Review S07 EP23: Take the Lombre Home

[Dogasu]

Japanese Episode AG 62: "Solrock and Lombre! Legend of the Forest"
American Episode 334: "Take the Lombre Home"

Kids' WB!, 10:00am ET
On a search for water, Ash and his friends come across a village suffering from a drought. The villagers are convinced that a Solrock is responsible, and it's up to Ash and his friends to convince them otherwise.

Post your thoughts about the episodes here. Please mark any spoilers for episodes not that have yet to air in America in spoiler tags.

 

[Hyatt]

For once in a very long time, I was quite impressed by the filler character, that hot girl. I have another chick to add to my list.
For some reason Team Rocket doing something with bottled water brought back dejavu from a Kanto episode for some reason though I dont remember it so I may be horribly mistaken.
The sudden evolution of Lotad was kind of disappointing because I expected something bigger. But Lombre was pretty cool.
There's only one thing that cracked me up. I just thought Solrock's cry was hysterical. I dont know why. Probably because I heard it before from the least suspected object.

 

[Roxy_Parkington]

I turned on the television eleven minutes after the episode started, but I managed to watch the majority of it. I liked Solorock very much and the village girl was very cool. One of the parts I snickered at was when Jessie, James, and Meowth were blasting off and they mentioned "kissing their assets goodbye". Overall the episode was good and I look forward to the next one. ^_^

Roxy's Rating: 7/10

~Roxy~

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

What do you want to bet 4Kids gets some angry calls about that 'assets' line?

Although seriously, I was much more disturbed by Meowth using the phrase 'under his belt' in reference to the Boss. Meowth--NEVER do that again! Seriously, we all know what you're thinking well enough without things like that! *shudder*

And really, in a whole episode focusing on a village where everyone wears sombreros and those Mexican shawls and not one person has an accent? They could have at least called her Maria instead of Mary...

Also...OK, so Team Rocket dried up the spring. That's fine. But how the hell was the LACK OF RAIN pinned on them too?

 

[Rocketshipper]

why would 4kids get mad at the line? they wrote it.

I thought this episode was rather boring actully. It's the very definition of a "semi-filler" episode, an episode that, if not for a tiny almost insignifigant plot development, would be total filler. AG has a lot of them, but this may be my least favorite of them so far. You would think that since this is an episode where one of Brock's pokemon evolves they could focus a little bit on him, maybe give him some much needed character development or something. This episode had some good lines, mostly from Team Rocket, and a cool robot, but otherthan that I thought the plot was kind of boring. Solrock is cool though. I like it's voice and it's attacks were well animated.

overall: 1 star.

Edit: ah, nm. I guess I read the sentince wrong.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

No, that they would get angry calls for *having* the line

 

[Argy]

For some trivia, Solrock kept its Japanese voice.

 

[Dork]

Also...OK, so Team Rocket dried up the spring. That's fine. But how the hell was the LACK OF RAIN pinned on them too?

They're called 'scapegoats' ^_^

I wasn't very impressed with the girl, Mary. We've seen this character probably at least a hundred times through out the show already, she's just some cute girl Brock likes. I did like the old lady though, lately I've really been paying a lot of attention to older anime characters, call it a personal fad. I particularly like vicacious old people. She had a couple of lines I liked but my favorite was 'This praying stuff's fast'.

The villagers really disturbed me. The mob voice we hear is basically Jessie and James' voice actors chanting, it greatly greatly disturbed me.

I'm slowly coming to terms with James AG voice. Even still after I watched this episode I whipped out my pokémon DVDs and watched three or four season one episodes to get the taste out of my mouth. I'm going to have to watch the episode again so understand what was going on but I really liked when James spazzed out. Usually TR spazzes in are sync but it was kinda cool seeing James take it solo.

Lotad's evolution was really disappointing. He falls down a well and evolves? What's up with that?

My favorite part of the episode though was the 'assets' line :ksmile:

All and all I give it a 4/10. Although I'll let you be the judge as to how much of that is out of spite for James voice. ::grumblegrumble::


muchlove
-dork

 

[Nekusagi]

I was kinda shocked by the "assets" line too. But I thought it was a good ep, and that line made it all the better. Am I the only one who liked it?

 

[TK n Happy Ness]

Anyone find it weird how they had the word "Lord" in the ep countless times. And what's wrong with TR stealing water and selling it? Isn't that what bottled water companies do?

 

[Geodude]

And what's wrong with TR stealing water and selling it? Isn't that what bottled water companies do?

Yeah but they probably don't do it at the expense of the health of an entire village.

 

[Kthleen]

It was, in part, very interesting. I loved how there was a lot of religion in it: rain dancing, praying (and "This 'prayer' stuff's fast!"), the supposed superstition, Appeal to Tradition and intolerance of science. That was fun. TR's mech was... rather curious. I didn't like it. The "assets" line was interesting as well.

Otherwise, it wasn't an exceptional episode. I don't quite understand how TR's comparatively large water jets didn't stop Solrock, but a couple of smaller water guns then some rain did. Maybe it was able to gain control of itself just then. Maybe Ash and Brock's Pokémon are magical. Eh. TR also made a very shallow hole! What's up with that?

I'd give it a 7/10.

The villagers really disturbed me. The mob voice we hear is basically Jessie and James' voice actors chanting, it greatly greatly disturbed me.

Noticed that, too. I first noticed that the grandmother's voice was like Jessie's.

 

[Edward Elric]

Anyone find it weird how they had the word "Lord" in the ep countless times.

Really? If they were allowed to get away with saying it there, it makes you wonder why they never kept the God references in the first movie or calling Freezer, Thunder and Fire Gods rather than Titans.

 

[Kthleen]

Really? If they were allowed to get away with saying it there, it makes you wonder why they never kept the God references in the first movie or calling Freezer, Thunder and Fire Gods rather than Titans.

They could get away without saying "god" in the second movie. Then again, the Titans were kids of the Gods Gaea and Uranus.... In this episode, it would have been really hard (actually, seeing how they cut up the latest movie, not really...) to get away without somehow referring to a god ("Oh Mighty Graven Image (of which we had none)!"). They could have entirely skipped this episode, but then "when did Brock's Lotad evolve?!" However, this is not like Miniryuu no Densetsu with its guns and Tauros; Brock uses Lotad/Lombre/Ludiculo sooner and more often than Ash used Tauros, they didn't need to skip it, and they just changed "God" to the slightly less inflammatory "Lord". They did basically the same with Clefairy and the Moon Stone (and does anybody know if they did the same with Meowth Rules! and whichever Whirl Cup episode it was where the woman was invoking the "sea spirit," I think it was?). I liked it anyway.

 

[Rocketshipper]

lol, in the end I guess I was the only one who DIDN'T like it much.

 

[Kthleen]

Nope, I didn't like the episode much either. It's just that I liked the religous parts of it. :-D

 

[Edward Elric]

They could get away without saying "god" in the second movie. Then again, the Titans were kids of the Gods Gaea and Uranus.... In this episode, it would have been really hard (actually, seeing how they cut up the latest movie, not really...) to get away without somehow referring to a god ("Oh Mighty Graven Image (of which we had none)!"). They could have entirely skipped this episode, but then "when did Brock's Lotad evolve?!" However, this is not like Miniryuu no Densetsu with its guns and Tauros; Brock uses Lotad/Lombre/Ludiculo sooner and more often than Ash used Tauros, they didn't need to skip it, and they just changed "God" to the slightly less inflammatory "Lord". They did basically the same with Clefairy and the Moon Stone (and does anybody know if they did the same with Meowth Rules! and whichever Whirl Cup episode it was where the woman was invoking the "sea spirit," I think it was?). I liked it anyway.

As far as I recall, they made no mentionings of a God or Lord for the Clefairy version. Pipi prayed to the Moonstone as if it were a God, while Clefairy simply just prayed to the Moonstone. Get what I mean? And if I recall correctly, they constantly refered to Meowth as "Meowth of Bounty." And you're right about the woman refering to it as the "Sea Spirit."

 

[Pokemon Fan]

Also...OK, so Team Rocket dried up the spring. That's fine. But how the hell was the LACK OF RAIN pinned on them too?

I think it was just a coincidence that it hadn't rained in a while (and TR weren't blamed for the lack of rain as far as I know). After all, it hadn't been that long (its not like TR had been stealing water there for months). If the spring hadn't dried up its likely the villagers would have taken no notice of the lack of rain. But with it dry they superstitiously noticed that it hadn't rained in a few days either and decided they were connected.

Mary wasn't exceptional as a character, but most like her more than most filler girls because her voice was actually relatively distinctive.

Really, that was the only way Lotad could have evolved. Can you really imagine a cluless doof like him evolving in a serious match? Like so much of him, its evolution was random (as will be the next few changes to it).

An average episode, I'm looking more forward to the next few though.

 

[Kthleen]

As far as I recall, they made no mentionings of a God or Lord for the Clefairy version. Pipi prayed to the Moonstone as if it were a God, while Clefairy simply just prayed to the Moonstone. Get what I mean?

Oh. Do you know the Japanese lines? I would like to see what they say; I seem to remember Pikachuu pulling out one of Satoshi's hairs, and I think Takeshi says something about "kami."

Ah, this is what Dogasu says it was about. Can you confirm it?

The whole scene where Ash tries to figure out what the Clefairy are saying is pretty accurate in the dub.* Originally, when Pikachu lifted the Pippi up, Kasumi says the word mamoru (protect).* So what are the Pippi protecting?* Well, Pikachu pulls a hair from Satoshi's hair.* The Japanese word for hair is kami, and Takeshi guesses that Pikachu means Kami-sama, or "God."* So the whole phrase is "Pippi o mamoru Kami-sama da," or "The Pippi are protecting God," with God being the Moon Stone.

 

[Dogasu]

The whole scene where Ash tries to figure out what the Clefairy are saying is pretty accurate in the dub.* Originally, when Pikachu lifted the Pippi up, Kasumi says the word mamoru (protect).* So what are the Pippi protecting?* Well, Pikachu pulls a hair from Satoshi's hair.* The Japanese word for hair is kami, and Takeshi guesses that Pikachu means Kami-sama, or "God."* So the whole phrase is "Pippi o mamoru Kami-sama da," or "The Pippi are protecting God," with God being the Moon Stone.

I'm looking at that Japanese sentence, and it seems very wrong to me. I'll have to check it when I go home next time, because I didn't know nearly as much Japanese back when I did that comparison as I do now.