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Review JN025: A Battle Festival Exploding With Life! VS Mega Lucario!!

It was good to see Korrina, Gurkin and their Lucario return

Was rather disappointed that Ash didn't lose as I was curious to see what might happen

Go catching Pokemon way too easily again

Was great to see Dragonite battle

Wonder if Meinshao was Korrina's Meinfoo or a different one
 
Great episode! However, the battle is very underwhelming especially Korrina's Lucario didn't got hit and knocked out by Ash's Dragonite with One Dragon Punch. Not to expected very much since the episode going so fast and Go catching Kalos Pokemon for his own collection.

Overall rating: A-
 
Awesome episode that's pretty much a major continuity element, though I do have gripes with how rushed the battle felt compared to the battle against Visquez (especially the match-up against Lucario), I blame this on the shitty 'self-contained' format they've chosen with an equally shitty reasoning for it (c'mon, it's the age of the internet, "missing out on episodes" is a cheap excuse that only a corporate suit who has been living in a cave for their entire life could come up with). I mean, we all wanted to see Dragonite battle but why make Gengar job so badly for that instead of expanding the battle? They had two-parters for 2v2/1v1 battles in Alola, why not now since the next episode would have been a cringey filler anyways? Poor purple blob.

Was also expecting some references to the Kalos travel group (I might have missed this because I had gone to get a drink and due to lack of subs + understanding of Japanese), I'll wait on the subbed version before deciding about this though. Where does the tournament even take place? We know they arrived in Lumiose but the stadium itself could have been in any generic location near the coastline.

I shouldn't forget that Miyazaki music, such a pleasure to here.
 
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Ash using psychic was dumb, he makes a lot more of such mistakes lately.

Ash...telling Gengar to use Psychic...on a Fighting-type...was dumb...how?!

I gotta admit; the animation in this episode was WAY more underwhelming than it should have been. If this episode wasn't...you know, this episode, and if some rando was standing in for Korrina, then I would NOT like it as much as I do. But frankly, it was just so good seeing her and Ash battle again, that there wasn't really anything the episode could've done to ruin itself for me (outside of something REALLY dumb, like Go's captures cutting into the battle, but that didn't happen).

Also, anyone realize that Ash turned Dragon Dance (or was it Hurricane?) into a Counter Shield? He just USED COUNTER SHIELD. For the first time in FOREVER.
 
Not as good as the first World Championship battle (curse you episodic format) and it doesn’t quite top the first Korrina battle (well, the second half anyway) but this was still pretty enjoyable enough with a welcome return to Korrina and Dragonite kicking all sorts of ass and being a total champ whilst Riolu also gains a high amount of inspiration.

Good stuff.
 
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The episode was stellar imo, but I'm disappointed we don't know Ash's rank. I'm assuming he's in the Super class by now.
 
I'm going to have to come back to this one when the subs are out, the stream was extra laggy today so I missed massive chunks of it, not ideal when it's a fast-paced battle episode. But for now I will say that I liked that Gou's catch spam was reduced to a montage so we didn't have to sit through a hundred first ball catches (sure, they probably were but they didn't show us so I'm going to be charitable and pretend some of them weren't) with Marina Aicholtz screaming bonuses at us.
 
Not a bad episode but I was hoping for some more screentime for gengar. It went out a little too fast in my opinion. Not that it had to claim a win, but a little more time in battle.
 
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time (barring Original Series Agility ) Ash has used a stat-boosting move in battle?! With an explicitly visible stat-boosting effect?
  • Gengar...was robbed, my goodness. Here I thought they were going to do the "Gengar defeats 1st opponent, yet loses to Lucario," but they subverted that expectation...in an even worse way. They at least could have had it put up a better fight against Mienshao than that. And why was Psychic suddenly relegated back to lifting objects rather than blasts of wide-spread ethereal energy, as it manifested against Raichu? I just don't understand how we go from Gengar's last pair of battles, to this...
  • Dragonite...was a mixed bag. Its battles weren't bad, but I expected more. While its fight against Mienshao was fine, the titular battle with Mega Lucario was lacking. Why did we get lethargic shots of it taking repeated blows? What was the point of spotlighting the speed increases from Dragon Dance if Lucario was able to keep up with it regardless? I really thought we'd see it zipping around the stage, smashing Lucario with back-to-back Dragon Claws. From what I saw, Lucario (who was also...stagnant more times than not) only used Power-Up Punch and Aura Sphere...this could have been an opportunity to introduce a new move within its repertoire; give Ash and Dragonite something interesting to overcome (like Korrina's Metal Sound + Aura Sphere combo from before).
  • Do we really need another Hyper Beam-knowing Dragonite? Of all the moves to give for that fourth move-slot...
  • The battle aside, I loved seeing Korrina again and her mutual affinity with Ash's Riolu. After watching the episode, I feel that this could have been a two-parter (not like we haven't spent several episodes on Korrina before). That way, one episode could have focused on catching-up/world building/Korrina and Riolu/Go catching things + learning about Mega Evolution and the subsequent episode could have focused on the battle. That, or start the battle before the commercial break as it was very rushed. I'd rather have seen more of Ash Vs. Korrina rather than Go trying to capture multiple of the same species of Pokemon.
  • I prefer how Ash caught his Fletchling compared to Go's. I couldn't help but reminiscence about the battle when I saw the little bird.
  • There wasn't any notable mention of Serena, Bonnie, or Clemont. I shouldn't be surprised given past episodes, though.
Well. My faith's been shaken somewhat in these World Coronation Series/Championship battles. I thought surely after the great animation that was Ash Vs. Visquez, any subsequent major battle (especially if it was a rematch with a returning character) would have the same if not better quality. Now I know to only get excited for battles if I see Iwane at the animation helm, aha.
 
It was a nice battle but rushed thanks to You-know-who.

It's my imagination or Dragonite only landed one hit at Lucario face, which makes sense since you dont want to be hit at the face by a Dragon dancing Dragonite also Dragonite is a really resilent Pokemon, I liked how he changes his personality in battle

Also Gengar is shown as a poor defensive Pokemon which also makes sense since in the games Gengar is a glass canon.

Really Good, and I think the real fun is going to begin now. (Not Next week let's ingnore that Ok?)

I hope that the epsiode is subbed soon, so I can post my review today or tomorrow in the morning.
 
It was a nice battle but rushed thanks to You-know-who.

It's my imagination or Dragonite only landed one hit at Lucario face, which makes sense since you dont want to be hit at the face by a Dragon dancing Dragonite also Dragonite is a really resilent Pokemon, I liked how he changes his personality in battle

Also Gengar is shown as a poor defensive Pokemon which also makes sense since in the games Gengar is a glass canon.

Really Good, and I think the real fun is going to begin now. (Not Next week let's ingnore that Ok?)

I hope that the epsiode is subbed soon, so I can post my review today or tomorrow in the morning.

Yep, this episode showed once again that giving Goh focus in a battle episode, the battle only gets rushed. I don't get it: Why is Goh allowed to share focus in Ash focused episodes, but Ash is not allowed to share focus in Goh focused episodes.
Battle episode and having shared focus between Goh and Ash in said battle episodes, doesn't work in the episodic nature they want to go with.
 
So here are the few points I have managed to come up with in regards with the episode .
1- Why do Goh's pointless captures take up a lot time in a battle episode, the pace of the battle is compromised in this way making in an extremely mediocre battle (-)
2- Gengar was handled pretty badly , I mean it losing exactly isn't the issue but the way it lost is. It was all gengar in the previews and here it got knocked out without landing a single hit. It would have gotten chance to shine if the time wasn't wasted on Goh's pointless captures (-)
3- I think if gengar was going to lose so badly against Korrina , it should have got a win earlier in the episode instead of Pikachu ( he has enough world championship wins under his belt already). I personally see Gengar going in the torterra direction . It has terrible defence and gets the spacegoat treatment so others can shine which was dragonite in this case and was infernape twice in torterra's case (-)
4- Dragonite personality was the plus point of the episode along with the counter sheild , I Loved it (+)
5- I personally wanted Dragonite's fourth move to be fire punch as it would have sent super effective against lucario .
6- Dragonite did use two dragon dances but still it knocked out a mega evolved Pokémon with one hit , that is the pure definition of plot armour .(-)
7 - Riolu's character development was awesome yet again(+)

Overall verdict : the return of Korrina was awesome and personality development of Dragonite and Riolu was awesome . Both those were the only positive points of the episode as the battle was mediocre at its best and extremely rushed . I personally think that the world championship battles need to be handled like gym battles in the past where almost 80 per cent of the sceeetime was given to the battle . That is the way in which world championship thing is going to work . If we keep up with rushed battles like this with Goh's pointless captures getting all the screentime , I don't think the world championship thing is gonna work with mediocre battles and use plot armour during battles .
 
Not gonna lie, wish Iwane got to animate Ash vs Korrina battle. And I actually say this ever since JN024 came out, because as much as Iwane loves to animate Team Rocket, his animation here would’ve personally made this battle much better for me. It was lacking for a high awaited battle like this one.

Poor Gengar, they really did him dirty. Hope they give him justice in the next battle he has, won’t be able to cope with another Torterra case.

People speculated so much about Korrina giving Ash a Key Stone and a Lucarionite in this episode, but at the end it was obvious it wouldn’t happen. I still think he’s gonna end up with an exclusive Gigantamax of some sort, since Lucario is a very popular ‘mon.

Ash’s Dragonite is literally such a baby. I simply can’t with how happy he got being praised by Ash.

Overall, an okay episode for me. I thought it would hit harder but didn’t find it disappointing. Hopefully next week’s episode isn’t a boring filler but an enjoyable one like JN024, they need to get the audience prepared for JN027 which I think will be great.
 
I don't get it: Why is Goh allowed to share focus in Ash focused episodes, but Ash is not allowed to share focus in Goh focused episodes.
I'm guessing because Goh is there to advertise Pokémon Go so there's probably some executive demanded quota of Goh/Pokémon Go screentime that has to happen each episode.
 
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