Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode AG 054: "Maguma-Dan VS Akua-Dan, Futatabi!  Entotsu Yama no Tatakai!!"

("The Magma-Dan vs. the Aqua-Dan, Again!  The Battle of Mt. Chimney!!")

American Episode 326: "Fight for the Meteorite"
Orchid-Hakase Pokémon Lecture:  Magmarashi
Japanese Air Date:  December 4th, 2003
American Air Date:  November 13th, 2004
Important Characters:  Soraishi-Hakase (Professor Cozmo), Homura (Tabitha), Izumi (Shelly)

Satoshi and his friends are seen rushing to catch the cable car that will lead him and his friends to the top of Entotsu Yama (Mt. Chimney) on the route to Fuen Town.  Meanwhile, a man named Soraishi-Hakase finds a fossil near the top of Mt. Chimney, but soon he finds himself surrounded by members of both the Magma-Dan and the Aqua-Dan.  The two teams take over the mountain, cutting off power to the cable car and stranding Satoshi and his friends in the process.  Satoshi eventually finds a way off the gondola and onto land, and assures his friends that he'll be back with help soon.  Back on the mountain, the two pokemon teams want the fossil for themselves, but Soraishi-Hakase refuses to give up his treasure.  Satoshi eventually arrives on the scene, where he meets up with Soraishi-Hakase and helps him fight off the members of the opposing teams.  The Magma-Dan eventually steal the fossil and use it to power a large machine pointed toward the center of the mountain.  Soraishi-Hakase tells Satoshi that if they fire the machine into the magma, they'll cause the mountain to erupt!  A plan is hatched that has Soraishi-Hakase act as a decoy while Satoshi works to destroy the Magma-Dan's machine.  After the group figures out what they're up to, their leader, Homura, tries to attack Satoshi head-on.  Soraishi-Hakase comes to the rescue, tackling Homura out of the way and pushing the machine, along with the fossil, into the magma.  The Magma-Dan's plans are foiled, so they leave the mountain in their helicopter.  The Aqua-Dan also leave, happy with the fact that the Magma-Dan's plans had failed.  Satoshi eventually gets help for Takeshi and the others, and soon the gang is back on the road to Fuen Town.

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Thoughts
The anime does a weird thing with Soraishi-Hakase.  In the games, he's a resident of Hajitsuge Town when he's kidnapped by one of the evil teams and taken to Ryuusei no Taki ("Meteor Falls").  The anime, however, removes the kidnapping plot (which would have been cool to see animated) and doesn't even feature the Meteor Falls at all.  Despite the omission, the episode turns out to be really interesting.  The weird machine thing shooting that laser into the lava seemed a bit strange (I mean, if they made the mountain erupt, wouldn't that kill all the Magma-Dan members still on the mountain?) but I guess they did what they could with that weird machine from the game.  And hey, seeing the Magma-Dan and the Aqua-Dan go at it again is always good to see.

The dubbed version is weird because 4Kids changes the names of two characters who were already assigned English names in an earlier episode.  In "A Three Team Scheme!," you will remember that Homura was named Harlan and Izumi was named Isabel.  Well, in this episode, those same characters get new names; Harlan is now Tabitha, while Isabel is now Shelly.  These new names are the names the characters go by in the video games, so 4Kids' changing the names was done to fix the video game to anime continuity error they created in "A Three Team Scheme!"

Personally, I find the change to be bad.  Besides that fact that their video game names suck (who names their son "Tabitha"!?), the change makes the dubbed version that much more inconsistent.  What if you're one of the people who watches the show but doesn't play the video games?  Then making the anime more consistent with the video games will mean nothing to you.  I just think the name change makes the dub look sloppy, and I think 4Kids should have just stuck to their guns and kept the names they made up in the previous season.

Otherwise, the dub is nothing but time cuts.

Cut--7 seconds altogether
A second is cut from the first shot of the episode.

Another second is cut from the scene right after the episode's title screen.

A second is cut from the scene after the Trainer's Choice commercial break.

Two seconds are cut from the scene after the final commercial break.

And finally, two seconds are cut from the TO BE CONTINUED... screen.

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