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Review S08 EP05: Gaining Groudon

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Dogasu

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Japanese Episode AG 097: "Groudon vs. Kyogre! (Part One)"
American Episode 368: "Gaining Groudon"

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Kids' WB!, 10:00am ET
Encore airing on Friday, October 21st at 3:00pm
Well, the moment that the entire Hoenn saga has been leading up to; the big showdown between Groudon and Kyogre. Here, we'll meet the leaders of Team Magma and Team Aqua, an old ally from the Johto days, and get to see the anime debuts of both Groudon and Kyogre. How will this epic showdown play out?

Post your thoughts about the episode here. Please mark any spoilers for episodes not that have yet to air in America in spoiler tags.
 
So Maxie alluded to there being more than one Groudon. That can't be right.

Archie = Sean Schemmel. Who didn't see that one coming?

Team Rocket exercised the 'sheer stupidity' card. -_- A net? Oh please, like we didn't know what would happen if they used a stupid net.

And aside from the red gyarados having calmed down A LOT...there wasn't anything very profound today, even set-up wise. o_o It was so...bland. Was it just me who thought so?
 
-Maxie sounds...not like I was expecting. At least I don't think I've heard his voice before.
-Use ancient Pokemon to do "bad stuff"? @_@
-Wow, Maxie's voice works. :O
-Remind me again why a GUY is named Tabitha? I thought that was a girl's name...
-At least they didn't make Kyogre say its name instead of roaring. :p
-Is it just me, or is Lance's voice different?
-And now Pikachu's possesed by the orb. Thus begins one of the worst plot devices in Pokemon...
-Archie doesn't sound like a pirate? GASP!
-Lance remembers Ash. Of course.
-The Mightyena attacked Ash...Team Magma actually seems threatening! O:
-Mudkip is best against Plusle and Minun? WTF?
-TEAM ROCKET! 8D Too bad they won't really DO anything...
-RED GYARADOS!!! 8D
-OMG! The characters have memories now! :O
-Not that I mind "ancient" Pokemon, but I want to hear "legendary" at least once :x
-It's 00ber Pikachu! ...er, 00ber-00ber Pikachu.
-"Bonded" with the orb? Eh...
-Diguising themselves as a wall? TR are ninjas! XD
-Oh wait, JJ&M were the ones who released Kyogre. Forgot that...
-This two-parter LOOKS like it'll be amazing. I know better than that.
-Of COURSE KWB is pimping out the next ep. Why wouldn't they when it's a "major" event? -_-

Pretty good set-up. 8/10. (and yes, I wrote the comments while watching)
 
So Maxie got Professor Sebastian's voice, as expected.

It seems that 4Kids can't decide on a pronunciation on Kyogre's name. Sometimes they say it like Kai-ogre (Kai as in King Kai, and ogre as in the mythical beast), but other times I heard Kai-ogruh.

Is Lance's voice the same as it was during the Red Gyarados saga?

Derrick (the Team Magma grunt who was randomly given a name) seemed to be voiced by Sean Schemmel.
 
I don't know if the second part will tarnish this episode, but this one was great.

The dub voices for Maxie and Archie were good, they sounded like I would expect them too. Lance kept his dub voice, and I was surprised to see his Red Gyarados return as well.

For such strong legendary Pokemon, Team Magma/Aqua didn't have much trouble keeping them contained. The concept of a stalemate was interesting, with both sides having the opposing ball for the opposite Pokemon.

Wow, Shelly is a cutie. She looks better without that bandana in her hair. Is it just me, or did it look like Team Magma was getting owned in the entire episode? Kyorge completely blows up their submarine, and then Archie captures both legendary Pokemon.

If it weren't for Team Rocket setting Kyorge free, Team Aqua would have still had the upper hand.

I'm surprised that 4kids actually kept the scene with May, Max and Brock drowning in the ocean. The aftershock of the Hyperbeam could have sent May, Max and Brock to their deaths if Gyarados didn't come to rescue them.

Oh, and possessed Pikachu = Awesome.
 
This episode was handled nicely.

We got:
  • The return of Lance and Red Gyarados.
  • Good voices for Maxie and Archie.
  • Possessed 'Chu.
  • A stalemate.
  • Ash and Brock actually remembering Lance and Red Gyarados.
  • Possessed 'Chu.
  • TR pulling a Naruto.
  • The Mightyena using Intimidate on Max and May.
  • Did I mention Possessed 'Chu?
 
For those asking, Lance is still done by Wayne Grayson. >.>; He didn't change that much.
 
I wanted more monologuing. I always pictured Maxie and Archie to preach their views of the new world order. Though Ash yelling and screaming about them misusing ancient Pokemon was real annoying because it was childish and cliche.

Other than that Kyorge owned everyone.
 
Luna Tiger said:
Archie = Sean Schemmel. Who didn't see that one coming?
Click to expand...

Me. I thought he'd be Dan Green.

I figured that they'd give Maxie a beepy voice, and lo, I was right! It kinda grew on me.

Was the keypad edited? It didn't look right.

The captions continue to be about two seconds late, which makes watching it really bad. But that seems to hold true for everything on WB. Anyone else having that trouble? Or is it just the local affilate?

I didn't hear any different pronunciations of Kyogre. It might have been a dialect thing, since Archie seemed to have a faint Southern accent at times.

Aaaand the guards were armed with sticks, just like we see on a grunt guarding the Rocket headquarters later on.

Archie's Aqua symbol on his chest was knocked to the side at one point. I always thought it was a zipper pull.

Archie also sounds like a Digimon villian. Seriously.

And so he was able to stow the Red Orb in his shirt without affecting how his shirt falls? Is it collapable?

God, I hate Lance. Hate him hate him hate him. Have I mentioned how much I hate him?

When Shelly gets the call that the Rockets have broken into Kyogre's hold, what were Archie and Maxie doing? Having a stare-down? They sure weren't talking.
 
Finally they are going to show the Kyogre vs. Groudon. I have been waiting since Pokemon Advanced (series 1in the AG). And they are going to put my second favorite character Lance back in the show. I will give this part1 (9/10).I thought Maxie's voice was going to sound evil and it does =] but Archie's is....werid I was wondering if it was going to sound like a pirate but it doen't =[ it sounds like Prof. Birch went evil on us or something like that.
 
I liked this episode a lot. Finally, we have villains (Team Magma) who are actually--villainous. Team Rocket was wasted in this episode, though.
 
It was really fun and dramatic. I was a bit surprised when Shelley punched out those two guards and when the Mightyena attacked Ash. I guess I'm used to the antagonists getting attacked by Pokémon rather than the protagonists. Strangely, I liked the way possessed Pikachu sounded when he was yelling and zapping the hell out of the... wherever it was that he and Ash were being held. Although this is Pokémon, I was horrified when Brock, Max, and May were getting pushed toward the bottom of the sea. (I felt the same when Ash sank to the bottom of the lake in the Dratini/Safari Zone episode and when he got stuck in the Whiscash episode.)

There were some funny, if not outright silly/stupid, parts, too. It was funny when Ash-tachi was trying to find somewhere to hide on top of the submarine. (And I wonder where those logs they were floating on at the beginning came from....) When he said something about TM using the ancient Pokémon to do "bad stuff," I couldn't help thinking, What the hell? What he's saying is true enough, but that just sounded idiotic! When TR said they were going to use a net to capture Kyogre, I was utterly dumbstruck. But their wall disguise was hilarious.

James' voice wasn't annoying! But Maxie's was a little bit, and Archie did weird things with his neck and mouth. (He was animated oddly.)

9/10.

Luna Tiger said:
So Maxie alluded to there being more than one Groudon. That can't be right.

Archie = Sean Schemmel. Who didn't see that one coming?
Click to expand...
I noticed that, too.

I didn't. Why should I have? *lost"

Juputoru said:
-Is it just me, or is Lance's voice different?

-The Mightyena attacked Ash...Team Magma actually seems threatening! O:

-Mudkip is best against Plusle and Minun? WTF?
Click to expand...
It did sound different. (Or perhaps I just need to see the first episodes he was in again.)

Yeah, really! They freaked me out. In a sort of good way.

I wat thinking it was between Mudkip and Treecko. Although Treecko doesn't naturally learn any attacks that would be especially effective against P&M like Mudkip does (and the question was "which would be most effective"), it didn't have the weakness that Mudkip has to them. I was thinking holistically (i.e., not just "which has attacks that could take out P&M easily," but "which will P&M not be able to take out easily?" as well). Although I was still kind of stuck, I was betting on Mudkip.

Blackjack Gabbiani said:
The captions continue to be about two seconds late, which makes watching it really bad. But that seems to hold true for everything on WB. Anyone else having that trouble? Or is it just the local affilate?

And so he was able to stow the Red Orb in his shirt without affecting how his shirt falls? Is it collapable?
Click to expand...
It wasn't just you. I turned on the captioning and sometimes it was late, sometimes it would have a character repeating part of what another character said, and other times there would be a couple of normal words followed by a bunch of letters run together.

o_O I didn't think about that, but now that you point it out....
I was more interested in the fact that he hadn't bonded with it, with the amount of contact there was between them.
 
Last edited:
So Maxie alluded to there being more than one Groudon. That can't be right.

If there can be more than one Lugia, Celebi, Latias, Latios, Deoxys, and Mew, then there can certainly be more than one Groudon.
 
This was a pretty good episode. The animation was good and it was cool to see Lance again, and possessed Pikachu is awesome. I also liked Team Rocket's involvment in the episode, the scene with them trying to open the holding tank was funny and I liked that they were able to beat some Aqua grunts. Still, it seems that after all the build up things are going too quickly, and there were a few annoying scenes, like Ash yelling at the Magma leader and the required "Ash is worried about Pikachu" scenes. 3 stars.
 
Woah, those Mightyena were scary.

We get an episode title in a characters line for the secnd time in three episodes, (though "Get the Show on the Road" isn't as bad as "What you seed is what you get"). And this episode was actually about Gaining Groudon and not Groudon Vs Kyogre which just adds to my point in a previous thread about 4Kids being less lazy over episode titles.

What I found strange last year still seems strange now. The next episode is the climax of AG, yet Ash and May still need two more wins each, as well as going through their respective tournaments.

Overal, this was a little disappointing, but we'll see if the next one is better...
 
Kthleen said:
I wat thinking it was between Mudkip and Treecko. Although Treecko doesn't naturally learn any attacks that would be especially effective against P&M like Mudkip does (and the question was "which would be most effective"), it didn't have the weakness that Mudkip has to them. I was thinking holistically (i.e., not just "which has attacks that could take out P&M easily," but "which will P&M not be able to take out easily?" as well). Although I was still kind of stuck, I was betting on Mudkip.
Click to expand...
I think most likely they got confused with Mudkip. Since its two evolutions are part Ground they, like many fans, assume Mudkip is part Ground as well.

I was more interested in the fact that he hadn't bonded with it, with the amount of contact there was between them.
Click to expand...
Lance said that Pikachu absorbed it so quickly because of its small body, hence it is taking a good deal longer for it to effect Archie.
 
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