 |
|
| Season | Pokémon: Advanced Battle (Season 8) · Mossdeep City: the Mind Badge & Drake arc (AG099–AG101) |
| Episode | Season 8, episode 7 · English episode 372 · Japanese episode 375 · Bulbapedia code AG099 |
| English title | It’s Still Rocket Roll to Me! |
| Japanese title | フウとラン！宇宙センターの戦い！ Fū to Ran! Uchū Sentā no Tatakai! — “Fu and Lan! Space Center Battle!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 21 October 2004 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 29 October 2005 · Kids’ WB |
| Screenplay | Aya Matsui |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Challenger!! – Rica Matsumoto · GLORY DAY ~Kagayaku Sono Hi~ (That Shining Day) – GARDEN |
| English opening | Unbeatable – David Rolfe |
| Pokémon Trainer’s Choice | Which one does not evolve? (Lileep / Tangela / Houndour) → Tangela |
| Previous episode | The Scuffle of Legends (AG098) |
| Next episode | Solid as a Solrock (AG100) |
Plot episodeTate & Liza debutNew Japanese ending
It’s Still Rocket Roll to Me! is the 7th episode of Pokémon: Advanced Battle, the eighth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 372nd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 375, Bulbapedia code AG099). It first aired in Japan on 21 October 2004 and in the United States on 29 October 2005. It falls within the season’s Mossdeep City: the Mind Badge & Drake stretch (EP99–EP101).
Synopsis
Arriving at last in Mossdeep City, the group head straight for the Gym, only to be told that its Leader is at the Mossdeep Space Center watching preparations for a shuttle launch. At the centre Ash cannot resist trying out a multi-axis trainer, which spins him and Pikachu dangerously fast until Pikachu slaps the stop button with his tail. Through a window Ash spots two children battling in zero gravity, an effect created by their Baltoy’s Confusion, and when the group wander in they are left floating helplessly until the twins put them down. The pair introduce themselves as Tate and Liza, the Mossdeep Gym Leaders, who specialise in Double Battles with Solrock and Lunatone, and Ash immediately asks for a challenge. Meanwhile Ash’s Corphish wanders off and starts helping itself to the astronauts’ space food.
Team Rocket, wearing stolen spacesuits, sneak aboard the shuttle. Pikachu’s Thunderbolt stops James’s Cacnea, but Seviper’s Haze lets the trio reach the cockpit, where they find that Max and Tate have secretly climbed aboard to look around. Meowth ties the boys up and presses the launch button, and the shuttle blasts off with all of them inside, its boosters separating as it climbs into orbit. Down below, the Space Center’s Baltoy grab the craft with Confusion and hold it steady in space. Corphish, which has stowed away under the control panel while hunting for more food, cuts Max and Tate free with its claws, and Tate’s Solrock uses Psychic to bounce the Rocket trio around the weightless cabin until all three are knocked out cold.
With nobody else to fly it, Tate takes the pilot’s seat. Talked through every step over the radio by Space Center director Jin, with his wife Rachel at mission control and Max reading the instruments beside him, Tate guides the shuttle back down to a safe landing. When the dazed Team Rocket stumble out, May’s Combusken hits them with Fire Spin and Liza’s Lunatone with Ice Beam, freezing them into a shuttle-shaped block of ice, and Pikachu’s Iron Tail sends it rocketing away, the first time Iron Tail has blasted the trio off. Jin then launches the shuttle on its real mission to put a weather satellite into orbit, and Tate and Liza, the elder of the twins, tell Ash that they are ready to accept his Gym challenge at the Mossdeep Gym.
Major Events
- Arrival in Mossdeep City
- Tate and Liza debut at the Space Center
- Team Rocket accidentally launch a shuttle and Tate pilots it home with Max’s help
- First Iron Tail blast-off
- New Japanese ending GLORY DAY
- Rachel and Jin debut
Trivia
- The English title plays on Billy Joel’s "It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me".
- The screenplay is by Aya Matsui.
- This is a plot episode: it advances the Hoenn storyline.
Changes in the English Dub
- “liquid lunch meat” line added
- Dialogue added over the silent landing
- new Japanese ending GLORY DAY ~Kagayaku Sono Hi~
- Instrumental Advance Adventure
Part of our Pokémon: Advanced Battle guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.