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Review S16 EP11: A Unova League Evolution!

Just more disappointments in this episode.

Continuing from where we last left off. Lucario is battling against Snivy. For some reason Ash decides to spam Snivy’s not very effective grass-type moves and never once thinks to use Attract. And then it turns out that Lucario learned Aura Sphere after evolving. (Big surprise) So Snivy gets defeated and Ash has Pikachu left.

Like with Snivy, Ash thinks it’s a great idea to spam Quick Attacks against a newly evolved steel-type instead of using electric-type moves. After a long battle, Lucario eventually wins when Aura Sphere overpowers Elctro Ball.

Then Cameron moves on to battle Virgil. We’re nearing the end where Cameron only has Lucario left, while Virgil still has 3 Pokemon left, one of which that hasn’t been used yet. It’s also revealed that Cameron’s 6th Pokemon was a Watchog. Anyway, Vrigl switches Espeon with Flareon and quickly beats Cameron.
In the final match, it’s Dino vs Virgil. Both with their last Pokemon, Druddigon and Eevee. Eevee makes quick work of Druddigon and wins; Virgil thus winning the league. The rest of this episode was just dialogue that I don’t much care for.

I really just can’t describe how awful and disappointing this battle was. Ash basically destroyed himself. He mainly used moves that weren’t effective on Lucario and used no spontaneous strategies to win. He didn’t have Snivy use Attract, which I find odd since he’s pretty much used it against every other opponent Snivy has battled so far. With Pikachu he could have even powered up Electro Ball with a Thunderbolt like he did in that movie episode. But he had no reason to use Thunderbolt only once. This is even worse when you think about all of the times Ash has used electic-type moves on opponents where they had little effect; i.e. Electivire, Excadrill.

The worst part is that Ash did this to himself. If he hadn’t such a nice person and begged nurse joy to let Cameron enter the league, this wouldn’t have happened. I wish Cameron would have said something like. “This was a great battle Ash. And it’s thanks to you for helping me to enter.”

One of my personal dislikes stems from the fact that Lucario learned Aura Sphere, a move pretty much every other Lucario has been shown using, over a steel-type move or any other move for that matter. They basically replaced its signature Vacumm Wave with an overused move. Why not Flash Cannon or Metal Claw? Even Metal Sound would have been more diverse and unexpected.

Also, in the last episode Cameron said he thought full battles were 5 on 5. So did he think a full team consisted of only 5 Pokemon? Then where did Watchog come from? Did he catch one, but not keep it on his team because he thought he could only have 5 Pokemon at once? IDK. In fact, this series in itself is so weird, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cameron went out after his battle with Ash and used his Hydreigon to catch the first wild Pokemon he saw just to get a full team.

So ironically, Cameron can beat Ash with 5 Pokemon to his 6, but then can only beat half of Virgil’s team using all 6. This only pisses me off more that we never got to see Virgil’s strength in a real full battle. Everyone kept saying how amazing Team Eevee was, yet we never got to see them. Another personal problem I have is that Virgil used Leafeon in all of his last battles, but we never got to see them. So Leafeon basically did nothing for Virgil’s entire time on the show. Why couldn’t Leafeon have been seen being used against Cameron in the match? Maybe getting in a few hits before he switched for Flareon. Am I the only one annoyed with this? (Probably)

In all, this league was terrible; the worst ever. This episode is .5/10.
 
Well Ash ended up losing to Cameron. This. Is. SAD. I’ll never get over the fact that not only did Cameron bring only five Pokémon, Ash’s Unfezant was the reason he lost. If she had just taken out Riolu before it evolved (LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE), then it would have been over. But she couldn't even land a hit. Then Lucario just takes out Ash’s remaining three.

I love how we didn't get to see Cameron’s battle against Virgil since I'm sure it was way cooler than the one we saw against Ash. But now that I think about it, maybe we’re lucky; I’m sure it wouldn't have made Cameron look any less stupid. Especially since he couldn't think of what to do against Flareon and just decided to blindly attack, just like he did before.

And then Virgil wins (so Eevee can beat a Druddigon, but Snivy and Pikachu can't beat a newly-evolved Lucario?). At least one good thing came out of this in that Cameron didn't win because that would have been THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!

So once again, Ash leaves the league in failure, managing to do even worse than he did last time, which was actually impressive.

And did they really not have anything else they could have done with those last three minutes? Really? A flashback montage? And a pretty weak one at that in my opinion: we went from Trip, to Iris, to Cilan, to like Stephan? And then Cameron? Is that all? Not even a badge montage? I get that this season was about the rivals, but...I don't know, I didn't really like the montage, personally.

You know what pissed me off the most? The narrator’s opening: “neither trainer is going to give an inch” As if the battle was actually that intense. Like, it didn't make the remainder if that battle any less pathetic.

The episode itself wasn't bad, but Ash VS Cameron, not seeing the Eeveelutions kick his ass, and the kind of awkward montage just kind of dragged it down...since...that did encompass most of the episode...

I'll give it a 3/10.
 
Do I even need to comment about the BS that was this battle?

The only good part of the episode was Ash and Stephan having a sauna date chat about what they're going to do after the league. I really wish Stephan was the actual main rival because of these moments.
 
This episode does suck...what makes it even worse is that Cameron basically threw away Ferrothorn and Swanna, which means that Ash basically lost a 6v3 battle. Also, someone mentioned the narrator's quote of "neither trainer will give an inch", which only makes Ash look weaker than he already was in this series. Something of note:

-Ash didn't even TRY and take down Riolu/Lucario. He could have used Attract to stop it in its tracks, but didn't. All that matchup proved was that Snivy was useless without Attract. Pikachu could have also used more electric attacks, but didn't. This just proved that Pikachu can't win without spamming electric attacks.
 
If this episode didn't prove that Ash has become as poor as he was back in Johto, nothing will. Terrible league to end what was been a lukewarm saga.
 
As much as I don't like to complain (really, I don't), there's really no excuse for Ash at this point.
 
^I'd say he's worse than in Johto. Maybe Mid-OI level at best.

To be fair I'm basing it on his Johto team, we all know he only did good in that league because he relied on Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charizard and Snorlax. If he only used his Johto team he wouldn't have gotten past Gary.
 
Man, this was even worse in the dub. There are just so many things Ash could have done to win this battle, at any point. It is such an insult having him lose to a complete idiot, and then having that guy only be able to take out half of his next opponents team, showing that he's clearly nothing special (which he really was not).

Charizard could have taken out Cameron's team single handedly. And if it struggled with his water types at all, send out Pikachu.

Poor ending to a poor saga. Worst league ever
 
I think if Ash had lost to Virgil, people would've found this more plausible. Virgil's got a Swiss Army knife of Eeveelutions, and Snivy's Attract wouldn't have worked on the main Eevee, so it sounds like Virgil would've stood a pretty good chance, doesn't it?
 
I think if Ash had lost to Virgil, people would've found this more plausible. Virgil's got a Swiss Army knife of Eeveelutions, and Snivy's Attract wouldn't have worked on the main Eevee, so it sounds like Virgil would've stood a pretty good chance, doesn't it?

Ofcourse. Since he was introduced, I thought he was going to be his league loss, not someone like Virgil. But Virgil ended up being the one to win the league. That's what doesn't makes sense to me.

What would have been cool is that Virgil could evolve his eevee into Sylveon, that way they can advertise, promote and be a much better battle than with an over powered Hydregion and a overrated Lucario.
 
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Never thought I'd say this but I'd rather re-watch Johto in its entirety including the fillers (Lord knows there were dozens of them) as opposed to this crappy series. Seriously, there is NO excuse for what went down here. I remember when people were pissed off (I am one of them) about the Tobias battle to end the DP saga for the BW series, I will no longer complain about that, the Indigo League loss to Richie or anything like that because this was just the poorest excuse of a "full battle"

I mean Ash vs. Gary we saw a lot of one hit K.O's but this battle was ridiculous. There were so many things wrong about this battle that I don't even know where to begin. I don't know if it was the type matchups that got me pissed, only using 5 Pokemon to Ash's 6, keeping Pokemon in the battle that obviously needed to be switched.

Cameron just threw away 2 Pokemon which is funny considering in the last episode Bianca pointed out that Oshawott seemed to be Ash's throw away Pokemon. x4 weakness to fire and then a x4 weakness to Electric; Cameron just pulled a Paul (Aggron and Gastrodon) but at least they damaged Ash's team and showed Paul that he was using the same 6 Pokemon as he did before. This was just painful to see Ash get a lower ranking than the last region.

Its funny how the trailer for the Adventures in Unova commercial pumped up the league like this was going to be the battle of Ash's life and here we have the shittest match of his career.

Only a couple of things made me smile during the episode; Snivy's badass Leaf Blade animation, Lucario still having its playful personality after evolving, that Fire Blast that Flareon used to defeat it, and Pikachu looking like a boss after the triple Quick Attack on Lucario.

However, what the heck was Ash thinking? Is there even a single episode where we DON'T see Snivy using Attract? Then using nothing but Iron Tail and Quick Attacks on Lucario? Why not spam Thunderbolt like you always did in the past? After that first one hit Lucario I was thinking, YES just one more and its over!!! But nope he goes for Quick Attack and that final collision ends it...

Virgil...well I wanted him to be the one Ash lost to or at least meet in the Top 4 or Final battle. I really wanted to see how great his Eevee team is. Considering in the games like the Battle Subway or Tower you always come across someone with a team of 3 or 4 Eeveelutions.

Trump Card was an interesting move, for a moment I thought Gambit from X-Men was making an appearance in the anime haha

I know the end of the league is the setup for another part of the Unova Saga but they either should have waited for the League until later after Ash makes his current team stronger or calls in some of his Pokemon of past regions but anything would have been better than what we saw here.

That flashback montage and Ash running to his friends at the end of the episode looks like it did after the Indigo League BUT it was way better back then with the theme song and flashbacks of the league. This seemed to copy this scene but was in no way close to the emotions I felt back then.

Can I just ask this question; has anyone once so far felt like a battle in this league had you at the edge of your seat or make you excited about the battles? I can honestly say that I never felt that in this league or this series. I don't know if its the voices, music or whatnot but this Unova league isn't doing it for me.
 
Needless to say, I agree that this was one of the worst episodes BW has thrown us in. Rushed battling, rushed League ending and a rushed Unova League 108-ep arc in general. All those episodes prior did not deserve such an ending.

Whatever, let's get past it, because Episode N is coming with lots of surprises in hand (don't wanna spoilerz, but it's definitely better...)
 
I think my favorite part from this battle was Ash's face when Riolu evolved. I mean to me that fear in his eyes was like the writer's talking to Ash in his head;

"Remember all of the in-battle evolutions that you needed during the Unova Gyms to win your badges?? Payback is a bitch isn't it?!!
 
If Ash keeps training and improving like he says at the end of the episode by the end of the XY League he might not even qualify.

Seriously

DP - robbed by a Darkrai/Latios
BW - lost to a nab who doesnt understand type advantages and only seems to succeed based on have OU/Uber tiered fully evolved mons.
XY - loses to a magikarp whos trainer has wandered off to get an icecream?

I really dont get it. The writers must of have a rough idea of when XY would start. Why did they do the league like a year before the next gen and then do two arcs. Surely they could of fit Episode in before it and had Ash having a few more evolved pokemon. What was the rush its really bad planning.
 
Codface is right!

I'm sick of the tagline that either the narrator says after a tournament or end of a saga, or Ash talks to Pikachu or a rival after a contest is over something along the lines of;

Narrator:
"Ash will continue to train harder in order to realize his dream of becoming a Pokemon Master!"

-Ends up getting his ass kicked AGAIN in the next regional competition, prompting the narrator to once again state that quote at the end of a league

Ash to Pikachu:
"Don't worry Pikachu the two of us are just going to keep training to become stronger and stronger!!"

-We might see Ash train one or two episodes if we're lucky to see them indeed get stronger or at least learn some new moves that either get used once to help them win and then ash magically gets amnesia and becomes stupid again or he gets his butt whopped repeatedly while still spouting the same nonsense due to no strategy in his battles just random attacking repeatedly

Ash to rival;

Rival: Just you wait the next time we meet things will be different so I'm going to keep training so watch out the next time we meet!!"
Ash: You bet, but I don't think so, I'm going to keep training too and get stronger and stronger!! Right Pikachu?
Pikachu: Pika, Pika!!"

-Never sees that rival again :p

See what I mean here?
 
This episode was already awful in Japanese, but the dub was even worse because of the music replacing. I miss the days of Season 14.
 
Nope, My opinion did'nt change about from japanese version of the league episode, seeing the dub I still think that this is the worst leauge in the anime's history.
 
Nope, My opinion did'nt change about from japanese version of the league episode, seeing the dub I still think that this is the worst leauge in the anime's history.
Cameron's win was BS. I'd say this league is the worst as well, but not the most embarrassing loss Ash has ever had. That still goes to the Indigo League when he lost because Charizard wouldn't listen.
 
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