Battle-Dazzling the Nimbasa Gym! (711)

[sSerenity]

Poor Snivy .... Clay waits for you ....

It's really weird that the best pokemon of Elesa was used first ...

And Pikachu, I hate you

[_Taidow_]

I don't know why everyone is so shocked from this episode. In my opinion it was way better than Lenora's Rematch Episode.

Palpitoad vs Zebstrika
I think Elesa herself knew that she was going to lose to Palpitoad. I still wonder why Supersonic doesn't cause the little confused animation that Solosis' Confuse Ray did.

Palpitoad/Emolga vs Emolga
Attract, ouch.
Ash left in the middle of the battle to get Snivy? Why didn't he do this after Swadloon was knocked out and went to get Tranquill for Burgh's gym? Oh well.
Yay! Palpitoad was male. I would have hated it to be female, like I dislike how Swadloon is male.
Acrobatics and Aerial Ace. I think the writers just did that to showcase the difference in animation.

Emolga/Tynamo vs Pikachu
OHKO's. What was it with all the wall crashing? Ash was smart about trying to finish Emolga quickly with Quick Attack. That made sure Emolga was out so it couldn't Attract Pikachu.

I kinda wish they would have shown Tynamo using Spark or something but oh well. Why are people complaining with Pikachu OHKO'ing Tynamo? It was a Tynamo! Emolga was worn down from constantly attacking Snivy and it crashed into the wall also.

Truthfully I liked this battle. I like the way Ash thought about it, but unfortunately it backfired on him. I don't mind that Pikachu got two wins, since one win was probably to make up for the Don Battle loss, and one to make up for possibly losing to Alder. Snivy can have more screentime later, besides she lost to a pokemon with a x4 resistance to all her moves.

EDIT: If you look at my spreadsheet in my signature, you'll see the win, draw, loss record of his pokemon in important battles.

[playerking]

Two things -

First, I still think the whole Pikachu <--> Zekrom situation in the beginning of the series will eventually develop into a huge problem. Pikachu was weakened in the beginning, is strong now, and will probably get to the point where his power is uncontrollable.

What? That was just a plot point to make Pikachu weaker to start of Trip and Ash's rivalry and for an excuse for Ash to go to Juniper's lab. I doubt that will be developed anymore.

Poor Snivy .... Clay waits for you ....

It's really weird that the best pokemon of Elesa was used first ...

And Pikachu, I hate you

Snivy might not be in Clay's gym.

We don't know what her best Pokemon is, none of Bianca's Pokemon were that strong against Zebstrika and Bianca isn't that strong, heck, Emolga could be her best one. I mean, Emolga's moves and battling skills were pretty good.

I don't know why everyone is so shocked from this episode. In my opinion it was way better than Lenora's Rematch Episode.

Any proper gym battle was better than Lenora's one. :P

[Joltik-Kid]

I didn't hate the battle itself...I just hate how one pokemon always has to get two wins in a gym battle when the match is a three on three, so once again I find myself mad at Pikachu. If he only had the match against Tynamo, I'd be fine, but he ended up getting two OHKo wins, while Snivy couldn't even get a single hit in. Sure I'll admit Snivy was at a disadvantage, but she could have at least tied. Oh well, I guess the gym was over all okay, but with the 30 or so episode wait that we had, I guess I expected better.

[gliscor&yanmega]

Just finished watching the video version. As I figured, I enjoyed it more so then I thought I would.

I'm not sure what was said for the most part in the episode(I have my thoughts on some parts), but it seemed interesting and funny, so I can't wait to know what was being said throughout.

The battles were more enjoyable in video form over just looking at the pictures. I think Emolga's battles weren't all that exciting though, but Palpitoad vs Zebstrika was nice and Tynamo vs Pikachu was interesting too despite the lack of moves from Tynamo.

The episode was a little bit weird at some points, but I found those points funny(In the sense of things being awkward).

[ChaosMage]

I didn't dislike the battle so much as find it a bit frustrating that Pikachu was used yet again. We can guarantee Pikachu being used in the 6th gym, and very likely in the 7th and 8th too. It has no new tricks to speak of this time around. On the other hand, Snivy is yet to have a gym victory, Snivy has a new move to showcase and Roggenrola is yet to do... well... anything! Ash using the same three pokemon as in the Don Battle just seems a little repetitive. We know what Pikachu can do, whereas the writers are balancing nine pokemon this saga. That's a hell of a lot.

I'm glad Palpitoad got the big one though- gotta love that frog.

[Zino]

It feels like everyone's disliking the gym match D:

I loved the episode, I laughed all the time even when I didn't understand half of the things they were saying. And I liked the battle as well. Pikachu's been awesome in couple of latest episodes! So what if they let him star again, if that means giving him some personality once more<3

This is definitely one of my favorite BW episodes yet! : D

[Locormus]

It wasn't really short, took up the whole episode like most gym battles do, i didn't mind it..gym battles have been a bit lackluster this series.

All the gym battles have been crud.

Striaton: Hax Shell retrieval plan that came out of nowhere, which should've taken substantial mathematic knowledge, which Oshawott don't have.
Nacrene: Tepig fell in the first to Lillipup's Take Down, in the second he survived two Giga Impacts by Herdier.. Raises my eyebrows it does..
Castelia: Electro Ball somehow defeating a Bug/Grass pokemon while Pika's speed stat had continuedly been reduced throughout the battle.
Nimbasa: Female Emolga spamming with Attract, yet not using it on Pikachu which would've cost Ash the match, that and Ash leaving midbattle to get Snivy, when Roggenrola would've been a better counter, and Pikachu 1HKO'ing two of Elesa's pokemon... When she's been set up as able to do the same, through the showcase with Bianca, yet nothing of the sort..

Seriously, and people want to get to Clay asap? I guess that people just want this to be over with and be left empty handed with eight crappy gym battles at the end of this.. and no further development at all. Heck, these people might as well want Ash to end up on the sixteenth spot again.. Would be awesome! Cheers!

If Vs. Clay doesn't semi impress me, then I'm officially done with being interested in Best Wishes..

Seriously, the only thing that has impressed me were Palpitoad's battles, Excadrill beating Pikachu, because of legitimacy, and Ash capturing a bunch of pokemon. Sadly, we never get to see them...

This has to be my least favorite gym battle so far in Unova.

There were some great moments, and funny moments like Ash leaving the gym in the middle of the battle. But everything else was just nauseatingly bad.

- Palpitoad is male. I mean why give it such a feminine voice? I mean it was very feminine in this battle, even more so than it has been in the past few episodes. So yeah, not really cool. But I expected prior to this episode that Palpitoad was male, way to cheapen it here. And I'll get to why this is even worse down the line.

- Snivy lost. If anyone should've lost it should've been the rat but I'll get to that it an moment.

- Ash was completely and utterly out of character. Whomever wrote this, kindly stay the hell away from gyms from now on. Seriously, I don't care what kind of message you're trying to shove down our throats but honestly you did not need to make Ash do horribly that you had to resort to Cheapchu as your last resort.

- Pikachu.
A)Okay so let me get this straight. Elesa's Emolga isn't male and is female, and yet she didn't use ONE attract on Pikachu at all. What the hell. This is what really irritates me. It's like the writer went "Oh we did the attract thing just to confirm Palpitoad and Emolga's gender" but no sense it using it in a way that might actually cost Ash the entire battle by not using it on Pikachu. It doesn't help any that Elesa just let Pikachu use that OHKO quick attack on Emolga.

B). Pikachu being chosen in this. I mean it's bad enough that Ash is completely and utterly out of character. They really had to bring in Pikachu in all this and make it be the one that smacks Ash upside the head. Roggenrola would've been so much better. Sure it takes 1x damage from electric attacks, but honestly all Tynamo ever did (as far as I saw) was tackle. Ooh Roggenrola is going to be knocked out from a tackle.

The only decent match which has it's downsides as well is Palpitoad's battle with Zebstrika. And the only reason why I can't praise it for being the best battle, is because of that stupid close call it had, where it looked like it was knocked out.

I don't know how this episode that revolved primarily around the gym battle, could have so many things wrong with it. And I can't blame the gym being sucky merely just because of Pikachu. Because there were so many other things wrong with this gym that Pikachu is merely icing on the rotten nasty cake.

But from what I saw and what I expected, least favorite gym of Unova so far.

To be fair, if Elesa only focuses on training her Zebstrika and somewhat her Emolga, then having Palpitoad almost faint against Zebstrika isn't that much of an issue to me. Obviously it's her strongest by far. Emolga had type going for it with Snivy, and when it didn't it was quickly desposed off. Of course, it could've done Pikachu in with Attract as well, but the writers are afraid of confirming Pika's gender and set this episode up as the epitome of bad writing.

Now that the episode has aired I can post two things I noticed beforehand going into this.

1. in hoenn and sinnoh in both of the region's fourth gyms, Ash's usage of a grass pokemon was a bad choice and the pokemon in question did not get a victory, Third time's...apparently not the charm or grass's best chance for fighting.
2. Ash using grass types in electrical gyms is apparently a bad idea as well

Elesa really needs to focus on her other two pokemon if they got beaten that quickly (though in Tynamo's case i'm not suprised given how people kept referring to it as the magikarp of unova, guess they were right.), sure Emolga knocked out Snivy due to type advantage, but it seems like she's focused on Zebrastrika so much once it goes down all you gotta do is send out a female and you practically have a lock on beating her.

I laughed at #1 and #2 :P Especially since I need to add to that: Ash used Bulbasaur against Erika way back in Kanto. Now in the animé this was the fifth gym, but in game it technically is the fourth. It didn't do so well either back then, immediately got returned after Tangela paralyzed it.. :P

- So Ash used a Grass type pokemon in the fourth gym of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th regions. Covering the types of: Grass, Fire, Water and Electric...

I'm willing to bet that the fourth gym in Gen VI would be a Flying gym, to cover Ash's regular pattern!

Tynamo is the Magikarp of Unova because it evolves into a pokemon with elongated body/snake'ish and has a very limited movepool, simple as that.

It's only bad writing to you and others, doesn't mean it is in general. Some people like me might consider it interesting that they made Ash go about the battle differently and for him to learn and to be reassured that his usual battling style is what gets him the wins most of the times.

Ash got the badge, he defeated all of Elesa's Pokemon, we get it that you don't like most of things that have been happening in Nimbasa lately, can't we just move on. We've only got one more episode in Nimbasa anyway.

Where did this sudden impulse to plan out this gym battle come from? Ever thought about that? That's not Ash's deal to suddenly do that. It was a plotpull by the writers:

"In order for this episodes message to seem logical, we first need to make Ash do something that he wouldn't normally do, now as to why he would do that.. Oh well, kiddies won't notice!! *yay*"

[Yeul]

Don't worry guys, Pikachu's time in the spotlight'll be cut short once Alder's Bouffalant hands his arse back to the rat.

[Aura Flare Riolu]

Of course, it could've done Pikachu in with Attract as well, but the writers are afraid of confirming Pika's gender and set this episode up as the epitome of bad writing.

I suggest watching the episode: "Snivy Plays Hard to Catch!". Snivy used Attract on Pikachu. And if that wasn't enough, when Snivy used Attract on Pidove and it failed, Cilan mentioned Pidove was Female. So yeah. Pikachu is officially Male.

[Durian Seed]

After seeing Pikachu's performance here, I now am in doubt if his participation in Hiun gym was the star performance, in retrospect, Kurumayu was the star, beating 2 pokemon and evolving.

In this episode, Pikachu clearly was the star, which was going to anger me, but they saved it with good writing. Pikachu if only for this episode, was returned to level 100.

The grace and elegance with which he beat both Emonga and Shibishirasu with only one hit each, re-established Pikachu's power level after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Iris.

[Graham Aker]

Now that you've gotten your "redemption" Pikachu, kindly stay out of the next few gyms. Thank you.

Terrible battle aside, at least Elesa was entertaining.

[G50]

This episode was cool. Very cool to see Shibishirasu for the 1st time. Shibishirasu is so cute and quick! It was great to see Gamagaru get another win! This time in the Gym Battle. Just keep on getting stronger Gamagaru! Zeburaika on the other hand got knocked out in this episode... oh well, at least it got wins in the Anime already. It was hilarious when Ash ran right out of the door, leaving the Gym and getting Snivy to bring back. Pikachu had a funny look on his face when he and Ash were thinking about who to use in the battle, and at first Pikachu was sad that Ash wasn't thinking about using him. It was strange that Ash had Tsutarja use Attract when Emonga used Attract. Tsutarja vs Emonga in the Gym battle, go figure... Dent and Iris' reactions in this episode were very funny. Gamagaru really showed resiliancy and did well to take down Zeburaika. Gamagaru is really great defensively as shown in his battle vs Zeburaika. It was cool to see Acrobatics in the Anime for the 1st time. Pikachu definitely was getting so frustrated that he kept using Thunderbolt uncontrollably, and showed his frustration even more when Ash couldn't make up his mind as to who to use last. It was funny to see Pikachu finally shock him to get his attention and for him to choose Pikachu. It was very annoying to see Pikachu knocking out 2 of Elesa's Pokemon. Very clever for Pikachu to use Thunderbolt to wreck the field. I'm not very happy however at how Pikachu just knocked out both Shibishirasu and Emonga with only 1 hit!

70/100

[claudicado]

After seeing Pikachu's performance here, I now am in doubt if his participation in Hiun gym was the star performance, in retrospect, Kurumayu was the star, beating 2 pokemon and evolving.

In this episode, Pikachu clearly was the star, which was going to anger me, but they saved it with good writing. Pikachu if only for this episode, was returned to level 100.

The grace and elegance with which he beat both Emonga and Shibishirasu with only one hit each, re-established Pikachu's power level after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Iris.

Pikachu regained his confidence and is back to level 100. That's why he wanted to battle so bad in this gym (or that's why the writers included him in this battle, to show the complaining audience that Pika is back to good shape). Let's see what happens against Alder...

[Rohanator]

All the gym battles have been crud.

Striaton: Hax Shell retrieval plan that came out of nowhere, which should've taken substantial mathematic knowledge, which Oshawott don't have.
Nacrene: Tepig fell in the first to Lillipup's Take Down, in the second he survived two Giga Impacts by Herdier.. Raises my eyebrows it does..
Castelia: Electro Ball somehow defeating a Bug/Grass pokemon while Pika's speed stat had continuedly been reduced throughout the battle.
Nimbasa: Female Emolga spamming with Attract, yet not using it on Pikachu which would've cost Ash the match, that and Ash leaving midbattle to get Snivy, when Roggenrola would've been a better counter, and Pikachu 1HKO'ing two of Elesa's pokemon... When she's been set up as able to do the same, through the showcase with Bianca, yet nothing of the sort..

Seriously, and people want to get to Clay asap? I guess that people just want this to be over with and be left empty handed with eight crappy gym battles at the end of this.. and no further development at all. Heck, these people might as well want Ash to end up on the sixteenth spot again.. Would be awesome! Cheers!

1st and second I guess are fair enough, but at least Oshawott and Tepig were badass. As for third, well, Electro Ball doesn't have the same effect in the anime as in the game, speed doesn't effect it. And even if it did, String Shot only slows down Poke because it ties them up, Pika got free, so no speed drops anymore. And Leavanny got hit hard on the neck by Iron Tail and it's not like it 4x resists Electric or anything.
And Pikachu (quite badassly, if I may) finished off Emolga so fast Elesa didn't even get the chance to try Attract. Really now people..

I liked the episode, had some funny moments and at least Ash realized that his usual battle style suits him better even if he was a bit out of character. Also, Trip tried Ash's style against him(Vanillite vs Tepig) and failed and now Ash almost failed with a style Trip would use. Pretty nice.
As for Snivy not getting a win...well, look at Torterra's record. JUSTICE! >8D
And dat big mofo Palpitoad was awesome as always, I love him so much. <3 AND he was confirmed male, also good. I mean, only a man could be such a mofo....no offence...please..XP

Also, I'm not even bothered about Pikachu battling. People were *****ing about him losing so much so there you go.

[jscholfield]

I suggest watching the episode: "Snivy Plays Hard to Catch!". Snivy used Attract on Pikachu. And if that wasn't enough, when Snivy used Attract on Pidove and it failed, Cilan mentioned Pidove was Female. So yeah. Pikachu is officially Male.

before that pikachu was confirmed male in the togepi episode in DP when a togepi used attract on meowth, piplup, croagunk, yanmega and pikachu and it didn't work on yanmega because it wasd female

[_Taidow_]

I suggest watching the episode: "Snivy Plays Hard to Catch!". Snivy used Attract on Pikachu. And if that wasn't enough, when Snivy used Attract on Pidove and it failed, Cilan mentioned Pidove was Female. So yeah. Pikachu is officially Male.

Actually Pikachu was confirmed to be male in DP, the evil Togepi used Attract and it hit Meowth, Pikachu, and Piplup (which Meowth and Piplup are male, so Pikachu was confirmed to be male). Jessie's Yanmega was unaffected so it was female.

[Rohanator]

Well that was nice nod for BG music, that was DP show music. I guess they do remember the last year.

It is Dawn's theme alright but I guess the only reason they're using it in BW is because it's part of the Zoroark movies soundtrack. They've only used movie music from that and movie 13(Arceus).

[Almighty Zard]

rewatching the battle i just realised something else, Tynamo rushed Pikachu without being told by Elesa right before getting Iron Tailed into the wall.

that's not a good thing when a gym leaders pokemon doesn't listen to them, she clearly needs to train that thing, and since it didn't obey her it getting ko'ed by iron tail wasn't cheap.

[Aura Flare Riolu]

Yeah I knew it was confirmed back then but the Snivy Episode made it more clear and was mentioned in the episode.

...Why are we discussing this in this thread? Shouldn't it be somewhere else?