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Final Thoughts On Team Flare's Arc

One thing I've gotta say though:
2b7240d740d163e46837ef9df4ce556c8fd213a7_hq.gif

THAT COMPLETE ZYGARDE WAS AWESOME!!!!!!
That and well it was a well executed villainous arc, better executed than Team Plasma back on BW, it gets an instant 10/10 for me
 
There has never been story arc as grand or epic as the Team Flare arc, and there will likely never be an arc that can live up to its spectacle. It is the culmination of all things that XY and XY&Z has started. An Avengers-like crossover where everyone participates and fights, where the stakes are high and the weight is real. It is simply proof that the anime can do villainous teams and arc justice and even make them better than whatever was presented in the games.

The Grand Climax of XY&Z, it all comes together. It takes the best aspects of the movies, the tag-along legendary McGuffin (aka GS Ball), the special crossovers, the source material and the aspects of other villainous team's stories (such as Black and White's Team Plasma) before mixing them into a blender and add their own twist to the story. Simply put, this is the movie we have all been waiting for since the OS series, only done in TV format. And if you have no intention of continue onward to Sun and Moon, this will be the grand conclusion for Ash's story.
 
Lion-Cub said:
We finally have reached the conclusion of the Team Flare arc and now the world is safe. Any last words on this arc as we approach the very end of the XY series,
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Absolutely awesome!!!!! Although I didn't understand the whole point of the"Z" Zygarde did just before defeating Lysandre. Was that just to humiliate him even more? Like not only am I going to defeat you, but i'm going to write my initial on you too?

But overall solid arc! Everyone at least had a part in it, no matter how small it was. It was nice to see even team flare think that lysandre is going to far( I'm talking about Malva) hopefully sun&moon can deliver even better on their villainous team. It seems like we're getting them early on so they can develop more.
 
I honestly didn't really care for the Team Flare arc. While I did watch the Mega Evolution specials and really enjoyed how they crossed over into the main series, it ultimately wasn't really the reason I watched XY. Before I talk more about the arc more, I want to establishment my thoughts on everything before it. I wanted to watch XY because I enjoyed how competent he was, along with some other things like the interactions he had with his companions and the character development. In the end though, I felt pretty unsatisfied due to how much they built up Ash wanting to win the league, plus the fact that it looked like he was going to win and ended up not doing so. Immediately after the league, the closing ceremony only got a whooping 30 seconds of screen time, then the world literally begins to end. To add to that loss, Ash also get captured by Lysandre. That feels like a severe amount of punishment to take in, which makes his loss feel really sour.

Now for the arc itself. I felt like it was pretty slow paced, as the first two episodes were just setup. The first one was just "I'm Lysandre and I hate you all", while the second episode was "Okay, so we need to do these things, so let's go do them". The third episode was where it started to pick up, but everything just happened so fast. Serena and Manon went to save Chespie, then they saved them. Clemont wanted to save his gym, so he saved his gym. And so on and so forth. Episode four was yet again more setup, establishing the Megalith having a Zygarde form and everyone wanting to kick its ass. Also, during the events of the first four episodes, we have this battle with Ash and Alain against Lysandre that takes forever to finish for some reason.

Episode five was the end of the arc, and as I wasn't too interested with the previous episodes, I wasn't sure how I would feel about it all. In the end, the day was saved, but it wasn't truly saved by Ash and Alain. They saved Chespie, but what ultimately did it was Zygarde Complete Form. The previous episodes established Ash and Alain as the protagonists of this arc, so for them to be outstages by Zygarde was anti-climatic, if not expected. It makes sense, but Zygarde did nothing but destroy Lumiose for three episodes and didn't help out until the last episode, so it's heroic actions felt a bit cheapened to me. I also thought the gym leaders returning was nice, but if they weren't there, there wouldn't have been much of a difference to the arc.

Overall, I wasn't really excited throughout the arc. Pokemon has had numerous "save the world" plots, and while this was admittedly one of the better ones in the anime, it felt somewhat hollow to me. The pacing was inconsistent, too much went on at once, and it completely overshadowed the league, which was being hyped up the past three years. Add to the fact how Alain was the one who won the league and eventually back stabbed Ash by not explaining himself, along with letting Ash get captured following his loss, and it's easy to see how the whole thing left a bitter taste in his mouth.

This might also be the last we see of Ash being this competent in a while, as the Sun & Moon series looks much more lighthearted than the XY series. Plus, isn't that a weird sequence of events? Ash loses because a Charizard had plot armor, then he could think to himself that it's not the end of the world and he should keep on trucking, only for the world to literally end. Then he saves the world and goes to school. I have no idea how any of the writers thought that sequence of events would make any sense, but I digress. This show was never meant to be taken seriously for its writing regardless.
 
Luigifan141 said:
I honestly didn't really care for the Team Flare arc. While I did watch the Mega Evolution specials and really enjoyed how they crossed over into the main series, it ultimately wasn't really the reason I watched XY. Before I talk more about the arc more, I want to establishment my thoughts on everything before it. I wanted to watch XY because I enjoyed how competent he was, along with some other things like the interactions he had with his companions and the character development. In the end though, I felt pretty unsatisfied due to how much they built up Ash wanting to win the league, plus the fact that it looked like he was going to win and ended up not doing so. Immediately after the league, the closing ceremony only got a whooping 30 seconds of screen time, then the world literally begins to end. To add to that loss, Ash also get captured by Lysandre. That feels like a severe amount of punishment to take in, which makes his loss feel really sour.

Now for the arc itself. I felt like it was pretty slow paced, as the first two episodes were just setup. The first one was just "I'm Lysandre and I hate you all", while the second episode was "Okay, so we need to do these things, so let's go do them". The third episode was where it started to pick up, but everything just happened so fast. Serena and Manon went to save Chespie, then they saved them. Clemont wanted to save his gym, so he saved his gym. And so on and so forth. Episode four was yet again more setup, establishing the Megalith having a Zygarde form and everyone wanting to kick its ass. Also, during the events of the first four episodes, we have this battle with Ash and Alain against Lysandre that takes forever to finish for some reason.

Episode five was the end of the arc, and as I wasn't too interested with the previous episodes, I wasn't sure how I would feel about it all. In the end, the day was saved, but it wasn't truly saved by Ash and Alain. They saved Chespie, but what ultimately did it was Zygarde Complete Form. The previous episodes established Ash and Alain as the protagonists of this arc, so for them to be outstages by Zygarde was anti-climatic, if not expected. It makes sense, but Zygarde did nothing but destroy Lumiose for three episodes and didn't help out until the last episode, so it's heroic actions felt a bit cheapened to me. I also thought the gym leaders returning was nice, but if they weren't there, there wouldn't have been much of a difference to the arc.

Overall, I wasn't really excited throughout the arc. Pokemon has had numerous "save the world" plots, and while this was admittedly one of the better ones in the anime, it felt somewhat hollow to me. The pacing was inconsistent, too much went on at once, and it completely overshadowed the league, which was being hyped up the past three years. Add to the fact how Alain was the one who won the league and eventually back stabbed Ash by not explaining himself, along with letting Ash get captured following his loss, and it's easy to see how the whole thing left a bitter taste in his mouth.

This might also be the last we see of Ash being this competent in a while, as the Sun & Moon series looks much more lighthearted than the XY series. Plus, isn't that a weird sequence of events? Ash loses because a Charizard had plot armor, then he could think to himself that it's not the end of the world and he should keep on trucking, only for the world to literally end. Then he saves the world and goes to school. I have no idea how any of the writers thought that sequence of events would make any sense, but I digress. This show was never meant to be taken seriously for its writing regardless.
Click to expand...

You're still salty about the league? Jeez, get over it man!
 
jonathan keller said:
You're still salty about the league? Jeez, get over it man!
Click to expand...
I'm just not a fan of the consequences of what followed it. The entire series was focused on Ash's badge quest and the league, so for the league to have bad writing only for it to get overshadowed by a side story plot feels really unsatisfying to me. I won't say any more because I don't want to go off topic, but the Team Flare arc didn't really excite me because it ultimately wasn't the reason I watched XY. I liked the character development for Alain, but the events of the Team Flare arc won't matter for the rest of the anime's run, and we all know that.
 
I can honestly understand your feelings regarding the league, because I honestly was furious as well that the writers let Alain beat Ash, after all signs pointed to Ash winning and it made sense from a story standpoint. This whole arc though made up kinda for the disappointments of the Kalos League to me at least. Honestly I loved every part of it and how it built up to the ultimate showdown of pretty much all of Kalos' important characters along with our heroes, against the Megalith Zygarde. This arc was so well handled and honestly surprised me because the anime rarely pulls off arcs this big and ambitious. There were tons of memorable moments and I love how everyone really got a big role to play. I loved every moment of this arc honestly.
 
Lion-Cub said:
I can honestly understand your feelings regarding the league, because I honestly was furious as well that the writers let Alain beat Ash, after all signs pointed to Ash winning and it made sense from a story standpoint. This whole arc though made up kinda for the disappointments of the Kalos League to me at least. Honestly I loved every part of it and how it built up to the ultimate showdown of pretty much all of Kalos' important characters along with our heroes, against the Megalith Zygarde. This arc was so well handled and honestly surprised me because the anime rarely pulls off arcs this big and ambitious. There were tons of memorable moments and I love how everyone really got a big role to play. I loved every moment of this arc honestly.
Click to expand...
It does seem like I'm in a minority and a lot of you guys did like the arc, and I can definitely see why. If you liked the arc, then I completely respect that as there was plenty of closure for characters like Clembot, Squishy, Alain, Marion, and Malva. Plus, it was definitely better than various arcs throughout the show, like Team Aqua/Magma and Team Plasma. However, I just wasn't feeling the Team Flare arc, but that's just me.
 
I don't understand how anyone can hate on this arc. I actually forgot this was a Pokemon series for a while because the level of animation, action sequences, and overall emotion throughout these five episodes felt like a hardcore Shonen series. Overall the X&Y story-line has really upped the stakes and maturity compared to previous series. Even if it's fairly generic at its core with what Lysandre's goal is, Team Flare in the anime just felt far more threatening than past team incarnations. The writers had to have been channeling the Pokemon Special manga in these episodes with them bringing in so many Kalos characters and even Steven for that final showdown.

Coming off the highly controversial Kalos league I can understand the salt (and to be honest I was disappointed as well but that doesn't change how good the league was for me). But people should not undermine what these five episodes accomplished for the first time in the entire anime franchise (in my personal opinion), which is actually successfully telling a story from the games without watered down nonsense or Team Rocket antics. Speaking of Team Rocket, I was highly impressed with their role in all of this. Based on the preview for next week it seems like Giovanni may have something to say on that as well. Definitely was nice to see Citron, Eureka and Serena get their time to shine as well.

As for Alan, not really sure how anyone can say he's done "horrible things". Yes, he's solely responsible for the gathering of MEGA energy Lysandre utilized but it's clear he was just being used and manipulated by Lysandre. He himself may feel guilty and may want to do something to make up for it, which is fine, but he doesn't deserve criticism because he was basically at the end of the day a grunt doing paid labor. His "payment" was the treatment of Manon's Chespin as far as he knew and he did not question what the big boss was doing because criticizing the boss could get you fired.

As the user above says, marathoning the entire arc like I just did last night does it justice. People said it had a slow start but I say the opposite. You guys may be used to two part specials at the most in this franchise but having a proper arc fleshed out the players involved and set the scale of the crisis. Compared to how the two parter in Hoenn quickly got rid of Team Aqua and Team Magma, as an example, I felt Flare's presence in the series lived up to the hype. Incorporating the Mega Evolution specials definitely added to the overall story and makes X&Y my personal favorite region in the anime.

Sadly what I see for Sun & Moon's anime looks like I may not feel nearly the same.
 
p0pp1i0D3f3nd3r said:
I Hate How Alain GOT AWAY with the terrible Things he did. and REMAINS the League Champion!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Well, they wrote themselves into a whole for the series by making Ash lose the league. Because if they do a rematch between Al
GurahkWeavile said:
He hasn't gotten away with it YET....we may get closure soon....
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Well... the way the NEP looks. Things are winding down. They're throwing a big party and there's a battle. He's not going to get in trouble or anything like that.
 
I felt like what really damped the Team Flare arc for me was its pacing issues. Like I said, nothing eventful really happened in the first second, and fourth episodes. Episodes three and five actually had events kick in. For episode three, a lot of the goals were established and then accomplished very soon after, feeling anti-climatic to me. In episode five, the first half of the episode is litterally Ash turning back on everyone getting attacked, then they keep saying "KEEP GOING SATOSHI". Then when they break into the Megalith, we have 17 people (I counted) saying "LET'S GO". Is any of that necessary? The second half of the episode also takes forever. Lysandre appears and says "All of you are going to die", then shoots lasers. This takes way longer than it should for some reason. Then Zygarde Complete shows up, crubstomps the Megalith, and that is that. The whole thing felt really slow and anti-climatic, and it was hard to care about it for me.

Another part of that is how inconsistent Team Flare themselves were throughout XYZ. We see them in the first episode, with a promising premise of chasing the group for Squishy. Then we see them again eight episodes later at the Terminus Cave. Then... they fall off the face of the Earth until now? Plus, we did see them in action one more time when Team Rocket attempted to get Z2. But nothing really came out of that encounter. Why did Team Rocket never make use of the information that Alain worked for Team Flare? Why did Team Flare never attempt to capture Squishy besides the Terminus Cave encounter? Why did Alain's involvement in Team Flare never show itself until the Team Flare arc itself? It would have been really interesting if Ash knew about it sometime after they first met and sometime before the league.

My point is, this Team Flare arc was not choreographed well. Plus the fact that it brushed off the league as soon as it was over like it meant nothing, and the whole thing comes off as anti-climatic. It was more of a Mega Evolution Special 5 than the conclusion to the XY anime. And I didn't like that, but that's just me.
 
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There were things to like, things to hate, and things that just don't add up... So what are my thoughts?

It felt pretty weird to me that it took 3 whole episodes for Ash and Alain to finally beat Lysandre, especially since their battle took place in episodes that didn't even focus on them. What is even stranger to me was Malva's involvement in that battle or lack there of in all honesty. Came in talking, but ultimately did nothing to help. Clemont got at least some dignity and time to shine, but Serena proves once again that if it's not a Showcase, she's basically background fodder. Was pretty irking to hear Mairin call Serena amazing when all she did was block attacks like any rational trainer would do when being attacked. Also, poor Mairin Flabebe... probably nothing but a withered flower and bones in that Pokeball. The Climax was pretty intense, but that's pretty much it. Probably the most action packed Villain arc, but execution was lacking compared to the Galactic arc. I'm not entirely sold it's the best one yet, but it did outshine the league... Excuse me while I wallow in despair for saying that.

What blows was this was Ash's team's last chance to redeem themselves and once again they all took the back seat to Greninja and Pikachu. First time Ash gets a fully evolved team and they somehow look even weaker then the Hoenn group which only had Grovyle, Swellow, and Glalie by the league.

I did like the action, suspense, destruction, and Gym Leader appearances though, nice little nod to region continuity
 
Saying Serena was fodder by doing nothing but defend is like saying the Gym Leaders and Champions were fodder for doing nothing but take out giant tentacles. But the fact of the matter is that they all played a specific role in either clearing a path and supporting Satoshi or keeping people from getting killed. Serena stopping that ice attack (not sure which attack it was) at least prevented the helicopter from smashing which would have hurt or killed her and the others inside. Would I liked to have seen more? Sure, but let's not discredit her stopping an attack from a likely fairly high level Pokemon.

I do agree when it came to Malva though. I kind of wish they explored a bit more of her thought process and had some build up to her switching sides. It felt a bit out of place.
 
The team Flare arc is the best villain arc that the anime ever had, even it surpassed the team Galactic ark! The buildup started with the first Mega Evolution episode and then it really started building up in the forth Mega Evolution episode. Things quickly gets dark and serious right after the Kalos league and everyone did their part of the crisis.
 
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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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