Review S15 EP17: Battling the Bully!

[garrison-san]

BW065 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

Ash and friends run into a familiar face - the Krokorok who wears sunglasses, who they are surprised to learn has been trailing them for the entirety of their journey in the hopes of testing its strength against Pikachu again! However, Pikachu gets separated from the rest of the group in the ensuing battle, and winds up being befriended by a boy named Mick who is having a hard time impressing his friends with regard to his pokemon prowess. When Ash meets Mick, he agrees to lend him a hand.

 

[Hellwarden]

Unfortunately, a somewhat subpar episode, though I do appreciate some little things.

Ash's Krokorok, and Ash's treatment of him, such as not attacking when he had an unfair advantage.
Liked how Seismitoad looked.
Ash stopping Glenn from hitting Mick.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

Meh, not one of the better episodes of the series, but I guess the plotline is at least somewhat original... or at least hasn't been done too many times already.

 

[Garren]

Krokorok's plot-line really kind of faltered if you think about it...it makes me wonder, since he was going to be in the Plasma 2-Partner, if there was originally supposed to be more of a build up to his capture that ended up getting dropped.

 

[matt0044]

Krokorok's plot-line really kind of faltered if you think about it...it makes me wonder, since he was going to be in the Plasma 2-Partner, if there was originally supposed to be more of a build up to his capture that ended up getting dropped.

Are you sure it was him or another Krokorok? He's not the only one.

 

[Garren]

Yeah, it was the sunglasses one as shown by the Live Caster segment.

 

[Moe]

I really don't like Krokorok's dub voice, it just lacks the range needed to make emotions other than being 'that Pokemon with sunglasses' - which was fairly annoying when you had to try and have the slightly disappointed Krokorok while still saying its name exactly the same. Hopefully the voice changes slightly now that it is captured, otherwise it will get really annoying.

I do like how this episode gave good focus to the oddness of Kanto Pokemon, and for once not making the lopsided idea of having Unovans be totally aware of Pokemon outside the Unova region, but have Ash coming in with no knowledge at all. Otherwise, the episodes all seem to have Ash being the only one who doesn't know about the region's Pokemon, everyone else, including Oak are just made out as having always known about the Unova Pokemon and everyone else in Unova has always known about Pikachu (and they treated Meowth the same way) just never seen one in person.

Of course, they do achieve that by putting Ash around kids younger than him, which takes away from the achievement, but it gets a bit annoying constantly having Ash scanning Pokemon while everyone else in the show is made out to know the whole dex. I understand it is necessary because the viewer isn't assumed to know about all of these Pokemon, but they could do it without making absolutely every Unovan seem smarter.

Iris giving battle tips is also a bit much, how about instead having her talk about how she couldn't wait to get her first Pokemon and how she played with them to learn about them? It's Cilan's role to be talking about type matchups, that's about all there is to his practical Connoisseurship, yet Iris takes that role as well. So an episode finally managing to make Ash look intelligent by surrounding him with kids, still manages to put him in his place by making Iris over-accomplished.

That leaves Ash physically restraining someone as the best thing he did in this episode. Half expecting Iris to talk in the background about proper restraining technique to one-up him on that too.

 

[matt0044]

understand it is necessary because the viewer isn't assumed to know about all of these Pokemon, but they could do it without making absolutely every Unovan seem smarter.

Unless they played the games already which odds are a majority of them have.

 

[97SaturnSL1]

Here is my take
Good: pikachu being called a pre evolved form of zekrom
Glenns attitude
Sean being a push over
Sean's freak out when their final battle is over and his fathers pokemon are *so badly injured* (sarcasam)
Ash captured the sunglasses krockorock
Bad: Glenn not able to falcon punch Mick or Sean

 

[Ishida]

Sean and Masaomi look exactly a like.. I think they're even wearing the same outfit.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Sean and Masaomi look exactly a like.. I think they're even wearing the same outfit.

Huh? I don't see any resemblance...

Characters in this episode reminds me Doraemon cast.

 

[Ambipom666]

I can see a slight resemblance in their hair colors.

Meh, I wish the writers hadn't waited an entire year for the return of the sunglasses croc... Now I can't help but think Ash should have caught it in BW020 and never have caught Sewaddle. Maybe the 3rd gym might have been a little more interesting!

 

[97SaturnSL1]

Sean and Masaomi look exactly a like.. I think they're even wearing the same outfit.

Huh? I don't see any resemblance...

Characters in this episode reminds me Doraemon cast.

well if it were to be any more resemblence it would create a time paradox

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Sean and Masaomi look exactly a like.. I think they're even wearing the same outfit.

Huh? I don't see any resemblance...

Characters in this episode reminds me Doraemon cast.

well if it were to be any more resemblence it would create a time paradox

I can't see any resemblance, even with anime standarts...

 

[97SaturnSL1]

if you give sean about 12 more years on his age that is were i see the semi obvious to me resemblence. i can see with more facial expressions and looks where it wouldnt have any resemblence. but that is what i see.

 

[Queen Cynthia]

Well, I guess every once in a while there have to be episodes like this one where Ash doesn't act like "a little kid" for a change but gives some advice to a newbie instead. I used to like such episodes but by now I think they've become superfluous. Shouldn't the plot finally start moving on? From my point of view it doesn't really make sense to show us those repetitive episodes which start at zero again and again. Given that most of the audience has already watched Pokemon for many years, it's legitimate to want some progress in the plot, don't you think? Also, I kind of find it odd that in this episode Ash was portrayed as the experienced, mature trainer while he hasn't really advanced much since BW. On the contrary, he has been presented as the actual "little kid" most of the time so far.
Anyways, are there any positive aspects that could be mentioned? Well this episode was mainly battle-centered but even this didn't really convince me because apart from the last one against Krokorok, the so-called "battles" were mostly sparring matches and as such can't be considered as real, exciting battles.

All in all, I'd say it was a so-so episode. It's great to see Krokorok, a very promising Pokemon, on Ash's team but the rest of the episode was rather mediocre.