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Review BW109: The Araragi Institute! A New Journey!!

An solid, if somewhat slow episode. Team Rocket's new pokes definitely give off a bit more of a threatening vibe than Woobat and Yamask did, which is nice.

Question though, why was the COTD afraid to cross the bridge in the beginning of the episode? Superstition or something? She was an interesting character of the day to be sure.
 
Question though, why was the COTD afraid to cross the bridge in the beginning of the episode? Superstition or something? She was an interesting character of the day to be sure.
Perhaps she's been watching the anime before setting out on her journey, where half the bridges collapse as they try to cross.
 
Decent ep. I have to say that TR having new mon's feels really refreshing.
 
This episode was great, comapred to the League Episodes coming before it.
As the first ep of Episode N, it introduced an opening and an ending. I liked the opening a lot, but the ending wasn't that nice compared to the previous one.

Now into the real episode:

1)Nonomi was a nice CotD, and fortunately the episode wasn't focused around her. She was one nice choice for a fresh Trainer, indeed. Liked her fantasies and all.
2)I like the new Team Rocket more than the old BW one. Though I feel that the dubbed Kanto motto combined with the Sinnoh music will be donwright awful...
Anyway, apart from that, their Pokemon are the best since Arbok/Weezing, even though Amoonguss moveset is impossible (2 egg moves from different chains).

The Prof. Oak call, plus the Muk cameo were allright.
What really annoyed me though is the way they handled the "Ash wants to returns to Kanto/ the gang sticks together" thing. It seemed too forced for a way to keep Iris and Cilan into the cast.

It was a generally good episode though, mainly because its battles had a point, in contrast to the League eps before it.
 
It makes sense for Cilan to stay with Ash, since he wanted to study and learn from him. And Iris's goal won't be hindered if she travels with Ash, since her goal isn't tied to a location or Region.

Though I feel that the dubbed Kanto motto combined with the Sinnoh music will be donwright awful...
This. I really disliked the Sinnoh music and the Kanto motto. Now the Sinnoh or Unova motto with the Unova music, that'd be amazing.
 
It makes sense for Cilan to stay with Ash, since he wanted to study and learn from him. And Iris's goal won't be hindered if she travels with Ash, since her goal isn't tied to a location or Region.

Though I feel that the dubbed Kanto motto combined with the Sinnoh music will be donwright awful...
This. I really disliked the Sinnoh music and the Kanto motto. Now the Sinnoh or Unova motto with the Unova music, that'd be amazing.

Still, Cilan can't make it to Kanto because Connoiseurs do not exist there. And Iris' story is tied with Dragon Village and Drayden, so no.
As for the motto, I still prefer a totally messed up Kanto motto over the same Unova one.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that even the blast off has a quite new feel. After all the famous "Team Rocket's blasting off again!" line is missing.
 
Still, Cilan can't make it to Kanto because Connoiseurs do not exist there. And Iris' story is tied with Dragon Village and Drayden, so no.
Just because people in Kanto don't know about Connoiseurs, doesn't mean Cilan's experience is any less valid. And seeing different Pokemon and people that are uncommon in Unova would be an excellent learning experience for him. Iris's goal is to evolve Axew and become a Dragon Master. She doesn't really need to stay near Drayden or the village at this point in order to learn new things. I don't see the harm if both of them go on a trip to their best friend's home country full of pretty foreign Pokemon and a different culture for a while; it's not like they can't come back to Unova after about a week.
 
It just makes me go AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- at the way that Unfezant keeps being treated. Poor girl does the hard work and gets no kudos, no nothing. Writers, please stop shitting on the bird already.
 
Am I alone in enjoying this episode?

First things first, the opening HoleeeeShitz, the beggining of the song was pretty epic, and the map being ripped by the Plasma insignia was one of the best parts.

I guess this episode wasn't too special, and it wasn't intended to be, it really did need to be slow and for the most part uneventful, although we did get some cool references, also, Nonomi was pretty good, people, she actually developped in one episode, after seeing the way Ash and the others tried their best, she got courage, and I think this was pretty nifty, also nice seeing Ash as his mentor self, and Dominatrix-Araragi, just Dominatrix-Araragi.

What happened to Dent and Iris? They simply disappeared during TR's attack.
They were obviously busy being horrified of the CGI machine.


Although TR lost, they still had some great moments in this, like the Fog+Stun Spore combo, and also, Psychic was pretty if you need to take a Pokémon away, kudos for strategizing TRio! I also liked Unfezant being a Badass here, and weirdly enough, I cheered upon seeing TR blast off. They did seem to have more personality this time, which is great.

The part when Ash was excited to see Reshiram was a little rushed, but seeing as he seemingly was ashamed of himself by placing in top 8, maybe he didn't want that to be the end of his Unova journey, and wanted to improve only so that he can feel that he accomplished something, well, that's my way of seeing it anyway, he did seem eager to battle Cheren and Cilan commented on how it would feel like a fresh start. The snippets of N were greatly appreciated.

Also, the ending theme was cuuuuute!
 
It was a good episode in my book. Certainly better than BWS2 up until the Unova League...but still TRio is just boring as they have been in the BW Saga with lack of emoting. Good part is, they've got a lot of their old stuff back, but it'll be up to the writers to utilize this effectively. Hopefully they do so...or not? lol. :dead:
 
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You know, I'm actually wondering the status of Koromori and Deathmas now... we have no idea if the TRio kept a hold of them or dumped them at Team Rocket HQ to chill with Sonasu...

Also, I'm pretty sure that over half the footage of Nonomi's Pokabu in this episode was recycled.
 
Nonomi imagines Snivy and Oshawott attacking her in her sleep, yet Tepig is okay, despite possessing the ability to breathe fire embers. I'm sure there must be something I missed, due to not understanding most of what the characters are saying, but that still just doesn't sound logical to me.

Overall, I guess this was a decent episode for a new season setup - if pointless, knowing that we'll probably never see Nonomi again. And I gotta admit, I actually kind of liked to see TR back to their old selves again, minus "ya na kanji", unfortunately. Never thought I'd be saying that.
 
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Nonomi imagnines Snivy and Oshawott attacking her in her sleep, yet Tepig is okay, despite possessing the ability to breathe fire embers. I'm sure there must be something I missed, due to not understanding most of what the characters are saying, but that still just doesn't sound logical to me.

Overall, I guess this was a decent episode for a new season setup - if pointless, knowing that we'll probably never see Nonomi again. And I gotta admit, I actually kind of liked to see TR back to their old selves again, minus "ya na kanji", unfortunately. Never thought I'd be saying that.

No, just she first fantasized about Snivy, then about Oshawott and before she was able to fatasize for Tepig everyone else was annoyed by her fantasies. Realizing she would get no Pokemon, she decided to stop. Combine it with Cilan stating that Nonomi and Tepig were perfect for each other and here you are. Nonomi gets Tepig
 
Professor Overload! (Oak and Juniper Sr in the same episode... that's not going to be awkward in the dub, not at all)

Yep. Jimmy Zoppi and Stuart Zagnit talking to each other again: just like back when Stuart played Prof. Oak and Jimmy only played Gary Oak in 4Kids. Oh, the irony here.
 
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This episode was fair enough considering the previous episodes..The COTD was good and TR going back to old ways was watchable.. Oly thing that i doubt,, is Ash never went after a legendary pokemon wantedly.. But i hope its because the league is over.
One more thing can someone pl tell me,, who are the 2 women by the side of N during opening theme,, and was it Charizard which was deflecting Reshiram's attack.. I cant even imagine how much powerful it is.. Wish it returned before the league...
 
The Good of this episode.

The 3 seconds of Muk
Stunfisk Derping
Pikachu getting OHKOd.
TEAM ROCKET IS BLASTING OFF
The bad

For some reason emolga is not allowed to faint onscreen in a trainer battle. Ever
TR's grand debut scheme was them pushing some cart in the middle of a battle, music did NOT fit at all.
Why was Dragonite not used.
WHAT WERE IRiS AND CILAN DOING THE WHOLE TIME TR WAS IN FRONT OF THEM?!
For that matter juniper?
Everything about the girl.
Where was the obligatory Emboar headlocking new girl/burning down the house nightmare?!
Unfezant beat the TR new pokemon too easily.
How did it go from being pwned by a riolu to being superbird in 2 episodes?


This episode was basically the writers realizing they failed at ripping off Kanto and moved on to copying johto instead.

Ash and Co are traveling
They meet some boring one shot trainer with an even more boring problem
Said trainer is completely unlikable
Some more cute market filler
PREPARE FOR TROUBLE!
One shot+Ash=TR blasting off
Oh wait the problem magically dissapears
Ash moves on.
 
This episode was fair enough considering the previous episodes..The COTD was good and TR going back to old ways was watchable.. Oly thing that i doubt,, is Ash never went after a legendary pokemon wantedly.. But i hope its because the league is over.
One more thing can someone pl tell me,, who are the 2 women by the side of N during opening theme,, and was it Charizard which was deflecting Reshiram's attack.. I cant even imagine how much powerful it is.. Wish it returned before the league...

The two women are the goddesses - Anthea and Concordia. They were adopted by Ghetsis to take care of N.

And it looks like Ash's Charizard is making a comeback
 
Okay Nonomi doesn't know anything about Snivy's evolution line. I mean they showed it sleeping with her and it evolved into a Serperior without even evolving into Servine first. Anyone notice the incomplete evolvution I did. Okay Nonomi is over reacting which is funny but she reminded me of Cinderilla when she was cleaning the dirty pokeballs. Why did the writers have Snivy evolve uncompletely? Why?
 
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