Review S14 EP28: Oshawott's Lost Scalchop!

[Iteru]

BW28 - "Oshawott's Lost Scalchop!"http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/BW028

Continuing on their journey, Ash and his friends meet a trainer called Stephen who challenges Ash to a battle straight away with his Blitzle. Although wanting to use Pikachu, Oshawott pops out of its Poké Ball and wants to challenge it instead due to its great confidence in its scalchop against Electric type attacks. However, it turns out that Stephan and Blitzle have other options then Electric type attacks up their sleeve...

 

[Eitarou]

So it's mispronounced as Stephen....

I was expecting it to be the other way around.

 

[Mucrush]

I... kinda missed it... I had forgot it, but found out when the end was going on, so I only saw the end... but Stephens name is pronounced funny... xD

 

[Jukain]

Osha @.@ Scalchop's blasting off again! I like these custom shell wipes. "Will you guys stop eating and get serious already?" lol You shouldn't have told it to make a shield. Maybe it wouldn't have made it so big, then. Did they just make an instrumental for the dub theme? It's okay, I guess. I knew there was a reason they named him Stephan. It can be pronounced a number of ways. Oh come on, how can you miss with Aqua Jet at near point blank? Pretty good.

 

[Yoshi-san]

;___; Kenyan why your Dub voice so blah...

Oh because he played Tristan from Yu-Gi-Oh!....makes sense

Anyway still love this episode even though the Voice Action wasn't that good.

 

[matt0044]

Stephen/Kenyan had a good voice. Not perfect but it did fit the bill to a certain extent. Though I'd have the VA not make his voice sound so deep when it shouldn't. Plus, the BW dub theme makes for a good montage.

 

[Ampharos King]

On the surface, this episode was primarily focused on Oshawott learning to battle without its scalchop by having the pokemon hold a substitute item that can function in nearly the same way. To a comical effect, none of the items that were offered by Iris and Cilan were sturdy enough to fulfill that role. One of those items, a giant rock that was sculpted into a shell-like shape by Cilan's Dwebble, was too heavy for Oshawott to wield in battle. Oshawott learned to wield the rock through a rigorous amount of training, inadvertedly increasing the pokemon's base attack power and speed. Even after this power-up, however, Oshawott still struggled against Stephan's Blitzle's Flame Charge. Ash and Oshawott barely won that battle as a result of luck and perseverence. The battle could have gone either way.

Stephan's role in this episode serves as the challenge to Oshawott's training. His presence here is no different than past COTDs whose pokemon were far too powerful or too fast for any of Ash's pokemon to battle against prior to their training. Stephan diligently works alongside his pokemon to become stronger together in unconventional ways (i.e. charging Blitzle's mane with an electric battery, increasing the pokemon's power.)

The subject of Oshawott not being able to control his Aqua Jet was brought up again. In fact, this was the first time that this pokemon used the move since it was used in the Nacrene Gym Battle. This subplot will be covered in the next few episodes.

My only complaint of this episode was how Oshawott found his Scalchop at the end of the episode. This was lazy writing, in my opinion. Axew almost never leaves Iris's side, and the pokemon somehow finds the Scalchop in the middle of the tall grass during the battle? I always wondered: Why didn't Ash and co. send out the rest of their pokemon to find this Scalchop before the battle? It just didn't feel logical to me.

 

[Cilan]

Why didn't Dwebble just make a smaller scalchop rock? That would have saved a lot of the trouble Oshawott went through with trying to carry around that giant rock that was bigger than him. On the plus side I actually kind of like Stephan's name change because I never really caught the correct way to pronounce Kenyan xP

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Love the way the mispronounced Stephan's name, and his VA was alright.

Still my favorite episode just due to how fricken adorable Oshawott is in it. Through the whole thing I just wanted to give Oshawott a big hug lol!

 

[matt0044]

Still my favorite episode just due to how fricken adorable Oshawott is in it. Through the whole thing I just wanted to give Oshawott a big hug lol!

I would've gone all Rena Ryuga on Oshawott and try to take him home. If possible...

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I would've gone all Rena Ryuga on Oshawott and try to take him home. If possible...

LOL he's just THAT adorable!

BTW did anyone notice when Ash was fighting Stephan he refered to Razor Shell as Shell Blade?

 

[matt0044]

BTW did anyone notice when Ash was fighting Stephan he refered to Razor Shell as Shell Blade?

Oh yeah! Guess the translator didn't notice it.

 

[Enzap]

I always prefered the name Shell Blade anyway. lol

Also, I never noticed how absolutely tiny and adorable Joltik are! I always imagined them bigger.

Overall the episode was pretty entertaining. Why Dwebble couldn't just make a smaller rock shield is beyond me, but I still liked the training montauge with the giant rock.

 

[Mijumaru]

This episode is full of speech errors! First Stephen, and now Shell Blade?

Anyways, I loved this episode. It was a nice blend of Oshawott's comical and serious side. We should have that more often. Though I do have to agree, Axew's random finding Oshawott's Scalchop was a bit... rushed and lazy. That was my only complaint about the episode.

Plot: 10/10
Resolution: 6/10
Music: 8.25/10
Animation: 10/10
Character of the Day: 9/10
Voice Acting: 9.5/10

Overall Rating: 8.8 points out of 10

 

[Playerking]

This episode is full of speech errors! First Stephen, and now Shell Blade?

Anyways, I loved this episode. It was a nice blend of Oshawott's comical and serious side. We should have that more often. Though I do have to agree, Axew's random finding Oshawott's Scalchop was a bit... rushed and lazy. That was my only complaint about the episode.

Plot: 10/10
Resolution: 6/10
Music: 8.25/10
Animation: 10/10
Character of the Day: 9/10
Voice Acting: 9.5/10

Overall Rating: 8.8 points out of 10

He isn't a COTD but, whatever.

Anyway, so they used the japanese name for Razor Shell, usually I hate errors but I prefer the Japanese name, so I like that that happened.

 

[Dogasu]

First we had Giovanni refer to the Dreamyard as the "Site of Dreams," and now we have "Razor Shell" being referred to as "Shell Blade?"

I wonder if there's a writer working for TPCI who shares the belief that a lot of the name changes made in the Generation V games made no fucking sense whatsoever.

 

[chimera]

Meh, it was an okay episode. I wasn't very interested by it, but it was amusing.
Oshawott dodged Shock Wave. =l Anime physics strike again.
I don't see why Ash didn't have Oshawott use Water Gun, unless he thought Blitzle was going to block it with Shock Wave.
I see a gag in Stephan's name.

 

[matt0044]

I wonder if there's a writer working for TPCI who shares the belief that a lot of the name changes made in the Generation V games made no fucking sense whatsoever.

I can see the Dreamyard being a lame name but a lot of the name changes in Gen. V are either okay or pretty neat and actually DO MAKE SENSE when you actually think about and look into their meanings. If you need explanation, check Bulbapedia for the Pokemon name origins. Did that ever occur to you, Mr. Koffing?

Honestly, I'd chalk it up to just lazy script editing and NOT personal biases among the workers at TPCi.

 

[Serperiority]

This was a great and funny episode. Oshawott was awesome. I do agree that Dwebble should have made a smaller scalchop. Shell Blade? Is that Razor Shell's Japanese name?

It would also have been funny when Oshawott found that bottlecap, James comes out of nowhere and takes it.

Stephan as (ste-phan) instead of (ste-phen)? I've heard (ste-phen) but not (ste-phan). So it's pronounced like Gwen Stefani's last name, without the "i" obviously.

 

[Hassel]

I wonder if the dubbers weren't aware that Kenyan/Stephan would appear again after this one episode. It wasn't bad but his voice didn't just seem to fit his character, ya know?