Top-Down Training! – Pokémon Season 10, Episode 40

Plot episodeCynthia debutsPaul forfeits a Full Battle

Top-Down Training! is the 40th episode of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl, the tenth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 504th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 507, Bulbapedia code DP040). It first aired in Japan on 19 July 2007 and in the United States on 8 December 2007. It falls within the season’s The road to Hearthome: Happiny, Cynthia & Gary stretch (EP38–EP47).

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

Synopsis

At a Pokémon Center, Ash and Dawn watch Champion Cynthia’s Garchomp block Lucian’s Bronzong’s Flash Cannon with a fin and win with Giga Impact. Hearing that the Champion herself is in Amity Square, the friends rush there and find her, after a long deliberation over ice-cream flavours, studying a stone tablet carved with images of Dialga and Palkia. Then Paul appears. Ash boasts that he has two Badges, but Paul ignores him and challenges Cynthia to a full six-on-six battle, which she accepts to the crowd’s astonishment. Paul leads with Chimchar despite its type disadvantage, and Garchomp’s Dig knocks it out at once, earning the Chimp Pokémon a scolding that disturbs both Cynthia and Ash. Paul’s Weavile freezes with fear before Dragon Rush, and his Murkrow’s Sky Attack is met by another one-hit Giga Impact.

Paul’s last Pokémon is his first partner, a Torterra evolved from his Turtwig, and while Garchomp recovers from Giga Impact, Giga Drain brings it to one knee. Garchomp blocks Frenzy Plant’s roots with its fins, though, and smashes Torterra with Brick Break, so Paul forfeits. When the crowd jeers, Ash defends Paul’s effort. Nurse Joy is busy with surgery, so Cynthia heals Paul’s team herself, with Brock assisting and Croagunk unusually bashful. Paul reveals that he has already travelled through Kanto, Johto and Hoenn, catching Murkrow and Weavile and entering every League without winning, before returning home and catching Chimchar. Ash accuses him of not caring how badly his Pokémon get hurt, and Cynthia leads them back to the tablet and reads its inscription, explaining how she once trained endlessly before learning that every Pokémon has its own personality.

Meanwhile, Team Rocket sneak into the Pokémon Center and, caught by Nurse Joy, flee with just Chimchar. As their balloon rises, Chimchar wakes and fires Ember, and Paul’s Ursaring blasts the balloon with Hyper Beam a moment after Chimchar leaps clear. Chimchar is hurt in the fall, and Paul calls it useless for getting caught, provoking an angry Dawn until Cynthia reminds them that what matters is that Chimchar is safe, and persuades Paul to stay the night. Later, Sinnoh Now reports that archaeologists have unearthed the Lustrous Orb, an item connected to Palkia and related to the Adamant Orb in Eterna, in the ruins near Celestic Town. Cynthia decides to go and see it, and says goodbye to Ash and his friends.

Major Events

• Cynthia debuts. Her Garchomp beats Paul’s Chimchar, Weavile, Murkrow and Torterra and Paul forfeits the Full Battle
• Paul’s home town and past journeys revealed
• The Lustrous Orb is unearthed near Celestic Town
• The first episode after the tenth movie opened in Japan

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Torterra#0389 · DP040
• Garchomp#0445 · DP040

Trivia

• The English title plays on “top-down management, for a lesson from the Champion”.
• The screenplay is by Atsuhiro Tomioka.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Sinnoh storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• The Japanese text on Cynthia’s tablet left untouched (Dogasu’s Backpack: “Friggin’ geniuses”)
• Three seconds added to the To be continued card
• The park becomes “Amity Square” (in Japanese, an anime-only nature park)
• Brock’s line about Dialga and Palkia refers to a film English audiences had not yet seen
• Team Rocket call Paul a “twerp”
• Garchomp keeps its Japanese voice
• Lucario score
• Mewtwo Strikes Back music added in the dub

Part of our Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.