Preview BW083 + BW084 Fierce Fighting at Tachiwaki Gym! VS Homika!! Part 1 and Part 2

[Piplup]

Here's something from one of the new season 2 episode summaries:

Satoshi and the others, having found out that the Isshu League begins in three months

I really don't think he'd find this out unless he wins against Homika...

I think that pretty much confirms Ash does get his last badge from Homika
It may also mean the Unova League will start sooner than I expected it to... I wonder if it may also be "3 months" in real life, being July/August/September, which would be the around 13 eps they'll spend in East Unova, then the Unova League will be in October/November/December, with something new starting with the beginning of 2013
(though I also expect some Drayden/Iris eps that I'm not sure where would they fit exactly in all of that, but I guess they can do it if it's just 2-3 eps)

Whelp, I guess that settles that. It's looking like they really went ahead and switched things for the last badge, which is really too bad IMO. A 6 vs 3, doesn't exactly speak well for Ash's Pokemon at all. But what can ya do?

Unless, as I said, Homika is just really VEEEERY strong... if she is so strong (they can easily do it if they want to regardless of her order in the games, as I said before - Gyms have NO order in the anime...) and if that's the rule in her Gym, then Ash would get his badge rightfully

@CommanderPigg; Three months until Isshu League, sign of time passing in Pokemon

Time pass - characters don't age
We know that already

I can only pray hard that the writers still have Iris's Souryuu arc. in heart, or else I will vomit hard. I really can't wait to see what the writers do.

I'm sure they'll do SOMETHING with Iris and Drayden... all of Iris' background + her recent reaction to hearing "Opelucid" weren't for nothing

I'm still wondering if the events of the Iris episode causes them to divert. Because, I can't think of any other reason why they would suddenly turn around. Unless Iris' tells Ash she doesn't want to go there, and pleads with him to take a detour. Then again, that didn't really work for Misty.

Maybe they just randomly find out Homika's Gym is closer to where they are? XD or maybe they find out that Opelucid's Gym is temporarily closed, that the Unova League is going to be in 3 months and that Ash shouldn't wait for Opelucid, then they rush to the nearest Gym which happens to be Homika's?... XD

Would be funny if Iris thinks that, now Ash has all the badges, she's in the clear. And then at the World Tournament, it turns out Drayden is participating.

LOL, I can see that happening... this way they can also do the Iris/Drayden stuff while they're in East Unova, avoid showcasing Opelucid (though I still find it hard to believe they mentioned the city and we won't get to ever see it...) and kind of finish Iris' main story there (or make some progress, at least)

 

[Silktree]

It may also mean the Unova League will start sooner than I expected it to... I wonder if it may also be "3 months" in real life,

Going by past experience, it will. The only time the writers weren't precise about the given timeframe was with the Johto League when they said it would start in three months, and the wait ended up only taking two months and a half. Maybe it will take three months and a half this time, but that would still put us in early October.

being July/August/September, which would be the around 13 eps they'll spend in East Unova, then the Unova League will be in October/November/December, with something new starting with the beginning of 2013

I'm fairly certain that by December Ash will have moved on from the league. Even if the league only starts on October 4th (3.5 months into the second season), the last league episode should be aired on November 15th assuming that the Unova League will only span seven episodes. Even if some of my assumptions are wrong, it is extremely likely that by December the league will have been wrapped up.

LOL, I can see that happening... this way they can also do the Iris/Drayden stuff while they're in East Unova, avoid showcasing Opelucid (though I still find it hard to believe they mentioned the city and we won't get to ever see it...) and kind of finish Iris' main story there (or make some progress, at least)

Why would they finish Iris' story so soon? I don't expect her to defeat Drayden before Best Wishes draws to an end.

 

[Piplup]

Why would they finish Iris' story so soon? I don't expect her to defeat Drayden before Best Wishes draws to an end.

Well, she barely got much of a "story" anyway... maybe I shouldn't have said "finish" it, just progress with it, but the upcoming ep seems to solve her ice fears and might lead to her getting friendlier with Georgia, so that's already half of her "story" solved

As for Drayden - I'm not sure she'll actually beat him... or battle him at all... I'm also not sure anymore if we'll really get to see Axew evolving... it really seemed at first that they're making it a goal for it to evolve, but it gets so little development that it's almost hard to imagine it evolving...

So I won't be surprised if this Drayden appearance will be as much as she'll get story-wise until the very end of BW where they'll make up some excuse to make her leave, which might be Drayden related too but who knows... maybe Axew won't even evolve once during the whole of BW and she'll randomly leave to train with Drayden or something like that...

We'll have to wait and see... and I guess it'd be better to continue this discussion in the Iris thread on the BW Season 2 forum

 

[Jukain]

Well, that settles that, then. I must say, this still makes me feel ill, but we still have a chance to salvage this.

 

[SammyW27]

:conangry:

DAMNDAMNFUCKSONOFABITCHBULLSHITGODDAMNFUCKINGRETARDEDASSHOLES!! :complain: :saiyan: :disgust:

Last minute rewrites & retcons for the lose, man :bheart:

I really, really hope you're right Grave-E

That's it. I'm out of here!

ABANDON SHIP!

 

[Joshawott]

Here's something from one of the new season 2 episode summaries:

Satoshi and the others, having found out that the Isshu League begins in three months

I really don't think he'd find this out unless he wins against Homika...

Wait...so that pretty much means he gets a badge from Homika? Unless it later reveals that the league is in three months so he panics about where to get his last badge?

Shame. I was hoping she would be like, only a trainee Gym Leader with no official license yet or something like that.

 

[Shinneth]

Even if the writers make Homika an amazing character in her own right, I'm gonna go ahead and say this will be hands-down the lamest way Ash has ever gotten his 8th badge. Even if the battle itself is action-packed and fun to watch, even if it will be neat seeing Koffing in the battle and the significance of Ash beating down that particular species will be amusing, everything goes back to the fact that this is a 6vs3 match which heavily stacks everything in Ash's favor from the get-go, which encourages him to minimize usage of actual strategy and thinking out of the box (the way we knew Ash did things before BW) and eliminates any trace of suspense in this battle, even if the first part puts Ash on some sort of cliffhanger (given that it's pretty much confirmed that Ash will be getting his 8th badge from Homika based on future episode summaries).

Even if this turned out to be a triple battle, which I could see happening since they haven't really been showed off in the anime yet, it still gives Ash a massively unfair advantage. It's still an uneven match-up. I personally don't care if it's set up this way because Homika's outrageously overconfident; it still ain't right. This being the last gym battle before the League escalates just how underwhelming, lame, and insulting it is to both Ash's character and his Pokemon. Even if they are gradually improving (some of them, anyway), they're nowhere near ready for a League battle - as it was said, most don't even have full movesets, much less good ones, outside of the fact that most desperately need evolving - and... if Eastern Unova is only to last 13 episodes or so before we segue into the Unova League, then evolving the Pokemon who need it and giving them better moves would be pretty rushed and most likely not done well. I'm sure at least one Pokemon will learn a new move during the upcoming tournament, but still... after three gyms that had an evolution, having one happening in the tournament's gonna come off as redundant as well.

Well, now I'm derailing. Anyway... I suppose we can check another Kanto-ism off Unova's list of doing everything it can to imitate the original series for no good reason. Ash getting a pity badge on a silver platter? On principle alone I think Homika's can be considered a check.

It's sad. No matter how much I lower my expectations of BW, they still manage to find a way to shock me with how low they can go.

 

[Musashi]

Well, now I'm derailing. Anyway... I suppose we can check another Kanto-ism off Unova's list of doing everything it can to imitate the original series for no good reason. Ash getting a pity badge on a silver platter? On principle alone I think Homika's can be considered a check.

A pity badge is given out for doing something other than winning the battle against the gym leader. That is most certainly not what this is.

 

[Chronos]

I could see Drayden letting Ash use all his Pokemon, since Drayden's Haxorus looks like it could snap all of Ash's Unova Pokemon in half. It just seems weird that Homika is doing it when she has a Koffing of all things. I hope her other Pokemon aren't Trubbish and Ekans or something. Scolipede makes sense for her because of her guitar.

 

[Masurao]

I don't see the point in dropping just the Legend Badge, after getting all the other ones from the games. I would have preferred Homika debut in another episode. Instead of having Ash battle a Dragon Master, they are seemigly trying to compensate by making Homika overpowered..which in effect makes Ash look weaker than he ever has at the 8th gym.

 

[CommanderPigg]

I can't bring it to myself to care that Ash is getting his 8th gym badge from someone other than Drayden or that he might be winning 6 v 3. We all know that he has to go to the league tournament anyways, who cares if unfortunate circumstances led to an alternative way, it's not like these things don't happen.

Like, really....I just can't give a shit any more. Bring on BW2 already.

 

[Shinneth]

A pity badge is given out for doing something other than winning the battle against the gym leader. That is most certainly not what this is.

It's a stretch of the definition, I'm aware, but as far as I'm concerned this is pretty damn close to a pity badge. You know, the majority of Ash's team being underdeveloped, the more prominent ones desperately needing an evolution, almost all of them lacking an efficient moveset, and at this stage not truly ready for an 8th gym challenge, much less a regional league. Instead of taking time to develop them properly, showing more on-screen training, or anything that makes Ash's team look remotely competent without resorting to DEM levels of bullshit, they're instead overcompensating by giving Ash the most unfair advantage ever.

A stint that, to my knowledge, have never done before. By literal definition it may not be a pity badge, but from a storytelling perspective I consider it a pity badge. What reason would there be to give Ash a ridiculously huge advantage over his final gym battle otherwise?

I'd say the writers are taking pity on their own inability to make Ash's needlessly huge party of Pokemon function well, and cover it up by pretty much rigging the match in Ash's favor.

We've seen massive amounts of stupid bullshit from BW before, but this just stands out to me. Surely I'm not the only one who smells pity, shame(lessness), and effortless rushing in what should be an important hurdle for Ash to overcome that's now made into a mockery of a battle with this highly nonsensical and sudden handicap.

 

[Utopean]

Nothing that can be done about this, unfortunately. The anime staff is really pushed by the higher ups to advertise as much of the B2W2 games as possible. It felt like a waste that a possible gym battle in Opelucid City was hyped up in BW079, and then Ash will get his final badge by battling a completely different Gym Leader.

I have severe doubts that the writers only found out they had to include Homika in between writing BW 81 and BW 85. They'll have known the plan for quite a while; notice Ash's badge case mysteriously losing its shapes halfway through the series.

I am 100% certain that the Iris/Drayden plot will come out later. This way they have Ash being able to continue on the journey/advertise without the heavy lifting of finishing up the Iris arc/beating a powerful Dragon-type leader. This will have been a move planned out for quite some time.

 

[Musashi]

We've seen massive amounts of stupid bullshit from BW before, but this just stands out to me. Surely I'm not the only one who smells pity, shame(lessness), and effortless rushing in what should be an important hurdle for Ash to overcome that's now made into a mockery of a battle with this highly nonsensical and sudden handicap.

We know next to nothing about this battle. Aside from the fact it's 6 vs. 3 and Homika has a Dogas, we have no clue what any of the circumstances for this is.

I think Satoshi's team is plenty competent and wont be reduced to DEM wins at all.

 

[Shinneth]

Well aware that we know little about the battle, but like I said before, it could very well be fun to watch and all, but in the end, everything goes back to the 6 vs 3 gimmick. That gimmick alone, I suspect, will ruin the whole experience for me.

If there's a way to justify that at all besides Homika possibly being overly cocky or a triple battle (which still makes the scenario totally unfair in my opinion), I'd love to hear one. Because that's going to remain a constant in my mind throughout the entire battle.

 

[HumanDawn]

Well aware that we know little about the battle, but like I said before, it could very well be fun to watch and all, but in the end, everything goes back to the 6 vs 3 gimmick. That gimmick alone, I suspect, will ruin the whole experience for me.

If there's a way to justify that at all besides Homika possibly being overly cocky or a triple battle (which still makes the scenario totally unfair in my opinion), I'd love to hear one. Because that's going to remain a constant in my mind throughout the entire battle.

Maybe Ash will only need 3 of his Pokemon to beat Homika so it won't be so bad after all. Right?

 

[Utopean]

I understand this is a preview ep and all, and its purpose is to give our two cents and opinions and all that good stuff....


....but how we wait till we actually see the ep to decide how awesome or shit it is?

Far too reasonable. We're here to rage, dammit!

 

[Rocketshipper]

Satoshi and the others, having found out that the Isshu League begins in three months
I really don't think he'd find this out unless he wins against Homika...

I really hope he does win, but...I don't *necissarily* think him finding out about the league means the badge he gets in the episode will be legit, or that he can't still battle Drayden/Iris and the water guy if it is. This could be like how Haruka ended up having a deadline of only one more contest to get her 5th ribbon before the GFs. You know, I could see a situation like where Ash wins the battle and then Homika's like "oh BTW, I'm not actually officially licenced yet, so my badge doesn't count. But you better hurry, you've only got 3 months till the league starts, lolz". And then its a mad race for Ash to earn his last real badge before the league. And its still possible he could just end up going for more than 8 badges. This is the first time EVER we've had a region with more than 8 in-game badges overall, and I can't imagine the writers would want Ash to skip battling in the excess gyms just to keep strictly to the 8 badge format.

 

[Ant_Lotr]

This is quite a wild guess, but how about this: Ash wins this match and is tricked into thinking that this is a official gym match, when it actually isn't. I don't know, Homika just strikes me as the kind of person who would do that just to spite Ash for winning. Then after finding out about '3 months until the league' thing, goes on a training spree; during this time, comes along the water gym and finds that it isn't an official gym yet- just like the Poison gym. Then, with little time to spare, it's a quick rush to Drayden's gym and 8th proper gym badge. There was only a few episodes between the last gym and the league in Sinnoh, so it could happen again.

 

[SammyW27]

There was only a few episodes between the last gym and the league in Sinnoh, so it could happen again.

A key difference there is that it was a good time for that in DP with Gen 4 about to end. We still have about year and a half to kill with BW...