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| Season | Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension (Season 11) · Solaceon: the Unown ruins & Dawn’s slump arc (DP060–DP065) |
| Episode | Season 11, episode 13 · English episode 528 · Japanese episode 532 · Bulbapedia code DP065 |
| English title | Sleight of Sand! |
| Japanese title | パチリスはカバルドンの口の中！？ Pachirisu wa Kabarudon no Kuchi no Naka!? — “Pachirisu is in Kabaldon’s Mouth!?” |
| First aired (Japan) | 31 January 2008 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 12 July 2008 · Cartoon Network |
| Screenplay | Yukiyoshi Ōhashi |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Together – Fumie Akiyoshi · Kaze no Messēji (Message of the Wind) – Mai Mizuhashi |
| English opening | We Will Be Heroes – Kirsten Price |
| Previous episode | Riding the Winds of Change! (DP064) |
| Next episode | Lost Leader Strategy! (DP066) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeButch & Cassidy return
Sleight of Sand! is the 13th episode of Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension, the eleventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 528th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 532, Bulbapedia code DP065). It first aired in Japan on 31 January 2008 and in the United States on 12 July 2008. It falls within the season’s Solaceon: the Unown ruins & Dawn’s slump stretch (EP60–EP65).
Synopsis
Crossing a desert on the way to Veilstone City, the group let their Pokémon out to play in the sand, until a Hippowdon erupts from the ground and lifts Pachirisu onto its back. Pachirisu climbs onto its head, Hippowdon yawns, and Pachirisu tumbles straight into its mouth before the huge Pokémon burrows away. Pikachu and Piplup chase a sand cloud and spot Pachirisu poking out of a vent on Hippowdon’s side, but it gets stuck and is dragged back underground. Nearby, Team Rocket’s pit trap keeps filling with sand, and when Hippowdon blasts sand from its body it sends them flying. Neither Pachirisu’s Discharge nor Pikachu’s Thunderbolt has any effect, since Hippowdon is a Ground-type, and Team Rocket decide to capture it first and steal Pikachu afterwards. Then a friendly Hippopotas appears, the very one Ash and his friends met earlier in their journey, and it is clearly attached to Hippowdon.
Hippowdon surfaces with Pachirisu sticking out of its nose, blows it out and flees again, leaving Hippopotas downcast, and Ash promises to reunite the two. James nets Hippowdon with a launcher from a tree, but the trio cannot lift it, and just as Ash’s group confront them, a Rhyhorn-shaped robot bearing a Team Rocket “R” bursts out of the ground. Out step Butch and Cassidy, performing a new motto with Butch’s Shuckle; the two pairs bicker, everyone mangles Butch’s name, and they reveal that Dr. Namba wants Hippowdon so that he can analyse its sand. Turtwig’s Razor Leaf frees Hippowdon, which escapes with Butch and Cassidy’s robot in pursuit, and everyone ends up falling into a deep pit. Jessie, James and Meowth hoist Hippowdon out with a plunger line from their balloon, with Ash’s group clinging on, until Butch and Cassidy pop the balloon with a horn.
The trio return in a Slowbro robot and break the Rhyhorn robot’s claw, and the two Team Rocket pairs fight each other with their machines until Butch and Cassidy drill clean through the Slowbro robot and it explodes. The blast hurls Ash’s group and Hippowdon into the air, Pachirisu finally falls out of Hippowdon’s mouth back to Dawn, and the furious Hippowdon destroys the Rhyhorn robot with Hyper Beam. All four villains then send out their Pokémon, Cassidy’s Granbull, Butch’s Shuckle, Seviper and Carnivine, in a chaotic brawl in which a stray Sludge Bomb hits Hippowdon. Hippowdon’s Double-Edge sends Shuckle and Carnivine back to their Trainers, Hippopotas’s Yawn puts every Team Rocket member to sleep and its Sandstorm piles them up, and Hippowdon’s Hyper Beam blasts all five villains off together. Hippowdon and Hippopotas are reunited, and the episode ends with Dr. Namba scolding Cassidy for mispronouncing his name yet again. It is Butch and Cassidy’s only physical appearance in the Diamond and Pearl series.
Major Events
- Pachirisu is swallowed by a Hippowdon, which is reunited with the group’s old friend Hippopotas
- Butch and Cassidy’s only physical Diamond and Pearl appearance and their last as Team Rocket members, with a new motto
- Dr. Namba’s last appearance
- Hippowdon’s TV debut
Pokémon making their anime debut
Hippowdon#0450 · DP065
Trivia
- The English title plays on “sleight of hand, for a Pachirisu that vanishes inside a sand-spouting Hippowdon”.
- The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Sinnoh story.
Part of our Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.