Review DP189: Shin'ō League Semi-Finals! Enter Darkrai!!

[Zeta]

They should have revealed Takuto is just an illusion created by Darkrai to crush the dreams of honest trainers so he can feed on their nightmares.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

OK, I'm way behind. When did Swellow and Sceptile come back?

 

[NeoKING]

Somebody please fill me in on the details as I can't watch that episode. Don't leave anything out!

The episode IMMEDIATELY starts with the battle about to start. Darkrai sweeps Ash's Heracross, Torkoal(he was a real fail here, lost as soon as he was sent out), and Gible. Ash sends out Sceptile, and for a second Sceptile's about to buy the farm but then he wakes up from Darkrai's Dark Void(and Dream Eater follow-up) and defeats Darkrai with Leaf Blade. Then Takuto praises Ash for forcing him to use his second Pokemon(not his second BEST, his SECOND) which turns out to be Latios Ex Machina. Latios beats Swellow in a short dog fight. Ash sends out Pikachu which has trouble at first but then manages to attach himself to Latios, Thunderbolting him constantly. Takuto then uses some attack which creates a golden aura around Latios, making Thunderbolt useless and then the two have a final explosive Luster Purge-Thunder Iron Tail clash, resulting in a tie. However, Ash has no more Pokemon, so he loses. Oh yeah, he does the hat turn when he sends out Pikachu.

I enjoyed the battle bit I HATE how Takuto has NO backstory! Literally none! It's crazy, lol.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

Takuto then uses some attack which creates a golden aura around Latios

And what might that move be?

 

[NeoKING]

And what might that move be?

Have no clue. I actually thought it was Calm Mind to raise Latios's Sp. Def so Thunderbolt wouldn't work anymore.

 

[Zeta]

Why? If a trainer is skilled enough to capture a legendary pokemon then they should be able to use it in the league. Otherwise anyone who beat them wouldn't have beat them at their strongest. Takuto is a skilled enough trainer to capture two legendaries and have them listen to him in battle. That says something about his quality as a trainer. If you don't like it thats fine but Takuto isn't being cheap by using strong pokemon that he captured in a league competition

"If an athlete can train his body to accept steroids with few side effects, he should be able to take them."

"If this race car driver can still steer with a rocket engine attatched to his F-1, he should be able to use it in the drag race."

"If you can aim a gun well, why not allow it in this fencing match?"

Takuto being allowed in the League is roughly the equivalent of America entering Superman into the Olympics.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

Its TorFailkoal.

Its sad that it had to (one of )the fall guy(s) again.

In the Game Battle Frontier, Latios is allowed while Darkrai isn't. So he is breaking the rules by Game Standards. Though this isn't the Battle Frontier. All Pokemon are allowed in the League.

 

[Iteru]

Light Screen (according to the 'pedia anyway).

 

[PDL]

They should have revealed Takuto is just an illusion created by Darkrai to crush the dreams of honest trainers so he can feed on their nightmares.

I was wishing for this for a while, but alas... They didn't want to make Darkrai a fully fledged character. D:

 

[NeoKING]

I hope the dub names him Taction Replay.

 

[Snake Bandage]

They should have revealed Takuto is just an illusion created by Darkrai to crush the dreams of honest trainers so he can feed on their nightmares.

That's too damn cool for the Pokemon anime, man. Maybe one of the games could pull of something as cool as that.

 

[Ampharos King]

And what might that move be?

The attack Latios used was Light Screen, which halves any damage from special attacks. This is why Pikachu's Thunderbolt, which was able to electrocute Latios previously, did not do any harm after the use.

In the anime, however, Light Screen completely protects the user pokemon from any special attack (regardless of damage).

 

[The Outrage]

"If an athlete can train his body to accept steroids with few side effects, he should be able to take them."

"If this race car driver can still steer with a rocket engine attatched to his F-1, he should be able to use it in the drag race."

"If you can aim a gun well, why not allow it in this fencing match?"

Takuto being allowed in the League is roughly the equivalent of America entering Superman into the Olympics.

You know, the only analogy there that actually seems comparable is the Superman one and possibly the race car. Taming a legendary isn't the same as steroids, and the reason you can't use a gun in a fencing match is because its a fencing match. Darkrai is a Pokemon competing in a Pokemon battle.

 

[Daren]

You know, the only analogy there that actually seems comparable is the Superman one and possibly the race car. Taming a legendary isn't the same as steroids, and the reason you can't use a gun in a fencing match is because its a fencing match. Darkrai is a Pokemon competing in a Pokemon battle.

I'd have to agree with this, if only because you get to the slippery slope. So you can't use Legendaries? But Dragonite and his ilk have comparable stats. Do we ban them too? But now there's a new set of "strongest" allowed Pokemon.

 

[Hellion]

Again time was against the battle. It was rushed there was no time for strategies, and could you really expect anything with Sceptile's move set.

Oh god... the "don't blame the character blame the writers" The character don't exist outside of what the writers give them. The writers made Pikachu and, to a lesser extent, Sceptile cheapen by giving them unbelievable wins... Happy?

I mean come on they are over powered Pokemon, how the hell was any strategy going to work.

That's exactly what makes it cheap... They're supposedly overpowered pokemon that Ash beats, no by finding a way to counter that power but by apparantly just matching the power of his own regular pokemon with it... They had to downplay the strenght of legendary pokemon and up the strenght of the regular pokemon just to make it believable... and they failed.

Oh in that case Pikachu vs Regice wasn't Deus Ex Machina then since Volt tackle sure as hell didn't come out of nowhere.

Nowhere in my post did I mention Deus Ex Machina... I just likened the overpowering of Pikachu for the battle against Latios to its overpowering in the battle against Regice. Which isn't all that wrong. Pikachu v Regice was terrible writing and Pikachu v Latios isn't all that far behind.

Why would you think a full battle in one episode would be anything more than OHKO's is kind of beyond me. I don't see how (even if you cut out Team Rocket) it would've worked.

So I'm supposed to excuse the lame writing because it's only one episode? That doesn't change the fact it's lame writing. Status moves? Abilities? Status ailments? Actual tactics instead of meaningless attack calls from Ash? That's easy to ass to the battle and doesn't take that much time. Have Torkoal land a hit that burns Darkrai, have Gible use dig to escape Ice beam and use rock smash from behind, neither would have taken more than 10 seconds. Darkrai would have taken more than 4-5 hits and it would have made the battle seems a whole lot less cheaper. But no... Leaf Blade spamming it has to be cause we just didn't see enough of that...

So it's okay for the opponent to OHKO a protagonist's Pokemon but the Protagonist needs to hit the opponent like infinite amount of times before its acceptable.

No which is why I complained about the OHKO fest beforehand. But to be honest, I'm not suprised to see Gible being OHKO since it's a freaking Gible... but Heracross? The more hits Darkrai has to take to be defeated, the better the battle, the more involved everybody is, the less cheap it is and the more meaningful.

No I wouldn't have.

I'm not saying necessarily somebody else against Takuto, you're quick to pass judgement on the value of other characters' wins and loses but when we talk about Ash, nobody can say a word... Just saying Ash isn't exempt from cheapness...

 

[Werebazs]

"If an athlete can train his body to accept steroids with few side effects, he should be able to take them."

"If this race car driver can still steer with a rocket engine attatched to his F-1, he should be able to use it in the drag race."

"If you can aim a gun well, why not allow it in this fencing match?"

Takuto being allowed in the League is roughly the equivalent of America entering Superman into the Olympics.

Sorry, but none of your examples are accurate. All of those you've listed are about gaining unfair advantage, which are assuming the one who used them, didn't stand a chance without them. However the very fact Takuto was able to capture, and control two legendaries, shows that he would've been able to win the League without them as well. Using steroids are forbidden -besides because they're dangerous- not because they boost the physical toughness, but because with them the user don't have to work for it. But I doubt Takuto would have been able to capture Darkrai and Latios, if he wasn't a skilled trainer already.

However I agree, this match wasn't as good as I expected. I don't mean, I wasn't ready for the OHKO-fest, but that it was sooo slow. With all the TRio scenes, and the 3 sec breaks between each made move, it lost a lot of potential.

About Takuto, I really do hope he'll turn out to be Ash's next Main Rival.

 

[The Outrage]

I'd have to agree with this, if only because you get to the slippery slope. So you can't use Legendaries? But Dragonite and his ilk have comparable stats. Do we ban them too? But now there's a new set of "strongest" allowed Pokemon.

Well, ignoring in-game stuff like stats, Dragonite and other pseudo-legendaries I imagine are also quite difficult to train and are naturally more powerful than the normal run of the mill Pokemon. There's a reason why in real life, competitive battling communities have a tier system, the anime has no such thing (which actually reminds me of that episode with Casey's first appearance and Ash used a Charizard, with Team Rocket spouting BS about not being allowed to use Charizard against beginners).

Realistically, even if Legendaries were found to be broken despite the fact they are much rarer to come by and harder to catch and train than in the games, they probably didn't have regulations due to its rarity.

And again, this is a Pokemon battle. I mean, with the examples Zeta gave, why is Marowak or Farfetch'd allowed a weapon? The rocket engine and gun analogy fit those Pokemon much more than it does Darkrai. The anime reasons this because they naturally have those in the wild, well Legendary Pokemon are naturally powerful, hard to catch and hard to train. Takuto did, and unlike the steroid, and gun analogy, that required a lot of skill, and probably the thing that the show tries to drill into our heads, the ability to connect with Pokemon. It's not like if he were like Paul, Darkrai couldn't have easily left.

Besides, legendary Pokemon aren't necessarily powerful, especially when they get that title for being rare to the point of a disputed existence.

Though, I'm not disagreeing this was a cheap way to cause a loss to Ash, but let's not write off Takuto as a cheap-ass trainer. They don't have Masterballs for easy capture and magical badges that causes automatic obedience once we have eight of them.

 

[King Robert]

I am TEARING OUT MY HAIR! This makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! So that little message from one of the E4 members saying he'll see Ash again was a FREAKING LIE?! ASH CANNOT WIN ANY NON-FILLER TOURNIES?!

 

[Iteru]

I am TEARING OUT MY HAIR!

Now dear, if you do then I'll have to get you a wig that resembles Takuto's hair.

 

[NeoKING]

Pikachu and Sceptile are justified winning their bouts. It's been implied since AG that Sceptile is Ash's new-school Charizard, and Charizard himself took down a Legendary. Pikachu beating a Legendary just goes to show how strong Pikachu has gotten over not only DP, but the entire series.