Sweet Baby James (424)

[JazzJazz]

So Manene's shtick is that it imitates everything James does. Very cute.

It'll be little things like that that'll make everyone start to love manene and regret the day they ever said anything bad about James getting the little guy... change is a good thing people, just look at what evolution (as is humans from apes, not talking about treecko to grovyle or anything...) did for us.

[Heracross]

Chiriin. ;_;

...Damn, this was a great episode. It had more character development for Kojirou since all the way back to "Gardie and Kojirou", and it was definitely the most emotional. This is why I love Kojirou. He's really a nice guy, with a soft and caring personality. Though whenever he tries to do something right, Musashi and Nyasu always do their best to mess it up for him. The way they behaved in light of the situation was disgusting, but they got what was coming to them. Seeing Sabonea own Habunake was awesome, and it was even better when Kojirou teamed up with Satoshi to knock them down a few pegs. I love the occasional episode when Satoshi-tachi and the Rocket-dan get along (or at least Kojirou in this case). It's great to see him acting as a normal person where his softer side can shine through.

It was great to learn more of Kojirou's childhood too. It's a shame there was no reference to any previously introduced characters from his past (no Gaa-chan ;; ), but that's of little importance really. The two old servants were great characters. It isn't hard to see why Kojirou relished the time he spent there, where he could actually be free to do his own thing and just act like a normal kid. They were much more caring and understanding than his actual parents were.

The scene where Kojirou had to part with Chiriin was so emotional. I cried. And I never cry over movies/TV shows. Even though Chiriin never did anything, it was so special to Kojirou, and therefore had a special place with me. Watching him forced to leave it was a heartbreaker.

And the ending was great. I love how Kojirou and Chiriin catch one last look at each other through the window as Kojirou-tachi float away in their hot air balloon.

Great stuff. How this rose up out of the pile of steaming sludge that is the Battle Frontier I'll never know...

[Yamato-san]

I'm with Gravy, as far as pre-evolutions go, Manene, well, any Humanshape actually, seems like one of the best.

change is a good thing people, just look at what evolution (as is humans from apes, not talking about treecko to grovyle or anything...) did for us.

Even though those kind of evolutions did wonders as well. Juptor, Oosubame, Wakashamo, Onigohri, and that's just in AG.

Despite Chimecho departing for who knows how long, and no real mention of past characters associated with James, this was a really good episode.

Actually, the old women did mention something about the "sir and madam", which left Kojirou freaking out, asking if his mother and father were at the mansion right now. I guess Murg could give you the full translation. BTW Murg, what was Kojirou calling the old couple throughout the episode? "Jiiya" and "Baaya" or something? Are those some kind of terms for, respectively, an old man and old woman caretaker?

You have got to be frakking me! That stupid clown pulls a Psyduck? Oy oy...*many oys later*...oy oy oy. This looked ike such a good episode but now it looks like a horrible one.

As Murg mentioned, it did not in anyway pull a Koduck. When the ball fell out of his pocket, Manene intentionally ran up to it, jumped into the air, and struck its hand on the trigger button before going into the ball. The ball didn't accidentally hit it, Manene didn't glare at the ball for a second wondering what the hell it was before tapping it, Manene was fully aware of what it was and wanted to go along with Kojirou. And might I add, that was probably the most well-done voluntary capture the series has had yet. Sure, it's great when the Pokemon willingly challenges the trainer to a capture battle, and of course anything's better than the typical scenario of a Pokemon just walking up to the trainer at the end of the episode after the trainer helped them out, but the way that Manene wanted to come along so much that it doesn't even ask before going into a ball itself just seemed so nicely dramatic.

Anyway, I've got a few points about this episode myself....
-I'm surprised that no one but Churly brought this up yet, but in Kojirou's flashback, we saw him chase around an Utsudon. It's not the same one that Kojirou got, of course, but it seems as though the writers intentionally made that scene, probably to explain why he has an obsession for that particular Pokemon and its evolution. Though the capture was extremely vague, this does shed some light on the explanation of why he supposedly went out of his way to get one in the first place (in the flashback of when he got it using Matadogas, it seems as though Musashi and Nyaasu aren't there with him, meaning he wandered off looking for one himself).
-Smile played in the background of the scene with the Chiriin montage and Kojirou leaving his Pokemon in the elders' care.
-Is this the first time they've shown that Kojirou's been keeping his Monster Balls in his pocket?

And is it just me, or has Advanced Generation been doing a good job of making Rocket Dan's releases (well, this isn't exactly a release, but still) seem more dramatic, like they actually are a big deal and that Musashi and Kojirou truley care for their Pokemon. It sure is a big step from Pocket Monsters, in which Musashi losing her Beroringa in a Sounansu trade seemed completely random and nothing to make much of. Kojirou losing his Utsubotto was also rather random, and rather than being dramatic about him losing his Pokemon, that episode had him comically going on and on about exaggerated memories he had with his pitcher plant. Both occurences also seemed like little more than a side-plot from the actual episode, which of course dealt with Satoshi-tachi. In AG, though, these episodes managed to make Rocket Dan the stars while Satoshi-tachi were the ones shoved into the background.

In any case, the Battle Frontier's been pretty crappy lately, but it's nice to see they did something right. It's a shame to see Chiriin go, although there is some hope of it returning eventually. Sure, it never did much, but it was pretty much in the same boat as Musashi's Sounansu, which more often than not is only there for randomnly popping out of its ball and offering comic relief (and I don't need to remind you all that such a role has left Sounansu, who probably would've been very overlooked in the games otherwise, as one of the most popular Pokemon out there, to the point that he gets his own pre-evolution). But anyway, I'd say this was the best Battle Frontier episode yet..... either that, or the Iwaaku kingdom, simply because we got to see Juptor kick some a** in that (and it was about the only time he did so in Battle Frontier, at least until next week's episode judging from the preview).... but then.... hmmm.... good action's actually somewhat commonplace in this series, but good drama and character development is once in a blue moon. Yeah, I guess I'll go with this ep as my favorite BF one yet.

[Chris]

Woah, wait. An episode..with CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?! Haven't had one of those in ages. o_O Definately gotta see it.

I think everyone complaining about Manene isn't complaining about the fact that Chiriin was swapped, but because of the fact that they made it do barely anything and then swapped it. Makes one wonder if there was even any point in having Kojirou capture it if it wasn't going to do anything at all.

And I shall also say HA! I was right about it not being Doku-chan not being dumped off. >_>

[John's Knight]

Chimecho is gone????? Well, i haven't seen any episode with chimecho yet, so i don't know i'll miss it or not. Still, it seems that it's a good episode. The cacnea and james and phanpy vs TR was great. was that HP from phanpy?

[Heracross]

was that HP from phanpy?

Yes. Not sure why people are still surprised by this as it first used it back in the Kingdom of Iwaaku episode.

[John's Knight]

Yeh, i know that. Still, before that, i've only seen HP in the "sphere" mode. Like it's a beam (and phanpy can't learn hyper beam), it's HP.

[Alfonso]

Ah.

Ah ha.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

...

What in the blue f*cking blazes is this. James leaves one of my fave TR Poke Chimecho and takes Manene?

And yet Manene was in the intro with Chimecho?

What will happen with my ultimate fave TR Poke, Dustox?

O_O!

This series really is s*it, isn't it?

[ChaosMage]

Well, this episode and the ones closely following seem to confirm that the writers have done what we were all hoping. They have taken a huge risk and could lose so much doing so, but they finally invested in a second company brain cell!

[wobbanut]

-As Kojiro is getting Chiriin's ball out to leave it with the servants, an empty ball falls out of his pocket, and Manene promptly jumps in.

Wow, so not only do we get Team Rocket's first left-behind pokemon, we also get our first TR pokemon caught like Psyduck and Skitty?

It's really strange that nearly every single pokemon James has caught he has not caught the normal (weaken then capture) way. He's gotten them as presents (Koffing/Weezing), bought them (Magickarp I, hoppip), traded them (Weeepinbell II/Victreebel II), invited them to come along (Cacnea, Chimecho), and now caught by accident (Manene). Weepinbell I/Victreebel I was the only pokemon he ever caught the normal way (as seen in "Here's Looking at You Elekid").

And actually, now that I remember, Jessie hasn't caught any pokemon the normal way either (even Seviper wasn't weakened by a pokemon, just by a royally p*ssed Jessie ).

[Mistynia]

I just gotta say, I cried with this one. Poor James! God, I really cried. Love those episodes XD

[Blaziken master]

My favourite battle frontier episode to date!Manene is one of my new favourite babies now,its imitations are so cute.I am sad about chimecho leaving,I know it never did much,but it was so cute!The battle at the end was cool with cacnea's sandstorm looking more awesome than ever.I just wish we saw Jame's parents in the flashbck along with growlie

[Haunter Hunter Sohrab]

Ok now I saw the episode and wow it was superb! Jessie and Meowth were horrible. Too bad Growlee wasn't there but oh well. Oh man Manene is pretty cool. I thought it would some annoying loser like that fat Munchlax we have but no this dude is way different. I really wish we had more of these episodes.

[Sushi]

Because of this damn episode, my cushion was soaked with tears yesterday. Not nice.
.....
Of course I found this episode great. The animation was outstanding, the music was outstanding (especially the bit of the fourth movie at the end), and, since I'm such a sucker for tearjerkers...

Ah, and to be honest, except in episodes made by this animation team, I never really found Chimecho that cute when it had its eyes open.
They often drew its eyes as if they were yellow knobs; it made it look kinda scary. But in this one, the eyes looked so adorable <3 Its voice has always been great of course.
For some reason though, I have a hard time to imagine dub Chimecho sounding sick^^

The goodbye scene...I still love and hate it at the same time. Although, my cushion is dry now, so I guess I can say I just love it. I especially liked the part where Chimecho smiled when it heard that Manene decided to come with James.

But I also loved Ash and Co. in this episode. If you rewatch the scene where they were talking to James at the beginning, you can see they were all acting quite funny.
That, and the conversation between May and James was also well-done. It was short, but we've rarely seen them talking to each other at all, so that was quite nice.

Manene is (roll-eyes over herself)....adorable. I was all "OMGkyuuteh!!!111" everytime I heard its voice. Loved the bit where it imitated James throwing a Pok&#233;ball XD

I will not blindly say that this one was my favorite Battle Frontier episode just because I had to cry hysterically at the end. I loved the Onix, Psyduck, etc. episodes too after all.
Maybe this is indeed my favorite so far though... I should stop blabbering.
Er, wonderful episode anyway!

[Aptenodytes]

gosh why couldnt we see these episodes in america... -.- o well. sad that chimecho leaves, but im happy manene will be shown in more episodes. i made my avatar in memory of chimecho =]

[Pokemon Fan]

FYI to the poster who said this was the only battle Cacnea had won, it also won a match against Brock's Forretress in a Johto episode as I recall and in its debut scared away a bunch of Beedrill.

What in the blue f*cking blazes is this. James leaves one of my fave TR Poke Chimecho and takes Manene?

And yet Manene was in the intro with Chimecho?

What will happen with my ultimate fave TR Poke, Dustox?

O_O!

This series really is s*it, isn't it?

Did you look at the pictures, read the more detailed descriptions? It just may be the sweetest James episode ever.

And what do you think of Manene?

<><><>

On another note, it's ridiculous the number of ranting one-line posts that plagued the first few pages of this thread from a bunch of posters who didn't even know what happened beyond Chimecho leaving. In the future I hope more will wait longer before condemning an episode so other posters don't have to wade through dozens of rants that all say essentially the same thing.

[Heracross]

FYI to the poster who said this was the only battle Cacnea had won, it also won a match against Brock's Forretress in a Johto episode as I recall and in its debut scared away a bunch of Beedrill.

You must be thinking of an early AG episode, because he didn't have Sabonea in Jouto.

[Blaziken master]

That was the cheering squad episode with plusle and minun,I also liked the reference to Jame's obsession of weepinbell

[Inuyasha639]

Too bad Jimmy left his chimecho in the mansion. Also if Jimmy gets Manene, then that must mean Jessie is going to get a Manyula. I got it off Wikipedia. (sorry I keep calling him Jimmy)

[CyberCubed]

I hope Jessie doesn't get Manyula. She has so many Pokemon and James always has so few. Unless Dustox is leaving too...

[Yamato-san]

I will not blindly say that this one was my favorite Battle Frontier episode just because I had to cry hysterically at the end. I loved the Onix, Psyduck, etc. episodes too after all.
Maybe this is indeed my favorite so far though... I should stop blabbering.
Er, wonderful episode anyway!

I wouldn't say they're doing it "blindly". Honestly, with all the crap that Battle Frontier has been delivering thus far, it's difficult not to say this was the, or at least one of the, best episodes in the saga yet.

[DarkWobbuffet]

... *sighs* Well I'm not at all pleased that they've replaced Chiriin-san with another 4th season advertisment. All I gotta say is they better give Manene some personality and battle strength.

The episode itself looks nice though. I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

[Heracross]

Yeah, I'm not too happy that they dumped Chiriin either, but I can't deny that it was an excellent episode.

[Geodude]

All I gotta say is they better give Manene some personality and battle strength.

With the mimicing thing, it already has personality. You'll be laughing when you see it, for sure.

Speaking of which, I have the perfect English name for Manene, if mimicing truly is something they normally do: Mimicree. It's an alternate spelling of the word mimicry, which is what it was doing. What do you think?

[The Big Al]

So he'll be a Wobbufett clone (of a sort). *Remembers the antics of Wobbufett while Jessie and James were yacking in "A Scare to Remember".* That wouldn't be so bad, not great but not bad either.