Pasta La Vista!
"Your customers are not as important as your family, Kyle, and you're just going to have to make a choice between the two!"
"Fine, I already made that choice and it's noodles!"
Score: 6.5/10
Ash and Max decide to go to the Fighting Dojo to watch fighting pokemon... fight, while Brock and May go to a noodle shop. When they reach the shop, the owner, Kyle, and his girlfriend? (it's not really clear if they're together or not) leave to go to the very same dojo.
Ash and Max arrive at the dojo, owned by Master ham, and so do Kyle and Terry and May and Brock following. We learn that Kyle is Master Ham's son, and he refuses to take over the dojo because he wants to run a noodle shop. His refusal frustrates his father, who wants to retire from fighting and pursue an unrelated dream that he won't reveal.
Finally, Kyle and his father agree to just have a pokemon battle, and if Kyle loses, he must take over the dojo. So he's going to prove he doesn't have to take over the dojo by showing that he's qualified to take over the dojo?
Master Ham sends out a Hitmonlee, and Kyle sends out Hitmonchan, which inexplicably has a heavy Japanese accent even though previous Hitmonchan didn't. Sadly, Master Ham can't finish the fight because his back goes out, so Ash offers to take over. When Kyle points out that it makes no sense for him to battle a replacement for Master Ham, they decide to replace Kyle with May. This is the kind of logic you would expect in an episode of The Angry Beavers.
May must now use Hitmonchan and Ash must now use Hitmonlee... even though neither knows anything about fighting pokemon. At this point, Terry reveals that she wants Kyle to take over from his father so she can marry him and run the dojo with him.
Before the surprisingly intense battle can end, Team Rocket attacks. Terry sends out her Hitmontop to stop them, and it's substantially more impressive than Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan.
With the battle ended prematurely, Kyle reminisces about how his father made noodles for him as a kid, and he has always wanted to create the perfect noodles as a result. Realizing that he was the one who set his son on his current path, Master Ham agrees to let him continue with his noodle shop, and Terry asks to take over the dojo. Now that he can retire, Master Ham reveals his own dream: to sell noodles. Yes, he was just a tremendous hypocrite this entire time.
Honestly? A solid episode.
And Season 8 is done.
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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005