Anime & Manga General Discussion

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Grookey hasn't done much of anything to deserve an evolution yet. Using a move once isn't enough.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

@A Wild Luxray @Unireon @Enzo @Kurolegacy @PkmnTrainerV @Ghost Diplocaulus

Welp at least NOW we know why Grookey finally used a Move in the recent episode.

It was foreshadowing his inevitable Evolution

Are you ready to see Goh get yet ANOTHER unearned and rushed Evolution on March 11th?

Of course you are! (Sarcasm)

I LOVE POKEMON JOURNEYS! /s

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Grookey hasn't done much of anything to deserve an evolution yet. Using a move once isn't enough.

But you know it's gonna happen anyway.

Didn't you hear? This is Journeys

Where everything is the complete Antithesis of what the show had previously established beforehand

Isn't it delightful?


We can deny it all we want but
We all know how the story will go.

Grookey and Thwacky are being set up exactly like Sobble and Inteleon were.

Thwacky will do something cool to inspire Grookey and then Grookey will go to offscreen land to train himself and come back and evolve

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

I wish they did more with Drizzile because I love Goh’s Drizzile
Like it literally had its evolution episode and then never appeared until it’s other evolution episode so we barely saw Goh’s Inteleon as a Drizzile

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Spoiler: CoroCoro magazine scan

INFERNAPE RETURNS AGAIN!

 

[Enzo]

Oh no.

No

NOOOO. NOPE NO

Grookey is ineracting with Thwackey it's over y'all

No way it's not evolving next.

 

[Daren]

Spoiler: CoroCoro magazine scan

INFERNAPE RETURNS AGAIN!

Spoiler

And actually fighting! So we have a reserves battle.
But it's against a Charizard so he's gonna lose.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Spoiler

And actually fighting! So we have a reserves battle.
But it's against a Charizard so he's gonna lose.

It could be just a training match with no official winner.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Spoiler: CoroCoro magazine scan

INFERNAPE RETURNS AGAIN!
View attachment 155931

I hope it’s not a marketing stunt this time like last time, when it was promoted much more compared to what it actually did in the show. It’s up against Charizard, so I have a really, really bad feeling that they’ll have Infernape lose to Charizard so Pikachu looks better in the long run. I’d legitimately rather have Infernape never return than them turning my childhood favourite into a pseudo fall guy for Pikachu to avenge. The last appearance hasn’t given me much confidence.

 

[Daren]

It’s up against Charizard, so I have a really, really bad feeling that they’ll have Infernape lose to Charizard so Pikachu looks better in the long run.

To be fair, during DP Pikachu kept losing to make Infernape look better so he's just returning the favour.

Also there's still good odds Pikachu loses to Leon's Zard in the end anyways.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Infernape again, really? Give other Pokémon some love.
What if it’s against Alain’s Charizard...
Edit: Could be Flint’s

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

I had a dream that Clemont and Bonnie returned in a new OP. It then tailspinned into me telling Serena’s mom that I ship Amourshipping and then Bonnie telling everyone about the kiss and then a flashback to that.
And then you had me fearing that Ash would say: I’m not interested in her.
Edit: I’m a prophet.

 

[Sai]

I hope it’s not a marketing stunt this time like last time, when it was promoted much more compared to what it actually did in the show. It’s up against Charizard, so I have a really, really bad feeling that they’ll have Infernape lose to Charizard so Pikachu looks better in the long run. I’d legitimately rather have Infernape never return than them turning my childhood favourite into a pseudo fall guy for Pikachu to avenge. The last appearance hasn’t given me much confidence.

Well of course Ash isn't going to win here, and besides that it's a training match. If it is Ash's Infernape though it pretty much confirms its returns are being set up to use in Master Class. I hope they do the same with a few more of his older pokemon as we get towards the end of the series. It's basically giving it proper foreshadowing showing it wanting to battle strong trainers and legendaries.

As an aside maybe we should wait to see if it's confirmed to be Ash's. Could be a flashback of Flint vs Leon possibly...

 

[90'sPokéfan]

I still think the best and most logical way to bring back Ash's reserves is by introducing a lot of battles which follow eachother in a short timespan.

For example Ash enters another PWC ranking tournament (like when he defeated Korrena in the finals), but even bigger. Maybe spanning over 2 or 3 days. At first we can see some regular 1 vs 1 battles, followed by a clipshow (like at the P1 grand prix Ash and Primeape won), so we see Ash had a lot of battles in a short time. We see the pokémon being tired (or nurse Joy warns Ash about to many battles at a short time). So he decides to give some of his current teammembers (like Pikachu, Lucario and Dragonite) some rest, filling in those places with his reserves. The second day would be with for example 3 vs 3 matches. With 2 current team members and 1 reserve in each match.

To surprise the audience, they could even let Goh propose Ash uses some of his Pokémon, only for Ash to politely refuse, saying he wants to climb the ranks with his own Pokémon. Only letting Goh and the (younger) viewers realising Ash also meant his older Pokémon when he sends one out.

This would IMO by a natural way for Ash to use some of his reserves.

Or maybe if he makes the top 8, in those battles of those are following eachother at a short notice.

 

[KerfishSea]

I know this is off topic but I got this huge feeling that Paul from the Diamond and Pearl anime is gonna come back. I mean they just have to bring him back, besides the other rivals in the XY anime Paul was one of Ash's best rivals despite him being a jackass.

 

[puddleths]

If Infernape is eventually used to defeat Cynthia and her Garchomp, at least the JN production team will have gotten that right.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Also there's still good odds Pikachu loses to Leon's Zard in the end anyways.

Well, the executives said Ash would get more "unbeatable" so…

Well of course Ash isn't going to win here, and besides that it's a training match. If it is Ash's Infernape though it pretty much confirms its returns are being set up to use in Master Class. I hope they do the same with a few more of his older pokemon as we get towards the end of the series. It's basically giving it proper foreshadowing showing it wanting to battle strong trainers and legendaries.

As an aside maybe we should wait to see if it's confirmed to be Ash's. Could be a flashback of Flint vs Leon possibly...

Training match or not, I'm tired of my favourite Pokémon being made into preview clickbait and not actually doing anything, or just staining its track record. Last time there was this interesting story proposed that Infernape was tired of being stuck at the lab and it got wasted in favour of Go and Gary setup.

I can’t help but be cynical because JN has explicitly admitted to using clickbait for views, and it has already happened once with Infernape. Also with Dawn when she seems to return just to show off Piplup and sell merch amid legendary arcs.

I'd rather they don’t touch Infernape's story at all if all they’re actually planning to do with it is it losing or being secondary to things that can be achieved in other episodes, or barely doing anything. I guess we could hold out hope, but all this looks like is setup to show how powerful Charizard is before Pikachu defeats it to make Pikachu look "The Best(TM)".

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Well, the executives said Ash would get more "unbeatable" so…


Training match or not, I'm tired of my favourite Pokémon being made into preview clickbait and not actually doing anything, or just staining its track record. Last time there was this interesting story proposed that Infernape was tired of being stuck at the lab and it got wasted in favour of Go and Gary setup.

I can’t help but be cynical because JN has explicitly admitted to using clickbait for views, and it has already happened once with Infernape. Also with Dawn when she seems to return just to show off Piplup and sell merch amid legendary arcs.

I'd rather they don’t touch Infernape's story at all if all they’re actually planning to do with it is it losing or being secondary to things that can be achieved in other episodes, or barely doing anything. I guess we could hold out hope, but all this looks like is setup to show how powerful Charizard is before Pikachu defeats it to make Pikachu look "The Best(TM)".

To be somewhat fair, Infernape does have a type disadvantage against Charizard while Pikachu has a type advantage. Plus, Infernape's last-seen moveset would be pretty ill-suited to fight a Charizard: literally all its attacks are resisted while Dig can be avoided fairly easily.

That said, I do doubt very greatly that this Infernape is Ash's, as to me it doesn't make sense that Ash would bring out literally just one of his reserves instead of a whole team of them. The Infernape being Flint's feels more logical as not only would it be more unique DPP/LA promotion, but if they want to rub it in our faces how amazing Leon and his Charizard are, it makes far more sense to have them beat an Infernape belinging to an Elite Four member (who also has Thunder Punch in its arsenal, meaning it stands a much better fighting chance against Leon's Charizard than Ash's Infernape does. Plus, didn't Flint's Infernape OHKO Ash's in a battle once?). About the only issue here is the question of what exactly is Flint doing in Galar, but to be fair I could very easily see him travel there to challenge Leon. And he's probably not the only Elite Four/Champion-level trainer who'd do that. Because let's face it, being the strongest Pokemon Trainer in the world would paint that kind of target on your back.

Whether Pikachu is going to defeat Leon's Charizard is very much up in the air, though. Sure, execs did say that Ash would be more invincible, but for all we know that could simply translate to "got closest to defeating Leon than literally anyone else in the world but still ultimately lost". Besides, even if Pikachu does defeat Charizard, I seriously doubt that it's going to be without help: Leon's Charizard is an Ace Mon, and those rarely ever lose without taking out at least one other Pokemon first. Sure, there have been some exceptions like Anabel's Espeon, Ramos's Gogoat, and most recently Bea's Machamp, but there's absolutely no way that a Charizard of all things is going to be one of those exceptions. Honestly, since Leon's Charizard is the Ace Mon of the strongest trainer in the world, I'm expecting it to defeat a minimum of half of Ash's team, since we have seen a few other less powerful Pokemon do that. Surely that should soften it up just enough for Pikachu to just barely finish it off (assuming he does win, of course)? Leaving it abundantly clear that the win was not because Pikachu was The Best™, but rather because of teamwork, which would soften the blow and make it seem at least a tad less like a case of putting one Pokemon on a pedestal at the expense of others.

Hey, I can dream.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

To be somewhat fair, Infernape does have a type disadvantage against Charizard while Pikachu has a type advantage. Plus, Infernape's last-seen moveset would be pretty ill-suited to fight a Charizard: literally all its attacks are resisted while Dig can be avoided fairly easily.

To be really fair, type advantage hasn’t really mattered in the anime.

I'm not really buying the Flint Infernape thing because while it may be nice to see, it’ll be out of nowhere in an episode primarily focused on Ash and Leon. If it were Flint's they’d probably promote the trainer with the Pokémon. Ash bringing only one of his reserves could be handwaved pretty easily.

Leaving it abundantly clear that the win was not because Pikachu was The Best™, but rather because of teamwork, which would soften the blow and make it seem at least a tad less like a case of putting one Pokemon on a pedestal at the expense of others.

Hey, I can dream.

Honestly, seeing their track record with fall guys in this saga, it’s an overwhelmingly optimistic take imo. Doesn’t hurt to hope, though. I feel like they’ll make Ash's Infernape take the L to make sure Leon is seen as a formidable trainer and to reignite some semblance of a personal stake and "Defeating Leon is not easy as it sounds" for Ash. I feel like this time it’ll be Ash's Pokémon and not Flint because "Leon defeats a strong trainer for show off" has already been done with Raihan and Lance.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I know this is off topic but I got this huge feeling that Paul from the Diamond and Pearl anime is gonna come back. I mean they just have to bring him back, besides the other rivals in the XY anime Paul was one of Ash's best rivals despite him being a jackass.

Ash and Paul already resolved their rivalry, so I don't see him returning. Not as a rival, at least.