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| Season | Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon – Ultra Adventures (Season 21) · Interlude across the islands arc (SM056–SM060) |
| Episode | Season 21, episode 14 · English episode 992 · Japanese episode 997 · Bulbapedia code SM057 |
| English title | The Dex Can’t Help It! |
| Japanese title | ロトム、フォルムチェンジが止まらない！ Rotomu, Forumu Chenji ga Tomaranai! — “Rotom, Can’t Stop the Form Change!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 11 January 2018 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 12 May 2018 · Disney XD |
| Screenplay | Jun’ichi Fujisaku |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Arōra!! (Alola!!) – Satoshi (Rica Matsumoto) with Pikachu (Ikue Ōtani) · Pōzu (Pose) – Taiiku Okazaki |
| English opening | Under the Alolan Moon – Haven Paschall and Ben Dixon |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Rotom (US) |
| Previous episode | Let Sleeping Pokémon Lie! (SM056) |
| Next episode | Fighting Back the Tears! (SM058) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeRotom swaps bodies
The Dex Can’t Help It! is the 14th episode of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon – Ultra Adventures, the twenty-first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 992nd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 997, Bulbapedia code SM057). It first aired in Japan on 11 January 2018 and in the United States on 12 May 2018. It falls within the season’s Interlude across the islands stretch (EP56–EP60).
Synopsis
A delivery mix-up knocks Rotom out of Ash’s Pokédex and sends it on a tour of household appliances around Melemele Island, while a stranger Rotom from a washing machine takes its place. With Ash and the professors out shopping, Rotom stays home photographing the sleeping Pokémon until a deliveryman and his Machoke bring an orange washing machine, which Rotom signs for. Litten and Lycanroc start a scuffle, Litten’s Ember hits Rowlet, Rowlet’s counterattack hits Pikachu, and the furious Pikachu shocks the room, blasting both Rotom out of their machines and into each other’s. When the deliveryman returns to take the washer away and the household comes home, Professor Kukui reboots the Pokédex, and its occupant cheerfully introduces itself as “Wash Rotom Pokédex.” Ash senses that something is wrong, but Kukui and Burnet blame the reboot.
The real Rotom wakes inside the washing machine at the Pokémon Center, where Nurse Joy’s laundry floods the room with bubbles, and it escapes through a power socket. The power lines carry it to Lana’s house, where it possesses a fan that Harper and Sarah fight over; to Kukui’s television; to a street lamp in Hau’oli City, where it glimpses the same mysterious Pokémon that Wash Rotom is photographing with Ash; and to a lawnmower that chases Lillie and Snowy until Hobbes’s Oricorio stops it with Revelation Dance. At Aina’s Kitchen it turns into an oven that leaves Mallow’s puddings watery and frightens her until Kiawe’s Marowak whacks it, and in Sophocles’s refrigerator it uses Blizzard and freezes Sophocles and Togedemaru solid. Exhausted, Rotom decides to return to the washing machine.
Ash takes the odd-acting Pokédex to the Pokémon Center, where Wash Rotom calls the washing machine “nostalgic” just as the real Rotom arrives and slips back inside it. Wash Rotom fires a Hydro Pump in excitement, Pikachu answers with Electro Ball, and the frightened washer fills the room with soap suds, which Ash mistakes for an attack. Pikachu’s Thunderbolt shocks everyone, the two Rotom are knocked out, collide, and return to their own bodies. Nurse Joy mops up once again while Ash reboots his Pokédex, and Rotom, delighted to be home, explains the swap. When Ash mentions that the other Rotom photographed a rare Pokémon and deleted the picture, Rotom flies off to look for it; Ash slips, lands on Pikachu and gets shocked again, leaving the Pokédex shell empty on the floor once more.
Major Events
- Wash Rotom. Rotom swaps bodies with a Wash Rotom and travels through a fan, a television, a street lamp, a lawnmower, an oven and a refrigerator
- Hydro Pump and Blizzard are used
- A mysterious photo
- TV-episode debut of Marshadow
Pokémon making their anime debut
Marshadow#0802 · SM057
Trivia
- The English title plays on the film <em>The Girl Can’t Help It</em> (1956), as Rotom is thrown out of the Pokédex.
- The screenplay is by Jun’ichi Fujisaku.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Alola story.
Part of our Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon – Ultra Adventures guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.