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| Season | Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension (Season 11) · Chimchar’s fresh start & the road to Solaceon arc (DP053–DP059) |
| Episode | Season 11, episode 3 · English episode 518 · Japanese episode 522 · Bulbapedia code DP055 |
| English title | Throwing the Track Switch |
| Japanese title | エイパムとブイゼル！それぞれの道！！ Eipamu to Buizeru! Sorezore no Michi!! — “Eipam and Buoysel! Respective Roads!!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 22 November 2007 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 26 April 2008 · Cartoon Network |
| Screenplay | Atsuhiro Tomioka |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Together – Fumie Akiyoshi · Kimi no Soba de ~Hikari no Tēma~ (By Your Side ~Hikari’s Theme~), Winter Version – GRIN |
| English opening | We Will Be Heroes – Kirsten Price |
| Previous episode | Once There Were Greenfields (DP054) |
| Next episode | The Keystone Pops! (DP056) |
Plot episodeAipom & Buizel traded
Throwing the Track Switch is the 3rd episode of Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension, the eleventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 518th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 522, Bulbapedia code DP055). It first aired in Japan on 22 November 2007 and in the United States on 26 April 2008. It falls within the season’s Chimchar’s fresh start & the road to Solaceon stretch (EP53–EP59).
Synopsis
At a Pokémon Center, James is still moping over Cacnea, and not even his favourite mangoes can cheer him up. Inside, Dawn watches TV coverage of Kenny winning his second Ribbon in Sage Town with Prinplup and despairs at her own lone Ribbon. Zoey arrives, Marian announces that the next Contest will be held in Solaceon Town on the way to Veilstone City, and Ash and Pikachu lie groaning on a bench after overeating while Brock and Sudowoodo brew an herbal remedy that neither patient will drink. The next morning Dawn trains Buizel against Zoey’s Glameow while Ash pits Aipom against Chimchar. The contrast is obvious: Glameow turns Buizel’s Water Gun into a sparkling mist that only flatters Glameow, Buizel shakes off water carelessly and keeps glancing at Ash’s battle, and Aipom keeps watching Dawn’s training before launching Swift into the sky and leaping among the stars like a Contest performer.
Zoey stops both practices and repeats her earlier hint: Aipom loves Contests and Buizel loves battling, so the two should trade. Team Rocket overhear and decide to snatch both Pokémon to lift James’s spirits. In the Pokémon Center, Ash and Dawn watch Nurse Joy oversee a trade between two Trainers, but they hesitate because of the bonds they have built; Joy reminds them that Trainers must also adapt to what their Pokémon want. Ash proposes a test: he will battle Brock with Buizel while Dawn battles Zoey with Aipom. Before they start, Jessie and Meowth arrive disguised as a “Pokémon au pair” service, only for James to turn up undisguised and ruin the act. Realising that his friends were trying to help him, James perks up and sends out Carnivine, and Seviper and Dustox join the attack, but the trio end up grabbing Sudowoodo and Glameow by mistake.
Ash and Dawn fight back with their prospective new partners. Aipom spins a huge Swift shield that blocks Bullet Seed and Psybeam and looks stunning doing it, while Buizel hits Dustox with SonicBoom and Aqua Jet. When Seviper’s Haze blankets the field, Aipom uses Double Team to surround Buizel, and the pair clear the smog with simultaneous Focus Punches before Buizel’s Water Gun blasts Team Rocket away. Brock and Zoey agree the pairing is perfect, so Ash and Dawn place the Poké Balls in the Pokémon Center’s trading machine and pull the lever together. Afterwards Ash sends out his Buizel, intending to use it at the Veilstone Gym, while Dawn sends out her Aipom, ready for the Solaceon Contest. It is the only time in the anime that two main characters trade Pokémon with each other, and the first trade shown since the original series.
Major Events
- Ash’s Aipom and Dawn’s Buizel are traded. Kenny wins the Sage Ribbon on TV
- Zoey returns and suggests the trade
- The Solaceon Contest is announced
- The only trade ever made between two main characters, and the first trade in the anime since the original series
Trivia
- The English title plays on a railway switch, which sends a train down a different track, for the trade that sends Aipom and Buizel down new paths.
- The screenplay is by Atsuhiro Tomioka.
- This is a plot episode: it advances the Sinnoh storyline.
Changes in the English Dub
- James’s Cacnea, removed from the Japanese opening after DP054, stays in the English opening We Will Be Heroes for the rest of the season (Dogasu’s Backpack)
- Kenny’s Contest happened “a few days ago” rather than yesterday
- Brock’s herbal remedy for people and Pokémon alike becomes medicine made just for Ash and Pikachu
- Ash calls Brock “Brocko”
- Jessie’s request, which quotes the 1998 song “Trade Please”, Meowth’s -chan suffixes and a kabuki pun on Zui Town are lost
- Lines about Carnivine biting James are added
- Hello! Thank You! is replaced by instrumental music in the dub (Dogasu’s Backpack)
- Jessie quotes “Trade Please” in Japanese
- An instrumental cut of Together
Part of our Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.