EP068

← EP067 : The Pi-Kahuna

Original series

EP069 : Lights, Camera, Quack-tion →

Make Room for Gloom

EP068   しょくぶつえんのクサイハナ Kusaihana of the Botanical Garden

First broadcast Japan October 29, 1998 United States October 4, 1999

English themes Opening Pokémon Theme Ending

Japanese themes Opening めざせポケモンマスター Ending ニャースのうた

Credits Animation Team Ota Screenplay 武上純希 Junki Takegami Storyboard 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani Assistant director 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani Animation director 酒井啓史 Keishi Sakai Additional credits

Screenshots on Filb.de

Make Room for Gloom (Japanese: しょくぶつえんのクサイハナ Kusaihana of the Botanical Garden) is the 68th episode of the Pokémon anime. It first aired in Japan on October 29, 1998 and in the United States on October 4, 1999.

Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.

Blurb

Back in Pallet Town, Ash and friends meet Florinda who works at the local nursery. She's afraid that her Gloom is not evolving into a Vileplume because she's not training it properly. When Team Rocket bursts in and attempts to steal Gloom, everyone sees just how strong a Pokémon can become—through love.

Plot

Back home at Pallet Town, it's another day at the Ketchum residence. Brock is up making breakfast as Ash is awakened by a combination of Mimey sweeping over his head and Pikachu shocking him awake when Mimey does the same to Pikachu. This awakens Misty (sleeping in Ash's bunk). Later, during breakfast, Delia asks her son to help out with her garden (as he does not appear to be training for the Pokémon League), but the thought of that reminds him of some "serious training" that he needs to do in the mountains - something that was news to Misty. As Ash tries to push Misty and Brock out the door as fast as possible (telling them secretly that laboring in the family garden would leave him too tired to train), they quickly run off when Delia tells them to get 3-400 pounds of fertilizer from the Xanadu Nursery.

After running away, they take a rest. Encountering a greenhouse, Ash tells Misty and Brock that the greenhouse is the Xanadu Nursery, a childhood stomping ground. He had recalled that the owner had moved away when he was a child, and he does not know the new owner. When Brock peers inside and finds an attractive woman, all Ash sees is a Gloom, making Misty believe both are hallucinating. They are interrupted by a gardener, appearing to wield a flamethrower, when in fact it merely sprays water.

Introducing himself as Potter, he describes the Xanadu Nursery as a place which attracts Grass-type Pokémon. As Ash sends out Bulbasaur out to enjoy, Brock inquires about the girl that he saw, who he learns is named Florinda, the new owner of the Xanadu Nursery. Just then, however, Bulbasaur sniffs a bunch of Stun Stem (a plant which produces pollen that can paralyze, much like Stun Spore), which knocks it out cold. Florinda and Gloom appear, and advises Ash to take Bulbasaur with her for treatment. Thanks to Gloom (who had developed an immunity to Stun Stem from being exposed to it for so long), Bulbasaur recovers. As the two Grass Pokémon play, Brock and Florinda talk privately.

Florinda had inherited the Xanadu Nursery (run by her family for generations), but she does not feel confident in her abilities because she is not able to make Gloom evolve, even with the help of a Leaf Stone. It is apparently not because of love, as Gloom is almost never gloomy. Just then, Professor Oak appears, revealing the Leaf Stone that Florinda had purchased to be a fake. As everyone tries to help Florinda cope with the situation, Florinda describes the three people who had sold them the false Leaf Stone: Team Rocket.

Meanwhile, Team Rocket themselves are at the nursery, looking for the right Pokémon to steal. After encountering the Stun Stem, they decide to harvest it instead, as it could help them. Back upstairs, Brock swears to Florinda that he would find a real Leaf Stone, but Ash tries to dissuade him as Leaf Stones are hard to come by. Brock instead swears to Florinda that he would find Team Rocket and bring justice, but Ash also points out that it is usually Team Rocket who find them first. As if on cue, alarms sound, as Potter learns that plants are being stolen from the nursery. Sure enough, they discover Team Rocket. Though Bulbasaur manages to tie up Team Rocket, Meowth (though he is a bit late) unleashes a bomb made of the stolen Stun Stem to incapacitate nearly everyone. With Florinda (who evaded the Stun Stem) and Gloom the only able-bodied person left, Brock urges her to attack, as Team Rocket manages to steal Pikachu while incapacitated. Sending Arbok and Weezing to deal with Gloom, Florinda is surprised at Gloom's battling ability when it manages to use Double Team to get Arbok and Weezing to hit each other. Meanwhile, Pikachu manages to bite Jessie's arm, and frees itself, landing behind Bulbasaur, as Brock continues to coach Florinda, telling her that Team Rocket is now open to a more powerful attack. Though Florinda is not confident that SolarBeam would do the trick, Gloom manages to send Team Rocket flying with it.

Later, after everyone has been treated, Florinda thanks Brock, noting that Gloom is strong as it is, and that it does not need to evolve. Florinda now has the confidence to run the nursery with a special someone, which causes Brock to fawn over. When Brock recovers from fantasizing though, Florinda had already proposed to Potter, to run the nursery together. Feeling rejected, Ash tries to console Brock, telling him that he will meet more women who will reject him. As Ash and his friends head back to town, he is reminded that he had spent a day not training for the Pokémon League.

Major events

• Jessie's Arbok is revealed to know Toxic.

For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.

Characters

Humans

Dare da?

• Ash
• Misty
• Brock
• Jessie
• James
• Delia Ketchum
• Professor Oak
• Florinda Showers
• Potter

Pokémon

Who's That Pokémon?

Who's That Pokémon?: Clefable (U.S. and international), Gloom (Japan)

• Pikachu (Ash's)
• Meowth (Team Rocket)
• Togepi (Misty's)
• Bulbasaur (Ash's)
• Arbok (Jessie's)
• Weezing (James's)
• Mr. Mime (Delia's, Mimey)
• Gloom (Florinda's)
• Dodrio

Trivia

• Professor Oak's lecture: Machop
  • Pokémon senryū summary: Alphabetically, the very last, Machop.
• Type: Wild replaced Meowth's Song as the Japanese ending theme.
• Ash mentions that Brock will find tons of more girls that will reject him. To be exact, Brock found over five hundred more girls that rejected him in his tenure in the anime.
• The events of this episode immediately follow those of Mewtwo Strikes Back.
• Real world animals are mentioned in this episode: when Poké-nip is described, it says that it has the same effect on Pokémon as catnip does on cats.

Errors

Misty's miscolored eye

• When Team Rocket is stealing the Stun Stem, they are all shown to be wearing surgical masks. However, in the next scene, Jessie's mouth is seen moving, and the masks disappear completely in all scenes afterward.
• When Misty comments on how Bulbasaur and Gloom "aren't the only ones getting together," one of her eyes is green and the other is blue.

Dub edits

• In the original, Xanadu Nursery is named after Florinda Showers, being called Murasame (Showers) Botanical Gardens.
  • Its name in English is a likely reference to one of Coleridge's most well-known poems, Kubla Khan, in which a greenhouse-like "pleasure dome" is featured. In Japanese, murasame refers to an intermittent autumn rain which falls lightly and heavily in rhythmical spurts.

In other languages

Language		Title
Mandarin Chinese		植物園的臭臭花
Czech		Návštěva u Glooma
Dutch		Ruim Baan voor Gloom
Finnish		Mutta mitä tekee Gloom?
European French		Talents cachés
German		Terror im Treibhaus
Hebrew		פנו דרך לגלום panu derech leGloom
Hindi		Gloom ने मचादी धूम Gloom ne macha di dhoom! *
Hungarian		Gloom a kertben
Italian		Insidia verde
Korean		냄새꼬! 로켓단을 물리쳐라!
Norwegian		En sak for Gloom
Polish		Pokój dla Glooma
Portuguese	Brazil	A Hora do Gloom
	Portugal	Abram Alas para o Gloom
Romanian		Faceți loc pentru Gloom
Russian		Место для Глума
Spanish	Latin America	¡Hagan espacio para Gloom!
	Spain	Haced sitio a Gloom
Swedish		En falsk bladsten

← EP067 : The Pi-Kahuna

Original series

EP069 : Lights, Camera, Quack-tion →

This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation.