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Preview BW122 "Reshiram VS N! Beyond Truth and Ideals!!"

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Re: BW??? - Climax

It's not like the writers could have done anything to stop the earthquake from killing thousands of lives and prevent the cancellation of the episodes.

... you really just went there. Wow. No, I actually have not been living under a rock, I know why the 2-parter was cancelled. But the fact remains that the show's episodes are mapped out 9 months before the finished products are aired on TV, so while I understand why the series stumbled around and dropped things it was building up to from the beginning because of what happened, I believe they could have feasibly picked this back up a lot sooner than they ended up doing.

We only thought that it would last until October because we mislead ourselves into thinking so because we didn't consider that the writers could possible put in another saga after Episode N. The amount of advertising has never meant that its amount would equate to there being more episodes. It could have meant that, but it could have also meant to show how important the small arc was. I'd hardly call it poor planning.

Yeah, I think there's a good reason why no one considered the likelihood of another saga after Episode N: there's literally nothing else for Best Wishes to cover long-term. The main story is over. By the end of Episode N they'll have pretty much shown off all there was to adapt from the sequel games. Even the Genesect stuff will likely be wrapped up by the early summer. And Best Wishes is the first series to have sagas this short (and actually separate their sagas by name in the Japanese version); not that I'm putting incredibly heavy thought into counting up the weeks, but I'm pretty sure even the Orange Islands saga will end up being longer (at best only exactly as long) than whatever follows after Episode N. It's a bad medium of being too short to sustain a real story and too long to solely be nothing but filler until October.

Really, Best Wishes has come off like the most ADD storytelling I've ever seen. Instead of weaving things in together to flow naturally, it just abruptly switches gears on a whim. That's why I find it poorly planned. I just find it a pity that the one thing in this series that had some legitimate potential in quality is going to all be blown in just three months; I got this feeling that whatever comes after Episode N will be an afterthought by comparison and hardly "conclusion" material.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

Adding on to what Shinneth said, I've come to the conclusion the reason why Best Wishes is so messy is because of the pure lack of time between saga games.

Had we gotten a Hoenn remake instead of X and Y or had X and Y come out in 2014 opposed to 2013, this would have been a whole different saga.

Guarantee it would.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

No, things would've been different if the earthquake hadn't happened and messed everything up. Remakes would've changed nothing.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

The comparison falls flat because unlike the other evil teams, we pretty much had to wait for TWO YEARS to get any sort of screentime out of Team Plasma (with reasonable doubt that they were going to appear at all thanks to the banned 2-parter), so even though Team Galactic didn't get as many episodes, they were introduced to us much earlier on and their saga was spaced out over a much longer period of time in which we got used to them and had a lot more time in which to actually discuss and speculate about them. And barring the current lack of any other news of what lies in store for the anime beyond Episode N, and given that Ash's main reason for being in Unova has been blown on the most rushed League in the anime's history (since it was presumed by many that they weren't rushing the League for no reason - and Episode N was the only available reason there was), and how far in advance Episode N itself was advertised, then I don't think it's crazy to think they were somehow going to stretch Episode N through the majority of the wait until Gen VI.

Except that this time neither Ash nor any of his travelling partners have any ongoing quest, this isn't like AG or DP where the evil team story formed a secondary plot thread. Given the setup the writers have to work with (some of it a consequence from their previous blunders, some of it not), their only other choice was to spread the Plasma plot insanely thin until October. The expectation that an evil team arc would sustain the anime until X & Y is still completely unrealistic.

Maybe it's just me, but making us wait over 2 years to introduce Team Plasma only to completely blow its load by cramming all their episodes together so that we only get to see them for a couple of months out of the 3 years total this series is taking is just very poor planning and I much preferred how they gradually integrated teams into the series in the past, even if they didn't have as many episodes overall. If Best Wishes still had a reason to keep going beyond merchandising (having an actual story to tell, that is), I likely would have overlooked this more, but now all the hype just for this short period of time when there's still an empty space more than twice the size of what Episode N that they have nothing useful to do with other than introduce us Gen VI Pokemon? No, this is screams at me how poorly-planned this series is.

I don't see how condensing the episodes changes anything, even if they didn't there is still the same gaping hole to fill, it's only the way it's being filled that is different. Whether the writers could have introduced Plasma earlier and built up the arc over the last 2 years is irrelevant, for reasons known only to them they didn't and all that matters now is what they decide to do with the time left. Maybe you're right and cramming the episodes together will wind up being a bad choice if the writers fail to come up with anything worthwhile to sustain the series until October, but regardless that content isn't going to change substantially just because they've decided to space the N arc differently. If anything, it gives them more time to put thought into what to do with the non-Plasma episodes. It's possible that plot threads from Episode N may even extend beyond the climax of the arc. As far as we know, this is presumably the conclusion of the Zekrom/Reshiram story, there's still the Genesect plot to account for. There's no sense in complaining about what's going to follow when we know absolutely nothing about it yet.
 
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Re: BW??? - Climax

... you really just went there. Wow. No, I actually have not been living under a rock, I know why the 2-parter was cancelled.

I don't think I said anywhere in what you quoted, or implied that I thought that you didn't know why they were cancelled. I'm sorry if you thought I did ^^;.

But the fact remains that the show's episodes are mapped out 9 months before the finished products are aired on TV, so while I understand why the series stumbled around and dropped things it was building up to from the beginning because of what happened, I believe they could have feasibly picked this back up a lot sooner than they ended up doing.

I don't think 9 months would have been enough. That's too close, and it's not like they could have just came up with something new for Team Plasma in that time when they had plenty of other things to deal with.

Yeah, I think there's a good reason why no one considered the likelihood of another saga after Episode N: there's literally nothing else for Best Wishes to cover long-term. The main story is over.

The writers can make up a new plot to cover long-term for the coming months even if the main story is over.

By the end of Episode N they'll have pretty much shown off all there was to adapt from the sequel games.

Having an opportunity to make something up for themselves. Something anime only, like the Orange Islands.

Even the Genesect stuff will likely be wrapped up by the early summer. And Best Wishes is the first series to have sagas this short (and actually separate their sagas by name in the Japanese version); not that I'm putting incredibly heavy thought into counting up the weeks, but I'm pretty sure even the Orange Islands saga will end up being longer (at best only exactly as long) than whatever follows after Episode N. It's a bad medium of being too short to sustain a real story and too long to solely be nothing but filler until October.

Likely. It's not necessarily filler because it wasn't adapted from the games. I don't see how a plot having that many episodes would be bad. A real story doesn't need 30+ episodes.

Really, Best Wishes has come off like the most ADD storytelling I've ever seen. Instead of weaving things in together to flow naturally, it just abruptly switches gears on a whim. That's why I find it poorly planned.

There's nothing poorly planned about adding storytelling or moving onto new stories. Things could still be tied.

I got this feeling that whatever comes after Episode N will be an afterthought by comparison and hardly "conclusion" material.

Cilan and Iris' stories being wrapped up, along with their rivalries, closing everything, giving every BW! character a chance for closure before the XY series is good enough conclusion material. We'll see after the Episode N, then.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

I got this feeling that whatever comes after Episode N will be an afterthought by comparison and hardly "conclusion" material.

Cilan and Iris' stories being wrapped up, along with their rivalries, closing everything, giving every BW! character a chance for closure before the XY series is good enough conclusion material. We'll see after the Episode N, then.
This is pretty much the only thing we might be able to look forward to if Episode N is going to end with 13 to 14 episodes. I'm surprised it would last only that shortly because all the hype and Gen 6 being released in October made it seem Team Plasma was going to stretch over the remaining months.

I guess the wrap up of everyone's stories would be most likely. We need better closure on Bianca (maybe have Cheren appear one last time as her friend), and there's still Georgia vs Iris that wasn't solved. Cabernet didn't have her revenge on Cilan just yet - or any sort of rivalry wrap up. It would be nice if Stephan had another episode focused on him, and there's Trip who got the worst League treatment. Maybe - just MAYBE Trip gets a proper finalized 6 on 6 battle against Ash (and I said MAYBE). YES - another tournament, but with better details than the Unova League. Giving it roughly around 3 months for the last tournament would be more than enough, and all they need to do is squeeze in fillers.

Or, they could do a PWT and bring in all the past region's champions - which, of course, has near zero chance of happening.

Then if there's still time left, Ash would return to Pallet town and there would be the usual "Gary told me about the new region so I'm going there" episode. And yes, it doesn't HAVE to be Gary - it could be Tracey or Prof. Oak or whoever.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

No, things would've been different if the earthquake hadn't happened and messed everything up. Remakes would've changed nothing.

I do have to wonder how different it would have been if the two-parter had been able to air. Team Plasma wasn't heavily focused in any of the following episodes shortly after it was suppose to air and while they probably would have been able to edit out any brief scene that involved them, I don't know if they would have been able to change any episodes that featured them that were already finished and ready to air. It might have created a better lead into this arc, but I'm not sure how different that would have been in the grand scheme of things.

I would have liked to see them incorporate Team Plasma throughout the series instead of just one arc, but that's mainly because I would have liked to see more of N and the storyline from the first B/W games. Still, this climax does sound interesting, even though being shorter than I expected is still a bit disappointing, so maybe it can at least provide a decent bit of closure for N and Team Plasma in spite of its length.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

No, things would've been different if the earthquake hadn't happened and messed everything up. Remakes would've changed nothing.

I disagree, only because if episodes are indeed planned ahead of time(which I learned on this forum btw), I don't see how on Earth the writers didn't have an idea how to end this series.

When all was said and done, if Pokemon X and Y had been delayed for 2015 instead, we would've most likely had a DP-like season I bet. The writers knew this saga would be short so they saved themselves the time and energy which is why everything was all over the place.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

This is it?? Well, what a ride. What a ride. Ash is gonna beat the sh!t out of N and he'll tip his hat to Iris and Cilan and leave to go back home. Well...
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

The timing of all this nitpicking could not possibly be worse. Ngh.

The expectation that an evil team arc would sustain the anime until X & Y is still completely unrealistic.

Best Wishes as a whole is unrealistic. Nothing came of expecting things to make sense in the past (the handling of the League pretty much proved how futile that is), so I don't put it past the staff to do these unrealistic and illogical things. Crazy is as crazy does.

There's no sense in complaining about what's going to follow when we know absolutely nothing about it yet.

I'll decide when I see it fit to complain about stuff, thank you.

HumanDawn said:
I don't think I said anywhere in what you quoted, or implied that I thought that you didn't know why they were cancelled. I'm sorry if you thought I did ^^;.

No, what bothered me was the whole "the writers couldn't stop that earthquake just to make the series better" comment. Initially I wanted to avoid that but it's very easy to take that as either a condescending insult or a guilt trip.

I don't think 9 months would have been enough. That's too close, and it's not like they could have just came up with something new for Team Plasma in that time when they had plenty of other things to deal with.

I didn't say it should have happened within precisely 9 months. That's just the approximate time how far things are planned ahead. There's a pretty big gap between 9 months and 2 years, and IMO Best Wishes wasn't really doing much of dire importance story-wise during this timeframe that they weren't rushing in the sloppiest way possible. Hence why I believe Episode N could have been integrated into the series much earlier on than it did.

The writers can make up a new plot to cover long-term for the coming months even if the main story is over.

Yes, they could. It's just jarring that such a thing is possible since they haven't resorted to blatant filler arcs not connected to the games at all since the Orange Islands. Since the staff showed how to manage their time better with the series since the OI arc, I simply find it sloppy that they may be resorting to this again. I just believe this would have worked out a lot better if Ash's main story wasn't rushed and poorly maintained, and having these Episode N events happening while the main story was still happening would have done so much more for Ash's progression as a trainer and character... or so I believe. Instead they're squandering what's quite possibly the most interesting and most intense moments of Best Wishes all in one go with... whatever the hell follows this.

I don't see how a plot having that many episodes would be bad. A real story doesn't need 30+ episodes.

In concept it isn't bad, no. But I find Best Wishes' writing so horrifically terrible, so I don't think they're going to make good use of that time they have left. They've already poorly managed the time they've had this far into the series as far as I'm concerned. None of what they do makes any sense to me.

There's nothing poorly planned about adding storytelling or moving onto new stories. Things could still be tied.

Again, not bad in concept, but the Best Wishes clause makes this a mess. I'm serious when I say they're totally ADD with their story structure. They even threw in a "Next Time... A New Beginning!" right before Best Wishes Season 2 even though it really wasn't a new beginning at all. Simply put, I find they don't blend their multiple storylines well at all. I would really like to see how the true end of Best Wishes will measure up to the actual climax of Episode N, since that's where the stakes are high as well as the tension. Once we get through this climax, I can only see things going downhill due to loss of scope.

Cilan and Iris' stories being wrapped up, along with their rivalries, closing everything, giving every BW! character a chance for closure before the XY series is good enough conclusion material.

The amount of fucks I give for any of these prospects: Zero. Mainly because nearly all of the characters' stories have been horribly handled throughout the series (IN MY OPINION I compulsively feel the need to put this in every other paragraph so I don't get nasty accusations); hence I have no faith in whatever "resolution" is in store fore them. I'm quite solid in my belief Episode N's climax would be a vastly superior way to end the series, so... that's that.

And that's all I'm gonna say about this since I'm finding it increasingly challenging to dodge talking about the state of the series post-Episode N, and I'm heavily annoyed that my mere reaction and opinion of the handling of Episode N in general is going under this much unnecessary scrutiny. Last time I checked, this isn't a debate thread. I shouldn't have to justify my views to anybody if I'm not addressing anyone in particular, you know?
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

I sincerely hope that this is not the climax to Episode N or BW series. Come on,, we just roughly had some 8+ eps(BW109-BW116 & 3 eps yet to be numbered,may be climatic). These episodes just focus on N as just a minor recurring character and we dint even get to see him in a full episode. Nothing about his past explained(may be we will in the 3-parter), but then climax is in near future without even knowing who the real villain is??(Ghetsis-hologram not enuf). So, there must be something up next after dealing with Reshiram. We still dont know why pikachu was zapped by Zekrom, and ther are questions that need to be answered????
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

It's been confirmed that this is the conclusion of Episode N. From the look of things, N will join Ash and co. for as many as nine episodes. There is enough time to do him justice.

Ghetsis is just a stereotypical villain in B2W2, anyway. But for all we know he could appear before the last two episodes.

It's high time that the anime tackled a storyline without dragging it out too much by cluttering it with fillers.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

Its obviously a short mini-arc just to give N and Plasma some screentime they neglected to do over the entire span of BW.

Its quite obvious there will be yet another new opening for the end of BW, probably a final tournament for Ash.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

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Re: BW??? - Climax

Wow do N and Reshiram look like BAMFs in that second pic! And they're gonna go into N's childhood in these episodes!

So excited.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

This looks like this is really going To Be Good Here.
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

I assume that the scans pertain to several episodes (some are from the April climax, but most of them seem to be from the unannounced March episodes) due to the multitude of characters and lack of airdate, but is there any way to know for sure? And what does the magazine say about Ash and N's dispute?
 
Re: BW??? - Climax

Thins are just really getting started with THE RISE OF TEAM PLASMA IS HERE and with the upcoming episodes that are going to be great.
 
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