Fighting Back the Tears! – Pokémon Season 21, Episode 15

Filler / stand-alone episodeMareanie stays with JamesToxapex

Fighting Back the Tears! is the 15th episode of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon – Ultra Adventures, the twenty-first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 993rd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 998, Bulbapedia code SM058). It first aired in Japan on 18 January 2018 and in the United States on 19 May 2018. It falls within the season’s Interlude across the islands stretch (EP56–EP60).

Premiered on 19 May 2018, the last new episode before a six-week break; Disney XD resumed with SM059 on Monday 2 July.

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

James decides to release his lovestruck Mareanie to a Toxapex that adores her, but after a fistfight with her suitor ends in a draw, Mareanie chooses to stay with James. After a shopping trip in which Mareanie admires a Corsola-horn necklace that James cannot afford, Team Rocket spot a wild female Frillish. James tries to catch it, but Mareanie drives it off with Spike Cannon and bursts into tears when he scolds her; Jessie and Meowth explain that she cannot stand another female near James. James apologises, and Mareanie hugs his face, poisoning him as usual. Then a wild male Mareanie of a different colour appears. Meowth learns that he was Mareanie’s first love: he once saved her from a Tentacruel and promised her a Corsola horn, but she later saw him handing one to another Mareanie and left heartbroken.

The male explains that he was only returning a horn the other Mareanie had dropped, and he offers it to James’s Mareanie, but she refuses and clings to James’s leg. Jealous, the male attacks James with Spike Cannon and evolves into a Toxapex, which wraps itself around James’s head and poisons him. Bewear carries the trio back to its den, where the ailing James decides that Mareanie would be happier with a suitor who evolved for her; Mareanie overhears and runs away in tears. That night, Ash, Professor Kukui and Professor Burnet find her sitting alone on a piece of driftwood and take her home. She refuses Munchlax’s Pecha Berry and Burnet’s special meal, and when she glances at Ash she thinks of James, so the household realises that she belongs to Team Rocket.

The next morning a Tentacruel ambushes Mareanie on the beach, and James kicks it away and hugs her, apologising for taking so long. When Toxapex arrives, James pushes her towards it and walks off, claiming he wants poison-free days, while Meowth weeps. Toxapex then hits James with Spike Cannon and demands a battle so that Mareanie will never cry again, and James accepts for her sake. The fight becomes a brawl in the sand, with James shrugging off poison through sheer anger, until both collapse in a draw and Meowth declares them friends. When the Tentacruel returns, James swings it away by its tentacles, and Toxapex gives him the Corsola horn in thanks—which only makes Mareanie chase Toxapex off and hug James again. At Kukui’s house, Ash finds the couch empty, and Burnet assures him that Mareanie is fine.

Major Events

• Mareanie’s choice. James’s Mareanie is confirmed female
• James fails to catch a Frillish
• He tries to release Mareanie to a male Mareanie, which evolves into Toxapex
• James and Toxapex fight to a draw
• Mareanie stays with James
• Team Rocket’s Team Song insert
• The first episode with none of Ash’s friends since EP274
• TV-episode debut of Toxapex

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Toxapex#0748 · SM058

Captures and evolutions

• Mareanie → Toxapex#0748 · wild · the male Mareanie courting James’s Mareanie

Trivia

• The screenplay is by Ayumi Sekine.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Alola story.

Changes in the English Dub

• Japanese version: Team Rocket’s Team Song as James fights Toxapex

Part of our Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon – Ultra Adventures guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.