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Review S18 EP28: A No-So-Flying Start!

This episode was fantastic.

Wow, the episode starts with Pancham and Chespin already fighting. How nice... Anyway, I did like how Serena let Bonnie brush Braxien. I also thought it was interesting that Hawlucha found the egg while he was training by himself. Ok, am I the only one who thought it was weird how everyone just randomly chose to call back a few of their Pokemon rather than all of them? I mean, why did Ash only return Frogadier (obviously ignoring Hawlucha's absence and Pikachu)? Why didn't Serena and Clemont call back their arguing Pokemon? That just seemed odd to me.

I find it hilarious how Clemont said you can’t tell what a Pokemon will hatch into just by looking at it when the outer pattern represents the Pokemon’s body in some way:) I lol'd when Ash was freaking out about the egg about to hatch while Bonnie, Pancham, and Chespin were instead dancing with happiness. I love how almost everyone assisted with warming the egg with Fletchinder's Flame Body also coming into play. Why did Ash seem surprised when Fletchinder offered to warm the egg and say it was nice of him, as if he never does anything helpful? OMG Noibat is so cute:) Lol, the Pokemon being all hyped up to introduce themselves to Noibat was hilarious. Aw, Ash stopping Noibat's crying was too adorable. Again, Bonnie and all the Pokemon taking care of Noibat was awesome and adorable. Cool that Noibat can sense which apples (or berries as they call them:/) are good and which ones aren't.

Man, when Serena was trying to equate learning to fly with learning to ride something, I was hoping she’d say Rhyhorn. Oh well. The flying lessons were cool. I love how Ash had Hawlucha try to teach Noibat to glide. At this point though, Pancham and Chespin seemed totally irrelevant. They can't help help Noibat learn to fly, so I really didn't see the point for them being out anymore (aside from pointless "comic relief"). But regardless, Fletchinder and especially Hawlucha were great in assisting Noibat. I especially loved how Hawlucha defended Noibat throughout TR’s entire plot. I did think it was weird that Ash had Fletchinder charge TR with Steel Wing rather than using Razor Wind from afar. But man did he sound pissed when they got away.

Why did Hawlucha take off gliding without Noibat when he knew Noibat couldn’t fly and keep up with him? That seemed really odd to me. Damn, Noibat is pretty smart. He suggested they hide in the cave, and help Hawlucha to totally pwn TR and get those stupid looking noise blockers off so he could hit them with Super Sonic. Hawlucha kicking Jessie in the face was probably my favorite part of this episode:) Lol at TR getting blasted and laughed at by their own Pokemon. Then we get bad-ass Frogadier to battle TR. I love how all of Ash's Pokemon got to play a role in this episode.

Ok, was Ash seriously not planning on catching Noibat from the start? He hatched it, helped it begin to learn to fly, and Serena straight up said multiple times that Noibat looked to Ash as a caregiver. I would have thought that his first plan of action before deciding to head off would have been to ask Noibat if he wanted to join him. It’s a newly hatched baby that can’t even fly for crying out loud. That just totally struck me as odd. Lol, and I loved when Noibat and Hawluha both fell out of the sky at the end.

This episode was awesome 10/10 easily for me.
 
So, who found this episode egg-ceptional? Were you egg-cited for it? Eggs-tremely so? (Okay, I'll stop now.)

I don't know why Ash was freaking out so much when the egg started glowing. It's not like this is the first egg he's hatched. (Phanpy and Larvitar would like to say "Hello." As would Togepi, Happiny, Dawn's Cyndaquil...am I missing any?) And speaking of, nice subtle continuity with "Who Wants to Keep Togepi?" with the fact that the Poke-hatchling bonds with whoever it sees first. Hawlucha and Fletchinder teaching li'l Noibat how to fly reminded me of "Archeops in the Modern World." (I'm just full of allusions today.)

So Supersonic functions as a ripe-o-meter? That's pretty damn useful.

When the TRio showed up, Ash said, "I know that balloon!" I hope so, Ashy-boy. That balloon's been plaguing you for over 17 years.

At least Hawlucha was smart enough to put an escape plan into motion while the TRio was blabbering away over how to evolve Noibat. (And notice when Jessie sarcastically joked about turning a Pokémon upside-down to evolve, Inkay popped out. Nice little reference to how Inkay evolves. Of course, I'll bet none of them even noticed.) And Noibat was smart enough to lure the TRio into a cave where its echolocation gave it the advantage. And, of course, Inkay and Pumpkaboo mistakenly attacked their masters instead of Ash's Pokes. Nice bit of slapstick that actually made sense in context.

When it comes to Noibat and Hawlucha, I'd say this is the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. I just hope that, unlike Gible, Noibat actually gets to evolve.

Overall, an above-average episode--and that's no yolk. (And now it's time for my pun-ishment.)
 
I'm a bit annoyed with the dub of this episode. It's hard to hear the ultrasonic screeches Noibat uses when it cries because of Noibat's voice, especially in the cave scene where it's hard to hear Team Rocket suffering from Noibat's screech. Speaking of the cave scene, why does Jessie sound a bit like James when Hawlucha kicks her in the face? I also don't like the puns Team Rocket uses and I'm not a fan of apples being generalised to berries (they did it before but I'm still mentioning it). Instead of saying that Noibat sees Ash as its parent, it's now caregiver.

However, the good thing is that Bonnie's remark on Noibat not liking any of the apples collected in the dub. In the original, Bonnie said something like Noibat doesn't like fruit in general. Maybe I misinterpreted the line but I'm glad the dub made it clear.
 
Speaking of the cave scene, why does Jessie sound a bit like James when Hawlucha kicks her in the face? I

In the original, if you've seen it, you'll know that they use slo-mo on those particular scenes. Slo-mo distorts the original voice. It's what happened here in the dub as well. It was just Jessie's voice in slo-mo.
 
Ok, but Musashi and Kojirou both speak in a much distortingly deeper voice than Jessie and James.
 
Togepi and Noibat are both imprinters, it seems. This was a cute episode.
 
What first seemed to be a normal filler actually turned out to be a really nice episode!

Not only did we get plenty of funny moments, e.g. Pumpkaboo and Inkay accidentially attacking their trainers or Meowth offering to teach people how to fly (Actuallly not such a bad idea at all, given how "good" they are at that!), but the episode was also action-packed and full of cool scenes. My most favorite ones were Hawlucha and Nobat fighting TRio in that cave and Frogadier wiping the floor with Team Rocket's Pokemon. His gestures and way of battling really looked badass and showed once again why he's probably Ash's coolest and strongest Pokemon at the moment (not taking Pikachu into consideration).

Again, a very nice episode. If Noibat actually gets to evolve remains to be seen but I really hope so because Gible would have deserved an evolution back then, too and Ash really needs a badass dragon.
Though, I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable with the idea of Ash having three flying-type Pokemon now because it'll give him a massive type disadvantage. Let's see...
 
When was the last time we saw a Who's That Pokemon of a Pokemon not in the episode o.o. Can't recall it at all till now in XY and BW... weird. Expected Noibat.

Was a good episode tbh, I liked most of it and even if filler was good fun. Goodra wa obviously just random filler till Ash got this Noibat.

Also, "Noibat like berries" WHAT POKEMON DOESN'T!?

I liked the references to evolution TR made. TR were great in the episode tbh.

Also they didn't even steal Noibat, it was wild. Ash did the same thing, when Hawlucha took it. Who's to say it wasn't actually someone's? be interesting for a future filler episode.
 
What first seemed to be a normal filler actually turned out to be a really nice episode!

Not only did we get plenty of funny moments, e.g. Pumpkaboo and Inkay accidentially attacking their trainers or Meowth offering to teach people how to fly (Actuallly not such a bad idea at all, given how "good" they are at that!), but the episode was also action-packed and full of cool scenes. My most favorite ones were Hawlucha and Nobat fighting TRio in that cave and Frogadier wiping the floor with Team Rocket's Pokemon. His gestures and way of battling really looked badass and showed once again why he's probably Ash's coolest and strongest Pokemon at the moment (not taking Pikachu into consideration).

Again, a very nice episode. If Noibat actually gets to evolve remains to be seen but I really hope so because Gible would have deserved an evolution back then, too and Ash really needs a badass dragon.
Though, I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable with the idea of Ash having three flying-type Pokemon now because it'll give him a massive type disadvantage. Let's see...

Due Noibat being part flying it kind of balances out (in regards to weaknesses). Sure it gives him weaknesses to ice and rock, but in regards to Goodra, the only difference is an added weakness to Rock, though I fully accept a worse weakness of ice could be noted.

But it takes neutral damage to electric, and it isn't like the fairy weakness was all that notable since Noibat replaces Goodra.
 
It was a good episode as a whole. I enjoyed the relationship between Hawlucha and Noibat, and Hawlucha being the bigger brother figure for him.

I can't help but think this won't stick, I see Noibat (or possibly when it becomes a Noivern, if it does), possibly being found by the person who had either left, or lost the egg there. Either that, or Ash is really going to have Noibat as his own. Ash keeping Noibat would still make sense though, as Ash was the first person it saw when it hatched (the Motherly/Fatherly bond lol).

I was cautious of them giving Ash all these dual flying types at first, but now I don't mind it, I still sometimes wonder why the writers did that though... was it that Goodra was too OP for them to keep in, or just to keep us interested for a few...? I hope, but also doubt, that Ash will at least have some rotation going on closer to the league, so we can see some old faces. Also would love to see Ash deal with mega evolution at some point in the future (possibly when Alain crosses over, who knows).

I give the episode a 8/10.
 
nstead of saying that Noibat sees Ash as its parent, it's now caregiver.
Apparently TPCI didn't want to give children the idea that Ash fathered a Noibat. Or I'll be fair and say it was lip-syncing issues though guardian would've made more sense. But maybe it isn't wrong, I mean it techincally isn't. Caregiver does make more sense in English than calling Ash a parent or guardian but it doesn't make sense within the context it was used.

Serena could see that Noibat thinks Ash as a caregiver, but in actuality Noibat sees Ash as a "Parent" because Noibat wouldn't be able to distinguish what a caregiver is, but would probably be more instinctual to think Ash as "family"


It was a good episode as a whole. I enjoyed the relationship between Hawlucha and Noibat, and Hawlucha being the bigger brother figure for him.

I can't help but think this won't stick, I see Noibat (or possibly when it becomes a Noivern, if it does), possibly being found by the person who had either left, or lost the egg there. Either that, or Ash is really going to have Noibat as his own. Ash keeping Noibat would still make sense though, as Ash was the first person it saw when it hatched (the Motherly/Fatherly bond lol).

I was cautious of them giving Ash all these dual flying types at first, but now I don't mind it, I still sometimes wonder why the writers did that though... was it that Goodra was too OP for them to keep in, or just to keep us interested for a few...? I hope, but also doubt, that Ash will at least have some rotation going on closer to the league, so we can see some old faces. Also would love to see Ash deal with mega evolution at some point in the future (possibly when Alain crosses over, who knows).

I give the episode a 8/10.

I don't see this as a problem because:

1. It was never any sort of issue within the episode, outside of one second.

2a. In the event in that it needs to be addressed, the ONLY way it could be mentioned is if we're talking about the Pokemon. A trainer by itself losing an egg containing a Noibat, wouldn't make any sense, because there would be no way to be certain that its the same egg, and would be so HORRIBLY forced to the point of pure idiocy to imagine the writers even doing something like that.

2b. A Noivern being able to discern that it is "HER" Noibat would make more sense, since I assume Pokemon would be able to distinguish offspring even after hatching elsewhere and growing up somewhere else.

3. Would be extremely hard to imagine how any storyline revolving around this makes any sense, considering we got no hint or clue as to actually imagine this happening. We didn't see a wild Noivern, nor did we see any weird notable footprints, nothing. Sure it might be weird for an egg to be abandoned, but that's what it looks like because nothing was ever mentioned outside of "where is the nest?" and then completely ignoring the issue and never bringing it up. Would be really forced.
 
Right, Noibat is adorable, and I loved how they used Flame Body to help hatch the egg.
 
Apparently TPCI didn't want to give children the idea that Ash fathered a Noibat. Or I'll be fair and say it was lip-syncing issues though guardian would've made more sense. But maybe it isn't wrong, I mean it techincally isn't. Caregiver does make more sense in English than calling Ash a parent or guardian but it doesn't make sense within the context it was used.

The lip-sync part, even if I don't fully agree, does make sense to me because Caregiver/Guardian has 3 sylables while Father has 2 sylables. I'll disagree with the first part because the dub did allow Togepi thinking of Misty as its mother in the past. There is no reason for them to rewrite it unless it's because of lip synching.
 
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