Japanese Title: Satoshi and Nagetukesaru! Touchdown of Friendship!!
Original Airdate: March 1, 2018
US Airdate: N/A
And thus, Ash's Pokémon journey...Who are we kidding? He'll be back next week.
Ash ends up in the middle of a situation when a group of young Passimian are being bullied by older Passimian. Can he teach them to play ball so they can earn respect?
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Disguise: Ash dresses up as a Passimian, a lemur/monkey Pokemon, to get closer to them in the wild.
- Borrowed Catch Phrase: In Japanese, Ash mimics Team Rocket's bewildered "What even is this feeling?" as he's carried off by the triumphant Passimian.
- Curious as a Monkey: Ash takes "monkey see, monkey do" to its logical conclusion—and perhaps a bit too literally—by dressing up as a Passimian to teach the group of young Passimian how to play ball. He even acts like a Passimian at the Pokémon School beforehand to get into character.
- Divergent Character Evolution: The episode makes a decent attempt to make all the Passimian in the group look at least slightly distinctive from one another, without being Off-Model from the base design.
- Shout-Out: To Mobile Suit Gundam.
