Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode AG 024: "Run Satoshi!  Cross the River of the Kibania!"
English Episode 636: "A Corphish Out of Water"
Dr. Ookido Pokémon Lecture:  AG Mini-Movie 01 Preview
Pokémon Dare Da?  None (Japanese), Shroomish (American)
Japanese Air Date: May 8th, 2003
American Air Date:  February 28th, 2004

Now that Heigani is a member of Satoshi's team, the young Trainer attempts to introduce the new Pokémon to the rest of the group. After greeting its new teammates (accidentally ingesting a piece of debris in the process), the group is attacked by the Rocket-Dan. Heigani actually causes more damage when it tries to help, but despite its goof-ups the group is able to hold the Rocket-Dan off. Haruka sends out her Kemusso, which prompts Musashi to bring out her Kemusso, and soon the two begin arguing about which Bug-Type is better. Suddenly, both the Kemusso begin to shine, and they both evolve into Karasarisu! The Rocket-Dan is soon defeated, and after the battle everyone notices that Heigani feels sick. Satoshi decides to rush it to the Pokémon Center, but since he doesn't have his Monster Balls with him he'll have to carry the Pokémon on his back. The young Trainer reaches a river where a bunch of Kibania reside, and every attempt he makes at crossing it results in him being attacked. Finally, with the help of Pikachu and his now-conscious Heigani, Satoshi is able to cross the river. Heigani is brought to the Pokémon Center and is healed, discovering that the debris it ate was the cause of its illness. The next day, Satoshi and Heigani work together to get his friends out of a trap set by the Rocket-Dan the night before, and everyone sees how helpful Heigani can be. Now that it's feeling better and has proven itself to be a powerful competitor, Heigani can now truly call itself part of the team.

---

Thoughts
The Hoenn-area episodes are great and all, but one trap that they often find themselves getting into is the reliance on semi-fillers like this episode. What I mean by "semi-filler" is an episode in which absolutely nothing happens for like 90% of the episode, but then the show's producers throw in a capture or an evolution at the last minute to give it that all-important "non-filler" status. The evolutions of Musashi's and Haruka's Kemusso is one such example. If it weren't for that one little gimmick, the entire episode would be written off by fans as "filler."

Now this isn't the first time the show's done this. Shoot, if you really think about it, a good half of the Pokémon caught/evolved in the Johto region occurred in what would otherwise be filler episodes. The reason I'm mentioning it now is because Advanced Generation uses this trick a lot, and after a while it starts to get annoying. I mean, it doesn't make sense for the two Kemusso to evolve in this episode--it would have felt better at the end of "Which Wurmple's Which?"  Even though this episode is still enjoyable and has other things going for it (this episode can be seen as Corphish's initiation to the group the way "A Tail with a Twist" was for Treecko), it's largely unimportant to the plot.

On the dub side, there are no time edits whatsoever, but 4Kids makes up for it with other cuts throughout the episode.

Dialogue Edit
The Team Rocket motto looked a little funky in this episode, doesn't it? The way Jessie and James are wearing crab claws, the way they have these little after-images following them around as they do the motto, the weird faces they make that don't fit with the regular way in which the dub actors perform the motto...what in the world is going on here?

Well, the answer is that this whole thing is an homage to the classic Ultraman antagonist Alien Baltan. The anthropod-like aliens have been a mainstay of the Ultraman series since the 1960s and their unique appearance, iconic laugh, and often-used ability to create afterimages of itself make it an extremely easy image to invoke. You can see a video of the character in action here, highlighting the walk being parodied in the images above.

From Ultraman (1966) Episode 002, "Shoot the Invaders!"

In the Japanese version Musashi, Kojirou, Nyarth, and Sonansu also have their voices modified to make them sound closer to the Alien Baltan, though this element of the homage isn't brought over to the English dub.

Commercial Cut--7 seconds altogether
The commercial break in the Japanese version doesn't occur until the scene where Satoshi reaches the broken bridge. Satoshi runs up to the bridge, we see him stop, Ash says "Oh no!  It's broken!", and then we see get another shot of the bridge. That shot of the bridge is shortened by three seconds in the dub.

The Japanese version then cuts to commercial, and when it comes back we get yet another shot of the bridge. That shot, lasting four seconds, is completely cut out from the dub, probably to avoid being redundant.

Instead, the dub just cuts to the scene where Ash says "Well, there's only one way to get to Dewford Town." 

Cut--2 seconds
While Satoshi is being attacked by the Kibania as he wades across the river, one of the shots of him getting attacked is cut.

It's more or less the exact same thing as the other two shots of him getting attacked that are left in. My guess is that the censors thought that showing him getting attacked three different times were a little too intense, so they decided to cut one of the attacks in order to make it not seem so harsh. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

And what's with the noise being made when the Carvanha are attacking Ash? In the part where he says "I...won't let anything happen to you, Corphish!  I...promise! You just try and stay strong!", I swear it sounds like the Carvanha are punching him or something. It's the same sound effect used in the Japanese version, so it's there in both versions.

And I'll end the comparison by expressing my joy at hearing the phrases "fighting fit" and "super effective" in the anime.

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