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Review JN053: Catch the Legend!? Find the Guardian of Water - Suicune!!

Goh was able to catch Suicune in a Pokeball so easily because it wanted to be caught. The anime has well-established that if the Pokémon wants to be caught, then catch-rate does not matter. It’s effectively a 100% chance.
That has happened before, yes, but as we can see from Suicune's expression and behavior after it comes out of the Ball, it was distrustful towards Goh, so I doubt it let itself be caught willingly. It simply was too weak to resist being caught, being low on stamina, damaged, and poisoned.
 
So, ummm...

It feels like I have to do this.

Same energy.
(Just watch the video from the tweet and you'll understand what I'm talking about perfectly.)


View: https://twitter.com/BlessedSouthpaw/status/1328923178912067585?s=20


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Okay now, on topic, I'm gonna be honest that this is really the biggest issue I had with episode.

Suicine refuses to attack the hunters for so long that by the time it even as much as attempts to charge up an attack, it's already being by severall diffirent moves, which allows the poachers to restrain it, which incentivizes Goh to catch it, which allows the entire plot of the episode to play out the way it does.

The second time that it happens, during the fight sequence by the tree, Suicine's inactions allow the poachers to easilly restrain it, thus creating stakes in the scene, whereas if Suicine rushed into battle, the battle would have likelly been over far more quickly, especially considering the fact that he took his time to rest and regain some of his stamina by this point. This is slightly migitated by him joining the battle after some time, but still.

I enjoyed the episode otherwise, though.
 
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There are multiple times when Goh doesn't catch wild pokemon that he doesn't have. The dozen species in the recent fossil episode, or the Beutifly's in episode 22, amongst others. Also while you can say that he doesn't think about if he should catch them, we haven't been presented with a situation in which he shouldn't. You could make the case that that was what the Diglett episode was, but they were requested to deal with a pest problem, they succeeded, and when the Diglett were revealed to not be the source of the problem Goh left Dugtrio behind.

In the majority of cases Goh does throw a pokeball first, but when that fails he moves straight to battling. He has also been battling or befriending pokemon even without throwing a ball for a while now.

Everything the show does indicates that Goh thinks of his pokemon as companions, the fact that we don't see as much interaction between them as we could have is more due to the series episodic nature than Goh's character. Even Ash hardly interacts with his pokemon and they often disappear for multiple episodes at a time. If Goh's pokemon can be reduced to tools due to their lack of screentime, then isn't it the same for Ash and the other cast members?

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Multiple times that he doesn’t doesn’t really hold up so much when the vast majority of the time that’s exactly what he does do. And while he has started battling them sometimes, those are very few instances that aren’t just a single ball and caught. Hell even as recently as the Flygon episode, his solution against Vibrava when the first ball didn’t work was to throw another ball but this time to curve it and somehow that miraculously worked. And honestly, given how they seem to care more about quantity than quality, I don’t expect them to ever have Go have to ask the question of if he should capture a Pokémon because questions like that would only stand in the way of his goal and God forbid he encounter some kind of hardship like the other previous main characters.

As for him interacting with his Pokémon as companions, there’s no excuse for them rarely showing such a thing considering that the show spends a majority of its time in Vermillion City. Hell, when they travel somewhere, the majority of the time the only ones we see are Cinderace and Sobble while his other Pokémon are nowhere to be seen. The episodic nature in no way prevents them from getting at least some screentime especially with how much they love to focus on Go. As I’ve said before, the writers’ focus on quantity over quality creates a major downfall for Go’s Pokémon, something that will only grow more with time.

As for Ash’s interaction, that’s hardly a fair comparison to make given that the writers barely give him any focus in this series with the majority of the time him being there is simply existing rather than getting anything meaningful to do. As can be seen with any prior series, Ash has never had a shortage of time with his Pokémon.
 
Just a thought experiment: What if Suicune is starting to realize that it neither wants to be owned by a newbie nor by anybody in general?
The Anime has never really made it clear what exactly happens as soon as a Pokemon is out of its Pokeball. I mean outside of the ball there's nothing that would force Suicune to still obey Go. It could just as well do what it has always done and never return. (Secretly, I do hope this will happen... for the sake of all legendary Pokemon)
 
That has happened before, yes, but as we can see from Suicune's expression and behavior after it comes out of the Ball, it was distrustful towards Goh, so I doubt it let itself be caught willingly. It simply was too weak to resist being caught, being low on stamina, damaged, and poisoned.
My interpretation is that Suicune recognized that being captured during that moment was obviously the better alternative to being tortured by poachers. So it did not try to escape the Pokeball. It was angry later that it was forced into this decision, but we can see that it comes terms with that as evidenced by it refusing to be released by Goh.
 
My interpretation is that Suicune recognized that being captured during that moment was obviously the better alternative to being tortured by poachers. So it did not try to escape the Pokeball. It was angry later that it was forced into this decision, but we can see that it comes terms with that as evidenced by it refusing to be released by Goh.
Still can't get my head around the question why a powerful legendary(!) Pokemon would prefer a life of dependence to being independent...hardly plausible if you ask me.
Also, I just won't get it why they made Suicune that weak ! Yes, it had to purify the lake several times but it's supposed to be a legendary Pokemon with secret superpowers, right? So, why it wasn't able to defend against a few Poison-type attacks (that it's not even weak against) from some ordinary Pokemon sure is beyond me.
 
Goh was able to catch Suicune in a Pokeball so easily because it wanted to be caught. The anime has well-established that if the Pokémon wants to be caught, then catch-rate does not matter. It’s effectively a 100% chance.
I'm not particularly interested in this ball-potency debate, but it's worth clarifying that suicune did not want to be caught by Gou. It wasn't until Gou healed and protected it after the fact that Suicune decided it wanted to stay with him.
 

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Nightma16748983 (Twitter)
 
I'm not particularly interested in this ball-potency debate, but it's worth clarifying that suicune did not want to be caught by Gou. It wasn't until Gou healed and protected it after the fact that Suicune decided it wanted to stay with him.
Then again, when the alternative was staying out in the open with those poachers around...
 
I still think that this should've been another Gou Solo-Ep.
Satoshi didn't do anything relevant, he was just there.....
Gou dealing with the hunters, and saving Suicune, on his own would've being more appealing/interesting.
 
Still can't get my head around the question why a powerful legendary(!) Pokemon would prefer a life of dependence to being independent...hardly plausible if you ask me.
Also, I just won't get it why they made Suicune that weak ! Yes, it had to purify the lake several times but it's supposed to be a legendary Pokemon with secret superpowers, right? So, why it wasn't able to defend against a few Poison-type attacks (that it's not even weak against) from some ordinary Pokemon sure is beyond me.
Are you referring to when it was caught or when it decided to stay?
And yeah the power-levels of legends aren’t really consistent in the anime, I won’t argue that. But what the poachers did worked, and Suicune was in real danger because of it.
I'm not particularly interested in this ball-potency debate, but it's worth clarifying that suicune did not want to be caught by Gou. It wasn't until Gou healed and protected it after the fact that Suicune decided it wanted to stay with him.
It didn’t initially want to be caught, I agree. But it did recognize that being caught in that moment was preferable to being in the custody of the poachers. Which is why it allowed itself to be caught.
 
It didn’t initially want to be caught, I agree. But it did recognize that being caught in that moment was preferable to being in the custody of the poachers. Which is why it allowed itself to be caught.
Do we even know for sure that it allowed itself to be caught and not that the combination of its exhaustion and Go coming out of nowhere with a pokeball while it was restrained weren’t the cause? Go may have seen it as him helping but that doesn’t mean Suicune would have just seen it as another trying to take away its freedom but was too weak to resist.
 
Do we even know for sure that it allowed itself to be caught and not that the combination of its exhaustion and Go coming out of nowhere with a pokeball while it was restrained weren’t the cause? Go may have seen it as him helping but that doesn’t mean Suicune would have just seen it as another trying to take away its freedom but was too weak to resist.
Of course we don’t know for sure. Like I said, that’s my interpretation. But people are confused as to how a regular Pokeball could catch a legendary under any circumstance, and I believe that’s a good explanation. It was probably a combination of both factors.
 
Just a thought experiment: What if Suicune is starting to realize that it neither wants to be owned by a newbie nor by anybody in general?
The Anime has never really made it clear what exactly happens as soon as a Pokemon is out of its Pokeball. I mean outside of the ball there's nothing that would force Suicune to still obey Go. It could just as well do what it has always done and never return. (Secretly, I do hope this will happen... for the sake of all legendary Pokemon)

Wasn't there 1 episode in Jotho about a Ninetales who was owned by a man who looked like Brock. But this man passed away ages ago, but the Ninetales couldn't realy leave (it was free form its pokéball) because there was some connection. It was only after Brock destroyed said Pokéball the Ninetales could finaly move on.

Although, other episodes had implied even if a Pokémon isn't official released or its pokéball isn't broken, it can go where ever it wants... Maybe it also has something to do with the circumstances. If the trainer allows it, it's fine. If the trainer passes away without allowing it (or even ordering it to stay like Damian with Charmander or even more recent Gengar who also never realy left the lab after it's trainer said to stay), the Pokémon remains loyal (although Gengar did realise something wasn't right). Although, Pikachu and Mimey (2 Pokémon with known pokéball) could go pretty far on their roadtrip... The Ninetales episode was weird. But maybe it was because it was because the owner said it would return but he died on his trip, never being able to forfill the promise. And it was only after Ninetales heard the story, Brock destroyed the old Pokéball and told Ninetales could leave it finally could leave. Morale: look out what you say to your Pokémon, they are loyal. If you ask them to wait or say you'll return... They will wait around this spot. (So Ash... If you ever want to visit Pidgeot again... It will still be on the location you left it to protect the Pidgey and Pidgeotto if my theory is correct. And Charmander, Gengar and Ninetales seems to confirm my theory. ;) )

In case of Suicune... I think it will obey Goh if the meet up again. Maybe he sometimes will come to visit the lab/dome (he knows the location). And since it's a legendary Pokémon, perhaps it will feel when Goh is realy in so much trouble he needs him. Pokémon 2000 did show Pokémon can scence when their is something very wrong.

We'll see. But like I said before, a pokéball is not 100% a prison.
 
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