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    General 
  • Anytime a Champion or an Elite Four member is in a Pokemon Battle on-screen against anyone who isn't a fellow Champion or Elite Four member. Expect the person they are battling to be most likely creamed by their skillful and powerful Pokemon with their opponent to be even lucky to knock out one of their pokemon with any of their pokemon they have let alone landing a scratch. Alain is the only non-Elite Four and non-Champion on-screen to defeat an Elite Four member and that wasn't easy.
  • Any time a Pokémon evolves can count.
  • Iris, Gary and Dawn returning in guest star roles in Journeys, all in close succession. Even better once Serena, Alain and Paul returned as well. To truly drive it home, both Iris and Alain are a part of the Masters Eight!

    Team Rocket Trio 

Team Rocket Trio

  • In "Charmander, The Stray Pokemon", the trio displays a surprisingly good plan based around rubber and the fact it can't be electrocuted and manage to capture Pikachu, leaving the three heroes in a pit. This is only awesome, of course, if you overlook the fact that they got burned by Charmander moments later.
  • "Ignorance Is Blissy" is a mix of this and Heartwarming and Funny. After a Blissey nurse kindly gives them her center's entire stash of berries, the team, realizing it's taken the fall for them from its boss, put on an extremely hammy Evil Gloating performance about stealing the berries to clear its name, knowing they are setting themselves up for another beating. A defining Pet the Dog moment where they still get to mercilessly troll the heroes.
  • In "The Stolen Stones!" Team Rocket steals a bunch of Fire Stones, then Pikachu. They keep Ash and his friends busy for the entire episode, dividing the group and digging pit traps to stop Keegan's superfast Arcanine. And they do this while riding bicycles and unicycles. Jessie even fakes a surrender to trick Ash into falling in a pit; Misty comments that they were the deepest holes Team Rocket's ever dug. And when the Arcanine catch up to them, Jessie uses Wobbuffet to repel them and buy time to escape. They even had a celebratory dinner.
  • Jessie and James defeated Butch and Cassidy in "A Promise is a Promise" (the third part of the Lugia episodes), freeing said Lugia in the process.
  • Throwing themselves (literally, and bare-handed) at a Tyranitar to buy Arbok and Weezing the time to escape from a vicious poacher.
  • Their first battle with Ash and co. in "Do I Hear A Ralts." Sure the episode is them at their most vile (trying to steal an extremely sick Ralts from Max), but this is one of the few times they hold their own in a battle, simply because they use their Pokemon to their full potential. Jessie even uses Wobuffett to deflect an ice attack.
  • "A Scare To Remember" while similarly has the three at their most underhanded, has a great Manipulative Bastard moment for the trio. When Meowth finds an amnesiac Pikachu, he convinces him he is an ally of Team Rocket. There is something darkly awesome about Pikachu being a willing member of Team Rocket, even joining in on the motto. Topped with the most cathartic Who's Laughing Now? moment the trio can achieve; ordering Pikachu to Thundershock Ash. Given the Hoenn era was the peak of the trio's laughing stock reputation, almost any time they offered something of a challenge or even just got a "They mean business this time!" reaction from the cast was refreshing.
  • "The Ole' Berate and Switch" has Jessie and James digging pit traps to stop Butch and Cassidy from escaping, leading them to get captured by Ash and friends while they (almost) escape. One pit was so huge it crashed Cassidy's helicopter. For once it was the trio that were Eviler than Thou.
  • In "The Thief That Keeps On Thieving" they finally beat the twerps to a Pokemon capture, and rather handily escape with the Yanma they had just battled. Giovanni wasn't impressed with it, but it stands as proof the trio can steal Pokemon. And after it is returned to them, it promptly beats down Ash's Chimchar and evolves into a Yanmega, even giving the twerps a mini "blasting off" of their own with Sonic Boom. The dumbfounded reaction from Dawn sells it:
    Dawn: *dazed* So since when did Team Rocket get...good?
  • The first steps of their their badassidy occurs in "Lean Mean Team Rocket Machine", where they steal all the PokéBalls from a Pokémon Centre and then, using their latest Mecha, ransack the place purely out of the joy this rare victory had granted them, whilst "Double Trouble" plays at full volume in the background.
  • Their Sinnoh schemes are mostly unremarkable, except for that one time when they stole the Sunyshore Tower and turned it into a rocket. Turned a skyscraper into a functioning, flying, rocket. Thank god they're so incompetent, or they'd be masters of the cosmos by now.
  • The B/W episodes give Team Rocket new uniforms. The reason? THEY GOT PROMOTED.
    • Team Rocket getting promoted was one thing. But in their first BW appearance, Jessie is revealed to have captured a Woobat off-screen. Ash sends out his newly captured Pidove, and Woobat one-shots it with a not-very-effective attack. Ok, that's justified (Pidove was freshly-caught), but when their plan inevitably backfires, Pikachu revs up a Volt Tackle at them... and James throws a smoke bomb, escaping. Pikachu is left just standing there, looking from side to side in obvious shock. Two episodes later, they escape on a glider. Later, they start using jetpacks... are you getting the picture here? Let me just emphasize this: we are past 30 episodes in, and Team Rocket has not blasted off a single time. This, friends, is perhaps the single biggest Took a Level in Badass in history.
    • For a good epitome of how much more dangerous Team Rocket has become, check out the episode with Roggenrola. They spend basically the whole episode piloting a giant mega deathray that looks like it came straight out of Metal Gear. Ash and co. understandably have a really difficult time overcoming it. That Team Rocket could go from how they were to this is nothing short of amazing.
    • Their hacking of a research lab, breaking into a museum to steal a rock and swap it with a decoy in less than 10 seconds, holding their own against Team Plasma, teaming up with the twerps to save everyone from the Ghost World, the entire Nimbasa City subway mission, their relentless and efficient pursuit of Carracosta at Twist Mountain, and now their actions in Best Wishes 2...need I go on?
    • They save Unova by breaking a possessed Giovanni from the power of the Reflection Mirror. Especially gratifying if you remember this is the same guy they've been sucking up to and failing to impress for four regions, and they finally get to demonstrate their Undying Loyalty by saving his life and guarding him from the twerps as they escort him to his escape vehicle.
  • The group returns back to their old motto. Come on, you knew you said it along with them.
    Jessie: Prepare for trouble, like never before!
    James: And make it double, with words from yore!
  • In Team Plasma's debut episode (BW 112), Team Rocket hacks their computers and steals their data on mind-controlling Pokemon. The best part about this is that they actually planned this out, and waited until Team Plasma was distracted with Ash and company. Then, they recite their motto, and don't wait around to get blasted off. Team Plasma still manages to blast them off after chasing them down in a jet, but it still really shows that Team Rocket hasn't lost everything with going back to their old selves.
  • Opening a can of whoopass on Team Plasma in "What Lies Beyond Truth And Ideals". Special mention goes to Meowth, who takes out an entire gang of Liepard all by himself. Extra points for his cocky Smoking Fury Swipe Blowout afterwards.
    Ash: Meowth?
    Meowth: *backflips triumphantly* THAAAAT'S RIGHT!!!
  • They may have dropped the serious demeanor they gained in BW, but it's clear that XY hasn't completely stripped them of competence. Not only do they almost always put up a good fight when cornered, they show much more foresight in their schemes (like providing an auxiliary power source for their mecha in case it was unplugged).
  • Inkay and Pumpkaboo managing to get the upper hand against Korrina's Lucario in Mega Evolution form, knocking it out of control with its power once again.
  • The two parter in Goodra's homeland brings them back to near BW levels of cunning and depravity, playing Florges and her people into attacking Ash's team while they suck the land dry of its healing water, even framing Pikachu so they'll capture him for them. Once the plan is in full fruition and they take off in their enormous hovercraft, they then gloat the whole thing to Ash and Florges, and put up a palpable resistance before they manage to stop them, reminding the former how completely ruthless they can still be.
  • In "A Frenzied Factory Fiasco" they make complete chumps of the twerps; using tour guide aliases to dupe them into willingly handing over every last one of their Pokemon (even getting Ash to obliviously place Pikachu into one of their electric proof cases for an extra insult) before getting them obliviously locked in a storage closet. Only Pikachu manages to escape and stop them, though even against him, Meowth and the team's other Pokemon act as Super Persistent Predators the whole episode rather than the usual one minute Curbstomp Battle.
  • In "A Fiery Rite Of Passage" the trio make some ineffectual attempts to capture a Liteo, leading them to get torched by a Papa Wolf Pyroar. They come back with a vengeance however, handily trapping Pyroar in their mech and using its fire power to then shoot a massive flamethrower at the twerps! While XYZ had mostly finalised their Villain Decay, this episode Ash's team were frantically on the ropes against the trio.
  • In "An Explosive Operation", after claiming Z2, Team Rocket finally do battle with Team Flare, who have since their debut been completely unimpressed by the trio. To elaborate it isn't a Curbstomp Battle.
  • During the conclusion of the Team Flare arc:
    • Malva (of Team Flare) heads to confront Lysandre, abandoning her post as a reporter. It is Jessie of all people who bravely stands in front of the stadium giving a rousing report on the chaos surrounding her.
    • When Serena, Mairin and Sycamore need to head to Lysandre Labs to rescue Chespie, the team, still in disguise, offer to fly them there in their news helicopter. For added bonus points, when one of the Executives stand in their way, it is Team Rocket who reveal themselves and combat them, Jessie even telling a bewildered Serena that this sort of chaos is wrong and to keep going.
    • They fight two of Flare's Executives, and winnote , after which they catch up with the others and help Ash take out the Megalith. For extra points they get the whole thing recorded on tape, and manipulate the footage later on to convince Giovanni they put Team Flare out of action single-handedly for their report on their Kalos mission.
  • They get one in Pokemon Puzzle League's Spa Service mode, where they successfully steal every Trainer's Pokemon. They also get one during the final stage, where they make a Badass Boast.
    Jessie and James: That's it! No more games: Now we finish this here. No costumes, no tricks, just the real Team Rocket!
  • "Dressed For Jess Success" and "A Dancing Debut" are a rarity in that they stand as the only instances Team Rocket won the actual episode instead of Ash's companions (in both cases, the female companion in a performance contest). While the heroine in both cases is a Graceful Loser, the trio still ended the episode smelling like roses.
  • Even though it's not the old motto like in XY, Team Rocket's new motto in Sun and Moon is definitely welcome. It even uses the new animation style to its advantage, giving us some gorgeous visuals before the inevitable battle against the twerps.
  • In Sun and Moon, a Mareanie winds up on James' team and, alongside Jessie's recently caught Mimikyu, ends up beating Ash's current team in a straight-up Pokemon battle. The only reason Ash didn't have his Pokemon taken from him was because Bewear stepped in to retrieve Team Rocket at the last second, but the fact still stands: for the first time in the anime's long run, Team Rocket. Defeated. ASH. As a bonus, Ash had only recently defeated Kahuna Hala a couple episodes prior, without any Pokémon fainting, on the first try. So one of the biggest CMoAs from Ash thus far is then topped off by a victory from Team Rocket. This is also fitting: both parties were around since the show's beginning, so it's nice to finally see Team Rocket on equal footing with Ash for once, let alone actually beating him.
  • SM049 gives the trio a very good case to know Even Evil Has Standards when Faba enlists them in his plan to erase Lillie's memories. They proceed to chew him out on how wrong it is, pointing out the memories and experiences between trainers and Pokemon is vital to who they are, and then quit the Aether Foundation on the spot.
    Meowth: We may be the bad guys, but we're not bad bad! We put the "good" in "bad"!
  • In Sun and Moon they, at last, avert Villain Forgot to Level Grind by actually obtaining the series power-up mechanic. They get hold of a Z-Power Ring, two Z Crystals, and their Pokemon learn the attacks to correspond to it. Their first attempt at a Z-Move is even performed flawlessly, knocking out a rampaging Gengar. They even mimic Ash's victory pose after collecting their new spoils.
  • Z-Moves in fact seem to be the one element Team Rocket do their research on in Sun and Moon. Not only do they get their hands on the gimmick before half the twerps, but by Brock and Misty's second re-appearance they manage to equip their Humongous Mecha to withstand multiple Z-Moves.
  • In SM082, Team Rocket announce their arrival with a spectacular musical number, crossdressing for the first time in years and, it must be said, looking fabulous. While not awesome in the traditional sense, you have to respect their passion. note 
  • Their old standard "interrupt with giant mecha before inevitable loss" is turned on its head in SM103, when Lychee and Brock join forces to drop a Continental Crush Z-Move of Love on the mecha... which catches it. If not for Bewear's (un?)timely intervention, Team Rocket could actually have won.
  • An off screen moment happens in the episode “League Offenders and Defenders” when the trio were able to defend themselves from and scare away Team Skull.
  • After a whole series of bail-outs by Bewear and Stufful, Team Rocket finally return the favour in "Z Move Showdown". When Bewear finally meets her match with a Guzzlord, an indignant Team Rocket block the killing blow with their mecha, and after a hilariously dramatic rendition of the motto, jet Bewear and Stufful away to safety.
  • In the third episode of the Journeys season, Team Rocket are back to just being the trio plus Wobbuffet... then they get a vending machine sent from Giovanni through a Team Rocket Delivery Pelipper, filled with Poké Balls that contain special Pokémon chosen by Giovanni, from which they can get either one or two using Meowth's coin on his head. They get Gyarados and Tyranitar the first time it's used. And there's no learning curve, they know exactly what moves their Pokémon can use immediately. It helps that there are notes inside those Poké Balls that are sent out along with the vending machine Pokémon, stating what moves they can use.
  • In Episode 31 of Journeys, Team Rocket actually raided the Water Pokémon contest, with no prior warning throughout the episode. It showed them not missing a beat and actually stealing the Pokémon. Just to remind the viewers that, while very hammy, the trio can be threatening when they need to be.

Jessie and her Pokémon

  • Jessie's first Contest win (bonus points for beating Dawn, who didn't even get past the appeal)... too bad that shortly afterward there was a huge Tear Jerker for her Dustox.
  • The very fact that she manages to get all five Ribbons (though she technically only won three of them) for the Grand Festival — let alone place in the top four — really says something about how relentless she has become as a coordinator.
  • Her first showcase win in the Kalos showcases in "A Dancing Debut". While Serena's Eevee slipping mid-performance may have helped, Jessie's Pokemon and Meowth really pulled out all the shots. A rare victory against one of the twerps.
  • Like the Sinnoh contests, she manages to get all three necessary Princess Keys, which are implied to have all been earned legitimately, and reach the Kalos Master Class. It is left ambiguous whether she came in fourth or third, but at the very least she reached the semi-finals, and her final performance got raptures of applause.
  • When Serena holds a public performance to help with the public's spirits after Team Flare's invasion, Team Rocket spies on the act and consider whether to use the opportunity to steal Pikachu. A starstruck Jessie and Gourgeist, however, transform into costume and jump in to perform themselves. Compared to her Epic Fail first showcase, the audience goes completely gaga at seeing Jessie.
  • The "reason" she saves James by blasting the titular Ghost of Maiden's Peak with a FLAMETHROWER.
    Jessie: It's not 'cause of you. Girls like her disgust me. Always waiting around for her man as if she were his faithful pet. She can't stand the thought of losing him. She cries, but I say "See you later!".
  • In "One Trick Phony", Jessie gets the chance to battle using a Charizard. After making a fool of herself ordering a Poison Sting attack which Charizard, of course, doesn't know, she goes on to order a Dig attack, another move Charizard can't use (outside of teaching it to a pre-evolution). Only it uses it anyway. When Misty questions Brock about this, his response amounts to, "Man, I don't even know."
  • Jessie catching Seviper... by beating the crap out of it herself! And that was actually one of her more difficult catches. She caught Likitung and Pumpkaboo just by idly flicking a Pokeball at them. Why does she bother stealing?
  • Jessie getting second place in the Princess Festival. Think about all the other trainers she defeated using only Arbok and Wheezing without cheating (it's unlikely she used Meowth after his poor performance during her first battle). Lickitung also makes its mark by defeating all of Misty's candidates (bar Psyduck) with a single lick attack. Even Pikachu.
  • Arbok once made quick work out of a giant Pidgeot in order to protect Meowth and Pikachu.
  • Her Big Damn Motto at the end of XY063, shouted from atop a giant pile of rocks before the setting sun, is badass on its own. Now for context: The team's split up (again) and a poacher and his Rhyperior have James and Meowth cornered. Then a familiar voice rings out... James and Meowth shout at her to go back, to live a happy life, but Jessie's only response is to keep yelling out the motto.
  • A rare last laugh for Seviper in "Do I Hear A Ralts?". Not only does it fight Pikachu to a standstill, but when the heroes reveal the battle was a diversion for Max to escape with Ralts and begin mocking the villains, a livid Jessie responds by choking them all with Seviper's Haze while they get a headstart.
  • Gourgeist curb-stomping Clemont's Bunnelby with a single Leech Seed and Seed Bomb combo in "The Tiny Caretaker".
  • Mimikyu, in its first appearance, was able to hold off Pikachu. No, this isn't a case of Power Creep, Power Seep on Pikachu's part; Mimikyu is able to use its Disguise ability to shrug off Iron Tail (which would normally be Super Effective) and even protected Meowth from Electro Ball (Pikachu's potentially strongest move). And in close quarters combat, it pretty much has Pikachu outright beat!
  • Wobbuffet's first battle after (accidentally) getting traded to Team Rocket in "Tricks Of The Trade", delivering a Curbstomp Battle to Ash's Chikorita with just two Counters. The Terrible Trio are also Crazy-Prepared for most of their scheme beforehand. When angry customers realize they've traded their Pokemon for empty Pokeballs, they handily net them all and try to escape, and, knowing Ash will likely break free prematurely, dangle a net of fake Pokeballs under their balloon in anticipation of him attacking it, leading them to blast off with the real ones.
  • In "Freeze Frame" Wobbuffet uses Mirror Coat to tank two Ice Beams from an Articuno. The pressure knocks Wobbuffet back a little but it still deflects them both.
  • In "The Stolen Stones", the twerps have finally closed in on Team Rocket and have Arcanine use Take Down. Jessie sends Wobbuffet to charge at it with Counter. Wobbuffet wins. The twerps can't believe it.
  • Wobbuffet sets up Team Rocket's debut in XY, not only can he now skilfully dodge attacks, but his Mirror Coat is powerful enough to repel and almost knock out Pikachu. Clemont is so taken aback he suggests a tactical retreat. Froakie makes a save, but severely injures himself in the process.
  • Team Rocket is trying to earn a Z-Crystal from Totem Raticate. Meowth, Mareanie, and Mimikyu all get smacked aside. Then Mimikyu gets back up thanks to its Disguise ability and beats Raticate down using a combination attack of Play Rough and Wood Hammer together.
  • In SM073, Jessie ends up obtaining a Mimikium Z. It comes into play in SM076 after they are placed against Ash in a "trial" devised by Nanu. Mimikyu spends the majority of the battle in control and masters "Let's Snuggle Forever", only losing due to Pikachu suddenly learning Electroweb and using it to shield himself from harm and afterwards trap Mimikyu. Not to mention, midway through the battle, Bewear caught up with Team Rocket and was all set to haul them back. Mimikyu however, wanting to settle its score with Pikachu, glares it down. The usually unstoppable Bewear actually relents and sits quietly until the battle is over.
  • In SM091, Mimikyu goes berserk from overseeing Alola's Pikachu Valley. Jessie makes use of the situation by having it perform "Let's Snuggle Forever!" on the entire herd of Pikachu. Taking it even further, she keeps the Z-Move going by holding the pose, basically turning Mimikyu into a formidable net that Team Rocket try to lug away. No other trainer and Pokemon have been shown performing this feat with a Z-Move thus far.

James and his Pokémon

  • James directing the landing of the rocket in "Where No Togepi Has Gone Before!". He even throws in an Neon Genesis Evangelion Shout-Out by doing the Gendo pose!
  • It may have been mostly his definitive Funny Moment, but the Flaming Moltres ignited a spark in James that you don't see very often.
  • James spent 25 episodes of Best Wishes without any Pokémon, and yet still managed to use other skills to be formidable.
    • Notably, throwing a smoke pellet in order for him and his teammates to make their escape in episode 2 (the first time the "Pikachu's thunder attack sends Team Rocket blasting off again" cliche was broken!), hacking the security of the Anatomy Research Lab in episode 11, momentarily taking out the security system of Nacrene Museum in episode 15, and getting his turn to handle a destructive energy powered weapon in (the as of yet unaired) episode 24.
    • He then DOES get a Pokémon, a Yamask. In episode 33, Team Rocket are forced to retreat on jet-packs, but James decides "Heck with this, I'm taking them with us!" and uses Yamask to crash the heroes' flying machine.
    • A small but very awesome moment is towards the end of the Nimbasa City Subway two-parter. As Pikachu is getting angry enough to zap Team Rocket, James calmly and without a word presses a detonator and the train they're standing ontop of blows up. Team Rocket rises out of the smoke on their jetpacks and into Dr. Zager's helicopter to make their escape. Team Rocket's current motto theme playing at this moment helps to really sell it.
  • In "Holy Matrimony," James is being tortured by his fiancee (long story) Jessiebelle. Cue Growlie, the Growlithe that James owned as a child, instinctively coming to his rescue. He busts out of his heavily locked "doghouse" (a two-story mansion in its own right) with some help from Ash, Misty, Brock, Jessie, Meowth, and Pikachu, runs into the house, and springs in front of James to defend him. Jessiebelle orders her Vileplume to launch another Stun Spore attack, and James, (who's already paralyzed from the first time), tells Growlie to get out of the way. Growlie does, but first, he grabs James, carrying him on its back, jumps out the window, and runs back to the relative safety of the doghouse.
  • After episode upon episode of taking Jessie and Meowth's abuse, and their taking advantage of his fortune in "Holy Matrimony," it is somewhat cathartic to see James insult them back, calling both of them imbeciles.
  • James's Amoonguss managing to KO Pikachu with a single Body Slam.
  • In XY, James catches an Inkay using sandwiches.
  • Inkay himself being incensed enough to try and attack the Evil Malamar single handed in "Facing The Grand Design!". It later manages to resist mind control from them and leads a herd of its species to stop them.
  • One of Inkay's first power displays in "Grooming Furfrou!" Officer Jenny attempts to attack the trio with Manectric, which Inkay quickly deals with using Psybeam. The attack even confuses Manectric into attacking the heroes.
  • In "Party Dancecapades!" a disguised James is put into a team battle with Miette against Ash and Serena. Inkay and Slurpuff proceed to turn Pikachu and Eevee into roadkill until Eevee evolves into Sylveon.
  • In "Dressed For Jess Success", James is forced to pose as Jessilina in Jessie's place and face Dawn in a contest. Not only do people buy the disguise, but James wins the ribbon. Jessie even feels a bit put out that people may have preferred his take on her.
  • Before James' Koffing evolved, it managed to take down Brock's Onix (giant rock snake) in one hit with a simple tackle back in "Clefairy And the Moon Stone". Impossible in the games? Yes. But that's a lot of power for such a little guy.
  • James's weird confidence in "A Gaggle of Gadget Greatness" is nice to watch. The same thing applies to any time he shows off his skill with technology, as he's usually such an idiot that the audience really doesn't expect it.
  • James goes full-on Badass Normal throughout SM058, saving his Mareanie from a Tentacruel with a jump kick, and then fighting her Toxapex "Sempai" to a stalemate to prove his loyalty to her. When the Tentacruel strikes a second time, he this times grabs it by the tentacles and swings it into the horizon. This act was so astounding that the Toxapex fell in love with him too, doubling it as a Funny Moment.
  • Mareanie learns Knock Off in SM073 and later performs Black Hole Eclipse to deal with a Gengar that had been causing trouble in the episode. It managed to master the Z-Move with no hang-ups.

Meowth

  • Meowth defending his teammates in "Jumping Rocket Ship" by attacking Ash, and then defeating Barry's Empoleon (a Steel-type!) with a Slash. There was a bit of a Moment Killer afterward, but he made his mark concerning which side he was on. Besides, said Moment Killer involves him daring the heroes to blast him off, and then laughing it off all the way he is jettisoned into the air.
  • He defeated a Persian for the sake of his love Meowzie in "Go West, Young Meowth". Sure, he didn't get her in the end, but he had been awesome all episode.
  • "For The Love Of Meowth!": When Meowth falls in love with a Glameow, through his feelings for her, allowed him to take on Ash's Infernape and Jessie's Seviper at the same time, and WIN. Then he faced Ash's Staraptor, Dawn's Togekiss, and Jessie's Yanmega...and took out the trio with one Scratch attack. The background and everything only added to the awesomeness of the scene. Yet again there was a Moment Killer following it, but it was still cool.
  • His defeat of the Dream Thief in Best Wishes. The whole episode, poor Meowth just wanted to sleep but the thief's antics made it impossible for him. Finally, he's had enough, so when the thief offers him a chance to join him, Meowth slashes the guy to the point where his pants are torn off and he falls over. It's a comical moment, but Meowth makes it look badass.
    Meowth: AFTER EVERYTHING YOU DID TO ME, I WOULDN'T SIGN YOUR REPORT CARD!
  • In BW, the fact that he was able to trick the gang that he had been fired from TR in order to begin executing the Pokémon-stealing plan at Nimbasa four episodes later, mainly by sweet talking and flattering them, and showing off his skills as a Pokemon negotiator. The plan was so swiftly handled and a hair away from succeeding that it not only left Pikachu enraged how easily he got played, but actually left Ash and the other twerps, usually dismissive or complacent towards the trio's antics, openly admitting they had become their Worthy Opponent for a change.
  • Meowth in general: he is a very common, normal type Pokemon that, through The Power of Love, taught himself how to talk and walk on his hindlegs like a human. The only other two Pokemon in the series that can truly talk is Slowking from the second movie and Gastly from the Maiden's Peak episode, with the Legendary Pokemon only being able to talk through psychic powers and puppets. As he even explains to Iris, who is genuinely freaked out that a Meowth can do all that:
  • Meowth battling Brock's Onix... and winning via a bucket of water and Fury Swipes.
  • In "A Conspiracy To Conquer" there's a Malamar that is controlling the minds of both Pokémon and humans alike. When Team Rocket are cornered by it, Meowth stops himself from being controlled by scratching up his own face. He uses the same method to keep him and Ash in control during an Enemy Mine later.
  • In "A Frenzied Factory Fiasco!", Meowth No Sells a Thunderbolt from Pikachu and demands a battle for possession of all the heroes' Pokeballs he stole. After a crafty sneak attack by calling Pikachu's unused Pokeball fails, he quickly improvises a Fury Swipes for a Single-Stroke Battle. Though Meowth goes down with a thud to Iron Tail, this is the first time he so much as successfully landed an attack on Pikachu with his own raw skills. Pikachu even recoils in pain.
  • Meowth, despite his weak skills, is fluent with gadgets and so tends to be a formidable battler when given a machine to work with:
    • In "Pokemon Food Fight" Meowth battles Pikachu in his mini mech, the Mecha-Meowthinator, keeping the upper hand until a hungry Snorlax interrupts.
    • The title mech of "Mega-Mega Meowth Madness". Not only does Meowth use it to curb stomp Pikachu, with him and Chespin unable to make a dent on it, but the trio prove savvy by adding a back up power supply. It takes Mega Blaziken to defeat it.
    • In "Calling From Beyond The Aura" he and Wobuffet don "Mecha Evolution" power armour to enhance their battle power and curb stomp the heroes' Pokemon. It takes Korrina's Lucario again in its Mega Evolution to defeat them.
  • Meowth utilised a Tickle attack on a Rhydon, before it was even an official move in "Bound for Trouble" in an Enemy Mine with Pikachu, giving the latter an opening to Thundershock the electric resistant Pokemon.
  • In "Coming Back Into The Cold" he attempts a You Shall Not Pass! against Serena for an Amaura they captured. Unimpressed, she sends Fennekin to swat him away. Meowth however improvises Fury Swipes as a block attack against Fennekin's Hidden Power, handily slashing its energy into pieces like a ball of paper and snarls at them to back off. This actually intimidates them...until Aurorus steps in...
  • Despite his poor track record in Pokemon battles, Meowth sometimes proves talented in Pokemon performance contests. He creates an intricate heart display from just berries using Fury Swipes in the Dendemille Town Showcase ("Performing With A Fiery Charm"), makes an ice sculpture of Giovanni and Persian, and outdoes a Sneasel in a rock climbing contest in the Anistar City Showcase ("A Performance Pop Quiz"). Both cases help Jessie get into the finals. His recurring talents as chef also help Jessie win her first Kalos contest. As a bonus, he does most of these without a disguise, and still goes around unnoticed by the heroes (they even obliviously compliment him).
  • In one case Ash orders Pikachu to Thundershock the trio. Cue the usual charging animation with the stock zooming background; "Pi...ka...*CLUNK* Meowth placed him in an electric proof cage midway through. Probably the nearest Meowth has got to pwning his Arch-Enemy for once.
  • In "Meowth's Scrafty Tactics" he performs three separate heroics in one episode, just by acting as negotiator. He helps save Iris' Axew by distracting the Scrafty that captured it, he then helps out the Scrafty by wringing out its own dilemma with a Mandibuzz stealing its home, and then helps out the Mandibuzz by playing peace talker with its mate that dumped it. Sure it was all just so he could lure the heroes' into a trap later, but it was still a swift process to give three separate parties a Happy Ending.
  • A brief comical one, but Meowth doing a berserk Fury Swipes on Ash's Chimchar for attacking Jessie's Yanmega in "The Thief That Keeps On Thieving".
  • In the Johto episode "The Grass Route" Jessie enlists Meowth in a Grass-type themed tournament disguised as a Sunflora (again). When it's time to battle a rather cocky Ash, Meowth actually dominates Bulbasaur for most of the battle until Bulbsaur obliviously tears his disguise with Razor Leaf. For extra hilarity, Jessie even commands Meowth to perform a "Fake Out" pre-Gen 3. He does an accurate rendition of how the move would work.
  • While Team Rocket recurrently take precautions against Ash's birds popping their balloon, in "A Marathon Route", Meowth takes it the extra level by equipping it with mechanical arms that punch the daylights out of Staraptor.

    Characters Introduced in the Original Series 

General/Multiple Characters

  • In "Battle Aboard The St. Anne!" Team Rocket undergoes a massive operation to steal all of the Pokémon aboard. Ash and the others fighting back instead of just panicking inspires the rest of the trainers, causing them all to bring out their Pokémon and all work together to take down Team Rocket.
  • Ash, Misty and Brock jumping over a freaking drawbridge on their bikes (bouncing their bikes off of Team Rocket's heads to get them enough momentum to clear the gap) during a raging storm to deliver medicine to a sick Pokemon, it's no wonder the Bridge-Bike Gang adopts them as their new heroes over Team Rocket.
  • Brock and Misty coming back in Sun and Moon. And to top it off, they now have Mega Evolution! It gets even better: at one point in the second half of their arc, they strike poses similar to those from their first game appearances, and Brock even goes one step further by taking his shirt off for the first time in 20 years!

Ash's Pokémon

  • Butterfree:
    • Breaking a net full of other Butterfree by himself, finally winning the heart of the female pink Butterfree he had his eye on for the entire episode.
    • As a Caterpie it's the only Pokemon Ash has left in his first battle with Team Rocket. Still wounded from his earlier fight with Pidgeotto and Team Rocket mocking it and siccing Ekans and Koffing on him it unleashes String Shot and immobilizes both of them and then Caterpie which is among the smallest Pokemon listed rushes forward with a Tackle that sends both of them flying! And then when Meowth steps up to fight, Caterpie mummifies him as well.
    • Defeating a Pinsir as a Metapod...using only Harden.
  • Pidgeot:
    • Pidgeotto evolving into Pidgeot and confronting the Spearow from the first episode (now a Fearow), with Ash and Pikachu riding along for the fight. Beforehand Pidgeotto had been beaten down badly by Fearow. Ash, horrified, insists getting out another Pokemon so Pidgeotto can call it quits. Pidgeotto however, staggers back up and cries out fiercely in defiance of its injuries, sparking its evolution. It helps the episode had previously established that Pidgeotto would take any punishment for Ash. Even better, when it uses its newly-empowered Wing Attack - the move more resembles Air Slash than anything else, sending blades of wind through the sky to strike at Fearow. Then, Ash caps off the fight with a super-speed Quick Attack, sending Fearow packing in abject terror. It was so awesome they showed these clips in flashback form at one point (specifically, in the episode with Falkner, when Ash is reminiscing about his old friend).
    • Pidgeotto nearly beating Misty's Starmie in the Cerulean Gym battle before Team Rocket's interruption. If the battle had continued, Ash had a good shot at winning.
    • Turning the tables against Giovanni's gym Pokemon (on loan to Jessie) in Ash's Viridian Gym battle. Incidentally, Giovanni's Pokemon was a Rhydon, who has a type advantage.
    • A small but amusing foreshadowing when Ash tried to capture it. After throwing a Pokeball at it from behind, it nonchalantly swats it away with its wing without even turning its head.
    • Its first battle is essentially a two-on-one mugging by Team Rocket. It still proves its badassery since it takes a great deal of persistence for Ekans and Koffing to get the upper hand. Doubles as an awesome moment for Ash, given this was his first full battle (and a handicapped one at that), he proved surprisingly fluent with Pidgeotto's abilities and using them to counter the two Pokémon.
    • Pidgeot gets one last one in the final episode of Ash's tenure as the main character, JN147, where it performs a Big Damn Heroes to rescue Pikachu from Team Rocket after Ash forgets that he left his other Pokemon at Professor Oak's lab. Talk about a triumphant return!
  • Bulbasaur:
    • Learning SolarBeam after refusing to evolve. (Actually somewhat realistic, considering that Pokémon do learn moves earlier if they don't evolve.)
    • Bulbasaur's battle in the Kanto League against Jeanette. Truly one of Bulbasaur's finest hours as it took down not one but TWO strong bug Pokemon in a row despite the type disadvantage.
    • He wasn't too shabby in the match against Jackson/Vincent during the Silver Conference, either. First he defeated a Shiny Magneton - which had previously taken down Cyndaquil and Pikachu using a Thunder-Wave/Tri/Attack combo - by grabbing it with his Vine Whip and sending it spinning. Then he faces off against Vincent's Starter, Meganium, in what's essentially a grudge-match from earlier in the episode. During said match, they pull a tie...after having used the exact same attacks on each other - meaning Bulbasaur's strength as a first-stage matches that of a different final stage Grass Starter (while Vincent is clearly a bit of a ditz, he's not a pushover). Then they respectfully "shake hands" using their Vine Whip. Considering this battle was essentially Bulbasaur's last big hurrah (being near the end of the Original Series), it was a great way to cap off his entire character arc and development!
    • In Pace-The Final Frontier, Bulbasaur manages to snap out of confusion and defeat Brandon's Dusclops, the same Pokémon that defeated Charizard.
  • Charizard:
    • The Cinnabar Gym rematch got a ton of fans onto the Charizard bandwagon...not as if Charizard wasn't already a very popular Pokémon before it rose up out of a pool of lava and delivered an epic Seismic Toss from the sky.
    • As a Charmander, getting back at his abusive original owner, Damian, by deflecting one of his Poké Balls when he tried to catch him and then breathing fire in his face. Sweet revenge.
    • In "The Bridge Bike Gang" he made relatively quick work of a Golem that already effortlessly beat Bulbasaur. Keep in mind that Golem is a fully evolved Pokemon that has a type advantage against Charmander.
    • He had one of the most surprising evolutions in the series — a mere three episodes after becoming Charmeleon.
    • Charizard's role in the Ash vs. Gary battle is another very huge Moment of Awesome, if not overkill. Charizard is Ash's last Pokémon standing, and Gary still had three Pokémon left—one of which is Scizor, easily defeated thanks to type advantage, but the last two are Golem and Blastoise, both of which have an advantage over Charizard. It took much effort on Charizard's part, but yes, he did manage to beat them.
    • In "Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon", Charmeleon evolving into Charizard to take on Aerodactyl and rescue Ash. Even though Aerodactyl is bigger and has a type advantage, it flies away as soon as it sees the Charmeleon it bullied earlier has evolved and severely ticked off. Bonus points for being smart enough to plug his ears during Jigglypuff's song long enough to stay awake and rescue Ash.
    • What about its fight against Harrison's Blaziken in the Silver Conference? That was hands-down one of the most nail-bitingly close fights in the ENTIRE SERIES. By the end, it basically came down to who could still stay standing for longer. Even though Charizard lost, Blaziken was in no shape to fight during Harrison's next battle because Charizard tired it out too much.
    • Charizard is the first to fight Legendary Pokémon...twice. Okay, the first one, Entei, was not real, created from the figments of a movie character's imagination, but still very powerful, but the second, Articuno, most certainly was real. Charizard put up a very, very good fight against both; he was only almost defeated by the former (see Pokémon 3 for more on that), and he managed to defeat the latter. The fandom really made a big deal out of this one...
      • And before you try and lend the credit for his victory over Articuno to his type advantage, you can’t forget just how much Legendaries are on a different level. Gary’s Blastiose would later go up against Moltress with a similar type advantage and would not stand a chance.
    • His return in Episode N is a Moment of Awesome in itself, but also seeing him in the Opening popping up from nowhere, COMPLETELY NEUTRALIZING Reshiram's Blue Flare in the air, delivering his trademark Slasher Smile at Ash and going brawling with another Legendary.
    • Small moment (but still awesome) in the Johto episode "Fangs for Nothing". Team Rocket has managed to convince a wild (and powerful) Dragonite to help them in their scheme, and the Pokémon proceeds to curb-stomp the heroes. At the end of the episode, try to guess who makes an appropriate return? Basically, when Ash's Charizard comes back, you know something bad's about to go down. They don't call him GARizard for nothing!
    • In BW116, he effortlessly takes Iris's Dragonite to school. Special mention to the Death Glare followed by the roar he lets out after taking a Dragon Rush for absolutely no damage whatsoever.
    • "Charizard Chills". Ash regaining Charizard's trust was heartwarming, but what the dragon does when it happens: he rescues Pikachu from Team Rocket's drill, and after Team Rocket hurt Ash, he obliterates them with Dragon Rage.
    • Even though Drake's powerful Dragonite beat it in the end, Charizard arguably did more damage to it than any of Ash's other Pokemon. Charizard's prior victory over Electabuzz also deserves a mention.
  • Any time Ash's Squirtle whips out his Squirtle Squad shades. It's gotten to the point that the main characters have to mention the glasses. That's right, folks, the main cast have to announce their arrival. These glasses are the embodiment of a Moment of Awesome. Incidentally, those shades look like Kamina's... But Squirtle had them first.
  • Kingler:
    • Krabby sweeping the first round of the Indigo League in its first battle, evolving into Kingler in the process. The best part is that all of his opponents have some sort of advantage over him (Exeggutor with type, obviously, Seadra with speed, and Golbat's ability to fly).
    • In the 3rd Round match, Kingler KO'ing a Cloyster - that has closed its shell - with a tireless barrage of Crabhammer attacks. Brock actually announces this by declaring that Cloyster has run out of Hit Points, in a rare moment of the anime actually using the game's mechanics for once.
    • Kingler's Curb-Stomp Battle of Misty's Poliwhirl. His Crabhammer created legit whirlpools! He'd probably have beat her if Psyduck had not been sent out on his own accord and got squeezed into a headache of doom.
  • Primeape may have only been around for like four episodes, but definitely cemented his badass status upon winning the Fighting Pokemon Championship.
  • Muk curbstomping the superpowered Bellsprout that destroyed Bulbasaur and Pikachu!
  • Tauros:
    • Tying with a Metagross, a pseudo-legendary. Pikachu may have defeated a pseudo-legendary before him (two, in fact), but only with the help of other Pokémon. Tauros tied with Metagross, yes, but he did it on his own.
    • Tauros's participating in the fight against Drake. First, he takes down Drake's Venusaur all by himself, despite being a total rookie. When Ash sends him out against Dragonite, he uses the sandy arena floor as a cushion to catch a charging Dragonite in his horns, and then sends the mammoth dragon flying to land flat on its back. (Considering that Dragonite weighs approximately 210 kg (463lbs), Tauros must have incredibly strong neck muscles.) Tauros gets KOed by Thunder for his trouble, but along with Charizard and Squirtle he plays a major role in weakening the Dragonite enough for Pikachu to finish it off.
  • Snorlax:
    • If it's in the mood, it'll Hyper Beam/Body Slam/Ice Punch the hell out of almost any opponent, often taking down two Pokémon in the same match. First observed when it defeated Claire's Kingdra, way back in Johto.
    • During Ash's battle with Harrison, Snorlax comes out sleeping. Hypno uses Dream Eater. Snorlax wakes up very angry. Hypno realizes its mistake. Hyper Beam from Snorlax occurs. Let's just say Hypno won't be doing that again in a hurry.
    • It dodges Gary's Nidoqueen's Hyper Beam Matrix-style and then KO's her!
    • Single-handedly taking down Greta's Hariyama and Medicham after Grovyle was overpowered, despite type disadvantages.
    • In its very first battle it was able to match a giant Rhydon in strength and sent it flying with a powerful Mega Punch.
  • Heracross:
    • Its close combat battles with Shingo's Scizor and Nando's Kricketune.
    • Heracross proved itself a badass for the ages when Ash fought Gary in the Silver Conference. Despite a type disadvantage and being set on fire- it even took some point-blank Fire-type moves!- it defeated Gary's Magmar. Given who Heracross' voice actor is, this shouldn't come as much surprise. Regardless, awesome.
  • Bayleef:
    • Wrapping its vines around the mouth of Harrison's Houndoom to prevent it from using fire attacks and then defeating it.
    • She single-handedly overpowered all of Chuck's Pokemon. She out-fought a Machoke in physical combat!
  • Quilava:
    • Cyndaquil's shining moment used to be its rematch with Skarmory in "Hot Matches", but right before the Sinnoh League, it evolves into Quilava in a battle with TR. It then runs right under their machine with a roar and learns Eruption to destroy it!
    • Cyndaquil pwning Pryce's Dewgong. Underwater.
    • The battle with Jasmine's Steelix. Cyndaquil's flamethrower turns Steelix's sandstorm into a fiery vortex.
    • Right after being caught it was able to beat a fast and powerful Sandslash. It didn't even need to use any fire attacks!
  • Totodile defeating a Kingdra by biting it in the snout until it swelled up from its own water attacks and went flying like a balloon! Doubles as a Funny Moment.
  • Noctowl's redemption in the Sinnoh League. Firing an Air Slash straight into the face of Conway's Lickilicky, effortlessly dodging its Thunderbolt, and then smashing it into the ground with Extrasensory, all without skipping a beat!
  • Donphan taking down Lucy's Seviper while on fire.

Misty and her Pokémon

  • During the Mirage Kingdom two-parter, Misty (mostly) gets over her fear of Bug Pokémon by unleashing her Gyarados on them, one-shotting the villain's strongest Bug-type (Shedinja, a Pokémon notorious for its "Wonder Guard" ability, which negates damage from any move that it isn't weak against) with one Flamethrower attack. "I don't think. I know." indeed. Also, her Gyarados caused a magnificent Oh, Crap! to the previously smug Colonel Hansen just from him hearing Flamethrower ordered, and then ridiculed him by burning away one of his moustaches.
    • Right before that, Ash and co. (including her) are all looking a bit scared by what's happening. Then we get this close-up on Misty, as the look on her face instantly goes from scared to angry and determined. And then she raises her Pokeball and says, "Togetic, leave the rest to me." You know, right there, that some major ass-kicking is about to go down.
  • Aside from getting over her fear of Gyarados in a Chronicles episode, she takes three Poison Sting attacks for hers when it is unable to defend itself, finally gaining its respect and trust.
  • She holds Team Rocket off from Ash and Pikachu in "Pokemon Emergency!" despite having Pokemon that can't fight them. The sheer confidence in her attitude really sells it.
  • Misty's original CMOA was the whole 'trapped aboard the St. Anne' debacle. She both planned and implemented their escape, and was the one who told Ash and Brock to shut up and deal with it when they didn't want to work with Team Rocket. Also, her ordering Team Rocket to "move it or lose it!" and them (without a trace of irony) automatically replying "yes, Ma'am!"
    Misty: Call your Pokémon back!
    Ash: But Team Rocket will-
    Misty: Just do it! We've got bigger problems here!
    Ash: Yeah...*recalls Squirtle, Charmander, and Bulbasaur while Brock recalls Geodude*
    Misty: Team Rocket, call yours back too! What's more important, a Pokémon battle or your life?!
    Jessie: She's right. Good point! *recalls Ekans while James recalls Koffing*
  • Her Psyduck has a continuing series of them, happening virtually any time his headache gets bad enough to use Confusion. One of his most impressive moments was in "Lights, Camera, Quacktion", freeing about 24 trapped Pokémon from a net attached to a large crane, then hurling said crane over the horizon with one Confusion attack. In series, though, any instance of Psyduck using his powers is treated by the other characters as a CMoA.
  • A subtle form of awesome for Misty is how over time she's stopped trying to force her Psyduck to perform like a normal Pokémon and instead adapted her battling strategy to suit Psyduck's style. Psyduck popping out unexpected is no longer the automatic loss it used to be in the earlier episodes. Furthermore, her guest appearance in Sun and Moon indicates that she's managed to get quite a bit of training in, and Psyduck becomes a surprisingly competent battler in an exhibition Gym battle against both Steenee and Popplio.
  • Talking down a giant, rampaging Tentacruel. That took guts. And from the same episode, yelling at Nastina.
  • "The Misty Mermaid":
    • Her sisters guilt her into playing the part of a magical mermaid for their new show, and we soon see why: Misty is just as talented as her sisters are at water dancing, if not more so. The other girls even lampshade that she's bringing down the house.
    • Team Rocket tries to hijack the show by posing as the villains. Misty breaks character and grabs a breathing device, preparing to grapple with them. She knows they did something to her sisters who were the show's pirates and decides not to follow the script where the bad guys tie her up and interrogate her. The best part is that to the audience, it looks like it's All Part of the Show and heightening the suspense.
    • Her tug-o'-war against Team Rocket, with a net full of Pokémon at stake. Team Rocket could sic Pokemon on her a any time, but she won't let them steal her sister's Goldeens.
  • In "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak", her holding a cross in front of a Ghost Pokémon, not just because she stood up to one of the most powerful Pokémon types, but because in the 4Kids dub, this was one of the first moments where 4Kids broke one of their own rules concerning censorship, and not just by showing the cross, but with what the heck she said:
    Gastly: What is THAT?
    Misty: IT'S A CROSS.
  • The way she was able to use a wild Golduck without even capturing it in "Bye Bye Psyduck".
  • In "Just Add Water," Misty is captured when she pushes Psyduck out of the way of Team Rocket's machine. This infuriates Psyduck so much that he battles Team Rocket by himself to free her, and sends them blasting off with Psychic.
  • During the Orange Islands arc, Misty takes James on in a fair battle to get the medicine Ash and Tracy needed. Despite James putting up a decent fight (Victreebel did have the advantage) she wins without any help. Even better, when Misty realizes James just wanted some medicine to help Jessie recover from the same condition Ash and Tracy have, she leaves some of it behind for James.
  • In "The Totodile Duel", she has a Pokemon battle to determine who gets the Totodile. Ash sends Pikachu, which could easily wipe the floor with her water Pokemon, so she sends Togepi to use Charm. Knowing Pikachu would forfeit a match instead of hurting what he considers to be a younger sibling takes some serious planning. Sneaky tactic? Yes. Brilliant regardless? Definitely.
  • Her Poliwag was one of the first Pokemon besides Pikachu to overpower Jessie's Wobbuffet when used in battle, managing to knock him down despite using Counter. To punctuate within the same battle Wobbuffet had very easily countered Chikorita.

Brock and his Pokémon

  • Battling Team Rocket solo in "Leave It To Brocko". Yes, he gets minimal character development throughout the series, but he's still a Gym Leader. Not only that, the Pokémon he had at the time either had no effective attacks on Team Rocket's or were outright disadvantaged. Also, after Ash shows up to help him out, Brock actually refuses to let Ash steal his show. Earlier in that episode, he escapes from Team Rocket by distracting them with his cooking.
  • His first episode debut, where he gives Pikachu, who was practically a Deus ex machina up until this point, a Curb-Stomp Battle with his Onix.
  • His Dynamic Entry / Big Damn Heroes moment when he joined the others in Advanced Generation.
  • In Charmander the Stray Pokemon, Brock has a few moments of these:
    • Grabbing Damian by the collar of his shirt and demanding the punk to go get his Charmander out of the rain. One of few cases enhanced by the dub, since his actor's deadpan delivery turns it into a rather intimidating case of Tranquil Fury.
    • Later, when Charmander is in the emergency room, Brock doesn't move an inch until Nurse Joy comes out letting everyone know Charmander is okay.
  • Brock's Geodude No Sells a Zing Zap from Sophocles' Togedemaru, and then simply flexes and smiles afterwards while Togedemaru is gaping in surprise. Fair enough this is standard type advantage, but then Lillie commands Snowy to use Power Snow, which should be way more effective. Brock however, gets Geodude to use a Gyro Ball to deflect the entire thing, as a Call-Back to a strategy Ash had previously utilised. It seems Ash isn't the only one whose learned a few good tricks from his journeys.
  • In "Showdown in Dark City", he manages to drive Team Rocket out of a restaurant with just his Vulpix before Ash and Misty could have their Pokémon do anything. It actually gets the attention of the Yas gym, since the TRio was serving the Kas gym at the time.
  • Steelix:
    • Brock's Onix saving everyone from a sinking ship by simply biting down on a balcony to allow the others to use its body as a staircase. So simple, yet so effective.
    • As a Steelix, Brock's first Pokemon not only Mega Evolves, but it goes beyond. It becomes the second Pokemon in the anime to No-Sell a Z-Move. Not dodge, not have the Z-Move fail, just No Sell. The only other Pokemon to have done so is Tapu Koko, who had the benefit of being an Electric type being hit with an Electric Z-Move. Mega Steelix took an Inferno Overdrive to the face, which should do double damage, and still hit quite hard since even Mega Steelix's special defence isn't the greatest, but didn't even act winded.
  • Croagunk:
    • Brock's Croagunk is a solitary loner of a Pokémon...until Brock goes gaga over whatever pretty girl comes into his squinty-eyed vision. So now he's the one who has to restrain Brock; how does he do it? By tapping him in the ass with a Poison Jab and hauling him away. It just never gets old. It's also surprisingly powerful, even for a main Pokémon.
    • In the Tag Battle Arc, it slides under Paul's Torterra to dodge Ash's Staravia's attack, emerges from behind, and proceeds to use Brick Break to crack its head against the stadium floor! Granted, Torterra quickly beats Croagunk afterwards, but still...
    • At the end of the Team Galactic arc, it finally settles its rivalry with Saturn's Toxicroak by smacking it in the head with a Brick Break just as Toxicroak comes out of its Poké Ball, one-shotting it. Especially considering that Toxicroak took out Gary's Electivire and Umbreon earlier. With like, what? Two or three hits?
  • Happiny:
    • She gets one in her debut episode after plowing through Team Rocket's Meowth and Carnivine, grabbing Seviper by the tail (which, by the way, is practically a sword), and flinging it at Team Rocket to blast them off and save Brock's life.
    • Want to know just how strong Happiny is? She picks up a FROZEN POND.

Other

  • Gary and his Pokémon:
    • Gary's Umbreon gets one in its first post-evolution appearance. Ash and friends arrive just in time to watch its battle with an Alakazam - or, rather, said Alakazam gets its ass kicked. Keep in mind that at this point in the anime, Psychic-types were still depicted to be nigh-unstoppable to the point of near-omnipotence — but then Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors kicks in, making Umbreon completely immune to Psychic.
    • Most people use the Johto League Silver Conference fight as a Moment of Awesome for Ash, but Gary earned a ton of credit too putting up a really good fight against Ash. Starting the match by having Nidoqueen catch Tauros by the horns mid-charge and then beating him with a point blank hyper beam is a very good example. There's a reason that Gary still had half his team left when Ash was down to one (though it was unfortunate that that one was Charizard). Furthermore, this battle is also a case of being awesome in hindsight due to how much Ash and Gary grew in skill and emotional maturity.
  • Giovanni and his Pokémon:
    • In Black & White we finally see his Persian fight. It overpowers Pikachu with ease.
    • Giovanni taking an oversized Electro Ball by Pikachu at close distance and not having a scratch on him despite said attack disintegrating the spot he was standing on.
  • One-shot character Giselle earned herself a status as Ensemble Dark Horse for the following reasons: all of her advice, in spite of the harsh and back-handed way she gives it, is spot-on and useful; her Graveler annihilated Misty's Starmie with one hit in spite of the type disadvatage, and that was after pointing out said Pokemon was stronger than average; and she's the only female character about whom Ash ever showed attraction (Although this may be an example of Early-Installment Weirdness on Ash's part as his Oblivious to Love character trait hadn't caught on at that point). There’s also one for her back-handed advice: it netted Ash a badge. You see, in Giselle's episode Pikachu didn't have non-electric attacks yet, something Giselle both criticized immediately before taking shamelessly advantage of, but five episodes later Pikachu would use Quick Attack against Surge's Raichu to win.
  • The Gastly from The Ghost Of Maiden's Peak. It fools everybody with its illusions, spellbinds Brock and James, and in its debut battle, after shrugging off a blast from a bazooka, he owns everyone at the same time - defeating Pikachu by creating a giant, living, mouse trap; defeating Meowth by giving him a ball to play with; defeating Ekans by creating a giant (real world) mongoose; defeating Koffing by growing into a giant mongoose with a gas mask and stomping on him; defeating Charmander by turning into a fire extinguisher, and the cherry on top of the cake? Gastly defeated Bulbasaur and Squirtle simultaneously by creating a Blastoise and a Venusaur, and then, just for kicks, combining them together, creating "Venustoise". Epic. And do you know why he did it? Because he wanted to make sure people remember a 2000 year old legend. Badass all the way. He is only vanquished by the rising sun... Because he had already done what he wanted, get more people to remember the Ghost of Maiden's Peak, his friend. Also, he made some money by selling fake charms when he was pretending to be the Ghost and having cursed Brock and James.
  • Butch and Cassidy's second scheme in the Original Series involved using a Drowzee to mind control Pokémon. When amplified via a machine, it gave them complete control of every Pokémon on the island, and they used all of them against Jessie, James, and Ash and friends. Ash destroyed the machine powering Drowzee, but Butch ordered it to bounce its Hypnosis off of a satellite dish and control everyone again. Only Togepi's Metronome saved the day.
  • One that always stood out among the Indigo League was Ash vs. Blaine. Pikachu has just defeated Rhydon with the "Aim for the Horn" nonsense, and Ash is confident Pikachu can beat whatever Blaine sends out. Cue Magmar rising out a pool of lava beneath the gym with some of the most epicmusic in the entire series playing. Then cue Curb-Stomp Battle that nearly ends with Pikachu falling into the same lava pit.
  • Hey, there's a HUMAN CMOA in "A Chansey Operation". The ER Doc (Dr. Proctor) awakens after being drugged and he proceeds to scold Team Rocket. The CMOA comes when Jesse throws a glass bottle at him and he knocks the bottle aside with a surgical tool without skipping a beat and opens his labcoat to reveal a load of other tools, prompting this response...
    James: That's quite an arsenal.
    • When Dr. Proctor chooses to help Team Rocket's Pokemon, Ash attempts to call him on it. Proctor's response?
    Proctor: To a doctor, a patient is a patient. There's no such thing as good guys or bad guys. A doctor's job is to heal, not to judge.
  • In the episode Clefairy Tales, a bunch of Clefairy angered Jigglypuff by stealing its marker microphone. Later, when Jigglypuff caught up with the band of Clefairy, it single-handedly Doubleslapped all of them down with righteous fury.
  • In "The Kangaskhan Kid", when Team Rocket's Kangaskhan mecha (which is now on fire) starts chasing Ash and his friends, the parents of Tommy (the eponymous Kangaskhan Kid) crash their helicopter into the mecha, destroying both vehicles in a big explosion. It seems like they pulled off a Heroic Sacrifice, but his parents survive and join their son.
  • Surge's Raichu utterly destroying Pikachu, who up until that point had won nearly every battle it was in. Five words: "Give 'em the big finale!"
  • In the early episodes in Kanto, there was a gym leader named Sabrina. Ash fought her, and he was beaten without a thought by a Kadabra who had evolved at the start of the match. Then, Ash and co were shrunken and left at the mercy of said gym leader. So Ash tries getting a Ghost Pokémon, but that didn't keep Sabrina from turning Misty and Brock into dolls, and terrifying Ash and all his Pokémon so horribly that only Pikachu was crazy enough to fight her. And, naturally, not only did Pikachu lose, but literally nothing Ash or Pikachu did left even a small scratch on Kadabra. Ash only won because Sabrina started laughing, and so only bringing Haunter to Saffron City prevented the entire ordeal from being a "Shaggy Dog" Story (ending the anime itself on a Downer Ending). Say what you will about her, but Sabrina IS a crowning moment of awesome.
  • The Ash vs. Drake battle is a Moment of Awesome for Dragonite. It had ten attacks just to make it seem unstoppable, and defeated three of Ash's Pokemon (including Charizard) before going down.
  • While it wasn't Misty's Psyduck (much to everyone's disappointment), a wild Golduck shows its value during "Bye Bye Psyduck", using Psychic on Team Rocket with a single claw, and then letting off with one hell of a Hyper Beam...
  • Character of the day Pietra manages her own in "Right on Rhydon". After spending an entire episode chasing a surfing Rhydon around the countryside, having it divert the attacks of four water types at once, and saving it from Team Rocket, Pietra continues to demand it let her battle it. When it goes to swim off again, Pietra grabs on to the giant Pokémon and doesn't let go even after it dives into the lake, only giving up when it reaches shore after attempting to buck her out of the water a few times. After that, it relents and gives her a battle.
  • Absolutely everything about one-time character Orville the Pidgey. The episode is all about Orville achieving his lifelong dream, which just so happens to involve flying into space. The premise is every bit as ridiculous and scientifically impossible as it sounds, but its so off-the-rails that it's hard to hold a grudge.
  • Harrison gets one for being the first league trainer to beat Ash in a tournament without inconvenient rules. And even then, he still had to work for that victory, especially against Charizard.
  • In the video games, Gym Leader Falkner is a pushover Starter Villain. His anime equivalent had a much stronger team and pushed Ash to the very limit in their match. Notably, Falkner forced Ash to use his most powerful Pokémon in Pikachu and Charizard to even stand a chance. If Ash hadn't pulled an Indy Ploy at the last moment to turn Falkner's tactics back against him, Falkner would have won the battle.
  • Oliver rescuing Ash and the gang in "A Promise is a Promise".
  • Mimey gets to show off its battling skills in episode 7 of Journeys, managing to easily defeat a Hariyama.
  • The original Mewtwo making an appearance in Journeys and completely Curb-Stomping both Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace.

    Characters Introduced in Advanced Generation 

General/Multiple Characters

  • In "Off The Unbeaten Path", May and Max steal back the stolen prize of berries while Team Rocket recite their motto. The trio have a plan B, but only after throwing a lengthy hissy fit about the heroes so impolitely manipulating their beloved motto.
  • Before Ash's second battle against Pyramid King Brandon, both Ash and May are approached by Nurse Joy, who has photo albums detailing both of their respective accomplishments and asks for both of their autographs.
  • Blaziken vs. Sceptile. Great way to end Advanced Generation and send off May.

Ash's Pokémon

  • In Hoenn, when Thunder Armor was used. In the Mossdeep Gym battle, Ash comes up with the idea of making Pikachu ride Swellow and constantly shock it with a Thunderbolt. This somehow makes Swellow invincible and boosts its physical attacks. Considering that Ash had one of his Pokémon perform an electrical attack strong enough to take out anything on his own flying type, this should be insane. Somehow, it works.
  • Swellow:
    • Defeating Tyson's Donphan (stopping its Rollout completely, then tossing it through the air). Swellow in the Hoenn League was basically Ash's best Pokemon bar possibly Glalie, taking multiple victories against both Katie and Tyson and tieing one of Morrison's best Pokemon.
    • Its debut as a Taillow. It withstood multiple electric attacks from Pikachu and was barely weakened. Ash was forced to catch it to stop the fight.
    • He singlehandedly takes down one of Team Rocket's largest mechas, a Robo-Slaking, in a possible Shout-Out to King Kong!
    • Pulling off Thunder Armor against Tate and Liza.
    • Swellow's battle against Winona's shiny Swellow. It was able to counter Winona's Swellow's Aerial Ace in quite a unique way.
  • Sceptile:
    • Try the episode when the Frontier Brain Spencer is introduced, it's one CMoA after another for Sceptile. Ash and Sceptile (still in his attack-blocking Heroic BSoD) are attempting to survive the night in a forest full of Beedrill. The next day, Team Rocket captures Pikachu and Sceptile, and Ash jumps after them (while TR is on a balloon) and grabs onto the mechanical arm that was holding his Pokémon. The Rockets shake him off and he falls. Sceptile, seeing his trainer in danger, finally snaps out of his Heroic BSoD, cuts Pikachu and himself free from Team Rocket, and uses Quick Attack to catch Ash before they all fall to the ground, and then uses Bullet Seed to guarantee a safe landing. The injuries Sceptile received from fending off the Beedrill earlier finally took their toll, but Spencer has his Chansey heal him. While being healed, Sceptile reaches into the bushes nearby, and plucks out a new twig to use. Team Rocket doesn't stand a chance NOW...
    • Being the one responsible for the likely first defeat of Tobias's Darkrai. In an incredibly awesome moment, Ash has lost two mons to Darkrai. It's clear he is going to lose; Darkrai is too powerful and just wallops Heracross, Torkoal, and Gible with ease. Even after trying to outmatch Tobias by having Heracross use (the admittedly clever) tactic of turning sleep against Darkrai, he just can't get ahead. Then Sceptile comes in. The fight is much the same, with Darkrai walloping Sceptile before putting it to sleep. At this point, everyone's basically decided Ash was going to lose...then Sceptile hears Ash's voice, wakes up almost immediately, and in a desperate bid to beat down Darkrai and give Ash an edge, beats the heck out of Darkrai with Leaf Blade. This is badass for two reasons: first, Sceptile has just been given the honor of being the third Pokemon Ash has used to beat a Legendary/Mythical (The first being Charizard, who defeated Noland's Articuno, and the second being Pikachu, who defeated Brandon's Regice) cementing Sceptile as one of his best mons. Second...this is the first time Tobias has had a loss on his side. All through Sinnoh, up to and after his battle with Ash, Darkrai has destroyed the competition. Sceptile just beat IT. Not only is it amazing, Darkrai was using nothing more than Dark Void and Dream Eater, the latter of which restores Darkrai's HP, so any progress Ash made beforehand was undone. Sceptile basically took down Darkrai in his prime, showing just how strong Sceptile really is.
    • When Sceptile was just a Grovyle, it had a Moment of Awesome against Norman's very powerful Slaking. Arguably, the best gym battle in the Advanced series, Grovyle seemed doomed until activating Overgrow and becoming able to defeat Slaking.
    • Battling Katie's Ace Pokemon Walrein in the Hoenn Top 32: defeating it despite Ice Beam and its own speed being taken via Mimic, on top of a bulk and power from Walrein capable of no selling Swellow and Corphish back to back.
  • Corphish beating Katie's Golduck in "A Judgment Brawl" by spinning the hell out of it and hitting it with a Crabhammer in the chin. Oh, and it did this WHILE CONFUSED. Doubles as a Funny Moment.
  • Ash's Torkoal fighting Brandon's Registeel (a legendary) and almost defeating it! It should be known that this is the same Torkoal that was defeated by a single Scratch from Norman's Vigoroth and was easily defeated in almost every battle it was used in. Took a Level in Badass, indeed!
  • Glalie:
    • A non battle moment for Snorunt comes in 'Do I hear a Ralts' where doing something as small as freezing berries ends up saving Ralts' life. Doubles as extremely heartwarming especially since Snorunt seemed to like Ralts in general.
    • Snorunt jumping in the way of a TR attack on Pikachu...and evolving into Glalie when the smoke clears. The best part: It finally mastered the Ice Beam that it had trouble with using for several episodes.
    • Glalie's wins against Morrison's Metang and Clark's Charizard in the Hoenn League. Both wins truly solidified Glalie's status as one of Ash's hidden aces.

May and her Pokémon

  • Blaziken:
    • Torchic evolving into Combusken to defend Corphish from a pack of Breloom, doing a complete 180 in personality as it went into a physical battle with the Breloom leader.
    • In the Hoenn Grand Festival, Drew's Flygon blasts it with a Flamethrower in mid-air, but instead of plummeting to the ground like a toasty piece of chicken, it flings itself towards Flygon and proceeds to bash it the face with a Sky Uppercut...while on fire.
    • The Grand Festival battle in Kanto, with May using Tucker's Fire-Water Fusion and Combusken learning Overheat.
  • What about the May VS Grace battle in the Fallabor Town contest? May's Beautifly has to face a Medicham who smashed Drew's Roselia before. Beautifly managed to defeat it using some utterly amazing combos. The best part was when Beautifly got WRAPPED UP WITH STRING SHOT, THEN FROZEN SOLID WITH ICE PUNCH (which Beautifly is 2x weak against), and Beautifly breaks out of the ice as if it were paper. AWESOME.
  • After May and Max help Professor Oak rescue some stolen starters, May casually offers her Skitty's Blizzard as an option for chasing off the bad guys and Skitty performs flawlessly.

Max

  • Max may not have had any Pokémon, but that didn't stop him from sneaking around behind Team Rocket and busting their cage open a few times during their motto.
  • Landing a space shuttle.
  • Do I Hear A Ralts?: A fan favorite episode even among those who dislike Max. He finds his future Starter Pokémon and he earns it. Topping that off, Team Rocket—who earlier in the episode disguised themselves as an old man, Gardevoir and Kirlia—get hit with Psychic after Max has been thoroughly ticked off with them trying to take Ralts away from him again. He pretty much explains that Team Rocket is in trouble with one simple line. Bonus points since it's one of the rare occasions none of the heroes buy into a Paper-Thin Disguise by the trio, even Lampshading they're not that gullible when they try it a second time.
    Max: (with a combination of Scary Shiny Glasses and Cross-Popping Veins) Gardevoir...Kirlia...I know you ''dearly'' love your Ralts...then I'm sure you never want to let him fall into the hands of Team Rocket!
  • In the episode where Professor Oak is visiting along with a set of Kanto starters and the Pokemon get stolen by Team Rocket, along with some Hoenn starters, Max demonstrates that he has the move sets of all 6 Pokemon memorized. Let me repeat that; not only does he have the move sets for the starters of his home region memorized when he isn't old enough to be a Trainer but he also has the move sets for the starters of a completely different region memorized.

Other

  • The Breloom leader in "A Shroomish Skirmish" gets a moment. After seeing what Combusken can do (being sent into the wall of the canyon they're in by a Peck attack, then being smashed in the face with a Sky Uppercut), it proposes that they settle it hand-to-hand. One of the few instances on the show where an evolution doesn't mean a Curb-Stomp Battle. This Breloom is faced with an evolved Pokémon and it doesn't back down or suddenly undergo Badass Decay, it fights and fights well, managing to Cross Counter with Combusken to draw their fight.
  • Professor Cozmo helping Ash foil Team Magma's plans at Mt. Chimney. Considering how utterly helpless he is in the games, this was a nice change. Sadly, it also comes with a minor tear jerker since the only way he could foil Team Magma was to throw their laser into the volcano, also getting rid of the meteorite with it, deciding the meteor was better off in no hands than the wrong hands.
  • Ash vs. Tyson could be considered this. As far as Diabolus ex Machina trainers go in leagues, most of them tend to have at least one thing holding them back (sleeping equals KO for Ritchie, Tobias had legendaries, and Cameron speaks for himself). Tyson, however, had a perfectly balanced team and felt like more of an equal to Ash in terms of skill as a trainer. Both of them had to use their wits and their Pokémons' strengths to their advantage, outdoing each other at every turn. Heck, Ash even manages to take down a Metagross, a feat later replicated in Kalos. The kicker, however, is the climactic fight between Pikachu and Meowth; if Ash and Tyson weren't equals already, then this fight more than proved it. The two kept going at it, with both of them eventually bring one another near defeat and the rest of the battle playing out like the end to Goku vs. Master Roshi, with the first to get up being the winner and Meowth being the one to do it. Tyson earned his championship that day.
  • Steven's portion of the counterattack on Team Flare in X&Y. He rides in on Mega Metagross, saving Serena, Marin, and Team Rocket from Team Flare's attempt to shoot them down. He effortlessly defeats every single Flare agent trying to oppose him, researchers and grunts alike. He casually forces the grunts fighting Serena to recall their team by having Metagross pull them into the air. Steven is NOT happy about Team Flare conning him, and he's showing them just what a Champion's Mega Evolved Pokemon can do.

    Characters Introduced in Diamond & Pearl 

General/Multiple Characters

  • Much of Saikou Everyday counts, especially the parts with the legendary Pokémon.
  • One from "Memories Are Made of Bliss", which is mostly a Tear Jerker. After Team Rocket decides to be a Moment Killer and captures Togekiss, Piplup, and Pikachu, Ash, Dawn, and Brock come on the scene. While Team Rocket are in the middle of taunting them, Ash gives them a Shut Up, Hannibal! moment via destroying their balloon with Staraptor's Brave Bird. What follows can only be described as a complete beatdown, as Team Rocket doesn't land a single successful hit. The battle ends with Pikachu using Volt Tackle combined with Piplup's Hydro Pump, sending Team Rocket flying into the air.
  • The 3 part final showdown with Team Galactic has several, including J's defeat at the hands of Mesprit and Uxie, Croagunk getting revenge on Saturn's Toxicroak, and the heroes taking advantage of the qualities they share with the Lake Trio to calm Dialga and Palkia.
  • Ash's Monferno gets a joint Moment of Awesome with Dawn's Cyndaquil in "Bagged then Tagged" with their finishing moves against Lyra's Chikorita and Khoury's Croconaw. Firstly, Cyndaquill launches a Flame Wheel which is then propelled by Monferno's Flamethrower against Chikorita, then Monferno smashes Croconaw in the face with a brutal Mach Punch that sends him flying across the arena. Both feature perhaps the best animation seen in the anime outside of the movies.

Ash's Pokémon

  • Ash's entire Sinnoh team (excluding Gible) gets one in "Uncrushing Defeat!". After suffering from a crushing defeat from Paul in a 6-on-6 battle, which left his entire team wiped out and injured, Ash is, quite understandably, depressed. Team Rocket seeks to take advantage of this. However, by the time they put their plan into action, Ash's Pokémon had, despite their injuries, managed to snap him out of his depression. Needless to say, they're very surprised to see both him and his Pokémon standing proudly, their confidence renewed and their bond stronger than ever. Cue his entire team attacking Team Rocket with their best attacks at once.
  • Staraptor:
    • Staravia's evolution into Staraptor during a battle with Paul in the DP Pokéringer episode. After showing off some very impressive agility and aerial maneuvers, it proceeds to use its newly learned Close Combat right to Paul's Honchkrow's face! Considering the episode this was a callback to (in which Taillow evolved), Swellow is officially now the runner-up in terms of "most badass Flying type". Indeed, Staraptor using Close Combat was awesome enough on its own.
    • It was (barring Chimchar) the only Pokémon on Ash's team to defeat one of Paul's team in their (in)famous 6-on-6 match (and the first to deal a knock-out blow at all). Even if Paul was testing the water (so to speak) early in the battle, he didn't specifically plan for Weavile's defeat, and by the way, Staraptor pulls it off you can say with confidence that he earned that win.
  • Torterra:
    • Turtwig, immediately after evolving into Grotle (and getting curbstomped, as he can no longer utilize the speed he had in his earlier state), leaving the Pokémon Center in the middle of the night to train. Quickly turns into a Heartwarming Moment as Paul's Torterra (the final form of Turtwig) shows up to tutor Grotle (independently of Paul, of course.)
    • By learning Rock Climb, he freaking runs through a canyon's wall towards Team Rocket, growling at them menacingly; they just go way above the canyon, and Grotle jumps to the top of the canyon, then proceeds to jump once more god-knows how many feet above the air and goes through the balloon, making a huge explosion as he falls down to the ground without a scratch.
    • While still a Turtwig, he grabs the tail of Roark's Rampardos while in midair, and somehow throws that rock dinosaur many times his size into a wall! And how he actually defeats Rampardos is also pretty awesome. First, he runs forward while constantly using Razor Leaf, which Rampardos keeps burning. Then, the leaves produced create a veil which covers him, followed by Ash ordering him to jump and spin. When Roark orders a countering jump, Rampardos does so...and then we see Turtwig spinning sideways and under Rampardos, whose upward momentum leaves its torso completely exposed to a single, high-powered Razor Leaf and it falls to the Gym field's floor with a slam, knocked out. Bad. ASS.
    • Despite becoming a victim of The Worf Effect after completing his evolution, Torterra still gets a decent showing against Bertha's Hippowdown.
    • Torterra fighting Paul's Drapion, who defeated Buizel and then easily took out Staraptor. First, he hits Drapion with an Energy Ball that overpowers its Cross Poison and then with a Leaf Storm. Then, he healed himself with Synthesis after taking a Poison Fang in an attempt to use Rock Climb. Although Torterra was defeated by a super-effective Pin Missile, he did a great job weakening Drapion, allowing Gliscor to finally finish it off.
  • Buizel:
    • Buizel vs. Maylene's Lucario.
    • It gets one before it was even caught, singlehandedly defeating Piplup, Glameow, and Pikachu on the first encounter.
    • Its very first Contest Appeal in the Wallace Cup.
    • In "Short and To The Punch", over the course of one day, he manages to master Ice Punch and defeat a Mr. Mime that had completely overpowered him previously with one hit. Keep in mind that training to learn new attacks (like when Pikachu was learning Iron Tail) usually took several episodes.
    • It didn't do much in the long run, but freeing himself from the grip of Paul's Drapion by inflating his flotation sac and launching himself into the air with Water Gun. (Too bad he never learned that "hover in the air with his tail" trick used by another Buizel during a contest...)
    • Defeating Crasher Wake's Floatzel with a close range Water Pulse.
  • Infernape:
    • Chimchar finally shaking off its phobia of Zangoose to beat three of them at once!
    • Fire Counter Shield against Fantina, beating not one but two of her three Pokémon.
    • This goes from Heartwarming right into Awesome: At the end of Ash's 6 on 6 full battle with Paul, Chimchar is the last one remaining on Ash's side. After it manages to defeat Ursaring, Ash gives it some encouragement...and to confirm the trust that the two now have in each other, Chimchar evolves. The awesome part comes when Monferno shows off Mach Punch and the shockwave blows right past its old trainer. Hell yeah. Not to mention the WAY it evolves. It poses while evolving to epic music playing in the background. It then gets two moments during its fight against Paul's Electabuzz. The first, using its Mach Punch to speed up to Electabuzz faster than it can react, then slugging it in the gut and throwing it into a rock. Then another where it uses Dig to get away from Electabuzz, then pops up out of the ground right below it, slamming its fist into Electabuzz's chin in an uppercut so epic that it causes an explosion.
    • The Snowpoint Gym:
      • It burns the crud out of Abomasnow, who easily wiped out two out of four of Ash's Pokémon...while riding on a slab of ice like it's snowboarding.
      • Perfectly sensing Snover in the steam and hitting it square in the gut with fire. Turns to heartwarming when it's implied that it worked simply because of the bond Chimchar and Ash have.
    • Snapping out of its second Blaze-induced Unstoppable Rage and evolving into Infernape to save Pikachu, Piplup, and Barry's Empoleon (with an impressive Flame Wheel from its new fire crown). He doesn't fully snap out of it immediately, though. Moments before evolving, while in the middle of his rescue attempt, Monferno is controlling Blaze.
    • "The Eighth Wonder Of The Sinnoh World", when Ash battles Volkner. Each is down to their last Pokémon, Infernape and Luxray. Infernape reaches critical status and is lying on the ground. Due to Team Rocket fooling with the system, the lights are out. Ash is calling desperately for Infernape to get up. He does, and Blaze activates, Power Glows, Power Echoes, Glowing Eyes of Doom, Red Eyes, Take Warning, the whole bit. As Brock explains, Blaze has been an unpredictable and dangerous factor since the days of Chimchar. Instead of attacking Luxray, Infernape turns and stomps toward Ash. Seeing this stalking toward you would be enough to freak out anyone. Pikachu moves to defend Ash, even knowing he's probably screwed if this breaks bad, since he was fainted by Luxray a few minutes ago. Ash calls him off and, completely devoid of doubt, just talks to Infernape, who nods his assent. The Heartwarming Moment turns quickly into a Moment of Awesome as Infernape, totally in control of Blaze, takes Luxray to school, handing Ash the win.
    • The end of the tournament battle between Ash and Paul — it's just Infernape vs Electivire; just as it seems Ash is beaten and Paul is insulting Infernape for losing after getting poisoned and battling other mons while Electivire was mostly fresh, Blaze activates in its most glorious instant yet. The resulting Flamethrower was more a Flarethrower than anything, to say nothing of Flare Blitz. The column of blue fire it created likely covered the arena and blew up Electivire one extra time just for emphasis. All this was set to the wonderful Type:Wild.
    • Chimchar gets one in Losing its Lustrous, though it's more of a Taking the Bullet moment. As Pikachu closes in on Toxicroak with a Volt Tackle, Saturn orders Toxicroak to use Poison Jab. It would have hit Pikachu had Chimchar not shoved it out of the way, causing Toxicroak to unintentionally unload Poison Jab directly into Chimchar's face. It may have been painful, but did Paul ever inspire such loyalty? NO.
  • Gliscor:
    • Gliscor saving Ash from being crushed to death, winning the Single-Stroke Battle with Team Rocket's Gliscor-Bot after evolving... and glomping Ash as it lands. Same old Gligar!
    • Its first battle against Barry's Roserade. Close-combat ass kicking FTW. And the fact that it draws doesn't diminish the fact.
    • Its first gym battle in Canalave, beating Byron's Bastiodon then doing its routine cuteness at the end of the episode.
    • Defeating Paul's Drapion, which had already beaten Buizel, Staraptor, and Torterra earlier.
  • Gible finally mastering Draco Meteor and taking down two of Conway's Pokémon with the move! With Mezase Pokémon Master playing in the background, no less.

Dawn and her Pokémon

  • The Contest battle between Dawn's Ambipom and Lila's Delcatty. To put it mildly, Thunderbolt + Swift equals small galaxy.
  • Despite nervous from losing the appeal rounds in two previous contests, Dawn is able to use Ambipom's abilities to score a ticket to the path to the battle rounds in the Wallace Cup — bonus points for dumping water on James and Meowth of Team Rocket. (Jessie wasn't there, she was in disguise as Jessilinda.)
  • The fact that she ultimately wins over May of all people at the end of the Wallace Cup is truly remarkable. For several episodes prior, Dawn was so broken and disappointed with her back-to-back appeals losses that she even considered quitting contests. The fact that she won over May, a highly experienced trainer who managed to make it very deep into the Hoenn AND Kanto Grand Festivals during the point the viewers watched her own journey back in the Advanced Generation series makes the win even more significant.
  • The comeback against Ursula — despite suffering brutal public humiliation — to win her fifth ribbon. This includes finally mastering Cyndaquil and Mamoswine's Flame Ice combination.
  • Togekiss vs. Jessie's Yanmega. Dawn manages to turn the troublesome trait of her new Pokémon to her advantage in this great aerial fight.
  • The Grand Festival Finals. We have Piplup's charged Peck and Togekiss' Sky Attack combine to create a literal God Bird, with Dawn's Image Song playing in the background. Dawn may not have won, but she made it all the way to the finals and gave Zoey as good a battle as Nando did, and she's rightfully proud of that.
  • Piplup:

Other:

  • Saturn and his Pokémon:
    • Saturn's Toxicroak got its Moment of Awesome in "Losing Its Lustrous". Sending Brock's Croagunk crashing through a glass ceiling straight to the floor is awesome enough...but then (in one of the most spectacularly animated parts of the entire anime), it dives down through the aformentioned ceiling and delivers a forceful and extremely painful-looking Poison Jab straight to Croagunk's gut...awesome. Hell, Croagunk's even out cold for most of the following episode!
    • Toxicroak's introduction was a moment of awesome for both him and Saturn. Saturn calls it out to attack Team Rocket WHILE THEY'RE RECITING THEIR MOTTO!
  • Early in the Sinnoh arc, Ash and Dawn challenge the B-Button League, who refuse to evolve their Joke Character Magikarp and Feebas. The most glorious moment a Magikarp ever experienced.
  • Brandon's battle with Paul in "A Pyramiding Rage" is very cathartic for those of us who got really tired of the purple-haired jerk. Said jerk challenges Brandon (without defeating the rest of the Frontier Brains like Ash did). Brandons accepts a six-on-six full battle and proceeds to decimate Paul's team with just his Regis, not losing a single one (even with repeated type disadvantages) and one-shotting several of them. All three of the Regis get their own moments to stand out. Registeel tanks/no-sells several supereffective attacks. Regice defeats Lairon before it can even attack, and doesn't take a single attack during the battle. And Regirock alone takes out four of Paul's Pokemon. And he spends the entire time mocking Paul and his "might equals right" philosophy. And this also spells out how awesome Ash is since he beat Brandon.
  • The end of the Zoey vs. Nando match in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. Mismagius' Psywave created HUGE BATTLE WINGS for Leafeon to assist the battle with a winning Aerial Ace. That episode alone defined Zoey and Nando as two of the best Coordinators the anime has ever seen. Even if Zoey won, this is one of the only battles where it's a CMoA for both Trainers, not just the winner. Even Fantina acknowledged it.
  • As far as rivals are concerned, Zoey winning the Grand Festival is an awesome moment, as she's as of now the only major rival to ever win a major competition.
  • At the end of Barry's losing battle with Paul, his Empoleon takes Electivire's Thunder directly and faints standing up. Indeed, the fact that he was able to actually give Paul a challenge (Curb-Stomp Battle or not) counts, and he even gets Paul to compliment him on a good battle. Considering that until then, Paul has had nothing but contempt for people that lost to him, that's BIG.
  • A Bibarel gets one in Bibarel Gnaws Best by breaking free from a cage made out of material shown capable of withstanding the combined attacks of Chimchar, Buizel, Turtwig, and Sudowoodo (a combination that previously broke and carved up rock) with ONLY ITS TEETH. It also attacks a Rhydon, standing up to it as well as a Magmar, Aggron, and Metang all at once. Considering the situation, it didn't do too badly, either. Granted, it still needed Ash and co's Pokémon to help it out of that jam, but that beaver's got guts.
  • Let's give Paul's Pokémon some credit. They thoroughly destroyed Ash in their first full battle, with his Ursaring taking out three of his Pokémon single-handedly. Also, despite Paul's brutal training methods, they were visibly upset when he lost to Ash.
  • The battle on TV between Cynthia and Flint in "Memories Are Made of Bliss". Flint actually puts up an impressive fight, hitting Cynthia's Garchomp multiple times with Close Combat and Mach Punch.
  • Despite his extremely limited screentime, Nando managed two moments that were pretty awesome in their own right: getting eight badges and five ribbons in time to qualify for both the Grand Festival AND the Sinnoh League, and staying completely calm under false arrest and interrogation in "A Secret Sphere of Influence". When Ash and friends expressed shock at seeing him as a suspect in the theft of the Adamant Orb, he cheerfully greeted them like it was nothing, even expressing that he was innocent in his typical sing song voice.
  • The DP: Galactic Battles episode "Stealing The Conversation" had an Officer Jenny take down criminals using only her Chatot and bowling balls.
  • The Lake Trio taking out Hunter J in “Needs of the Three.”
  • Everything about Hunter J herself was class-5 badass. In her first episode, she wipes out Ash and co., steals Pikachu successfully, annihilates Team Rocket to the point that she won’t even let them do their motto and then takes off in her helicarrier. Ash and co. sneak on board, helped by Team Rocket, because there’s utterly no question of who the real villain is here, and when Hunter J notices, she jettisons the entire room while they are hundreds of feet in the air, not even caring about the lives of her own men still in it.
  • Ash's first proper Ultra Class battle in Journeys is against Sinnoh Gym Leader Volkner, who proceeds to show just why he's the final Leader of that region by skillfully utilizing Electric Terrain/Rising Voltage and Thunder Wave/Hex combos. Volkner had a heavy edge during the battle — Ash had to really work for this win.
  • Also in Journeys, Ash finally has an official league battle with Cynthia, and as expected she is nothing short of dominating. She starts the battle with Spiritomb, which defeats Dragonite and Gengar even though she also constantly switches it out, confusing Ash since she's essentially just letting it take damage. The reason? It knows Destiny Bond. Her target? Pikachu. Cynthia knows who the biggest threat is and planned half her strategy around getting rid of him immediately, depriving Ash of his ace plus two others before she even sent out Garchomp. The Sinnoh Champion knows exactly what she's doing.
    • Cynthia's Togekiss proves to be an excellent tank. When Lucario mega evolves and deals massive damage, it still going strong. Cynthia Dynamaxes Togekiss, in which she deals even more massive damage, Lucario keeps going, even dealing a massive Aura Sphere that took out Raihan's Gigantamax Duraludon in one hit, and Togekiss is still standing, albeit no longer in Dynamax state. One final flurry of punches later was enough to take it down finally, but it really tired Lucario up.

    Characters Introduced in Black & White 

General/Multiple Characters

  • In "Movie Time! Zorua in The Legend of the Pokémon Knight!" the main characters are trying to film a movie. Just as they're acting out the climax, Team Rocket interrupts. Cilan immediately ad libs (by "magically" casting off his previous role as an evil pirate and turning into a superhero-like character) and leads everyone else on a climatic showdown with Team Rocket, adding several plot twists and an awesome climax to the originally standard and cliched plot that was first planned for the film. Even with their new competence that in past episodes have made fights with them rather difficult, Team Rocket didn't stand a chance, their only saving grace being that they were able to retreat using their jetpacks before they got thoroughly thrashed.
  • BW050 has several highlights for the stolen Pokémon, especially Pikachu, who was masterminding the breakout and the subsequent disruption of Team Rocket's latest attempt at grand theft Pokémon.
    • Aiming an Electro Ball at Snivy's ball was the start, as it allowed for Snivy to covertly release any Pokémon Pikachu needed to conduct the breakout.
    • Excadrill destroying Pikachu and Axew's cages was next, allowing for full movement.
    • Pikachu remembered that Dwebble's corrosive acid (usually used for molding and repairing its rock shell) could eat through the metal of the train door, and let Dwebble go to town.
    • The captive Pokémon severing the train and shifting their car down a different track, forcing Team Rocket to back up and give chase.
    • Their subsequent staving off of Dr. Zager's crane arm, stalling for time so Ash and co. could board.
    • When the twerps finally board, they use several attacks as a makeshift booster to further throw off Zager's aim. Tepig gets bonus points for upgrading from Ember to Flamethrower in the process.
    • Finally, a Leaf Storm to the chopper blades and an Electro Ball to the crane arm, demolishing the entire plot. The only way the twerps could have scored a more thorough victory was to ground the chopper and force Zager onto the Party Train.
  • Dragonite, Pansage, Cynthia's Garchomp, and Larry's Golurk holding off the Kami trio. Despite being visibly battered they hang on for about half the episode and remain standing through it all.
  • Ash & the gang stopping Team Plasma from escaping in "What Lies Beyond Truth And Ideals" First Reshiram destroys their plane so they can't use it to escape by air. Then, after a Kirk Summation from N, Ash & Cilan use Krookodile & Crustle to trap them in a ring of rocks. Then finally Iris uses Dragonite to freeze the rocks, so they can't climb over the rocks.
  • Ash vs. Iris in Journeys - Alola Champion vs. Unova Champion. It ends up being one of the closest calls in the series to date, with the winner only being determined based on if one crucial attack from Ash's Dragonite lands on Iris' Haxorus or not. (It does.)

Ash's Pokémon

  • Multiple Pokémon:
    • In "Scraggy — Hatched to Be Wild!", Scraggy goes to try and defeat a pack of Galvantula in a fit of pique. This isn't going well, and Scraggy is surrounded by hostile, powerful Pokémon. It looks like the newborn is about to be on the receiving end of a tremendous beating; that is, until the rest of Ash's Unova Pokémon arrive on the scene and unleash one of the finest tag team beatdowns yet seen upon the Galvantula, forcing them into a hasty retreat. Scraggy, which up to this point had been a violent, loudmouthed asshole, is shocked into a strangled silence.
    • Ash's (on-hand) Unova team working together to dig out of the White Ruins.
    • The joint blast-off of Team Rocket in the Unova arc finale, especially seeing as the size of Ash's Unova team means there hadn't been many opportunities for the entire group to work together prior to this.
  • The last stretch of Ash's match with Skyla — Tranquill evolves into Unfezant and wins an Animation Bumped aerial battle against Swanna.
  • Oshawott:
    • Oshawott finally learning to open his eyes underwater, mastering Aqua Jet in time to give Palpitoad a curbstomping. Made even more impressive by Palpitoad's EPIC Oh, Crap! right before getting hit.
    • His battle against Clay's Krokorok was impressive. It was able to use various moves, such as Water Gun, Aqua Jet, and Razor Shell to defeat it with little effort...double points for it being the type advantage.
    • His battle against Cilan's Pansage was pretty cool too, once he got his act together. Blocking a Solar Beam attack with his scalchop is no mean feat.
    • Singlehandedly saving Pikachu and Axew from Team Rocket in his second appearance.
    • While he was ultimately defeated, he did better against Cameron's Hydregion than Boldore did. A note if nothing else that the 'watt is capable when the author lets him be.
    • His final battle against Ceasar, a male Dewott he was competing with for Osharina. Unfortunately, he Did Not Get the Girl, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Oshawott was the stronger one.
  • Pignite:
    • Tepig evolving into Pignite and proceeding to kick the crap out of his jerkass former trainer's two Pokémon by himself. Then when Shamus asked him to come back to his team, Pignite sees through his deception and blasts him with Flamethrower.
    • As a Tepig, his first battle against Chili's Pansear was this for him. He managed to defeat the more experienced monkey with lots of gusto, and began the first steps of proving Shamus wrong.
    • Managing to finally take down Cameron's Hydregion and allowing Ash to take control of the battle with Cameron until the Deus ex machina started up.
    • The whole episode centered around its wrestling matches is a CMOA for Pignite.
  • Snivy:
    • Snivy is made of this trope, especially in BW057. After her loss at Elesa's Gym, seeing her calling out the Gothita in this episode for her self-centredness - followed by Pwning her the next day in battle — was particularly satisfying. How her concern and care drives her to watch out for the younger Pokémon — also seen when she started her rivalry with Emolga — is heartwarming as well.
    • In the double battle against Tepig's former trainer, she takes a full Heat Crash from an Emboar and is still able to keep battling. And later she takes a Fire Spin-powered Flare Blitz meant for Tepig (who was in a Heroic BSoD).
    • Managing to completely take Clay's Palpitoad to town with a Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • Holding her own, and slowly taking control, of the battle with Cameron's Riolu....at least until it evolved. It isn't hard to imagine that without that, she'd have won the battle for Ash right there and then.
  • Scraggy one-shotting a Mandibuzz with his newly learned Hi Jump Kick.
  • Leavanny:
    • Sewaddle (later Swadloon) regarding his effort against Burgh and his Bug types. After Burgh's Dwebble defeats Tepig (who has a type advantage), Sewaddle not only defeats Dwebble, he evolves mid-fight and kicks Whirlipede's ass, too (take note — this is the first time one of Ash's Pokémon has evolved in a Gym Match, ever.) He did get beaten in the next round, but he was facing his evolved form (who had fricking Hyper Beam!) and still put up a decent fight nonetheless after battling two other opponents in a row.
    • As Leavanny, his mad dodging skills and No-Holds-Barred Beatdown against Stephan's Sawk. He eventually lost that one, but he still put up an impressive fight.
    • Managing to defeat Roxie's Koffing, despite the type disadvantage.
  • Boldore:
    • Roggenrola evolving into Boldore, and then having a Rock Smash to Rock Smash battle to finish off Clay's Excadrill. This moment is made even more awesome by the BGM. Excadrill is the last Pokémon Clay has, and Roggenrola is Ash's last Mon standing as well and is, frankly, getting its ass kicked — only not getting OHKO'd because of its Sturdy ability. Then suddenly, in an awesome sequence, it begins to evolve with the sound of one lone timpani drum as the underscore until it completes its evolution and the full score kicks in — which is a full orchestral remix of the Gym Leader's Last Pokémon theme. And you just know that Boldore is about to kick some serious ass.
    • Roggenrola gets one in his debut episode. When Team Rocket is about to fire their Roggenrola-powered BFG at the twerps and Garrison Roggenrola blocks the blast with its own Flash Cannon attack. Team Rocket's machine was drawing power from the several Roggenrola they had managed to capture beforehand, but he countered the blast all by himself!
  • Krookodile:
    • Krokorok evolving into Krookodile and using his new Dragon Claw attack to send Iris's Dragonite flying across the arena. He then proceeds to put a stop to Dragonite's resulting tantrum.
    • Pushed to his limit in the Unova League and at a type disadvantage against Stephan's Sawk, all seems lost until he unleashes his newly-learned Aerial Ace. Stephan's Oh, Crap! reaction really sells it.
    • Defeating Brycen's Beartic via a Single-Stroke Battle while dual wielding his own Stone Edge!

Iris and her Pokémon

  • Iris herself. As a child, she was fighting Pokémon bare-handed and this — coupled with saving his life - is how she befriended Excadrill (then a Drilbur). Iris must've been, what? 8 years old? On top of that, the duo won 99 battles in a row after that, with the first person to defeat them being Drayden himself.
  • How Iris defeats Stephan in the Club Battles, during BW043. Emolga has no Flying type attacks (which would be super effective against Sawk), and Sawk knows how to use Close Combat to repel Attract. So when Sawk is affected by Emolga's static, Iris simply uses Emolga's strengths and a genius tactic to win - an Attract barrage until Static paralyses Sawk, and then a powerful Volt Switch which outright faints Sawk (who had also been greatly weakened by the constant use of Close Combat). What makes it better is that Iris and Emolga agreed not to use Volt Switch early because Iris wanted to enjoy the battle rather than have an easy victory - and they still won!
  • In "The Path That Leads to Goodbye," Iris pulls a Big Damn Heroes and saves Ash's Pikachu from Team Rocket by ordering Axew to use Dragon Rage.
  • By the time of Pokemon Journeys, Iris has uprooted Alder as Unova's Champion. Remember that this is the anime, where Iris was never a Gym Leader, meaning she had to: 1. Beat at least 8 Gym Leaders, including her mentor Drayden. 2. Win the Vertress Conference, something Ash couldn't do. 3. Battle and beat the Elite Four, and finally 4. Beat Alder, the former strongest trainer in the region. Clair must have really left an impression on her.
  • Iris first round opponent in the Masters Eight tournament is none other than Cynthia, but she is able to turn what fans expected to be a Curb-Stomp Battle in Cynthia's favour into one of the best battle the franchise has to offer in its two decade run, even forcing Cynthia to use Mega Evolution, and even then, Iris can match her evenly even without the use of any special mechanic, except her phenomenal bond with her Pokemon.
  • Excadrill:
    • You have to admit, Excadrill taking down a Scolipede, even though it was for its own personal reasons, was pretty awesome.
    • Once Excadrill regains his loyalty to Iris in BW036, the drill mole pierces the heavens and fights Georgia's Beartic to a draw in the rematch.
    • His battle with Pikachu in BW044 was absolutely brimming with epic. Excadrill might have a type advantage, but this is the God Mode Chu we're talking about. Pikachu didn't perform too badly either, despite losing.
    • In Journey's episode 117, despite battling with a type disadvantage and outmaneuvered by Cynthia's Gastrodon, he manages to take it out with a Horn Drill, earning Iris' first victory against the indomitable Sinnoh Champion, with what seems to be Cynthia's first on screen loss.
  • Haxorus:
    • Axew finally mastering Dragon Rage in "The Dragon Master's Path".
    • Learning Outrage during the Club Battle tourney. He proceeds to literally beat up Luke's Golett across the field.
    • Iris's Axew vs. Cynthia's Garchomp. Axew manages to use Giga Impact to knock Garchomp off her feet. Granted, Garchomp immediately gets right back up and doesn't seem fazed at all, but it's not bad considering Axew's pratically a newborn. In fact, Axew's fight with Garchomp is actually far more impressive than one might think. The only Pokemon ever shown to deal actual damage to Garchomp belonged to Tower Tycoon Palmer, Elite Four Members and The Forces of Nature. Paul, one of Ash's most powerful rivals, only managed to hit Garchomp once thanks to it having to recharge from Giga Impact. Aside from that, 4 of his Pokemon were knocked out in a single hit. Iris's Axew survived two super effective hits from two of the strongest dragon type moves (Dragon Rush and Draco Meteor). That's right, Iris did better than Paul.
    • In Journeys, it's revealed that he is now Iris' Haxorus. Axew finally achieved its dream.
    • Haxorus really is Iris' MVP in her fight against Cynthia in Journeys Episode 117. First, he knocks out Cynthia's Milotic while suffering no damage. Then he manages to match Cynthia's Freaking Garchomp in close quarters combat, twice (Once after Garchomp Mega evolved, mind you). The second one ended with Haxorus sucker punching Mega Garchomp with a Dragon Pulse. Not to mention overpowering Garchomp's Draco Meteor with Outrage and snap himself out of confusion by smashing his head into the ground, and let out an intimidating roar when faced with Mega Garchomp. While he ultimately lost to Garchomp, but Haxorus really showed his progress from when he was still a little Axew.
  • Dragonite:
    • Against Dawn's Mamoswine in round 2 of the Junior Cup, he takes the thing head-on and throws it aside several times, gets hit with a point blank Ice Shard in the face, and then decides to finish with Dragon Rush. The really nice bit is that the Dragon Rush takes the form of a dragon instead of a simple blue aura just as it swoops down and ruins Mamoswine.
    • Dragonite defeats Georgia's Beartic without any commands from Iris, tanking or deflecting every single move thrown at him before knocking Beartic out with a Thunder Punch. To be specific: Dragonite deflected Hidden Power, no-sells Focus Blast, tanks two Ice Beams in a row, breaks out of the resultant popsicle, then runs through a Blizzard, and hits Beartic with a Thunder Punch that sends Beartic flying.
    • In Journeys, Ash's Dragonite and Iris' Dragonite go head to head. While Ash's Dragonite ultimately clinches the battle against Iris, it doesn't do so by defeating her Dragonite, who curb stomps him so badly that Ash has to recall him. And Iris' Dragonite does this all while wearing his traditional Blood Knight expression on his face for extra awesomeness.

Cilan and his Pokémon

  • Catching Stunfisk using only a FISHING ROD in "Facing Fear With Eyes Wide Open!".
  • Pansage:
    • Fighting Tornadus, a legendary with a type advantage over him, solo. He actually manages to hold it off until Thundurus arrives and the rest of the group returns from their mission.
    • From episode 66, Cilan sends Pansage out against a Cofagrigus after it 'abducted' Iris, and it manages to hold out on its own against an evidently stronger Pokémon, enough to get Iris out from the Cofagrigus. It's not a Gym Leader's main Pokémon for nothing.
  • Crustle:
    • The first time the newly infamous Shell Smash is seen in the anime, as used by Cilan's (soon-to-be) Dwebble.
    • Defeating Trip's Gurdurr by summoning a Rock Slide. Note that this is the first time one of Ash's traveling companions has defeated one of Ash's main rivals in a battle.
    • In Cilan and Ash's tag battle against Bianca and Prof. Juniper, the girls gain the lead by taking out Boldore. Crustle defeats both Escavalier and Accelgor using his Rock Wrecker attack, proving that despite their excellent teamwork, they were still out-matched.
  • Stunfisk can fly!

Other

  • Alder and his Pokémon:
    • In "Ash versus The Champion", Alder stops a charging Gigalith, then picks it up and throws it. Keep in mind Gigalith weigh roughly 600 pounds.
    • In the World Tournament Junior Cup, Trip makes it to the finals, where he can battle his former hero, the Unova League Champion Alder. Confident he can win due to Alder's apparent lack of focus, he uses his Serperior, who had swept the competition beforehand. Serperior blasts Alder's Bouffalant with everything it has...to nearly no effect. Alder tells Trip that his strategy is impressive, but not enough to defeat a Champion. His Bouffalant then KOs Serperior in a single hit.
  • Club Battle arc character Luke gets one when he uses a Larvesta to handily beat Cilan's Stunfisk.
  • The Clubsplosion arc has two — Trip being Hoist by His Own Petard by Bianca of all trainers, and Stephan winning the whole tournament by beating Montgomery's Throh with his Sawk.
  • Ash may have won his gym battle with Roxie, but Roxie earned a few of these in that match, nearly winning in spite of her team being outnumbered two to one. In particular, showing how a competent Koffing fights, Garbodor defeating Pignite (who had been freshly cured of being poisoned moments ago) using only non-poison moves, and dealing a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Pikachu, only being defeated after the activation of Static.
  • You have to give Cameron credit for beating Ash with only five Pokémon out of six. In addition, one of Lucario's first acts upon evolving is to grab Snivy by her vines and thrash her onto the ground. That's admittedly pretty badass.

    Characters Introduced in X&Y 

General/Multiple Characters

  • The English opening to the X and Y season is a love letter to the fans from the very beginning.
  • The first two episodes of the XY saga has something for everybody. Let's just say that all in all, Ash and Pikachu are actually Badass from the very start of this season, and does not undergo Badass Decay at all, unlike all previous arc introductions!
    • First of all, there's the battle between Pikachu and Clemont's Bunnelby. Most battles at the beginning of various sagas tend to "reset" Pikachu's power level so to speak, but this makes up for it by making it clear that Ash and Clemont are both experienced trainers and having Bunnelby be powerful in his own right. The battle receives a notable Animation Bump and hits its climax when Bunnelby catches Pikachu's Iron Tail with its ears...only for Ash and Pikachu to reveal they were ready for that and use Electro Ball.
    • Then Team Rocket shows up, and we get the return of Wobbuffet. Though usually played up as Plucky Comic Relief, Wobbuffet marks his return in spectacular fashion by handily tanking Pikachu's Thunderbolt and reflecting it back with Mirror Coat. However, this is zig-zagged when Ash and Pikachu get right back in the game despite the latter's serious wounds.
    • Finally, we get the end of the battle, after Froakie makes his appearance and, despite Taking the Bullet from a second Mirror Coat reflection, turns the tide by using the foam from his cape to disable Wobbuffet and helps Bunnelby and Pikachu to give Team Rocket one of their most spectacular blast offs yet.
    • Froakie being one of the few protagonists to ever recognize Team Rocket in one of their disguises, even though he had only run into them once.
    • Ash, Pikachu, and Froakie breaking Garchomp free from the malfunctioning control device around its neck. And keep in mind, we're talking about a pseudo/semi-legendary which created headaches for game players since Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
    • A Mega Blaziken showing up out of nowhere to save Ash and Pikachu from a devastating fall.
  • XY007 unexpectedly subverts the usual formula - instead of Ash doing most of the heroics and his friends being in more of a supporting role, his traveling companions are the ones to save the day. That includes Clemont (normally shown to be physically inept) being the first to arrive on the scene and smashing Team Rocket's remote with a rock, Bunnelby singlehandedly stopping Team Rocket in their tracks, and Serena commanding Fennekin in battle for the first time. Even Bonnie gets to help out by untying Ash, who had been rendered helpless prior.
  • In "Mega-Mega Meowth Madness" Ash and Clemont are savvy enough to foil Team Rocket's plot while they are busy reciting their motto, using the opportunity to untie Serena and Bonnie. The trio have a plan B, but only after throwing a lengthy hissy fit about the heroes so impolitely manipulating their beloved motto.
  • XY is pretty good about giving the supporting characters moments of heroism - see, for example, XY044, when Froakie, Clemont (with Chespin), and Serena (with Fenekin) take out team Rocket in a matter of seconds so they don't interrupt Ash's battle with Korrina.
  • In "Pathways to Performance Partnering!", Chespin and Pancham perform a flawless tag battle entirely of their own accord after spending most of the episode quarreling with one another.
  • Serena and Bonnie defeating Team Rocket on their own when they are separated from Ash and Clemont.
  • XY063 has both the heroes and Team Rocket getting together to defeat the Pokemon hunter. After the hunter's Rhyperior is stunned by Wobbuffet's Counter, Jessie's Pumpkaboo, James' Inkay, Ash's Pikachu, and Serena's Fennekin, all combine for a quadruple combo attack that faints the Rhyperior and the hunter.
  • In Pokemon XY and Z episodes 42 - 43 "The Megalith Advances! Kalos' Defense Line!!" and "Zygarde Fights Back! The Final Battle for Kalos!!" which concludes the Team Flare arc and premieres in Japan as a 1-hour special, we are treated to multiple awesome things happening at once:
    • The Kalos Gym Leaders, Diantha, Professor Sycamore, Blaziken Mask, Steven, Malva, and even Team Rocket join forces with Ash and the gang to battle against the Megalith Zygarde.
    • Squishy and Z2 combine into Zygarde Complete to finish the fight and save the Kalos region.

Ash's Pokémon

  • Multiple Pokémon:
    • Froakie vs. Hawlucha. It uses the skills of both Pokémon to their fullest, and Hawlucha managed to knock Froakie down. Ash sees Hawlucha finally mastering the Flying Press due to his teaching while Froakie pulls a fast one and counters the Death from Above with a last minute Water Pulse from his hand. It ends in a draw, with both fainted.
    • Both Froakie and Hawlucha get one when they perfect their Combination Attack.
    • Goodra and Pikachu team up for a tag-battle against Tierno's Wartortle and Raichu and I don't think either of them even broke a sweat.
    • The gym battle against Olympia is a big one for Frogadier and Talonflame. They display superb teamwork throughout, especially when they throw the Meowstic into their own Future Sight Attack! Talonflame providing mobility for the paralyzed Frogadier and Frogadier holding off a Psyshock with Water Pulse also deserve special mention. Pikachu gets credit too for being pivotal in overcoming Future Sight, using his tail as a metronome to time how long it takes for the move to strike.
  • Greninja:
    • Froakie is essentially a ninja frog, one that was already Badass. But the second Ash starts giving him a strategy, he's essentially untouchable for the rest of the fight.
    • Froakie is one of the few protagonists to ever recognize Team Rocket in one of their disguises, even though he had only run into them once.
    • Froakie vs. Grant's Onix. The Onix was already difficult due to its attacks and surprisingly swift moves, but Froakie, using the training he had with Ash, manages to defeat it through scaling and evading, even doing a Matrix-style dodge at the end.
    • Froakie breaking The Water Starter curse and evolving into Frogadier and learning Aerial Ace upon evolving. The way Frogadier executes Aerial Ace itself is really awesome, too.
    • Overcoming type advantage in defeating both Ramos's Weepinbell (which defeated both Hawlucha and Fletchinder earlier) and Gogoat.
    • Defeating Sawyer's Treecko, slicing with Cut and 'sheathing' it moments before Treecko fell. Clearly the most badass use of Cut in Pokemon history. Repeated with the rematch against Treecko, who evolved into Grovyle. Cut vs Leaf Blade blade duel to the knock out!
    • Evolving into Greninja, the first time a main character has a fully evolved water starter Pokemon.
    • His rematch with Alain's Charizard in XY115. He tanks Dragon Claw like it was nothing and counters with powerful Cut, forcing Alain to instantly Mega Evolve Charizard, and even then he's able to fight him on equal footing. Then he transforms into Ash-Greninja - complete with Theme Music Power-Up - and easily blocks Charizard's Flamethrower, dodges his Thunder Punch, and hits him with dual-wielded Cut strong enough to send him flying. If it wasn't for Ash fainting, he'd have handed Alain his first clean loss in the main series.
    • His battle with Diantha's Gardevoir marks the first time where Ash is battling a Champion/Elite Four member and it doesn't qualify as either a Curb-Stomp Battle or a Curb Stomp Cushion, except maybe the battle against Agatha. You can actually see Diantha put effort into the fight and Greninja even gets the upper hand after completing its transformation. Too bad about the Power-Strain Blackout though.
    • The rematch with Wulfric is a clear case of Ash learning from his errors the first time, against the physical walls Bergmite and Avalugg he uses Pikachu (special attacks and Super Effective Iron Tail) and Talonflame (Super Effective fire moves) and defeats them, albeit struggling to adapt to the effects of Wulfric's ice attacks. Then comes Abomasnow, who soundly defeats Talonflame, despite the immense type disadvantage. Enter Greninja, who is able to take Abomasnow's attacks like a boss, deal heavy damage with Aerial Ace (Super Effective against Abomasnow's Grass typing) and set things up for the win before it encases him in ice. Cue Ash-Greninja emerging out of the ice. Even with Wulfric resorting to his own Mega Evolution, it isn't enough to stop Ash-Greninja, who pummels Mega Abomasnow with a combination of Cut (and ice skates), Double Team, Aerial Ace (which now may as well be Close Combat) and a GIANT Water Shuriken. And this time, Ash and Greninja don't collapse, they don't suffer Power-Strain Blackout, they don't even seem winded by the battle. This is why Ash-Greninja is now Ash's strongest Pokemon EVER.
    • Ash's first Kalos League battle in Episode 32 sees Greninja up against an Altaria. After expertly dodging through an entire Draco Meteor, they fully activate Ash-Greninja form and defeat the Altaria with a SINGLE WATER SHURIKEN! And it is implied he took out the other 2 pokémon in one hit.
    • The fight between Ash/Greninja and Mega Sceptile might go down as one of the best designed fights in the history of the pokemon anime. Ash-Greninja manages probably the most insane combo to win by using Double Team to make a bunch of clones and then immediately having all the clones Water Shurikens combine with the original's to make just one massive shuriken. Mega Sceptile attempts to counter with Leaf Storm but this backfires as the shuriken not only stops the move and keeps going but it also sends the Leaf Storm right back to Mega Sceptile, KOing him.
    • Final battle between itself and Mega Charizard was quite epic.
  • Talonflame:
    • Fletchling proves itself in its first Sky Battle, taking on its fully-evolved counterpart Talonflame. Then in one of the most awesome sequences ever in the anime, it evolves into Fletchinder after tanking a FIRE BLAST and learns Flame Charge in the process, going on to win a hard-fought battle.
    • Its battle with Machoke is pretty impressive too, especially since it (briefly) took on Mega Lucario afterwards.
    • Slamming and defeating Ramos's Jumpluff via Flame Charging it into the sun, overpowering its Cotton Guard enhanced defense.
    • Taking down Valerie's Sylveon. Steel Wing vs Giga Impact Single-Stroke Battle at its finest.
    • Evolving into Talonflame by blocking a wild Moltres' Flamethrower that was aimed for the group and then learning Brave Bird in the process.
    • Of all the matchups against Alain in the finals, there is one thing fans seem to agree on: Talonflame vs. Unfezant is one of the best aerial battles in the entire series.
  • Hawlucha:
    • Hawlucha vs. Mienfoo is pretty impressive, especially since we finally get to see Flying Press take down a Pokemon (before it's either failed or been countered by another Pokemon).
    • Taking down Clemont's Heliolisk after Goodra was unable to keep up with its speed. Hawlucha's own impressive speed not only allowed it to keep up, it enabled it to score a point-blank Hi Jump Kick for the win right at the moment when Heliolisk had to open its frills to attack.
    • Hawlucha's defeat of Valerie's Spritzee. Between grabbing its Gyro Ball, using it to create a Giga-Drill-Breaker/Drill Run with its X-Scissor attack to destroy Trick Room and the final High Jump Kick, Hawlucha had a brilliant win.
    • While mostly offscreen, Hawlucha became Ash's second Pokemon (without a super mode) to defeat a Mega-Pokemon in Astrid's Mega Absol, a Pokemon Hawlucha had lost previously to.
    • His revenge for Noivern's defeat in the league by Alain's Weavile is a sight to behold: defeating Weaile while glowing red. Some fans dubbed it Hawlucha's BURNING JUSTICE!
  • Goodra:
    • In its debut episode, Ash's Goomy witnesses Ash trying to protect it and his other Pokémon from Team Rocket. Pikachu and Fletchinder have become confused by Inkay's Psybeam and Ash is trying desperately to keep them from hurting each other. Goomy is moved almost to tears and jumps in the way of Inkay and Pumpkaboo's next couple of attacks. Not only does it take the attacks without backing down, it uses the damage to then unleash an insanely awesome Bide attack! Inkay and Pumpkaboo almost look like they're being vaporized!
    • During a run-in with a Grumpig, Goomy decides he has had enough of Grumpig's attitude. He keeps tanking the Grumpig's attacks, until he can't go on, leaving his foe to easily finish him with Iron Tail. Ash jumps in and takes the attack. As Goomy looks on his trainer, he looks up, and decides, right then and there, that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Grumpig just crossed a line, and now the porcine punk is going to pay dearly. Goomy glows, and before you know it, Sliggoo is standing there, ready to kick ass. And he does: one Dragon Breath is enough to send the Grumpig flying out of sight.
    • Just when you though he couldn't get any more badass, he evolves again. Ladies and gentlemen allow me to introduce Ash's first fully-evolved pseudo-legendary. And the way he evolves screams awesome. A huge fire has consumed the area that Ash and his friends are in and Sliggoo is not having it. He performs the mother-of-all Rain Dance that puts out the fire and evolves into Goodra and learns Dragon Pulse in the process.
    • Its participation in Ash's double battle alongside Pikachu against Tierno's Wartortle and Raichu. It tanked virtually everything its opponents could hit it with and ended the battle by hitting Raichu with its newly learned Dragon Pulse.
    • Taking down Clemont's Luxray in a long, drawn-out fight with Bide, after taking its best attacks head-on.
    • Overcoming its past fear of Florges and refusing to back down and learning Ice Beam in the process, allowing it to drive Florges away (if temporarily). Its courage even motivates its old friends to fight back against the rest of the army. And later after realizing Florges was an Unwitting Pawn to Team Rocket, it double teams with her to board their ship and stop them making off with their homeland's water and Pikachu. Extra points for being one of Team Rocket's most Not So Harmless face off.
    • As of XY126, Goodra is back in Ash's team for his Full Battles!
  • Noivern:
    • When the group battles Team Flare at Terminus Cave, Noibat gains the upper hand against a Drapion, confusing it with Supersonic and knocking it back with Tackle.
    • He puts up a prolonged fight against a Breloom, and then learns Acrobatics, allowing him to destroy a metal cage as well as defeat Team Rocket (using the newly learned move against Inkay and taking it down in a single hit) to save a Floette.
    • One legendary feat that managed to surpass even Talonflame's performance against Moltres, is that after evolving to help Hawlucha, through his increased speed, power and Ash's admittedly clever tactic of using the many plateaus to confuse it, he managed to gain the upper hand against a wild Zapdos, a legendary electric-type Bird Pokemon.
    • While it was not helpful in the long run, Noivern manage to use his sonic waves to find the real Weavile hidden in the Double Team is impressive in of itself.

Clemont and his Pokemon

  • Clemont shows why he's the Lumiose gym leader by defeating the gym's ace Pokemon Heliolisk with a Bunnelby he just caught a few episodes prior.
  • An overlooked battle from the original XY season had Chespin running away after gaining overweight, leading to a battle between Clemont and Wyile’s Delphox. Once Clemont and Chespin makeup, Clemont uses Chespin’s rolling ability to escape all of Delphox’s attacks to reduce weight and regain speed. When Chespin gets hit with a super effective Flamethrower, not only does it get back up, Chespin activates Overgrow and severely damages Delphox. The battle ends in a tie due to Wiley’s old age, but nonetheless Chespin came close to defeating a Pokemon two evolutionary levels higher than his own.
  • Heliolisk may not have gotten many chances to shine, but seeing its speed as it zipped around the field during Ash's gym battle was stunning. It completely ran circles around Goodra (which is saying something considering that Goodra would go on to win the gym battle for Ash) and kept Hawlucha on the ropes until Ash figured out its Achilles' Heel. While it didn't take down any of Ash's Pokémon, one can see why it's considered to be the gym's ace.
  • Bunnelby taking on a bullying Diggersby prior to joining Clemont. The first round doesn't go so well, but even then he lasts surprisingly long despite being clearly outmatched in strength. Then after Clemont suggests a strategy, he challenges Diggersby again. This time, he tears a chunk out of the floor and slams it into Diggersby's head, then ends the fight by sending Diggersby flying into a brick wall.
  • Clemont vs. Xerosic. Never has cleaning one's glasses been so awesome. To elaborate, Clemont uses the gesture of cleaning his glasses to distract Xerosic from the fact that he had planted an anti-mind-control device on himself, preventing Xerosic from taking control of him. Clemont doesn't give away the game until after he reunites with his friends, upon which he has Chespin take down Xerosic's Crobat alongside Ash's Greninja and prevents Xerosic from escaping using his Aipom Arm. That's not to mention that he was able to beat down Xerosic's entire team by himself during their earlier confrontation.

Serena and her Pokemon

  • Serena takes the initiative in the Sky Battle episode. She flies after Team Rocket in her gliding suit and calls out Fennekin in MID-AIR, having it launch Flamethrower while standing on her back to take out the Meowth balloon. For a beginner, that's amazing. Seems like Ash's knack for daring rescues is rubbing off on her.
  • In XY47, Fennekin is captured by Team Rocket, leaving Serena without any Pokémon - and in the middle of trying to free Fennekin, Pikachu, Dedenne, and the new Pancham are at the mercy of Jessie's Pumpkaboo. But instead of letting Ash and Clemont deal with the situation, she rushes in and flying tackles Jessie's Pumpkaboo herself. Pumpakaboo starts to retaliate, at which point Pancham makes a save.
  • In XY53, Team Rocket drives off with a truck full of stolen cheese. Ash and Bonnie chase after them while riding Skiddos. Serena instead rides a Ryhorn and uses it to ram into Team Rocket's truck. Later, she works up the courage to tell her mom that she doesn't want to be a Ryhorn racer and wants to be a performer instead.
  • In XY88, Serena and her Pokemon pulling a Go Through Me against Jessie's Gourgeist to protect a wild Eevee. They willingly await the full force of a Seed Bomb, only for Eevee to use a powerful Protect and Swift, displaying its future loyalty to Serena.
  • The whole episode of XY115 is a CMOA for Serena, as she does a good job posing as Ash to battle against a rocker trainer with a Pikachu. She even copies his battle style very well.
  • In "Performing A Pathway To The Future!" (XYZ20), Serena's semifinal performance ends with her team landing in single handstands, but Serena can't hold hers (we see afterward that she sprained her wrist badly). Sylveon reacts with exquisite timing and grabs Serena in her feelers, turning what would have been a disastrous tumble into a somersault-and-slide that looks like a natural conclusion to the show. Also shows Sylveon to be a Pintsized Powerhouse, given that she is certainly lighter than Serena.
  • The antepenultimate episode of XY has Serena finally battle Ash for the first time. While Pikachu obviously has battle prowess over Braixen, she uses her branch to resist a great deal of offence from him, with Serena using a developed strategy and battle style to end the battle with the upper hand (as opposed to her previous tactic of spamming her Pokemon's signature attack and "Dodge!" to varying effect).
  • In the XYZ finale, it looks like the "ship" will end like the others before them...but then Serena asks for "one last moment" with Ash and it's heavily implied that she kisses him! (Though done off-screen as only their feet are shown.) The reaction shots are priceless as everyone is red-faced and freaking out except for Ash, who is simply struck with glittering eyes and speechless.
  • After six years, Serena returned in [JN105], showing what has happened to her since then. She has ascended to the Master Class of Contest Spectaculars, creates a beautiful performance that ties with the popular Lisia, and Braixen evolved into Delphox. More over, she and Sylveon act as Cool Big Sisters to Chloe and Eevee, helping them to create a performance and find their dreams and paths. She has taken the role Ash and Aria had on her.

Bonnie and Dedenne

  • Bonnie proves she's very mature for her age once she learns that a Flabébé already has a Trainer. She goes out of her way to find a Fairy Flower, climbs all the way up, and says farewell, finally accepting that Flabébé belongs to someone else.
  • She takes initiative and bravely commands Dedenne to attack Team Rocket in one episode (Ash was gone and Serena's Fennekin had been stolen), but he's asleep. She might not be a trainer yet, but she is the little sister of a gym leader.
  • Dedenne defending Goomy from Team Rocket singlehandedly, Taking the Bullet several times without fainting outright.
  • She's able to take care of a lab-raised Tyrunt and easily outsmarts Team Rocket when the team kidnaps her, Dedenne, and Bunnelby along with Tyrunt.
  • She managed to get through to and free a mind-controlled Zygarde simply by singing.
  • Despite not actually being in command of Zygarde Complete Form, just before it unleashes Core Enforcer, Bonnie yells out 'Puni-chan, ike!' (Squishy, go!). She's going to make a great trainer one day.

Other

  • Pretty much every battle in the Mega Evolution specials:
    • Considering that it's Mega Charizard X vs other Mega Evolutions like Mega Absol, Mega Garchomp, Mega Blastoise and Mega Metagross in high speed, high power battles it's pretty much a given. The battle with Mega Metagross is especially awesome since Charizard shrugs off getting literally punched through a cliff and Metagross itself tanks Charizard's Blast Burn which should be weak against.
    • Act 3 has Steven and Alain face against Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon.
    • In Act 4, Alain becomes the first character whose name isn't Cynthia to defeat a member of the ELITE FOUR!
  • In "Facing The Grand Design" we come across a group of benevolent Malamar watching over a forest just next to the recurring evil Malamars' current scheme. When the latter discover them interacting with the heroes, they decide it would be a fun idea to blast the forest and all the innocent Pokemon they watch over. This wasn't their wisest strategy....
  • Despite their limited screen time in the series, Sawyer, Tierno, Trevor, and Shauna saving civilians when Team Flare attacks is definitely awesome.
  • Clembot gets a few during the Team Flare arc: evicting Xerosic from the Lumiose Gym by opening a trapdoor beneath him and willingly performing a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the machine controlling Zygarde.
  • In the episode "The Clumsy Crier Quiets the Chaos," Wigglytuff gets one when it was able to calm down a rampaging Salamence and save everyone from Team Rocket. This was after it had no confidence in itself to do its job right.
  • Korrina's return in episode 25 of Journeys. Not only was it great to see her and Lucario again, but it also paves the way for other previous companions to return someday, something fans have anticipated since the reveal of Journeys and its region-hopping premise. Even better, after three years of the series not being alluded to at all in Sun & Moon, the fan-favorite Kalos era was finally acknowledged by the show, in addition to having the first major returning character! Not bad for someone who was originally a temporary Sixth Ranger for the main group.

    Characters Introduced in Sun & Moon 

General/Multiple Characters

  • When Litten, Popplio, and Rowlet are captured by Team Rocket, Litten tricks the trio into releasing them, upon which Popplio traps them inside bubbles and Rowlet (while still restrained!) sends them flying into the air. Popplio and Litten follow up with additional attacks that give Team Rocket their first blast off in the Alola region, without any trainer input whatsoever!
  • In SM054, Rowlet tag teams with Steenee to perform a move which involves Steenee kicking Rowlet to give it a speed boost as Rowlet flies toward the target with full power. Lana dubs this move "Rowlaunch".
  • The first time the Ultra Guardians set out for an Ultra Beast mission in SM061.
  • Episodes 21 and 108 have received praise for their excellent handling of the subjects of death and mourning in a kids' show, all without ever explicitly stating Stoutland died. In the latter, the combined gratitude from Mallow and her late mother's reconciliation is great enough and makes so many Gracidea flowers bloom it attracts the Gratitude Pokemon itself, Shaymin.
  • The first Guzzlord was punted into its Ultra Hole by seven kids and their Z-moves. The second, by four Tapu, four Island Kings and their Z-moves. And the third Guzzlord, far, far bigger than the other two? Kukui and Ash.

Ash's Pokémon

  • While most of it was an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, the RotomDex managing to collect data on almost every single Pokemon in the Kanto PokéDex in the just mere hours, the only one missing being Mew. And with him outright saying that he's only missing a single Pokémon, that means he was able to get data on even Mewtwo, who can be almost as elusive as his progenitor.
  • Rowlet:
    • In its debut episode, Rowlet saving the Pikipek, Trumbeak, and leading Toucannon that are its family and using Leafage to stop Team Rocket.
    • Against the Yungoos and Gumshoos in SM009, it uses its Leafage to hide and stealthily move around without being detected. Ash didn't even order it to do that, either; it just figured it out on its own!
    • In the Grand Trial, Rowlet has a rough start against Hala's Crabrawler, but turns it around by using the smoke from the Leafage/Bubble clash to hide its movements and hit Crabrawler with a Peck barrage, finishing it off with a Diving Kick Tackle.
    • Pulling a Big Damn Heroes in SM014, after Lillie and Snowy fall off a tall ledge in a fight with Team Rocket, Rowlet uses Leafage to stop their fall just short of Lillie smashing head first onto the concrete path below.
    • During a Combination Attack between Rowlet, Lana's Popplio, and the currently wild Litten, Rowlet speeds on by and knocks Team Rocket into the air with one attack. While still restrained with the machine part from earlier.
    • During the Grand Trial against Olivia, Rowlet outflew and outwitted her Z-Move. While carrying Rockruff. It then returns likewise by using its own Z-Move, Bloom Doom, for the first time, knocking out Probopass.
    • Withstanding many Fury Swipes from Meowth in SM112, all to protect Meltan.
    • Defeating Hau's Decidueye in the quarter finals for the Alola League. Combined with his earlier defeat of it when it was a Datrix, Rowlet remains the only of Ash's unevolved Pokemon to defeat two of its evolved counterparts.
  • Lycanroc:
    • After receiving Ash's training, Rockruff is finally able to defeat the powerful Magmar at Clawed Hill. How he lands the final blow is nothing short of a spectacle: he charges Rock Throw, then dodges a Fire Punch midair, jumps off of Magmar, fires a point-blank Rock Throw from behind, sending it to the ground, then finishes it off with a powerful headbutt straight to the stomach! It's super effective. Bonus points for Magmar attempting to get back up and failing as a Call-Back to Charizard's fight with one of these Pokémon back in Kanto.
    • Rockruff taking down a trainer's Mudbray despite the type disadvantage, finishing the fight with Breakneck Blitz.
    • Rockruff finishing off Olivia's Midday Lycanroc to win the Grand Trial for Ash, redeeming its earlier out-of-control antics that knocked Rowlet out of the game.
    • Rockruff evolves into Dusk form Lycanroc, which has no recorded instance In-Universe.
    • Lycanroc single-handedly defeated all of Nanu's Pokemon. In a row. With only a single Sitrus Berry in between matches. For the record the only Pokemon Ash had who had ever defeated the entirety of a (Gym Leader or the like) opponents team outside of one for one matches before this, are Pikachu and Bayleef, and in both cases they were just picking up the slack in a two-on-two match when the other Pokemon was defeated yet scored some hits. Lycanroc had to fight three Pokemon, none of whom had damage from a previous fight on their persons.
    • Ash's Pokemon all have had their awesome moments over the course of the anime, but Lycanroc will likely go down as one of his most famous; as the Pokemon that finally won him a(n official-game-related) Pokemon League! How Lycanroc does it is pretty awesome, too. He's up against Gladion's Midnight Form Lycanroc and, after a heated battle, Gladion's manages to land a Counter. It appears that Ash is about to lose yet again... then Ash declares "It's not over yet!" and has his Lycanroc Counter in turn. Cue Ash's Lycanroc taking out Gladion's with its head spike and putting an end to Ash's 22-year-long league losing streak.
  • Incineroar:
    • Litten perfecting its Ember attack and using it to drive off Persian.
    • Its Single-Stroke Battle with Meowth early on in SM016 definitely qualifies. It's expectant Meowth would lose, but unlike even Pikachu, Litten didn't so much as flinch.
    • After Litten joined Ash, he actually kicked Rockruff out of the way of a Palossand, and got "eaten" by it in the process. This saved Rockruff from being afflicted by Giga Drain, which would have suffered from a much harsher type weakness.
    • Torracat's debut evolution battle was managing to outspeed Masked Royal's Incineroar and actually damaging it, a feat no other Pokemon managed in the episode. Torracat still lost though.
    • Torracat teaming up with Masked Royal's Incineroar to battle an Electivire and Magmortar, learning Revenge in the process.
    • In its fight against Guzma, Torracat manages to keep toe-to-toe with the previously unstoppable Golisopod. As the battle gets more ferocious, Golisopod is left so exasperated by Torracat's power that it Emergency Exits, sending out Guzma's Scizor out to take the brunt of Torracat's Fire Blast, which knocks it out immediately. Though Golisopod is forced back out to finish the job, it becomes evident it was afraid of Torracat.
    • Absorbing an entire Blast Burn into its bell in the opening matchup of Ash's exhibition battle versus Kukui, completely wasting Incineroar's attack. Had it been able to take the strain of that much power, there would have likely been a superpowered Fire Blast headed right for the recharging Incineroar. The next episode, it manages to control the absorbed power and give that huge unblockable Fire Blast to Kukui's Venusaur, knocking it out. Finally, it defeats Kukui's Incineroar in the middle of a double Inferno Overdrive with the XYZ instrumental playing (you know Ash-Greninja's theme), and then evolving into the Pokemon it defeated itself.
  • Melmetal:
    • During the second phase of the Alola League, Faba attempts to rig the match by using Hypno's Psychic to force out Meltan, assuming it is the weakest of Ash's team. However, when he attempts to use Hypnosis on Meltan, it responds by eating Hypno's pendulum and defeating it with one Flash Cannon.
    • Upon evolving into Melmetal, it is pit against Gladion's Silvally in the finals, who has been set up as That One Boss throughout the league. Melmetal reveals its secret weapon, Double Iron Bash, slugging Silvally hard enough that it can barely stand. Though Melmetal ultimately loses the match, it has done enough damage to Silvally for Pikachu to very quickly finish the job afterwards. Extra points for this being the first official trainer match in the anime with two Olympus Mons.

Kiawe and his Pokémon

  • Kiawe's first actual appearance has his Turtonator use Inferno Overdrive to beat back all of Team Skull's Pokémon. Turns out he didn't need Ash's help, after all. This act also gave Kiawe and Turtonator the honour of being the first characters to demonstrate a Z-Move in the anime.
  • Kiawe is confirmed to have gotten his Z-Crystal from Olivia, the Kahuna of Akala Island. Olivia uses rock types, in a generation where all the new rock Pokémon are considered some of the best the series has given us. Kiawe's only Pokémon for fighting purposes is Turtonator. You do the math.
  • Kiawe and Turtonator's battle against a wild Alolan Marowak that had stolen the Wela Crown. The tide of the battle is set when Turtonator tries to use Shell Smash, and succeeds, increasing both Attack stats and Speed at the cost of its Defense stats. While Marowak tries to take advantage of the Defense nerf initially, it is overpowered when it triggers Turtonator's already-established Shell Trap attack, getting blown back after an attack. From there, Kiawe and Turtonator use the Inferno Overdrive Z-Move and end up nuking Marowak for the win. After surrendering the Wela Crown, Marowak offers to be captured by Kiawe.
  • Kiawe's team are left holding off Lusamine's Salazzle when the group tries to recover her from Ultra Space. While the rest of the students needed support from Ash's team and were on the ropes by the time Lusamine was freed, Turtonator and Marowak were implied to still be holding ground on their own by the time Salazzle broke from her mind control (and was promptly terrified of them).
  • Marowak mastering Inferno Overdrive to defeat Viren's Electivire in their rematch. Also, note that Electivire's Rain Dance (which depowers Fire-type attacks) was in effect when the move was used.
  • While their first match was largely a Curbstomp Battle in Viren's favor, props go to Turtonator for instantly diving in front of Mimo and Ash when Viren decided to use Thunder on them.
  • After putting on a battle to attract Tapu Fini into facing Ash, Tapu Fini instead takes interest in Kiawe, pretending to capture Ash and his team in a force field and putting Kiawe in a Race Against the Clock to gain healing scales from its Ax-Crazy brethren Tapu Lele all the way in Akala. Kiawe not only puts up enough of a fight with Charizard to impress Tapu Lele into willingly handing some over, but returns to Poni Island's ruins Just in Time. The reward for this feat is Flyium Z for which Charizard can learn Supersonic Skystrike, officially un-retiring Kiawe's Ride Pokemon. While the series marked Ash's first true rivalry against a legendary through Tapu Koko, it also marks the first with a companion against two of them.
  • All of Kiawe's matches in the Alola League have impressive displays from his whole team:
    • In the preliminary round, Turtonator not only advances but ranks up a huge KO count, including reversing a gang up by the Revengers and ending the Battle Royal by defeating a Metagross.
    • In the second round against Acerola, Marowak is immobilised by Rapooh's Cursed Body. Despite taking a beating throughout and then getting its bone club stolen to cripple its move set, Marowak's first course of action upon Cursed Body wearing off is to dive into Rapooh to steal back its club and whack it stupid with it, winning the match.
    • In the third round, he is pitted against Sophocles' Vikavolt. Despite Sophocles anticipating Kiawe's battle style repeatedly and even paralyzing Charizard for a while with Zap Cannon, Charizard still manages to counter Vikavolt's hard hitters, overpowering its Wild Charge and torching its Savage Spin Out Z-Move before it strikes the ground. While all five Alola companions remain the first to enter a league with Ash, Kiawe's victory over Sophocles leaves him the only to date to enter the semi-finals of one.
    • Even though he ultimately loses the match, he still puts in a great showing against Gladion. Turtonator shines in particular, managing to knock out Gladion's extremely tanky Lycanroc despite taking hits from Outrage. It then uses the speed boost from Shell Smash to avoid Silvally's attacks and pulls off one hell of an Inferno Overdrive. Given how the Z-Move was portrayed and Gladion's sigh of relief when the battle ends, it's likely that Silvally was only saved by Gladion tossing it its Fire Memory in the nick of time.

Lillie and her Pokémon

  • She's willing to make an attempt to overcome her Poképhobia with help from Ash. She doesn't pull it off, but the fact she's willing to make an effort is commendable.
  • Defending an egg from a Salandit, despite being scared of it.
  • Despite being new to training Pokémon and visibly frightened when Team Rocket attack while she is alone with Snowy, Lillie shows that she definitely has potential when she strategically commands Snowy to defend themselves from the trio, slowing them down by covering the ground with ice and even countering a Sludge Bomb from Mareanie. Though she still needs Ash's Rowlet to save her from a nasty fall, she immediately puts a stop to Team Rocket once she recovers by having Snowy freeze them with Powder Snow. Of note is that the last attack even stopped a battle-ready Mimikyu, who was previously shown to be extremely powerful when motivated.
  • Snowy being integral to rescuing Ash and Litten from Palossand. Powder Snow manages to freeze the Sand Castle Pokémon and give Ash and Litten the opportunity to get out of its mouth.
  • The catharsis of seeing Lillie finally give Lusamine a piece of her mind after being neglected for years.
  • Lillie and Snowy battling alongside a wild Alolan Sandshrew against a Tyranitar in SM080. First, Lillie has Snowy use Hail to replace the sandstorm with hail, followed by Aurora Veil to block Tyranitar's attack and Powder Snow. Then, Sandshrew attacks Tyranitar with a barrage of Rapid Spin before finishing it off with Metal Claw, sending Tyranitar running away. In the end, after the Sandshrew evolves into Sandslash thanks to an Ice Stone, it proceeds to give Lillie an Icium Z. Lillie might not have a Z-Ring at the moment, but when she gets one, Lillie and Snowy will be able to use the Ice-type Z-Move, Subzero Slammer.
  • After Ash and Masked Royal's battle against the Revengers, Lillie was apparently motivated by their battle and she declares that she will participate in a Battle Royal next time, complete with fiery eyes. Looks like Lillie's taken another step from The Load to Little Miss Badass.
  • Lillie and Snowy successfully pulling off Subzero Slammer.
  • Lillie battling Gladion in the league. The outcome is predictable, given Gladion is far more experienced, however in spite of him battling at full power at Lillie's request, she does manage to hold on for a fair while with Snowy, setting Umbreon back with Hail and Snow Cloak and even landing her Subzero Slammer Z-Move, even if Umbreon is strong enough to tank it.

Mallow and her Pokémon

  • How does Bounsweet react when she sees Mallow, Ash, Pikachu, and Rowlet get snared by Team Rocket? She evolves into Steenee, and single-handedly beats Meowth into a bloody pulp. Then she does the same to Jessie, James, and Wobbuffet.
  • In SM080, as Lillie and Snowy are trapped behind ice, Mallow, Sophocles, and their Pokémon try to break through the ice to get to Lillie. Mallow is not the one to sit on the sidelines and kicks the ice with a move she dubbed "Mallow Kick", no less, alongside her partner Pokemon, with over the top animation to boot!
  • In SM082, Steenee learns Stomp, which triggers her Evolution into Tsareena, then she defeats Meowth with a single Trop Kick.
  • Shaymin saving Sandy from getting run over by a car after it wanders onto a road in SM118.
  • SM121 has a double for Mallow. She not only impresses Oranguru enough to give her a battered Z-Ring, but her cooking skills are enough to impress Tapu Koko into giving her a Grassium-Z as a reward for her efforts.
  • Though sadly an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, Mallow passing the the first round of the league with Shaymin, at one point teaming up with Lana's Sandy to defeat three Pokemon at once. Impressive given Shaymin is not only a Mythical and still technically wild, but previously established to be a Lovable Coward in battle.
  • The implication as a whole that Mallow more or less instantly tamed a wild Shaymin to act like her own loyal Pokemon just by being her usual Team Mom self to it.

Lana and her Pokémon

  • In a flashback, Lana sees Team Skull bullying a Popplio. She immediately turns her Ride Lapras around, has it freeze them all with Ice Beam, then fishes Popplio away from them. She got it taken care of and they've been friends ever since.
  • When Team Rocket tries and fails to steal the class' Ride Pokémon, Lana gives them a Death Glare and has Popplio bounce back Mimikyu's Shadow Ball with a water balloon. And before that, Popplio creates a balloon ten times larger than usual to cushion the Ride Pokémon's fall when Pikachu cuts them free of Team Rocket's net.
  • In SM033, Lana manages to hook Totem Wishiwashi. She holds out long enough for Popplio to have an awesome moment of its own, as it puts aside its fear of it and learns Aqua Jet to defeat the demon of the sea.
  • In SM040, Lana and Popplio finally master using Waterium-Z and pull off Hydro Vortex, sending the rampaging Dhelmise blasting off, and making Lana the third of the Alolan group to master a Z-Move.
  • Primarina:
    • Popplio learning Surf to fend off Team Skull's attempt to nab its new Eevee friend.
    • When Lana nearly drowns trying to calm down a Kyogre in SM120, Brionne evolves into Primarina to save her. The two then work together to do what Lana's normally known for lying about — reel in the Legendary Sea Basin Pokemon.
    • Primarina's defeat of Mallow's Tsareena in the League. True, Mallow and Tsareena are not experienced battlers, but Primarina was still facing a fully evolved Grass Pokémon with greater mobility on dry land. Despite this, Lana and Primarina's strategy doesn't allow Tsareena to land a single hit, even cancelling out Bloom Doom with their own Z-Move.

Sophocles and his Pokémon

  • Sophocles shows his Badass Bookworm tendencies by using Togedemaru's spikes to pop balloons faster than Ash, then uses its Lightning Rod ability to absorb Pikachu's lightning to finish the job.
  • During Ash's rematch against Tapu Koko, a stray lightning bolt from the island guardian comes speeding towards the group. Togedemaru jumps in front of the bolt and uses Lightningrod to absorb it.
  • Sophocles may not be as much of a battler as Ash or Kiawe, but his defeat of Lusamine's Milotic with Togedemaru and Charjabug launching a combined attack proves that he's very capable of holding his own in danger.
  • Togedemaru and Charjabug improvising an Electro Web out of a combined Zing Zap and Discharge to distract the Ultra Beasts Blacephalon and Xurkitree.
  • In SM080, after the Tyranitar is driven away and the Alolan Sandshrew are able to return to their home, Charjabug finds an Ice Stone which is used by the leader Sandshrew to evolve into a Sandslash, who in turn gives Lillie an Icium Z as thanks for both this and her earlier kindness. Later, after getting out of the cave, it’s revealed that Charjabug found another Ice Stone, which is given to Lillie. What’s awesome is the fact that it managed to find two genuine Evolutionary Stones in just one day, granted the place was an Ice Stone mine, but still.
  • In SM119, Sophocles finally gets over his fear of the dark and not only rescues the other racers from Team Rocket, but goes on to win the race, earning a Buginium-Z and the respect of his rival.
  • In SM123 Sophocles masters his Z-Move, Savage Spin-Out, while fighting against a Crawdaunt, defeating it.
  • Vikavolt gives Kiawe's Charizard a run for its money in the Alola League. Though ultimately overpowered, it even holds its own against a Z-Move for some time with its newly-learned Wild Charge.
  • Within the process of ten episodes, Sophocles is succinctly revealed to have tutored his Pokemon four different attacks in preparation for the league (three for Vikavolt, one for Togedemaru). Compared to a lot of previous protagonists who mostly relied on sporadic Plot Armor to gain move buffs, Sophocles is implied to just train his team in rapid pace the moment he is motivated to battle competitively.

Other

  • Bewear:
    • Seriously, all throughout the Sun & Moon series since her introduction she just nonchalantly picks up and carries Team Rocket in every episode they appear in, can run on water as of SM005, and makes a very shonen-esque entrance in SM006. It's official: Bewear is now this show's resident Memetic Badass.
    • She curbstomps Pheromosa in SM114. Why? The UB broke Meowth's heart! After witnessing that, the Mama Bear is out for blood. The resulting fight seems like the animators had taken cues from Dragon Ball and/or Jojo's Bizzare Adventure.
  • Professor Kukui and his Pokémon:
    • In SM052, he and his Braviary save Professor Burnet and her Munchlax from the pack of Jangmo-o and Hakamo-o that were part of the previous episode's trial.
    • His entire exhibition battle against Ash is him when The Gloves Come Off, and he's evenly matched with Ash at every turn.
  • Gladion and his Pokémon:
    • In Gladion's debut episode, his Lycanroc takes down a sailor's Blastoise effortlessly, and he even comes with a Z-Move: specifically, Continental Crush.
    • Silvally finally breaking its mask and saving Lillie from Faba. Not the first time either — it had also saved her when she was attacked by Nihilego. And what makes this moment extra special is that it takes place during the 1000th episode! And in the Japanese version, it's all set to a wonderful orchestral of Gladion's theme from the games.
    • Gladion gets another awesome moment in SM050 when he stands in front of Lillie and Lusamine as Nihilego, who's been summoned a second time by Faba, closes in on him. His devotion to his family is so strong that he's willing to let himself be abducted if it means his sister and mother are safe.
    • Any Z-Move performed by Gladion, he makes every one of them to look cool.
    • Gladion's Lycanroc using Outrage, to the point of looking both creepy and awesome. What's more, Gladion has trained him to bite himself afterward so that he snaps out of the confusion caused by using the move.
  • Nebby:
    • The long-awaited anime debut of Nebby. In-series, the others also think Nebby's birth was pretty awesome when they finally see what Ash dreamt about several episodes later.
    • Nebby evolving into Solgaleo, and Ash using his new Z Power Ring to use Searing Sunraze Smash in SM052.
  • Guzma and his Pokémon:
    • Guzma's debut fight in SM115, his Golisopod vs Ash and Pikachu. It's an absolute Curb-Stomp Battle in Guzma's favor. What's especially impressive is that Golisopod gets hit with Thunderbolt, essentially Pikachu's Signature Move in the anime, and tanks it. Tanking Thunderbolt is doubly impressive considering Thunderbolt is Super Effective against it. Not even Ash and Pikachu busting out a Z-Move gets through Golisopod's defense, in the end only managing to get one hit in with Quick Attack. They technically win the fight due to Golisopod backing out with its Emergency Exit ability; however, as Guzma explains, it's not because Golisopod was afraid of losing. It's because in its eyes Ash and Pikachu were so weak it lost interest.
    • Guzma in the Alola League:
      • Guzma's fight against Ilima. Ilima's Kangaskhan Mega Evolves into Mega Kangaskhan against Guzma's Scizor. While overpowered at first, Guzma was able to create a strategy that allows him to defeat Ilima without much problem. His strategy is using Kangaskhan's baby as a shield by putting her in between the mother and his Scizor thus making the former hesitate to attack while giving his Scizor enough opportunities to defeat her.
      • Guzma's fight against Lana. Instead of starting with First Impression like Lana and Primarina expected, he instead starts off with Throat Chop to make Primarina unable to use their sound moves. He then makes use of Golisopod's multiple limbs to keep Primarina in place while continuing to use Poison Jab. It's a brutal yet amazing battle strategy. When Lana tries to fight back with her Z-Move, Guzma counters it by making Golisopod use Liquidation which this time manifests into a BFS which not only cuts her Z-Move in half, but also defeats Primarina. And for the record, none of his victories were because of luck or complete power, but rather his skills as a trainer which allows him to defeat Mega Evolution and Z-Moves.
      • Despite taking enough damage from Torracat for Emergency Exit to activate, Golisopod is still able to tank Gigavolt Havoc and trade hits with Pikachu afterward, only narrowly losing to a Single-Stroke Battle. Explanation  Seeing how Pikachu was barely able to remain standing after the battle, it basically took Torracat and Pikachu teaming up to finally bring Golisopod down. This also marks the beginning of Guzma and Golisopod's Character Development.
  • Samson Oak most of the time comes across as a pun-spouting loon. In SM056 however, we see his wit in action. Not only is his Komala a demon in battle, curb stomping both Ash's Litten and Kiawe's Turtonator, but Samson later figures out a plan how to deal with the rampaging Jigglypuff...by teaching it Sing as well. For an extra bonus, Komala even lulls Jigglypuff to sleep and draws on its face. Even Jigglypuff is impressed.
  • The utter cutting rampage Kartana goes on in SM 124:
    • Viren's statue.
    • Some lettuce Aina's Kitchen were preparing.
    • A bunch of hedges into geometric shapes.
    • A bunch of Makiwara.
    • Some random fruit.
    • A bunch of Furfrou's hair.
    • A safe.
    • Team Rocket's mecha.
    • A meteor.
    • A rainbow.

    Characters Introduced in Journeys 

General/Multiple Characters

  • Lucario and Cinderace working together actually manage to land a hit on Mewtwo.
  • Ash's Journey team prove their worth by handing Cynthia her very first on-screen defeat, something that was nearly 15 years in the making.
    • Once again, they prove their worth as Ash's most powerful team by helping him and Pikachu defeat Leon and become the new world champion.

Ash's Pokémon

  • Dragonite:
    • Dragonite finally gets a chance to show its battling prowess in JN014, when it manages to fight roughly on par with a giant Golurk. Whereas most of the other battlers failed to damage it at all or got one-shot by its attacks, Dragonite actually manages to hold its own, with its Dragon Claw managing to tie against Golurk's Mega Punch.
    • Dragonite managing to easily outfly Goh's Beedrill, carry Ash way up into the air and is none worse for wear when they finally get to the ruins. It's more disappointed than anything when Ash recalls him.
    • Its entire clash with Korinna's Mega Lucario in JN025. It hangs in there for Ash until it barely wins, giving Lucario everything it's got.
    • In JN065, after Iris gives it a calming pep talk in the middle of battle, it uses Haxorus's Dragon Pulse against it, turning it into a Draco Meteor using Hurricane.
    • In JN130, Ash is put into severe pressure because of Leon's Dragapult and its Dragon Tail, which weakened Dragonite and Dracovish, leaving them fatigued for the rest of the match. And Dragapult even defeated Lucario despite the fact that he was Mega Evolved. When she returns to battle after Lucario lost, Dragonite masters her new Dra-Gonite Meteor technique and turns it into a Seismic Toss-like finisher, breaking her losing streak and finally defeating that bothersome Dragapult.
  • Gengar:
    • JN016: It fights along Pikachu against Team Rocket's Dusclops, taking them both on with a Night Shade (even though it's fatigued).
    • JN018: Gengar unleashes an epic fight against Visquez’s Raichu, tossing it around with Psychic.
    • JN099: Gengar fights against Marnie and her Grimmsnarl, which has the type advantage due to its Dark type. However, Gengar can now Gigantamax and has learned two new moves: Dazzling Gleam to replace Psychic and Sludge Bomb in the place of Night Shade, both super-effective moves on Grimmsnarl due to its Fairy/Dark combo. Gengar wins the battle.
    • JN109: Gengar stepping up to the plate in this episode. After Dragonite suffered its first defeat in the first round against Raihan's Flygon, Gengar comes in with its Gigantamax form and defeats it despite the terrain advantage it had after sucking away the Sandstorm in its Gigantamax form. Raihan's Goodra comes in and proves a massive trouble against Gengar, however, it hangs on just a bit to be able to take out the Goodra despite fainting as well, all but ensuring Ash enters the last round of the battle with a completely fresh Lucario.
  • Lucario:
    • JN021: In its first episode, Riolu proves to be a very powerful Pokemon, that is less than a day old mind you. With Ash's help and aura, it manages to put the hurt on an Onix so much that it ran off scared. Now that's an introduction.
    • JN027: Riolu decides to fight off the Galarian Farfetch'd, essentially doing a Shadow Clone Jutsu and fighting with multiple Vacuum Waves like they were Rasengans! At the final moment of the fight, it lands a Reversal on the bird before they get knocked out. Riolu manages to stand up, after some encouragement from Ash. Galarian Farfetch'd also does the same before shouting to the sky...and ends up fainting standing up.
    • JN039: Riolu gets an opportunity to show off how its improved since its first match with Bea's Grapploct and show off it does. It's largely in control of the entire battle. Even when Grapploct lands Octolock, Riolu relaxes to minimise the damage and lands a point-blank Force Palm to free itself. It even manages tying with Grapploct after the two exchange blows, which is a great deal better than the Curb-Stomp Battle it was dealt in Grapploct's first appearance.
    • JN045: After Pikachu is incapacitated because of Eternatus causing trouble, Riolu arrives to protect Ash and Pikachu from Chairman Rose's Copperajah and Ferrothorn with one paw each blocking their attacks. Then it evolves into Lucario and knocks them down with Aura Sphere! The lead up to the latter is awesome as well. Ash first commands Lucario to use Vacuum Wave, but then Lucario uses his Aura powers to tell Ash that he has learned a more powerful version of Vacuum Wave, Aura Sphere. Ash gets it and commands it to use Aura Sphere.
    • Just the mere fact that Ash now has a Lucario is the moment fans have been waiting for since Generation 4.
    • JN086 Lucario Mega Evolving for the first time, is nothing short of epic. Then it not only tanks Gigantamax Machamp's attacks, including it's G-Max Chi Strike, without breaking a sweat, but it also strikes it down with an Aura Sphere to the face, and then it syncs up with Ash's aura to deliver a Force Palm to meet with Machamp's Bullet Punch, and finally learns Steel Beam for the first time, defeating Machamp and giving Ash the win!
    • His battle with Raihan's Gigantamaxed Duraludon, in HIS BASE FORM (Ash wanted to Mega Evolve him, but had to Gigantamax Gengar earlier). And in true David and Goliath fashion, he comes out on top, advancing Ash to The Masters 8.
    • JN125 is Lucario's crowning moment; he accomplishes an unprecedented feat in the series, he managed to hand Cynthia's Garchomp her first ever on-screen defeat. For years, this Garchomp has been portrayed as this monster who has defeated every challenger in her wake. Granted she had to deal with a determined Sirfetch'd, but Lucario was in a worse shape as well, making the battle between Lucario and Garchomp an even match.
      • To say that the battle between Lucario and Garchomp was epic would be an understatement. After their first attacks (Aura Sphere and Scale Shot) cancel each other out, Garchomp and Lucario go at each other with Dragon Claw and Bullet Punch respectively in an all-out slugfest, each trying desperately to knock each other out. By the end, both are heavily damaged. When Lucario drops to one knee, Garchomp tries to finish it off with Dragon Claw, but then Lucario has one more trick up his sleeve; Reversal. After their attacks connected, they fall to the ground, both seemingly unable to battle. After moments of deathly silence, Lucario slowly rises to his feet and stands victorious while Garchomp remains motionless, unable to battle.
  • Sirfetch'd:
    • His battle against Rinto in JN060 where after his leek gets cut off, Farfetch'd uses a tactic he learned with Wikstrom a couple of episodes ago, by using his leek as a sword and shield, and then evolving into Sirfetch'd afterwards.
    • JN086: Even though he loses to Hawlucha afterwards, he did manage to do some major damage to Machamp, wearing it down enough so that Lucario will eventually win against it.
    • Alongside Dracovish, JN104 sees Sirfetch'd help Ash defeat his first Elite Four member, Drasna. He defeats her Mega Altaria before fainting himself.
    • He's able to quickly recover from being hit by Cynthia's Stealth Rock in JN124, and by using his shield as a boomerang via Brutal Swing, he manages to destroy all the stones scattered across the field, much to her surprise. Even though he gets defeated by her Garchomp later after taking down Milotic, he still manages to deal a heavy amount of damage to the Mach Pokémon with Meteor Assault, to the point where she actually staggers! Keep in mind that in Garchomp's previous battles, she was able to tank her opponents attacks like they were nothing. Sirfetch'd also faints on his feet like Incineroar did after his evolution, but still with a determined look on his face. This proved to be extremely vital in the long run, as Garchomp was not at her full strength against Mega Lucario, leading to her defeat.
      Leon: (amazed) His strategies are outrageous!
  • Dracovish:
    • Just the fact that Ash's first fossil Pokemon is the Memetic Badass of Generation 8.
    • In JN065, it finishes off Iris's Dragonite (which Ash's own Dragonite had trouble fighting) with one Ice Fang. With this, Dracovish has the distinct honor of being Ash's first Pokemon to defeat a Regional Champion's Pokemon.
    • Alongside Sirfetch'd, JN104 sees Dracovish help Ash defeat his first Elite Four member, Drasna, and defeats her Noivern after taking loads of hits from both Noivern and Altaria.
    • In JN124, Dracovish fights Cynthia's Roserade, which healed from the burn from Gengar's Will-O-Wisp thanks to its special Ability Natural Cure, and gets poisoned by a Poison Jab. However, this just makes Dracovish enraged, and it defeats Roserade by completely going through Leaf Storm with Dragon Rush. Then, when Ash decides that it should switch out because of the poison damage, it refuses to be recalled, and while it lost against Milotic, it did major damage with Fishious Rend before getting KO'd.
    • In JN131, against Leon's Dragapult, Dracovish awakens a dormant power andd deals serious damage to it. It then returns to battle the following episode to battle against his powerful Rillaboom, who had defeated both Dragonite and Sirfetch'd, and defeats it with Dragon Rush. During this, Sirfetch'd is spiritually shown as Dracovish charges forward and avenges him.

Goh and his Pokémon

  • JN014: Goh's Darmanitan finishing off a giant Golurk with a Hurricane powered Overheat and allowing Goh to catch said Golurk.
  • JN015: Scorbunny immediately tries to fight off the trio of Mankey that were picking on Cubone.
  • JN033: He commands Kricketina's Heracross to fight off Team Rocket like a natural. It's no wonder why the two trade Pokemon at the end of the episode.
  • JN036: Goh and Raboot manage to defeat and catch a Flygon using a strategy Ash would've used, showing how he's grown and adapted as a battler.
  • JN045: Against Oleana's Milotic, Goh tells Raboot to jump into the air and fire its Ember attack from all directions, making it difficult for Milotic to stop them all. Then it evolves into Cinderace, delivers a knockout with Pyro Ball and then returns to being its friendly self back when it was Scorbunny by hugging Goh.
  • In JN047 Skwovet's determination to win the Eating Competition allows it to evolve into Greedent and successfully claim victory.
  • In JN053, Goh catches a Suicune, and when given the chance to be released back into the wild, it chose to stay as his Pokemon (though allowed to be free until its trainer needs it).
  • While getting berries to help Suicune heal, Goh catches a Drowzee, realizing the poachers all use Poison types in the likely chance they would try again. He didn't account for their boss's Houndoom though, but it was good thinking ahead.
  • During JN094 when Pinsir blocks off Lurantis's solar beam attack to protect Heracross then takes out Team Rocket in one swift go with X-Scissor. The first time we see Pinsir do any form of battling in the series.

Chloe and her Pokémon

  • It takes a bit of encouragement from her father, but in JN011 Chloe commands Yamper to use Spark on Gengar, knocking the Ghost out of the laboratory.
  • Chloe quickly ordering Yamper to use Spark on a Fearow in JN029 shows that she's getting more comfortable with fighting.
  • In a small bit of Character Development, Ash stated that she gave him a What the Hell, Hero? moment about how he neglected Pikachu in favor of Riolu in the following episode. Considering how Chloe generally avoids interacting with Ash altogether, this shows a bit of improvement in her.
  • She will not let bullying pass. In JN031, when two ladies mock Jinny's decision to use Feebas for the comeptition, Chloe glares at them, causing them to freak out.
  • JN049 has Cinderace and Sobble captured by Team Rocket and Ash and Pikachu stuck in a pit. Team Rocket's gacha machine isn't working so they only have the Pelipper who delivered their machine to fight with. With Goh unable to do anything else, it's up to Chloe fighting off with Yamper and Eevee — who knows Copycat to mimic Spark — to fight off against Team Rocket in time for Pikachu to climb out of the pit, break the Pokémon trapped with Iron Tail and finally send Team Rocket flying.
  • Eevee decides to stay with Chloe and Chloe catches her with one of Goh's Poké balls. Professor Cerise even gifts his daughter a Rotom Phone, cementing that she's now a trainer.
  • JN052 has her figure out a plan for Ash and Goh to figure out how to locate the Diglett: place a different colored flag on the four corners of the carrot field and then locate which flag they're heading for, so Ash and Goh can pull out the carrot just before the Diglett can munch on it.
  • During JN074, she and Eevee easily take down a charging Rhydon that comes after her and Dawn after it defeats Piplup.
  • Chloe and Eevee's contest performance was truly spectacular, managing to wow the crowds effortlessly. Goh is very proud and Professor Cerise is left in Tears of Joy.

Other

  • The first episode proves that even when it's playful, Mew is still not a Mythical Pokemon to underestimate.
  • The second episode does a great job of having Lugia show off the sheer majesty of a Legendary Pokémon.
  • Leon Vs. Lance in episode 12, full stop. The music really doesn't hurt either.
  • Leon and his Pokémon:
    • The battle between Leon and Ash really shows the strength of the undefeatable Champion. Ash's Pikachu only manages to land two attacks on Charizard and one of those was with the use of a surprise Gigantamax while the latter was still at normal size. The two later trade signature moves but by the end of the battle, Pikachu is knocked out while Charizard has nary a scratch on him.
    • During the his finals match against Ash, Leon has revealed to have learned Ash's Counter Shield strategy and uses it against him with Inteleon.
    • Leon’s Charizard in its base form defeated Alain’s Mega Charizard. Theoretically Alain’s Charizard should have the advantage but Leon’s is just that powerful and skilled even without Gigantimaxing.

Alternative Title(s): Pokemon Anime

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