#dp088

So for the oncomming Kalos Summer Camp arc I decided to go back to Sinnoh and revisit it's respective arc, maybe doing so it will be easier for me to find parallels between the two if they occur, but mostly the reason is that I found the arc fun and now that i know it's subbed I can really see all the inns and outs for it. So starting with the first episode let me share my thoughts in no coherent manner

To no surprise my favorite part of the episode was Dawn and her interactions with Grimer, right from the start she ignored it's less then appealing appearance and was fixated on making ti shine like any one of it's Pokemon, she feeds it, grooms it, practices and bonds with it and when she battles Conway she even uses one of her specialized Contest balls for when it made an appearance. She seems so dedicated to it, portrayed best when she genuinely states how he desires to make Grimer shine, just gah what a princess.

No mon is to ugly or unappealing for her to make into a star

Ash and Angie's rivalry and their relationship with their rent-a-Pokemon is also quite endearing. It was a interesting move giving Ash a Raichu, seeing as how this anime hasnt been all to kind with portraying the forgotten evolution the mascot. Having it all timid and shy and Ash trying to get it come out of his shell was nice, I especially like the scene of Ash being shocked by a scared thunderbolt by Raichu and he used this as a good example of how strong it was.

Yeah, Ash turning misfortune into an advantage is practically second nature to him.

Speaking of being punching bags to facilitate growth, Angie helps Monferno train by being a direct sparring partner for him, constantly talking it's attacks head on for the sake of learning accuracey and focus

If you hadn't caught on by now Ash and Angie are very similar in terms of competitive nature and throughout the episode (and most of the arc) they're constantly at odds, arguing, challenging, and competing with one another. They started out pretty antagonistic towards one another but once they had their incredibly heated battle with their rental mons they come to be on slightly friendlier terms a bit, but the rivaly is still very much alive as we will see in later episodes.

Watching this episode I also come to realize that Ash has like no patience for structered education, since he's debatebly the worst student at the Academy along with Angie, it's no wonder why he ran off on a never ending Pokemon Journey when he turned 10, school sucks.

Other things I liked was Jessie being the queen of her respective team, and Conway just being Conway, trying to sneak into Dawn's bedroom just to get close to Dawn and getting a pillow tossed his way for the effort.