Battling a Thaw in Relations! (656)

[wobbanut]

At last, Ash finally beats Paul in one heck of an epic battle. I enjoyed it. It's just short of being as epic as Ash's defeat of Gary in Johto (the fact that they knew each other longer puts Gary one up on Paul), but especially considering Paul's massacre of Ash's team the previous season it was satisfying.

Too bad Trip is falling so short of expectations that I don't see his inevitable matchup with Ash measuring up. Heck, Ash vs. BIANCA would interest me more. LOL

9/10

[flamebeam]

paul is the best rival, and the coolest, and the smartest and strongest. its like red vs green in the manga.
and im sOoo glad it was 3part battle, cuz it was THAT significant!!!
Dear paul: i'll miss u and trip is a disgrace
and ash: in sinnoh, u were at the top of ur game. in unova, ur a loser

[DMerle]

Electivire VS Infernape is undoubtedly the best battle in the anime to date (imo anyway) I truly think Paul would of stood a chance against even Tobias if he'd used Electivire/Magmortar/Ursaring/Drapion/Torterra/Honchkrow.

[TurtwigFan1]

Best Pokémon anime battle ever? Definitely a contender. It had me on the edge of my seat all throughout it. Paul and Ash were seriously amazing. I just knew it'd come to Electivire vs. Infernape and I also knew it'd be an amazing battle to watch. Infernape really showed its mastery of Blaze, I was so happy for it. The hug with Ash when they won was seriously so heartwarming. I could even see Paul show a bit of emotion when he congratulated Electivire. So glad to see Paul finally respects Ash and, while not friends, they're not enemies anymore. One of the best episodes of Diamond and Pearl. Can't wait to see Ash versus Tobias.

[Ash&Pikachu-Fan]

paul is the best rival, and the coolest, and the smartest and strongest. its like red vs green in the manga.
and im sOoo glad it was 3part battle, cuz it was THAT significant!!!
Dear paul: i'll miss u and trip is a disgrace
and ash: in sinnoh, u were at the top of ur game. in unova, ur a loser

Paul is a strong trainer but he was not a good trainer! And Trip is a new trainer but is very smart so until the end of BW2 I'm sure we will see an epic battle between Ash and Trip!

[Bulba the Great!]

I really enjoyed this battle. It was accurate to a real in-game battle - no matter how well-trained your Pokemon are, some will hold their weight better than others. Case in point, Drapion.

I would have liked the referee to just call Infernape down, though. I hate the fake knockouts like that. Most of the time the ref just says 'out!' without waiting.

I enjoyed Brock's moment of personal congratulation to Ash: he's finally watched his little bro grow up. He's taught him everything. He's ready to move on.

Wonder what Paul was going to say after the battle?

[pokemonsquared]

This ep is awesome, and now I know the real reason for drapion's deliberate overpoweredness after finally watching the last ep in galactic battles that I didn't see(the gliscor one), they needed to show off how much gliscor improved so it would either be torterra or some new powerhouse and I guess they wanted to leave the true strength of that turtle to mystery. though infernape would beat it anyways.

9/10

[EmphaticPikachu]

K love this battle. so epic. I don't care about pokemon wins that's how epic it was. Infernape was SUPPOSED to get the spotlight here, and fudge... in pokemon battles certain pokemon take spotlight ALL the time.
I'm just glad the writers proved they can actually make something like this. <3... All of the toxic spikes strategies and luck and shiz. <3...

oh and to the people complaining about Paul not showing emotion about loosing, and being contradicting to his character...

Think long and hard back to when Paul lost to Brandon. What did Brandon say to Paul? He said (I'm quoting the english dub which I don't think is THAT off.)

"Your pokemon are trained well, but you lack the ability to control your emotions during the heat of battle! When you fix this, I will take your challenge once more. *slight smile at the end*

Paul looks down, and then bows; thanking brandon for helping him. (keep in mind he just had a rage fit about Reggi not being able beat Brandon.)

IE, Brandon made him think about it and told him to NOT get pissy, and he obviously took those words to heart. That was when he started to change.

And another fudgin thing, didn't paul NOT know what ash was going to do?

Paul only figured out that Ash was using the same pokemon from the lake that he 6-2'd around halfway through the battle. He didn't know what ash was going to use. In fact he seemed quite surprised that ash used those same pokemon, but then guesses that he should of expected as much.

IE, Paul used different pokemon because he didn't think ash was gonna use the same pokemon he used at the lake. He hasn't really done it earlier in the league, and I'm guessing paul thought ash would actually try to counter him with different pokemon. So using a completely different team would screw up any counter idea.

And even then Paul's team was quite competent. :/...From my perspective, that was a choice that seems very logical.

[J Ken]

This was a nice end to Ash vs Paul. I wish Torterra got more battle time and a win. But aside from that the battle was awesome.

[Lareon]

I just can't stop watching it..... Super amazing episode