Roll On, Pokémon! – Pokémon Season 3, Episode 4

Filler / stand-alone episodeDonphan debutAsh loses to Rochelle

Roll On, Pokémon! is the 4th episode of Pokémon: The Johto Journeys, the third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 120th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 122, Bulbapedia code EP120). It first aired in Japan on 4 November 1999 and in the United States on 4 November 2000. It falls within the season’s Arrival in Johto stretch (EP117–EP121).

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

Synopsis

Ash and friends are continuing their journey to Violet City when they notice the valley they are trekking through is crumbling. They continue anyway and encounter a Donphan in the bushes. Ash and Brock argue for so long about which of them should capture the Donphan that it starts to leave, Brock attacks with his Onix’s tackle attack but Donphan retaliates with a roll out. Ash sends out his Heracross and hits Donphan with a tackle, Donphan tries the rollout again but is repelled by Heracross’s horn attack. Just as Ash is about to finish the battle, a woman named Rochelle appears from the bushes and threatens to report them to Officer Jenny for trying to steal her Donphan. She explains that all of the Donphan in the forest belong to her. Rochelle is wearing a necklace made from Amberite.

Team Rocket meanwhile are nearby posing as forest rangers, in order to search the valley for Amberite without attracting too much attention. Meowth goes on to say that he overheard two guys talking about Amberite, and they said that having a Donphan is the only way to sniff out the Amberite, so they set off to get one. They find Rochelle trying to teach the young Donphan that Ash battled how to find Amberite, and they capture it in a net and fly off in their balloon, taking the Donphan to a clearing where they start pressuring the Donphan to find Amberite. When they see that this approach isn’t going to work they try being nice to it and feeding it instead in order to convince it to help them.

Donphan finishes indulging in the leaves and shrubs fed to it by Team Rocket and then it starts walking about sniffing the ground, it stops at one spot and Team Rocket start digging at the ground there. Ash and friends along with Rochelle are nearby trying to find the Donphan; Brock has his Zubat out searching but isn’t getting much luck. Rochelle then blows a whistle and a huge herd of Donphan come running, Rochelle tells them to go and find the young Donphan and the herd sets off.

Team Rocket have dug the ground to no avail, as James is pleading with Donphan to try and find some more Amberite, the herd finds them, closely followed by Ash Misty Brock and Rochelle. The usual confrontation takes place and Team Rocket are eventually beaten, blasting off once more.

The young Donphan is reunited with Rochelle and it’s friends in the herd. Rochelle thanks the group for their help and gives them a demonstration of how the Donphan find Amberite using her most experienced mon who quickly gets the scent of some nearby Amberite and starts attacking a rocky ridge, knocking down big lumps of Amberite!

Rochelle asks Ash if there is anything she can do to thank him for helping reunite her with her young Donphan, Ash of course asks for a battle against Rochelles toughest Donphan. He sends out his Heracross to meet it in battle and the two go head to head, a fairly tough battle rages until Heracross stops for a snack, when the battle resumes Heracross is eventually beaten due to the very high level of Rochelle’s Donphan – but it put up a good fight none the less.

Ash, Misty and Brock bid Rochelle and her herd of Donphan farewell and continue on their way to Violet City.

Major Events

• Donphan TV debut (prior M01)
• Heracross’s Tackle/Horn Attack/Endure, Poliwag’s Bubble
• Ash loses to Rochelle

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Donphan#0232 · EP120

Trivia

• The English title plays on Woody Guthrie’s "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On", for the rolling Donphan.
• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Johto story.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Donphan in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Hoothoot in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Agate becomes the invented “amberite”; the odango shop becomes a “mountain rest stop”; Rochelle’s “they all have Trainers” becomes “they’re all mine”.
• Pokémon Karaokémon: “All We Wanna Do” (Élan Rivera & Jamily Gray).

Part of our Pokémon: The Johto Journeys guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.