"It's Axew's Dragon Sneeze!"
Score: 4/10
Iris and Cilan decide to have a battle, and Iris bans Ash from participating because he "would just try to win." Even after Ash offers not to use volt tackle, Iris refuses to let him fight: her goal is to slowly train Axew, not just to battle.
Cilan orders Pasage to use bullet seed "gently," and even after the weakest bullet seed in the history of pokemon, Axew is still ready to cry - it valiantly tries to continue, but it’s so weak that even after being hit with the most sperm-like solar beam in history is a problem.
Ash tells Iris that not battling for real won't help, so Iris orders a use of dragon rage that doesn't really work. Dragon Rage is supposed to create an energy ball you spit at the enemy, but Axew's energy balls just keep exploding while still in its mouth, creating craters around it.
Iris still refuses to battle Ash, though, so Ash asks how she got Axew in the first place: it was a gift from an elder in her home town. Wow, what a backstory. In her home village, everyone specializes in dragon pokemon, and presumably, ice cream is banned. An old woman gave her an Axew and told her to go on a journey, and she says "Yes ma'am" in the same voice you'd use to the teacher who just gave you detention. But it's been a while since Iris started her journey, and she's worried because Axew hasn't evolved yet and also kind of sucks.
Meanwhile, Axew is exploring and gets wedged in a Scolipede's antennae, and the wild pokemon starts freaking out. It begins using toxic on random pieces of terrain, burning them like acid in seconds, so Ash and Cilan decide to send out Pansage and Snivy. Amazingly, sending out only pokemon weak to poison and bug does not work out, so, after a while, Iris reveals her second pokemon: Excadrill.
Exadrill refuses to help, however, so Iris decides “to do it herself.” Doing it herself involves Pansage and Tepig helping her, but in any case, she does succeed in freeing Axew. Scolipede is still angry, but when it tries to brutally murder Iris, it accidentally kicks Excadrill. In the ensuing fight, Cilan detects "a delicate hint of battle flavor" from the murderous steel-plated mole, and Excadrill launches Scolipede into the distance. I love how Iris tries to apologize to Scolipede as it literally flies miles into the distance, presumably going splat as it hits the ground.
Ash wants to battle Iris, so she tells him to battle Pikachu. Ash agrees, and to no one's surprise, Pikachu kicks Ash's ass. I assume this is what writers do when they don’t know how to properly end an episode.
What can I even say other than that this episode is cobbled together from other episodes in earlier seasons? And that it’s not as good?
--
Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005