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Review JN018: Satoshi Participates! The Pokémon World Championships!!

I think I see what's going on with Raboot. After finally learning a fire move, Scorbunny saw itself as growing up into something stronger, so his personality shifted into something it think is considered acting grown up or cool. He thinks now that he's stronger, acting like it used to would be acting childish again. So yeah, a teenage phase basically. So I don't think Raboot will distance itself from Gou, but he will take things into his own hands more thinking it can handle anything now.
 
Or you know it's because of the change in art style he looks different and so does Ash's face in the flashback.

Oh please this goes beyond a simple art style change. This is full blown 'whitewashed Bea in Twilight Wings'. I could maybe tolerate Surge's new facial features even if it makes him look like he had a dozen plastic surgeries since the last time we saw him because Ash's face has also had some modifications, but Ash's skin color has remained intact for the most part. Meanwhile Surge - who had the same skin tone as Brock back in OS - is now glistening like white marble. It'd be like if Brock had returned in SuMo looking as pale as Misty. So please don't try to tell me that's normal even for this show...

Maybe it's because I'm a person of color and still traumatized from that time when people on Tumblr made whitewashed fan art of Nessa, but I'm a little offended that the official anime would actually whitewash Lt. Surge to this degree.
 
Those are rankings. The smaller the number, the higher the ranking.

He said he wanted to battle Lt. Surge again, so that might happen.
How powerful is Ash Gengar and Dragonite exactly

I think I see what's going on with Raboot. After finally learning a fire move, Scorbunny saw itself as growing up into something stronger, so his personality shifted into something it think is considered acting grown up or cool. He thinks now that he's stronger, acting like it used to would be acting childish again. So yeah, a teenage phase basically. So I don't think Raboot will distance itself from Gou, but he will take things into his own hands more thinking it can handle anything now.
I think also he doesn’t want to be teased by other fire Pokémon like Gou fire Pokémon teased him not being able to use fire moves acting as a bully lol
 
And what was the deal with showing Surge in a montage if the animators completely whitewashed him like they were now doing a Hollywood movie and changed his facial structure to boot?

They didn't "whitewash" Lt. Surge you massive, since he's always been a Caucasian. He just happened to be more tanned in the OG series (which is not the same as him being turned into an Afro-American), which probably happened because they loved being inconsistent with the material that they were adapting and doing their own thing back then.

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Also:
This is full blown 'whitewashed Bea in Twilight Wings'.

They didn't whitewash Bea in TW either. Just because some garbage-tier website made an article saying they did, for the sake of getting clicks and scoring virtue points with some easily outraged Twitter-brains, doesn't meant that it's true. Her skin is slightly lighter then it is in the concept art in some scenes in the Wild Area, which could be for a number of reason (like lighting (which is the most likely case, since even Corviknight is lighter than it was in the first episode), the art style etc.) other than the animators being racist.
 
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You can't really complain about whitewashing regarding an episode where the actual opponent (that appeared for more than a few seconds) is black. They just decided to be more faithful to the games.

As for the "hint" regarding Lt. Surge, I don't buy it as that would render Pisces' existence pointless. I can see Lt. Surge having a montage battle against another trainer (maybe Ash's rival), though. This was a good episode, but we don't need to see Pikachu take down more Electric types anytime soon.
 
Admittedly Gengar versus Eletrode was good and I thought Pikachu versus Raichu wasn't that bad, but the rest of the episode was effing awful. The Vermilion gym looks like crap now, they've apparently made Giovanni a gym leader again and Raboot got over its spat with Go way too easily (not that it's a bad thing per se, it's just what the hell was the point of that 'foreshadowing' with him walking away darkly in the last episode?!).

And what was the deal with showing Surge in a montage if the animators completely whitewashed him like they were now doing a Hollywood movie and changed his facial structure to boot? I suppose I should be relieved that they kept his original clothing (no I'm not because that still ain't enough) and that he doesn't look exactly like his Let's Go self but damn, how is this good continuity when the changes contradict the original Electric Shock Showdown episode?
Oh please this goes beyond a simple art style change. This is full blown 'whitewashed Bea in Twilight Wings'. I could maybe tolerate Surge's new facial features even if it makes him look like he had a dozen plastic surgeries since the last time we saw him because Ash's face has also had some modifications, but Ash's skin color has remained intact for the most part. Meanwhile Surge - who had the same skin tone as Brock back in OS - is now glistening like white marble. It'd be like if Brock had returned in SuMo looking as pale as Misty. So please don't try to tell me that's normal even for this show...

Maybe it's because I'm a person of color and still traumatized from that time when people on Tumblr made whitewashed fan art of Nessa, but I'm a little offended that the official anime would actually whitewash Lt. Surge to this degree.
Your comments prove you didn't pay attention to any thing at all and actually come off as real nitpicks. First off, Giovanni wasn't made a Gym Leader again, it was Ash recounting his badge quest overall. Raboot doesn't look to have gotten over anything yet, if anything then it only seems more interested in battling and hence more distant from Gou. The foreshadowing is that either Raboot will be lent to Ash for matches or outright join him, I doubt Gou will have any battling oriented goal.

Onto Surge's issues, you were recently claiming that redesigning Surge is "stressful to the staff" and now that it's actually done, you're finding some reason or another to throw shade at it? Surge was never a PoC, merely tanned and even then the artstyle back then was quite dark along with the lighting in the Gym (not to mention the EIW tropes). I'm amused at how you brought up the entire Bea whitewashing issue though, I'm pretty sure it was debunked as nothing more than a shitty clickbait.

Onto the next point, it's good continuity because not just Ash but even someone else recalled Ash's past journeys in some capacity without it contradicting his development. If anything, there are hints of a future battle between Surge and Ash with Visquez stating that she'll pass on the message to Surge and Ash saying he wants to battle said guy again.
People say this is in every series and they are always wrong, so no I'm not buying it. Ash isn't guaranteed to beat Leon even if he manages to battle him again at the end of this saga, but even on the off chance that he would win, the writers would just find a way to reset or regress him in the next saga. Y'all know deep down that this is true so I hope I won't be seeing any surprised Pikachu faces from you guys 2-3 years from now.

Also if the writers couldn't be arsed to have Ash battle Lt. Surge in Vermilion this week what makes y'all think Ash has a shot of actually battling Giovanni in Viridian?
Decided to bring in a post of yours from another thread to not create extra spam and since it's on topic (and appropriate) here. Ash has never lost to game characters during key battles ever and the entire concept with Leon's "undefeated" status in the games is so that his defeat can have some value and you can bet they'll do the same in the anime as well (they did stay true to the general League plot for SM). I don't know what you're on about something being "deep down" inside me because what you said is certainly not something I've ever considered (apart from BW). Not counting that series, no series has ever regressed him in skill level so that point of yours is a fallacy. I don't see what correlation of Surge's non-appearance (even still there's a hint of him and Ash having a possible battle in the future) here has anything to do with his chances against beating Giovanni, another fallacy.

As for what the series Endgame is, who knows. All I know is that Ash will most likely defeat or tie with Leon, after that... we'll see. I already suggested two paths that they can consider that don't involve removing him or rebooting the anime.
As for the "hint" regarding Lt. Surge, I don't buy it as that would render Pisces' existence pointless. I can see Lt. Surge having a montage battle against another trainer (maybe Ash's rival), though. This was a good episode, but we don't need to see Pikachu take down more Electric types anytime soon.
I'm pretty sure most CotD's existences are pointless regardless of external factors so nothing much changes there. Granted, I agree with you that with not wanting a Pikachu vs. Raichu repeat and rather see other Pokemon of both Ash and Surge used.
 
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I'd be really cool to see Ash battle Forrest, Erika, Sabrina and the Viridian City Gym Leader so It would feel a bit more like he actually earned his Gym Badges. I know he did beat Team Rocket, but they weren't qualified to be Gym Leaders. It wasn't a satisfying win. I specially want to see Ash VS Forrest.
 
Currently watching the subs, I'm glad that they mention that prior careers have no effect on where they stand in the tournament so even if Ash did mention being the Alola League Champion, it would make no difference to if he was starting out as a trainer
It makes sense and realistically trainers with good careers beforehand will probably advance fast--like how Ash jumped 6-7K spaces today.
 
I've already expressed my love towards all these references, but the subtitles revealed one I may have forgotten/missed: the Gym assistants compare Pikachu's Iron Tail strategy to Ash's strategy with Surge. It's so unbelievable to get references to something that hasn't been brought up for literally over a thousand episodes.
 
What an awesome episode. Seeing Ash fully utilize the abilities of a Ghost Pokemon, as well as the notorious move 'Psychic' was downright cathartic considering the challenge both have posed to him in the past. I don't know what happened, but the apparent ban on meaningful continuity seems to have been lifted, making my outlook on the series' future much less bleak. An overall great episode and my favorite so far. It's a shame we're going to have to wait a bit longer for "1-2-3" version 2 though.
 
Please note: The thread is from 3 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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