Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode BW 040:  "The Fiercely Fought Don Battle!  Tsutarja vs. Komatana!!"
American Episode 1440:  "Cilan Versus Trip, Ash Versus Georgia!"
Pokémon Live Caster:  N/A
Japanese Air Date:  July 21st, 2011
American Air Date:  November 5th, 2011

The next battle of the Don Battle tournament is between Dent and Shooty!  Shooty reveals that the Dokkora he used the last time he battled Satoshi has evolved into a Dotekkotsu and as he pits it against Dent's Ishizumai.  Dotekkotsu manages to dodge all of Ishizumai's attacks before landing a powerful Rock Smash that cracks its opponent's shell!  Dent decides to stop playing around and declares that it's now tasting time!  He orders Ishizumai to use Shell Smash to boost its attack before launching its newly acquired Rock Slide attack!  While Dotekkotsu is trapped under the rubble, Ishizumai finishes the battle with a quick Slash attack.  The first round of the Don Battle continues with Kenyan, Luke, and Iris all making it to the second round.  Once the day's battles are finished, everyone is dismissed to get ready for their next matches.  During this time, Shooty tells Satoshi that he won't be sticking around to watch the rest of the tournament, thinking it'll be a waste of time.  The next day, the line-up for the second round is announced, and the first match is revealed to be between Satoshi's Tsutarja and Langley's Komatama.  After a few failed attacks, Tsutarja is ordered to use Attract only to find out that it won't work on Langley's pokemon!  Komatama is soon ordered to use Pincer Guillotine, an attack that will KO its opponent in one hit!  Will Tsutarja be able to dodge it, or will Satoshi be eliminated before making it to the semi-finals?  To be continued!

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Thoughts
So, do you guys love Zorroa yet?  How about now?  Are we showing it enough?  Isn't it the most hilarious ever?  Here, look at it some more.  WHY DON'T YOU LOVE IT YET!?!?!?!

One of the reasons I feel like the Don Battle tournament sucks so bad is because they run the same two or three running jokes to the fucking ground.  In this episode, a full two minutes and seven seconds were wasted on the various "Zorroa causes mischief by transforming" scenes.  Two minutes.  I thought part of the reason the writers stopped having the Rocket trio appear in every episode was so they'd have more time for other stuff.  And yet this is how they're using their extra time?

(And yes, I actually did check the time, because I am a sad person who has no life).

It's also frustrating because that two minutes could have been spent on showing us the battles that just sort of skimmed over.  For example, why did the match between Iris, one of the show's three main characters, for crying out loud, get the same amount of attention as a character-of-the-day battle?  When I first saw Yoshihiko, I thought he was going to be a character like Harley was to Haruka, or Kouhei was to Hikari.  Yet in this series, Yoshihiko comes and goes so quickly that we don't get a chance to be entertained with him.  What was the point of creating such a unique character if they're not going to bother to do anything with him? 

The episode wasn't all bad, though.  The battles were pretty decent, especially for this series, and Cabernet was back to being in-character again after helping herself to some of the Rocket-Dan's meds in the last episode.  I particularly loved the part where she sneaks into the gang's hotel room without any of them being aware.  That's just amazing.

It's still hard for me to stomach the voice TPCI decided to give Bel.  Bianca sounds way too old and doesn't have half the energy as her Japanese counterpart, making her running gags even more annoying than they were in Japan.  I'm also a bit put off by the dubbers' insistence on having Burgundy speak "French" every chance they can.  Cabernet speaks zero French in the Japanese version yet the dub decides to have her produce some French-like sounds every other line.  And then they turn around and remove Dent's use of the word mariage from Cilan's speech?  What the hell?

Dialogue Edit
TPCI really enjoyed giving their version of the characters say all this extra stuff to say in this episode.  For example, during the cold opening:


The Japanese narrator doesn't say anything about Gamagaru's battle against Cabernet being its first ever pokemon battle, nor does he say anything about Satoshi's upcoming second round.

After the opening theme, Freddy introduces the next match:


This time, TPCI has Freddy mention Cilan's previous job, something the Japanese narrator doesn't.  And why would he?   "In one corner, we have Dent, the Gym Leader at the Sanyou City Gym!  And in the other corner...some nobody named Shooty that you've probably never heard of."  Kind of makes things seem a bit unbalanced, doesn't it?

In the very next line:


Don George states that Dent was a Gym Leader at the Sanyou Gym.  Not that he still is.  Hope this change doesn't come back to bite TPCI in the ass later!

The next change takes place right after Gurdurr is ordered to use the Rock Smash attack that cracks Dwebble's shell:


Here, Dent tells Ishizumai to hide, which explains why the pokemon obediently hides in its shell in the very next shot.  The dub's change here makes it seem like the Pokémon's too scared to follow out Cilan's orders.

Later, everyone reacts to Dwebble's Rock Slide attack hitting Gurdurr:


Iris just kind of ignores Cabernet in the Japanese version and just mentions how cool it is that Ishizumai learned the new attack.  The "Course it is" part was added in by the dub.

In the very next line:


Sadly, Satoshi doesn't imitate Dent's catchphrase in the Japanese version.  All he does is yell out that now is the time for him to turn the battle around.

Inside the Pokémon Center:


Cilan's "Thank you" there makes it sound like he's taking credit for making the food that everyone's stuffing in their faces.  In the Japanese version, Dent doesn't thank Satoshi, making me think that the food they're eating was served to them by the Pokémon Center and not Dent.  It would also explain why there are drink machines in the background, or why both Kenyan and Bel seem to have their own food.  Does the dub think Cilan is feeding them as well?

Side Note
As I reported earlier, Luke's Zorroa keeps its Japanese voice.  However, there is one exception, and it occurs in this episode.   In the scene where Zorua transforms into Axew, Luke's Pokémon is voiced by Kayzie Rogers, not Takahashi Chiaki.  The dub does this, obviously, because hearing Luke's Zorua do a Kibago impersonation instead of an Axew impersonation would be way too off-putting.

Dialogue Edit
At the very end of the episode:


The narrator doesn't make any chess-related puns in the Japanese version .

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