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

[Silktree]

Team Rocket really should have been the highlight here, but no such luck.

Say what now? This was a Go-focused episode and if anything Lt. Surge and Pisces should have been his raid partners.

 

[Beatsy Ray]

Say what now? This was a Go-focused episode and if anything Lt. Surge and Pisces should have been his raid partners.

I meant that based on the summary we were given. It was the only aspect of the episode that I was looking forward to because of the awesome TRio corporations we've seen in the past, or even as recently as the resort episode. I definitely would have preferred to see more interesting raid battle partners like Lt. Surge though.

 

[Alola]

• Even though I am a Pokémon battling nut, I thought this episode had a stronger first half than its second. The slices of life we witnessed with the snow cone machine and seeing Koharu come home from school felt nicely grounded, and I enjoyed Ash's lamenting over Zapdos; oh Rica, how do you do it~ I also liked Go's deduction as to Zapdos' whereabouts in addition to the brief philosophy bit he mentioned about the Pokémon and Egg; I was reminded of Jessie's own inquiring of it in an episode long ago.
• After the finding of Zapdos, that's when I began to have misgivings:
  • Go's insistence on using the ineffective, in both range and type, Double Kick on Zapdos was annoying. You have Ember for a reason, dude; use it. I get that that insistence was most likely to lead up to Blaze Kick, but many a main character's Pokémon have learned an unrelated new move without warning before. Not the best writing, in my opinion.
    • Speaking on Go's Pokémon more, Flygon took several levels in "sucking" since its debut. They capitalized on its type-advantage, but...still found a way to have it be overpowered by Zapdos and forced to rely on Raboot for assistance. Honestly, a Flygon Vs. Zapdos aerial battle would have been better in my opinion, with Go utilizing Sandstorm (which Flygon may or not have forgotten since it picked up Dragon Claw and Dragon Breath inexplicably) in a similar manner to how effectively Flygon used it prior. But, alas. Also, two on one in a Wild Pokémon Battle is unfair.
  • Zapdos spamming whatever Electric-type move it did was pretty lazy imo; it would have been nice to see a Drill Peck, Light Screen, Ancient Power, etc.; something. It would have made the interaction more substantial; makes you wonder, aside from plot reasons, why a trio of Ground-types just could not get the job done. That electrical spam was present in the Kalos episode too, iirc. And before anyone says it is the embodiment of electricity, yes I know-that doesn't mean its other three move-slots can't have some diversity.
  • Speaking of Ground-types, what a letdown Rhydon and Stunfisk where. I would have rather the writers supplied non-Electric resistant Pokémon that got KO'd than whatever Rhydon and Stunfisk were supposed to be; especially as the implication was that their presence may have been influenced by Giovanni. That aside, given the previous Gatcha Pokémon, these ones being either dumb (Rhydon) or inadequate (Stunfisk) felt contrived.
  • Ash Vs. Team Rocket. I actually chuckled at the scene where he blasted them off inexplicitly; I wouldn't mind seeing more of that, admittedly. However, the implication that he did so with Pikachu bugged me. One thing Pocket Monsters falls short in is allowing party member Pokémon screentime to handle mundane or TRio situations. As Pikachu was a horrible match-up to Rhydon and Stunfisk, why not call upon Gengar (who actually had a brief mention earlier in the episode)? Farfetch'd? Dragonite? Why do the writers still act like he hasn't caught any Pokémon unless their appearances are obligated? I miss that from the previous sagas; case in point, I just watched the Weather Institute episode in Hoenn-at its climax when Brody revealed himself, May stepped up and called Combusken to battle his Ditto disguised as a Crawdant. Sure, it failed, fell rather easily, and didn't have a lot of time on screen, but at least it got to do something and reminded viewers that these Trainers do use their Pokémon when applicable.
  • TRio's insistence on Zapdos yet sudden switch to Pikachu seemed off, too; usually they go all the way with these types of plans. I'm not saying they couldn't refocus on Pikachu...but I think that transition could have been written better, especially after their prior detailed team up with Ash & Go in a "Raid Battle."
  • I feel like Dr. Sakuragi didn't truly learn anything that he didn't already know about Zapdos; he claimed otherwise, but his manner of speaking and inserted observation comment at the end tells me a different story. I wish there was an episode on him substantially doing something that pertains to his studies and why exactly he is relevant.
• Go not catching Zapdos was obvious, but I was curious to see how the event would play out. It wasn't as great as I hoped, sadly; here's hoping the future episodes with attempted Legendary captures will be better.

 

[P_S_B]

seeing Koharu come home from school

Guess I have to watch it afterall. Still need to watch the second Bea one as well.

 

[Sheep]

this took me longer to watch than I wanted ): but here we go!

- Poor Gengar only gets a mention. rip can I have my baby back on screen please
- Smart Go and clueless Ash make for a good duo and I'll keep loving this contrast!
- Zapdos is super cool. I adore electric types and it's always been my favorite of the three legendary birds. Didn't think I'd casually get to see it in an episode, but here we are. Team Rocket's 'omg cool!!' reaction was basically me
- Those are some really derpy Pokémon and I got a lot of amusement out of their failed attempts at attacking. So fitting for Team Rocket.
- James commanding Pikachu was something I had no idea I needed. But I realize now I did and I love it.
- Off-screen blast off was a little disappointing. I know it wouldn't have been the most exciting thing as usual if we did see it happen though, but I would've still preferred to see it than not.
- Really cool battle with nice animation, especially for Blaze Kick. Happy to see Raboot continue to develop along with Go.
- Pikachu getting hit with all that lightning and initially looking so burned is another scene I'm adding to my 'painful to watch' list. Glad it wasn't actually damaging anyone, made it lighter for sure.
- pikachu and yamper cuddles<3

Good episode. I did have reasonably high expectations for it personally, and it honestly did exceed them for the most part. I loved seeing Team Rocket work with Ash and Go even if it was brief, and Raboot and Flygon's battle against Zapdos was especially awesome. The few downsides I had was TR's off-screen blast off and how quickly they switched over from wanting Zapdos back to Pikachu, but it's nothing that bothered me much.

I understand and agree with other people that say the episode could've had some more polish though, but I'm overall quite positive about it!

 

[R1ke]

So I rewatched the Zapdos portion again and noticed a few more things that I want to bring up. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

1) Given Zapdos specifically creates thunderclouds on its own (as explored in the episode), the thunderbolt that broke the final pokeball was formed by Zapdos itself. It was simply a way for him to resist and evade capture, not a coincidence or anything of the sort. There weren't even any thunderclouds formed, so it was an attempt to break the pokeball itself. Goh failed to catch Zapdos, fair and square. Just wanted to make this clear.

2) There was no way Zapdos was at its full power here. Not only was it claimed to be resting at the powerplant (so already a bit weakened) but it only spammed 1/4 moves. It didn’t even spawn any thunderclouds during its encounter with Goh. This would’ve made it much harder to fight, since it could spontaneously summon lightning from anywhere. Think about it like this: If Goh struggled so much and couldn’t even catch Zapdos at its worst, how will he fight it when it’s actually trying? I’d argue it would be more concerning if Goh got this close to catching it when Zapdos was going all-out, because it would imply that he is strong enough to handle a legendary that is battling seriously. I can’t help but think that they wanted him to fight and fail catching Zapdos on ‘easy mode’ because that’ll show how far he really is from taking on a proper legendary (unless they decide to make all future legendaries spam 1 move).

3) I doubt Goh actually got Zapdos down to red health or anything. Not only did Zapdos show no signs of exhaustion/damage (like physical marks) but it got back up easily and even shared a fair amount of electricity with nearby pokemon after breaking free. This isn't what you'd see from something that has been heavily wounded. Him being ‘frozen’ for so long is more just how the anime likes keeping some pokemon static during the sections where characters are talking. I've seen similar things happen before such as in Ash vs Paul, where Drapion used toxic spikes and you could still see Buizel awkwardly floating in the air throughout that whole attack (as it jumped up earlier with sonicboom iirc), and in Pikachu vs Aegislash (Ash vs Sawyer), where the wood pieces were similarly suspended midair whilst Pikachu zipped around them, Aegislash cut them and tried using kings shield. I'm sure there's plenty of similar examples that I can't think of right now. It's just the cinematography, if that makes sense. My guess is if they showed Zapdos actually getting up or something throughout this sequence, it would've definetly destroyed Goh's pokeball or flown away. So they kept it static to allow Goh to through the pokeball here. Also, as cheap as this sounds, but the 3 pokeball shakes were likely just to build suspense here as there was a large marketing campaign to tease us that he could get it. I don't want this kind of baiting to happen again, but that's a discussion for another time. Blaze kick's knockback is still unwarranted, but the fact nobody saw that hit coming somewhat helps alleviate it, so it could've disoriented Zapdos when it hit.

4) Raboot and Flygon were done after the fight. Goh wanted to continue battling, but they simply didn't continue - they'd push themselves too far if they kept going. Raboot needs no explanation (legit on red health, it's 1 hit away from fainting) and Flygon could either be tired or lazy. If it was tired, then that just shows the blatant power gap between Goh's strong pokemon and Zapdos, and just how far he is away from actually facing one properly. If it's too lazy to keep fighting, that implies disobedience and may be something Goh could work on in the future.

Edit: So taking all this into consideration, the episode is elevated for me. These points show how weak Goh really is and the failure adds to his development in a more positive way. So I’ll raise it to 7/10 now (from 6.5 earlier).

 

[NeoMiniTails]

I really enjoyed this episode. I watched it earlier today and found myself super excited for the Galar arc coming up.