Gym Leader Showdown: Johto

Greetings Junglers, Evan here! First of all, you can see I changed the name of the series, because it’s now part of the ongoing Showdown-series. Without further ado: the winner of the Kanto Gym Leader Showdown is Sabrina! She won with a stunning 22% of the votes. Apparently the Psychic-type Gym Leader is a popular choice among our community. Our very, very close runner-up is Misty, also with 22%, followed by Blue (15%). One vote made the difference between Misty and Sabrina!

380px-HGSS_Sabrina

I’m presenting to you: our next round of the Gym Leader Showdown series. This time it’s Johto’s turn. Who’s your favorite Gym Leader? Vote and let us know why in the comments!

FalknerJohto - Falkner

  • Gym Leader 1
  • Flying
  • Pidgey and Pidgeotto
  • Violet City
  • Zephyr Badge
  • Mud Slap (Gen 2), Roost (Gen 4)
  • Name: Falconer
  • Trivia: Falkner is the only male Gym Leader that specializes in the Flying-type.

BugsyJohto - Bugsy

  • Gym Leader 2
  • Bug
  • Metapod, Kakuna and Scyther
  • Azalea Town
  • Hive Badge
  • Fury Cutter (Gen 2), U-turn (Gen 4)
  • Name: Bug
  • Trivia: Because Scyther knows U-turn in Gen 4, Bugsy is the only Gym Leader who sends out his signature Pokémon in the first turn.

Johto - WhitneyWhitney

  • Gym Leader 3
  • Normal
  • Clefairy and fucking Miltank
  • Goldenrod City
  • Plain Badge
  • Attract (Gen 2 and 4)
  • Name: White
  • Trivia: Whitney is the first Johto Gym Leader that uses a Gen 2 Pokémon, which only half of the Johto Gym Leaders do.

MortyJohto - Morty

  • Gym Leader 4
  • Ghost
  • Gastly, Haunter, Gengar and Haunter
  • Ecruteak City
  • Fog Badge
  • Shadow Ball (Gen 2 and 4)
  • Name: Mortis (Latin for death)
  • Trivia: Morty is the only male Ghost-type specialist.

ChuckJohto - Chuck

  • Gym Leader 5
  • Fighting
  • Primeape and Poliwrath
  • Cianwood City
  • Storm Badge
  • DynamicPunch (Gen 2), Focus Punch (Gen 4)
  • Name: Chuck Norris
  • Trivia: Chuck’s and Pryce’s lowest leveled Pokémon are both level 27.

JasmineJohto - Jasmine

  • Gym Leader 6
  • Steel
  • Magnemite, Magnemite and Steelix
  • Olivine City
  • Mineral Badge
  • Iron Tail (Gen 2 and 4)
  • Name: Mine or mineral
  • Trivia: Jasmine was the first Gym Leader that appeared outside of her home region in the games.

PryceJohto - Pryce

  • Gym Leader 7
  • Ice
  • Seel, Dewgong and Piloswine
  • Mahogany Town
  • Glacier Badge
  • Icy Wind (Gen 2), Hail (Gen 4)
  • Name: Ice
  • Trivia: Pryce’s middle name is Willow, which is his Japanese name’s translation.

ClairJohto - Clair

  • Gym Leader 8
  • Dragon
  • Gyarados, Dragonair, Dragonair and Kingdra
  • Blackthorn City
  • Rising Badge
  • DragonBreath (Gen 2), Dragon Pulse (Gen 4)
  • Name: Lair
  • Trivia: In Gen 2 she owned another Dragonair instead of Gyarados.

[poll id=”101″]

X — EVAN

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476 thoughts on “Gym Leader Showdown: Johto”

  1. Johto has the weakest selection of gym leaders in my opinion. None of them honestly stand out much, except maybe Clair and Whitney, but only for her evil Miltank. I’m gonna go with Morty though, idk why.

    Reply
  2. My favorite is Whitney. She’s a cutie, I’m fond of Normal types, and Goldenrod is one of the most iconic locations in Johto!

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  3. Anyone else on FireFox can’t vote or view results?
    I vote for Morty! Second choice would be between Falkner and Clair.

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  4. Whitney, because she presented a welcome difficulty curve. Also I wish we got to meet Falkner’s dad, the real gym leader.

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  5. Ughhhhhh these gym leaders make me sick
    Gen two really screwed up the gym leaders
    Falkner should used Noctowl
    Bugsy Heracross
    Chuck Hitmontop
    Morty should’ve had at least Misdreavus

    Half of them didn’t have native Johto Pokemon and that really just gear grinds my Klink

    Reply
  6. In terms of challenge:
    – Falkner: easy, even with a Chikorita
    – Bugsy: never won against him with a Chikorita, had to restart the game and choose Cyndaquil
    – Whitney: Had to grind Quilava to a Typhlosion to defeat Milktank
    – Morty: easy until Gengar showed up and almost defeated by beloved Ampharos
    – Chuck: wait, he was a gym leader?!
    – Jasmine: easy but fun
    – Pryce: easy due to Ampharos and Typhlosion
    – Claire: hard and memorable, just the way I like it

    Reply
  7. I love Jasmine <3 Like Sabrina, she was my Johto role model because she was so caring about Amphy and I love her design! 😀 I would love to cosplay as her someday. Although Clair is easily second for me as well as Morty, both of them rock. I just value Jasmine about them since Clair was so whiny after you win and it bothered me. And I just love Jasmine above Morty.

    Reply
  8. Always a good tip when you start a HGSS and struggle with Whitney. There’s a guy in the Dpt Store that can trade a Machop that knows Low Kick. Don’t even level him up, he can easily wipe out both Clefairy and Miltank.

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    • The best way that I found to totally DESTROY her, is to grind your Crocoknaw till its at least a level or two higher than Whitney’s Milotank, and keep the move rage. Use Rage as your very first attack on her first Pokemon, and keep using it, and by the time you get to her Milotank you’ll completely crush it, you’ll have it K.O’ed before its stupid Roll out attack can even start to do serious damage to you. LOL That’s what I did, it was awesome. XD

      Reply
  9. I want every gym leader or soon to be gym leaders if the rumors turn out to be true to have an arc and are integrated into the game in a memorable and creative fashion. I loved Black and White because each gym leader truly showed off unique characteristics and Alder was a thoroughly surprising champion who seemed way out of the norm for a champion and was… I guess able to be sympathized with. Each game has allowed gym leaders to be apart of the overall adventure aside from you defeating them and I hope S/M expounds upon the already established grounds.

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    • Yeah it’s time to bring back leaders who add something to the story. I also really like alder as a character, especially in B/W. It’s a shame he was defeated by N though, although it’s good for the story overall that he was.

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      • Alder surprised me and his character was just depressing because no matter how hard he tried to hide his sadness and grief, he just couldn’t do it and even questioned his position and power as a champion. He tried so hard to change N’s view, but knew that it was ultimately up to the player who was the in my opinion, a metaphor for the other half of the yin and yang depending on your version. Truly a great character.

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  10. On the topic of nostalgia, what are your favorite Pokemon games?
    1 – Platinum: first Pokemon game and will always remain my favorite game because it introduced me to an amazing franchise and made me fall in love with fantastical creatures that have captured my heart ever since
    2 – Black and White: the pinnacle of Pokemon story telling, character creation, and an absolutely amazing villainous team that gave us a truly new perspective of the Pokemon world, the games were more innovative and creative than they were given credit for
    3 – HeartGold and SoulSilver: one of the most enjoyable Pokemon games that keeps you chugging along with a great story and an awesome rival to boot
    4 – Black 2 and White 2: again, like its predecessors, B2/W2 had great characters, an interesting rival arc, and amazing story telling and even had a moment where the player was about to be killed by an actual threatening villain/villainous group
    5 – X and Y: the first BIG transition from the norm by Pokemon but lacked what its predecessors had
    6 – Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire – fun and a lot of exploration makes this game a thrilling ride

    Reply
    • Idk if I can choose! I have a lot of good memories from every game! It might just be easier to rank gens though personally.
      1. Gen 4: D/P got me back into pokemon. I love Sinnoh and HG/SS are just great.
      2. Gen 5: Both games in this gen tell great stories and I made a lot of close friends through these ones.
      3. Gen 1: where it all started! I remember how frustrating it was back then and also watching my sister play.
      4. Gen 3: emerald was truly a bit of a challenge sometimes for a rookie trainer who didn’t play this till after D/P
      5. Gen 2: getting crystal was a great memory and playing it in prep for the remakes was fun
      6. Gen 6: X&Y were…..very weak coming off of gen 5. I love ORAS, and its one of my fav games, but X&Y were supposed to define this gen and they failed on a lot of levels for me

      Reply
    • 1: ORAS is in general a good fun game in my favorite reagon with a fun story. My favorite games to replay.
      2: Black and White are amazing games with my favorite music and the best Pokemon story thus far. The game tries so many new things and is brimming with polish and effort.
      3: Red, Blue and Yellow these games are nostalgic but clunky, inconvenient and confusing. Going back to play these games is fun just to see how far the franchise has come and it’s oddly adorable.
      4. X and Y are innovative but bland and a tad lazy feeling. ORAS makes these games look bad. They still have replayability.
      5: Platinum is my favorite gen 4 game because of its better pacing and is more bearable to play.

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        • Ok wow….you have me beat then….I can’t say I’m “seriously” hunting, but I’ve been doing it for over a year now and have less than 100. At least I think. I hunt on two different games so I may have hit 100 , but until I consolidate it’s hard to tell hahaha

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  11. So obviously we never got the two Pokemon that that guy on 4chan said would be in the trailer he was talking about……it certainly puts some doubt in my heart about him.I just thought of one more way Firedman will be proven fake or real and it’ll be real soon. If I remember correctly he also stated that Marshadow will be shown at the end of the new movie with Volcanion and Magearna just like Victini was shown at the end of the Zoroark movie. If in the next number of hours we don’t hear about this Pokemon or hear that it’s a different teaser then we can either confirm that he is fake once and for all. If we start hearing about a Pokemon that is similar (if he gave any description of it, of this Idk) then we can at least gather that some of his info is accurate. Certainly interesting either way. lol

    Reply
      • Well it’s possible some of his info were lies, but you have to admit it’s quite strange he was able to accurately predict a video featuring the bond mechanic. I wouldn’t have guessed that would be shown until at least August. Either way I guess we’ll find out soon one way or another. If the Pokemon he was talking about doesn’t appear at the end of the movie then that’s another strike against him for sure lol

        Reply
    • OMG if anyone’s ever seen the film The Broken, this drawing gave me a shiver down my spine and my eyes teared a bit. The concept of that movie freaked me out. And this picture reminded me of it.

      Reply
  12. whitney all the way. normal types are the best. anyways, aren’t we supposed to be getting some sort of presentation soon?

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  13. >:C Apparently in New York suffered a Nerd Stampede after players began seeing wild Vaporeon in Central Park

    Reply
  14. I draw many SM fkmns lately I was show u Komala evolution and Litten mid evolution ….now I have another mid evolution between Litten and Panthster and Popplio final evolution (Male version),but I am not sure I am ready to share the maybe I need to color them first.

    Reply
  15. This is off topic but every time a new Pokemon is revealed people always say “These Alola Pokemon are all great! I’m loving their decision to make simplistic designs!”. I know that GF said that, but these designs to me don’t look any more simplistic than Gen 6 Pokemon. They look great, for the most part (I’m looking at you stupid gummy bear!), but are far from the great simplicity that everyone praises, but that’s just my take on them

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  16. Whelp the Pokemon movie it about an hour and 12 minutes in give or take. Whatever there is at the end should be coming in a relative small amount of time. Prepare yourselves people lol

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  17. Guys this is totally not that important but as it’s the fifteenth ( or sixteenth for some) it means Coro Coro must have been released so you’d expect there to be some clearer images of Mimichu and that bear from toy story 3. But I can’t find any one the Internet, any ideas? . I love the ghost fairy type, and the concept for the new Pokemon, but shouldn’t it be ghost electric :/ something like clefairy or togetic would have worked better for that typing IMO ( I also hate pikachu, so overrated)

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  18. Well I guess that sticks a nail in Mr. Firedman. I guess he just got really REALLY lucky with the trailer we got earlier in the week.

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  19. I’m getting sick of them taking so long to reveal CoroCoro Pokemon worldwide. I don’t want another Komala and Rockruff situation.

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    • I wouldn’t be so surprised that they are taking this long if they didn’t have a trailer for them as well as the new mechanic stuff. That’s what seems suspect to me lol

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    • Ikr like whats the purpose of showing them at a magazine and then making the rest of the world wait? Its not like its 2009 anymore

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      • They were the ones that the actual picture of the starter pics came from. They mentioned a Poison/fire Pokemon too

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      • How are they more likely fake now? They weren’t ever connected to the other now fake leaks and are still in a way very viable lol

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          • But the Chinese leaks came first. Sure they could very well be fake. I’ve never said they were 100%, but it’s not like other leaks being fake lessen their ability to be real. either way I guess we’ll just have to keep checking to see if any of the info from them come true and if they do or don’t then we’ll know whether to trust them or not lol

    • I guess we should just all have a lesson in providing relevant and conversation adding comments not just earthen

      Reply
      • actually, before I forget there’s one thing ive been wanting to ask you, cascoon. when I first joined pokejungle almost 4 years ago now, there was a user named IntimidatingWurmple. was that you? and if it was, when will you evolve into a dustox?

        Reply
        • I was that wurmple yes, but I evolved. I thought I gathered enough training to evolve when battle frontier was announced in ORAS, but that never happened, so I guess nobody knows when I will evolve next. Not even I

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        • True, but soda is also very good during the summer (not as healthy as water but really good and refreshing XD) I like how we’re talking about soda on Pokejungle lol

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  20. I hope those leaks are fake and litten becomes either fire/poison (darn you salandit) or fire/electric. it seems unlikely at this point. I love litten but I really hate that leak…

    Reply
  21. Well I see earthen already mentioned this, but it does greatly irritate me half of these gym leaders don’t have johto pokemon, and if they do it’s just their ace. Kalos didn’t bring many new pokemon but all the aces at least were kalos pokmeon. Anyway I replayed hgss only using the same amount of pokemon the gym leaders used and they all honestly gave me a challenge then. Other than that, Whitney Clair and Chuck gave me a challenge. But I will give my review for each
    -Faulkner 3/8: Not very memorable, replace Pidgeotto with Noctowl please. I have a thing with anime characters with blue hair though so that’s a plus.
    -Bugsy 2/8: Scyther is the only thing reasonable on his team lol (which should be heracross) only memory backing him up is I thought he was a girl until i saw chuggaconroy video.
    -Whitney 4/8: She’s whitney. The end.
    -Morty 7/8 : He’s actually pretty cool replace a haunter with misdreavous then he’s golden.
    – Chuck 6/8: Nice bod. Only gym leader with two pokemon that ever gives me trouble.
    -Jasmine 5/8: You’re cute girl, but you have no challenge whatsoever. But you have a heart. I like that.
    -Pryce: 1/8: Definitely the worst gym leader from Johto. Boring and easy too.
    Clair 8/8: Finally a gym leader that has some cool personality, and a unique theme and blue hair. She’s pretty awesome!
    TL:DR Im voting Clair

    Reply
  22. Box Office Update: Pokemon 19 Fails to Take Off as Disney Continues to Swim in Money With Finding Dory

    – Tracking for Pokemon XY&Z: Volcanion and the Mechanical Magearna (Pokemon 19) has begun and the film is running 9% behind last year’s film in pre-sales and is currently trailing 11 – 12% behind last year’s film in terms of admissions. The film is seeking to bring in Y375 million or $3.6 million during its opening weekend (Japanese box office opening weekend consists of Saturday and Sunday as opposed to Friday-Sunday) and roughly Y550 million or $5.3 million for the 3-day weekend boosted by Marine Day. Unless strong word of mouth and great reviews propel the film forward, it is very unlikely to pass the Y3 billion mark which SHOULD be a cake-walk for a franchise such as Pokemon, but has now become a huge milestone.

    Every other franchise has been on a consistent increase with each film with the exception of Pokemon: Detective Conan opened to Y1 billion or uber-blockbuster (only a handful of films have done this in Japan and would be on par with an animated film opening above $200+ million which no animated film has ever achieved in the U.S.), the Doraemon franchise just had its HIGHEST grossing film of all time in its history and that franchise has been around for much longer than Pokemon, the Crayon-Shin franchise aimed at an audience younger than Pokemon’s opening weekend is on par with Pokemon 19, and YoKai Watch just released its second Y5+ billion grossing film and that film opened to Y1+ billion. What does this mean for the Pokemon anime franchise? Huge changes must be made if it has any hopes of surviving the current box office environment. Moreso than the games, the anime has been keen on repeating the same formula and is relunctant to change anything or tweak anything more than its needed. However, if things do not change, the box office slump of the anime franchise will continue on.

    Additionally, YoKai Watch is intent on killing the series: on multiple accounts since its debut, a new YoKai Watch game is released the same weekend a new Pokemon film is released and a few weeks later and sometimes on the same weekend as a new Pokemon film’s release, pre-sales for a new YoKai Watch film go on sale. What are the positive sides to this? Opening against Finding Dory and a film starring one of Japan’s most beloved celebs could mute the opening weekend enabling stronger legs and better word of mouth. Fingers crossed!

    Reply
    • we’ve no fear of yokai watch killing off pokemon. its not hugely popular anywhere outside japan due to its huge Japanese culture based characters. pokemon aims to and successfully caters to fans of all areas of the world.

      Reply
  23. I’ve gotta say that after being very skeptical about Pokemon Go, I’m having lots of fun catching and evolving while I’m on vacation in Greece. Sure, there’s bugs and more features that could be added, but it’s a much better game than I expected.

    Reply
    • I’m in the suburbs and there’s almost nothing. Took my family downtown, with to the park and dropped a lure and incense – boom! Diversity + everybody and their mamas showed up (my brother dropped a lure, too)

      Reply
  24. looks like we got a choice: it’s either A.we’re going to see some cool info today or B. we’re going to see some cool info tomorrow.

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  25. Claire is my fav cus she’s hot! I agree with Earthen, I hate how Johto gym leader’s signature Pokemon aren’t native Johto Pokemon.

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  26. I’m really glad seeing all these nice comments about the series 🙂
    My favorite is Clair, because she’s just amazing and I love Dragon Pokémon

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  27. Oh btw I just remembered
    Some sap wanted a female Thick Fat Piloswine in a Dusk Ball
    Does this sound familiar

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  28. $10 dollars Clair wins because half of the people here are gonna pick the “OMG HAWTEST” one like last time. Stop Leader abuse, pick chubbier Chuck Norris.

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  29. OK guys, I want to do a post on it, but thought I’d ask here before I do. Would you guys be interested in a PokéJungle podcast? If yes, what would you like us to feature in it? If no, why?

    Reply
  30. So I’m using Volcarona on my play through of White 2 (somehow never used it on an in game team) but its move pool is really bad since it’s not supposed to be evolved yet..does anyone know where I can teach it a decent fire move? All I’ve got is fire spin, which I hate because the accuracy is not reliable whatsoever. Luckily I found a move tutor with signal beam though.

    Reply
      • Unfortunately fiery dance didn’t become a base move for volcarona until gen 6. I also am not at undella town yet, so can’t teach it psychic. Giga drain maybe, although I have lilligant too so it might just be redundant 😛

        Reply
          • I don’t think flamethrower is until around the seventh gym, which isn’t too too far.. there’s also heat wave as a move tutor but that’s not until the eighth gym town…fire blast also isn’t until right before the seventh gym. So I guess I’m stuck between ember and fire spin. I might just go with ember lol. The accuracy is better and does 5 more damage

  31. I know this is way off the subject of the article but remember when some thought that the first Island would be all of Alola and then Amazon.com said this in the description for Sun and Moon “Embark on a new adventure as a Pokemon Trainer and catch, battle, and trade all-new Pokemon on the tropical islands of a new Region and become a Pokemon Champion!” Key phrase is “become a Pokemon Champion!” This makes me somewhat less worried about the Chinese leaker.

    Reply
    • There could be more than one way to become a champion. Like I said a few articles back on the Nintendo minute during E3 they said that the way to become champion was to complete the “island trials”. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alola has a different kind of league than we’re used to. I imagine it’ll be more ritualistic and ceremony based rather than an organization based league this time around.

      Reply
        • I’m still not sure why people are “worried” there wouldn’t be the typical gyms in the games. As if they would just leave it blank and give us no other reason to travel the region. They wouldn’t take out the gyms and not replace them with something else. That’d be dumb. I’m confident that with or with out the typical “gyms” we’ll have a somewhat similar journey. The only difference is it’ll be more interesting (hopefully) and will be a fresh new thing for us to do. there’s only so many time I can become the Champion by the same means before it gets boring lol

          Reply
        • I believe the correct way it was said was there are no traditional gyms. I think they more or less mean the same thing, but it doesn’t mean the games will be completely devoid of purpose. I could see it being like I said with it being more ceremony based and then by the end the league becomes more of an organized fashion like we know. Thus you “create” a league in the game. Either way I’m not sure it’s worth getting worried about until we get further info from actual news sources lol

          Reply
    • Remember when people were hating on Pokemon GO, and now it’s a worldwide phenomenon .

      Ahhh when people are wrong…good times.

      Reply
      • Yes yes good times. I remember when people made fun of me for being excited for this game and playing Pokemon. Now they’re playing Pokemon and I’m making fun of them XD

        Reply
    • Why are you so against change in the series? We need it to keep it fresh, it may get stale. Besides that, maybe you are the champion because you made the league?

      Reply
  32. It says I’ve voted for Whitney, but I know I haven’t; I hate Whitney, and she’s my least favorite Gym Leader. Ever. Had I been able to vote, I would’ve said Morty. Bummer.

    Reply
    • Well because Go was released in all of Europe today, servers have crashed and I can’t even get on the app. You would have thought they they would’ve learned from when it was released in America but no!
      Sad thing is that I did loads of walking today and none of it will go towards my eggs haha

      Reply
      • Damn same thing happened to me.

        I have 2 10km eggs. I did plenty of walking all day, but none of it counted as my app was dead.

        Started working again as soon as I got home.

        Reply
  33. Toss-up between Falkner and Pryce (I like the color “blue” and ice is nice), so I went with Morty, the coolest spook.

    Reply

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