• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Review JN022: Goodbye, Rabbifoot!

Yeah, this was a horrible episode. It was a cheap fakeout for a Pokemon leaving us, and Raboot's interest in dancing came out of nowhere. We were lead to believe Raboot was interested in fighting and Gou would have to learn there's more to Pokemon than catching them. Nope. We're not gonna see that development. He's just gonna continue to go on pointlessly catching Pokemon and Raboot is suddenly okay.
 
Did somebody really thought for a minute that an episode titled Goodbye will in a real Goodbye.

Someone should made a percentatge that how many episodes that had goodbye in the title ended with a character leaving.

Also what a "goodbye"

It wanted to be like Pikachu Goodbye but it failed in creating some kind of drama. And the goodbye part was rushed.

Remember Inkay and Malamar episode? That's how you do it.
 
I really like Ash with the angry face near the end of this episode.
He even told Gou: "Did you properly speak with Rabbifuto about that?" when Gou decided to let Raboot behind.
I think if Raboot didn't return on its own, Ash would be pretty angry with Gou for a long time.

Which is hilariously ironic because when Ash decided to leave Pikachu with that clan of wild Pikachus in OS, he didn't speak with Pikachu either and was planning to walk away without telling Pikachu about his departure. So I find the fact that Ash seemed upset with Go for doing the same thing kinda hypocritical of him.

Did somebody really thought for a minute that an episode titled Goodbye will in a real Goodbye.

Yes a few people in the episode thread last week brought up the idea that Raboot might either be released or that it would be traded to Ash despite there being no evidence other than the obvious clickbait title.
 
Last edited:
Which is hilariously ironic because when Ash decided to leave Pikachu with that clan of wild Pikachus in OS, he didn't speak with Pikachu either and was planning to walk away without telling Pikachu about his departure. But I forgot, Ash is never held accountable for his actions and Go's always in the wrong. :X3:


This was when Ash was still a beginner. 22 years ago... I mean months ago.

Yes a few people in the episode thread last week brought up the idea that Raboot might either be released or that it would be traded to Ash despite there being no evidence other than the obvious bait title.

tenor.gif
 
If you ignore the somewhat failed attempt at character development between Gou and Rabbifoot, there's quite a few things to enjoy in this episode.
I apologize if I sound a bit rude here, but the sentence I quoted is actually a big issue. If the main plot point of the episode fails or doesn't deliver what it was expected to do, then the enjoyment of the overall episode gets hampered, it just can't be ignored. It's the same issue with the infamous example of episode 9 which was supposed to be about Ash and Ho-oh, not Ho-oh and Irrelevant CotD #22481.
 
Last edited:
I have to agree with Panky here.

The main point of the episode was suposed to be Go and Scorbunny and it did not deliver.

If the episode was called Scorbunny and the dancing troupe... Maybe I will have buyed it.

The only positive I see is that maybe we will see a dancing episode in the future.

I love dancing.
 
I actually thought it was okay. Pacing felt off though.

Ash seemed a bit hammier than usual but I'm glad Deko Akao didn't do the sound effects gag again.
 
Did somebody really thought for a minute that an episode titled Goodbye will in a real Goodbye.

Someone should made a percentatge that how many episodes that had goodbye in the title ended with a character leaving.

Also what a "goodbye"

It wanted to be like Pikachu Goodbye but it failed in creating some kind of drama. And the goodbye part was rushed.

Remember Inkay and Malamar episode? That's how you do it.

I already did that in the preview thread for this episode; but just for you, I'll repost it here as well ;)

As a fun aside, let's look at all Japanese episode titles with "Farewell" or any sort of synonym in the title and see how the plot goes:

EP021 (Bye-Bye Butterfree): Ash releases Butterfree
EP091 (Goodbye Koduck! Come again Golduck?): Lol no
EP113 (Goodbye Laplace!): Ash releases Lapras
EP169 (Goodbye Rokon! Pokémon Beauty Contest!!): Brock returns Vulpix to its original trainer
EP199 (Goodbye Chicorita!? The Electric Labyrinth!): Lol no (But Chikorita does evolve here)
EP225 (Farewell Fushigidane! Adventure at Dr. Okido's!!): Ash "Oak's" Bulbasaur
EP273 (Goodbye...and Then, Setting Off!): Ash parts ways with Misty and Brock, also "Oak's" all his Pokemon except for Pikachu
AG006 (Rocket-dan! A Fury Swipes Goodbye!!): Jessie releases Arbok and James releases Weezing
DP073 (Goodbye, Dokucale!): Jessie releases Dustox
DP178 (Goodbye Rocket-dan! Love of Nyarth!?): Lol no
BW123 (Farewell, Isshu! Setting Sail Once Again!!): Ash leaves Unova
BW126 (Goodbye Mijumaru!? The Path to Being Hotachi King!): Lol no
XY082 (The Pumpjin Festival! Farewell, Bakeccha!?): Lol no (But Jessie does temporarily trade away her Pumpkaboo)
XY139 (Farewell, Satoshi Gekkouga! Xerosicy's Counterattack!!): Ash sends Goodra back to the wetlands and leaves Greninja with Zygarde
SM026 (Farewell, Mamane!): Lol no

...and of course:
SS022 (Goodbye, Rabbifoot!): Lol no

So in summary, up till and including DP, the Pokemon anime actually has a pretty good track record regarding goodbye episodes.

From BW onwards though, the only farewell episode that actually holds true is XY139 where Ash left Greninja in Kalos.
(Unless you count BW123, where Ash 'says goodbye's to Unova)

Edit: Also, another good indicator of how the plot would go would be the punctuation used. While exclamation marks (!) don't indicate anything, question marks (?) would always be a fake out episode.
 
Thanks a lot @JinksChow

As everyone can see there is more goodbye episodes than times The Undertaker says "You know" in an interview.
 
You know how in Tangled, every time Flynn sees one of the wanted posters he complains that they can't get his nose right?

That's how I feel about the writers and Gou.

What's weird is they've started to do so much better with Gou and Ash together. The past couple of episodes, I've felt like they're working much better together as traveling partners. I actually really enjoyed a lot of their scenes together in this episode as well. But when Gou is on his own, and should kind of be working through his issues or experiencing some kind of character development, he just...doesn't. It was good to see him finally acknowledge that Raboot was being distant, but he was so...over the top about it. Gou does not usually come across as super emotional...he's usually shown to be pretty analytical. So watching him repeatedly be in tears over Raboot felt jarring and pretty out of character. I kind of thought he'd spend this episode trying to figure out why he and Raboot were having problems. Instead, he just cried about it.

Also, let me just reiterate what many others have already said because seriously, where did that freaking dance subplot come from?? Pretty much everyone, myself included, assumed Raboot was into battling. Taking this episode into that direction would've made a lot more sense. But instead, they went for, of all things, a dance battle with two Pokemon we saw for like 30 seconds earlier in the episode, and a bunch of others we hadn't even seen once. It was actually cute to see Ash and Gou jump in to help (which, again, supports my "they're working better as partners" note) but the fact that Gou was willing to leave Raboot behind for that...there was nothing emotional about it. In fact, it kind of came across as downright crazy. Even Ash was thrown off by it, and scolded Gou for just leaving Raboot behind without saying anything to him.

The ending was also really unsatisfying. I feel like nothing was actually resolved. Gou didn't really learn anything (other than "Raboot doesn't actually hate me!") and Raboot is just kind of in the same position he was before: moody and distant. I was really hoping this episode would shed some additional light on Gou's past, or his ability to work through personal issues, but it didn't. I was hoping we'd get a clearer idea of why exactly Raboot is acting the way he is, or what it is he wants to do (since it doesn't seem to be exclusively helping Gou catch Pokemon), but we didn't. So yeah, we got some cutesy scenes, but there was literally no emotional payoff, no character development...it basically didn't need to happen.

I will say: I didn't think Raboot would actually leave, or go to Ash. But I was worried he was going to evolve into Cinderace, so I'm glad they didn't rush into that right away.

I know it wasn't planned, but this was a pretty weak episode to go out on a hiatus on.
 
The really important question raised by this episode:
Are we going to get decades of Ashifly fanart like we got for Ashchu? :unsure:

There's a big difference between an imagined Ashifly and the Ashachu that actually stuck around until the beginning of the following episode. Besides, he didn't have his hat on (it would've been adorable to see Ashifly have a tiny hat nestled between his antennae or something)!
 
I apologize if I sound a bit rude here, but the sentence I quoted is actually a big issue. If the main plot point of the episode fails or doesn't deliver what it was expected to do, then the enjoyment of the overall episode gets hampered, it just can't be ignored. It's the same issue with the infamous example of episode 9 which was supposed to be about Ash and Ho-oh, not Ho-oh and Irrelevant CotD #22481.
This episode didn't bother me as much as the Ho-Oh episode because:

1. The Ho-Oh episode had a lot more clickbait compared to this episode. There was the promo art that highly implied something was gonna happen between Ash and Ho-Oh, which is a significantly bigger deal to me than character development between two characters that were just introduced in this season. No offense, Gou, but the Ash/Ho-Oh plotline was already established from the very beginning of this entire anime series.

2. It was very obvious that Raboot wasn't gonna leave the cast, be traded to Ash, or anything overly-dramatic like that. The main focus of the episode wasn't on the potential scenario of Raboot leaving Gou, but moreso on the conflict between them and how it's going to be solved. Yes, that was poorly executed as well, I'm just saying that the "cop-out" of this "farewell episode" didn't bother me as much as the absurd conflict that was set up in this episode to begin with.

3. Main focus of the episode aside, this episode had plenty more enjoyable little details compared to the Ho-Oh episode. Things like the Garchomp doodles, the dance party, Rabbifoot's tsundere shenanigans, and even the abomination that is BeautiAsh prevented this episode from being completely garbage. There weren't any effortless Gou instant-captures or pointless/annoying human COTDs to bring this episode down, either.

With all that said, yes, I do agree that the somewhat failed attempt at character development between Gou and Rabbifoot brought down my enjoyment of this episode quite a bit. However, that's probably the only major issue that I have with this episode, and I still found it much more enjoyable than the Ho-Oh episode.
 
3. Main focus of the episode aside, this episode had plenty more enjoyable little details compared to the Ho-Oh episode. Things like the Garchomp doodles, the dance party, Rabbifoot's tsundere shenanigans, and even the abomination that is BeautiAsh prevented this episode from being completely garbage. There weren't any effortless Gou instant-captures or pointless/annoying human COTDs to bring this episode down, either.

This is kinda what I thought about it - it consists of good scenes that didn't come together that well.

It also felt like it was written as a pure slice of life show, moreso than most of Sun and Moon. The closest thing to action was the dance scene.
 
It definitely speaks to how distracted Go with with Raboot that aside from Wurmple, he doesn't even consider catching any other Pokemon he encounters. While the dance battle is understandable, why on earth he doesn't try catch one of the Silcoon is confusing. Is he not interfering with the migration he and Ash have been sent to observe?
 
This episode was slightly below average. I'm not surprised about Ash's drawing. I mean drawing one with pencil and paper versus drawing with a finger on a digital phone are pretty different mediums. At the very least, I can recognize it as Garchomp, unlike Go's drawing (I thought it was a Mega Heracross). I think the research part with the Beautifly was pretty decent, the Raboot part, though, was pretty lackluster. I knew just from the reading the title that it would basically be like the Sophocles episode in SM.
 
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.
Back
Top Bottom