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Review JN013: Satoshi VS Dande! The Road to the Strongest!!

I don’t understand Pokémon strength sometimes like Cynthia vs Paul as Paul used 3 Pokémon to battle Garmchomp then tottera his strongest Pokémon lost with one hit

Leon vs Ash was great as Cynthia proven to most powerful trainer of Sinnoh, Leon u think he hold back against ash pikachu maybe he could havewin with one hit
 
Pros:
  • Gigantamax Pikachu was... weird at first but Ash's shock at the phenomenon was hilarious. I'm so used to Pikachu always relying on speed primarily that Pikachonk felt different, we'll just have to see how D/G-Max is handled in the future though (since I don't like the slow pace of those battles). Both battles against Drednaw and Leon's Charizard were fine as well, though I expected Ash to capture Drednaw (not that he might get a G-Max capable Pokemon so soon) and a bit more strategy involved in the latter battle instead of just trading moves back and forth (which is made worse by the first con). Ash and Pikachu losing to Leon made complete sense given the drastic difference of battling and body weight while D/G-Maxed, not to mention the involuntary transformation.
  • And finally, 13 episodes in, we get a resolute goal for Ash in this series, the World Championships. If I recall correctly, the World Championship and ranking systems were one of Takeshi Shudo's original ideas about Ash's endgame. And speaking of those rankings, I hope we get back to it soon since the next 3 episodes seem to deviate from it, and hopefully Ash gets a decent placement (thanks to his Alola, Orange and Battle Frontier victories, as well as other smaller tournaments and competitions) but not high enough for them to get lazy and skip everything. Hell, I'd not mind if they show battles against all 1000 trainers (and bring in past characters, rivals, League roadblocks, gym leaders, E4, Champions, unintroduced game characters etc.) and stretch things out for the next few generations. On a side note, I'm pretty sure the "dragon type trainer" that was hyped will not be Iris (she's too noob)... it could be Raihan or Clair, most likely the latter since Clair might ranked lower on the scale.
  • Although brief, I enjoyed the TRio scenes because of the characterization. I'm loving their Rotom Phone even more than possible (the same can't be said for Gou's Rotom Phone, I immediately muted the video when her voice started playing), hope it has more snarky jokes down the lines. Hopefully they actually keep the Chewtle instead of handing it to Giovanni, the latter would would be a complete waste. Keeping in line with the biting James gag, Chewtle screams "James' type of Pokemon", along with a Cramorant.
Cons:
  • Terrible animation quality that hindered my full enjoyment of the battle. The animation was very choppy not to mention the usage of stock animation, stock backgrounds, action lines, poor framerates etc. You'd think an important episode like this would be assigned to one of the better animators. Oh and let's not forget the music, the composer is back to his lazy routine... using that hillybilly track as well as recycling music. The Sw/Sh Gym battle music is awesome but to use it multiple times in a row tends to lessen the value of the track (the same problem with the Lugia Raid and Ride music pieces). I don't see why he does not use music tracks from previous generations.
  • Although it didn't damage the episode way, it hurt the character as a whole even more. Gou's sudden capturing of Skwovet felt arbitrary and forced that did not contribute in any way (no, not even to his "goal", it was that irrelevant). He voluntarily wanted to battle Drednaw, but refuses to do so for any Pokemon he wants to capture? It was really ironic when he tells Ash to "put on a show" while his own actions so far are lackluster for the most part.
Additional thoughts:
  • Where the hell was Lance? You think a stadium full of people being terrorized by a rampaging juggernaut of a Pokemon would be of a lot of concern to a member of the Pokemon G-Men? Seems like the writer went out of his way to have Lance vanish to avoid having him meet Ash again. Speaking of people, where was the evacuation and stadium security as well? Even the Alola League had this aspect when those three Guzzlord terrorized the Manalo Stadium.
Verdict: A decent episode though some of the mentioned cons made it feel off especially after last week's perfection, 8.5/10 from me. I'm not too excited for the next episode since it seems like a filler (even if it's written by Tomioka).
 
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Pros:
  • Gigantamax Pikachu was... weird at first but Ash's shock at the phenomenon was hilarious. I'm so used to Pikachu always relying on speed primarily that Pikachonk felt different, we'll just have to see how D/G-Max is handled in the future though (since I don't like the slow pace of those battles). Both battles against Drednaw and Leon's Charizard were fine as well, though I expected Ash to capture Drednaw (not that he might get a G-Max capable Pokemon so soon) and a bit more strategy involved in the latter battle instead of just trading moves back and forth (which is made worse by the first con). Ash and Pikachu losing to Leon made complete sense given the drastic difference of battling and body weight while D/G-Maxed, not to mention the involuntary transformation.
  • And finally, 13 episodes in, we get a resolute goal for Ash in this series, the World Championships. If I recall correctly, the World Championship and ranking systems were one of Takeshi Shudo's original ideas about Ash's endgame. And speaking of those rankings, I hope we get back to it soon since the next 3 episodes seem to deviate from it, and hopefully Ash gets a decent placement (thanks to his Alola, Orange and Battle Frontier victories, as well as other smaller tournaments and competitions) but not high enough for them to get lazy and skip everything. Hell, I'd not mind if they show battles against all 1000 trainers (and bring in past characters, rivals, League roadblocks, gym leaders, E4, Champions, unintroduced game characters etc.) and stretch things out for the next few generations. On a side note, I'm pretty sure the "dragon type trainer" that was hyped will not be Iris (she's too noob)... it could be Raihan or Clair, most likely the latter since Clair might ranked lower on the scale.
  • Although brief, I enjoyed the TRio scenes because of the characterization. I'm loving their Rotom Phone even more than possible (the same can't be said for Gou's Rotom Phone, I immediately muted the video when her voice started playing), hope it has more snarky jokes down the lines. Hopefully they actually keep the Chewtle instead of handing it to Giovanni, the latter would would be a complete waste. Keeping in line with the biting James gag, Chewtle screams "James' type of Pokemon", along with a Cramorant.
Cons:
  • Terrible animation quality that hindered my full enjoyment of the battle. The animation was very choppy not to mention the usage of stock animation, stock backgrounds, action lines, poor framerates etc. You'd think an important episode like this would be assigned to one of the better animators. Oh and let's not forget the music, the composer is back to his lazy routine... using that hillybilly track as well as recycling music. The Sw/Sh Gym battle music is awesome but to use it multiple times in a row tends to lessen the value of the track (the same problem with the Lugia Raid and Ride music pieces). I don't see why he does not use music tracks from previous generations.
  • Although it didn't damage the episode way, it hurt the character as a whole even more. Gou's sudden capturing of Skwovet felt arbitrary and forced that did not contribute in any way (no, not even to his "goal", it was that irrelevant). He voluntarily wanted to battle Drednaw, but refuses to do so for any Pokemon he wants to capture? It was really ironic when he tells Ash to "put on a show" while his own actions so far are lackluster for the most part.
Additional thoughts:
  • Where the hell was Lance? You think a stadium full of people being terrorized by a rampaging juggernaut of a Pokemon would be of a lot of concern to a member of the Pokemon G-Men? Seems like the writer went out of his way to have Lance vanish to avoid having him meet Ash again. Speaking of people, where was the evacuation and stadium security as well? Even the Alola League had this aspect when those three Guzzlord terrorized the Manalo Stadium.
Verdict: A decent episode though some of the mentioned cons made it feel off especially after last week's perfection, 8.5/10 from me. I'm not too excited for the next episode since it seems like a filler (even if it's written by Tomioka).
Don’t forget, we don’t know how long team rocket left outside seems likey everyone left the stadium
So we not sure it’s been 30min or hour lol
 
Don’t forget, we don’t know how long team rocket left outside seems likey everyone left the stadium
So we not sure it’s been 30min or hour lol
When Pikachu accidentally slammed into the stadium, you could hear people screaming and Gou mentioned that the stadium was still full of people. So no, not everyone has left the stadium yet during the attack.
 
  • And finally, 13 episodes in, we get a resolute goal for Ash in this series, the World Championships. If I recall correctly, the World Championship and ranking systems were one of Takeshi Shudo's original ideas about Ash's endgame. And speaking of those rankings, I hope we get back to it soon since the next 3 episodes seem to deviate from it, and hopefully Ash gets a decent placement (thanks to his Alola, Orange and Battle Frontier victories, as well as other smaller tournaments and competitions) but not high enough for them to get lazy and skip everything. Hell, I'd not mind if they show battles against all 1000 trainers (and bring in past characters, rivals, League roadblocks, gym leaders, E4, Champions, unintroduced game characters etc.) and stretch things out for the next few generations. On a side note, I'm pretty sure the "dragon type trainer" that was hyped will not be Iris (she's too noob)... it could be Raihan or Clair, most likely the latter since Clair might ranked lower on the scale.

It was mentioned that everyone who sign in for the Pokemon World Championship would start in Normal Class (that's rank 1000 onwards).

So, Ash need to start from the bottom and climb the rankings, since his previous victories wouldn't count for this ranking.

Normal Class 1000~
Super Class 100-999
Hyper Class 9-99
Master Class 1-8
 
Did anyone notice that prior to G-Max, Pikachu was actually holding his own quite well and wasn't even scratched/bruised/exhausted despite taking several powerful hits from Charizard.

But the moment D/G-Max comes into play, Pikachu struggles and the obvious happens. Makes you wonder if the battle could have just turned out differently if Ash and Pikachu didn't involuntarily trigger the Dynamax Band.

Nah; it was pretty obvious that Leon was going to win from the get go, mainly because — if you’ll notice — he was restricting Charizard to attacks that weren’t very effective in the beginning of the match. And yet Pikachu was still overpowered. (Granted, it wasn’t a TOTAL curbstomp)
 
Why Leon did not get lost looking for Ash?
He did, but Ash is the protagonist and was able to nullify Leon's ability to get lost by being in the place Leon just happened to wind up in after getting lost
 
So is this the first time Ash fought on the left side of the battlefield?
I found that interesting.

Everything has already been said, but I have some complains I want to bring up. The battle wasn't logical by any means for me. It was more believable for me if the first part of the battle was even and the second part Leon overwhelming Ash because of how he is a Dynamax master and Ash and Pikachu being very experienced with normal battles. It confuses me why Pikachu was overwhelmed by Charizard prior to Gigantamaxing and could do quite some damage when becoming big. Imo it should have been the other way around, especially when you analyse Leon's other matches where this same pattern usually happens. Ash could bring up more of a fight with Gigantamaxing than Raihan, very weird to me.

Also I dont like how lame the way Pikachu gigantamaxing is handled, just because there is suddenly some red light appearing from underground. Missed opportunity for making a interesting storyline especially given that Pikachu doesn't want in a pokeball.

5/10. The big plus is the set up for Ash vs Leon, but the poor battle and everything around it hurts the episode for me a lot.
 
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