An Elite Coverup! (638)

[Serebii]

Elite Four Bertha! Hippowdon vs Torterra!!

On their way to the next town, Ash & Co. find a boy who got scammed by a fake Day Care Centre. While investigating, Ash & Co. meet up with the Elite Four member Bertha. Bertha agrees to assist them but afterwards, Ash is eager to challenge her. Will he win?

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[Umbilical Noose]

Its good to be back.

The episode starts with the kid with Magby and TR fooling him as he hands out his Magby to them and Meowth thinks Boss can use its fire.

Edit: Looks like Bertha is a type of granny who lets kids do there own work.

[V Faction]

Well, right off the bat I'd like to say that hearing 'Booby' over and over is freakin' hilarious.

Bertha is also privy to her name being revealed for some reason.

[Lucario At Service]

For some reason it seems Bertha is not allowing Brock to tell others that she is an Elite 4 member

Edit:- Bretha seems to have a Gliscor.
Also TR seems to have gone using battle armor style power-ups for there pokemons.

[V Faction]

GLISCOR! Bertha has one.

And also Golem as we've seen. Blows off that armor.

AAANNND. Torterra goes down via Fire Fang and Iron Head from Hippowdon.

Oak: Wurmple. It evolves into Cascoon.

[Ash-kid]

Nice, She has a Gliscor from the Platinum team, it could be a clue. And too bad that Ash lost.

Team Rocket's armor is great, definitely reminds me something from the past.

[KingMinun]

Torterra loses but put up a good fight, i THOUGH IT MIGHT WIN.

Also its the 13th anniversary today right?

[wildheart90]

looks like they are starting to incorporate platinum teams, me thinks that means volkner may have his platinum lineup when we get back to sunyshore

[Umbilical Noose]

Bertha's Hippowdon's movepool:
Dig
Iron Head
Fire Fang(finishing move)
Ash for the first time used a strategy against Elite Four and nearly won or maybe Bertha was going easy on him.

Edit: For one more time Elite Four Pokemon are shown to have some uber power.

And Gliscor used X Scissor right?

[Lucario At Service]

Torterra lost against Bertha and to me this match felt more worse than the match against Palmer but was a bit ok when compared to Ash & Flint's battle.

[KingMinun]

Showed a short clip of Ash's gym match

Ash is using Infernape and its Blaze is activated.

[An00bis]

I checked three times to make sure Pokemon actually aired today. It does, so here we go.

Bertha Episode:

- Looks like Team Rocket is trying to run a legit business.
- Ah, spoke too soon. They want some kid's Magby.
- Boss Fantasy. You'd think Giovanni would have a Lighter or something.
- Piplup's feelings are hurt early in this one.
- Surprise. Surprise. The kid got scammed out his Magby.
- Bertha is here ... and apparently she doesn't want anyone to know she's E4.
- Bertha helps the kids find Team Rocket. It's not hard. Really.
- Staraptor VS TR. I hope he doesn't get KO'd tod - oh. That's a shame ...
- BREAK TIME
- And we're back.
- Bretha takes them for a ride aboard her Driving Machine.
- She cuts them down with her GLISCOR rather easily.
- TR Battle ensures.
- Gosh TR. Why didn't you send that Pokeball to the boss when you could?
- Wait what? Team Rocket Armor? That's ... actually creative.
- Oh uh. They managed to make the old lady mad.
- Here comes Golem
- Brock makes a slip of the tongue
- Of course Ash wants to Battle her now.
- Nope. Bertha's Hippowdon doesn't get the female coloring.
- Ash chooses Torterra. It's on.
- Long pause. I doubt it's over.
- Yep. Torterra's still up.
- Ash notices something ...
- He predicts her once but gets hit the second time for the loss.
- Bertha gives them a lift to the next town.
- Oak's Lecture: Wurmple

Bertha's Pokemon
GLISCOR
I didn't catch the command but it looked like Metal Claw

Golem
Stone Edge (Came out the Ball using it)

Hippowdon
Dig (Was NOT commanded. It just burrowed underground.)
Iron Head (Very clearly commanded after it dug)
Fire Fang (Used to finish off Torterra)

Kid's Magby
Flamethrower (First attack when it was released)
Fire Punch (Attack used to Blast TR off)

[Serebii]

Showed a short clip of Ash's gym match

Ash is using Infernape and its Blaze is activated.

Can you PLEASE not discuss other episodes in here

[Umbilical Noose]

Hippowdon was not as much powerful as Flint's Infernape but one thing for sure, it was fast. And to my amazement the battle between the tanks was fast.

[Almighty Zard]

^well she's also weaker than he is in the games, even so Torterra was only able to hit hippowdon one time, and it recovered rather quickly too.

I doubt Ash is going to fight the elite four now cause after Flint decimating three of his guys, and Torterra only being able to hit Bertha's pokemon one time before getting ko'ed, it doesn't seem possible anymore.

Also...heaven forbid when Cyber gets here, we're not going to hear the end of it....

[uber gon]

This battle would have been better for Torterra if he learned Earthquake.

[Lucario At Service]

What i am surprise is that the writers didn't make Ash use his Energy Ball absorption method. If he would have done that, the match would have been much better (even though Ash would be losing the match).

[Sand Alchemist]

What was the speech Bertha told to Ash in the battle?

Also the scene of Hippowdon and Bertha behind the Sandstorm was epic.

PD. The forums are working too slow for me :S

[streetlightdsb]

I agree about the Energy Ball absorption, I wonder if that's gone for good now?

A couple of things about the battle;

Did anyone else think that the background when Torterra was sent out looked exactly like Lake Acuity?

We had the 360 degree perspective of Torterra that was mentioned as required by the Animation Directors (or someone) absolutely ages ago, I guess the story really is planned well in advance.

What was Bertha saying after the Iron Head/ Rock Climb collision? It was quite a long speech.

Is it me, or is Ash's Torterra much smaller than Pauls?

Overall, I'm glad Torterra put up a fight and wasn't absolutely crushed, and that Ash seems to be getting better at thinking on his feet and coping under pressure again.

[Locormus]

I agree about the Energy Ball absorption, I wonder if that's gone for good now?

I really, really don't want it gone! It's such a good improvised move, if anything, Torterra seems to be pretty fast regardless of that, but with the powerboost, I'd wonder how fast/strong it would be. (I'm talking about that evasive manouver it did against Hippowdon, it's like Snorlax all over again )

A couple of things about the battle;

Did anyone else think that the background when Torterra was sent out looked exactly like Lake Acuity?

Yes it did! It almost seemed like a reverse shot of how Paul sent out his Torterra during that time.

Is it me, or is Ash's Torterra much smaller than Pauls?

It might, I though it was quite round, while the back of Paul's Torterra is flatter it seems. I caught myself looking at Torterra as an oversized Grotle with a tree at one point this episode.. bad Loc!

Overall, I'm glad Torterra put up a fight and wasn't absolutely crushed, and that Ash seems to be getting better at thinking on his feet and coping under pressure again.

Don't wanna be rude or anything.. But the flying Hippowdon DID brutally ram it's face into the ground where Torterra got stuck until even after the battle had ended.. Torterra was face down stuck in the ground, come on man, how much more crushing defeat can you get in pokemon??? (Besides the infamous Muk vs Bellsprout bout and Snorlax vs that other thing that got squished, Hypno I think...)

Seriously, If anything Gen V better give Hippowdon some more flying moves in it's moveset.. WHO KNEW! My Hippowdon in Gen V: Earthquake, Stone Edge, Curse and Sky Attack! Or even Drill Peck, I don't care! And maybe just give it Levitate as an ability, Sand Stream sucks anyway..

Good thing about this battle was though that Ash saw what Torterra's inhibitions are, so he can work on those (It's open for attacks from any other side that's not the front.).

[CyberCubed]

Bertha's Gliscor seemed like a slap in the face to me. I can only hope that is foreshadowing.

[dman_dustin]

We had the 360 degree perspective of Torterra that was mentioned as required by the Animation Directors (or someone) absolutely ages ago, I guess the story really is planned well in advance.

Yes, I thought that two, if someone can dig up when the animator said he was working on that 360 degree perspective, we can get a better perspective on how these episodes are made in length.

If the animator was just working at it then. Well that implies other things as well.

[Charmed]

Bertha's Gliscor seemed like a slap in the face to me. I can only hope that is foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing what? May I ask?

I liked Bertha despite my earlier worries that she'd be bland like she appears to be in the games. I liked that, unlike, some of the other Elite Four members featured in Sinnoh, she appeared with more than one Pokemon (although I thought Hippowdon would be the focus of the episode). I didn't much like the battle between Bertha and Ash since it was more of the same though. Bertha displayed the typical overpowering force that it common among those of the Elite Four title. Quite the same as the other Elite Four based episodes but still grand in it's own right. 7/10

[NES]

Bertha seemed like a good E4, i like her car. For a second i thought Ash would finally win, but yeah that wasn't right ¿why is Brock holding himself all of a sudden? ¿what is he trying to say?

[streetlightdsb]

Don't wanna be rude or anything.. But the flying Hippowdon DID brutally ram it's face into the ground where Torterra got stuck until even after the battle had ended.. Torterra was face down stuck in the ground, come on man, how much more crushing defeat can you get in pokemon??? (Besides the infamous Muk vs Bellsprout bout and Snorlax vs that other thing that got squished, Hypno I think...)

I didn't mean literally, just meant it wasn't massively one sided XD

Seriously, If anything Gen V better give Hippowdon some more flying moves in it's moveset.. WHO KNEW! My Hippowdon in Gen V: Earthquake, Stone Edge, Curse and Sky Attack! Or even Drill Peck, I don't care! And maybe just give it Levitate as an ability, Sand Stream sucks anyway..

Bounce!

Good thing about this battle was though that Ash saw what Torterra's inhibitions are, so he can work on those (It's open for attacks from any other side that's not the front.).

Yeah, seems like a good episode for general Torterra development..

Both Hippowdon and Torterra were both pretty speedy really, I was expecting more of a 'exchanging slaps' sort of battle with them both standing in one place. I agree that Torterra does just seem like a slightly bigger Grotle with a tree coming out of it's back