Ash's Torterra
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Ash's Torterra (Japanese: サトシのハヤシガメ Satoshi's Dodaitose) is the second Pokémon that Ash Ketchum caught in the Sinnoh region.
History
Ash caught Torterra as a Turtwig in Gettin' Twiggy With It!. It had been living in the forest near Clara's home, and it broke up fights among wild Pokémon in the area. After Team Rocket stole Ash's Pikachu, their balloon crashed, and Turtwig defended Pikachu against them. When Ash and his friends appeared, Turtwig assumed they were trying to wrongfully steal Pikachu, too, so it attacked them and ran off with an exhausted Pikachu in tow. The next time they confronted Turtwig, the misunderstanding was explained, and Turtwig apologetically befriended Ash. At the end of the episode, Ash and his friends began to leave, and the old woman encouraged Turtwig to go with Ash, so it ran to challenge him. Turtwig and Pikachu battled, and Ash caught Turtwig.
As Turtwig, it was a brave yet kind Pokémon that has high confidence for its small size. It apparently had a strong jaw, as it was often seen latching itself onto people and Pokémon's heads, tails, hats, and appendages to attack or show affection. It has done this to Ash as well, the behavior somewhat resembling that of James's Victreebel, Carnivine and Cacnea. It has also been shown to be both incredibly fast and quite strong, such as the time when it used Bite on Roark's Rampardos's tail and threw it into a rock, after which Brock said, "Big things come in small packages!"
In Different Strokes for Different Blokes, Turtwig battled Paul's Chimchar and lost. Although it held its own in battle, it appeared to hesitate upon receiving Ash's command to dodge attacks.
Overall, it has taken part in five of Ash's Gym battles. As a Turtwig, it defeated Roark's Cranidos in their first battle, and in the rematch, defeated the newly evolved Rampardos, giving Ash his first Sinnoh badge. It also battled against Gardenia's Turtwig during his second gym battle. Although Gardenia's Pokémon had defeated Ash's during a battle in the Eterna Forest, he gained the upper hand and defeated the Template:Type2. After learning Energy Ball from Kenny's Breloom, Turtwig didn't battle again until the Pastoria Gym battle in A Crasher Course in Power!, where it battled Crasher Wake's Quagsire but it was called back before being defeated. It wasn't used again until Ash's seventh gym battle as a Grotle, in Sliding Into Seventh!, where it was used in the gym battle against Candice, its first appearance in a gym battle since evolving. Using the lessons taught to it by Torterra, it stood firm against Sneasel's Icy Wind and was able to defeat it using Rock Climb which allowed it to easily travel across the ice without slipping. Unfortunately, it was easily defeated by her Abomasnow with a shattering Wood Hammer later in the battle. It briefly battled Volkner's Luxray in DP166. Grotle was able to use Razor Leaf and withstand a Spark coming from Luxray before the match was interrupted.
Like many of Ash's Pokémon, Turtwig's battle style was based on its speed, a factor that Ash focused on even more after seeing Gardenia's Turtwig in action. However, in Aiding the Enemy! Turtwig evolved into Grotle during a battle against Paul's Honchkrow. It quickly became apparent that, due to its new body being larger, Grotle's speed had diminished, and Grotle fumbled and fell down a lot in the battle. The newly-evolved Grotle has high expectations of itself, well exemplified in the same episode. During the night, it went out to try and improve its speed. However, it failed to regain its speed and stumbled over from time to time. This was initially upsetting but Paul's Torterra provided some unexpected help by showing Grotle that it could rely on defense instead.
In Jumping Rocket Ship!, it was shown that Grotle became fatigued from walking a lot and from its increased weight. It had to be carried by Brock's Happiny for a portion of the journey.
In A Breed Stampede!, Ash used his Grotle to help train Dawn's Piloswine, where it used the defense method shown by Paul's Torterra. By Leading A Stray!, the defense method has begun to pay off in battle as Grotle took Swampert's Focus Punch on the head and replied accordingly with Razor Leaf, knocking its opponent out.
In The Lonely Snover, in order to save a Snover, Grotle surpassed its own limits and learned Rock Climb through its willpower alone, which allowed it to regain some of its speed.
In Pedal to the Mettle!, Grotle was used in the match between Ash and Paul and faced Honchkrow again. Grotle attempted to utilize its strong defense against Honchkrow, however Honchkrow proved to be far too powerful and as a result Grotle was defeated.
In Challenging a Towering Figure!, it was used to battle Palmer's Rhyperior in the Twinleaf Festival. During the battle it accidentally swallowed its own Energy Ball, causing it to gain a huge amount of power. After this boost, it was strong enough so that Rhyperior couldn't stop Grotle continousuly pushing it backwards without slamming its tail into the ground. Despite then putting up a close fight, it lost the match.
In Gone with the Windworks!, it battled Dawn's Cyndaquil where the newly hatched Pokémon proved to be a strong battler.
In Dressed for Jess Success!, Grotle trained with Dawn's Mamoswine for the Lilypad Contest. During the training, Grotle demonstrated swallowing its own Energy Ball to gain power. Mamoswine mirrored the motion by swallowing its Ice Shard, which in turn caused ice to form on its back as an appeal.
In DP166, Grotle was used in Ash's first Gym Battle against Volkner's Luxray where, despite the type-advantage, it started to get overwhelmed before the battle was cancelled due to the Gym losing power. Later Grotle was called on to battle Team Rocket inside the Sunyshore Tower where after a brief battle it suddenly evolved into a Torterra. Along with its new more powerful form, Torterra immediately learned Leaf Storm and sent Team Rocket blasting off.
Moves used
| Using Razor Leaf as a Grotle | Move | First Used In |
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| Bite | Gettin' Twiggy With It! | |
| Razor Leaf | Gettin' Twiggy With It! | |
| Synthesis | Gettin' Twiggy With It! | |
| Tackle | Gettin' Twiggy With It! | |
| Energy Ball | Riding the Winds of Change! | |
| Rock Climb | The Lonely Snover | |
| Leaf Storm | DP166 | |
| Moves used recently are in bold unless all moves all fit this case. | ||
Moves improvised
- Swallowing Energy Ball: As a Grotle, it uses this technique to power up its Template:Type2 moves in Challenging a Towering Figure! for the first time. It used it again in Dressed for Jess Success!, to help Dawn's Mamoswine use the technique with Ice Shard in the Lilypad Town Contest.
- Spin: As a Turtwig, it spun much like Pikachu, Aipom, Buneary, and Piplup did to avoid attacks. It used it against Roark's Rampardos in O'er the Rampardos We Watched!
Trivia
- For A Gruff Act to Follow, Professor Oak's lecture is about Ash's Turtwig. He writes this Pokémon senryū about it: ナエトルは あたまにはっぱ はえとるぞ Naetoru wa / Atama ni happa / Haetoru zo "Naetle / The leaf on its head / Is growing."
- Its ability to break up fights between other Pokémon mirrors that of Ash's Bulbasaur, Ash's first Template:Type2 starter Pokémon. Also, the episodes that Bulbasaur and Turtwig were caught in are very similar.
- Some of Torterra's other actions as a Turtwig mirror those of James's Carnivine, Cacnea, and Victreebel, who attack their Trainer out of affection. Coincidentally, they are all Grass-type Pokémon.
- This is Ash's third turtle/tortoise-based Pokémon, the others being Squirtle and Torkoal.
- In Tanks for the Memories!, Turtwig is embarrassed to be in a maid outfit, much like Ash, Pikachu, and Dawn's Piplup are. Since Pikachu and Piplup have since been confirmed to be male, this may indicate Torterra is as well.
- Torterra took exactly as many episodes to evolve from Turtwig to a Grotle as Ash's Sceptile did from its Grovyle stage.
- Coincidentally, Turtwig's amount of episodes taken to evolve is the reversal of the amount of episodes Treecko took to evolve, which is 59 episodes, whereas Turtwig took 95 episodes.
- Both also had problems attacking temporarily after they evolved. Grotle kept tripping, while Sceptile lost its ability to attack.
- Torterra, as Turtwig, is Ash's first Pokémon to evolve while battling against one of his rivals.
- Torterra and Staraptor have been used against Paul the most out of Ash's current team. However, Torterra, as a Turtwig and Grotle, has lost every time, twice to Paul's Honchkrow and once to Paul's Chimchar.
Related articles
- For more information on this Pokémon's species, see Turtwig, Grotle, and Torterra.
- Paul's Torterra
External links
- Hayashigame's Profile on Pokeani (Japanese)
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| For a list of Pokémon Ash has temporarily owned, used, or commanded, see here | ||||||
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This article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation. |
