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Review BW093: The Junior Cup of Farewells and Meetings!

So, can anyone tell me what Alder was talking to Trip about, and if this affected his attitude toward Ash? I was only going by the screencaps, and he looked like he was being civil with him, kind of like Paul after Ash finally beat him in the League. Also, he seemed to have something profound going on with his Serperior. What was that all about? Sorry if I sound ignorant, but I'm always like this when I can't see the episode yet.

Also, I've only seen Kotetsu through the screencaps and already he annoys me...
 
So like 99.9% of Ash and Dawn's battles they end with a tie, not sure why anyone expected anything else. It was pretty much the same as any of their training battles in the series rather than a real serious battle.

This new rival reminds me exactly of Morrisson. Comes in at the end with all 7 badges already and is hyperactive? Even Riolu is like Beldum in a way. It's almost a repeat of the end of the Hoenn saga. At least we know this means Ash will likely beat him.
 
So like 99.9% of Ash and Dawn's battles they end with a tie, not sure why anyone expected anything else. It was pretty much the same as any of their training battles in the series rather than a real serious battle.

No it wasn't.

This new rival reminds me exactly of Morrisson. Comes in at the end with all 7 badges already and is hyperactive? Even Riolu is like Beldum in a way. It's almost a repeat of the end of the Hoenn saga. At least we know this means Ash will likely beat him.

Other than already having 7 badges and being hyperactive, I don't see any other similarity and Riolu is in no way like Beldum.
 
Ash vs Dawn had no proper outcome, expected nothing less. They could have suprised us by evolving Quilava but all we got was what we expected.
I was actually looking forward to seeing Eruption used in battle but no, Quilava got ONE new move, and it replaced the only cool move it had.
As far as I'm concerned, Dawn's Quilava shouldn't have learned Eruption in the first place. Now, once more, Eruption is exclusive to Ash's Quilava as it should be.

So Dawn didn't mention Hoenn at all, did she?

Your right, I was also annoyed when Dawn's Quilava first lerned the same move that Ash's did. But Flamethrower? Why? Why not, Extracensory, Wild charge or even Blast Burn?

As far as I'm aware only johto and the wallence cup were mentioned
 
So, can anyone tell me what Alder was talking to Trip about, and if this affected his attitude toward Ash? I was only going by the screencaps, and he looked like he was being civil with him, kind of like Paul after Ash finally beat him in the League. Also, he seemed to have something profound going on with his Serperior. What was that all about? Sorry if I sound ignorant, but I'm always like this when I can't see the episode yet.
Presumably someone who can actually speak the language could correct me, but what I got from it was that Alder was talking about his love of Pokemon, that Bouffalant was so strong because of the bond that he shares with it, and questioning whether Trip really loved Pokemon, rather than just wanting to win Pokemon battles or at least saying to him that he needs to get closer to his Pokemon to get the most out of them.

Of course, unlike Paul, we have no idea how Trip treats his Pokemon outside of battle and he certainly treats them better in battle than Paul did in terms of how he takes losses - so the only thing for Trip that it could have really answered would be why Alder looks like he doesn't take things seriously.

Ash later seemed to just go up and finally compliment Trip on how strong Serperior was, I'd suggest Trip just had his guard down slightly thinking about what Alder said to him rather than a real shift in attitude - he didn't say much to Ash, but wasn't being dismissive, he left with Ash saying the generic 'see you at the Unova League' line.

I could be way off though.
 
I think its amusing Piplup and Oshawott said goodbye to each other more than Dawn did to Ash/Iris/Cilan.

I think Dawn's cameo wouldn't have been so disappointing if the writers didn't hype her return on the poster, actually put her in the opening, and put her on the TVTokyo website. All that promotion for only an 8 episode stay that didn't even focus on her much is bizarre. The entire focus of these episodes were on Iris and Trip and to a lesser extent Ash, Dawn just simply seemed "just there."

I don't think we'll hear from Dawn after this, the fact that she was sent to Johto should say enough in itself. Johto seems to be the region they now banish old characters to never to be heard from again.
 
I don't think we'll hear from Dawn after this, the fact that she was sent to Johto should say enough in itself. Johto seems to be the region they now banish old characters to never to be heard from again.
May went to Johto and came back for the Wallace Cup.
 
Well, I'm not liking Kotetsu that much. He's waaay too "all over the place" for me. I could stand Barry at least, this kid needs to take some chill pills. Riolu copying his moves sometimes was cute though.
 
Honestly I couldn't stand Riolu copying his moves xD It's a cheap substitute to not give the thing a personality.
 
I think its amusing Piplup and Oshawott said goodbye to each other more than Dawn did to Ash/Iris/Cilan.

Throughout BW2, the character interactions were just so awful across the board and forced. Honestly, if they hadn't forced some bizarre Iris worship on Hikari and actually had her interact with other characters, it could have been great cause the episodes in which she did (BW086 and BW088) were where she was at her most entertaining. But I do agree that this cameo was just utterly pointless. XD The Mikuri Cup had Haruka dealing with her own issues, showing some tangible progress and getting two awesome battles. Here, Hikari was just brought back to be thrown under the Iris bus and glorify her needlessly and undeservedly. It's so sad that the writers feel like they have to downgrade and stunt every character under the sun just to give Iris a semblance of relevance on a show she doesn't belong on.

Hikari's gone forever, oh well, still better than the Kasumi cameos. XD

The entire focus of these episodes were on Iris and Trip

Of these episodes? Of this saga you mean. I know they went for the BW thing when they named it Best Wishes, but "The Iris show occasionally featuring Shooti and Kenyan" would have been a much better reflection of reality.

Johto seems to be the region they now banish old characters to never to be heard from again.

Please, Kasumi's in Kanto and lord knows she ain't never coming back. XD So is Masato in Hoenn or Brock, also in Kanto. The correct moniker for Johto would be, "Where Coordinators go to die" XD
 
I kind of wish Dawn would've gone to Hoenn, which is what I'd originally assumed. Not only would it have been a fresh change since Hoenn really hasn't been mentioned in awhile, but maybe she could've experienced what the original, toned-down contests were like. Excuse me if I'm wrong because I didn't watch with subs, but I wonder why they made the Wallace Cup in Johto...did Dawn explain anything about that? Just curious.

Also, does anyone know what Burgundy said to Cilan before she left? And are she and Georgia gone for good, or just for this season?

I pretty much agree with everyone else about this arc; Dawn's cameo was nice and expected but I really wish they would've done at least something with her! They should've featured an episode with her catching a Unova pokemon; that would've been cool. After all, even though May didn't catch any Sinnoh pokemon, she got the chance to show off newly-evolved Glaceon, Venusaur, and Wartortle. The Quilava appearance was okay, though...but the battle really wasn't that great. =/ Sigh; sometimes I feel like the only reason Dawn was even there was to provide the comic relief between Piplup and Oshawott...

Speaking of which, that was a cute ending. ^_^

Not to be off-topic or anything, but I reached 151 posts...hehe... XD
 
At the very least, this episode's title was appropriately named after its central theme: farewells and meetings. Unfortunately, the debut of Ash's "new rival," as well as the set-up for the big two-parter coming up in a few weeks, took a very large chunk out of what was supposed to be Dawn's final farewell episode.

And as I expected, the Junior Cup ended in nearly the same way as it had started. The first major battle of this episode, Trip's Serperior vs. Alder's Bouffalant, concluded relatively quickly. Judging by how Trip calmly discerned Bouffalant's ability as Sap Sipper, I was under the impression that he wanted to defeat Alder using a pokemon that he knew would have a disadvantage against it. Of course, Trip had been playing this exact card throughout this tournament, so I wasn't shocked or anything.

The only element of this battle that really surprised me was that Alder was actually serious throughout the entire battle. As opposed to his debut episode in which fought Ash, Alder wasn't sleeping or focusing his mind on other things during this battle. This was a surprise because Alder's inattentiveness and carefree nature was what pissed Trip off during BW052, and what caused Trip to become even more obsessed in surpassing Alder with his own power. So basically, it felt like Alder's strategy in this battle was the same as the one from when he fought that trainer during the Nuvema Town Festival back in Trip's childhood. If it were not for Trip witnessing the events in BW052, his reactions throughout the entire tournament might not have been as emotional or tense. It felt that most of Trip's complaints about Alder stemmed from the Champion not being serious all of the time, even though Alder actually had been during their battle.

I was also disappointed that Trip "changed" his attitude so suddenly after Alder informed him where his true strength lied. This circumstance felt like a cop out from the writers in character development considering how egotistical and smug Trip has been throughout the entire series. Alder getting the upper hand, and eventually, winning this battle without receiving any true damage didn't indicate a serious blow to Trip's pride as a battler or anything. What stemmed from the Trip and Alder battle greatly contrasted with Paul's situation when he fought Brandon back in DP, in which Brandon's words actually appeared to shake Paul a little bit and caused him to gradually alter his battling style later on in the series.

Here it felt that Trip had already accepted Alder's advice about loving his pokemon, and that power and strategy were not enough in deciding the results of the battle. Trip didn't attempt to argue with Alder or prove to Alder at all that the latter's strategy was wrong, despite his dislike of the Champion's carefree attitude stemming most of the tension he had during the series so far. Trip casually left the tournament after saying a few words to Ash related to the Unova League coming up. There was no connection between Ash and Trip that makes me believe that they actually do have a rivalry with one another, even at this point in the series. It feels that Ash had already respected Trip as a trainer and simply wants to improve his skills as well. Ash's presence simply felt out of place here, and many characters have noted that battling Alder was really the only thing that Trip had on his mind during the entire tournament.

Oh, and speaking of rivals, this episode featured the debut of Ash's newest "rival," Kotetsu. My impression of Kotetsu is not certainly one of praise at the moment. Kotetsu seems to be an amalgam of Barry's hyperactivity and Morrison's obsession with competition. Kotetsu also has some of Stephan's lack of common sense of practical knowledge, such as when he assumed that he only needed seven badges to compete in the Unova League, and that the league took place in Johto. Really, the only aspect of Kotetsu that really stood out in my mind was that he had a Riolu, a pokemon that only appeared very rarely in the DP saga. It's such a shame that all this Riolu did in this episode was imitate its less than competent trainer. One last note about Kotetsu: He somehow earned a badge from Lenora from crying out loud. How did he even find the gym hidden in that place?

And finally, this episode was notable in that Dawn's guest role in BW Season 2 was ending and that she was moving on with her life as a coordinator. Once again, Best Wishes fails to deliver anything spectacular with its departures. Aside from the two-minute "training battle" that Pikachu and Dawn's Quilava had outside of Cynthia's villa, this episode didn't cover anything that we hadn't already seen back in DP191.

Dawn's departure from Ash and co. this time might have left a bigger impression on me if the writers had actually did more for her character during the guest star appearance. Dawn really had a starring role in just two out of the nine episodes that she appeared in, and most of the screentime that she had in the other episodes were allotted to the other characters (Cilan, Iris, Trip, Alder, Cynthia, etc.) Of course, it certainly wasn't helped that the writers actually spent more time in this episode introducing a new character or continuing with the Meloetta storyline than to give Dawn a proper sendoff.

This episode felt average for me. I'm glad that the Junior Cup has finally ended, despite all of the controversies that I felt that it was characterized by.

Your right, I was also annoyed when Dawn's Quilava first lerned the same move that Ash's did. But Flamethrower? Why? Why not, Extracensory, Wild charge or even Blast Burn?

Quilava can't normally learn Blast Burn; the only exception to the rule was by evolving the Cyndaquil from XD.

Quilava can only learn Extrasensory as an egg move, and since it did not have that move from when it was a Cyndaquil, there was no reason for Quilava to learn the attack here in its evolved form. With the exception of three notable cases, all in the AG era, the writers don't really have pokemon learn egg moves as attacks.

And Wild Charge wouldn't do that much against Pikachu, anyway.
 
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Lackluster end to a lackluster tournament and cameo.

Really, Dawn presence felt like she was only really there to be BFF's with Iris. Her interaction with Ash was rather dull, and her inclusion in this tournament felt pointless. Ash, and Dawn tie/get interrupted in their battle...yet again. I still don't see why Ash said he hadn't battled Dawn yet..when they had the Mamoswine/Pignite battle not too long before the tournament. I guess this anime really doesn't count training battles as actual battles.

Also, Trip's shift in personality seems rather...sudden.
 
To me, this entire tournament has been one big letdown.

From my prespective, Dawn was just in this season for fan-service and nothing more, her interactions with Ash were just dull (more rather, she barely interacted with anyone), her Quilava only learned a single new move, which was Flamethrower, which replaced Eruption, while the rest of Dawn's Pokemon were simply pushed to the side like they were nothing, and she never even MENTIONED anything about her journey in Hoenn, or her old rivals such as Nando and Ursula, not to mention her battle with Ash ended with a tie. Essentially, they basically hyped her up on the promotional posters, and then have her stay for about 8 episodes, then basically put her on a ship to Johto, never to return, since that is basically what happened to May, as @Hellion put it earlier, Johto is where coordinators go to die.

Even moreso is that they focus a lot more on Iris and Trip than on Ash or anyone else, like Ash isn't the main character anymore, this is essentially what they did to Dawn was downplay her character to a bare minumum, and basically make it like she was just THERE with no real purpose, while Iris got all the attention, all which was just unnessicary. Speaking of Trip, his sudden change in his attitude really bothered me, compared to Pauls battle with Brandon in DP, this change just came out of the blue.

Already, I'm starting to dislike Kotetsu, basically, he's the child of Barry and Morrison on more caffiene, he seems to be abscent minded, and rather obsessed with competition. Probably the one thing I both like and dislike is that he owns a Riolu, which in previous seasons, never got that much coverage in the anime, but what's annoying is that his Riolu always mimics Kotetsu's actions, like it seems that the writers are too lazy to give Riolu a personality, that's what it seems like to me.

Probably the only good thing to come out of this tournament was Krokorok evolving, and that's pretty much it as far as I can tell.
 
At the very least, this episode's title was appropriately named after its central theme: farewells and meetings. Unfortunately, the debut of Ash's "new rival," as well as the set-up for the big two-parter coming up in a few weeks, took a very large chunk out of what was supposed to be Dawn's final farewell episode.

And as I expected, the Junior Cup ended in nearly the same way as it had started. The first major battle of this episode, Trip's Serperior vs. Alder's Bouffalant, concluded relatively quickly. Judging by how Trip calmly discerned Bouffalant's ability as Sap Sipper, I was under the impression that he wanted to defeat Alder using a pokemon that he knew would have a disadvantage against it. Of course, Trip had been playing this exact card throughout this tournament, so I wasn't shocked or anything.

The only element of this battle that really surprised me was that Alder was actually serious throughout the entire battle. As opposed to his debut episode in which fought Ash, Alder wasn't sleeping or focusing his mind on other things during this battle. This was a surprise because Alder's inattentiveness and carefree nature was what pissed Trip off during BW052, and what caused Trip to become even more obsessed in surpassing Alder with his own power. So basically, it felt like Alder's strategy in this battle was the same as the one from when he fought that trainer during the Nuvema Town Festival back in Trip's childhood. If it were not for Trip witnessing the events in BW052, his reactions throughout the entire tournament might not have been as emotional or tense. It felt that most of Trip's complaints about Alder stemmed from the Champion not being serious all of the time, even though Alder actually had been during their battle.

I was also disappointed that Trip "changed" his attitude so suddenly after Alder informed him where his true strength lied. This circumstance felt like a cop out from the writers in character development considering how egotistical and smug Trip has been throughout the entire series. Alder getting the upper hand, and eventually, winning this battle without receiving any true damage didn't indicate a serious blow to Trip's pride as a battler or anything. What stemmed from the Trip and Alder battle greatly contrasted with Paul's situation when he fought Brandon back in DP, in which Brandon's words actually appeared to shake Paul a little bit and caused him to gradually alter his battling style later on in the series.

Here it felt that Trip had already accepted Alder's advice about loving his pokemon, and that power and strategy were not enough in deciding the results of the battle. Trip didn't attempt to argue with Alder or prove to Alder at all that the latter's strategy was wrong, despite his dislike of the Champion's carefree attitude stemming most of the tension he had during the series so far. Trip casually left the tournament after saying a few words to Ash related to the Unova League coming up. There was no connection between Ash and Trip that makes me believe that they actually do have a rivalry with one another, even at this point in the series. It feels that Ash had already respected Trip as a trainer and simply wants to improve his skills as well. Ash's presence simply felt out of place here, and many characters have noted that battling Alder was really the only thing that Trip had on his mind during the entire tournament.

Oh, and speaking of rivals, this episode featured the debut of Ash's newest "rival," Kotetsu. My impression of Kotetsu is not certainly one of praise at the moment. Kotetsu seems to be an amalgam of Barry's hyperactivity and Morrison's obsession with competition. Kotetsu also has some of Stephan's lack of common sense of practical knowledge, such as when he assumed that he only needed seven badges to compete in the Unova League, and that the league took place in Johto. Really, the only aspect of Kotetsu that really stood out in my mind was that he had a Riolu, a pokemon that only appeared very rarely in the DP saga. It's such a shame that all this Riolu did in this episode was imitate its less than competent trainer. One last note about Kotetsu: He somehow earned a badge from Lenora from crying out loud. How did he even find the gym hidden in that place?

And finally, this episode was notable in that Dawn's guest role in BW Season 2 was ending and that she was moving on with her life as a coordinator. Once again, Best Wishes fails to deliver anything spectacular with its departures. Aside from the two-minute "training battle" that Pikachu and Dawn's Quilava had outside of Cynthia's villa, this episode didn't cover anything that we hadn't already seen back in DP191.

Dawn's departure from Ash and co. this time might have left a bigger impression on me if the writers had actually did more for her character during the guest star appearance. Dawn really had a starring role in just two out of the nine episodes that she appeared in, and most of the screentime that she had in the other episodes were allotted to the other characters (Cilan, Iris, Trip, Alder, Cynthia, etc.) Of course, it certainly wasn't helped that the writers actually spent more time in this episode introducing a new character or continuing with the Meloetta storyline than to give Dawn a proper sendoff.

This episode felt average for me. I'm glad that the Junior Cup has finally ended, despite all of the controversies that I felt that it was characterized by.

Your right, I was also annoyed when Dawn's Quilava first lerned the same move that Ash's did. But Flamethrower? Why? Why not, Extracensory, Wild charge or even Blast Burn?

Quilava can't normally learn Blast Burn; the only exception to the rule was by evolving the Cyndaquil from XD.

Quilava can only learn Extrasensory as an egg move, and since it did not have that move from when it was a Cyndaquil, there was no reason for Quilava to learn the attack here in its evolved form. With the exception of three notable cases, all in the AG era, the writers don't really have pokemon learn egg moves as attacks.

And Wild Charge wouldn't do that much against Pikachu, anyway.

Knew someone would pick me up on that ¬¬

But why Flamethrower? Why not Inferno, Overheat or better yet Lava Plume?

If I have to say somthing positive I'll say that Flame Wheel looked kind of cool o_0

Just a bit down in the dumps really, most of Best Wishes, the anime forums has been a bitter pot of despair. I've stayed happy though, I like all the episodes that people were not thrilled with; Castelia gym, Don battle, Kami Trio two parter, even the Tiritouga/Carracosta episodes were good to me, but these last 4 episodes hit me with the cold truth that the best part of the entire series has been written poorly :( sigh I'll probaly blogg about this, hard knowing pokemon has gotten so much worse in so little time, AG was brilliant, DP was magnificent but BW dosen't continue the tridition of topping its predecesor. And in the intrest of staying on topic, that's how this episode makes me feel.
 
The problem is the episodes were overhyped to be something they weren't. When we first heard about the World Tournament we assumed it would be something big like in the games, but instead it was just a Don battle tournament. If they simply said that from the beginning it wouldn't have been a big deal.

Lastly, Dawn should not have gotten all that promotion if her cameo was going to be so low-key. They actually treated her (on the TVTokyo website at least), as if she was returning to the main cast. We all knew she would leave anyway, but the least they could have done is made her the focal point of some of these episodes. I truly wonder if she's going to be removed from the opening after this episode.
 
Well I like Kotetsu. I can probably see him becoming tiring though; however, I did think the same about Dent at first, but I haven't tired of him, so we'll see. If he's set to become a regular I think the whole *pulls headband away from head* *snaps headband back* *lightningbolt strikes* might become a... "thing".

The episode wasn't that great on the whole imo, since it was just wrapping up a few things.

Alder ROFLstomped Trip after Bouffalant decided to do some acrobatics.

The little scene with Piplup and Oshawott was hilarious yet cute. awww.

And bye, Dawn! >:p I won't particularly miss her since she hasn't really done much, to be honest.
 
i missed the episode. was the battle between trip and alder a six on six battle? how badly did trip lose? did he manage to hurt any of alders pokemon?
 
i missed the episode. was the battle between trip and alder a six on six battle? how badly did trip lose? did he manage to hurt any of alders pokemon?
1-on-1. Not that badly imo. And somewhat(?).
 
1 on 1 seems disappointing to me

The writers have not really demonstrated the full power of a champion. Sure, Cynthia is a very powerful trainer but we have mainly seen her Garchomp in battle and Gastradon once or twice. But we haven't seen her overall team and she seems overly reliant on Garchomp

I was hoping to see what Alders full team looked like and how powerful he is. Its disappointing to hear it was only a one on one battle. I hope one of these days we can see either Cynthia or Alder's full team.
 
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