Exploud and Clear! – Pokémon Season 7, Episode 26

Plot episodeTreecko evolves into Grovyle

Exploud and Clear! is the 26th episode of Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, the seventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 339th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 342, Bulbapedia code AG066). It first aired in Japan on 4 March 2004 and in the United States on 19 February 2005. It falls within the season’s Road to Petalburg: Lombre, Grovyle & the Balance Badge stretch (EP63–EP70).

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

Synopsis

During a lunch break in the woods outside Petalburg City, Max notices that Treecko has withdrawn to the top of a tree and seems unhappy. Ash climbs up to cheer it up without success, and Corphish’s attempt to help only knocks Ash out of the branches. Suddenly a Loudred stampedes through the picnic site with its Trainer, Guy, running after it; he can only stop it by leaping onto its back. Guy explains that he is on his way to the Hoenn League with two Badges so far, and that Loudred has become a troublemaker that rarely listens to him. Max, who has now been travelling long enough to understand the bond between Trainers and their Pokémon, sympathises. Ash suggests a battle to work off Loudred’s energy, and before he can choose a Pokémon, Treecko jumps down from its tree, eager to take Loudred on.

Treecko’s Quick Attack seems to do nothing, and Loudred pins it with Stomp, but Treecko breaks free with Bullet Seed, dodges Supersonic and Earthquake, and knocks Loudred into a tree with Pound. As the two rivals glare at each other, both begin to glow and evolve at the same moment: Treecko into Grovyle, now knowing Leaf Blade, and Loudred into Exploud. Exploud ignores Guy’s order to dodge and blasts Grovyle with its new Hyper Voice, then runs off on a rampage that neither Bullet Seed nor Quick Attack can stop. While the group search for it in vain, Guy remembers how gentle his Pokémon was as a Whismur. Elsewhere, a starving Team Rocket spot Exploud drinking at a waterfall and decide that its voice would make it the perfect alarm clock for Giovanni.

The trio plug Exploud’s sound openings with corks while it sleeps and net it, but it bursts free and blasts them off with a single roar. Grovyle, which refuses to go back into its Poké Ball all day, hears the cry and goes to the waterfall to resume their fight. Pound and Hyper Voice are exchanged and Bullet Seed knocks Exploud down before the Trainers arrive and take command. Exploud absorbs one Leaf Blade, blocks another and, scolded by Guy, simply walks off, straight into Team Rocket’s second ambush. Guy spots them and pushes Exploud out of the way of James’s five heat-seeking corks, which Pikachu’s Thunderbolt destroys, and Pikachu’s Thunder combined with Exploud’s Hyper Voice blasts the villains away. Moved that Guy protected it, Exploud helps him up and embraces him, and the rivals resume their battle with their Trainers finally in harmony.

Major Events

• Ash’s Treecko evolves into Grovyle and learns Leaf Blade at the same moment as Guy’s Loudred evolves into Exploud
• Ash’s first evolution in 141 episodes
• Exploud debuts

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Exploud#0295 · AG066

Captures and evolutions

• Treecko → Grovyle#0253 · Ash
• Loudred → Exploud#0295 · Guy · at the same moment as Treecko

Trivia

• The English title plays on "loud and clear".
• The screenplay is by Aya Matsui.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Hoenn storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• Giovanni’s wine turned into water
• The crosshairs on Team Rocket’s bazooka removed (Kids’ WB airings only)
• Pokémon Trainer’s Choice (dub only, in place of Who’s That Pokémon?): which Pokémon is best against Numel? Answer: Medicham
• Face Forward Team Rocket! used as background music in Japan

Part of our Pokémon: Advanced Challenge guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.