Review JN040: VS Thunder! A Legendary Raid Battle!!

[Silktree]

The criticism about Blaze Kick bringing Zapdos down is valid, but:

1. Zapdos didn't faint. Once it managed to destroy the Poke Ball, it looked very energetic but had no reason to defeat Raboot. A thunderstorm was enough.

2. This is hardly the first time when a Pokemon shrugs off a lot of hits and suddenly one move makes a difference (Sceptile vs. Darkrai, anyone?). In this case, Zapdos had five opponents.

3. If anything, Raboot is the one getting preferential treatment. Go looked very surprised.

4. OLM clearly trolled us into thinking that Go might catch Zapdos. That might have made things less realistic, but they succeeded in creating suspense.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Its such a relief that Goh didn't capture Zapdos. Hope Goh will never try again.

 

[Black&White]

He will not participate. That's not his goal.

We'll see. He got a Dynamax band when people said he wouldn't and he was strong enough to bring down a Legendary


That's all I have to say about that

 

[JeoDude]

Pretty fun episode. I am also happy Go didn't catch Zapdos. The first half of the episode was kinda meh for me, but that could change with subs. The second half was.... electrifying. Yes I am a bad person

Some things I want to bring up:
- Can they please stop with attacking ground types with electric moves? Its so unnessacary to bring thap up for the third time. One brain fart is fine, but making three times the same mistake is pretty dumb. It could be a reference to Ash vs Blaine where Pikachu aimed for Rhydon's horn, but its still stupid.
- There was not a lot of logic in the Zapdos battle, Raboot could do some damage and fight Zapdos but Pikachu cannot come even close? Also it really irks me Ash only brings Pikachu and mostly Riolu, but barely other team members. The writing is so inconsistent..
- Zapdos has an obsession for using (only) electrical attacks
- I liked Raboot climbed the Draco Meteor again after episode 36. Such a nice combo move. I also liked the determination from Go and Raboot. Go sure develops as a trainer
- Always nice when the opening is used for intense moments
- Ash's explanation when Zapdos feeds electricity was pretty funny. Rica is such a great voice acress.
- Team Rocket helping the boys was nice, but pretty short as well. They didn't left an impact to this episode. The summary implied they would have a bigger role but alright..

6/10 The main focus of the episode, a raid battle with Zapdos, was entertaining to watch. If you look for a episode with simple fun and action this will be great, if you dive deeper there are some problems in this episode. Also I want to say it's getting more and more fun to write reviews

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

We'll see. He got a Dynamax band when people said he wouldn't and he was strong enough to bring down a Legendary


That's all I have to say about that

He could just use it to catch Dynamax Pokémon or participate in Max Raid Battles or in some other battle events. And he didn't defeat it, he just knocked it out of the air momentarily.

 

[Silktree]

I could see Go take on a Galar gym leader for Cinderace's sake, but just for one episode. Max Raids are much more likely.

 

[Lanstar]

This episode adds a peculiar twist to Goh's goal of catching all pokemon - and why I hope in a future episode, he finally decides to omit legendaries from his goal other than Mew.

Really, though: What makes his character feel artificial to me is simply his incredibly improbable goal in itself. How on earth is he supposed to catch Pokemon, such as the creation trio, that are truly one-of-a-kind in the anime-verse, and not seem unethical in doing it? I wouldn't mind an episode where he tries doing something like that, fails epically, and acknowledges that some species are fully taboo. Maybe just 'meeting' those Pokemon for Dex entries would be close enough instead.

 

[Knightwolf09]

Its such a relief that Goh didn't capture Zapdos. Hope Goh will never try again.

Why shouldn't he? How many trainers have we seen in the anime that actually successfully captured legendaries?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

How many trainers have we seen in the anime that actually successfully captured legendaries?

Only a handful. Brandon and Tobias come to mind, at least. And if we include Mythicals, Celebi and Melmetal also come to mind.

 

[Alola]

It's getting annoying how often they recycle the Sinnoh Legendaries' cries- they did this with Dialga's cry for Rayquaza, Palkia's cry for Zygarde, Solgaleo, and Lunala, and now Giratina's cry for Zapdos. Stop reusing the Mothra cry, my goodness; come up with something new.

That aside, Raboot learning Blaze Kick was a welcome sight, especially as I taught my own Raboot Blaze Kick in Shield (which served as an excellent attacking option until Pyro Ball as a Cinderace).

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Why shouldn't he? How many trainers have we seen in the anime that actually successfully captured legendaries?

First of all, catching Zapdos has some consequences, as shown in the 2nd movie. Catching a member of the legendary bird trio seems to cause weather disruptions caused by reactions from the other two. Secondly, it would feel like a slap to the face. Goh is a trainer who doesn't train his Pokemon much and it would feel like a slap to the face seeing a low level Pokemon take down such a high level Legendary Pokemon, then see a character who doesn't even work towards training his Pokemon for anything catch it, only to have it rot away at Cerise's lab.

 

[Eclipsical]

View: https://twitter.com/ilapaperx/status/1314609491393024003?s=21


We have been bamboozled.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Okay, this was a pretty cool and fun episode. I enjoyed seeing Ash, Goh, and Team Rocket team up to take on Zapdos. I also liked that Raboot finally learned a new move, though I personally would have preferred if he learned something that wasn't another Fire-type move. Zen Headbutt would have been cool. Oh well, the anime does seem to prefer flashiness over coverage anyway.

A good episode but a Rookie with absolutely no idea how to train Pokémon managed to knock a legendary onto the ground.

This irks me. It destroys the fact of training your Pokémon to get stronger. With that premise you only have to catch strong Pokémon and they will handle the rest. I dont like this and I don't like where this is going. Let's hope that after the Galar arc something changes.

What I am bothered by is how the scenario has been molded to give Goh an advantage, just another example of writer's pet-tism(?). Zapdos, in this very episode itself (much less the ones from M02 and XY110) is shown to be a really powerful adversary but suddenly near the end, it becomes very weak/nerfed for no reason. It barely took any damage from any of the opponent's Pokemons for most of the episode. While Raboot learning Blaze Kick and hitting Zapdos with it is cool, it shouldn't have been enough to completely ground Zapdos to the point a regular Pokeball went to three pings. Remember, this is the same Raboot that was one-shotted by Aerodactyl just two episodes ago, and this is the same Goh who never trains his Pokemon. It's not realistically believable that he was able to bring it down that easily.

To be fair, this is not the first time that a Zapdos has been inexplicably nerfed by the plot to create the illusion that a barely-trained Pokémon is actually super strong: in the XYZ saga, Ash's newly evolved Noivern was somehow able to browbeat a Zapdos despite being basically a toddler, barely doing any battling during his Noibat stage, and having a subpar at best showing in every subsequent battle he participated in. Methinks someone in the writing team must really hate Zapdos if it keeps being used as a punching bag for untrained rookies, lol.

 

[Fwahm]

It's not about whether or not I like the character, it's about the writing resulted in that particular scenario in the case of Tobias, which is all around bad.

Whether the writing surrounding Tobias and his relation to the league is good or bad has absolutely zero impact on his quality as an example regarding catching legendaries and the environment. He exists, he has multiple legendaries, and there was no scorn put on him for having said legendaries, which makes him a perfectly sufficient example for this topic. The Lugia example is not a "better" one just because you think the scenario surrounding them is better.

 

[Daren]

To be fair, this is not the first time that a Zapdos has been inexplicably nerfed by the plot to create the illusion that a barely-trained Pokémon is actually super strong

Similar things have been going on since Kanto.
Remember when those three trainers with Eeveelutions got wrecked by TR and then their younger borther's Eevee with zero experience one-shotted them all?
(That was a Tomioka episode, interestingly enough).

It's not even unique to the Pokémon anime by a long shot--it's not unknown for characters to get competence boosts so they can have a limelight moment/episode/chapter/whatever.

 

[nickdt]

Similar things have been going on since Kanto.
Remember when those three trainers with Eeveelutions got wrecked by TR and then their younger borther's Eevee with zero experience one-shotted them all?
(That was a Tomioka episode, interestingly enough).

It's not even unique to the Pokémon anime by a long shot--it's not unknown for characters to get competence boosts so they can have a limelight moment/episode/chapter/whatever.

tbh, that was the OG series though, so i think we can give the writers a little slack.

 

[Rocket Messiah]

Why shouldn't he? How many trainers have we seen in the anime that actually successfully captured legendaries?

On screen? No one, Ash with Meltan but I refuse to think that as a legendary.

There seems to a group of Legendaries whose excistance is tied to something , they are like Greek deitys for example Dialga to time, Palkia to Space,.Kyogre the Sea.... and another one where they are strong Pokémon but they are not tied to any special Powers related to life excistance like the Regis, Lati brothers. The legendary birds seem to be in a gray area.

Even though Go failed Raboot DID knock Zapdos to the ground. He will definitely do well in the PWC. And catch a Legendary in the future

How do I say it... First of all, while Zapdos is a strong Pokémon he is still a wild Pokémon. In PWC you face trainers with multiple Pokémon and multiple strategies. It's not the same. About the legendary catching it would be better that he does not cause that will mean that the world building of Pokémon world is absolutely destroyed.

And I also don't want to leave this undiscloded...

The fact that Team Rocket was defeated off scren by ?¿?¿? irates me. The fact that the gatcha have Pokémon that are imbeciles iratesme. The fact that the gatcha kills all purpose of a Team up with the twerps irates me.

The gatcha stinks.

 

[BigDocFan]

According to Bulbapedia, this episode was:

Screenplay: Deko Akao
Storyboard: Hiromasa Amano
Assistant director: Yasuhiro Noda
Animation director: Yoshitaka Yanagihara
Animation director: Akira Takeuchi

 

[Max1996]

Man, those moments with Zapdos in the Poké Ball really got me. I was seriously dreading Goh actually catching it, much more so at the second try.

That said, the battle against Zapdos was awesome, especially the part on the roof.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Similar things have been going on since Kanto.
Remember when those three trainers with Eeveelutions got wrecked by TR and then their younger borther's Eevee with zero experience one-shotted them all?
(That was a Tomioka episode, interestingly enough).

It's not even unique to the Pokémon anime by a long shot--it's not unknown for characters to get competence boosts so they can have a limelight moment/episode/chapter/whatever.

I'm not sure if the example with Eevee and the Kanto Eeveelutions is that fair of a comparison, since we don't know if Mikey's Eevee truly had "zero experience" or not. Besides, the OS really loved to toot the "an unevolved Pokémon is just as good as, if not better than its evolved form" horn, so that example just feels like an extension of that more than anything.

I think a better example would be Iris's Axew randomly learning no less than two overpowered moves out of the blue and even using one such move to hurt Cynthia's Garchomp (you know, the same juggernaut who shrugs off x4 super effective Blizzards like they were nothing and one-shots everything that isn't an Elite Four or Champion-level opponent) despite consistently being the weakest Pokémon in the entire Unova main cast otherwise.

But yeah, this kind of writing where an underdog character gets an inexplicable boost in strength and competence that later disappears is a common occurrence, especially in anime.