Review JN066: Flabebe's White Flower

[Max1996]

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Kind of funny how Goh has a nice moment with Flabebe here, which is quiet and serious, and about six years ago, Ash was flailing around with his Kalos team, to the point where no-one had a clue what was going on, at the same exact spot...

Which episode are you referring to?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Which episode are you referring to?

XY043 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

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[L-05308]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it isn’t the fault of this episode that the Iris episode and Oak episode are only one part.

Like I always say, love the episodes – hate the series. Journeys does a weird job placing the episodes in any meaningful order and giving them connective tissue – but generally the episodes themselves are pretty good.

 

[Unireon]

Yes. The structure is terrible.
But this episode was bad.

Nothing in it makes me care about Flabebe.
I could have become unable to fly anymore/lost its vital energy, and I won't have shed any tears.

 

[Reborn Talonflame]

When I said the music made the episode for me, I meant it. If it wasn’t there, I probably would have felt nothing. Heck, it’s impressive the music made me feel anything. This episode isn’t necessarily bad/boring, but doesn’t really do much.

Goh & Ash technically do research, which is their actual purpose of the series, and can actually keeps me somewhat interested compared to the waste of time Diglett, Plusle & Minun, Psyduck, and so on, episodes.
As people have mentioned, Floette departure isn’t sad. Compared to Dustox, Alola Gang, Arbok & Weezing, Butterfree, and others, it’s nowhere near the level. It’s on the same level as Pidgeot and Ambipom for me - barely established Pokemon with their trainer that has an episode to leave cause there’s no point in them; Ambipom wasn’t sad cause Dawn barely used the thing, and despite having gym battles with Ash, that connection was cut off by the trade. At the end of the day, I didn’t really care that much, and it’s thanks to the music to make me even feel ominous, intrigued and somewhat empty inside.

Despite that, this episode is superior to the episodes mentioned above - 6.5/10.

 

[Unireon]

I kinda expected a montage of all the significant moments where Gou and Flabebe/Floette bonded, those that happened off-screen.

It's impossible to empathise with the Tale of a Boy and his Animated-Prop.

 

[Eclipsical]

Went into the episode with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised! Wasn’t expecting anything emotional to come out of a simple plot. They did a good job of giving Flabébé a character for the limited time they had, plus, they were really cute. I was sad to see them go!

Another good episode for Goh’s development! Emotional Goh episodes have all been good to great.

 

[Craiden]

First, and this was fair, given the Absol episode, but I'm rather happy to say that, this had little in the way of similarity to the XY episode, as I didn't think it would, but people did have that fear. Secondly, people were trying to "invest themselves into Flabebe" or questioning why the episode was trying to make them, but that wasn't the case (and I didn't think so with the raw, but wanted subs to be sure). This was simply a small story about Flabebe trying to find a flower, and learning a bit about themselves, and after that, finding something it wanted to do regarding plants (in this case, growing a "white flower garden" so that other Flabebe do not have to struggle finding this particular flower) and on that front, this episode delivered in spades. Very good "research" episode, rather good story about one of Gou's relatively obscure Pokemon.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The Shalour City Pokémon Center's design is identical to the one used in XY. Nice inter-series continuity once again!

 

[Kurolegacy]

I think in this case, the quality of the connection makes up for how little we've seen of it. At least enough for it to actually tug my heartstrings.

Personally speaking, I can’t really say it does due to it just kinda making up a real connection on the fly without doing any of the actual work to make the connection feel genuine. It’s in that regard that Go as a character and Journeys fails in a show-don’t-tell medium. It’s especially egregious, almost to an insulting degree after previous series of the anime that would have actually earned the emotional impact they wanted rather than manipulating the viewer’s emotions for something that in reality has little to no real impact. Like, compare this to any previous release episode and it doesn’t even come close.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Personally speaking, I can’t really say it does due to it just kinda making up a real connection on the fly without doing any of the actual work to make the connection feel genuine. It’s in that regard that Go as a character and Journeys fails in a show-don’t-tell medium. It’s especially egregious, almost to an insulting degree after previous series of the anime that would have actually earned the emotional impact they wanted rather than manipulating the viewer’s emotions for something that in reality has little to no real impact. Like, compare this to any previous release episode and it doesn’t even come close.

Things don't have to be equally emotional to be impactful. But hey, if you don't feel it, that's fine. Everyone has their own opinions.

 

[Unireon]

Are we supposed to feel something?

Maybe Gou has developed a bond with Flabebe/Floette, but the audience surely don't.

Despite being a bit similar, but also very different, to the XY episode.
The latter wins in impact.

 

[Craiden]

Are we supposed to feel something?

Maybe Gou has developed a bond with Flabebe/Floette, but the audience surely don't.

Despite being a bit similar, but also very different, to the XY episode.
The latter wins in impact.

If you are, it's more for a Flabebe who came seeking a flower, but is now staying to "preserve" and expand the population of this white flower Flabebe seek, not for anything related to Gou's bonding with it (though that was also nice in this episode).

 

[Unireon]

Finding its purpose was nice.

But many are saying that the release scene touched them, and that's why I'm baffled.

It's impossible to fix what they didn't show with just a few forced interactions.
If the staff dropped it without trying to make significant the moment, it'd be okay.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Lol. All that saying that White Flabebe is rare and then Goh releases it. Then what was the point in mentioning it was rare. It also instantly means this episode wasn't a filler.

That just shows character development. Just because something (a living breathing creature) is rare doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a right to be happy. I do like that 5ey have introduced the concept of Go releasing Pokémon if needed to be. I wish they’d have aired this instead of the Absol episode and avoided the heavily reused and problematic (for some of us, before someone jumps at me again). This episode would have taken a more positive path for Go's character development. I just hope this isn’t undone by some future episode.

The Shalour City Pokémon Center's design is identical to the one used in XY. Nice inter-series continuity once again!

I do appreciate your optimism but IMO buildings NOT morphing into completely different structures is the bare minimum "continuity" that should be expected,

 

[Dogasu]

This episode felt like it just dragged on and on and on.

If there was ever an episode that would have benefited from the shot in the arm the Rocket trio could have given it, this was it.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

This episode felt like it just dragged on and on and on.

If there was ever an episode that would have benefited from the shot in the arm the Rocket trio could have given it, this was it.

I know right. Glad that you agree. It felt soo slooow

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Maybe Gou has developed a bond with Flabebe/Floette, but the audience surely don't.

I'm part of the audience, and I definitely felt something.

I do appreciate your optimism but IMO buildings NOT morphing into completely different structures is the bare minimum "continuity" that should be expected,

It's still continuity in my book. And continuity is good.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

It's still continuity in my book. And continuity is good.

Imo it’s the bare minimum of expectations. Making buildings look recognisable is literally the only visual indicator of a location, so messing that up would be something.

That’s like saying that XY has good continuity because Ash looks similar to how he did in BW: like scraping at the bottom of the barrel to find something.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I'm part of the audience, and I definitely felt something.

I think they could've phrased their opinion to show that not all audience feels the same, but feeling emotions is a subjective thing and even though some people (including me) can feel something by being told about it, I won’t blame people for not feeling anything more than they do with an average PotD, because for all intents and purposes it is a PotD episode, with just Go's Pokémon instead.