Review S14 EP10: A Rival Battle for Club Champ!

[Mijumaru]

As Ash and friends continue on to Nacrene City for Ash's second Gym Battle, he arrives in a town on the way known as Luxuria Town. There, he finds a Battle Club similar to the one in Accumula Town. As he looks at the trainer databases he notices his rival Trip, and calls him via Xtransceiver and challenges him to a battle in the Battle Club. Trip accepts the challenge. Who will emerge the victor?

 

[CommanderPigg]

Flint = Pierce...

And he sounds like he's voiced by...Dan Green? o.o

Attract + Vine whip is still my favorite scene.

I don't mind if Trip beats Ash his first few times, but the amount of OHKO's or near OHKO's is just annoying. I would like to see a bit more battling out of neglected pokes...like Tepig and Pidove. I did like the strategies that Trip used for his Tranquil though, as it resembles game strategies.

Sigh...Trip...:/

 

[Jukain]

Oh, that's it, Iris. *smacks her* Stop being a hypocrite! Is this the last time Volt Tackle proves effective? Servine's voice changed. o.o Either that or I don't remember what it sounded like a few eps ago. Pierce. Interesting. Kinky femdom battle go. Ouch. When did Water Pulse become that devastating? IRIS SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE UP! *smack again*

 

[Ishida]

Yeah I believe he is voiced by Dan Green. Anyway this episode was decent I guess Tranquil defeating Oshawott and Tepig was kind of cheap and Trip's "thats basic" comments were pretty annoying. It's a shame though Ash should have sent Pikachu against Tranquil in the begininng and take it back out against Frillish. If it didn't get knocked out by Servine

 

[Mijumaru]

Not a bad episode at all. The move animations were great and, what I liked best about this episode was that Iris called Trip a little kid. He seemed pretty offended there.

Nice to see some well-thought strategy from the rival's side. I really thought Ash was a little kid in this episode. Overconfidence doesn't get you anywhere.

Pierce... not the best name, but it's okay, I guess.

A perfect episode.

10 points out of 10

 

[Hassel]

I actually like the name Pierce. But that's probably because it reminds me of James Bond.

 

[Mucrush]

I wasn't able to watch it... the stream I normally watching was down... :b

 

[Froakie]

Lol Pierce. Atleast it's not another Flint.
TPCi seem to brinding in a lot more actors who just had minor parts in BF/DP and giving them bigger roles. :/ I like Dan Green, but there are still a few voice actors who haven't made any appearances yet.

 

[Paperhorse]

Pierce? Not the name I was expecting, although I don't know what I was expecting. Anyway, I thought the episode was good. Really enjoyed the battle, usually I find battles kind of boring overall, but this was kept my interest.

I liked it when Iris called Trip a little kid. It's the only time I ever found her "such a kid" line funny.

 

[Ambipom666]

DAN GREEN!

I liked Iris in this episode. She looked so smexy from the sidelines :-D
But that Frillish... dodged Attract.....

And the losing streak continues...

 

[Ampharos King]

The number of OHKOs really is not surprising, considering that this was supposed to be a 5-on-5 battle taking place and ending in less than 20 minutes.

Believe it or not, I actually prefer that Trip would win here. Ash may have a lot more experience as a trainer than Trip does from his previous journeys, but right now he has failed to train the majority of his current team. Meanwhile, Trip handpicked his entire team and armed them with attacks and abilities that would prove to be useful against many opponents.

Since Pikachu received additional training in past series, and Snivy was already portrayed as a powerful pokemon who abandoned her trainer, the writers actually attempted to equalize this match-up as close to possible to reality. Tepig and Oshawott's opponent was a powerful and fast pokemon. Tepig still struggled fighting Chili's Pansear, who was nowhere near as fast as Tranquill was. This is important to continuity because the writers are showing that Oshawott and Tepig cannot fight faster opponents, and therefore must train in the future to be on equal ground with them.

This is still the beginning of the series and Ash will improve his team at some point.

Trip is just showing Ash the ropes that with preparation and strategy, he can overcome a trainer who has more experience to battle. Ash only won against Trip's Servine because of Snivy's Attract and luck. Ash was clueless against many of Trip's abilities and attacks, not knowing that Snivy attacking Frillish head-on might activate his Cursed Body ability.

There are many elements to a battle, and deciding the winner of such a battle requires not only pure strength or experience. Strategy, knowledge, and luck also play that important role. Ash simply did not train his team up and was not informed enough about his opponents to attempt to get a heads up on Trip.

The battle itself was amazing, considering that this had to be consolidated in one episode. I enjoyed watching this episode very much, and right now it is my favorite episode in BW.

On another note, I love "Flint's" English name, Pierce.

Yeah I believe he is voiced by Dan Green. Anyway this episode was decent I guess Tranquil defeating Oshawott and Tepig was kind of cheap and Trip's "thats basic" comments were pretty annoying. It's a shame though Ash should have sent Pikachu against Tranquil in the begininng and take it back out against Frillish. If it didn't get knocked out by Servine

Cheer Up + Aerial Ace + Double Team + Super Luck

In Tranquill's defense, it was armed with a useful ability and powerful attacks. It also took Tranquill a few Aerial Aces to defeat Tepig, although Tepig could not react in time because Tranquill was too fast. I don't think that is cheap at all.

Tepig's speed issue will be covered in a few episodes.

 

[Lilac]

*stupid Austrailan Day Light Savings*
I Thought it went back to 1am(9am USA time)

 

[Oshawhat!?]

Haven't seen this ep yet, but I had to comment. YES my name is finally in Pokemon! I thought it would never happen.....*Cries*

 

[CommanderPigg]

*stupid Austrailan Day Light Savings*
I Thought it went back to 1am(9am USA time)

ProTip for international watchers: you can type in "Time in New York" on Google to see what time it is on the east coast right now and figure out the time manually from that. Yes, it still airs at 9:00 AM EST.

But...you know, streams kinda fall into the realm of illegal download discussion, so I'd prefer if we didn't talk about them in the review threads (though, I'm happy that you guys haven't brought in any links yet). Thanks.

The OHKO business could have been remedied if they got into a 3 vs. 3 battle (considering Shooti only used 3 pokemon. anyways...). But I suppose they made it a 5 vs 5 to showcase how much more superior Trip is to Ash. It's understandable, but still annoying.

 

[JennaJayfeather]

I think I like Pierce better than Flint...just coz...Flint is so AVERAGE (by now)

 

[Hassel]

I think I like Pierce better than Flint...just coz...Flint is so AVERAGE (by now)

To be fair, I'm sure that for the Japanese kids "Flint" sounds cool and exotic. Like "Best Wishes".

 

[Poke'Aussie]

To be fair, I'm sure that for the Japanese kids "Flint" sounds cool and exotic. Like "Best Wishes".

its just like keith in the english language pfftt

anyways peirce is much better im a sucker for bond as you pointed out and all we need now are some cheap bimbo's a fridge full of beer then we got a partayyyy

 

[Hellwarden]

I think I realized what really kinda bugs me about this battle. It's not the fact that Ash lost.


It's because this was the first battle with all three Unova starters, and 2 of them were probably only in it for a minute. Guess that axes the idea that the show is just a advertisement


Still, the animation and scene of Team Rocket outrunning the cops were pretty cool. Just wish Tepig and Oshawott put up more of a fight. Tranquil was nice though.

 

[Shinneth]

Iris calling Trip a kid - the only time I'll find it amusing and acceptable for her to do that. Still, I find it hilarious that Trip and Iris really aren't all that different when it comes down to it.

The battle was a bit more amusing than I figured it would be (a lot of that owed to Snivy and her using Attract - I want to see them make a running gag of that), but yeah, I agree this should've been a 3-on-3 if they were only gonna show 3 of Trip's anyway. The fact that he's already caught six and he's just beginning his journey just makes me scratch my head a little, though. This series usually shows us that it's better to slowly let your team grow over time (though BW in general seems to be tossing that philosophy out the window, given how soon we'll see Ash with SEVEN) and it just seems unlikely that Trip would have six fully competent battlers right off the bat when he's barely just started. The number of OHKOs were a bit annoying too; they didn't even give Paul that much back when he was routinely squashing Ash in DP (save for sensible exceptions, like taking out Ash's Gligar with ease because that was Gligar's first battle).

Really, this episode tells me that Trip isn't so much a skilled beginner as it is that he's just lucky - especially lucky enough to have a rival whom he can rile up and drive away his focus just by calling him a hick. Hence why I think Trip could really stand to actually lose a battle at some point soon; it'd be nice to see how Trip reacts to losing; that would better gage his longevity as a true rival than just letting him squash Ash straight until the League. Not that he has to lose to Ash per se - much as I am reluctant to want to see him get Paul's treatment of getting curbstomped by superior trainers by pure virtue of keeping him from being Paul-lite. But all this so far isn't doing anything but grounding Trip as a Gary Stu. It just makes the rivalry that much less fun to watch.

And judging from his dialog in this episode, I still say Trip isn't any sort of kid genius. He's just been outrageously lucky so far; nothing more, nothing less.

Also, I still don't see the point of Battle Clubs. At all. Did this series really need a male variant of Nurse Joy?

 

[JennaJayfeather]

To be fair, I'm sure that for the Japanese kids "Flint" sounds cool and exotic. Like "Best Wishes".

Yeah I liked it in Japanese, I was fine with it actually. But with so many Flint's in the dub...