REMATCH AT THE NACRENE GYM!
"These episodes have fewer stupid things said than earlier seasons, so it’s difficult to find good quotes."
Score: 4.5/10
Don George takes the heroes to his special training room, which consists of treadmills, dumbbells, and so on. It's meant for pokemon, but Don George insists Ash train physically as well because Lenora's strategies can throw the trainer off as well.
Don George's training for Tepig? Put Tepig and Ash on a treadmill while cannons shoot rubber spheres meant to represent shadow balls from all directions at once. His training for Oshawott? Have it and Ash swim against a current. I, for one, choose to assume that Don George is actually Jewish and he’s choosing to take it out against poor, poor Tepig. In any case, Tepig does flame charge and Oshawott sort of learns aqua jet (it can use it, but not aim properly), so I guess Don George probably knows what he’s talking about.
The next day, Ash challenges Lenora again. Lenora reveals that her pokemon will be Watchog and Mustachedog-- I mean Herdier, and we’re explicitly told that Lenora evolved Lillipup to throw Ash off guard. Huh. So what happens with the next trainer? Will she evolve it again, and some newbie with a Pidove and Roggenrola will be up against a Stoutland?
Well, whatever. Ash sends out Tepig, and predictably, Lenora uses shadow ball spam, so Tepig is now able to dodge them all. Lenora counters this by using roar again, then mean look with Watchog.
Oshawott's swimming training has now made it extremely fast (on land), but its aqua jet is still imperfect and can't hit consistently, which is bad, because Watchog uses confuse ray. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter: a confused Oshawott still lands a lucky aqua jet, and both pokemon are knocked out at the same time. You know, given how rarely that happens in the actual game…
Herdier versus Tepig, and Tepig performs very well. Cilan tells us that Tepig's training is paying off, just in case we couldn’t tell. This is good because, according to Cilan, this is Ash’s last chance for the second badge even though this was never implied before.
Herdier lands a giga impact, and of course, it requires no rest after. I love how Unova gym leaders who challenge weak, newbie trainers keep busting out this level of insanity-- first Cilan and solar beam, and now this. Granted, it’s not as silly as Falkner the Pidgeot trainer, but still. Eventually, they land giga impact and flame charge at the same time, knocking both down... but Herdier falls back down even though it’s taken very little damage and Tepig has taken a huge amount. I love how Hoz (the battle announcer here) takes his job completely seriously and announces that Ash is the winner to... Lenora and Ash's friends, who all saw it happen. Lenora gives Ash the Basic Badge, and everyone laughs for some reason.
Eh.
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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005