Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 221: "The Imprisoned Lugia!"
English Episode 512:  "A Parent Trapped!"
Pokemon Dare Da?  Lanturn (Japanese), Dragonite (English)
Orchid-Hakase Pokemon Lecture:  Thunder
Japanese Air Date:  October 25th, 2001
American Air Date:  November 30th, 2002

Now that the Kid Lugia has been captured the Rocket-Dan plan to use it to lure its parent into their clutches! Elsewhere, the adult Lugia is understandably upset about its child being taken away from it and begins to go on a rampage.  Namba-Hakase observes that Lugia's attacks get stronger the angrier it gets, just like he thought.  Up above, Satoshi and his friends manage to calm Lugia down and convince the pokemon to leave everything to them.  But where do they begin?  Hiroshi deduces that the Rocket-Dan will be coming back for the adult Lugia and therefore can't have gone too far.  Maybe they have an underwater base somewhere?  Our heroes don't have to look too far, however, as the Rocket-Dan bring their underwater headquarters up to the surface to initiate their plan!  The cries of the Kid Lugia lure the parent Lugia to the area where the Rocket-Dan have a trap waiting for it!  Satoshi and his friends try to stop the organization but Yamato and Kosaburou's pokemon have devices attached to them that uses their anger to increase their power!  The powered-up pokemon are too strong for our heroes and are soon able to knock everyone unconscious.  Lugia, meanwhile, is successfully captured inside an energy-based prison.  The Rocket-Dan gathers the two Lugia and our heroes and brings them back into their headquarters before returning to the bottom of the sea.  Will our heroes be able to escape?  And what will happen to the Lugia?  To be concluded!

---

Thoughts
Part Two of the excellent Lugia three-parter is here!

I talked about how Hiroshi was kind of just there in the last episode and while that hasn't changed in this one I did kind of like the scene where he figures out that the Rocket-Dan has an underwater base somewhere nearby.  Hiroshi is, for those of you who don't remember, voiced by the same woman who does Conan's voice in Detective Conan (Takayama Minami) and so seeing Hiroshi using some very Conan-like logic was great. 

Also I think this Lugia family has something wrong with it because this is the second episode in a row where a member of this family naively walks into what is obviously a trap.  The Kid Lugia falling for that shitty robot in the previous episode is kind of passable since for all we know this Lugia isn't all that old but then for the parent to not see the trap the Rocket-Dan has set up for it in this episode?  Are Lugia, as a species, just flat-out dumb?  Or is it something limited to this family?

But it does help the Rocket-Dan gain their one of their greatest victories in the entire series.  I mean Yamato and Kosaburou actually defeat four Pokemon Trainers in battle with just one pokemon apiece!  The group also successfully capture two Lugia!  I think a lot of it has to do with Namba-Hakase: he has multiple backup plans, he equips his agents with devices that boost their chances of winning, and he manages to create a system that's able to hold a powerful legendary pokemon.  The Rocket-Dan absolutely kick ass in this episode and I love every second of it.

This episode shows the unfortunately reality that this is a weekly TV series working with a weekly TV series budget.  In the movie Revelation Lugia they had different model sheets for swimming Lugia and for flying Lugia and they even went as far as to use computers to help them map out the pokemon's movements before tracing over them.  When it comes to the TV series, however, a lot of the scenes featuring Lugia swimming or flying consisted of still images of the pokemon being slid from one side of the screen to the other.  There was also quite a bit of reused animation throughout this whole three-parter.  I do think the episodes look good, all things considered,

The script for the English version is surprisingly accurate this time around.  Oh don't get me wrong there are still dumb rewrites and all that but the number and severity aren't nearly as much as in the previous episode.

Dialogue Edit
The narrator starts things off:

Narrator:  "Together, they uncovered the incredible secret, a newborn Lugia and its parent!"

The Japanese version never says anything about the Kid Lugia being a "newborn."

Besides, didn't Oliver say that the young Lugia is "the same age as me" in the previous episode?  So does that then mean Oliver's a newborn?  Or is he just a dirty liar?

The name gag returns:

Cassidy:  "Professor Namba."
Professor Namba:  "Don't sneak up behind me.  What is it you want?"
Cassidy:  "Sorry.  Our mistake completely.  Never happen again."

In the Japanese version Yamato calls the professor Himba-Hakase, causing Namba to angrily correct her.

Cut - 4 seconds altogether
The shot of the moon that serves as the transition between the scene with Team Rocket and the scene with Ash and his friends was two seconds longer in the Japanese version.

Later, when Lugia's rampaging around, there's a shot of it flying right after it starts to glow red that's shortened by two seconds in the dub.  The two seconds that get cut show the pokemon flying across the screen one more time.

I'm assuming both of these cuts were done for time.

Dialogue Edit
Jessie doesn't want Cassidy to get all the credit:

Originally Nyasu doesn't talk about how winning is everything (didn't they just talk about how much they failed in the previous episode?) but instead tells his teammates that they have to show everyone how great they are.

Later, one of the Rocket grunts is rattling power levels or whatever of the various forces whirling about outside.  The wind speed and the storm power numbers are both the same but Lugia's attack power is a little off; the dub tells us it's 5,545 while in the Japanese version it was 5,535.

Ash and Richie get ready to help:


Originally Satoshi asks his friends to look after Osamu while he's gone.

Speaking of...where are his parents during all this?  Osamu's been gone for at least 24 hours at this point and yet nobody's come looking for him, right?  What's up with that?

Cut - 1 second
The first shot of Yorunozuku in this episode is shortened by two seconds for the dub.

Dialogue Edit
The name gag appears again:


Originally Yamato mistakenly calls the professor Kimba-Hakase, causing him to get upset.

The plan starts:


Originally the level is "Level V," not "Level Two."

We now fast forward to the battle between our heroes and Butch and Cassidy:


The original name of the plan is the perfectly translatable "Namba No. 5" (ナンバ・No.5).  Not sure why they felt necessary to change it.

Later, there's a pan-up shot of the cliff where Musashi and the others are blowing up their big Lugia balloon.  In the Japanese version we can hear the sounds of the battle between our heroes and the other Rocket duo (Kasumi orders Nyorozo to use Doubleslap and Yamato orders Delvil to use Bite) continuing off-screen but these sounds get muted for the dub.

Speaking of the balloon:


In the Japanese version Musashi gives her plan a name: "Operation: Ride on the Back of the Parent Lugia and Grab the Child Lugia" (親ルギアの背中に子ルギアを乗せて作戦).  If that sounds overly long that's because it is and Musashi's voice actress basically has to talk really really fast in order to fit all that into the allotted mouth flaps. 

Also, again, the dub keeps referring to the Kid Lugia as a "baby" when it's not.

Finally, I am shocked - SHOCKED, I say! - that 4Kids didn't take this golden opportunity to make some "James likes blowing on things" joke.

Cut - 3 seconds
Three seconds are trimmed from the transition between the shot of the Rocket-Dan's Legion of Doom base going underwater to the shot of Satoshi waking up in a cage.

Dialogue Edit
Finally,


Originally the narrator doesn't make any indication that the next episode will be the last one of this arc.

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