DP053

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Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl

DP054 : Once There Were Greenfields →

Tears For Fears!

DP053   EP519 ヒコザルの涙！ Hikozaru's Tears!

First broadcast Japan November 8, 2007 United States April 12, 2008

English themes Opening We Will Be Heroes Ending

Japanese themes Opening Together Ending 君のそばで 〜ヒカリのテーマ〜 (Winter Version)

Credits Animation Team Iguchi Screenplay 松井亜弥 Aya Matsui Storyboard 小山賢 Masaru Koyama Assistant director 小山賢 Masaru Koyama Animation director 広岡歳仁 Toshihito Hirooka Additional credits

Screenshots on Filb.de Original review thread on BMGf

Tears For Fears! (Japanese: ヒコザルの涙！ Hikozaru's Tears!) is the 53rd episode of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, and the 519th episode of the Pokémon animated series. It was originally scheduled to air in Japan on November 1, 2007, but was delayed to November 8 due to baseball. It aired in the US on April 12, 2008.

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

Blurb

As our heroes head towards Veilstone City, Ash's new Chimchar struggles to adapt to its new surroundings. Everything is the complete opposite of life with Paul: mealtimes are fun and everyone treats each other with friendship and kindness! Chimchar still has vivid memories of the lonely and harsh treatment it received from Paul, so this sudden reversal of fortune is nearly too much to take. When Ash even praises Chimchar after it loses a practice battle with Dawn's Piplup, Chimchar breaks down in emotion.

Meowth, who's searching for Team Rocket after their group was split up by some rampaging Zangoose, sees this scene and has a pang of sympathy for Chimchar. That night, Chimchar can't sleep and it finds Meowth sitting in the moonlight. Meowth isn't in the mood for a fight; instead, it gently tells Chimchar to make the best of its new life. Of course, all bets are off the next morning once Meowth rejoins Jessie and James: they catch Dawn and Brock by surprise, then try to steal all of their Pokémon by trapping them in giant canisters!

But when the Zangoose show up, Team Rocket has to hide in the canisters for their own protection. Ash and Chimchar reach the scene and realize the Zangoose are about to knock the canisters off a cliff! Chimchar has encountered Zangoose before and it's still afraid of them. Ash knows this, so he encourages Chimchar and gives it the confidence it needs to take on and defeat the Zangoose. With everyone safe and sound, it's three cheers for Chimchar, who finally feels like a part of its new family!

Plot

Ash, Dawn and Brock settle down for lunch while still on the road to Veilstone City. The gang decides to let their Pokémon out for the day, and soon, everyone is starting to set up for lunch. However, Chimchar is confused on what to do since everyone is in a happy mood. He remembers mealtimes with Paul, which involved Paul feeding Chimchar directly from a tin can while angrily telling him to hurry up. As everyone else begins eating, Chimchar has to be prompted by Ash, making it clear that the Pokémon is having trouble adjusting to his new circumstances.

Team Rocket also have their respective Pokémon out of their Poké Balls, eating with them. However, meal time is interrupted when Seviper notices that three Zangoose are heading their way. They begin fighting furiously and Seviper, despite attacking its mortal enemies, finds itself outnumbered and outmatched. Jessie returns Seviper to its Poké Ball, but it refuses to give up and comes straight back out. Jessie continually tries to get Seviper to return, but to no avail. Then, the wild Zangoose send Team Rocket blasting off again, with Meowth landing in a different area from Jessie and James.

With most of their Pokémon lounging about, Ash and Dawn go for a sparring match - all watched by Meowth as he looks for his teammates. Ash uses his Pikachu and Dawn uses her Buizel. After a tough match, the two compliment their Pokémon and Chimchar goes through another flashback from his time as Paul's Pokémon in which he defeated Elekid during training, but still got scolded by Paul since he did not access his Blaze Ability to do so. Ash and Dawn decide to have another battle using different Pokémon, as Ash selects Chimchar to battle against Dawn's Piplup. Despite putting up a tough fight, Chimchar loses the battle, which triggers another flashback, this time from the Hearthome City Tag Battle Competition in which he was cruelly released by Paul after all of his attempts to unlock Chimchar's Blaze failed. Ash picks up Chimchar, who expects to be criticized, but Ash instead congratulates him for putting up a tough fight against a Pokémon he has a type disadvantage against. This is followed up by compliments from Dawn and Brock, as well as cheering from all the other Pokémon. Chimchar is left very nervous and confused, and starts crying since he cannot handle his drastic change in environment. Ash is confused as to why Chimchar would cry when he is getting complimented, but Brock muses that Chimchar must not have had many chances to show any emotion while under Paul's ownership. Ash understands, and holds Chimchar while he sobs his heart out. Meowth is also moved by this emotional display and, with tears in his eyes, leaves without incident to continue looking for Jessie and James.

That night, Chimchar has a nightmare about having to fight under Paul's command battling a Graveler. Graveler jumps out against Chimchar and uses Rock Throw, sending boulders flying. Paul orders Chimchar not to move, as his typical way of trying to force him to access Blaze under pressure. Chimchar's nightmare switches to the Zangoose fight before he was caught, still with Paul's voice in his head. Chimchar jolts awake and, unable to get back to sleep, goes for a walk.

Meowth is still looking for the rest of Team Rocket when he crosses paths with Chimchar. After convincing him that he does not want to fight, Meowth tells Chimchar that he knows what it is like to worry, and he dreams of the time when he and the others are finally able to capture Pikachu, as he would not have anything to worry about. Meowth tells Chimchar that he should stop worrying about the past, and instead look to the new, brighter future, because he is a very lucky Pokémon. Meowth states to Chimchar that his new friends would do anything for him, before he leaves. Chimchar is left thoughtful at this new outlook. The next morning, all of the Pokémon start helping out preparing for a meal, and Chimchar is once again unsure of what to do. Ash calls over to him, asking for help carrying some water, to which Chimchar happily agrees.

Later, Team Rocket is shown in their balloon, retrieving Meowth by his rear end with a "plunger". They state that were going to steal Ash's Pokémon and that meeting Meowth was just a coincidence, then go through with their plan to capture the gang’s Pokémon while they are out of their Poké Balls. As they begin to fly off with the Pokémon in canisters, Dawn tries to make her Pokémon return into their Poké Balls, but fails. Meowth says the containers are protected from that, so Dawn commands Piplup it to use Bubble Beam while Brock orders Croagunk to use Poison Sting. This also fails.

Seviper, however, gets out of its Poké Ball due to sensing the three Zangoose once again. The gang of Zangoose climb up a tree to reach Seviper, and rip the balloon apart, sending them crashing to the ground. Team Rocket decide to hide themselves within one of the containers, but this backfires, as the wild Zangoose attack the container, attempting to get to Seviper, and push it close to the edge of a nearby cliff. Ash and Chimchar return and see what is happening, and Ash tells Chimchar to help. However, Chimchar is too frightened to fight the wild Zangoose. Ash gives him a little pep talk, telling him that while he understands Chimchar is scared, the other Pokémon really need his help. Chimchar is reminded of the kindness shown by Ash and the others, and Meowth telling him that the group would do anything to help him if they needed to. Ash tells Chimchar not to worry about the power of Blaze, as all he needs to win is just to believe that he can. As a result, Chimchar becomes motivated, overcomes his fear, and fights off the Zangoose. He uses Dig a few times to confuse them, before finishing them off with Flamethrower.

With the Zangoose defeated, Team Rocket opens the container from the inside and tries to escape, but Ash and Dawn command Pikachu to use Thunderbolt, Chimchar to use Flamethrower, Turtwig to use Razor Leaf, Piplup to use Bubble Beam, and Buneary to use Ice Beam, sending Team Rocket blasting off for the second and final time. Chimchar joins the other Pokémon in their cheering, and with his past completely fading away, he looks forward to his new life with a bright future ahead of him.

Major events

• Ash's Chimchar overcomes his fear of Zangoose.

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

Characters

Humans

• Ash
• Dawn
• Brock
• Jessie
• James
• Paul (flashback and nightmare)

Pokémon

• Pikachu (Ash's)
• Meowth (Team Rocket)
• Piplup (Dawn's)
• Wobbuffet (Jessie's)
• Mime Jr. (James's)
• Aipom (Ash's)
• Staravia (Ash's)
• Turtwig (Ash's)
• Chimchar (Ash's)
• Buneary (Dawn's)
• Pachirisu (Dawn's)
• Buizel (Dawn's)
• Sudowoodo (Brock's)
• Croagunk (Brock's)
• Happiny (Brock's)
• Seviper (Jessie's)
• Dustox (Jessie's)
• Cacnea (James's)
• Carnivine (James's)
• Elekid (Paul's; flashback)
• Zangoose (×3)
• Graveler (nightmare)

Trivia

Ash with scratches on his shoulder

• Both the Japanese opening and ending animations have updated to move Chimchar to Ash's group, while Paul's Electabuzz has replaced Elekid in the opening.
• An instrumental version of Meowth's Song, music from Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea and an alternate cut of Together are used as background music.
• Professor Oak's Big Pokémon Encyclopedia: Garchomp
  • Pokémon senryū: ガブリアス　ガブリとくるぞ　かみくだく Gaburiasu, gaburi to kuru zo, kamikudaku. "Gaburias, coming with a chomp, Crunch."
• This is the season premiere of Pokémon: DP Battle Dimension.
• We Will Be Heroes replaces Diamond and Pearl as the English opening theme.
• James, Gardenia, and Meowth narrate the preview for the next episode.
• This is the fourth episode where a character bleeds. The previous occurrences were in Wake Up Snorlax!, Ignorance is Blissey, and Sharpedo Attack!
• This episode's English dub title is a reference to the British music group Tears for Fears. It is the second time that the anime has referenced the group, the first being in Hocus Pokémon.
• This is the first episode to be dubbed at DuArt Film & Video, which had already dubbed The Rise of Darkrai.
• Kayzie Rogers returns as James's Mime Jr. (taking over from Michele Knotz) and Jessie's Wobbuffet, after archive sounds had been used for Wobbuffet's voice during season 10.
• This episode was released on DVD in England as a free gift with issue 59 of the Jetix Magazine.
• In the Nordic and Dutch dubs, starting with this episode, the title cards and "To be continued" messages are in their own respective languages (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch) instead of English. These dubs also received a new set of credits mentioning the dubbing staff.
• Starting from this episode until Regaining the Home Advantage, the English dub audio in the title card will remain intact in the Disney India Hindi dub, instead of a dubbed title voiceover.

Errors

• Ash's scratch disappears in the next scene.
• The three Zangoose's eyes in one of Chimchar's flashbacks are incorrectly colored as white.
• Meowth appears with an eyelash while he is in the tube with the rest of Team Rocket and their Pokémon.
• When Team Rocket blasts off for the last time, Wobbuffet is seen outside of his Poké Ball, yet when they blast off, the Poké Ball release noise is heard before Wobbuffet says his name.
• In the English dub:
  • The narrator says, "With the Eterna City Contest and Tag Battle behind them..." The group has just left from a Contest in Hearthome City, not Eterna. This may be due to script confusion, as the next episode features the Eterna Gym Leader, Gardenia.
  • In Chimchar's flashback of the Hearthome Contest, Chimchar remembers Paul saying, "You are out of here!", when Paul actually said, "You're out of here!"
  • Seviper's Japanese voice can be heard during the brawls against Zangoose.

In other languages

Language		Title
Mandarin Chinese		小火焰猴的眼淚！
Czech		Slzy strachu
Danish		Tårer og frygt!
Dutch		Tranen van angst!
Finnish		Pelon kyyneleitä
European French		Les larmes de Ouisticram !
German		Tränen der Vergangenheit!
Hebrew		הדמעות של צ'ימצ'אר
Indonesian		Air Mata Chimchar!
Italian		Lacrime di paura!
Korean		불꽃숭이! 눈물이여, 안녕!
Norwegian		Tårer av frykt!
Polish		Łzy Chimchara
Portuguese	Brazil	Lágrimas de Chimchar!
	Portugal	O Medo do Sucesso!
Romanian		Lacrimi de Supărare
Russian		Слёзы страха
Spanish	Latin America	¡Enfrenta tus temores!
	Spain	¡Lágrimas de Miedo!
Swedish		Skräckens tårar
Thai		น้ำตาของฮิโคซารุ

← DP052 : Smells Like Team Spirit!

Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl

DP054 : Once There Were Greenfields →

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