Japanese Episode 238

Now that Yanagi has agreed to a match with Satoshi for the Ice Badge, the two trainers prepare for battle.  After Shima reveals herself as an official referee for the Jouto League, the first battle between Yanagi's Jugon and Satoshi's Hinoarashi begins.  Jugon uses the field's pool to evade Hinoarashi's attacks, so Satoshi orders the porcupine pokemon to dive into the water.  As Jugon uses its agility to lunge toward Satoshi's pokemon, Hinoarashi delivers a Speed Star attack that catches Yanagi's pokemon off-guard.  Now that Jugon's been defeated, Yanagi calls forth his Inomuu.  Satoshi keeps his Hinoarashi in the ring, but Inomuu uses Bum Rush to knock the fire-type out.  Pikachu is then chosen as the next fighter.  The mouse pokemon's electric-type attacks don't seem to have any effect, so Pikachu uses the slippery field to slide around the arena like a hockey puck.  Pikachu gets some good attacks in, but Inomuu uses its Sleep attack to regain its energy before it can be knocked out.  Pikachu keeps the attacks coming, but nothing seems to be phasing the massive pokemon.  Suddenly, Yanagi throws in the towel and declares Satoshi the winner.  Satoshi questions his win, but Yanagi says that he has shown that he is worthy of the badge through his unique attack combinations and closeness with his pokemon.  Satoshi earns his seventh badge, the Ice Badge, and declares that he will go to Fusube City to get his final badge!

Thoughts
The Jouto League Gym Battles never disappoint, and the battle between Satoshi and Yanagi is no exception.  It's a great battle episode, and I'm really thankful that the writers recognize our patience with all those lousy filler episodes and reward us with episodes like this one.  Great, entertaining stuff.  One thing though--did you notice that the Rocket-Dan didn't even try to recite their motto this time?  When was the last time THAT happened?

Dub-wise it was decent, though the episode's title will probably go down as one of the worst dub-titles in the entire Johto season.  I can just imagine the executives at 4Kids dancing to their Vanilla Ice tape while wearing their L.A. Lights and Bart Simpsons T-Shirts. 

Twelve episodes until the next gym battle!

Commercial Cut--13 seconds
Wow, for a commercial break cut, this one is pretty long.  After Pikachu's first attack against Inomuu, the smoke clears and we see everyone's surprised reactions.  This happens right before the commercial break in Japan, and those thirteen seconds of footage are repeated after the break.  The American version just shows that footage once instead of repeating it.

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