- —Tagline
Pokémon Battle Royale is the 33rd episode of Death Battle, featuring a Venusaur, a Blastoise, and a Charizard from the Pokémon series in a battle to determine the strongest Kanto starter Pokémon.
Interlude
Wiz: For nearly two decades, people across the globe have struggled endlessly to make one crucial, exhausting, impossible choice.
Boomstick: Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander?
Wiz: It's finally time to learn if the one you chose was really the strongest.
Boomstick: And what better way than with their evolved forms? Venusaur, the pimply plant monster. Blastoise, the bazooka turtle. And Charizard, the... dragon.
Wiz: For a fair assessment, we're examining maxed out wild Pokémon. For those of you nerdy enough to care, this means no special EV training, no Mega Evolutions, and no tutor, bred, or otherwise unnaturally learned attacks. This way, we'll avoid any and all player influence.
Boomstick: He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.
Venusaur
Wiz: The first starter Pokémon evolves from Bulbasaur, to Ivysaur, and finally, to Venusaur, the Seed Pokémon.
Boomstick: Becoming uglier and uglier with every form. Seriously, what the hell is that thing?
Wiz: Of the three starters, Venusaur is the most well rounded and easiest to raise. In combat, it relies on its above average Special Attack and Special Defense, or non-physical combat.
Boomstick: Old Froggy-Plant has a variety of moves. Vine Whip's for slappin' bitches and Razor Leaf can cut through whole trees. Then there's the less action-packed skills like Sleep Powder, which is used to put foes to sleep and take women home from bars.
Wiz: Venusaur's adaptability is its greatest asset. It can absorb health with Leech Seed like some kind of jungle vampire, or simply heal on its own by using Synthesis. It also knows Sweet Scent, which aids the poor accuracy of the Sleep and Poison Powders.
Boomstick: But why bother with poisons and powders when you've got a SUPER LASER?! Venusaur can absorb so much Sun energy, that he can fire the Solar Beam.
Venusaur: VENUSAUR!
Venusaur fires a Solar Beam, knocking out Ash's Heracross.
Boomstick: When I find flowers that can do that, I might actually take up gardening. Try and pollinate now, bees!
Wiz: In real life, celestially powered lasers rely on heated magnesium combustion. In order to fire, the Solar Beam's temperature needs to be over 6,700 ºF.
Wiz: Unfortunately, the Solar Beam is so powerful, it takes twice as long to perform as any other attack. As a Grass and Poison-type, Venusaur is extremely effective against Water-type Pokémon.
Boomstick: But, keep him away from Flying and Fire-types. Because, as we all know, plants burn, and birds fucking hate grass.
Wiz: Yet Venusaur's well-rounded skills and tricky moveset could outsmart the competition.
Kanto Pokédex: Venusaur, the final form of the Bulbasaur evolution. This Seed Pokémon soaks on the Sun's rays as a source of energy.
Blastoise
Wiz: The second starter Pokémon evolves from Squirtle, to Wartortle, and finally, to Blastoise, the Shellfish Pokémon.
Boomstick: So how did this thing come about?
A curtain appears as Boomstick's origins of Blastoise are explained.
Boomstick: Did a turtle get really drunk one night and then come across a tank and was like, "Eh, I'll put my dick in that!", then nine months later, the tank showed up at his door and was like, "BOOM! This is yours!", and then he raised it out of shame until one day it evolved and all the other turtles were like, "THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME!", so then they all started plowing tanks?
Wiz: ...Sureeee, why not...?
Wiz: Blastoise firmly boasts defense over offense, using his weighty bulk to outlast and overpower foes. Like a stone firm upon the shore, he can take wave after wave of punishment.
Boomstick: As poetic as that was, he won't be winning any marathons. He's almost as slow as a tortoise, which makes sense, unlike the GIANT GUNS sticking out of his back!
Wiz: Blastoise can significantly reduce incoming damage with Iron Defense, barrel through hazards with Rapid Spin, and guard against any and all attacks with Protect.
Boomstick: He can chomp foes with Bite and crack heads with Skull Bash, but most of his arsenal focuses on water power, blasting foes with Water Gun, Water Pulse, Aqua Tail, and... Bubbles!
Wiz: But despite its lack of attack type diversity, Blastoise can maximize its watery weaponry with Rain Dance, a rain storm that amplifies Water-type moves and blocks out the Sun.
Boomstick: But his ultimate attack is Hydro Pump, where he blasts water out of his twin cannons with enough force to accurately punch through steel at a range of 160 feet.
Wiz: High pressure water jet cutters are used industrially to cut through metal with at least 55,000 PSI, or pounds per square inch. By measuring Blastoise's cannons in comparison to his size, we can tell his Hydro Pump has a power of 90,000 PSI.
Boomstick: That'll get the stains off your patio! Along with... your patio and possibly house...
Wiz: Blastoise is effective against Fire-type Pokémon, but weak to Grass and Electric.
Boomstick: And when he's not battling, Blastoise can be found training on secluded islands to strengthen his combat skills.
Wiz: If it plays its defenses right, Blastoise just might outlast everyone.
Kanto Pokédex: Blastoise's strength lies in its power, rather than its speed. Its shell is like armor, and attacks from the hydro cannons on its back are virtually unstoppable.
Charizard
Wiz: The final starter Pokémon evolves from Charmander, to Charmeleon, and finally, to Charizard, the Flame Pokémon.
Boomstick: I would so ride that into battle!
Wiz: Well, that could be tough; a full grown Charizard is only five-foot seven-inches tall.
Boomstick: What?! That's bullshit! I wanna ride a dragon to burn the villages of my enemies, not hang out with it on the sofa.
Wiz: Despite its size, Charizard is extremely fast and extremely powerful. Its Speed and Special Attack eclipse the other two starters' twice over, the trade off being unfortunate frailty.
Boomstick: But since he can fly, it's pretty hard to get ahold of him.
Wiz: Charizard's move set is incredibly diverse, ranging from the obvious fire breath to Flying, Dragon, and even Ghost-type attacks.
Boomstick: At close range, he'll always have an edge up by using either Slash, Dragon Claw, or Shadow Claw. He can strike from above with Wing Attack or Air Slash; but his real strength lies in the flames. He'll burn and bite you with Fire Fang, trap you in a vortex of embers with Fire Spin, smash you apart with Flare Blitz—
Wiz: At the cost of self-inflicted recoil damage.
Boomstick: —and of course, burn you to cinders with Flame Burst or Flamethrower.
Wiz: Charizard can reportedly burn through solid stone. This means his Flamethrower reaches temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Boomstick: Charizards are aggressive and warrior-like, and will actively seek fights with stronger opponents.
Wiz: The Fire and Flying-type combination makes Charizard doubly effective against Grass Pokémon, but weak to Water-types. If it spends too much time in a heavy rainstorm, its flame will go out... permanently.
Boomstick: But he's so fast and deadly, he might just overpower his enemies before they know what hit 'em.
Unova Pokédex: Charizard, the Flame Pokémon. When competing in intense battles, Charizard's flame becomes more intense as well.
Prelude
Wiz: Alright, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all!
Boomstick: IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLEEE!!!... with some Pokémon!
Death Battle
In a forest clearing on a sunny day, a wild Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander are all sitting around happily. Suddenly, a claw-like machine appears and drops in a massive amount of at least 300 Rare Candies, covering up the three starter Pokémon. Then, after a brief moment, bright lights start emitting from the pile of level-increasing sweets.
After an explosion of light which knocks away all the unconsumed Rare Candies, we see three new, fully evolved, maxed out, final stages of the three starters: Venusaur, Blastoise, and Charizard.
The battle begins with Charizard leaping straight up into the air. It turns around and charges at Blastoise, hitting the turtle with Slash. Blastoise then uses Withdraw, going into its shell, and then follows it up with Iron Defense. Charizard then comes back, trying to attack Blastoise again, but several strikes and a Flamethrower have no effect on the Shellfish Pokémon's upped defenses.
Venusaur then joins the fray, attacking both Pokémon with Razor Leaf. Blastoise takes no damage, staying in its shell, but Charizard does take some. Ignoring the Seed Pokémon, the dragon then picks up Blastoise, flies into the air, and throws the Water-type to the ground. Blastoise uses Rapid Spin in midair and aims itself at Venusaur, hitting it head on.
Blastoise jumps away from the dinosaur and finally comes out of its shell and attack Venusaur again with a Skull Bash, knocking the dinosaur back a bit. Charizard then makes a comeback, hitting Blastoise with a Flare Blitz, but it does no damage, and the two are locked in a power struggle, with neither one making any progress.
Behind them, Venusaur uses Synthesis to heal itself, and then Sweet Scent to lower his opponents evasion. Charizard and Blastoise stop their battle, wondering what is happening. Venusaur then uses Sleep Powder to try and put his foes to sleep. The effects start to take a toll on the two, but Charizard flies up to avoid them just before they take complete effect, while Blastoise retreats to its shell and uses a second Iron Defense before succumbing to the effects of the powder.
Venusaur targets the fleeing Charizard with Vine Whip to catch the large lizard by the leg and hold it still as it prepares to fire a Solar Beam. However, with a mighty roar, the Fire/Flying Pokémon escapes from the Vine Whip's grasp and charges straight for Venusaur, but before it can get to it, Venusaur finishes charging and fires the Solar Beam at Charizard, who quickly retaliates with a Flamethrower.
The two attacks collide, and both are equally powerful. The attacks continue to go, as Charizard is seen attempting to close in on the Grass-type, but Solar Beam begins to get a slight edge over Flamethrower. Soon enough, the attacks created a huge explosion as the screen fades to black.
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When the screen returns, the envirnoment is a complete wasteland. Venusaur is surrounded by dust, making it hard to see. Venusaur looks around to see where his opponents have gone. It sees nothing, but then out of the dust, Charizard flies in with a Wing Attack straight at Venusaur. Charizard strikes the Seed Pokémon, ripping Venusaur's flower off as it roars in pain. Charizard then retreats after completely cutting through the Seed Pokémon and fires a Flame Burst, which surrounds Venusaur. The plant monster roars as it tries to escape the flames, and struggles twice, letting out a final roar into the air before ultimately dying. The scene then switches over to a still-sleeping Blastoise as Venusaur's ripped off flowers rolls by like a tumbleweed. Some dust is then seen going into the turtle's shell, causing it to sneeze itself awake. Upon coming to, it looks at his remaining adversary Charizard on the other side of the wasteland.
The screen starts flashing, as it eventually breaks into black and a Poké Ball comes down and toward the viewer, in reference to the start of wild battles in the Pokémon games.
Blastoise starts off with Rain Dance to make the battle more favorable to it in the final showdown. As the rain comes down, the two Pokémon simply stand there. Then with a crash of lightning, the two roar and commence their final fight.
Charizard uses multiple Slashes, but it tries to slash Blastoise's head with its final strike, the Water-type tilts it at the last second, making Charizard miss and leaving it vulnerable. Blastoise then uses Bite on Charizard's neck and the Fire-type begins to bleed. In agony, it uses Fire Spin on the ground, which surrounds the two Pokémon in flames. Blastoise then grabs a hold of Charizard's wings and uses Skull Bash and we see blood come out from behind them, but Charizard comes back and begins to chomping on Blastoise's head multiple times, causing it to bleed heavily just above his left eye. Blastoise then lets out a roar and, with all its strength, rips Charizard's wings off as it is launched away from the force, landing away with a closed eye that's covered in blood, but the bleeding stops after a few seconds.
As the two Pokémon try to get up from their injuries, Blastoise gets up much faster and uses this as his opportunity to attack. As Charizard gets up, Blastoise grabs his throat. Charizard tries to use Flamethrower, but Blastoise uses both hands to grip Charizard's neck, causing it to choke it back, and the attack is stopped. Blastoise then bends over and begins shooting a Hydro Pump directly into Charizard's mouth, causing the Flame Pokémon's distend due to it belly with all the water. Blastoise lets go of Charizard with a roar, and launches Charizard into the air. Blastoise continues to accurately shoot water into its midair opponent's mouth, until Charizard bursts out into a big, bloody mess from all the water inside it.
As the Rain Dance ends and the Fire Spin is extinguished, Blastoise yells out a triumphant roar.
Blastoise then proceeds to eat the remains of Venusaur's flower while Charizard's remains are shown on the ground, all covered in blood as the flame on its tail goes out.
Results
Boomstick: CHARIZARD! Nooooooo! Oh, and Froggy-Plant-whatever-asaur.
Wiz: Charizard's greater speed allowed first attack, and its proud warrior mentality led to striking Blastoise first.
Boomstick: But Venusaur knew he had to take Charizard down right away, so everyone's favorite fire lizard was doomed, taking too much damage early on from two different angles.
Wiz: But poor Venusaur didn't stand a chance against Charizard's dual typing, and the bulky defense of Blastoise was more than enough to outlast both of them. Also, since Charizard and Venusaur do not naturally learn Sunny Day, they could not counter the Rain Dance.
Boomstick: "But Wizard, shouldn't they all just counter each other?!"
Wiz: Ah yes, the rock-paper-scissors factor is a bit tricky — Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire, Fire beats Grass — but ultimately, the core of any Pokémon battle boils down to mathematics. Every attack does a specific amount of damage, with specific effects to specific types with a specific accuracy.
Boomstick: And each Pokémon's stats are clearly displayed in the good ol' Pokedex.
Wiz: So, by comparing every move, effect, choice, order, and likeliness of occurrence, there are over 7,000 different possible ways this battle royale could play out. And out of all potential matches, Blastoise wins the majority.[Note 1]
Boomstick: Even when removing type effectiveness entirely, and pitting Attack and Special Attack against Defense and Special Defense, factoring against health and speed, the turtle tank still takes it.[Note 2] Blastoise H2-Owned!
We cut to the "Winner" card.
Wiz: The winner is Blastoise.
Trivia
Production
- The core connections between Venusaur, Blastoise, and Charizard are that they are all final evolutions of the first starter Pokémon in the Pokémon series which were first introduced by Professor Oak in the Kanto region and are often considered the most iconic. In addition:
- Ash Ketchum and Red have fought and used all three of them (or at least, their pre-evolved forms in the former's case) at some point in the games, anime, and manga.
- Each combatant's analysis ends with footage of their Pokédex entries from the anime episode "One Trick Phony!", where Ash fought all three. However, the audio used for each comes from different episodes.
- Venusaur's entry comes from the episode "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden".
- Blastoise's entry comes from the episode "Beach Blank-Out Blastoise".
- Charizard's entry comes from the episode "The Fires of a Red-Hot Reunion!".
- The Rare Candies being dropped into the field to fully evolve the Kanto starters at the beginning of the fight is Death Battle's way of making all three Pokémon completely maxed out without EV stats since Rare Candies don't raise them.
Easter Eggs
- Charizard's death was inspired by the unused ending written for Batman VS Spider-Man, where Spider-Man was originally going to shoot his webbing down Batman's throat until he exploded.
- This makes it the first episode to pay homage to that original death idea, with the next one being Venom VS Bane.
Errors
- When first released, the episode was initially titled "Pokemon Battle Royale" with no accented e. This would be corrected at a later date.
- Charizard's analysis includes Dragon Claw and Shadow Claw as attacks it can perform naturally. However, a Charizard only learns Dragon Claw and Shadow Claw at Level 1, which was impossible by non-player influence at the time, since Charizards would have to start off as a Level 1 Charmander.
Other
- This is the second episode to be a Battle Royale, after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale, and with the next two being Mega Man Battle Royale and The Seven Battle Royale.
- This is the fifth Animal-themed episode, after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale, Zitz VS Leonardo, Yoshi VS Riptor, and Fox McCloud VS Bucky O'Hare, and with the next seven being Godzilla VS Gamera, Donkey Kong VS Knuckles, Pokémon VS Digimon, Mewtwo VS Shadow, Lucario VS Renamon, Smokey Bear VS McGruff the Crime Dog, and Crash VS Spyro.
- This is also the third Reptiles-themed episode, after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale and Yoshi VS Riptor, and with the next two being Godzilla VS Gamera and Pokémon VS Digimon.
- This is the third Nintendo-themed episode, after Goomba VS Koopa and Zelda VS Peach, and with the next two being Bowser VS Ganon and Wario VS King Dedede.
- This is the fourth Series-themed episode, after Goomba VS Koopa, Haggar VS Zangief, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale, and with the next five being Meta VS Carolina, Mega Man Battle Royale, The Seven Battle Royale, Red VS Blue, and Gogeta VS Vegito.
- This is the sixth episode where Boomstick yells a variation of his pre-fight catchphrase (via saying "IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLEEE!!!... with some Pokémon!"), after Akuma VS Shang Tsung, Rogue VS Wonder Woman, Felicia VS Taokaka, Eggman VS Wily, and Terminator VS RoboCop, and with the next 21 being Fulgore VS Sektor, Tigerzord VS Gundam Epyon, Boba Fett VS Samus Aran (2015), Guts VS Nightmare, Solid Snake VS Sam Fisher, Hercule Satan VS Dan Hibiki, Bowser VS Ganon, Joker VS Sweet Tooth, Meta VS Carolina, Mega Man Battle Royale, Dragonzord VS Mechagodzilla, Scarlet Witch VS Zatanna, James Bond VS John Wick, Trunks VS Silver, SpongeBob VS Aquaman, Jason Voorhees VS Michael Myers, Sauron VS Lich King, Gogeta VS Vegito, Phoenix VS Raven, Scooby-Doo VS Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Galactus VS Unicron.
- WatchMojo.com ranked this episode at #10 on their "Top 10 Screw Attack: Death Battle Episodes" list.