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Review S16 EP20: Team Plasma's Pokémon Manipulation!

I liked this episode, but I liked the last episode better. This one was a little slow in the beginning, but once they found the Haxorus, things picked up.

I laughed when Aldith's Liepard accidentally hit Colress' machine, and Colress gives her this "Really?" look.

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Things are really starting to get interesting now that Concordia and Anthea appeared...

One thing I noticed during the Team Plasma segments is that the animators really went out of their way to make all the Team Plasma grunts look like different people without straying too far from the game sprite designs. I'm impressed; I don't remember there being so much variation in the generic members of the other villainous teams.
 
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So Team Plasma is back. This time we see Colress again and he’s doing the same thing he did last time; controlling the minds of Pokemon to destroy stuff.

Not much to say about this episode. Basically Ash and friends have to stop some kid’s Haxorus (which has a terrible moveset) from destroying a city since the kid can’t do it himself for some reason. It was kind boring until Dragonite got possessed and got to duke it out with Charizard again. That was kinda cool except for the fact that Dragonite’s rampage scene used almost all of the exact same footage as its rampage during the Junior Cup which made it kind of boring as well. However, Meowth Fury Swiping that dude was awesome along with Cilan actually helping out this time with Crustle.

Then N pulls an Ash and stands in the line of the Dragonite and Haxorus’s attacks and begs them to stop. He gets blasted away, which was totally hilarious. Then his sisters come from the fog and put him in water to heal him. Nice. An okay episode I guess. Though I was really annoyed with Iris in this episode with that “there are no bad dragon-types” crap. Then she and the others directly disobeyed an officer’s orders. Not that they haven’t done that before, but it was still annoying. Especially when they stole that boat. 7/10.
 
I must say, I REALLY liked this episode. It feels so good and refreshing to see this series function with actual villains actually being evil towards Pokémon. Not to mention making them destroy the city. Sorry, but this episode just made me SOO happy with Episode N.

To start off, I admit that Iris is getting annoying with the “There are no bad Dragons”. Not to mention this was all her idea and it feels like she could have done more like N and Ash.

So we can see that N is great role model, stealing and chizz.

I loved how Ghetsis was totally not caring about Colress’ big scientific explanation.

Looker being back was AWESOME! Makes him seem like a real International Police Agent. Sucks that he kinda disappeared in the middle of the episode, though.

I just have to say that Colress is just totally evil. It’s like he just doesn’t care at all about the Pokémon or the people. I know I already said it, but it’s just so refreshing to see this in the series. I am really enjoying him.

N jumping to save Iris was very cool, in my opinion. I know he does it all the time, but every time he just feels so heroic. Especially in the situations they’re in.

I enjoyed Team Rocket’s behavior here. Just like in DP, it’s nice to see them competing against another team. But this time, they took it up a notch. I really liked their serious portrayal here.

I also liked N’s line: “I tried communicating with Haxorus, but it wouldn’t work.” As if he truly has this magic power to understand Pokémon.

I just have to add this in here: Why was Ash so shocked that an electric attack didn’t affect Haxorus? Especially since he was rampaging.

Also, it’s always nice to see Team Rocket putting up a fight instead of getting knocked around so easily. And in the midst of the rampaging Pokémon? Really cool, in my opinion.

Okay, N must really like getting hit with attacks. I mean seriously. And no offense, N fangirls/boys, but I was happy to see that N got KOed there. It just seems like he’s a bit too powerful sometimes when it comes to getting hit by effing explosions and them shaking them off. It would have just been unrealistic (yes, unrealistic in Pokémon) if he wasn’t hurt by that.

Team Rocket was doing great, and then Meowth just had to ruin it by mentioning that they came for Pikachu. Although, I guess since Colress’ machine was messed up, there wasn’t much else they could have done there.

Maybe I’m over-exaggerating, but this is the first episode in the ENTIRE BW series that I truly, truly loved. And with Concordia and Anthea showing up at the end to take N who hasn’t even moved since the explosion (which I felt the Narrator did a great job of making that scene intense), it just feels like everything is getting serious and I love it! This showed me that Pokemon can be serious when they want to. I just wish they would more often.

Can we PLEASE have more of this in the X and Y anime? This was almost enough to make me not even care about Cameron VS Ash.

No question: 10/10 episode to me.
 
So, N pulled a play from Ash's "Idiot's Guide of How To Be A Dumbass" by trying to talk to mind controlled Pokemon after he was TOLD by TP that they had controlled them with a device and the result is him getting blasted by Flamethrower/Hyper Beam. Wow, way to go N. That might be a dumber move that Ash jumping in front of Trip's Lampent after it launched a Shadow Ball instead of using Pikachu to deflect it...

I didn't really like the Charizard and Crustle battles with the mind controlled dragons, don't me wrong I liked seeing Charizard and all but none of the attacks connected so it just seemed like a waste same with Crustle. And how the heck does a one-sphere Hidden Power equal the power of a ROCK WRECKER?!?!?!

That Haxours had one of the worst move sets in the anime so far, I mean if it had Draco Meteor it wouldn't have been as bad. Shadow Claw? That's a "meh" move to me on a Haxours that is easier to understand than 2 Special Attacks on a Pokemon meant for Attack but oh well its the anime what can you do?
 
WTF!!!!! Deerling for Who's That Pokemon! We have seen Deerling for like half of this Region and it gets this you suck! Also Who The Hell Is Voicing Officer Jenny she is really bad hear.
 
Does it mean anything when I'm surprised that TPTB aren't annoying me? At one point, I braced myself for Iris' "What a kid!" line, but it didn't happen. When I saw Looker, I was expecting that weird "Best fishes!" line at some point, but it never happened. Could they actually be learning from their mistakes?

Then she and the others directly disobeyed an officer’s orders. Not that they haven’t done that before, but it was still annoying. Especially when they stole that boat.

Actually, they didn't disobey Officer Jenny. She told them that they weren't allowed to cross the bridge, and they didn't. Actually, I was hoping they'd fly in on Charizard and Dragonite, but Jenny didn't tell them that they couldn't do that. Or ride a boat across.

I was kinda surprised that Colress didn't try taking control of Charizard and Crustle when they came out. Actually, I kinda thought it would lead to a cycle of Our Gang sending out more Pokémon that would keep getting brainwashed without ever clueing into the idea that sending out more Pokes isn't helping. I guess Colress thought catching N was more important.
 
The music playing at the end sounded much more sinister than mythical. Seems that they aren't even trying to choose what music is worth keeping in the dub anymore.
 
Actually, they didn't disobey Officer Jenny. She told them that they weren't allowed to cross the bridge, and they didn't. Actually, I was hoping they'd fly in on Charizard and Dragonite, but Jenny didn't tell them that they couldn't do that. Or ride a boat across.

I could have sworn that she told them not to go to the city at all.
 
Did anybody else get N's "oar" pun when they saw the tied boat?

(don't know if it was intentional or not)
 
Team Plasma's back and what an intense episode that was! Rampaging Pokemon, two villain team competing against each other, a mysterious and still unresolved background story that keeps the tension up and last but not least those two interesting ladies who had an awesome appearance and really made you look forward to next week. (They reminded me a little bit of those nymphs who took the body of King Arthur to Avalon. Very mysterious and well done indeed!)

Well, if I were Cilan, I would probably sum it all up with "All these ingredients taste like a good old exciting Sinnoh episode" :D
Good job writers, I hope you can keep that up for the rest of the season ;)
 
Good episode for the dub, and a lot less controversial (and less of a headache) than last week's episode.

Lauder is very obviously voiced by Kirbopher/Chris Niosi. He...sucked at the role. I thought he was okay as Khoury, but here he was just so...bland. So nondescript and forgettable for me.

Also, what's up with Officer Jenny's voice? Sounds less robotic than it did before, yet it annoys me more now than it did before. It's still Emily Jenness but...yeah.

Barring those two, I thought the dub did a good job. I was more concerned about the plot in this episode and it really captivated me, keeping my interest.

Sarah was good as Ash, Eileen was good as Iris, Jason was good as Cilan, and even Jimmy Zoppi and Michele Knotz were good today.

Bill Rogers was once again fantastic as Ghetsis. Very happy with the improvement he's been showing lately in his roles. :ksmile:

I liked the episode myself, but Lauder and Officer Jenny's voices were subpar for my tastes.

Rating: 8.5/10
 
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Lauder is very obviously voiced by Kirbopher/Chris Niosi. He...sucked at the role. I thought he was okay as Khoury, but here he was just so...bland. So nondescript and forgettable for me.

Hey thanks! Really appreciate it!

You sure it wasn't just because you thought random kid who shows up with ten lines was inherently nondescript and forgettable? :p
 
Lauder is very obviously voiced by Kirbopher/Chris Niosi. He...sucked at the role. I thought he was okay as Khoury, but here he was just so...bland. So nondescript and forgettable for me.

Hey thanks! Really appreciate it!

You sure it wasn't just because you thought random kid who shows up with ten lines was inherently nondescript and forgettable? :p

Probably a bit of both (moreso being cast as the random kid who shows up with ten lines portion, though). XD.

Looking back, I think I WAS being a bit harsh. I think you did a reasonable job itself. I just thought he could use a bit more emotion to make the episode feel even more exciting.

EDIT: Not gonna lie, I'm cracking up seeing your avatar. :sweatlol:
 
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After watching the episode, I wish I had asked to go back and record the first couple lines; was sort of cleaning out the vocal cobwebs in the beginning. I thought I did alright, I was more just grateful to finally do an episode of Black & White.

Hope you guys have been enjoying this arc so far. The actors for the new BW2 characters are fantastic. Eli was a big highlight on this one as Colress.
 
After watching the episode, I wish I had asked to go back and record the first couple lines; was sort of cleaning out the vocal cobwebs in the beginning. I thought I did alright, I was more just grateful to finally do an episode of Black & White.

Hope you guys have been enjoying this arc so far. The actors for the new BW2 characters are fantastic. Eli was a big highlight on this one as Colress.

Eh, don't worry about it. It seems like you really care about how your performance was today, and I do think you sounded much better as you got more familiar with the standard COTD for the episode. More than anything, it was probably getting back into the swing of things, that made you sound off at the beginning to me. However, I do think you got much better as the episode progressed.

So far, I've personally been enjoying myself, for the most part. I do agree the actors for the newer characters have recently been cast very well, and Eli James is an excellent Colress (and personally, much improved from Sean Schemmel in the BW2 trailer, IMO). Nicholas DiMichele is also a fantastic N.
 
The guy who does Colress in the dub is amazing. I really love his voice. It took me a while to warm up to N's dub voice but I'm getting used to it. Sometimes it sounds a lot like Neji/Toshiro to me (it could be the same VA for all I know ^^') but I think it fits him.

Team Plasma's making their move :D
 
The guy who does Colress in the dub is amazing. I really love his voice. It took me a while to warm up to N's dub voice but I'm getting used to it. Sometimes it sounds a lot like Neji/Toshiro to me (it could be the same VA for all I know ^^') but I think it fits him.

Team Plasma's making their move :D

It's titled Episode N but somehow Colress gets all the attention, both sub and dub lol
 
Enjoyed this episode. Anyone else feel it felt linger than standard lenght but in a good way. Really up for this saga now.
 
Loved the episode!! and it's great to see charizard again :p

was annoyed at the sudden music change at the end :(
 
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