Review JN053: Catch the Legend!? Find the Guardian of Water - Suicune!!

[nickdt]

Hahahahaha the boss:

Can't say i'm impressed with you just coming in and stealing it after we did all the work.

Hahahahahaha, even the boss thinks Goh is a poacher (Since he poachers from the poachers)

 

[Max1996]

Hahahahaha the boss:

Can't say i'm impressed with you just coming in and stealing it after we did all the work.

Hahahahahaha, even the boss thinks Goh is a poacher (Since he poachers from the poachers)

Key word: thinks

 

[R1ke]

Yeah Goh’s quite the callous poacher. It’s despicable how he tortures his pokemon by giving them free food and shelter. He’s so evil that he lets them roam freely within the lab or sometimes even bonds with them before they choose to join him. The most sickening part is that he doesn’t sell them to the blackmarket or monetarily profit off them in any way. Truly disturbing behaviour for a co-protagonist if you ask me.

 

[Rockapheller]

Relevant to you mentioning the comparison between Go and the hunters but it seems even go (and by association the writers) are aware of the similarities

View: https://twitter.com/Arkeus88/status/1355495605540413440?s=20

It’s just a shame that they bring up such self-awareness within the character but it’s rendered kinda moot because it’s not of use for character development and this goes nowhere.

He obviously refers to the fact that he ended up catching Suicune instead of hunters in order to save it, not that he "hunts" Pokémon all the time.

 

[LazySpy]

So, ummm...

It feels like I have to do this.

Same energy.

Spoiler

(Just watch the video from the tweet and you'll understand what I'm talking about perfectly.)


View: https://twitter.com/BlessedSouthpaw/status/1328923178912067585?s=20

 

[Enzo]

I get that this might no be the best place to talk about this, but I gotta say it, even being off-topic:

After this ep there's ABSOLUTELY no excuse to make Ash lose his final battle against Leon and become the strongest in the world. If they gave Goh an box legendary literally 47 episodes after he struggled to catch an SCHYTER, Ash can d*** well win against Leon after all this time of training and battling. 20+ YEARS. No BS OP Charizard as an excuse. Period. The writers set themselves into a hole with this ep. After the loss against Tobias and Alain, and Suicune going to Goh, if Ash loses at the end, I'm sure there's no way the writers can keep their credibility. It will be over for them if this happen.

 

[Queen Cynthia]

Catching Pokemon and having them live comfortably at a research lab

No matter how people feel about the lab park, it is not like a cage and Goh does care about Pokemon.

Living comfortably at a lab while instead they could be living "at home" in their natural surroundings? Seriously?
If we could ask those lions, elephants and other animals living in zoos all around the world, I guess they would certainly tell us how they long for going back to their original forests, fields or savannas. Locking away Pokemon (and I still think it's the right expression when applied to Go) just in order to fill up his Pokedex or to "get closer" to Mew (which makes even less sense) is something that everybody who cares for animals/Pokemon should reject.

He only got to see Ho-Oh and Suicune from afar.

You just gave the perfect example of hat I meant in my last post when I was talking about what it means to really deserve a legendary Pokemon. If anybody has a legitimate right to "own" a legendary than it clealry is Ash who should be entitled to be Ho-oh's trainer. That Poekmon has been watching over him since he first entered the stage. Considering all that foreshadowing and special relationship Ho-oh has towards Ash, I would find it perfectly acceptable if Ash captured it at the end of his journey. The crowning achievement of his life as a Pokemon trainer/master so to speak.
However, the way they gave away Suicune as a mere "lottery prize" to a newbie like Go is just inacceptable and devalues the special role legendary Pokemon should have.

One of them continuously polluted an entire lake (and by extension, the ecosystem around it) just to weaken and capture a legendary Pokemon. The other one helped to heal the legendary Pokemon after it was poisoned and weakened, and once it fully recovered, gave it the option to be free so that it can continue purifying lakes all over the world. Try guessing who Suicune chose to stay with.

Well, I don't know hwo other users are seeing this but I for one never directly said Go was a hunter/poacher. I was just trying to point out certain analogies and similarities that, from my point of view, can't be denied. No, Go doesn't treat Pokemon like those hunters do and he seems to care for at least a few of them. But still, he catches what he can get for a goal that doesn't make sense and those Pokemon end up being locked away in a zoo-like lab (as I explained above) which can be considered a way of taking away their freedom. So, I do hope you can see the similarities here.
@Kurolegacy sums it up very well:

While I’m not saying that he’s anywhere near as bad as the hunters, there is something to be said about the way that the writers have executed Go’s style of catching Pokémon within the series. Does he care for them? Yes. But he is one who just goes around catching Pokémon left, right and center for no other reason than checking a box with the manner of capture most of the time being some of the most soulless we’ve seen in this series without even considering the Pokémon’s feelings in the matter when it comes to capturing them (and before anyone mentions him releasing Dugtrio last episode or giving Suicune a choice here, it kinda undermines the prospect of thinking about the Pokémon’s feeling when you make that call after you’ve caught them for your dex entry rather than before, especially since at that point, you already have your “prize”). One thing I can praise here is, for the first time in the series a Pokémon has had a realistic reaction towards capture though even that was more so thanks to the hunters as opposed to the prospect of some random kid coming in disrupting its life and capturing it.

As cold as I may sound towards Go, I don’t hate the character. What I do hate though is the execution that the writers have done with Go which results in less than enthusiasm when it comes to these kinds of situations. Everything about how they’ve literally styled him after Go feels like a contradiction of the anime’s 20+ year establishment with no actual explanation as to why these things work for him but haven’t prior to him showing up. It feels more like he would work better as the protagonist of either a spin-off or a Pokémon Go anime where established concepts of the anime have no bearings.

I agree with you! I want to point out I don't hate Go either, but I do hate the flawed concept behind him, or as you put it, the execution that the writers have done with him, because I think it's a blatant contradiction to everything that has been true and precious in the Anime for the last 20+ years.

I think that's just too harsh of a way to look at Goh's capture method. It especially doesn't work in the context of this episode since Goh wasn't capturing Suicune for the dex entry. He wanted to get it away from the hunters as fast as possible and suffering from the poison made it more of an emergency. I can understand not liking that setup, but using it to say that Goh giving Suicune the choice to leave doesn't mean anything because he already got his prize just feels so mean spirited.

Again, I'd like to remind you that there have been countless examples where injured Pokemon needed to be saved. Even poisoning has never been such a big issue that it couldn't be solved later on with berries etc. (Otherwise every battle in which a Pokemon is poisoned would have to be stopped immediately). So far, people (most notably Ash) have always come up with ideas how to destroy the villains' machines or nets and thus freeing the Pokemon. I can't remember a single episode where a character's initial reaction was to capture the Pokemon and this kind of shows to me how obsessed Go is with catching Pokemon that he can't think of anything else.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Also, the idea of Ash not standing out in Go-focused episodes should have been accepted by now. I don't recall him doing much during Dawn's contests or Serena's showcases.

I agree. But in those situations Dawn and Serena too did NOT stand out in Ash episodes. They manage to stuff Gou in Ash episodes as well now. An episode has either fully Gou focus or Ash and Gou focus.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

An episode has either fully Gou focus or Ash and Gou focus.

Episode 18 disagrees.

 

[LazySpy]

Episode 18 disagrees.

'There was this one episode out of 53 that's diffirent than what you're saying, your point is wrong'.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

'There was this one episode out of 53 that's diffirent than what you're saying, your point is wrong'.

I didn't say that. I just said that saying there's no episode solely focusing on Ash is not true.

 

[GrookeyFan77]

Episode 18 disagrees.

JN010 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN016 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN021 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN030 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN034 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN039 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN051 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN056 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

These also disagree

 

[LazySpy]

I didn't say that. I just said that saying there's no episode solely focusing on Ash is not true.

Ever heard of terms like 'hyperbole' and 'exxagaration' and that it's normall for people to use mentall shortcuts in conversations?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Ever heard of terms like 'hyperbole' and 'exxagaration' and that it's normall for people to use mentall shortcuts in conversations?

My bad. But @BlazingPyro77 provided some more episodes above, as you've no doubt noticed.

 

[GrookeyFan77]

Now let's compare them to the only Goh focused ones where Ash did nothing/almost nothing!

JN010 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN016 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/JN018

JN021 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN030 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN034 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN039 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN051 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN056 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

______________________________________________________________________________

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/JN001

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/JN006

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/JN015

JN032 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN047 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN053 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

Huh? ASH HAS MORE??? If I missed some episodes please tell me!

 

[R1ke]

JN010 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN016 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN021 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN030 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN034 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN039 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN051 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

JN056 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

These also disagree

You beat me to it. I'd also say episodes 13 (Ash vs Leon) and 27 (2nd half with galar farfetch'd) count for Ash as well.

As for the Ash episodes where Goh has notable focus, I got episodes 7, 25, 36 and 37. So 4 / 15 --> 26% of Ash focused episodes where Goh actually has notable roles from what I've gathered. So far from most actually.

I agree. But in those situations Dawn and Serena too did NOT stand out in Ash episodes. They manage to stuff Gou in Ash episodes as well now. An episode has either fully Gou focus or Ash and Gou focus.

I would agree that Ash doesn't get as many focus episodes as Goh, and he deserves more focus this series. But I don't think Goh is usually stealing Ash's spotlight when it's his time to shine.

 

[GrookeyFan77]

You beat me to it. I'd also say Episodes 13 (Ash vs Leon) and 27 (2nd half with galar farfetch'd) count for Ash as well.

As for the Ash episodes where Goh has notable focus, I got episodes 7, 25, 36 and 37. So 4 / 15 --> 26% of Ash focused episodes where Goh actually has notable roles from what I've gathered. So far from most actually.

In episode 27 Goh did do some stuff in the start and in episode 13 he explained the PWC and caught Skwovet which is one of Goh's important Pokemon.
As for the episodes focusing on Ash that Goh has a part in or not, here is the list!

Ash focus with only Ash	Ash focus with some Goh
JN010	JN012
JN016	JN013
JN018	JN025
JN021	JN027
JN030
JN034
JN039
JN051
JN056

9/4. Ash's episodes usally feature only him.

 

[LazySpy]

My bad. But @BlazingPyro77 provided some more episodes above, as you've no doubt noticed.

Well, that's good.

But you've been called out on pedantry before and it can be quite infuriating. I'm actually in a perfect position to show you an example of how I'd go about disagreeing on one, minor detail with another person...

JN010 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

I just wanted to point out that in this episode, it is thanks to Goh that the island is found - he came up with the idea of compiling a list of confirmed Dragonite sighting, which gave him and Ash the generall idea of where to look for the island. He also caught a Dewgong, who was the boys main method of transportation throughout the episode. He was also the one to point out that Dragonair perform Dragon Dance prior to flying, which helped Ash in helping his soon-to-be Dragonite. Also Goh came to the conclusion that the storm that surrounds the island is Dragonite's own creation.

So it is a shared focus episode.

Otherwise, I can't think of much issue with the rest of the list off the top of my head.

(Notes for Finnish: I highlight that this one thing Pyro got wrong doesn't nullify the rest of the list to not come across as if I'm saying that.)

 

[GrookeyFan77]

So it is a shared focus episode.

It is not shared, It is still Ash focus with some Goh in it. And even then, It is just 1 episode.

 

[LazySpy]

It is not shared, It is still Ash focus with some Goh in it.

What doesn't make it shared when Goh is the one to make the entire plot possible and points out an information relevant for Ash's plot?