Review BW072: The Fiercely Fought Donamite! Kirikizan VS Enbuoh!!

[CynthiaLover]

Good riddance to Trip and Iris. Trip took Bianca too lightly, forgetting the first rule of combat: Never underestimate your opponent. He got his clock cleaned, and good, despite having the upperhand in the start. Taking away the concrete pillars then using them against him was brilliant, especially for Bianca's airheadedness. As for Iris, this may sound cruel, but seeing Excadrill get clobbered by Throh was, how to put this, wonderful. I would LOVE to see Excadrill become disloyal to her again because of such a brutal loss. It was her fault, going in for close-quarter combat against a close-quarter combat specialist Pokemon was dumb to the extreme. I mean, it happened in the past, so why shouldn't it happen again? Poor Cilan, getting interrupted during his "tasting time" statement, then getting clocked by his own Pokemon was both funny and a little sad.

Still, I agree with everyone else, the battles were too short. A little more time for each would've been nice. I mean, Bianca took down Georgia in less than a minute (I know, massive type advantage there, but still). Come one, writers! If you're going to do a tournament like this, at least add some more time and in-depth battles. Make the effort, since it does count!

Other than that, not a bad episode. Glad to see Bianca becoming a bit more powerful, since I adore her. And as I said before, good riddance to Trip. We don't need him wasting oxygen. Serves him right for being so judgmental.

 

[Masurao]

I chuckled a bit where Georgia, and Burgundy were seemingly poking fun at Trip.

Even they know he fails.

 

[Idon'tcare]

Langley and Cabernet have such great chemistry with each other.

Lolol, poor Dent gets knocked down twice in this episode. As well as getting his Yanapp knocked into him, he also gets knocked over by Bel after complimenting Kenyan's Dageki (no, not in a body of water, but on the ground). Also it wasn't an accident this time.

 

[Jukain]

Bianca....I'm impressed. Put that bag of hot air in his place. Wow, the Dragon Buster gets beaten by a simple Fire attack. And Iris gets squashed like a bug. Way to make up for the previous Don battle, but yeah, too many short battles.

 

[Adil]

Error of the week: Scraggy's eyes.

Spoiler

 

[투 애니원]

Error of the week: Scraggy's eyes.

Spoiler

That's not an error. That's an expression showing fear or surprise.

 

[Adil]

Error of the week: Scraggy's eyes.

Spoiler

That's not an error. That's an expression showing fear or surprise.

Nupz, I rewatched the episode and I am pretty sure it's an animation error.

Btw, Enbuoh was using "Fling" when he threw those stones back to Roubushin.

 

[Caseydia]

As I said earlier it would mean that Shooty doesn't have to appear so that's one done. I'd also throw out Kenyan (sorry Yoshi-san ) because the joke is just getting old and the COTDs seem to have more personality. So you have the three interesting female rivals that almost everyone seems to like in some way and 2 COTDs to spice things up. Almost no one is gonna miss Shooty.

But Shooti and Ash was the first ones to compete in the very first Don battle. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he wasn't going to appear. Burgundy and Georgia didn't have to show up with Iris and Cilan but they did because if not, then no training or development would be done for anyone. So be happy that Bianca and the others are getting some attention. There is plenty of time to hate Trip.

 

[Iteru]

But Shooti and Ash was the first ones to compete in the very first Don battle. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he wasn't going to appear. Burgundy and Georgia didn't have to show up with Iris and Cilan but they did because if not, then no training or development would be done for anyone. So be happy that Bianca and the others are getting some attention. There is plenty of time to hate Trip.

You've missed the point that I was trying to make. Shooty didn't get any development in this episode. He didn't get any development in any of the Tournament episodes. Having him not be in this one wouldn't have made any difference to his rivalry with Satoshi. In fact, Shooty just doesn't care about Satoshi. The other rivals do care about their respective rivals. That's what makes them actually relevant in the Tournament episodes while Shooty isn't.

If you took Shooty out, this episode would have barely been any different because Bel still would have got an on-screen win from Langley. Actually I'll rephrase, this episode could have been better because the time spent on Shooty could have been used for characters who actually emote. I don't hate the guy, but I can admit when he's useless.

 

[Masurao]

One highlight was how confident Bianca was after seeing her match-up with Kenyan at the end of the episode. She seems to think she can beat Masaomi as well.

Bianca <3

 

[Ampharos King]

The writers really wanted Stephan and Bianca to have the most character development when they wrote this tournament. Bianca's Emboar and Stephan's Sawk, two pokemon that have had losing streaks up until the start of the tournament, have been winning battles from left to right. This episode made it seem like Emboar and Sawk didn't have too much trouble fighting each of their respective opponents, which is amazing considering that they were underpowered during their first few appearances.

This episode also elaborated on the interaction between Bianca and Stephan's Sawk, as well as the Sawk-Throh rivalry that seems to be the main highlight of this entire episode. Unfortunately, there was no real progress with Ash's Scraggy training to control his Focus Blast attack. Let's hope that this issue is something that the writers will eventually resolve on-screen with the proper justification and training behind it.

And now I will state the criticisms that I have when I watched this episode. The first and foremost problem with this episode is that the majority of the battles were RUSHED, even those battles that were fought between main and recurring characters. This move by the writers had left a bad taste in my mouth. While it is nice to see certain characters and their pokemon advancing through this tournament to compensate for their lack of screentime during the Club Battle, at the same time this move stripped the losers of this tournament of any notable screentime that they could have had here.

Georgia and Cilan really got the short ends of the stick during this tournament, and especially during this episode; they didn't even have the opportunity to fight back, and their opponents didn't even allow them to finish their monologues. It goes to show that the writers were really hellbent on getting to the semifinal round of the tournament before the end of this episode. Sorry, Cilan, no "evaluating time" moments for you.

This neglect of screentime also extends to the pokemon that these trainers were using throughout the competition. It doesn't seem fair that Cilan's Pansage has been losing a lot of battles lately even though he has been shown as a competent battler in earier episodes and has defeated many fully evolved pokemon before. Also Georgia's Bisharp, the evolved form of the pokemon that almost defeated Ash's Snivy in the previous tournament, lost in this tournament with just two attacks. What is the purpose of even allowing these characters to compete in this tournament if they will end up losing in such an undignified manner?

Another complaint I had about this episode was that the battles were resolved in a way in which there had been very little struggle between the opponents and that the fights were all one-sided from start to finish. These complaints are expected when the writers construct battles between major characters and then resolve them in just a few minutes. The rushed battles also brought about the impression that the pokemon that did advance to the semifinals of this tournament are overpowered, and it is especially daunting since some of these pokemon were introduced in the series as inept battlers.

This criticism especially pertains to Ash's Scraggy, whose battling performance has been almost completely improved since the start of the tournament without any real on-screen training behind it all. In the previous match, we saw Akkie and his Simisage overpowering Ash's Scraggy. While Scraggy was able to deflect some of Simisage's attacks, Akkie was able to improvise and launched attacks that penetrated Scraggy's defenses. Akkie also took advantage of the recoil damage that Scraggy would receive if his Hi Jump Kick missed, and ordered his Simisage to dodge those attacks. The high intensity of that battle created a struggle in which Ash and Scraggy had to tap into their latent abilities to defeat an opponent that they might not have won against otherwise.

However, this struggle was certainly absent during Ash's match in this episode. Compared to Scraggy's previous opponent, the opponent in this episode did not even seem to have an upper hand even once during the match. Scraggy completely resisted a fully evolved pokemon's Aqua Tail and Brick Break as if neither of those attacks harmed him in any way. He had also endured a few onslaught of Acrobatics and Low Sweep attacks, the latter attack which had been used to defeat Chakki and his Simisear just a few episodes earlier.

All Scraggy needed to defeat Simipour was one Headbutt, which was surprisingly even more powerful than Simipour's Brick Break, and his strongest attack, Hi Jump Kick. It's really hard to believe that this is the same pokemon whose Headbutt attacks couldn't even harm any opponents during episodes that aired less than a year ago.

Masaomi and his Throh are also overpowered as hell, but since they have won the previous Donamite tournament, there is some justification for their expert battling abilities. Excadrill, a pokemon who has won against dozens of his opponents throughout his time in the series, was unable to even land a hit on Throh. Throh only used two attacks to defeat Excadrill as well, which seems to be an insult to those who had lost to the combination of Iris and her Excadrill. Burgundy and her Dewott are prime examples of this.

The third and final complaint I had about this episode was that the writers decide to lump characters together that were eliminated from the tournament so that they can just contribute to the conversation without doing anything to assist in their development. All Burgundy and Georgia have been doing over the course of this episode were bitching and complaining, and their tirades took up a decent portion of the remaining few minutes left.

I am surprised that they didn't even celebrate when their rivals, Cilan and Iris, respectively, were eliminated from the tournament. They were simply blaming their rivals for not taking the loss as they expected those characters would (Burgundy complained that Cilan wasn't miserable that he lost against Stephan, while Georgia felt that Iris' loss was pointless since the latter didn't use a Dragon-type throughout the entire tournament).

This episode was great if you like seeing battles between characters who have never really fought before, but it (and the tournament overall) had many flaws and did not give the losing characters the screentime that they should have had.

One highlight was how confident Bianca was after seeing her match-up with Kenyan at the end of the episode. She seems to think she can beat Masaomi as well.

Not only was Bianca confident to win, but it felt like she was in a hurry to end her battles as quickly as possible. Bianca ordered her pokemon to steal Conkeldurr's pillars before Trip's pokemon could counterattack. Bianca didn't even give Georgia the chance to end her monologue before ordering her Emboar to attack Bisharp the first time.

 

[matt0044]

Too bad about the rushed battles. Time constraints for episodes must be a bitch. There's either too much or too little for one episode.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I have to agree with a lot of people on this thread. Especially about Trip. I'm beginning to think his sole purpose in the show is to annoy Ash. I mean, in both Don tournaments, he's given the boot in the first round, then walks off the set, not to be heard from again until the next situation like this. I'm beginning to feel that Bianca is more of Ash's main rival than Trip. She's gained quite a bit of screentime, character development, and personal quirks since her debut. I think she makes a better main rival for Ash than Trip does. Trip is becoming quite useless. I mean, if we go back to DP, Paul had some serious skill and impact on the show. Trip takes his place, and he's makes Gary look highly developed. Bianca and Stephan are showing that, despite past losing streaks, they are able to pull out a stunning win out of their hats. I mean, for Bianca, taking away the concrete pillars was brilliance on her part, considering how much of an airhead she can be. As of recently, she's shown quite a bit of growth and promise, with Stephan close behind. Trip is proving that he's nothing more than an annoyance to Ash, and is failing to get any development as a rival. He should get booted from the show and they should make Bianca Ash's main rival.

In a related note, I'm glad to see both Stephan and Bianca gaining some skills. In Bianca's last appearance, her newly traded and evolved Escavalier wouldn't listen to her right away, but she gained its trust, and now both she and Escavalier have grown in one episode. Trip, despite his rare appearances, has shown that he's the same old obnoxious and immature kid he always was. In the past, Bianca and Stephan were often beaten, but now they actually have proven to be quite formidable. I'm glad to see such development in those two, as they have more promise than Trip ever had.

I will say it again, though, I am getting a little tired of 1 or so minute battles when these Don-related tournaments come around. I mean, Georgia, Iris, and Cilan were wiped out in a matter of seconds, barely having a chance to retaliate (or, in Cilan's and Georgia's case, finish their lines). If they do another tournament in this series, I hope they grant us extra episodes, so that way the battles don't seemed rushed. (Although, truthfully, seeing Iris getting creamed so quickly made me laugh almost sadistically. God, I must hate her to say that. *Grins evilly*)

 

[Bandit Keith]

My Two cents!

Good pennies:
Cilan getting clobbered and interrupted makes him look even worse then he already is as a character, and that makes me much happier, seeing as I predict he'll leave at the end of Best Wishes.
F-L-I-N-G!
AQUA TAIL SIMIPOUR! AKKIE, CHAKKIE AND BAKKIE ARE COOL! BRING BACK THE DONAMITE ELEMENTAL MONKEY SIBLINGS!
Trip+Conkeldurr=Triphammer reference?
Scraggy, you are even cooler now.
Throh is even even cooler now. So is Sawk. (And Stephan(HATERS GONNA HATE/DEAL WITH IT.)

Bad Pennies:
Iris failing that badly shows a bias by the writers, and the fanbase eats it up.
Trip, it might help to WATCH YOUR RIVALS, AND LEARN FROM THEM? YOU DON'T KNOW ALL THE BASICS, AND YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE ADVANCED TACTICS, AND IT SHOWS.
BIANCA IS NOW EVEN MORE LAME. GO TO PROFESSOR JUNIPER'S AND ROT THERE AS A BODYGUARD. THIS IS YOUR DESTINY.
Georgia losing that fast? awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
SHORT BATTLES MUCH?
Ash won too easily.
So did Masaomi.
Boring=Burgundy and Cilan. No more tasting, no more lame Coordinator replacements. It just isn't interesting unless there is some ACTIVITY related too it outside of battles and Marts:Maybe a competition, or a Rank up Qualification Exam? I would respect these characters 100000X more if they actually did something related to their occupation. But Unova doesn't "waste' episodes on anyone but Ash, and it doesn't even do that. All Cilan and Burgundy do is taste, they never better themselves, never compete in Connoisseur competitions , and waste oxygen. DO SOMETHING, or don't show up in Gen. VI. I still stand by my belief that Pokémon Choreographers would have been better than Pokémon Connoisseurs and Connaisseuses. These glorified waiters don't parallel Coordinators in the way the writers intended. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Overall:5/10...for even points of good and bad.

 

[Magmaster12]

I find it strange, you'd think after 15 years the same writers would eventually learn to fairly pace a 22 minute episode.

 

[Idon'tcare]

I knew I was going to come across these gifs:

Spoiler

The announcer referred to Dent as “The Grass-Scented Green-Coloured Soldier”. That's both awesome and fitting. Sorry Cabernet, but this beats your "Tasting Princess". Now I'm interested in knowing the descriptions the other participates were given.

I forgot to say ain't it funny that most of the people who enjoyed Dent's Tasting Time getting interrupted and seeing him get knocked down are people who like and are a fan of Dent? That's because when there's a character you really like you even enjoy it when they experience pain or seeing them get humiliated/interrupted.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

The winners were predictable as hell. Let me Satoshi will lose and then Masaomi will lose probably to Stephan. It's nice to see that type advantages are not being ignored. I really liked the rushed fighting better than fighting that is 90% closeups >_<

The only thing that is getting my goat is the rules one on one matches do not accurately show who the stronger trainer is AT ALL think about it. Which is why I want the league tournaments to take half a year but I digress. I don't speak Japanese so I don't know what Cab and Lang were yelling about I know they don't like losing but what was Cabenet screaming


I loved Excadrill getting pwned for once.

 

[Garren]

I want to see more of the non-gym leader monkey siblings in the future. They didn't really get much here, but the three of them together look like they could make for fun recurring characters.

Yeah, now that you mention it, they could almost make for a pretty good Team Rocket-type group (which Best Wishes is lacking). Pretty much the Doronjo, Boyacky, and Tonzura-type characters.

What is up with Langley's Kirikizan being in the episode titles for the past two weeks if it's only going to be in battles under a minute in length?

Nupz, I rewatched the episode and I am pretty sure it's an animation error.

No way. That's definitely meant to be an expression, since a lot of times the animators draw Scraggy using his pupils as a means of an expression, rather than his eyelids. For example, he does the > < face with his pupils during one scene. I've seen that face of his in other anime before.

I just watched the Doryuzuu vs. Tsunbear episode and in the flashback, when Moguryuu gets stuck in vines and notices he's above a cliff, he makes the exact same face.

Oh, and @Dogasu, I've got a question...outside of the main characters, and the monkey trio who have names obviously related to their Pokemon, are Domon, Masaomi, and the rest named after any theme like how the Don Battle had Japanese Wrestling names?

 

[Sweet Veil]

I didn't really care too much for this episode.

-Kenyan, I don't know what it is about this guy that I enjoy so much. Sure do to his personality he's an easy target for being considered boring, bland, and uninteresting. His energetic attitude, his Dageki, his interaction, he's really a great character that has grown on me since his first appearance in the episode Mijumaru lost his hotachi. He just has a certain Carpe diem about himself that makes me really like him a lot, it's that same exhilaration that really made me enjoy him this episode and the ecstatic stuff he brought. The whole "Ken-iii-yan" thing didn't bother me as nearly as much as usual. I really liked his interactions with Masaomi and Nageki alongside his Dageki, really gave a sort of tension to the rivalry between the dual Fighting Martial Artist. I liked seeing him interrupt Dento's evaluation it made me laugh, and the whole battle against Yanappu had great animation, and Dageki's hits just looked so spot on and dynamic, really did give off the impression of an actual Martial Artist, only thing that could have made it better was Kenyan talking about another one of Dageki's training sessions. Gives me Dragon Ball Tournament vibes.

-Langley, cool Dragon Buster is cool. More development was awesome. I liked seeing her being concerned over Dragons again as usual and caring about Iris. I noticed she actually thanked Kirikizan after it's loss compared to her time with Tsunbear drawing and Komatana losing. It was really cute, her development is just so stelllar. The fact she isn't made out to be a heartless temperamental witch all the time is dynamite it makes her feel more human. I liked her chickmance with Cabernet, but at the same time I would've liked some more Iris/Langley interactions. I especially liked the scene where they're eating together and sulking.

-Bel's battle felt cheap. True having "Fling" as an attack is better then the Pokemon actually tossing the item, but I just think it's really forced she managed to knock out Rouboushin in two hits using a Stone Edge on a Build Up'd Fighting Pokemon and then having Enbour Fling those slabs back at him. It didn't really make me think she improved as a trainer, just felt really forced and just makes me think once again what the hell the BW writers were thinking having Shuuti get raped by Bel but easily overpower Satoshi. I did like her grin and smile when she's in a tough spot though. I thought her battle against Kirikizan was justified and Enbour was pretty cute.

-Masaomi, tension, power, and animosity make an excellent combination for a tournament rival. He really wrecked Doryuuzu in battle, and that training was cool beans. I really am liking this dude for sure, and his battling style to beat Doryuuzu was flawless, the Subterranean Pokemon couldn't touch Nageki. I really like the scene where an extremely defeated Doryuuzu is being comforted by Iris, and it bows to show it's apologetic it truly shows that Nageki isn't a bad Pokemon, and Masaomi is just a brutal and powerful trainer.

-Satoshi. Him being delusional and thinking he can beat Nageki is actually pretty cute and shows how far this guy is willing to go and put absolute and complete trust in his Pokemon. No matter how Satoshi acts or how he's like, Satoshi is always Satoshi and his moments like that remind me why I like him so much. Zuruggu's win was a bit to cheap for my taste, but oh well. Chakki was entertaining enough with her whole psycho design and attitude.

-Cabernet. Y u gotta hate? No seriously, Cabernet I really wish she would change and develop or something. If Langley can mature and develop as a character why can't she? All she really did was have her constant mood swings over Dento losing and winning and such, as well as her sardonic and sadistic tasting.

-Shuuti, I think the guy is decent and interesting enough. Just an undiscovered pearl waiting for someone to bring out his potential and sadly that didn't happen. Sorry he had to leave. EMOTE DAMMIT. ;_;

Hopefully next week's episode will be better.

 

[GhostLucario]

I hadn't watched Best Wishes since the last Don Tournament. I watched this episode out of curiosity and I gotta say, I'm glad I did drop this convoluted mess.

As always, Cabernet and Langley were the only bright spots. Loved the two of them and I feel battles here rushed as hell. I didn't like how Bisharp was defeated in what? 1 minute?

Spoiler

Never again will I watch BW. I'd rather rewatch all of AG and DP until Gen VI comes along.