EXP. Share Josh Fjelstad, Tanner Greenring

It's a, a guy hunt! Our heroes find themselves caught in a Challengers type of situation, caught between Kieran & Ogerpon, and in order to resolve that tension we must take on the "Loyal"/"Lousy" Three. Traversing Kitakami leads Don Joey to meet some rather aggressive locals, while Esteban Humano is confronted by a goo-loving freak deep in the mountains. Will this love/hate triangle reach its matchpoint this week? Or will there be one more volley left in this story? Either way, we hope you "love" it (that's a tennis joke).

Hola—or rather, konnichiwa! Don Joey & Esteban Humano are taking the next semester (aka two episodes) to complete a study abroad program over on Kitakami. As soon as they make landfall, they meet their home stay frenemy Carmine, and boyfriend, Kieran, and learn a bit about this land's strange ways. Or at least, the denizens of Mossui Town think these two are the strange, inept city slickers from Paldea, and boy are they wrong. We mop the floor with pretty much everyone here on the quest to *Brooke Valentine voice* hunt a guy.

Our noble/ignoble adventurers sally forth into unexplored, ambiguously named lands such as the East Province (Area Two), and meet some pretty interesting new characters. Like Clive, who definitely is not Professor Clavell, who is also certainly not Mr. Walksabout. Esteban tries to take over Giacomo's crew and steal his Starmobile, while Don Joey has to kick out some rabble rousers from his noble fellowship. Then, they both are forced to become influencers when confronted with Iono, the famous girlie streamer/Gym Leader.

Don Joey & Esteban Humano head west (young man) and find a land full of soaring wind turbines and very upsetting birds. Then, they swing east to critique an artist's life work (terrible) before taking him on in the gym, and discovering his battling is even worse than his sculptures—meeting many new 'mon and humans along the way.

We and our characters haven't quite mastered "Paldean" yet, but please join us as we all sally forth to find what adventures this mysterious land holds. Will it be a P-Iwannadie-a or a Palslaya? You'll have to listen to find out (and ideally don't ever listen to or mention again Josh's cover of the "Uva Academy School Song").

Notes: Featuring "Naranja/Uva Academy" by Toby Fox.

We're joined by Greg Leatherman this week, who told us he was inspired to pick up Pokémon Unite for the first time after he heard our first episode featuring Bree van Durr and Chef Greenring. He fell in love with the game and has been playing ever since all thanks to us! Anyway, he's on to learn from an actual Expert and Veteran what it takes to go toe-to-toe in the Aeos Islands.

Notes: Give Master Greg a follow on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, @whitewing and Instagram @lysander03!