Review BW124: The Dangerously Sweet Honey!

[97SaturnSL1]

A LOT OF REFERNCES

Meowth and the Victreebel is a shout out to a guy Named Leo Burnette and a Defunt show dubbing company

The Beedrill for the long running gag of the series

The Ursurang for the one episode in Johto

All seem a bit familiar

 

[SlimeStack]

I feel like Team Rocket are holding back too. I'm hoping the writers are just a bit out of practice and will get into it after a few episodes. It'll be a shame if they stay a hair below what they were.

 

[Litten]

I thought this was a decent episode. I liked that Team Rocket kept things interesting; I especially liked their honey-themed plan to snatch Pikachu, although the pitfall seemed kind of reductive. Anyway, I liked seeing Pikachu, Axew and Oshawott together with Meowth if only because they each got to do something. The Victreebel scene seemed funnier in the previews and it only worked as a plot device to get Pikachu and the others to help Meowth, which I guess contributed to the fact that Meowth didn't want to hurt them near the end of the episode. I actually cringed at the end of the episode during the honey food scene though; Ash and friends exaggerate every time they see food and it's getting more noticeable by the episode imo. Like chill, it's just food.

 

[Sweet Veil]

Finally saw this episode in full. Pretty average episode overall, not awful as I thought it would be but average. It was one of those episodes that wasn't super entertaining overall but had some amusing moments that would help one get from point A to point B until the 22 minutes were up. I was that apathetic to the whole thing.

I thought this episode would be similar to the Raichu Baking episode in DP, unsurprisingly, it wasn't about acquiring honey more so it was about Team Rocket pulling their usual redundant Pikachu thief plots and being sent packing in a string of failures throughout the episode. Things I liked about this episode, Pikachu showing remnants of a personality with his distrust and regret of Nyasu. Kibago apparently knowing how to identify herbs and fashion them into medicine. Mijumaru wasn't his overbearing self most of the episode and pretty entertaining at times and his Hydro Pump save of Pikachu was nice.(I always enjoy the animation for that move.) The reunion scene between them all was nice. Kairyu and Lizardon simply broing up against Koromori was nice, COMPLETE WITH A SPLIT SCREEN!

Still don't understand why everyone wants Lizardon to stay on the main cast, not that I'm against him staying but I'd rather he make a comeback for a big battle not just to be a regular cast member. Quality over quantity, though his scenes with Kairyu rock and I really like Lizardon so I can't be stressed by it. Was hoping Zuruggu would appear here over Mijumaru though, been missing the lizard for a long while now.

Nyasu being hesitant of attacking them due to their earlier kindness felt generic as well as the whole Poisoning thing, he didn't want to attack them, that sure didn't stop Kairyu from spitting an Ice Beam in his face a second later and it didn't really lead anywhere. TR's antics didn't entertain me here in the slightest, their balloon being popped, the disguises, the pithole, the disguises again. Trying to take on two fully evolved orange dragons was pretty damn stupid as well but I did like Kojirou's unnerved actions about it. The Ringuma and Spear encounters were meh, though the evolution for Cocoon looked beautiful. I guess I liked seeing Nyasu do stuff, if only because he's my favorite Rocket agent.

Overall, I didn't really like this episode, the mascots getting separated from the BW trio laced with TR shenanigans doesn't really fit the criteria of a fun episode for me. It felt like a classic case of going through the motions, TR can be "comedic" and still be entertaining, take the Hitomoshi mansion episode for example of being a fun comedy TR episode. This honey episode literally felt like a copy and paste of many past episodes and I was bored by it. Simply breaking from the formula of a typical TR stealing episode and trying something outside the box would have been appreciated.

 

[Adamant]

So, I dunno...does it seem like the Rocket trio's holding back some, emotion-wise? Like, it feels like they're only about 80% of what they used to be before Best Wishes! started and that the writers are hesitating to bring them back full throttle. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the three of them are showing any emotion at all, and I'll take 80% over the 5-10% we've been getting for the last two and a half years, but it still feels like they're holding back for some reason. It's worrying.

It's the script. They act like they used to do back in the day, but the script is lacking all those funny little touches their dialogue used to be peppered with, so they feel kinda bland in comparison.

 

[Dogasu]

I can see that. I just hope the writers can get back into the groove soon, or start letting the voice actors adlib lines, or something.

Meowth and the Victreebel is a shout out to a guy Named Leo Burnette and a Defunt show dubbing company

I doubt there's a single person on the staff of this show who knows what the hell you're talking about.

 

[Charmander4]

It was pretty interesting to see Charizard be used in the "look for Pikachu from the air" role that the birds usually end up doing. Kind of like using a tank to go to the super market, but since he doesn't have Unfezant, Ash will use what he's got. No matter, I love Charizard being here so I'll take any and all types of appearance. Hopefully we'll get some down n' dirty battling with him soon, though, and I wish TR made a special mention of him. It was good to see him battle them though like old times.

Kakuna evolving into Beedrill was awesome though. I love seeing the old Pokémon evolve in the new animation style.

 

[Yamadora]

It was pretty interesting to see Charizard be used in the "look for Pikachu from the air" role that the birds usually end up doing. Kind of like using a tank to go to the super market, but since he doesn't have Unfezant, Ash will use what he's got. No matter, I love Charizard being here so I'll take any and all types of appearance. Hopefully we'll get some down n' dirty battling with him soon, though, and I wish TR made a special mention of him. It was good to see him battle them though like old times.

Totally agree with you. I recall this being the first time when they used Lizardon like that, and I always enjoy seeing him.

Overall, this was a decent filler (or just regular filler + Lizardon awesomeness ).

 

[Darth Darkrai]

I think the Return of the Pitfall Traps was Priceless.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

Couldn't Charizard and Dragonite just kick the Beebrill's arses

 

[Lugiafanatic]

So, I dunno...does it seem like the Rocket trio's holding back some, emotion-wise? Like, it feels like they're only about 80% of what they used to be before

The remaining 20% is Wobbuffet.

And boss fantasies.