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Don Battle Tournament: overall evaluation?

What was your overall opinion of the Don Battle Tournament?

  • It was awesome in every way!!

    Votes: 5 15.6%
  • It was pretty good, but not as good as the DP Tag tournament

    Votes: 11 34.4%
  • It was descent/ok

    Votes: 10 31.3%
  • It was horrible

    Votes: 6 18.8%

  • Total voters
    32

Rocketshipper

SOOOOONANSU!!
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So since the Don battle tournament has officially concluded, I thought it would be interesting to have a topic discussion the event as a whole and getting everyone's overall opinions about how things went and everything.

Judgeing by a lot of the responses in the BW 44 topic, I'd conclude that the response to this arc was mostly negative, which kind of surprises me. Personally, I enjoyed this tournament arc quit a lot. It wasn;t as good as the tag tournament from DP, but I still had a lot of fun with it. The thing I liked best was getting to see all the rival characters together again and all the comedic banter and antics we had going on on the sidelines. Bianca chasing Zorua around constantly, Langley and Iris' constant back and forth, Cabernett trying to one-up Cilan at every turn, I was laughing quit a bit in these 4 episodes. I think my favorite moment overall was when Cabernett went into a whole dramatic speach about *poor* Snivy having to eat Cilan's food...and then Snivy just smackes her away with Vinewip like an annoying fly. And Kenyan/Stephan is now a definite favorite of mine, I hope he'll get to show up a lot more, maybe become this season's equivalent of Barry.

This tournament also restored my faith in the battling for the show. To be honest I hadn;t been really impressed with most of the battles we've seen in BW up to this pint. I thought ALL three gyms were pretty sub-par in terms of writing and animation, the other trainer battles havn't faired much better. Only ones before this point that were really that memorable for me were Stephan vs Ash, and Ash vs Trip in their 3rd match. But I thought all of these battles were really good, honestly. Trip vs Cilan is now my fave BW battle; loved seeing Trip lose against a character you might not expect, and I thought the battle itself had good stratigy and animation. Loved seeing Mugyo and Volcarona's pre-evo get screen time. Stephan's Sawk was well animated in its moves...great to see Ash use Palpitoad for the first time, and Iris vs Ash was well animated and exciting too. I didn;t even really have much iof a problem with Kibago learning a new move like that vs Luke. Only battle that dissapointed me I guess was Snivy vs Pawniard, and only because it just left me wanting more Snivy! Snivy seriously needs more screentime I think.
 
I liked the character interaction the most, and I think that was the whole point. That's also why there was so MUCH of it.

That being said I did like a lot of the battles too. Loved Iris Vs. Kenyan, Ash Vs. Langely AND Burungly, Cilan Vs. Trip, etc.

Overall it was good, but not the best tournament.
 
We already have a thread comparing and contrasting this tournament to Tag Tournament in the Orchid Live Caster. I don't anything that is said here, will be any different from has already been said in that thread.

But I'll reiterate for the hell of it, if the tournament itself wasn't custom built to have Iris win, it would've been okay. It wasn't horrible, but it didn't live up to alot of it's potential. Iris was given far to many perks.
 
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Needless to say, everyone had high expectations of the tournament (including me). And at the same time, I was the one of few persons who actually turned out liking the arc.
 
I hate TrollIris, but I like Regular Iris, and since there was no Regular Iris, Luke was in the tourney for NO(good)REASON, Ash used Pikachu against Excadrill, Bianca was as boring as ever, Stephan returned, Trip lost to an EX-Gym leader, No evos, no new moves for Ash's Palpitoad(who I like a lot, however), Emolga's magic behavior change, Sawk debuting without Throh, No Elesa, No Rocket vs. Plasma Plot till the end, No characterization for Dino(who I feel shall make a return), Too much QUACKS INC.(Cilan and Burgundy), too many COTAs(characters of the arc), these episodes were horrible!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Well the only thing I find being the downside to this tournament was the win(s) and the overall conclusion. Otherwise this tournament was entertaining throughout, mostly because of the character interactions. The gags kind of got old quick but nevertheless they were funny and memorable. The battles have improved and there were a couple of strategies being used. I like this tournament but I felt the writers rushed and filled most of the episodes with dialogue and gags. Would have liked a few more developments but oh well.
 
The overused gags kind of killed the tournament for me. No, the Kenyan mispronunciation is not funny, nor is the whiny "Zorroa come back!" thing Bel kept doing.

The arc also made me annoyed with Bel, which surprises me since I actually liked her when she first appeared. She treated Luke like shit and really got on my nerves.

Finally, Yoshihiko was a case of wasted potential.
 
Yoshihiko?


The only thing that bothered me with Iris's whole thing is *maybe* the emolga bit. However...looking back at BW 28, which aired dubbed recently, I'm not really sure in the end that the writers really meant for "emolga disobeys Iris" to be some big multi-part thing, like with Charizard and Ash or Mamoswine and Dawn. Emolga's misbehavior was a general symptom of it being a selfish brat, but by the end of the episode its behavior had put it and the other pokemon in danger, and it turned around and aided Snivy and then tried to give it the apple as a peace offering...so maybe the intention was that Emolga had already learned its lesson in that episode? of course if it was, it seems that the writers should have done it a bit better, since so many people were expecting Emolga to still be disobediant.

As far as the rest, I don't really get the complaints that much; pokemon have evolved or learned moves in the middle of battle before, so it didn't really bother me that Axew learned a new move this time. The poor thing needs some new moves, it only had two before! And I don;t get the complaints about Exadrill vs Pikachu either; it was a great battle action wise, and not one-sided at all despite the weakness, Ash put up a good fight, its not like she OHKOed him. Plus its a *smart* move for Iris to use a pokemon with an advantage. Suddenly its unfair for a trainer to win with a type advantaged pokemon? Also, that combination of pokemon was pretty much inevitable no matter what; each trainer chose three pokemon to use for the tournament, and we'd already seen Emolga/Kibago and Palpitoad/Snivy in full battles earlier in the contest. Pikachu and Exadrill were the only ones who hadn't battled yet.
 
It's most awesome tournament episode ever!
Ash, Iris, and Cilan gathered with their rivals, I like it!!!
I remebered with me meeting my old friends and rivals at the school party!

Those episodes (BW041-044) were awesome! Even more than Hearthome Tag Battle!!! ^_^.
I like the battle between Ash and Iris. And I hope Iris challenges Trip as he had promised to battle her
 
I liked the matches in the DP tag battle just a little more, but the interactions between characters here were way better, namely Bianca and Zorua.

And seeing Trip lose for once was satisfying too. And to Cilan, no less.
 
why do people get bothered so much about emolga obeying? I could care less, personally. It had pretty good one on one matches and kinda highlighted some characters which I am pretty sure we will see again in the pokemon league .
 
No "Meh" option?

Eh..I didn't feel anything while watching this. Some lol's here and there, but nothing else. I felt more when watching the Tag Tournament...

Though, freaking yes to Shooti loosing.
 
I'll say this for the Don Battle Tournament. Really in the DP tournament, there was really focus on only one real rivalry, Ash's rivalry with Paul. Brock didn't have any, and neither did Dawn. So really, there was a lot less to cover than there was in the Don Battle tournament.



Battle wise, I'd say they're pretty equal. I really don't get how people are taking a problem with Iris being the champ. She beat Kenyan and Luke fair and square, even if the latter battle was lucky. But then, again, it's not like Ash has ever won a battle on luck. It's not like Ash has ever had battles handed to him for the sake of the story.....


Oh wait... :-/
 
When the Don Battle was first announced, I thought "Hey, that sounds pretty cool. A mini-tournament, just like the Tag Battle from D&P". But then it emerged all the battles were one-on-one, which kinda let it down. No long, drawn out battles. Just a ton of quickies.

I was also looking forward to seeing Bel, who is quickly going down the Jun route of almost always seen suffering defeats, maybe show some battling strength but nope. Instead, Keniyan quickly tosses her ass out of the tournament they she spends the rest of the time chasing Zorua is one of the most needlessly drawn out jokes I've ever seen (and also, am I the only person sick to death of seeing her Chillarmy all the time? That girl needs some new Pokemon.)

Yoshihiko is another point of contentnion. I mean, you had a guy in a Miruhog costume! Just imagine the huge comedy potential! But no, he pulls a quick pose at Iris (leading to the face seen in my avatar) then he's never seen again, just a quick shot of his Miruhog being knocked out by Emonga.

Plus, I think it's pretty funny that the producers considered Gamagaru vs. Darrumaka to be a cliffhanger especially when the battle was wrapped up in the first ten seconds of the next episodes.

I think the only good things about the tournament that I liked was Gamagaru was finally used by Satoshi and the interactions between Dent and Cabernet.
 
The Don battle was just as adverage as all the other mini tornaments from the tag, whirl, grass, princess and all of the other crap. They all had something someone didn't like about it but what's more important was that everyone was participating and actual training was being done.
 
Please note: The thread is from 13 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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