Japanese Title: Burn, Lizardon! VS Kairyu!
Original Airdate: March 7, 2013
US Airdate: June 8, 2013
This is what happens when a dragon Pokemon and a fire-flying type meet.
Ash, Iris, Cilan, and N happen upon a fair in Virbank City where the Kanto starters are highlighted. Inspired by memories of his early journey, Ash decides to call upon Charizard for the remainder of his Unova challenge. But it's not all smooth sailing, as Charizard's presence ends up ruffling Dragonite's feathers.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Art Evolution: The flashbacks to Ash's time with his Charmander-Charmeleon-Charizard utilizes the Best Wishes art style. Particularly striking when you look at the equivalent episodes that were animated by the same team.
- Ash Face: Charizard still fires Flamethrower right at Ash's face.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Charizard is called up, and will remain in Ash's group for the rest of Unova.
- Misty and Brock also appear in the flashback sequences.
- Continuity Cavalcade: With a boatload of cameos.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Narrowly subverted. Ash's Charizard completely overpowers Iris' Dragonite: not even Dragonite's Dragon Rush leaves as much as a scratch on Charizard, while Charizard's Dragon Tail hurts Dragonite rather badly. However, N calls off the battle before Charizard can deliver the final blow.
- Epic Fail: For wanting to be a Dragon Master, Iris mistaken Charizard as a Dragon-type. Iris is shocked and asks how Charizard could be able to use a Dragon-type attack and look so much like a Dragon type. Ash shows her Charizard's Pokédex entry, which clearly states that Charizard is a Fire/Flying, shocking Iris even more, since she had been thinking of catching and training herself a Charizard too.
- This only gets subverted in Generations afterwards, if Charizard mega-evolved in its X form.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Played for Laughs, where Iris makes the mistake of calling Charizard a Dragon-type, and her Dragonite puts up what is probably one of the funniest faces he's ever made because of it. Then Axew laughs at her. Charizard, for his part, just looks horrified.
- Fireball Eyeballs: Charizard and Dragonite want to face off from the moment they meet. Charizard probably sees too much of himself in Dragonite.
- Funny Background Event:
- Pikachu has always liked Orange Juice and tastes Ash's juice with his paw when Ash starts explaining Charizard's history; by the end he is drinking it straight out of the cup.
- When Charizard and Dragonite are challenging one another to a battle, Ash and Pikachu are trying to hold Charizard back. Pikachu, being very small, can only grasp Charizard's neck rather ineffectually.
- Ironic Echo: When Iris mistakes Charizard's typing, Axew laughs something that likely translates as its trainer's catchphrase, "What a kid!".
- Keet: The Charmander at the festival got a little too excited in its performance, and wound up injuring itself.
- Made of Iron: Pikachu is a tiny mouse Pokemon (He's 1'04" tall and weighs 13.2 pounds for anyone actually interested!) and Charizard roars very loudly on its arrival. The humans nearly fall over but, apart from his ears moving in the force of the roar, Pikachu is entirely unaffected.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Professor Oak reveals that Swellow and Staraptor often have aerial races with each other and that Unfezant (who was just being sent to him in exchange for Charizard) would probably be glad to join in.
- Oh, Crap!: Pikachu is rather shocked that Charizard still uses Flamethrowers at Ash.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Pikachu gets two in this episode. The first is during Ash recounting his story with Charizard when he's drinking a whole cup of orange juice roughly the same size as himself instead of listening. The second time is when Charizard returns and, unlike everyone else, he's entirely unaffected by Charizard's roar...having lived through both of the aforementioned events before, it makes sense.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Almost half of the episode consists of (re-animated) clips from older episodes as Ash explains his history with Charizard. Justified, considering Charizard hasn't appeared since The Battle Frontier arc and so its unlikely the show's current audience is familiar with his character or history.
- Worthy Opponent: How Charizard and Dragonite regard each other.
