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Review JN023: A Massive Panic! Sakuragi Park!

Or they've just realized that they need more supplies and special solutions for trouble makers. You act as if this is an old lab that should have everything figured out by now.

Did someone just imply that the Pokemon at Oak's (more specifically Ash's reserves) eat wild Pokemon or something? Yuck. Not to mention that I don't recall any indication that the Pallet trainers' reserves could leave the ranch or that wild Pokemon could get in.

In Bulbasaur the ambassador it was established that wild Pokemon came to the ranch.
 
Let's be fair; Professor Oak lost control of the Pokémon at his lab so badly the whole place turns into Mad Max if Bulbasaur leaves for a few hours. It's not like this is an unprecedented occurrence.
You made me imagine Corphish, Gible and Totodile in spiked vests leading a stampede of armored Tauros.

I thank you.
 
Or they've just realized that they need more supplies and special solutions for trouble makers. You act as if this is an old lab that should have everything figured out by now.

Did someone just imply that the Pokemon at Oak's (more specifically Ash's reserves) eat wild Pokemon or something? Yuck. Not to mention that I don't recall any indication that the Pallet trainers' reserves could leave the ranch or that wild Pokemon could get in.
There’s quite a bit of a stretch of willing suspension of disbelief in that Sakuragi has a full on echo system at his lab to house Pokémon yet apparently only has enough supplies for a single day and no backup to the point that this becomes an issue especially when Go keeps bringing in new Pokémon.
 
There’s quite a bit of a stretch of willing suspension of disbelief in that Sakuragi has a full on echo system at his lab to house Pokémon yet apparently only has enough supplies for a single day and no backup to the point that this becomes an issue especially when Go keeps bringing in new Pokémon.
It wasn't so much that as it was everyone stupidly assuming the Pokemon WERE eating, but they were just extra hungry for some reason.
 
I missed writing these, it’s been a long 6 weeks without the anime and I’m glad to be back into it. Was running out of stuff to do anyways.

Pros:
  • We finally get to see Goh genuinely take care of his Pokemon, even if the way he gets them is still controversial and the fact that they have no long term goal other than roaming around an enclosed space. Moving on, we get to see the various quirks and personalities of various Pokemon of his, like the mischievous Misdreavus (no pun please), the lone wolf and equally naughty Sandile, the valorous Scyther who’s not afraid to tank a super effective hit for his brethren Type etc. Though I’m afraid that this will be the last time in a while (if ever) that we get to see more substance to them, especially at the rate Goh is capturing, at least not without shafting old ones or making some of them never appear. On the other end of the scale, it was nice to see Ash training (we know he always does it but it’s always good to see him do it on screen) and more of Riolu just being the baby it’s supposed to be rather than the tough front it put up a while back. You gotta admire the difference between Ash’s and Goh’s Pokemon when it came down to the fighting though, where Ash’s Pokemon avoid getting involved in a bad way. Oh and thankfully Morpeko wasn’t here, it should only debut when a certain Spikemuth girl does so not to mention that it had no reason to suddenly pop up in Kanto. And lastly, I saw some people bringing up Mimey and pointing it out in a negative light, but to me it made a lot of sense. Mimey’s moveset is mostly defensive and is the perfect training partner against a baby like Riolu who can go all out against it and not have to worry much (as seen with Mimey lounging casually while Riolu tries to lay into the Barrier).
Cons:
  • While this episode showcases more of Goh’s Pokemon, it once again highlights the problem of his mass capture sprees and how it correlates to difficulty with their habitation and co-existence with each other in the dome. This is just one of many issues that have arisen and will only multiply the more he catches (especially if it's a problematic one). Goh’s Pokemon might as well be wild with how instinct driven, wild and unruly they are, not to mention that they’ll never be portrayed in any important way outside of these filler type episodes (Scyther had so much potential especially with how this episode showed him). The entire civil war trope was executed in a boring manner with how the entire conflict was mindless and unnecessary, I have a plot execution written down below which hopefully is at least better than what was shown in this episode.
  • The ones in charge of Ceryse park are hopelessly incompetent or somewhat unpredictably dangerous. For the former, it’s obvious that this episode showed Ceryse and his assistant are really incompetent and incapable of taking care of these Pokemon. Those Pokemon were shown to go on for days being hungry without any food source (whether from the plants in the park itself or external sources) and neither did any of the adults try to solve the issue by themselves and it took two passionate kids and a near crisis for the issue to be solved. What happened to all those cameras that they were viewing the park from? They could have used that to catch the thief instead of the camping idea. On the other hand, we have Golurk being the guardian. Although the gentle giant is a decent guardian, there’s the problem of his seal being undone quite easily that makes him volatile and more of a threat to the rest of the Pokemon itself. I doubt there will be an episode focusing on it and its seal issues that cause it to get triggered.
Additional thoughts:
  • A better execution of the episode would be to use that research angle to explore the Pokemon’s behavior, how they form communities and interact with each other in the first half, without any kind of mindless fighting, with bits of bad weather reports thrown in. For the second half, we could see a hurricane blowing in that damages the glass dome and brings in rain water, as well a nearby raging river flooding in (we do know that the park is close to the wilderness because of how Riolu ran away). The end plot would be the same with all the Pokemon working together to stop the tree from shaking and protecting against debris.
  • We desperately need an episode in Pallet town akin to this one, maybe a two-parter, where we see all of Ash’s reserves. This way, they can introduce all of them to the newer fanbase and establish Ash as a veteran trainer (if anyone is dumb enough to not know it despite being portrayed many times) and set up reserves returning for the PWC in the future. Oh, and showcase the stark difference between Ash’s and Goh’s Pokemon.
  • Golurk is a poor choice of a guardian due to its bipolar issues, and Ceryse and his assistants don’t seem capable of solving problems in their property. It’s about high time a certain Pokemon watcher and a peacekeeping plant dinosaur make their much needed return.
Verdict: Someone worded it better in an earlier post, had this episode not been preceded by the hiatus, it would have been viewed in a much more negative light. Well, it is a forgettable episode with not much going for it in the end and will be easily overshadowed by the next few, a 6.5/10 from me for being okay at best.
 
Yes, but unlike Sakuragi's park, Oak has to manage a lot more. Pretty sure there's more than just Ash's Pokemon namely the ones caught by the other Pallet trainers like Gary. There's also an abundance of wild Pokemon as seen in JN001. And he only has Tracey and Bulbasaur, yet they manage to get the job done.

Sakuragi's park only has Gou's collection and yet they seem to struggle with one issue (much less the many others that could arise), despite having the technology and means to resolve it.
You're simply assuming Oak and Tracey don't struggle with anything because it's not shown to us. For all we know they might have problems to solve all the time, much like what happens in this episode.
 
Pokemon Journeys Episode 23 Review


THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING TO MANY

The Plusle
PLUSLE.png


  • Hey we are back on the saddle!!!
  • Finally Go's Pokemon show some personality,well some of them, was Sandile always a lone wolf? I dont remember.
  • Guess that this episode was a good idea after the break, cause it shows us: People who have no memory and no way to watch the episode afterwards,that Go have a lot of Pokemon.
  • Riolu training and Riolu in general.
  • Pokemon tribalization.
  • Svoket or however he is called being the red herring. I consider this positive cause Morpeko deserves better.
  • The teamwork at the end.
  • Hey atleast they are not talking like in that stupid stupid stupid stupid Alola Episode where Ash got lost in time.
  • TEAM ROCKET EPISODE IS NEXT !!!!!


The Minum
MINUM.png


  • That one Pokemon can cause this much trouble shows how unstable is the whole Sakuragi Park.
  • Pokemon being shown as rather simplistic creatures.
  • The fact that these can happen again and be much worse.
  • They show that they have cameras in the park. WHY NOT USE THEM? I wonder were Sakuragi graduated ,really.
  • Say bye to those Pokemon cause Go is not stoping, unless Sakuragi episodes are a thing in the future.
  • Pokemon World: The land of the non consequences.
  • Why is Schyther stronger than Darmanitan? Scyther bit the dust in one second against a Migthyena while Darmanitan stood his ground against Golurk in Unova.
  • If Go wants so many Pokemon he must take responsabilty himself, why involve Ash?
  • Go goal makes less sense by the day. Why is he is not and explorer or a journalist like in my fanfiction?
  • The freaking music that seems to be made for Youtube videos made by kids.

The questions

  • Koharu who?
  • How will Mew know that a guy catched all of the Pokemon to met him?
  • Why Ash does not change his phone ringtone?
  • Is Execute dead? Who eated him? Pidgey,Taillow,Spearow?
  • Where is the Hunger Games President when you need it?
  • Will Golurk rampage destroy Sakuragi Park and go to the city just to end like the Iron Giant
  • Why Dustox episodes always have rain involved?
  • Do you remember that Jessie had a Dustox?
  • Do you know that I still cry at that episode?

Puntuation

My puntuation is going to be: Three smiling Stanlers out of five
stanlerrisillas.png
stanlerrisillas.png
stanlerrisillas.png




The song of the episode

I guess that in some places to be calm some rain must fall:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJOSvsfYNA

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txPqV0lZaSE




I will do these reviews for every episode and also for episode 1-12 that are going to be released this Friday.
 
Yeah, know you mention it
It doesn't make sense Scyther is stronger than Darmanitan.
Its Minun btw, not Minum.
Funny style of reviewing.

Could you believe that I have called him like that since 2004? Also I did not realize untill last year that it was Ferraligatr instead of Ferraligart but in my school everyone said it this way.

This review helps me cause now I pay more atention to the episode cause now I watch it three times. The bad thing is that I will have to watch episodes 6,8,9 again

Hey @Panky.. I love your avatar :giggle:
 
It doesn't make sense Scyther is stronger than Darmanitan.
One trains all day and the other lazes about in Zen Mode, so is it really surprising when one is stronger than the other?

What's this "typing" that everyone keeps yarping on about? Have we learned nothing from the literal hundreds of battles that have shown that typing means nothing?
 
One trains all day and the other lazes about in Zen Mode, so is it really surprising when one is stronger than the other?

What's this "typing" that everyone keeps yarping on about? Have we learned nothing from the literal hundreds of battles that have shown that typing means nothing?

Plus technically Scyther's BST is 500 while Darmanitan's is 480....

Also typing is a factor, not the rule of matchups
 
@Pokemon Phenom
You beat me to it, your review was no. 69. LMAO
Welcome to the Reviewer's Pantheon. Good grief.
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My honours's on the line with this one, since this is my first review I do as a challange. Woooo hoo.

For the future, I should remember that making predictions in preview threads is implausible, that is, unless they praise the series or are positive towards it. Luckilly, that constraint doesn't seem to hold true for the reviews.

And that's f*cking great. Toxic nitpicking time, everybody!

My signature move.
Feels like I should push it into every single review I'm going to make from here on out, it's just so fitting. Because... Cause I'm Lazy Spy? Geddit?


View: https://youtu.be/pL6Oc07xSzw

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ACTION
First, one positive is that the writers actually take their time to build up to the conflict. I was worried that they'll have the Pokemon fight immidiately, but instead, they took their time. Okay.

Now, the negative sides of this conflict are...
  1. Sakuragi, Ash and Gou basically let it happen. The episode established very easy and trivial ways they could've solved the conflict, as many have pointed out already. Whether it'd be the cameras, the fact that they clearly have enough food to feed the entire complex, it's all there. Kinda sucks, but hey, at least Gou isn't a... You know what, right? Since he does a stupid choice? It does kinda break his established personallity as a know it all genius, but who cares if it's done in the service of the plot, right? All in all, Sakuragi and Gou come across as incredibly incompetent with the way they manage the lab.
  2. It portrays the Pokemon as incredibly feral and mindless. ... All the while also portraying them as intellectually potent, cooperative, capable of coming up with plans and having conciousness, sense of being a comunity, and so on. What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuu- Also, why has no Pokemon in the entire lab considered asking humans for food, or setting up their own bait to find the culprit, or anything like this, really? How is it possible that none of them spotted Ash and Gou setting up the bait (well safe for Oddish and Skvowet)? It'd be really interesting to see their reaction to this.
  3. I highly appreciate the attempts at character work, but they just don't work. Except for a few exceptions that I'll highlight as decent. 'But what's so wrong with the characters in this episode, Lazy-senpai? I thought you wanted to see more personallity from these Pokemon'. True. And I wish I existed in a reallity where it's executed in a better manner. But I will confess, there are two... Three characters that work pretty well, but they have such small impact on the plot and such tiny roles that they fail to really impact me as well.

HIGHLY ASSERTED NITPICKS
Okay, it's an issue that's been bothering me since episode 15, but the timing and spacing of events in this anime continues to be [redacted]. This episode takes time over the span of three days. Misdreavous and Sandile come up with their plan on the second day, but they execute it on the third day, to an audience that basically run into them by pure happenstance. The implication being that they spend a whole day hanging around that cracked tree, just... Waiting for someone to come, rather than search for someone to show their trick to? And that tree is by the lake, which is inhabited by Water types... Did Misdreavous and Sandile just ignore them...?

Then, we are also never shown the Pokemon being fed on the second day, and yet on the first day, we saw Venonat being fed, and on the second day, he's shown amongst the starving Pokemon...? Is the implication here that, on the second day, Skvowet stole all the food from every feeding spot, somehow, or is that the humans never even fed Pokemon on the second day? Both of these sound pretty impluasible, but if's the later, then f*ck me...

CHARACTERS
SADLY, IT'S LIKE I EXPECTED
Okay, so I will begin by extrapolating the comparison between this episode and CA: Civil War, because I think it is a pretty decent counterpoint.

So, in Civil War, we have a simple premise. Avengers wreck havoc while saving the world, and the Not-So-Smart goverment is quite unhappy about it, eventhoughinthefirstAvengersmovietheyalmostnukedNYbecauseF*CKYOU.
As a result, a schizm is forced upon the Avengers, as they seperate into groups, one led by Iron Man in support of the so-called 'Sokovia Accords', and the other led by Cap. Now, why does Tony support the Accords?
Simply put: he feels personally responsible for the damage Avengers have caused - after all, Ultron, and subsequently, Sokovia, then we have his first movie and the story of him being a narsicistic arms dealer, all of that was his fault, so it only follows that he'd feel some remorse.
So why is Cap on the opposite end of the spectrum? That is a follow up from The Winter Soldier, wherein, he's personally experienced how easilly figures of authority can become corrupted. In his eyes, Avengers, even if dangerous, are still the safest measure of protection. And he ends up being correct, LMAO.

... And the buck does not stop there! We also have the subplot involving Bucky Barnes and Tony's familly, which culminates in a pretty epic scuffle between Bucky, Tony and Bottle Cap, because StarBucky killed Tony's mommy.

Now, lets get over my little Marvel fanboy propaganda and go back into this episode. So, we have a bunch of Pokemon being agressive because they're... Hungry.
But what else does it say about them? That they're susceptible to their most primtive instincts, naturally. Exceeeept that, at other points in the episode, we see Pokemon come up with intelligent plans to solve a situation, clearly driven by rationality rather than animal instinct...

And hey look, I'm not denying that Pokemon can fall prey to their instincts, but as my favourite YoutubE;R would've said: 'traditional narrative structure and characterization trumps realism, every time'.

In Civil War, you have characters making choices that reinforce their character arcs and plot points that tie brilliantly with the rest of the franchise, and show some consequence to the actions the characters commited to, granting some spicy, delicious worldbuilding on top of all that, and y'all know just how much I like muh worldbuilding.

On the other side of the ball curve, we have a bunch of Pokemon who... Just fight for... Not a very good reason, actually. I don't know who these Pokemon are, I don't know how they typically behave except that they're all acceptant towards Gou (and some superficiall stuff that don't really matter), I don't know of any traits they have that tie into the plot, if they have any ambitions, relationships, and so on, and yet, I am supposed to care about them and feel concerned, like this is all something important even though it's an issue that, again, could've been resolved peacefully - there was no need for violence, nor is something like food shortage in a laboratory that still has tons of food any big issue. But nuuuuu, I guess I am supposed to care about and be deeply invested in their story just because they are the Pokemon belonging to the main protagonist, because frankly, they don't have much going for them beyond that.

And the big 'consequence' to all of this is Ash and Gou learning of Skvowet's... Tendencies. I'm sorry, how were they not aware of this? I mean, f*ck them, why wasn't Sakuragi aware of this? Does he not do research into Pokemon Gou has captured? Are the most basic things you can learn about Skvowet's species rare and uncommon knowledge in this world? Is this the first laboratory to ever discover that trait, even though it says it right there in the Pokedex entry... It stretches my suspense of disbelief way over the roof that in all this time since Skvowet's capture, no one figured his food storaging may cause problems, nor did anyone point out that it might be the case when it mattered.

OH, also I'm so tired of typing 'Skvowet'. Again, why don't they ever nickname their Pokemon? It'd make things so much more comfortable and convenient for me, the toxic and entitled shill...

GOOFY GOLURK
Am I the only one who genuinelly hates the way this episode ended...? Yeah...?

So, at the end, after some stupid narration, Skvowet accidentally disconnects the seal on Golurk's chest and the later goes on a rampage, again. Which is played as... A funny punchline.

Didn't made me laugh, it left me sorelly disappointed. I thought Golurk would develop some sort of insecurity about his seal going loose, it would have made perfect sense and it'd be a really good way to show that there are consequences to this episode's events.
But noooooo, lets just turn this into a joke, because having your episode end on a shot of a giant golem going on a rampage is funny... :rolleyes:

THE CAST LACKS VARIETY
One more grievance I have. Yeah, we all need to pretend like Darmanitan running away is indicative of some unique character traits. Reminder that every Pokemon on Darmanitan's side run away as soon as Scyther descended from the sky. I don't see Darmanitan running away as him being explicitly characterized as a coward for that reason nor it being indicative of some 'insecurities', which'd explain his actions towards Scorbunny, and while I agree that Scyther tanking an effective move was badass, it's kind of sad the writers did not develop beyond that. Not to mention, every Pokemon gets to participate in the rescue action at the end, so I infer they are all characterized by a degree of altruism and will to save others.

Except for Misdreavous, Riolu and Sandile, the characters introduced in this episode do not really stand out from their backdrop. Which is, I suppose, the reason why the groups of Pokemon that fight were divided based on their types rather than on their personallities. Did I mention this already? Yeah, you heard me correctly, Gou's Pokemon have picked up their opponents based on their type, because aside from being agressive AF they are also racis-

MISDREAVOUS AND SANDILE
Like I already hinted at, these two are up there as slightly better than the rest, but I still have some nitpicks.

First, I did like was their reaction when Scyther's group rolled up. That hillariously terrified expression was such a great way of conveying just how pointlessly stupid the agression those Pokemon display is, jesus f*cking...

Second, again, I really don't like the notion they were just chilling out in a single spot for a whole day long.

Third, I'm not sure how they thought their plan would've worked. The Pokemon were all starving, and they had to assume that other Pokemon not only had food with themselves, but also that they'd give it away, which I don't see as a reasonable assumption to make in a situation where everybody is starving.
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TOO TIRED TO GO ON. I'LL WRAP THIS UP
Well, long did it took me... Almost two weeks...

I'll just sumarize:
This episode had a very boring conflict which could've been easilly resolved and had an uninteresting payoff. The music was... Okay. Nothing particularly speciall, plus, I really didn't like how it was overly dramatic when the Pokemon started fighting, as, for reasons I already got over, I couldn't really bring myself to care about anything that was going on on screen.

If I was fair, I'd say that seeing Gou care for his Pokemon at the start of the episode... Was cute. Riolu being confused about his attacks doing no harm to Golurk was a nice little detail, and just overall, even though he had such a microscopic role in this episode, he was wonderfully portrayed. I appreciate it that we get to see more Pokedex entries being integrated into the plot, althrough, I think it could've been done better.

Buuuuut lets be honest, it's an episode with a contrived and uninteresting conflict that fails to have any impact. It could've, for example, by having Gou think more of the consequences of his captures, developing some more varied and interesting personallities for these Pokemon, but one look at our nearest filmography, and what do we have here, Gou captures a Magikarp. A Pokemon that evolves into a sea serpent who'se, allegedly, very brutall and difficult to tame. Can you imagine that kinda guy in an enviroment of violent, reckless, impulsive biggots, living in a laboratory where human supervision is disfunctionall? At least Gou's using his Pokemon for captures, or so I was told, haven't watched 24 yet.

... I might get into it, me a huge fan of TRio centric stuff. +_+
... TRio!!!!!!!

6/10.
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...
...
...
Challange completed.
... Casually and oversimplified, though.
But no seriously, I was not expecting the wordcount to be around 2 thousand words LMAO.

Anyway, as always, I am open for conversations and all sort of scrutiny.

Addendum: I fixed a bunch of spelling errors, and yes, I am aware that I sound way too hard like I'm overusing E;R's qoutes, I will try and develop a more personall sense of humour as I go on.
 
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It's funny that people think Oak's Corral is somehow better at handling pokémon.
20200620_140650.jpg


Tracey: "I know you'll gonna miss it Ash, but we get never get the pokémon here to get along without Bulbasaur!"

Ash: "Yeah, you're right..."
 
Lets... REWIEW!!!
People: GoH dOeSnT cArE fOr HiS pOkEmOn!!!! Me:JN023 :sneaky:
We See Sakuragi Park and The Pokemon Personalities and then Saving Cascoon so they Evolve. That was Great :love::love: Greedent's a Fatass
The Start was Boring.:sleep: beedrill's a jerk
8/10
 
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