's appropriate he make a reference to it.

 

[Soaring Pikachu]

This whole affair was feeling like filler material but I found myself strangely hypnotized by the dancing. Before I knew it someone had started evolving. So not a filler after all.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

It's still Filler because nothing important happened

"But Steenee evolved!" you may say.

That's what I just said.

 

[LilligantLewis]

LOL