, at least it wasn't done cheaply like the 'Soak' against Hapu), as well as emphasizing the targeting of specific body parts to put other Pokemon at a disadvantage depending on their species. I only had two nitpicks, one of them being the Solar Beam charging far too quickly, Pikachu should have been able to cross the small battlefield like a bullet with Quick Attack without being hit. The other is that Pikachu gets a lot of special treatment in terms of battle participation, I would have preferred Dragonite here since it has yet to get an official battle.
You know when I saw that I didn't consider this at first but for Gou's sake I sure hope those were Rivalry Nidoran...
It warms the frigid, spiky wasteland that is my heart to see my boy growing up so much since that first episode where he beans a Spearow with a rock and his own Pokémon doesn't like him.
They seem to be emphasizing that the strongest trainer isn't a Master lately; there was also that interview before the Alola League were they mentioned winning a league isn't enough, and I think Ash told Koharu that becoming a Master means much more than just being the strongest.
Yeah, to some extent this felt a bit like the equivalent of Gou's one-ball captures, but I'd like to see Dragonite get a regular battle soon. We also see Pikachu seems to be having next episode's battle, too.
The preview focused pretty heavily on Ash and new Galar characters with Gou getting little attention. I'd guess Gou isn't getting many focus episodes for a bit after 22 and 23.
It’s honestly striking how day and night the difference in depth given for Ash and Go’s reasons for their goals are. Ash is able to tell how he does what he does as a trainer to allow him to not just grow closer to his Pokémon but to those he encounters as well this really making Ash feel more 3 dimensional. Meanwhile, 20 episodes in and we still have no depth with why Go wants to capture all the Pokémon much less how that relates to Mew and yet they devote an obligatory scene almost every episode to his captures. That kind of lack of depth in the character writing makes Go’s goal feel all the more flat, especially compared to previous characters.Decided to re-watch this with subs to get it out of the way mainly because it felt like such an unnecessary episode that didn't do much of relevance despite the title boasting as such, hence typing the review should be easier. Also, partly because of a busy schedule ahead in the week where I won’t be able to get to my lazy-obligatory Thursday re-watch.
Pros:
Cons:
- Let’s start off with the Pros (obviously, like I’ve always been doing). Ash's behavior in this entire episode was portrayed as mature and composed all the while staying in character. This is even counting the lapse he had where he lost track of the kids during the little skirmish between the cats and the rats, it's still in character as he was engrossed and excited by a Pokemon battle and not because of some petty nonsense like being more interested in food. Discounting that, he put the kids and his duty to teach them ahead of himself and his own desires (in this case, it would be the PWC match) and did his best to educate them about Pokemon by both theoretical as well as practical means. The kids calling Ash nii-chan was just a bonus to top all of this off. What's even better is Ash emphasizing the reason he's battling is not just for some superficial reason (like being 'cool') but because it helps him bond with not just his own Pokemon, but also the person he has a battle with (if the post-battle interactions with Seiya were any indication, much less most battles Ash has had in the past especially against Paul), and understand them better. There was also the dialogue where he states that defeating Leon will make him the World Champion and "bring him one step closer to being a Pokemon Master", I wonder if it's a confirmation that Ash will continue to be around after this series, also curious as to how they'll continue his story moving forward. There was also a healthy variety of Pokemon shown though I'd have preferred Pokemon from other Gens instead of just Kanto, they could have just shown some random tourists with foreign Pokemon or something.
- The entire battle was very rushed and crammed in, yet despite all this, it was quite decent and beautifully animated. It was literally the only good thing about this episode so far, remove this and the entire thing was nothing more than another pointless filler with repeated plotlines from multiple episodes just smushed together. The strategy of targeting Meganium's soft and exposed neck all the while using its own body weight and momentum against it during Body Slam was an amazing tactic which further emphasizes why the anime's dynamic battles and improvisations are far superior to the games (Pikachu knows Guillotine and Throat Chop now, because
Additional thoughts:
- Now let's get to everything wrong with Gou and how a lot stuff around him is structured. Not only does he continue to capture a lot of Pokemon who'll never get much development, he continues to do so with absolutely zero effort, no setbacks or issues at all, all the while trivializing the entire concept of capturing while making it seem like a poor parody. His catches in this episode even looked outright ridiculous with the sped up animation, and almost all of his catches have been nothing more than a chore to watch. Even Koharu looked bored and annoyed by his antics, and pretty much called him out (with a nicer version of Iris' "you're such a kid") that he's supposed to be teaching the kids, which further proves that he's self-serving and puts himself ahead of other people until the issue is shoved in his face. Granted he's lacking in social skills, but you'd think he'd try to make an effort to grow out of the problem and change in some noticeable way for the better, only for the next episode to throw that development out into the drain. And for an episode that's repeating Ash and Gou's goals (along with a lot of stuff like Sakuragi's "how amazing are Pokemon" speech from episode 2), Gou hardly did any explaining on why he's capturing Pokemon (though we all know from episode 6 that it's only to fill up a list on his phone, don't pretend otherwise) and how exactly that helps him towards his goal of catching Mew. Him saying that catching Pokemon helps him to understand them is pretty much flat given how things turned out, easiest example to point out being his treatment of Scorbunny and failure to see Raboot's personality change. To me, Gou didn't progress anywhere towards his goal at all, he's no closer to meeting Mew (much less even dreaming of catching it) than he was when he first set out in episode 6. Then there was the entire issue with Farfetch'd, although it was nice to see at least one Pokemon giving him a hard time, it still didn't make him change his approach or matter in the end. What's worse is he decided to change his catching variation to a cheap and dishonest fake out (What happened to telling Koharu just moments earlier about battling when necessary??? This looked like a moment where it should have been done). And this boy wants to "catch Lugia" by doing what, throwing curve and fast balls? Pfft.
- Speaking of Koharu, I absolutely hate that she was shafted hard and only utilized sparingly despite there being so many moments in the episode to develop her further and give her a vague interest on her journey. The only major moment for her came about when the two Nidoran and Pidgey flocked her and tried to cuddle (at least they didn't like Gou instantly and were uncomfortable from his hug, here's hoping they don't suddenly start liking him in the future and flock to their 'mommy' Koharu whenever he starts to be a nuisance). I personally hope that there's some sort of development that comes about from this plot point but knowing how she and most of Gou's Pokemon (including his best capture, Cubone) have been treated so far, there's not much to look forward. Even if they were to explicitly mention some development for her, I'd look at it in a skeptical light.
- I absolutely enjoyed TRio in the last episode, and the writer just had to ruin that factor by turning them into generic evil guys with the usual capture Pikachu plot. Only this time, that entire premise was executed in the dumbest and laziest manner with the entire thing being a bad clipshow, just so they could shove in a conflict where it wasn't even required. The way that blast-off happened was an absolute cringe to watch... sheesh. They could have excluded TRio from here and included a wide variety of other means to use screen time, like making Ash's battle lengthier, having Gou battle some captures, giving Koharu more development, having a raid battle with the actual Lugia (explained below) etc. I may not be a hardcore TRio fan but them being used in this manner is very frustrating to watch.
- So yeah, like I mentioned above, the Lugia that appeared in episode 2 was an actual Lugia given how it was able to communicate with Ash briefly whereas Gou didn't so much as react (much less believe Ash could hear Lugia). If that Lugia was indeed a disguised Mew, then I guess it pretty much didn't care about Gou at all, it would be absolutely hilarious if Mew disregarded Gou and make his entire goal nothing more than a pointless endeavour. Back to this episode, the reveal about Mew disguising itself as Lugia didn't really lead to any build up or shocking revelation, and was pretty much pointless. Mew came out of nowhere at the exact moment Ash and co. needed help, only to promptly disappear? Ash could have easily sent out Dragonite to deal with TRio instead of having a contrived Mew appearance without any weight behind it. Also, what happened to that Lugia raid battle from the summaries? Another bait-and-switch? Will the writers also acknowledge Ash ever having a Pidgeot, much less said bird ever appearing?
Verdict: A pointless episode that wasn't needed in the first place, the subs only confirmed a lot of negative development for Gou, so it's a 3.5/10 from me. This episode only serves to highlight how boring Gou and his goal/path are and how Ash's journey will be the driving factor behind this series. I don't know if Gou's intentionally being written that way, because his negative development only makes Ash shine all the more.
You gotta wonder what Shoji Yonemura is doing, he's written 3 bad episodes in this series. That slideshow of upcoming events as well as the next episode's preview are absolutely hype and makes me eager for the future of Ash in this series (expected me to include Gou?). They’re not part of this episode though, so my rating won’t change.
Hmm, seems like setup for quite a wake-up call in the (near) future. I think, anyway.
It gets even worse when that Lugia is revealed to be Mew in disguise... I have no clue what the writers are trying to imply here other than possibly that Gou's methods are working, after all, and that they do bring him closer to Mew.
He's only had and won two battles so far. He's probably going to have more tough times when he gets to the higher classes.
I think Swellow using Aerial Ace (or maybe Wing Attack) on Juan's Whiscash caused an explosion.
I’m pretty sure Bite has caused explosions at some point.
As well as water hitting leaves.
