Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode BW 016:  "The Shippou Gym Rematch!  The Explosive New Technique!!"
American Episode 1416:  "Rematch at the Nacrene Gym!"
Pokémon Live Caster:  Pendra
Japanese Air Date:  January 13th, 2011
American Air Date:  May 21st, 2011

Satoshi's training for his rematch against the Gym Leader Aloe has begun!  Don George's first training exercise has Satoshi's Pokabu running on a treadmill while dodging projectiles to find a way around Yorterrie's Shadow Ball attacks.  In the second exercise, Mijumaru tries to swim against the current to improve its speed and power.  Both pokemon end up learning new techniques, and Satoshi decides to return to the Shippou Gym to try them out against the Gym Leader.  Aloe's first choice in pokemon is Haderrier.  Like Yorterrie before it, the dog pokemon uses Roar to force Satoshi's Mijumaru to switch places with his Pokabu before switching out her own pokemon with Meeruhog.  After blocking its opponent's attacks, Mijurmaru is ordered to use its new technique, Aqua Jet.  Much to Satoshi's surprise, Mijumaru seems unable to aim the attack properly!  The two keep trying the technique over and over until it finally connects with Meeruhog, causing a double knock out.  Both trainers call out their remaining pokemon, Haderrier and Pokabu.  Aloe's pokemon fires off a barrage of Shadow Balls, but Satoshi's Pokabu is able to dodge them all.  Satoshi then counterattacks by having Pokabu use its new move, Nitro Charge.  Haderrier is ordered to use Giga Impact and has her pokemon charge toward Satoshi's to meet Nitro Charge head-on.  After a great collision, Haderrier falls and is ruled unable to battle!  With all of the Gym Leader's pokemon defeated, Satoshi is declared the winner!  Satoshi happily accepts his Basic Badge and decides to head toward Hiun City for his next Gym Battle.

---

Thoughts
One of the things I really liked about Diamond & Pearl is how we got so many episodes showing Satoshi and Hikari training their pokemon.  It made their victories in future battles more believable and really helped reduce the number of deus ex machina victories the two received.  Their absence in Best Wishes so far, though, has been disappointing.  Remember how, after Satoshi lost to Shooty in their last battle, Satoshi talked about how he's going to train to become stronger?  And how he didn't follow up on that at all?

Well it looks like Satoshi's finally figured out that he's going to have to train his pokemon in this region if he wants any chance of actually succeeding in Isshu.  I like what we've gotten so far and think the training exercises all make sense, but I'm most happy about how the Battle Clubs finally have a purpose.  The facility's first two appearances didn't do anything for me because it felt like they didn't offer anything that the backyard of a Pokémon Center didn't provide, but this time their purpose seems clear.  Having places where trainers can learn strategies from people who have actually studied their opponent is a great addition to the series and is something I hope the games will adapt in the future. 

As for the actual Gym Battle, I was kind of disappointed to see Aloe use the same strategy two episodes in a row.  Kind of makes her look like a one trick pony, y'know?  The way her pokemon went down so easily was also a bit annoying, but at least they were defeated by new moves like Nitro Charge and Aqua Jet instead of something lame like Ember or Water Gun.  Speaking of Aqua Jet, I liked how the animators have been paying attention since day one and drew Mijumaru with its eyes shut during its attempts at performing said new move.  It shows that the writers are actually able to plan ahead, something that's been sorely missing from this series so far.

This is the first episode since that clip show in Advanced Generation to not feature the Rocket trio.  I'm OK with that because I hate how the writers have fucked them up, and I get the feeling that the writers are starting to feel the same way.  It's like, they can't even be bothered coming up with any more briefcases for them to obtain or coffee for them to drink or boring shit like that, so they kept them out of the episode to save them the effort.  One could argue that they were kept out of this particular episode to give the writers more time to use on the Gym Battle, but it feels like the "Kibago pulling a Togepi by pressing random buttons on the machines in the Battle Club" scenes ate up the extra screen time gotten from the trio's absence.

Something I noticed about Lenora in this episode is her pronunciation of "Tepig."  She says "Tep-egg" instead of "Tep-ig," making me wonder why the ADR didn't bother to correct her pronunciation while her voice actor was in the recording booth.  On the censorship side of things, I'm mildly surprised that TPCI has no problem letting Satoshi get hit in the face with what looks like a giant metal ball since this sort of thing has been edited out before.  I've said it a million times before, but it's really nice to see this show on a network that doesn't feel the need to censor every piece of violence out of the show.  It's a shame earlier seasons couldn't enjoy this same level of non-editing.

Dialogue Edit
First line of the episode!


That last line in the Japanese version is "And then...!"  The dub decides to have the narrator praise the Battle Club here instead, for some reason.

Later, Ash lets Oshawott out of its PokéBall to do some training.


Save it?  Save what, Ash?

In the Japanese version, Satoshi simply tells Mijumaru that, no, they're not there to play. 

After Oshawott uses Aqua Jet for the first time:


Dent's original line was that Mijumaru's Aqua Jet had a bimyou na teisuto (微妙なテイスト), or a "questionable taste."  But the English dub is still in its "No "____ taste" lines for you!" mode and rewrote it instead.

After Lenora reveals her choice in Pokémon:


So I guess TPCI is trying to shoehorn this catchphrase into as many episodes as possible now?

I've already explained this in the other comparisons, so let's just move on.

Next,


I'm...I'm confused.  Has 4Kids gone back to writing this show or something?  Because a rewrite like this is very unlike TPCI.

So in the original, it's made clear that the Yorterrie Aloe used in the previous episode and the Haderrier she's using in this episode are two different pokemon. 

Iris' original line is "You're kidding!  The evolved form!?  She's battling with a pokemon different from the one she used before?"  (ウソ！進化形！？前とは違うポケモンでバトルするの？).  The dub got the last part right, but they kind of contradicted it by saying with the "Lillipup evolved?" part at the beginning.

Then, Dent says "She's come up with a great way to bring out the power Satoshi has now" (今のサトシの力を引き出すにはそのほうがいいと考えたんじゃないかな。).  Notice how he doesn't say anything here about the Gym Leader evolving her pokemon to achieve that.

Like I said, this is very out-of-character for TPCI and I have no idea why they'd rewrite a line like this.  The company better hope Aloe doesn't show up in the future with both her Yorterrie and her Haderrier on hand.  We certainly don't need another "Brock's mom is dead"-type situation.

Side Note
Lenora's apron gets erased for what will probably be the final time.


Just like the last episode, Aloe isn't wearing her apron when she first appears.  She only puts it on once she's revealed which pokemon she'll be using in the battle.

In this episode, 50 shots were altered from the original.  Of those shots, two of them are from the recap and five are just copied and pasted from earlier edits in the episode.  There was also a shot that the animators missed, but that's not included as one of the 50 edits.  Due to the large number of edits, I had to divide my screenshot gallery into seven pages; you can view the edits here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The explanation of the whys and hows of this edit is a bit on the long side, so I gave them their own page here.

The Gym Leader makes a brief appearance at the beginning of "The Fossil Revival!  Archaeos, the Ominous Ancient Bird!!"  Luckily for the animators, they drew her without her apron in that episode and therefore shouldn't have to make any more edits to this character.

Dialogue Edit
After attempting to use Aqua Jet during the Gym Battle:


Dent repeats the "questionable taste" description he used to describe the attack earlier in the episode.  As you can see, Cilan doesn't do the same.

Side Note
The preview for the next episode, which the dub always skips, is special this time around because it blatantly spoils who hatches from Satoshi's egg.  This is nothing new, of course, and I suppose the spoilers present in the preview were unavoidable due to the nature of the episode.  Still, it seems kind of ridiculous that one of the biggest draws of the next episode is given away so easily here.

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