-Ash starts off this episode raring to go fight a Gym Battle! ...but Dento points out that he's not in Driftveil City. But wait! There's a distraction nearby - some kid with a trio of Maractus!
-I get the feeling that we'll be hearing this EXACT Maractus chant far too many times in this episode.
-The kid orders them to do something called Over The Rainbow...which is ultimately messed up by the Maractis named "Cacchin."
-Then we get a round of introductions. Apparently the kid's traveling to Nimbasa to take part in the musicals.
-And of course, Dento loves musicals. At this point I think the only thing he doesn't love is supernatural stuff that freaks him out.
-...oh god he's going all sing-songy about it, too!
-There's a "Pokemon Performance Battle" going on in town...so...uh...a Pokemon Contest, basically?
-They all decide to help the kid practice, and the first step is rhythm! Ash wonders what Pokemon could give them a rhythm...and Oshawott volunteers itself!
-Oshawott makes a rhythm by banging on its scallsword. CUTEST. THING. EVER.
-Dento sends out Pansage because...well, because. And then the kid gives it a tamborine.
-Pansage playing the tamborine is cute, but Oshawott was still cuter! (of course, Dento shouts out an AH, FANTASTIC~ at Pansage anyway)
-And Axew bangs on a tamborine too...and Iris starts dancing along!
-Ash takes that as a challenge, and starts dancing with Oshawott and Pikachu! Why is this episode so cute already?!
-Pansage sees that & starts doing a little can-can dance, and Dento promptly looks ridiculous by joining in.
-And now the fun's over with. Time to get to work!
-...and by "work", I mean "the Pokemon flailing around with instruments and producing the disjointed sound you'd expect."
-Axew ends up losing its grip on one of its maraccas, which hits Oshawott, who gets pissed and yells at Pansage for some reason, and Pikachu tries to break it up. Then Axew(blissfully unaware that any of this happened & still playing the other maracca) accidently flings away the other maracca, hitting Pikachu and Pansage who get into a brawl with each other(and Oshawott!). And Axew is STILL happily dancing around!
-Dento chooses to apologize to the kid instead of, you know, helping to break up the fight his Pokemon helped start.
-After all that's sorted out, they seem to have gotten the bright idea of using an actual boombox.
-Cacchin's still too chicken to do the Over The Rainbow right. ...and I just noticed that it's the runt of the Maractus trio. I guess they had to differentiate it somehow (...although you'd think the scarf would be enough).
-Iris decides that Emolga is the perfect Pokemon to use to help train jumping skills. Yeah, sure, whatever.
-It's somehow hilarious seeing Emolga getting to lecture a Pokemon twice its size on the proper way to jump on things.
-And Cacchin gets it right on its second try!
-Now the kid has the other two Maractus high-five, and Cacchin jump on top of that...but although it can jump up there, its balance isn't so great.
-Ash decides the solution to this is...a Pokemon battle. Oh, Ash.
-But Dento rationalizes this by saying it'll be a triple battle! About time we saw one of those.
-Iris doesn't know what that is, though you'd think she'd know since Unova is the only place where they even do that kind of battle.
-Ash is quite confident about this even though he's never done a triple battle before. Well, it's not like this battle is even about him in the first place...
-Ash uses Tepig, Snivy, and...Pikachu. Come on, THAT close to using all three starters and he didn't?
-...the kid kind of has an unfair advantage that he can command three Pokemon of the same species to use the same move at once. Whereas Ash has to command Pokemon individually.
-Cacchin almost manages to balance on top of the other Maracatus in midair...but it's afraid of heights. This kid has literally only been practicing this **** for a day or two, right? Because COME ON.
-Oh, and the battle's cut short because of that. Hopefully we'll get a PROPER triple battle some day.
-Everyone starts getting hyped up about trying again...except Cacchin. But Best Wishes is kicking in, so it's okay!
-And then some in-show lady starts singing along to Best Wishes. That's...kind of bizzare, if you think about it for a minute.
-Also the kid's babbling about his dreams and why he chose Over The Rainbow as his performance but who cares about that since we won't see him again past this episode.
-Cacchin still doesn't look too enthused about all this.
-Cacchin screws up again, and the kid starts yelling at it instead of trying to find out why it's not doing the move right(but yelling at a Pokemon that was clearly unhappy even BEFORE this round of practice will make it magically perform well, right?!).
-To nobody's surprise but the gang of idiots who are supposed to be good with Pokemon, Cacchin bails.
-Oh, and the Performance Battle is about to start, too. Maybe this will teach the kid a lesson about not snapping at others, and about giving your group enough time to practice instead of charging into performances with what appears to have been less than a week of practice, and...
-They finally find Cacchin(though Iris and Dento are searching the performance grounds even though it CLEARLY didn't run that way!), and...it runs into a Scolipede. Are those things going to be the Beedril of BW?
-The kid bravely stands between Cacchin and the Scolipede(instead of Ash being smart and using his Pokemon to fight it off), which of course makes Cacchin save him and blah blah blah.
-And NOW Ash decides to help.
-Back at the stadium, the MC calls for any last-minute performers...and Iris goes up there to stall for time! Go Iris!
-It's not as awe-inspiring as the tricks the other performers pulled, but Axew banging on a tamborine while Iris dances is still cute.
-And then the others show up. Surely the Over The Rainbow trick will work perfectly this time even though the Maractus have never successfully pulled it off before.
-Of course, the power of trust and friendship(and dumb luck) makes it work. Hopefully he's able to replicate that when it's time for REAL musical performances!
-At the end, there's an actual rainbow in the sky even though it never rained during the episode. What.
The first half of this episode was pretty cute, but the second half was filled with so much idiocy(seriously, Tonio's Maractus didn't even get the Over The Rainbow right ONCE before he went and entered a performance competition? What the hell would he have done if his Maractus fell flat on their face in front of the crowd?) that I practically wanted to strangle Tonio.
I know, I know, it had to be that way for the plot to be dramatic enough. But there was a point where I couldn't not notice it. Maybe I'm just grumpy today?
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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge
