I’ve been watching/rewatching the Pokémon anime since March (which I would consider a good decision if it didn’t make me an even bigger procrastinator) and you wouldn’t believe how often these kids get lost in the woods.
Masaaki Iwane blessing us with one of the best non-Ash's rivals today. I miss Harley still and hope we see him again in the new series. Guy always made me laugh with how over-the-top he was.
Contestshipping Review - Part Twenty-Two - Thinning the Hoard
Previous
Next
Index
-The Title-
What “hoard”? Hoard of trainers who want to win?
Why is this the title?
-Episode Link-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu8f7s_SzrU
-The Review-
0:00
Episode starts off with the Narrator giving exposition. You want some? Go read the other reviews.
0:28
Unfinished theme song, I was very lucky with the link yesterday with the full song. I think the video will be taken down soon though, seeing how high quality it is.
0:32
And now for the second appeal rounds. Drew starts it off by sending out his new Absol. The Absol uses flash, which sends a blinding light in waves across the stage, Absol apparently absorbs the light and it make’s their fur coat sparkle.
1:03
May and Solidad and backstage talking about Drew’s preformence while Harley sits close to them filing his nails.
Remember: I thought he was a girl for two whole years.
1:13
Back to Drew’s preformence.
The light is gone and Absol uses Water Pules. A blue Aura starts to surround Absol and a ring of water appears, getting bigger as it flows away from the Absol.
The water starts Spiraling around the Absol, until they are told to use Razor Wind. Once they do, many of them come and destroy all of the water. This only leaves small sparkles of glitter from the water.
1:50
His appeal ending, and he and his Absol bow. Drew is obviously not happy about something.
2:01
So now with Team Rocket.
Jessie is doing this thing where she’s going to interview a random person who made it to the next round.
She’s literally in the middle of a hallway and body could walk through.
just walk away Drew she’s insane you should know it.
Jessie: So how did it go? Inquiring minds want to know!
Drew: Sorry no comment. :walks away:
Goods job Drew.
You still seem very bothered by something though.
Jessie: Gee thanks for the sunshine.
It’s not only James’ sarcasm now everybody has it.
2:43
And now for the next person’s second appeal! It’s Harley, and he’s no longer in that stupid outfit!
I really want to make a snarky comment rn about how he’s still wearing a stupid outfit but I don’t becuase I don’t think it’s stupid he just cares a lot about his Cacturn and it’s cute.
He sends out Octillary who starts off by using Fire Blast. They jump up into the air and light a circle of Fire. Octillary stands in the middle, and pretends like he’s summoning the devil.
Don’t beleive me?
Let’s see if I can get the gif to work
Can’t get the gif to work but you get the point
3:29
Wait so Ash is trying to get his hat back from the Apom?
I thought Ash already got his hat back. Oh well.
So eventually Pikachu uses quick attack and Ash gets his hat back. Then, to make the Annoying Apom not come back for a while, Pikachu also uses Thunder Bolt. Then, Ash throws a Pokeball at them, but before it is able to catch them, the Apom uses its tail to throw it back. Kinda reminds me of when Ash tried to put Pikachu in a Pokeball...
4:37
And we’re already in the middle of Solidad’s preformence! Her Slowbro is uses psychic to make the only part of them that is touching the ground their shell, then, it starts spinning around the field. Then, it goes to the middle of the stage, still on their shell, and continues spinning in circles while using water-gun.
5:15
Harley stay away from my baby :(
5:25
And now for May’s appeal round!
She sends out Munchlax, who is told to use solar beam, but instead of just immediately shooting one off, they start super charging the energy, turning it all of the light into a huge ball. Once they finally shoot, the ball of light goes high up into the sky until Munchlax jumps up and hits it. It doesn’t dissapear but sparkles escape from it and go in all directions, as well as a low pitched pretty sound coming from it as well. May gets praise from the judges.
5:52
You know what Solidad claims to be old buddies with Harley and never once in this entire show have we seen them interact so that means the fandom needs to make headcanons.
5:58
May: :is shaking badly: Sixteen is an awfully small number for the people who will get to the next round...
Max: Oh c’mon you were awesome right there!
Brock: Just remember all of the hours of training you put in.
Yes but Brock, everybody else has spent so much time into that training and so many of them will also not be able to go, some of them tries so hard and failed. May’s case may be the same, and so he shouldn’t just rule out the idea that she might not make it to the next round becuase she trained.
7:20
Solidad: Hi May.
Solidad: Your first round preformence was one of the best ever!
May: You think so? Thank you so much!
Harley: :runs up behind everybody: May May!
Everybody: :turns around:
Harley: It’s awful awful! Something’s wrong with Drew!
I’ll save that snarky comment for later.
7:34
So it cuts to Drew and Absol in the forest. Absol tries using Razor Wind.
Gifs from @toasty-coconut-test
But even if your Absol wanted to try to prefect the attack Absol wouldn’t want to hurt their trainer. I mean, people usually try to practice attacks on other Pokemon when training.
You know what, let’s say that somebody wants to help somebody to prefect something. It doesn’t come out how it should’ve, you could go with what May tried to do and praise them, telling them that it was great but you need to do better, you you could go with telling them that it failed, and that you need to try harder. One is going to make the person your trying to help want to get better, the other is just going to make whoever you’re training upset and be nervous that the attack doesn’t go as planned.
Though, these gifs have different words then what I’m watching, they tell about the same thing. Though, there are a few more things that the version I’m watching said and that I would comment on, right now I think that this is enough.
If you didn’t watch the scene then you wouldn’t know just how harsh Drew was being. “I’m not a wimp like you!” Drew is upset, and it’s not just becuase of the failed Razor wind. Sure, it might’ve upset him, but it wouldn’t get to the points of him yelling at May. In a later scene I’ll explain what exactly made him more angry.
9:24
Solidad: Bullying is no way to raise a Pokemon. Training has to be a two way street. If the two of you can’t agree then you have nothing!
Max: I’ve never seen that dark and scary side of Drew I guess.
Solidad: I think seeing your first round preformence really shook him May.
May: Huh?
Solidad: Don’t forget you’re right up there next to him in the contest standings, right? That just hit him, y’know?
May: You think so? What do I do??
9:51
Ash: Hey!
Drew: :looks over his shoulder: Huh?
Drew: Oh it’s you guys.
Drew: Look I said what was on my mind okay???
Ash: I know that Drew.
Pikachu: :Jumps off of Ash’s shoulder: Pikachu. (Probably something like “Me too.”)
Brock: Solidad’s having a little talk with May right now. I think it’d be a good time to do the same thing.
Ash: Y’know, watching you out there made me think about all the rivals I’ve faced in battle over the years. I never talked to them about how they trained or anything. We deal with that on the battle field.
And then Ash met Paul.
Drew: I hear you.
Drew: We’re rivals. May and I.
This show is beautiful have you every cared to look at the backgrounds?
10:42
The Grand Festival is back up!
Oh yay May VS Harley this’ll be fun.
11:56
And now for May VS Harley!
12:36
Just kidding the battle starts here.
So it starts out with May sending out Munchlax and Eevee. Harley sends out Cacturn and his new WigglyTuff. Munchlax uses Focus Punch and Eevee tries using tackle. They both run towards Harley's Pokemon, but then WigglyTuff jumps in front of Cacturn and inflates their body, so when Munchlax and Eevee hit, Wigglytuff is unaffected. It's like a balloon that will never pop.
13:52
Solidad and Drew are backstage watching the battle.
Solidad: Being able to expand Wifflytuff's body like that can mean big points, but Harley better be very careful.
14:03
Back to Harley and May's battle.
Wigglytuff jumps into the air, looking like their able to tackle Eevee and Munchlax. At the last second, Wigglytuff jumps out of the way and Cacturn comes flying towards them while using poison sting. Munchlax and Eevee are both hit and May looses even more points. Cacturn runs towards them with a needle arm but before he hits Eevee uses Shadown Ball and Munchlax punches it with Focus Punch and it goes flying towards Cacturn. Cacturn faints and is no longer in the battle.
15:03
Solidad: Wow, Harley’s cutting it close.
Drew: Maybe.
15:10
WigglyTuff, still in the air, tries coming down on them with body slam. May is able to dodge, but then WigglyTuff grabs them both and throws them unto the air. While they are in the air, Wigglytuff jumps up and uses double-slap on them both. Munchlax and Eevee fall to the ground. Munchlax uses Solar Beam and Eevee uses Shadow Ball. WigglyTuff dodges all of them, but Eevee and Munchlax continue to use the same attacks over and over, while WigglyTuff dodges them all. May looses points. Eventually, May gets an idea. Munchlax uses Solar Beam and Eevee uses Shadow ball and the two attacks combine mid air. It creates an explosion behind WigglyTuff and is sent down to the ground. While they are falling Eevee helps Munchlax into the air and then Munchlax punches Wigglytuff. Wigglytuff passes out when they hit the ground.
17:13
May wins!
17:33
Death by Petals!
And they’re even heart shaped this time!
Drew wins becuase he does.
17:47
And now for Solidad’s fragment of a battle. Slowbro uses psychic and wins
You know what Solidad is a perty girl I want to hug her.
18:13
YA’LL KNOW IT’S GONNA BE LIT.
MAY VS DREW BRO.
I HAVE SO MANY GIFS FOR THEM.
EVEN THE BATTLE FRAGMENT HAS GIFS.
May starts off my sending out Cumbusken and Squirtle. Drew sends out his Flygon and Absol. May's Ssqurtle starts it off by using rapid spin. Before it hits Flygon uses sandstorm, but then May immediately afterwards makes Cumbisken jump off of Squirtle's shell and uses Mega Kick. Before Cumbusken is able to hit Absol uses Flash from inside of the sandstorm, making it so that Cumbusken couldn't see clearly when he tries to hit Flygon. Absol uses Iron tail on Cumbusken and it lands a direct hit. In order to recover from this May makes Cumbusken use Sky Uppercut and Squirtle use Bubble.
Then the episode ends :D
Don’t worry it’s just a cliff hanger, the next episode is where I keep all of the gifs.
-Conclusion-
hahahaha
Time to write a serious conclusion. Sometimes I struggle with these, becuase after I finish a review I just get so tiered. Five hours of writing, but writing a conclusion is fun and the conclusion might be one of the most fun parts of the review for me to make.
Now, if you’re just reading the reviews and not watching the episodes, a lot of the scenes I try to summarize or recap with telling you what they say won’t have the same feel. The one that I am specifically talking about is the scene near the middle of the episode where Drew yelled at May. I’m pretty sure I explained well enough within the review what exactly was bothering him, but I might as well restate it during the conclusion.
Drew realized that May is close behind and about to surpass him. That just hit him. He’s been watching her turn from a coordinator that barley knew what a contest was to somebody who was close to beating him. That made him realize a few things, like that he wasn’t improving nearly as fast as May was. It just hit him. I’m usually good at explaining things but for this? It’s hard to explain emotions like this. You can figure it all out in you head, but you can’t explain it.
Many people say that Drew actually meant what he said back there, and it just isn’t true. Drew knows that bullying his Pokemon isn’t getting him anywhere. He knows that May has talent, but this all just confused him, and it almost hurt. It’s confusing, and almost to the point where it’s not meant to be explained.
