| Make Room for Gloom
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しょくぶつえんのクサイハナ
Kusaihana of the Botanical Garden
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First broadcast
| Japan
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October 29, 1998
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| United States
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October 4, 1999
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English themes
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Japanese themes
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Credits
| Animation
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Team Ota
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| Screenplay
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武上純希 Junki Takegami
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| Storyboard
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井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani
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| Assistant director
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井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani
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| Animation director
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酒井啓史 Keishi Sakai
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| Additional credits
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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.
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, who was 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 is news to Misty. Ash tries to push Misty and Brock out the door as quickly as possible, telling them aside that laboring in the family garden would leave him too tired to train; at last, they run off when Delia tells them to get three-to-four hundred pounds of fertilizer from the Xanadu Nursery.
After running away, they take a rest. They encounter a greenhouse, which Ash tells Misty and Brock is the Xanadu Nursery, a childhood stomping ground. He recalls 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 who wields a watering device that resembles a flamethrower.
Introducing himself as Potter, he describes the Xanadu Nursery as a place which attracts Grass-type Pokémon. On hearing this, Ash sends Bulbasaur out to enjoy the place, as Brock inquires about the girl that he saw: he learns that she is named Florinda and is the new owner of the Xanadu Nursery. Just then, 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 Florinda advises Ash to take Bulbasaur with her for treatment. Thanks to Gloom (who has developed an immunity to Stun Stem by being exposed to it for so long), Bulbasaur recovers. As the two Grass Pokémon play, Brock and Florinda talk privately.
Florinda 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 has purchased to be a fake. As everyone tries to help Florinda cope with the situation, Florinda describes the three people who 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 will find a real Leaf Stone, but Ash dissuades him, reminding him that Leaf Stones are hard to come by. Brock instead swears to Florinda that he will find Team Rocket and bring justice, but Ash also points out that usually Team Rocket 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 the thieves, 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 defenders left, Brock urges Florinda to attack, as Team Rocket manages to steal the incapacitated Pikachu. Jessie and James send Arbok and Weezing to deal with Gloom and Florinda is surprised at Gloom's battling ability when it uses 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 will do the trick, Gloom sends 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 states that now she has the confidence to run the nursery with a special someone, which causes Brock to fall over. But when he recovers from fantasizing, he finds that Florinda has already proposed to Potter, and that they plan to run the nursery together. Brock feeling rejected, Ash tries to console him, telling him that he will meet more women who will reject him. As Ash heads back to town with his friends, he is reminded that he has spent a day not training for the Pokémon League.
Major events
- For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.
Debuts
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: Clefable (U.S. and international), Gloom (Japan)
Trivia
- Professor Oak's Pokémon 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.
- The beginning of the episode with a Dodrio shouting its cry like a rooster is similar to a scene in Pokémon - I Choose You!.
- 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
- 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.
Dub edits
- Pikachu's Jukebox: What Kind of Pokémon Are You?
- 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
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
European French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Italian
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Brazil
Portugal
Romanian
Russian
Latin America
Spain
Swedish
