Battling the King of the Mines! (722)

[Ash Ketchum!]

This was a great episode. Probably one of the best gym battles of Best Wishes along with Skyla's and Brycen's.

[R?IDDl3R]

this episode remained me alot about sinnoh.. cuz ash destroyed clay in that battle with his strategies .. same way in sinnoh with the gyms and leagues

[Rohanator]

Damn, really didn't like the voice change Boldore got in the dub. Other than that it was fine though, easily one of my favourite gym battles ever. In japanese

[gliscor&yanmega]

I enjoyed the dub version, although I didn't really get a good hear of Boldore's voice, hopefully the other episode has a better portrayal of it so I can actually hear what it sounds like.

[BurningSociety12345543210]

The only good parts were Oshawott versus Krokorok and Snivy versus Excadrill.

[Aurath8]

Wow. That was an amazing episode and the first really memorable gym battle of Unova.

Oshawott did really well and has really become a more durable pokemon. Still surviving 3 attacks until it went down to Palpitoad. And dear god the animation was blissful here.
Snivy's battle with Palpitoed was short, understandably. What was good about this is battle was Clay. It's refreshing to see a gym leader that focuses more on brute force than strategy, berates Ash and best of all, pays the price for his cockiness. I also always love whenever we have a flashback to a characters youth so i can laugh at how they didn't change at all in the past few years.
In terms of animation this was the worst part of the episode, but Clay's character made up for that. Excadrill curbstomped Snivy and tanked Grass it's moves all day. Hopefull she learns Aqua Tail or something so this doesn't happen again. She can't rely on Attract forever.

Roggenrola's battle looked amazing, it felt a bit one-sided until the evolution. I think the only move that Roggenrola got in during the first part of that match was Sandstorm and even that was just to heighten it's defences for the onslaught. The evolution was done very well. The silence before the glow was tense and it was just epic. I really like BW's evolution style compared to previous seasons. And thankfully the animation picked up for this final battle. I do hope Boldore knocking over Ash becomes a running gag. The only bad thing about this is we might not see Ash with his Gigalith unless the anime ignores the trade evo thing. Anyway, Ash wins the badge and we know have Boldore, woop.

This episode really shows that Ash actually has a brain stem in battle and that Gym leaders can be memorable characters. Hopefully the 3 remaining gyms will be as good as this.

[ForgottenPearl]

Also, did anyone else feel creeped out a when one of Clay's miners chuckled after saying "My boss's pokémon are all extremely powerful" to Ash?

Sure did. 0_o Honestly, for a moment, I was worried that something bad was gonna happen.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode more than I thought I would. I like the gym leader episodes a lot more in BW than I did in past seasons.

Things started out nice and ominous with that psycho guy leading them to the gym, and the battle got started quickly. I like how they’ve retained the gym gimmicks from the games. I instantly sympathized with Ash after the wisecrack about him using cute Pokémon—I love cute Pokémon, and I tore through Clay with unevolved ones! (Hooray for Snivy!)

Ash’s come-from-behind victories often seem contrived, but I thought the writers did a good job with Oshawott versus Krokorok... if I spelled that right. Ash’s strategy was interesting, and it was particularly smart to squirt into the hole Krok dug. That part of the battle was this episode’s highlight for me.

But Ash was stupid to keep on battling with Oshawott. It was nice to see Snivy rip through Palpitoad: my Snivy did the exact same in Clay’s gym a lot. Clay sure was mean when he lost fair and square to Ash’s strategy.

The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute.

Though it had a few downsides, it was a very good episode overall.

[The Eleventh]

This was a great Gym battle. Ash was actually very competent, which is a stark contrast to his behaviour during Elesa's Gym battle. It's a shame this series is often inconsistent. The evolution animation was impressive.

[Swagsire]

Somehow the beginning of this episode felt creepily drawn out with the mine workers. Like, suuuuper long unecessary mine shaft ride..Or maybe I was just sick of being teased of the Driftveil City Gym Battle...Qwaa

[wobbanut]

My favorite part of this episode was definitely where Clay got mad at Ash and accused him of sneaky tactics. I'd argue that Ash was battling fair and square, but Clay's reaction was still funny. It's also interesting that all of Clay's pokemon were ones either owned by a twerp (palpitoad and excadril) or about to be owned (krokorok).

7/10

[PokeMaster366]

The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute.

I was thinking the same thing as well when I saw the Excadrill battle vs. Roggenrola, but then I realized something when I saw what happened after Horn Drill. Even when it made direct contact, Roggenrola didn't go down at all, and normally, Horn Drill only works if the user is at a higher or equal level, so this meant one of two things. Either the old mechanics of Sturdy kicked in (which I doubt), or Roggenrola was already at a higher level than Excadrill to begin with.

[Zoruagible]

It was a great gym battle. I loved seeing Roggenrola evolve and I liked that Clay made the gym all by himself