Review BW079: Sekka Gym Battle! Ice Battlefield!!

[Bandit Keith]

SCRAGGY can battle like an adult and has made progress with Focus Blast? WTF?
Pignite needs a Fighting type attack, like, now. Like now now.
Same for Krokorok and a B2W2 Move Tutor Move.
Frost Breath needed to be 20% cooler.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Astonish is creepy now...so much animation for so weak a move...
Aerial Ace has reverted to DP style of animation...Foreshadowing...
Does anyone in the anime know that Brine is SALTwater, and know the move's bonus effect(surely the anime isn't going to ignore this issue forever?)?
Brycen, you are a disappointment in the personality department.
Stone Edge Daggers...Y U MAKE NARUTO KUNAI REFERENCES... MAYBE JANINE, AYA AND KOGA SHOW UP?!
The animators are wonky with quality here

Overall, 9/10.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I was intially pissed off that stone edge was useless but it was the finishing move so it is forgiven.

Glad to know Scraggy is strong enough to use now and it was good that every one of Ash's pokes got a win. Ash used his head.

My biggest gripe with it is that it didn't show case the difference in Crygonal's defensive stats but other then that it was a pretty good fight.

Surprised that they are actually going to show case the Relationship between Drayden and Iris. I was expecting that to be ignored but as long as Ash wins for himself and without a rematch it's cool.

Not going to lie I had fun

 

[WatcherMark]

I think it's safe to say that Zuruggu can no longer be considered a baby Pokemon...

Personally, this Gym Battle seemed like it wouldn't have felt out of place in D&P. Satoshi used a decent selection of Pokemon, Tunbear's defeat of Chaoboo seemed believable, Hachiku's Pokemon had a good selection of moves and Satoshi remembered past events to help him win. While it was nothing special by far, this is easily one of the better BW Gym Battles.

Also, I'm pretty glad Waruvial used the stones as blades as opposed to throwing them, otherwise they'd have been a huge argument over if Waruvial had used Fling.

 

[Cybersai]

Pretty good episode. The battles are (almost) getting back to what they were like in DP. They're not quite there yet but they're working toward it. Let's hope they improve into BW2.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

Almost strange that I think that while I thought this gym battle was good, yet nothing too special, it still might be my favorite gym match of BW. I guess it's as everyone else is saying, the strategy - and I also liked the action scenes as well - made it a cut above the rest of the BW gym battles.

 

[L-05308]

This was a good battle, and you were worried about the animation.
Still, not as good as Clay and Skyla but at least there was no bloody evolution

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

The battle was pretty good, even though Brycen was a little on the bland side, at least we got to see Krokorok and Pignite kick butt in this episode. This episode gets a 7/10, good episode, but can be done a bit better.

Also, the foreshadowing for the next Gym, it's going to be a while before Opelucid though because Best Wishes 2 is supposed to be about a world tournament instead.

Nice battle + I thought both Iris and Axew looked pretty cute in their "winter outfits" or whatever you'd call it XD

Ash...remembered an old battle in the series and used that strategy to win? Writers, what do you think this is, Diamond and Pearl

Exactly what I thought when I watched it! BW is getting better and better with every ep lately, and with the known upcoming events it'd get even better...
I'm almost regretting saying everything I said about the BW series - I'm really enjoying it recently...

Oh, and Iris' reaction to Opelucid? Misty - enough said XD (but I like it and what we might have with Iris once they get there, which will probably take a while after the whole East Unova arc)

yeah that reaction is priceless. But is it for certain that they won't do the 8th gym until after the east Unova arc?

In the games, to get to east Unova, you have to go through Opelucid, they cannot just bypass it, and besides, NOBODY wants another gap as long as the one between Snowpoint and Sunyshore, if they just go to a tournament arc after Iccirus, the Opelucid Gym battle wouldn't be until around this time next year, unless the writers make Ash battle Homika and get her badge to get all 8 badges done and over with without having to battle Iris/Drayden at all, and then we just wait for the league.

 

[Piplup]

yeah that reaction is priceless. But is it for certain that they won't do the 8th gym until after the east Unova arc?

No, but I believe they'll wait with final badge until after they're done with the whole East Unova arc

In the games, to get to east Unova, you have to go through Opelucid, they cannot just bypass it,

They'll find a way to do it if they want it this way... or maybe they WILL go by Opelucid but Drayden won't be there or won't be able to battle for whatever reason, then they meet Cynthia and Ash decides to enter that tournament to spend time and train until he'll be able to battle Drayden (and seriously, he needs all training he can do before facing Drayden... I find it very hard to imagine his current team as it is beating him)

and besides, NOBODY wants another gap as long as the one between Snowpoint and Sunyshore,

I never cared and never will care about "fillers" or "gaps" or all these ridiculous things fans love to complain about...
If I enjoy the eps, that's all that matters... and usually these "fillers" are better than the "plot" eps... also, it's not as if we'd get a lot of "fillers" in a row in this time... we'd get a whole arc in East Unova with a tournament, legendaries appearing, TRio's next mission, old Pokémon's return, and old characters visit...
I can't see what's bad in getting an awesome arc for Ash to improve and train a little first before eventually battling Drayden and participating in the Unova League, both things I find likely to happen during the first half of 2013

unless the writers make Ash battle Homika and get her badge to get all 8 badges done and over with without having to battle Iris/Drayden at all, and then we just wait for the league.

I think they already made it pretty clear that Ash WILL battle Drayden... if he were to get his final badge from Homika they probably wouldn't say anything about a Gym being in Opelucid and only do something Iris-related there

 

[Eitarou]

Sorry, but did anyone else feel this scene to be a little...stupid?

I mean, it was a cool way to finish off Beartic, but the contrasting colors of the stones and Krokorok's body makes it look awkward while he holds them.

They couldn't just color the stones differently for that one scene?

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

Yeah it does because launching seems MORE powerful then stabing and he had only two instead of 20 so it should be stronger

 

[Grave-E]

Sorry, but did anyone else feel this scene to be a little...stupid?

Yeah, I didn't get why the stones had to remain in CG for that part either. Consistency maybe? I dunno. It clashed horribly, in any case.
Krok still looks badass though.

 

[Sweet Veil]

This episode was very good, and I really was pumped and into the battle like you wouldn't even know. Warubiru, my awesome croc managed to redeem himself, and I'm reallllly glad he didn't evolve too. Tomoika(Emonga VS. Dageki for example) is great at writing battles, he defiantly could have done better then this but I'm happy with this regardless.

-I liked Hachiku for the most part, his personality, things he said, and tone of voice were very good. He just had that sort of "warm mentor" type personality throughout the episode, it really worked well considering Warubiru and Tsunbear's interactions prior and the ending being a Stone Edge/Aerial Ace ambiguous sword collision. I liked him for the most part and he served well.

-Warubiru, hands down the best battle of the episode. I liked his face slapping getting pumped moment, this episode reminds me that Warubiru's move set is pretty generic, Dig a Hole, Stone Edge, Crunch, and...um..Bite(Why hasn't he learned Foul Play yet? Seriously?). Despite how generic it was, I really liked it because the moves were used in such a dynamic and welly placed way that made me appreciate them. That Dig for example to Tsunbear's face, Crunch/Ice Punch collision freezing his snout, and Stone Edge being used as Kunai/Swords/Knives like that too. His go-getter personality, and the fact he collapsed from exhaustion afterward were really endearing and relatable moments for his character.

-I defiantly gotta say, praise Tomoika, Iris in snowgear, I'm not sure if anyone else would give a ratass to actually go to the trouble of drawing and animating it for one episode. But, that was a nice perk by the guy.

-Zuruggu's battle was good, Baricchi was a good enough opponent. I felt bad for Zuruggu's HJK being dodged and him hitting that ice-rock and being left stationary for a while. Zuruggu got lucky with Kiai Bullet boomeranging like that back to a unknowing Baricchi, which allowed Zuruggu to go on to take it out with a forceful Headbutt. Good for him, it felt a bit lucky on his part with that wayward Kiai Bullet, plus Baricchi only got hit twice but I'll take it. All I can say is, during the Icicle Spear scene, is ouch. I mean seriously that made me cringe Thank God for Zuruggu's powerful elastic skin/pants or he would've gotten eaten like a sandwich.

-Charbu was nice too, I liked his battle. Freezio in particular was a good opponent, I'm glad the writers remembered that thing's monster defense in the game and played on that in the anime with Reflect, which in turn weakened Nitro Charge. That really was a creative way of using Rapid Spin. Aurora Beam is CGi but it looked a tad better then Solar Beam, actually looked pretty cool, and Frost Breath's debut was A-okay. That was a really smart idea by Satoshi using Flamethrower & Fire Oath to concentrate on Freezio's Special side since Reflect was keeping it alive from the physical side. While Freezio was spinning horizontal it created many pillars of fire which roosted the crying snowflake, it looked epic and the music was too. I defiantly think it would have been a bit better if Baricchi and Freezio didn't go down in two moves, especially Freezio but then again it ain't too bad.

As for the ranking, I feel like this gym was good, defiantly the best in BW so far. Defiantly not a bad showing for Zuruggu, Charbu(after evo), and Waruvile's first gym battle wins.

1.Hachiku
2.Kamitsure
3.Yakon
4.Fuuro
5.Sayou Gym
6.Aloe
7.Arti

 

[HumanDawn]

The only problem I found with the battle is this:

Krokorok found it hard to dig the ice against Vanillish(contrary to what Dogasu said of the ice field making no difference to the battle), but later, when he's battling Beartic he didn't face any difficulty digging it. I think that this is a mistake. They should have been more careful about this. Unless the ice somehow became softer.