Challenging A Towering Figure! (609)

[BM14murph]

I thought the episode was very good and for me the best of this whole tein leaf festival thingy

Mime jr appeared again omg it's been like 10 episodes since we've seen it
Woo Croagunk confirmed as a male - possibly done at the croagunk festival
Palmer shwing off his dragonite great
The only bad thing about the ep was how rushed the battles in the tournament were like they could have at least shown the semi final battles and kept the montage for the preliminaries
I almost screamed with joy when they played the Battle Frontier music
The grotle vs rhyperior battle was absolutely epic
Overgrow was really cool
Thank god Ash lost it would have been wrong to make him beat Palmer lol
Cool how Dawn is gonna use dat strategy with her pokemon in contests
They referenced the full battle with Paul which is always good
Yes Sunnyshore city here we come..................agter we play some more johto pokemon lol

[S.Suikun]

This could have been a great series of battles had it been a two-parter. Yet while what we got of Ash vs. Palmer was good, it seemed like it wasn't properly built up, with the quick flashes of each preceeding battle being a major factor. Yes, playing Battle Frontier DOES make everything better, yet couldn't come close to salvaging it. Ah well, at least Rubber Suit Brick Jewelry Rhydon (a.k.a. Rhyperior) is a cool guy.

I'm personally okay with Palmer essentially being an adult Barry personality-wise. They sort of did the "over-excitable adult male" thing already with Wake and Byron, but I don't think it's worn of its amusement quite yet. (Note that I am under the assumption that "Palmer" is the acid-induced fusion of "Paul" and "Wailmer".)

I honestly didn't care for this Twinleaf Festival arc on the whole, even if it did mean meeting an exciting cast of both new and old characters. They were all average-at-best episodes. I only fear that in the midst of promoting Johto all over again, the quality of the episodes themselves has also become a Johto mirror image. 'Tis the great Johto conspiracy.

[Almighty Zard]

- Energy ball doesn't effect Rhyperior at all due to solid rock. It does 4X damage without solid rock, shouldn't it at least do 2X with it? Games =/= anime. Even further proof

I'm actually kinda scared of how they premoted that ability to be honest, Rhyperior should've taken some damage from the blows even if it wasn't much.

- Grotle goes Super Saiyan and what just happened is explained. Dawn says she's going to use this strategy..what what's she going to do? Have Piplup swallow whirlpool? Mamoswine swallow ice shard?

She'll probably end up losing if she does that, i agree that i can't see how any other pokemon could captilize from doing that(i gonna laugh if dawn does do it with Mamoswine and ends up losing her next contest cause of it), and heck it's not like Ash's other pokemon exactly have big mouths to swallow thier own moves, and the two flyers don't have projectile attacks at all.

I think they might have done this for Grotle since unlike the others it doesn't battle in Ash's normal style (using speed) I doubt the others will be given such things like this.

This is of course assuming it wasn't overgrow.

[talala]

lol Grotle swallows

[TicoPokemonMaster]

- As disturbing as it sounds, I would have smiled if Brock stabbed Croagunk in the butt with a fork and dragged him off while he was watching that female Croagunk

As disturbing as it sounds, I would have smiled too.. Seriously the moment was just asking for it to happen. Who knows the writers probably wanted us to think of that.

[Rampardo]

I like how Dawn went "WHAT? WHY DON'T YOU USE BUIZEL?!?!" when Grotle was called out.

[megaman12]

This episode was great.I like how grotle swallowed the energy ball and got super sayain lol.If grotle was in overgrow and swalled the ball would he become super sayain 2?lol.ANd how is dawn going to train doing that?Have piplup swallow a bubble beam?

[uber gon]

Wonder if we'll ever meet the trainer of the female Croagunk?

[Juputoru]

An episode showing off ADD Lad's Creepy-As-Hell father? What could wrong, you ask? NOTHING! ...unless you read other people's comments about the episode before writing a summary, which is what I did.


-AshnCo(and ADD Lad) are still wandering around the festival grounds, accompanied by Creepy As Hell Lad.
-The Trenchcoated Menace shows off Puff the Mentally Handicapped Dragon to an eager crowd. Ash is impressed. Well, I never said the boy had high standards.
-Ash seems to think that now is the best time to ask for a battle. I suppose he had to actually see a Pokemon that Sleezy Eyes had for his "ask for battle NOW" instinct to trigger. Dawn also wants to battle, for some bizarre reason. Too bad for them that they can't battle Palmer unless they win the tournement tomorrow; Ash will be so crushed when he loses to Dawn in the fnal match.
-ADD Lad is very very proud of how awesome his dad is. Creepy As Hell Lad has no problem with his son talking him up.
-Generic "chilling at Dawn's house before the BIG DAY" scene. Yawn.
-Ash is shocked that Brock's going to be DOING SOMETHING this episode. Well, I think we all are, Ash, I think we all are.
-Croagunk is still awesome, by the way.
-Yes yes Johanna is a Top Coordinator, that's very nice. Now, about those battles...
-Haha, Palmer(believe or not, I CAN call him by his proper name) isn't there. I guess I can't blame him for eating octopus-shaped...something...back at the fairgrounds, courtesy of Team Rocket.
-"DADDY?!" I want Palmer and Jun to stick around forever, because that's never going to get old.
-Haha, the kids are lecturing the older man to be responsible! It's funny because it's a reversal of the situation you'd usually expect!
-Haha, Creepy Stalker-Looking Guy completely forgot about his major event today! It's funny because he's easily distracted! Or maybe he's just high, what with his lazy eyes and how much he looooooves that food.
-BATTLE. FRONTIER. HELL. YES. They could have made that the OP forever and I wouldn't have cared, I tells ya. Too bad the battle montage they played it over is the entire freaking tournement, plus some other crap. On the bright side, Dawn seems to be starting to talk like Jun. Do not resist, all shall be assimilated into the comforting pace of ADD Lad.
-Blah blah boring words that are eating up valuable battle time blah blah GANGAN SUSUME KAZE KITTE! GANGEN IKUZE SAIGO MATTE! GANZEN NANSHO YES I'M OKAY! OH YEAH! DONDON POW...I'll stop now. I'm probably getting the lyrics wrong anyway.
-Ash's opponent is: Ugly! (but still awesome, unlike, say, Magmortar, which is just ugly. And obese.)
-Ash demonstrates his one true talent in life by spending a full 30 seconds considering what Pokemon would be best against Rhyperior. Please, refrain from applause until the battle is over.
-Grotle starts the match off with energy ball which does...jack ****. The writers are getting so many angry letters about how this completely defies game mechanics and blah blah why doesn't Ash catch everything blah blah what the hell happened to Staraptor argh argh Pikachu should evolve already argle spargle. Seriously now, Hard Rock is annoying, but it doesn't make Rhyperior invincible. Well, in the games anyway. I can see what it makes Rhyperior into in the anime...
-Holy hell Rhyperior is fast for a giant rock Pokemon. Palmer must be following the Ash school of training, where everything is fast or else it doesn't get used. (the current exception being Grotle, for some strange reason) Or maybe it just used Rock Polish. Maybe.
-Grotle Razor Leafed a Sandstorm away? Well okay then!
-Grotle swallows its own Energy Ball. Insert your own innuendo here, because this is a classy bullet point review and I don't do unclassy things like make sexual jokes about people(or in this case, Pokemon) swallowing their own energy balls.
-Grotle takes a level in badass(TV Tropes page not linked to save you all hours of going to one page, seeing ten other interesting pages, going to all of those, then snapping back to reality five hours later with dinner burnt and various work not done ten minutes before it's time to go to work/school), and how. Jun does the usual "nandatendayo" thing, but he seems more impressed than annoyed for once. Well, considering that Grotle did just make a bunch of high rocks from nothing and climb up them with such force that Rhyperior was blown back several feet...
-Then Rhyperior makes another big rock and smashes Grotle with it so hard that the newly created cliffs crumble back to dust. Yeah, that's a KO if I ever saw one.
-ADD Lad is very proud of his Daddy.
-And I mean very proud.
-Dawn takes the opportunity to brag about her mom too. Ash...well, Delia's nothing to write home about, unless there's suddenly a Pokemon Cooking competition, and his dad is Never To Be Named, so, uh, yeah. He flashes back to his full battle with Paul instead.
-That music cue...could it be...POKEMON ONDO?
-Looks like Jun's as excited as I am!
-And now he's singing it. I demand an mp3 of this(with AshnCo's talking muted out) post haste.
-The Sexual-Predator-Haired Terror suggests that the gang head to Sunyshore, presumably because he knows that Ash got the other seven badges and that's the only gym left for him to go to.
-...is that MIME JR? It's STILL ALIVE? This changes everything. (fun fact:For a moment I thought it was Mime Jr who was supposed to be back with James' grandparents or whoever they were(instead of Chimecho, who was left there while James got Mime Jr in the same episode). His Pokemon seem to blur together now that he never does anything with any of them anymore.)
-Yawn, generic closing remarks, narrator coming in...
-*SCREECH* HERE COMES THE JUNMOBILE!
-Jun's heading the same way, but not traveling with the gang. BOOOOOOOOOOO. We demand more Jun! His ADD Lad-ness makes life worth living!
-Oak's lecture is on Suicune. I wonder why?!

[Bliksem]

Fairly entertaining battle that shows that Ash is getting better with his selection. One thing that stands out, though, is that Grotle's moveset is just down-right boring. Energy Ball, Razor Leaf, Rock Climb, Synthesis. They really need to add something to mix things up a bit.

[talala]

Fairly entertaining battle that shows that Ash is getting better with his selection. One thing that stands out, though, is that Grotle's moveset is just down-right boring. Energy Ball, Razor Leaf, Rock Climb, Synthesis. They really need to add something to mix things up a bit.

how about earthquake? lol

[HoennMaster]

The episode was kind of a let down, but at least the battle was good.

[Void of Hearts]

I quite like this episode, the battle in it was quite intense. =P I was honestly surprised at the sheer amount of power Grotle recieved by swalling a mere Energy Ball. I mean, compared to your average Pokemon power-ups where there were only a small amount of difference, Grotle literally tackled over a 623.5 lbs. wall of solid rock with brute force, and continued to propel it up a hill which it had made earlier, surely that deserves a big "wow." o.o

[csisps_26]

Even though I've already watched this episode, but... was it Overgrow or just a power up? My Japanese is not good, so I could've missed it when they mentioned what it was.

[pokemonmasterhustler]

great i was really waiting for the looker to appear in a dubbed episode and now i can't wait for palmer!

[CyberCubed]

Fairly entertaining battle that shows that Ash is getting better with his selection. One thing that stands out, though, is that Grotle's moveset is just down-right boring. Energy Ball, Razor Leaf, Rock Climb, Synthesis. They really need to add something to mix things up a bit.

How is that boring?

Remember how Bayleef had the same exact moves Bulbasaur did? Besides, after coming off the heels of Sceptile, did you honestly expect Grotle to live up to the things Sceptile did throughout all three of its forms?

[Alfonso]

How is that boring?

Remember how Bayleef had the same exact moves Bulbasaur did? Besides, after coming off the heels of Sceptile, did you honestly expect Grotle to live up to the things Sceptile did throughout all three of its forms?

Agreed.

The problem with the same three-type starters over and over again is you're pretty much covering the same sort of ground again, especially in the 1st stage where they don't have anything unique about them. (Charizard's wings, or Grovyle/Sceptile's blades.)

This applies to pretty much every starter bar Treecko, who is pretty much the only original Grass starter, especially in the anime where it didn't and couldn't just fire off Razor Leafs and Vine Whips.

But alas.

I wish Johanna would go away. I don't know, she just bothers me. I miss Lola. Can we have some Lola back please?

[09Murphym]

I liked how dawn's mom appeared out of nowhere when ash was doing his victory pose and then just spun away.

[uber gon]

Somehow I see Grotle learning Solarbeam at some point. Hopefully it won't be some stock footaged beam of white light.

[A_Merry_Snowrunt]

This was a fairly entertaining episode. I'm looking forward to see this episode in the states in 19 weeks. Whenever I see Jun/Barry in an episode, momentum and excitement just bursts out! In terms, I guess I am sort of attached to his characteristics. Silly willy. Seeing Palmer was cool and humorous (running off after meeting Ash). Why do you say Jun/Barry has ADD? He's hyperactive and always on the go when it comes to being impatient.