Thread: Evolution Exchange Excitement!

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Bianca is excited to finally have the opportunity to trade her Shelmet for Professor Juniper's Karrablast, thus inducing evolution for both pokemon. Prior to the trade, Juniper asks for a battle between Shelmet and Karrablast so that she can gather data on them, but this is cut short when all surrounding electrical equipment, including the trading machine, mysteriously malfunctions. Can Ash and friends locate what is causing these malfunctions and, if so, will the newly-traded, newly-evolved Accelgor and Escavalier be able to adjust to their new trainers successfully?

Don't know why, but I actually enjoyed this dub ep more than I did the original. Maybe because I could just accept it for what it is.

-Karrablast's voice sounds like a small child when attacking. Oddly suiting in a way.
-Klinklang's voice actually did sound pretty ominous when going into the cave. Awesome dodging by Juniper and Ash by the way.
-The ending was a nice setup for the drama of next week's episode.


Still wished that they had given Bianca and Juniper the win, but oh well.

I'm already seeing why the fans don't like Crustle. Not that I hate it, mind you. I just think Shell Smash makes it overpowered.

I love Escavalier and I love Bianca and I really wish they'd won. But oh well. It's a pretty good battle anyway.

Shell Smash + Rock Wrecker is admittedly excessive for Crustle. Then again, it's not winning major tournaments and isn't a babby and was always able to hold its own in battle since its capture, insinuating that it is a decently-leveled Pokemon... But it doesn't bug me all that much.

I do agree Juniper and Bianca should have won. It's sad knowing how long we've had to wait to see Bianca win a true trainer battle on-screen in the anime, even though at this point she's become much more competent and her maturity as a trainer, however small amount it is, is apparent at this point. This will do well to show that Bianca's performance in Donamite is not something that came out of left field.

Otherwise, the episode was... meh, alright. I liked the previous episode a lot better, where Bianca's competence was even more apparent and her humor was much more enjoyable.

I really hope in the future episodes like this one, the previous one, and Donamite won't be forgotten once the series gets into BW2 territory.

The trading process still remains to be a needlessly complicated process in the anime. Guess it's kinda neat that they talked about the Pokemon who evolve only via trade. It always made me wonder how Paul got Magmortar and Electivire, but I assumed he just did a trade-tradeback with Reggie to get those evo's.

Forget the fact that Crustle has access to Shell Smash and quite a few powerful attacks, and just remember that Crustle, Accelgor, and Escavalier were all able to move and attack again after using Rock Wrecker and Hyper Beam, respectively. In previous episodes, a pokemon that used Hyper Beam and similar attacks needed to recharge afterwards, just as they would in the games. In this episode, the writers completely disregarded these game mechanics.

Except for that oversight, Crustle's victories in this episode weren't undeserved. Crustle's Rock-type attacks are already super-effective against pure Bug-types such as Accelgor, and even Escavalier doesn't resist Rock Wrecker completely because of its partial Bug typing. Both pokemon took a lot of damage from Boldore's Rock Blast and Rock Smash attacks, and Accelgor already had most of its health sapped due to its use of Substitute. What I don't understand is, however, is Ash's Boldore being knocked out by two Hyper Beams. Boldore didn't take too much damage from its brief struggle with Escavalier, and the former pokemon should be able to resist Normal-type attacks due to its Rock typing.

I'm still bugged(no pun intended) on how the bugs evolved. The Pokedex clearly stated that they switch their armour to evolve and yet they evolved holding the same armour. I thought that the trading would make them 'magically' change it but NOPE. It carried on the same flaw in the games when they're traded.

They bothered to make an entire episode that explained about Dwebble's rock well, only to mess it up by making it evolve with it instead of getting a new one in the previous episode. Why not bother now? I can't handle 2 inconsistencies in Pokemon evolution in 2 episodes in a row because it shows the lack of attention to them. Not only in the evolution department, but also the battling department with the Hyper Beams not needing any recharging. Other than that, I liked everything else.

This episode also ended the advertisement for Crustle(with the glorification) that started in the previous episode to get people to get the Crustle C-GEAR skin for free when it was available in Japan. It's a shame that this didn't carry over with the dub. I thought that the English games would have the Crustle skin be made available.

Oh well, it's not a big loss. Honestly, who would want to look at a C-GEAR skin with a Crustle that looks like it wants to kill you? They should've made him smile like in Seven Coloured Arch to make people use it.

Originally Posted by Ampharos King

Forget the fact that Crustle has access to Shell Smash and quite a few powerful attacks, and just remember that Crustle, Accelgor, and Escavalier were all able to move and attack again after using Rock Wrecker and Hyper Beam, respectively. In previous episodes, a pokemon that used Hyper Beam and similar attacks needed to recharge afterwards, just as they would in the games. In this episode, the writers completely disregarded these game mechanics.

Except for that oversight, Crustle's victories in this episode weren't undeserved. Crustle's Rock-type attacks are already super-effective against pure Bug-types such as Accelgor, and even Escavalier doesn't resist Rock Wrecker completely because of its partial Bug typing. Both pokemon took a lot of damage from Boldore's Rock Blast and Rock Smash attacks, and Accelgor already had most of its health sapped due to its use of Substitute. What I don't understand is, however, is Ash's Boldore being knocked out by two Hyper Beams. Boldore didn't take too much damage from its brief struggle with Escavalier, and the former pokemon should be able to resist Normal-type attacks due to its Rock typing.

I know what you mean about that. I don't know how consistent the defense of a Pokemon is in the anime (haha who am I kidding there is no such thing as a Pokemon with consistent strength in the anime) but Boldore has low Sp. Def. powers and Accelgor has extremely high Sp. Attack even if Hyper Beam doesn't get STAB not to mention being a Normal type move it should make a dent in its HP Escavalier has poor Sp. Attack on the other hand it should know Giga Impact for nice balance in my opinion. Since Boldore took a hit from Fury Attack its Sturdy wouldn't play into action leading to a knockout.

When it comes to Giga Impact/Hyper Beam/Rock Wrecker in this series there have been MANY instances when Pokemon do it over and over without recharging. I hate it Burgh's Pokemon and Lenora's Pokemon used rechargeable moves nonstop in their Gym Battles with Ash for example.

One minor, irrelevant thing that I liked about this episode were the voices of Klink and Klingklang - most of TPCi's Pokemon voices are one of the male VAs yelling the name gruffly (even with Pokemon that don't particularly need a dub voice, like Zebstrika) - but I think they do a really good job when they do monsters with some sort of computer distortion in the voice.

The Rock Wrecker technique was cheap, but the win itself is fairly realistic - as the professor did mention, Cilan is a gym leader.

Side note: Not quite sure how the person who wrote the "Cinnabar Log" entry on the front page of Bulbapedia figured that this was TPCi's 300th episode. AG146 was their first episode (episode 420), so adding 299 to that (not 300 - because AG146 wasn't their 0th episode) would give you Crisis at Chargestone Cave, episode 719. Take into account the two undubbed DP clip shows and the 300th is Explorers of the Hero's Ruins, next week's episode.

Originally Posted by NoodleChefKyle

I'm already seeing why the fans don't like Crustle. Not that I hate it, mind you. I just think Shell Smash makes it overpowered.

I don't think that's the main issue - it's just that we still haven't seen Shell Smash go wrong for it, it's should be a very risky move - one that could just as easily see Crustle wiped out in one shot - but every time Cilan has battled with it he has used shell smash and gained advantage from it. That's what's not realistic, and I think is very odd considering Cilan's character as otherwise being very calculated. If Shell Smash failed miserably on occasion for Cilan, then it wouldn't make Crustle seem excessively strong and perhaps make Cilan work on a different strategy for it (or just use Stunfisk).

I find it odd that trading back wasn't brought up at all and disappointing that we couldn't have seen more of Shelmet - I find that sort of character trait in a Pokemon interesting, but they didn't do much with it besides having Axew be an arse to it. I also don't like the mechanics of the trade evolution happening with nothing special occurring other than the simple trade. For the Professor supposedly doing it for research, all she figured out was that evolved Pokemon get stronger.

Surely they could have put a lake in the cave or something? A Bianca episode without Ash being pushed into water isn't complete.

Otherwise, this episode felt a bit out of place because too little of it was about Ash, the battle at the end seemed an afterthought and certainly didn't put Ash in a good light. He could have at least played a greater role in the Klinklang part of the episode, but instead just gets attacked before the professor can take over - Ash knows a little bit about Pokemon, something seemingly overlooked in writing many of these episodes.

Originally Posted by Moe

I find it odd that trading back wasn't brought up at all

Honestly, I'm glad that it wasn't. Having been landed with a disobedient pokemon like Escavalier I think it reflects better on Bianca as trainer that she was able to stick with it and convince it to respect her, rather than just admitting defeat and that she failed to make the trade she'd been so excited about work. I agree that Shelmet's development was extremely rushed - as soon as he became Accelgor he didn't seem to have any further issues with confidence - though with hindsight it does seem obvious that Bianca was always intended to end up with Escavalier. Shelmet accomplished so wretchedly little during his time with her that he was blatantly never supposed to be anything more than a means to an end (poor Shelmet). ;p

Originally Posted by garrison-san

Honestly, I'm glad that it wasn't. Having been landed with a disobedient pokemon like Escavalier I think it reflects better on Bianca as trainer that she was able to stick with it and convince it to respect her, rather than just admitting defeat and that she failed to make the trade she'd been so excited about work. I agree that Shelmet's development was extremely rushed - as soon as he became Accelgor he didn't seem to have any further issues with confidence - though with hindsight it does seem obvious that Bianca was always intended to end up with Escavalier. Shelmet accomplished so wretchedly little during his time with her that he was blatantly never supposed to be anything more than a means to an end (poor Shelmet). ;p

I can see that side of things, just there's always something off about trades in the anime when there's no real concern about having let go of a Pokemon. Obviously not showing much of Bianca's Shelmet helps in that regard, but something felt cold about her fairly willingly letting it go without once having doubt, despite presumably caring for each of her Pokemon. A line about her perhaps trading back, but saying that while she misses Accelgor, she wants to stick it out with Escavalier despite her problems in getting along with it, would have smoothed over the trade's motivations a bit for me.

I was about to say it was out of character, but then remembered how Bianca was fairly willing to trade away Pignite in an earlier episode. For a character that's shown so much other on screen development, it's a very strange side to her to so willingly give up her Pokemon, which is very counter to her game personality in responding to her Pokemon being stolen.

There's something that doesn't sit right about this side of Bianca. It makes her come off as reckless towards her Pokemon, rather than her otherwise natural clumsyness.

ever since BW came out I was waiting to see how these two pokemon evolve together.. I thought it would be something like slowpoke/shellder evolution

but it turn out to be something ridicules, probably the worst thing in the anime's history, its as if they think that those who are watching the anime have no brains.

very disappointed :(

To me personally this episode seemed like a constant up and down, so I'd say making a judgement is not that easy.

First, we had a promising battle between Karrablast and Shelmet that was rudely interrupted by a totally unnecessary subplot. From my point of view, the writers were just playing for time with that story about Klink and Klinklank because obviously they couldn't fill the 20 minutes time frame with an awesome extended battle. Why not, writers? Why not have an episode that's not part of any league but still features a battle only?
Another letdown was the evolution itself. If it's true that Karrablast inherits Shelmet armor, how come the latter still had it after the trade? An elegant solution of this problem would have been to have the Pokemon exchange the armor within the trade machine but as this didn't happen, you would at least expect Shelmet to actually hand it over to Karrablast in some way.
Finally, the tag battle was pretty intense if you ask me. I don't see why some of you wanted Professor Juniper and Bianca to win when Cilan and Ash were clearly better, having much more and, above all, more effective hits than the former. I do admit that Cilan's Shell Smash and Rock Wrecker strategy can appear cheap but as long as it is legit and successful, why shouldn't he be allowed to use it? Professor Jupiter's and Bianca's Pokemon not having to recharge after firing their Hyper Beams was much more unfair and that's also why I think that they didn't deserve to win.

And, well, is it just me or is Ash slowly but surely becoming a minor character? I mean he hardly did anything relevant today and even lost his Pokemon although he is expected to be the protagonist! I hate having to say it but I'm afraid Ash's development will continue to go downhill.

Originally Posted by Paulisthebest

I know what you mean about that. I don't know how consistent the defense of a Pokemon is in the anime (haha who am I kidding there is no such thing as a Pokemon with consistent strength in the anime) but Boldore has low Sp. Def. powers and Accelgor has extremely high Sp. Attack even if Hyper Beam doesn't get STAB not to mention being a Normal type move it should make a dent in its HP Escavalier has poor Sp. Attack on the other hand it should know Giga Impact for nice balance in my opinion. Since Boldore took a hit from Fury Attack its Sturdy wouldn't play into action leading to a knockout.

Accelgor's base Sp.Atk. stat is 100, so I wouldn't call that "extremely high". Its strength is speed (145).


All in all it was a good, but not a very good episode due to the unnecessary subplot and the battle that had some major flaws. But still, it was decent entertainment.

Originally Posted by Queen Cynthia

unnecessary subplot

I wouldn't call it unnecessary in BW065 :P.

I didn't think the Klink/Klinklang subplot was unncessary. Due to the cliff hanger at the end of the episode, we now know what had happened in there...vaguely. Awesome cliff hanger too, I might add. I can't wait for the next episode to come out in English. :D

And Cilan's Crustle is awesome! I don't know why anyone would hate the poor thing. It's so strong! Cilan certainly proves that he's a true gym leader with it too! Cilan and his Crustle = win.

He can't forget about Pansage though. He needs to use it again sometime.