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Review BW100: Iris Returns to the Village of Dragons!

This episode is better then last week's episode by far.

However, I didn't care about Shobu at all.

Atleast Iris did a decent job and it was kind of funny Ash and Cilan didn't do anything special today. But I don't mind.
 
Loved seeing Kibago being used, Iris learning something from the Elder, apologizing to Shaga out of the blue like that, and learning about the Dragon Village.

Nothing super duper amazing, but a good episode and set-up for next week.

The most earsplitting moment, Sanzadora biting Iris' arms and her screaming.
 
All in all a decent episode. Nothing incredibly standout in terms of its plot, but it was interesting to give Iris the spotlight for a change and show what she's capable of. Really looking forward to next week. :3
 
I don't get the progression for Iris in this episode - first she can't handle her own Dragonite getting in a fight, and needs the elder to step in, but by the end of the episode she's mastered calming Pokemon down to do it for someone else? Not to mention that her tactic for doing so is getting four Pokemon to gang up on one to stop it - you know, like what Officer Jenny was going to do to her Dragonite before she insisted that she could calm it down with words alone?

I did like the little bit of a battle between the Haxorus and Dragonite at the start, it's about as physical as we've seen a battle in a while, which is really what you want to see out of two powerful dragons. I'm also sure that the COTD was saying something interesting, seemed like a nice character - look forward to seeing that in the dub. Likewise I enjoyed how Axew responded to coming home and how Iris actually seemed genuinely happy at times - her personality in the early parts of this episode was the kind of Iris I'd want to see all the time, unfortunately in this episode like most it gets overridden by do-no-wrong expert Iris.

Evolving and becoming unresponsive is a really pained storyline at this point - but equally it's one that should be worked through with the trainer themselves, not a third party. Iris has her own problem to deal with - how many times did Cynthia have to help Iris with Dragonite? And now part way through this episode her dragon mastery suddenly shines through. Though it's just like Ash hugging it out with a flaming Monferno in the end - I don't think calming down a Pokemon is the same as being a master of dragon types - the techniques are more or less the same regardless of Pokemon type. Yet apparently this was recognised as her having dragon master potential.

The use of Drayden in that context is odd - the Drayden backstory, unless it's massively retconned next week, is about Excadrill, not Axew and not about her Dragon Master goal. I don't see why they were connected in the way that they were in this episode, though admittedly understanding what was said might have helped there.

Still, there's parts of this episode I enjoyed, though it's overshadowed as so many Iris episodes are by her always ending on top. Hopefully the last ditch attempt to save an Iris plotline will end next episode and we can have at least some of the league focus on Ash.
 
A nice episode, unlike other typical Iris episodes.
Although I didn't give a rat's ass about Shobu, but I did like the whole 'Dragon-feeling' during the entire episode.
 
I don't get the progression for Iris in this episode - first she can't handle her own Dragonite getting in a fight, and needs the elder to step in, but by the end of the episode she's mastered calming Pokemon down to do it for someone else?

When she was calming Hydreigon down, she was quite obviously trying to imitate what she'd seen the Elder do to calm down Dragonite and Haxorus. I thought that bit was great, since she was actually learning and applying skills she'd observed instead of having them just come out of nowhere like in the past.

Other than that, this was a standard set-up episode, and Shaobu was pretty uninteresting.
 
'kay... what Ash did say about the elder for Iris give him a mean look?
 
When she was calming Hydreigon down, she was quite obviously trying to imitate what she'd seen the Elder do to calm down Dragonite and Haxorus. I thought that bit was great, since she was actually learning and applying skills she'd observed instead of having them just come out of nowhere like in the past.
Which really should have been the role of the trainer who owned the Pokemon, not Iris. I think Iris would get more development out of watching/encouraging the COTD overcome her obvious hesitancy for her own Pokemon using the tactics shown by the elder - so that the actual development for Iris would come by her working with Dragonite, not doing it for someone else. I fear the events of this episode mean that Iris has checked the 'ability to calm dragon types' box and will now be perfect with Dragonite, without ever actually getting to the root cause of that.

Again though, the elder more or less did what Cynthia did with Dragonite (and to be fair, basically what Iris did in Dragonite's first episode) - as well as the way Ash and other trainers have reacted to other rampaging Pokemon. Putting their body on the line isn't out of the ordinary and certainly not in my view a demonstration of anything specific to dragon types or the lesson the Elder gave as such.
 
Tell me I'm not the only one who finds it odd to see Shaga lurking in the bushes and watching everyone.
 
Tell me I'm not the only one who finds it odd to see Shaga lurking in the bushes and watching everyone.

one image to describe this
shaga.png
 
Admittedly, if it were not for Ash and Cilan, Iris would not have gotten this far, but it still seems empty. I have personally gone through my own revelation that Dragon types are no different than any other pokemon, and thus have come to accept using them in game. I will even say this saga has shown the real difficulty in training dragons: they learn things slowly. However, for being long touted as being difficult to control, this is not what I expected out of something like this at all. Dragonite is the closest we've come, and even that was BSed up the yin yang. If I were to believe this, then any trainer worth their salt would be able to train them, and that is not what I was led to believe. Only an exceptional trainer; the best.

I say all this because Iris's development seems to have ended. I don't know if she can defeat Drayden, I highly doubt it, but I don't see anything more that can be done other than to learn how to battle more effectively. All of Iris's development culminated in one thing, and that is the ability to listen, which was done long ago with Excadrill. After that, nothing else mattered, she was Dragon Jesus. As a dragon fan, I am disappointed. I've known about this for a while, but I guess now it has come together for me. It's far from over, anyone can see that, but after this, it might as well be over.
 
An entertaining, if somewhat predictable ep. Though I do question Iris's tactics for calming an enraged Dragon.

Step 1-Back it into a corner.
Step 2-Jump on it.
Step 3-Tell it's okay.

Still, nice to see Iris actually use all of her pokes for once. No one was left out, and Emolga clamping down on Dragonite's head was kinda cute.
 
I have placed my episode review in spoiler tags. Feel free to read it.
So here we are... After 100 episodes and more than 2 years of waiting, Ash and co. have finally arrived to Iris's hometown, the Village of Dragons. At first glance, it might seem like a typical homecoming episode. Iris reunites with the elder who gave her Axew, the other main characters stay on the sidelines, and some interesting plot device happens that makes things rather hectic. Well, in this case, it seems to combine those elements of a homecoming episode with the "generic" filler in which Ash and co. assist with a "COTD's" situation. More than half of the episode was spent on Iris reuniting with her "childhood friend but we never saw her up until now" Shobu, who happens to own the only non-legendary fifth gen Dragon-type pokemon who has yet to debut in the anime: Zweilous. She actually owns two Zweilous, and one of them evolved into a Hydreigon near the middle of the episode who (like many other COTD pokemon who had evolved half-way through an episode) had a complete change in personality and caused a lot of destruction.

Of course, Iris is a up-and-coming "Dragon Master," so she obviously steps up to the plate to calm down the Hydreigon. I'm a bit relieved that Fujita did not write this episode, because otherwise he would have given Iris a special power that can instantly read a Dragon-type pokemon's heart. Since another writer constructed this episode and had reminded us viewers that Iris needs to put some effort in to calm down a Dragon-type, it was obvious that Iris was going to get up close and personal to solve this little issue.

The one aspect of the episode that I did like about this episode was that Iris actually used her freaking pokemon to assist her. When was the last time that she had actually called out her reserves at the same time? It was also nice that Iris even called out Axew, and that Axew worked alongside Excadrill to calm Hydreigon down once it landed. I also liked seeing Emolga climb on top of Dragonite's head to help it fight Hydreigon in the skies, even though it had been made clear in the past that Dragonite can get a bit wild sometimes. It took some damn effort and observation skills from Iris to actually calm down her friend's pokemon. And for those who just do not plain like Iris at all, she does get bit in both arms by Hydreigon's mouth claws.

If it were not for the fact that most of Iris's pokemon had disobeyed her at some point and that the writers just magically had all of them obey Iris after only a few seconds of emotional bonding, I would have been more accepting of this episode's outcome. Indeed Iris did struggle with getting her Dragonite to stop attacking a Haxorus during the start of the episode, and she still has problems getting it to obey her commands. Even though the elder calmed Dragonite down near the start of the episode, how is this enough for Dragonite to obey its own trainer just moments later? Realistically, Iris would not have been able to get all of her disobedient pokemon to obey her, much less work together. Just seeing Emolga and Dragonite cooperating with each other at all cannot be called anything but a DEM. So yes, another problem swiftly and magically solved because the writers seem to prefer Iris to do anything but develop and change on her own; her pokemon and the Hydreigon were responsible for the issue and Iris had to be the one to calm them down.

And what is with Drayden lurking in the bushes, observing Iris, and making assumptions that Iris has the potential to become a powerful Dragon Master? Iris is already practically at that level without much growth on her part, and all of the techniques that she had used to calm the Hydreigon down in this episode could have also worked on pokemon with different types.

Has Iris really developed throughout the course of her time on the main cast to justify Drayden's decision to battle her again? Nope. Was there any true exposition on Iris's character outside of the fact that she had a childhood friend who was just introduced here to create a conflict for this episode? Nope.

Overall, this was an average episode. The episode slated to air in two weeks seems to combine what will most likely be a rushed gym battle with Iris's "true backstory" (the writers seem to rewrite Iris's past a lot, don't they?).
 
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When she was calming Hydreigon down, she was quite obviously trying to imitate what she'd seen the Elder do to calm down Dragonite and Haxorus. I thought that bit was great, since she was actually learning and applying skills she'd observed instead of having them just come out of nowhere like in the past.

Actually, Iris has done this before. Only once, but in the episode with the three Deino at the daycare, the way Iris got the timid Deino to warm up to her was explicitly shown to be a technique used by her village elder to calm down a Druddigon in a similar scenario.

I'll admit this is a much better way for Iris to do her dragon-whispering than just coming up with solutions all on her own, but did we really need to see it again? :\ Regardless it all boils down to the same old shit we've seen a dozen times before and there's no real sense of progression in any of these. The way Iris solved this problem really does highlight how the writing of an episode literally bends to her will, since these practices did not fly at all back when Officer Jenny & co. were dealing with Dragonite not too long ago. This episode sure doesn't make me excited for the next one, but that's hardly a surprise...
 
Just a very ordinary episode.. its shown Iris is having greater potential and is on the road of becoming dragon master.. its plausible but doing same thing again and again wil just frustrate the ppl watching the anime.. its all nicely done calming hydreigon after becoming confused/frightened of evolving. good to see tag of emolga and dragonite.. when emolga was riding on dragonite's head it reminds of the good old orange league in which pikachu was clinging to dragonite's head eventually winning.. there s no need of drayden to hide and show up just to call iris to gym battle. nevertheless better than other eps.. waiting for next one
 
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Hey, Hikari! What a surprise! You are so... different.

I don't see why no one liked this character of the day. As I said before, she's a cutie. I wish more dragon girls would be more present in this show from now on.
 
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