Review JN029: Electrifying Jealousy! Wanpachi's Feelings

[Yami-no-Game]

I'm sorry to say this but this episode proves exactly why Chloe is better off not appearing often. She's sooooo boring to watch and her own episode got hijacked by a much better plot that involved Sobble and the other Pokemon crying and then Fearow towards the end. Those were the only parts of the episode that I liked, not Chloe's drama about her past.

 

[Kurolegacy]

He wanted to catch it, but I guess Goh was so caught up in the moment that he forgot to try to catch it until it was already flying away.

He should have just thrown a ball in frustration. With his luck, even if he threw it in the wrong direction it’d somehow ricochet off the nearest object and perfect catch the Fearow.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Nonetheless this episode reminded me of something. Gengar. What's up with him. Had a good start but now is fading to oblivion. Being a Trickster glass canon. Even with Mr. Mime and the cake, I saw as an opportunity to use Gengar but it was only Mr. Mime's psychic powers.

With how obsessed with gags this show can be, I’m baffled that they don’t exploit Gengar more often. It has a vague biology that allows it to pull pranks and deform its body for jokes and has a fun personality that bounces off of every single member of Ash’s party.

Surely the fact that Riolu has a temper but no moves to get payback on Gengar’s antics is gonna come up one day?

 

[CometCartoons]

If Koharu was planning to catch it, I wouldn’t approve, but she wasn’t, so in my mind there isn’t any problem considering she didn’t want to catch it in the first place. In my opinion, the moment she chooses not to catch it, it’s free rein for anyone else to catch it since it’s already weakened.

Pretty sure they were talking about the fearow that go didn't get

 

[Eeveely]

Spoiler: Here, have a meme

I had the virtue of watching it subbed, and thankfully while twitter was going crazy about how good it was no one spoiled it for me.
I really loved it, we had a flashback in a flashback which makes it great, the animation was as good as you'd expect from who worked on this.
The backstory was really good (we also have confirmation that yamper was sent from a friend in Galar and that Renji did experiences on it, not her father but I know his real name is Shou Tucker,also Kikuna has an younger sister) ,nothing extremly unpredictable but still good and felt heartwarming and reminded that venonat is creepy, but also cute.
The sobble gag... still not bored of it -yet, but at least we've got a relationship between sobble and dragonite, now sobbs can move to Ash's team with ease, hopefully they won't forget it like how they forgot an important part of raboot's personality last week, additionnaly, raboot wasn't hiding his tears here, InCONsIStENt WRiTinG.

Yamper is unbelievably fucking cute and I will protect no matter what happens,the magazine's illustration isn't as cute, but hey, now you won't forget Talia's job, and pidove loved it becaise it has fuzzy hair like his real trainer.

I love that we also learned about Sakuragi's interest in the "peace between pokemon and hoomans" as the reason he quickly understood yamper's feelings.

In the pidove farewell they said stuff like "visit us again,don't forget about us", and the whole pidove racing team is setting for an interesting filler (interesting beceause it has Koharu and Sota also misses him), but I'm sure it won't happen because of obvious reasons.

And finally, the best of all of this, the most important lesson we, alongside Koharu, have learned from today's episode, and I quote from her:" Past me was awful"

A pigeon laid eggs in our bathroom window once, it doesn't matter but I just wanted to say it, now bye, disappears.

 

[Sobble Bubble-O-Seven]

They never leave the lab, but Sobble did show up at the beginning and later became visible while listening to everyone’s conversation, so he seemingly hangs around Go.

I hope it stays that way. Sobble being left at the lab and not traveling with the boys would be a dirty move by the writers in my opinion.

 

[Rocket Messiah]

A book about human and Pokémon peace...

This can be a clue of what may be one of the problems that may happen in the future. Pokémon revolting against humanity lead by Eternatus.

Who I am kidding it's going to be another red herring.

 

[Daren]

A book about human and Pokémon peace...

This can be a clue of what may be one of the problems that may happen in the future. Pokémon revolting against humanity lead by Eternatus.

Maybe it's just called "Pocket Monsters" again because they're planning to do Takeshi Shudo's original ending plan?

 

[Eeveely]

Who I am kidding it's going to be another red herring.

......How easy it is to overhype the pokéani fandom?
It might reappear sometime but it definitly won't be that important

 

[Dogasu]

Satoshi's and Gou's appearance here was so pointless. If they're not going to bother contributing to an episode then they shouldn't be in it.

 

[Eeveely]

Satoshi's and Gou's appearance here was so pointless. If they're not going to bother contributing to an episode then they shouldn't be in it.

No one will ever break Ash's record no matter the circumstances, was there ever an episode where Ash and pikachu didn't appear?
IIRC, they appeared for the crying sobble and riolu's morning training, which seem to establish dragonite's and sobble's relationship and make riolu look less weak, and maybe to remind us that Iwane is best at animating battles. The (back)story time, which made more sense than "hey Koharu, remember how we got yamper". And to cheer Koharu and yamper against fearow since they have already been there. They didn't do much but ofc they won't in a Koharu episode

 

[Kurolegacy]

A book about human and Pokémon peace...

This can be a clue of what may be one of the problems that may happen in the future. Pokémon revolting against humanity lead by Eternatus.

Who I am kidding it's going to be another red herring.

No no, it’ll clearly be Marshadow wielding a corrupted Rainbow Wing that leads the revolt. Have you learned nothing from Pokémon I Choose You?

 

[Beatsy Ray]

I just want to point out that Pikachu was present and listening to Dr. Sakuragi's cautionary tale about Koharu's jealousy of Yamper, about how it's normal to be jealous of the new "baby", however such jealousy is irrational because having a new family member doesn't mean that you aren't loved as much anymore. Surely this is a valuable lesson that will be instilled into the hearts of our heroes...

I'm curious if next weeks episode will make reference to these events at all. If not then this is so blatantly incompetent that it's kind of embarrassing. The premises are so identical that it makes me think there may have been some kind of mistake. I wonder if when the director was handing out episode outlines to the various writers, he accidentally printed the same one twice and two different people got "Cute electric type gets jealous and runs away". They didn't notice until production had started and by then they just said screw it.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

He should have just thrown a ball in frustration. With his luck, even if he threw it in the wrong direction it’d somehow ricochet off the nearest object and perfect catch the Fearow.

If you're comparing this to Sobble's capture, in this case, Goh wasn't even on a catching mood, unlike he was when he was asking Sobble to come along. This time, it was an afterthought.

 

[jbmasta]

Koharu’s brother was playing with a Switch. Is this the first time the Switch has appeared in the anime, or and of the real life consoles? I know Pokédexes have been modelled on the handhelds.

 

[Rocket Messiah]

No no, it’ll clearly be Marshadow wielding a corrupted Rainbow Wing that leads the revolt. Have you learned nothing from Pokémon I Choose You?

Please I want to forget that movie.


[/QUOTE]

If Koharu was planning to catch it, I wouldn’t approve, but she wasn’t, so in my mind there isn’t any problem considering she didn’t want to catch it in the first place. In my opinion, the moment she chooses not to catch it, it’s free rein for anyone else to catch it since it’s already weakened.

Not buying it. If you want to catch a Pokémon you use your own Pokemon to fight them.Maybe it's not unethical but it's really lazy.

Maybe it's just called "Pocket Monsters" again because they're planning to do Takeshi Shudo's original ending plan?

I did not remember that was the original ending Shudo planed for the anime. So it's plausible but instead of Pikachu put Eternatus since we still don't know what he is planning, we know only that he is free.

Of course we have to remember that the original ending was made with a lot of booze. Lots of it.

Also Pikachu it's not going to act so out of character OH WAIT.

 

[BigDocFan]

Watching the subs, wow this episode can be relatable. A nice family slice of life episode

Chloe jealous of Yamper when it first arrived, I know the feeling lol

 

[Panky..]

I didn't waste a moment to re-watch this episode, that's how excited I was for it.

Pros:

• Although the summary stated that Koharu would be the one healing Pidove, there wasn't much of that in the actual episode and that's fine since it wouldn't have done much for the character anyway, since the episode's focus was about how Pidove entering Koharu's life affected her relation with Yamper and her outlook on Pokemon (and maybe life in general) which was delivered upon. I absolutely loved the writing-heavy nature of this episode and on top of it being a Koharu focus episode, though they need to step it up with her since it's just 2 out of 29 episode with only minor appearances here and there (this series needs a Pokegirl ASAP). Yamper's jealousy being due to how it was afraid that the 'younger child would replace it' is actually quite common in the modern household even when every child is treated equally like always. Yamper's behavior in the present and the parallel way Koharu behaved with Yamper when it first came into the picture actually make them a lot more relatable. It's a shame that Pidove had to leave, I felt like it bonded quite a lot with Koharu within the scope of a single episode. Hopefully, this episode is a turning point for Koharu and we get more focus on her often instead of waiting another 10-15 episodes, don't want the character to stagnate and especially not in favor of boring fillers, soulless catching sprees and "gag" split episodes. Also, flustered Koharu is a gem. Overall, I liked this episode far more than JN011.
• With the main plot points out of the way, let's move on to the other little positive plot points. First of all, not much screen time wasted with sudden shifts back to the boys' adventures like in JN011, outside of the initial Sobble segment. There's also little attention to detail with Renji's and Kikuna's lives and pre-series stories that actually make them feel like proper characters instead of just side props which they've felt like. Yamper being sent by a friend from Galar... is an okay explanation though I'd personally have preferred if the entire Sakuragi family lived in Galar initially before moving to Vermilion permanently (with all the Koharu back story happening in Galar itself). It would have been a cool parallel if they took a page out of Marnie's backstory and have Yamper caught for Koharu. And finally, that little book about Pokemon and people living together in peace does add a lot of character to Sakuragi since it gives him a motivation/drive given he had started to become quite dull, that book's topic also symbolizes the overall theme of the anime (also, Ash and Ho-oh anyone?).

Cons:

• Although I didn't mind the entire Sobble is lost and making everyone cry again segment here nor did it hurt the overall episode in any noticeable way, I do believe that it wasn't needed in this episode at all and was just added there to use up screen time. That extra screen time could have been shifted to the battle with Fearow and extend it a bit to have Koharu shine more. This is the second battle of hers that has resulted in an instant knockout/win, with the use of the same move and in the same manner. If this keeps up, then her battles or action oriented moments will become really stale. That, and an extended battle would have helped make full use of Iwane's and Shimura's amazing animation talent which didn't get to shine that much in a dialogue heavy episode.

Additional:

• Speaking of the point mentioned literally above, I wonder why Iwane/Shimura were given the animation duty for this episode given how it was a relatively calm episode without any major action or events. Then again, the next few episodes also seem like they'll be less intense or action heavy. Hope whatever those two work on next turns out to be an important episode.
• Dragonite was such a blessing and an absolutely amazing parent figure. Here's hoping it keeps hugging Sobble to convince it to switch trainer because ? Where is Gengar though? You think it would be the one to become jealous next given how much of a no-show it is?
• This episode gave us the explanation about Yamper's jealousy with everyone listening intently, which makes Pikachu's strange behavior in the next episode all the more frustrating, like he let out everything he heard through the other ear. I really don't have to reiterate the amount of times we've seen Pikachu favoritism, wasn't Pikachu literally given focus and attention by Ash in this episode much less the other moments in this series itself? Getting sidelined a few times should not be enough to tick Pikachu off that badly, especially not at Ash. Ash even admits in the preview that he may not have been paying attention to Pikachu even if it was a short period of time, and that there may be another reason he ran away (the "but..." at the end) which implies this is something on Pikachu's end. There are more ways to see different sides of Pikachu while doing more meaningful things with him (or any character at that), instead of something that breaks his character and makes him behave in a contradictory manner. Pikachu has never gotten angry due to another attention hog in the past, or due to his trainer being fixated on someone/something. I guess I am indeed judgmental for not liking bad/contradictory writing.

Verdict: I thought this episode was a 7.5 from me initially, watching the subs on the other hand made me enjoy the episode far more so now it’s a 8.5/10. They need to make more well-written dialogue heavy episodes often, and they should be from Aya Matsui herself since she's good at those type of episodes.

 

[Eeveely]

Rewatched the episode for no particular reason and noticed this

Spoiler

Explains why the book ended up there for Koharu to find near the end

Sakuragi also recites some dex entries almost exactly as they are written.
Sota is too cool for school, I wonder how old is he,in the Koharu flashbacks it seems like she's 4 or so, meaning that Sota is at best 6 yo, but that's just a rough estimate anyways.
And did I mention how fucking cute yamper is?
I want more episodes that are story heavy like this, like a pidove race episode.

 

[Nicolas721]

Koharu’s brother was playing with a Switch. Is this the first time the Switch has appeared in the anime, or and of the real life consoles? I know Pokédexes have been modelled on the handhelds.

Sophocles had a DS on a Pokeproblem segment.