"Rematch at the Nacrene Gym!" Review Thread

[Musashi]

Please post (or repost) your thoughts on Ash's rematch against Lenora here.

Notable moments incude Team Rocket's first absence since the show began, and the dub adding in a line that Lenora's Lillipup evolved.

[kuzronk]

This Was An Awsome Episode
No Evil Team Rocket In There For A Few Sec
Lillypup evolved line

[Trainer Gabriel]

Looking back at the first time that Oshawott used Aqua Jet out of control, and just after the previous episode in Japan, I can see that the writers had that "closed eyes" problem with Oshawott since then. And of course, now I know exactly what the deal is.

[Miar]

TR still did nothing. I think if the writers are going to do that to their character, perhaps it'd be easier to simply write them out of some later episodes. But that's just me.

I actually posted this waaaay back with BW Episode 7 in Japan. I never expected it to actually happen, but it did (why I didn't post this in the thread for the JP ver. of this ep., I'll never know).
But I still say I totally called it.

This gym match was better than the last (of course. Ash won this time). And the training part was a nice change of pace.
And once Trip pointed it out ~30 episodes later, now I also see Oshawott's eyes were closed here too. Double KO was neat, though. We don't see those very often.

[SuperTrainStationH]

In any other season, the the training with Don George alone would have been the basis for this ENTIRE episode, and the training would have been interrupted by an easily thwarted, hair brained plot by Team Rockhead, and then with the Lenora rematch being another entire episode, again with a less than necessary and more than predictable Team Rocket interference to stretch the episode duration to 20 minutes.

What we get instead is the complete antithesis.

[/Zer0]

Hooray! I've finally caught up to the most recent episodes; I started rewatching all the episodes from Season 1 (last year) to now Season 14 :D.

Anyways, I thought I'd share my thoughts on this episode in particular.

• As we all know, Team Rocket breaks their streak here. Sad to say, but I was indifferent.
• I realize that Axew and Oshawott are such great characters. Oshawott seems to be a Piplup that can actually be overconfident and modest at the same time and Axew's childish behaviour is too funny (Oh, the irony that Iris' main Pokemon is 'such a kid' XD)
• Both Tepig and Oshawott learn new moves that have to do with charging (any move that includes charging is automatically awesome, except Tackle.
• Don George's training was great, I hope it recurs every so often, just like the group's reunions with the Nurse Joys at the PokeCenters or with the Office Jennys during crime scenes (which will hopefully include the TRio this season).
• Now, I know this is a new season and all (it's expected), but I died a little inside when Herdier went 2 Giga Impacts without recharging (nobody points this out, either) and Tepig is seemingly able to take both head-on, with the latter literally a FLAMING skull-to-skull in a typical 'awesomely-animated-CGI-colorfully-explosive-fight-to-the-finish-collison' at the end of the battle. Oh well, I'm not complaining.. yeah, right.
• I also found it hard to believe that Lenora would evolve her Lillipup just for her match with Ash, but then again, who am I to judge a Gym Leader?
• Finally, I almost LOL'd (really) when Oshawott's Aqua Jet, which usually misses when Oshawott is perfectly well, hit Watchog in the face after being confused. I know, Cilan points out that it was probably Watchog's Thunderbolt that deterred Oshawott's wild attack, but I just found it funny that when confused, Aqua Jet somehow corrects itself instead of spinning out of control.

All in all, this episode had a 'great taste' :P.