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Review BW096: Meloetta and the Undersea Temple!

Being someone who only casually watches and keeps updated on the anime every now and that, I'm just amazed that after all these years, not counting that one made for TV special, Ash finally met Giovanni in person. I am legitimately afraid that the world might actually be ending in 2012. 0.o
 
Robo-Floatzel said:
though it's surprising the TRio wasn't in this episode

What are you talking about? Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu all appeared several times.

Sorry, I just didn't feel like they had a big enough role in this episode, no offense, but it's nice that Ash got to face Giovanni, even if the fight was a bit short, oh well, next week is the BIG fight.
 
Robo-Floatzel said:
though it's surprising the TRio wasn't in this episode

What are you talking about? Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu all appeared several times.

Sorry, I just didn't feel like they had a big enough role in this episode, no offense, but it's nice that Ash got to face Giovanni, even if the fight was a bit short, oh well, next week is the BIG fight.

Even if they had a small role, they were still in the episode O_O. But yeah, NEXT WEEK IS THE BIG FIGHT :D!

I got what I wanted to see... Sakaki in action! Awesome episode, no complains.

Yup ^_^! By the way, since you usually post the ratings of each episode, when will the rating be released? I'm expecting it to be around 6.0%.
 
I skipped my first block of school for this, and It did definitely not disappoint. The only thing that I disliked about the ep. is that it seemed way to short. But oh well.
Overall, I've got to put this into one of my top fave episodes and I've been watching since Indigo, Team Rocket returning, Grunt's, Giovanni, The Trio... A perfect ep that I've been waiting years for!
 
Anyone feel those two Rocket grunts should have been Butch and Cassidy?
 
Man this episode was exciting.. sure was upto the expectations.. but stil ash thinks he can save everyone with his little pikachu.. well now we all know it doesnt even stand a chance against a persian(not to mention it belongs to giovanni).. happy that Giovanni & persian makes a good appearance after kanto... stil one thing its way 2 big to be just a two-parter.. should hav given more space for larry and also meloetta battle... seems the writers are getting to their old ways.. just much more excited for the 2nd part next week... yippeeee.....
 
So Meloetta's voice acts as a sort of key, unlocking what exactly?

Has it actually been said what Giovanni is unleashing?
 
I have placed my episode review in spoiler tags for those of you who don't want to read it.

My first reaction when I watched this episode was that the plot is progressing too quickly. As great as the episode's animation and musical score were, unfortunately a decent pacing had to give way in order for the writers to resolve everything about Meloetta, Giovanni, and TR by the end of next week's episode.

Outside of the thirty seconds spent to remind the viewers that Giovanni does exist, the episode proceeded with Ash training for the Unova League outside of Cynthia's villa. As much as I disliked the actual match-up (Oshawott vs. Pansage), I did like that Ash fought Cilan for the first time since their gym battle back at the start of the saga.

The plotline started when Meloetta, who practically sat on the sidelines for the past fifteen or so episodes, suddenly requested to fight Oshawott. Oshawott obviously refused to hurt Meloetta, and Ash sent out his Krookodile to battle Meloetta instead. I felt that the training battle at the start of the episode was nothing more than a device for the plot to move along very quickly by getting both Larry and Team Rocket to converge to where Meloetta is. Why else would Meloetta have decided to battle right Ash's pokemon right there and then?

This is the first instance in which the pacing of this episode went out of proportion. The writers introduced a character who was created to explain where Meloetta came from, and there was a flashback that depicted how Team Rocket encountered and caught Meloetta in the first place. However, neither Larry or Team Rocket explained how Meloetta managed to escape from its capture prior to the events in BW082. Meloetta was trapped in a cage composed of the same material that Team Rocket used to trap the three Kami pokemon. None of those legendary pokemon were able to destroy the cages from the inside, nor were Ash and co. successful in destroying the cages from the outside; the helicopter carrying the cages was attacked instead.

And yet, how did Meloetta, a pokemon that seems to be weaker than those legendary pokemon, manage to break out of that cage and escape from Team Rocket prior to BW082? Especially since Meloetta would later be unable to break free of the cage that Team Rocket trapped it in later during the episode. This was something that I questioned throughout my viewing of the episode and unfortunately the plotline had to proceed very quickly without touching up on this "plot hole" so everything could end next week.

After the nine and a half minutes spent introducing Larry's character had ended, the episode then proceeded with Giovanni and the TR grunts that were brought with him to Unova attempting to capture Meloetta once more. I was absolutely impressed that Team Rocket managed to fare very well during this onslaught. In previous series, Ash and co. managed to overcome dozens of Team Rocket grunts and their pokemon in mere seconds. But ONLY TWO generic grunts battled Ash and co. during this episode, and their pokemon were so powerful that Ash and the others had to escape so Larry could fend them off. And even though Larry and Golurk managed to defeat their opponents, they still struggled to win that battle, considering how long it took Larry to reunite with Iris and co. after Ash and Meloetta got caught.

Some attack animations have changed a lot as well. Dragon Rage's animation was modified because its previous animation resembled what Dragon Rush's current animation. Power Gem, which was animated as a large orange orb in the DP arc, now resembles a narrower version of Hyper Beam's current animation.
*
I would have wanted more grunts to battle Ash and the others, though. There were at least four grunts who accompanied Giovanni during his trip to the Unova region, but we only saw two of them actually show up later to catch Meloetta. We also never got to see Matori during this episode, despite her appearance in the previous ones. I guess this is also a price that had to be paid to move the plot along.

We also got to see Ash and Giovanni interact for the first time in a canonical episode, and better yet we got to see Giovanni's Persian battle and use attacks for the first time. I found it a bit odd that Golem, Rhydon, and Persian all used post-Gen I attacks during their respective battles, and it reminded me of how far the entire series had come. If Persian had been used in a battle when it first debuted over fifteen years ago, it would not have used attacks like Shadow Claw or Power Gem.

The rest of the episode was spent with Giovanni capturing Ash, Pikachu, and Meloetta and taking them to the Abyssal Ruins where they would use the recording of Meloetta's voice to obtain the Reflecting Mirror. Other than the amazing visual and audio quality that coincided during these scenes, I am impressed that Ash and Pikachu were utterly helpless and could not have done anything to stop Giovanni by themselves.

Overall, the episode was great, but there were a few loose ends that I wished the writers had answered regarding Meloetta's past and its connection with the Reflecting Mirror and Therian pokemon. I felt that there was enough material here for the writers to stretch everything out to a third episode, but they had chosen to end everything in two. I'll expect the events in next week's episode to be significantly rushed. After all, how can the writers have Iris, Cilan, Cynthia, and Larry travel to the Abyssal Ruins; free Ash, Pikachu, and Meloetta; battle TRio and the Therian pokemon; and stop Giovanni in twenty minutes without rushing some elements of the plot? Those are questions that will be answered next week.
 
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Speaking of the training between Ash and Cilan, did anyone else like how Ash was training Mijumaru/Oshawott to use his sword like Kotetsu's Samurott?

I know we may be a bit conflicted over Kotetsu, and his rivalry with Ash, but Ash actually learning from Kotetsu is a step in the right direction.
 
I was really happy to see Satoshi training Mijumaru at the start of this episode, if not a bit "wow rude" when Meloetta interrupted the battle. It was cute how Miju didn't want to fight against her, kinda sorta, but I guess they needed a way for Meloetta to sing for the episode to go somewhere, afterall. :3c

Larry and Meloetta's interactions were pretty cute, but, meh, he was pretty bland for such an important COTD.

But oh man...the Rocket parts...where do I begin. Sakaki and Satoshi's confrontation was...err...I expected it to be more exciting than that? But it was definitely intense, especially in the way that Persian jumped in like a spotter like that and it was kind of hard to take Sakaki seriously while he was riding his segway thing.

Overall, this episode felt more like a movie than part of the anime? It was kind of a weird feeling watching it like "is this still the show"
 
I wonder if Ash already met Giovanni in the Plasma eps, because this didn't make it look like he did.
 
I was surprised by the fact that there was NOT a motto! I hope we have (a good one) next episode. Though I think it is unlikely. As JJM don't seem to be the stars here, if there wasn't one motto today, I find it hard to believe that there will be one. Maybe in the end? After the end of TR, they may have some scene in which they decide what to do in the future! (It would be interesting if the motto was the original one, in the Radio Show they perform their old mottoes, so why not in the anime?)

I enjoyed the episode, though I think it wasn't perfect, there were some problems IMO:
- We should have seen MANY more TR grunts! The idea they've been creating over the years is that TR is a HUGE organization! So why only 4 grunts? Why not more? When I saw only JJM, Zager and Giovanni leaving the submarine I did not have the feeling "WOW, this will be the Grande Finale of the Supreme Organization of Evil called Team Rocket!".
- Though this was something nearly impossible, I would have liked to see Seviper and Carnivine. The idea I had from what Matori said was that they couldn't use their old Pokémon in Unova because it would attract, but when two people are flying with their jetpacks, wearing weird goggles and ATTACKING someone I don't think that it would make any difference if they used Sinnoh and Hoenn Pokémon! After all, we got to see Persian, Rhydon and Golem! But I can undertand this, the writers want to give Yamask and Woobat some screentime.
- The animation. I can't believe people are actually praising the animation for today! CGI stuff was very pretty, but the characters were really off! Particularly Giovanni, Jessie and James!

But is was a very good episode with a lot of nice touches (I enjoyed the BGM a lot). If the following episode is this good, this two-parter won't be a waste.
 
By the looks of things this episode must really be great (but an episode with Cynthia has to be great naturally). I'm already looking forward to seeing the dubbed version.

And, well, I just can't help but ask the Alder fans a simple questions once again: So far the Pokemon world had to be saved twice. Each time Cynthia was or will be there. In "The Battle Finale of Legend" she freed all the others and, as a consequence, protected the whole Pokemon world. This time it looks like her role in saving the world will once again be a significant one. Again, every time the world is in danger, Cynthia was or will be there to save the day. Sooo, the big question is: Where is Alder? :p
The writers chose Cynthia and they did it with a certain intention. To me it's crystal clear now that they want to make Cynthia appear superior to all the other champions.
(The fact alone that she's organizing another big event in a foreign region where she doesn't originally belong to speaks for itself)


One point of criticism though: Was that "crucifixion" scene really necessary? I know many Japanese are not particularly religious but that was really very very close to blasphemy and could easily hurt lots of people's religious feelings around the globe, including mine. I just hope PUSA will edit said scene because this is actually the first time that they've had a good and justified reason to edit something.
 
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Anyone feel those two Rocket grunts should have been Butch and Cassidy?

Hell no. The last thing we need is to waste time on who these two are when there's not much time to cram things in as they are.

I wonder if Ash already met Giovanni in the Plasma eps, because this didn't make it look like he did.

I think that's why the two just silently stared at each other. To not show one way or the other if the Plasma episodes really happened or not.


Speaking of those, I was a bit surprised we never got a scene of the TRio wondering where he's been. I guess Tomioka really wanted to avoid any possible reference to those episodes.
 
I watched it and I expected them to fit a lot more into the first episode than they did, but I'm still really excited to see what happens in next week's ep. I expect a lot to hit the fan.

I agree about the grunts. At the beginning, even in normal episodes we would see crowds of grunts. Maybe because they're in a faraway land, and Gio didn't give them vacation days.
Also, the music caught my ear more than once; lovely.

And Giovanni's hover-segway made me question his power, lol. Oh, wait, he has goggles to prove that.
Hmm, someone with a Pokemon that he always has with him but never puts in his Pokeball... sounds pretty familiar.

Can't wait for next week!
Also, THAT 3DS! DO WANT.
 
I feel they wasted too much time on Larry and that training segment. A good 5 minutes could have been cut from that.
 
Very underwhelming showdown between Ash and Giovanni. I feel like the skipped 2 parter has something to do with that...
 
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