Ash and co. arrive at Lacunosa Town, Dawn meets Trip, Burgundy and Georgia, Trip's Servine is revealed to have evolved into Serperior, Burgundy is revealed to have obtained a Darmanitan, Trip crushes Burgundy and moves on, Iris's Dragonite starts disobeying her in a battle against Georgia, but she still wins and moves on, Ash, Cilan and Dawn move on to the next round.
This may not be the Unova League, but it's a close start.
Finally arriving at Lacunosa Town, Ash and co. finally arrive for the World Tournament Junior Cup, where the winner will battle Alder. As they go there to register they found Alder talking to Cynthia outside having a conversation. Naturally, Ash's rival Trip is there with his newly evolved Serperior (since Ash's 3rd battle with him 58 episodes earlier) when his Servine evolved, and he's not going to be knocked out of the tournament that easy. But Trip's not the only rival that their friend Dawn meets who can be a pain in the neck excatly. That's right! And lookout everyone, here comes Iris' rival, Georgia, the Dragon Buster, and Cilan's rival, Burgundy, the C-Class Pokemon Connoissuese who doesn't like Dawn's Pokemon Coordinator personality when she's friends with Cilan. Now that Ash's friends and rivals are all here to enter (minus Luke, Bianca, and Stephan), who will come out on top? Round 1 begins now!
Iris' Dragonite's personality of being reckless is the same as Ash's Charizard while battling Sparky in IL079: Friend and Foe Alike.
This episode marks the first time when two different rivals of Ash and co.'s (minus Dawn's) face each other off in a Pokemon Battle. Which is Trip: The Pokemon Trainer from Nuvema Town v.s Burgundy: The C-Class Pokemon Connoisseuse.
