Preview JN099: Mary of Spike Town!

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Honestly? Between throwing Gengar, who’s been here for so long, under the bus again, and sacrificing the character and credibility of Marnie, who I very much doubt they’ll succeed in making me care for this deep into the series anyway... it’s an easy choice. What I don’t get is why do I need to make that choice.

It’s like the showrunners are taking bets on who can fuck over the PWC the hardest.

 

[Unireon]

They are going to make Gengar job again just to force a rivalry with Mary.....

They didn't learn a thing from the trainwreck that was their attempt with Saito.

Who would be the next character beeing forced to be Satoshi's rival?

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I love how there literally exists a character with literally the same goal as Ash- hence a true rival that could prevent him from reaching his goal of Leon in PWC, but they did nothing with him or that angle of his goal being Leon as well (sad Raihan noises).

 

[Daren]

Honestly? Between throwing Gengar, who’s been here for so long, under the bus again, and sacrificing the character and credibility of Marnie, who I very much doubt they’ll succeed in making me care for this deep into the series anyway... it’s an easy choice. What I don’t get is why do I need to make that choice.

Marnie's also not exactly a powerhouse in the games; she's the weakest of your three main rivals and in the post-game rematches she's weaker than the Gym Leaders until clearing the Star Tournament basically equalized every named character other than Raihan and Leon.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

To be fair, it's not unheard of for game characters' strength to be portrayed differently in the anime. Pokemon themselves get this all the time, for example, with the most notorious examples being Charizard and Pikachu, who are portrayed as far more powerful in the anime than they are in the games (though in the latter's case that inaccurate strength is pretty much exclusive to Ash's Pikachu).

And just in the last series we had Acerola and Kahili jobbing at the Alola League (the latter didn't even make it past the preliminary round) despite the fact that in the games both of them are strong enough to be deemed Elite Four material. Barry was also nerfed pretty hard in the anime too: in the games he had the distinct honor of being the first character to usurp Red's title of Trainer with the highest leveled Pokemon until the Gen 2 remakes came out, but the anime made him complete fodder for Paul.

And then we have Leon, who was already built up as pretty dang OP in the games, but the anime made him even more powerful by giving him the title of World Champion and still keeping his undefeated record. I guess it was about due time that another game character also got a buff in the anime, and fittingly, it's a Galar character.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Marnie's also not exactly a powerhouse in the games; she's the weakest of your three main rivals and in the post-game rematches she's weaker than the Gym Leaders until clearing the Star Tournament basically equalized every named character other than Raihan and Leon.

Maybe but look at Bea; in the games she isn’t really all that tough of an opponent being only the 4th gym leader but in the anime she was shown to be a first hand introduction to the strength of those from Galar, curbstomping Ash without breaking a sweat. You never really know how they’ll represent the game character’s’ strength in the anime.

 

[Daren]

Maybe but look at Bea; in the games she isn’t really all that tough of an opponent being only the 4th gym leader but in the anime she was shown to be a first hand introduction to the strength of those from Galar, curbstomping Ash without breaking a sweat. You never really know how they’ll represent the game character’s’ strength in the anime.

To be fair she stomped Ash when he was using his two newest and least trained Pokémon. Pikachu stood up to her just fine when he matched her later.

I'm not opposed to Marnie getting a buff; I just don't think it's any real problem if she gets the Hau/Barry treatment. Especially when Gengar needs a clean win.

Especially when we already have Cynthia, Raihan, and Leon on the deck for Ash's future top-level opponents.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Maybe but look at Bea; in the games she isn’t really all that tough of an opponent being only the 4th gym leader but in the anime she was shown to be a first hand introduction to the strength of those from Galar, curbstomping Ash without breaking a sweat. You never really know how they’ll represent the game character’s’ strength in the anime.

Galar Gym Leaders are holding back during Gym battles. Bea's Champion Cup team shows that her true power is around Elite Four level.

 

[Eitarou]

It is explicitly stated in multiple games that all Gym Leaders (and equivalents like Kahunas) are holding themselves back. This is not a Galar thing.

 

[Sai]

Assuming Ash wins I wonder if Marnie or Piers will appear again. Piers isn't in the PWC as far as we know but I hope they get some role later on. If this is their only episode that would be strange since all Galar characters have gotten at least 2 episodes or more.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Apparently the result was spoiled in a Magazine. Not entirely sure if this is true tho so just take it with a grain of salt

Spoiler

Ash Wins

And just like that Marnie now currently surpasses Hau as the worst character introduction in the series.

But hey at least Gengar won something for once since 2020

Assuming this is true anyways

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Apparently the result was spoiled in a Magazine. Not entirely sure if this is true tho so just take it with a grain of salt

Spoiler

Ash Wins

And just like that Marnie now currently surpasses Hau as the worst character introduction in the series.

But hey at least Gengar won something for once since 2020

Assuming this is true anyways

Of course they win through BS

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Apparently the result was spoiled in a Magazine. Not entirely sure if this is true tho so just take it with a grain of salt

Spoiler

Ash Wins

And just like that Marnie now currently surpasses Hau as the worst character introduction in the series.

But hey at least Gengar won something for once since 2020

Assuming this is true anyways

Spoiler

That interview a while back did say Ash was going to get more "undeafeatable," I believe the word they used was, but still though. What a crappy way to intoduce a character, and this late too. If this does in fact turn out to be true though, Marnie fans are going to RAGE.

 

[KrspaceT]

Spoiler

You know a good fight can still be a good fight. Like...we don't like Rowlet v Hau fights because of stuff like dropped Z-Crystals and that sleep gag. Marnie could very well not have something like that happen.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Spoiler

You know a good fight can still be a good fight. Like...we don't like Rowlet v Hau fights because of stuff like dropped Z-Crystals and that sleep gag. Marnie could very well not have something like that happen.

Spoiler

Maybe not but given that the episode doesn’t even get to the point and decides to waste time with sending Ash to the wrong location plus Hyper class battles having set a certain expectation from the ones we’ve seen thus far and them basically wasting Marnie on a 1 v 1 after making us wait this long for her to appear at all, it’s definitely not looking too hot for this.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I had people telling me left right and center that the future classes would be full of Multi Pokémon matches like gym battles whenever I dared criticise the low Pokémon count and the w quick 1 vs 1 matches early in the saga. I didn’t want to be proven correct there but here we are.

 

[JinksChow]

Spoiler

Maybe not but given that the episode doesn’t even get to the point and decides to waste time with sending Ash to the wrong location plus Hyper class battles having set a certain expectation from the ones we’ve seen thus far and them basically wasting Marnie on a 1 v 1 after making us wait this long for her to appear at all, it’s definitely not looking too hot for this.

So we might be getting a version 2 of Ash VS Ritchie, except this time Ash wins...

 

[Sheep]

Hey friends, just a reminder to spoiler tag posts that discuss potential spoilers for future events in the anime! I've gone ahead and tagged some posts above, but for the future please do remember to mark them yourself so people don't come in to major episode spoilers they may not want to know about yet. Thanks.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Spoiler

If the rumors that Ash wins first try are true, I can't say I'm too bummed about it since it was already a lose-lose situation what with it being a 1v1 featuring Journeys' favorite punching bag Gengar, so it was going to have a disappointing outcome either way: either Gengar was going to job for the upteenth time or Marnie was going to get one of the worst treatments of any game-originating rivals to date (not counting the ones that nevet even had an appearance of course).

That out of the way, though, I'm really intrigued at how Gengar could possibly win this matchup. Sure, on paper it's fairly even, since Gengar's Ghost-type makes it weak to Grimmsnarl's Dark-type STAB, but at the same time his Poison-type gives him super effective STAB in turn due to Grimmsnarl being part Fairy. The problem is that in practice Gengar's current movepool is extremely ill-suited to take on a Grimmsnarl: Shadow Ball is resisted, Night Shade deals set damage (and in general is treated like a weaker version of Shadow Ball anyway), Psychic is completely ineffective unless the writers ignore the type chart entirely for the sake of plot (and I'd rather they not do this), and Ice Punch comes off of Gengar's weaker offensive stat and only deals neutral damage anyway.

Granted, a while back there was that magazine scan that showed the movesets of Ash's Pokemon and Gengar had Dazzling Gleam in place of Psychic, so presumably the ghost will learn Dazzling Gleam here and clinch the win with it. I'd personally much prefer it if Gengar learned a Poison-type move instead since that one is STAB and all, but eh, at least Ash will finally have a Pokemon that used a Fairy-type attack I guess, lol.

 

[Daren]

Spoiler: Ghost Diplocaulus

I'd personally much prefer it if Gengar learned a Poison-type move instead since that one is STAB and all, but eh, at least Ash will finally have a Pokemon that used a Fairy-type attack I guess, lol.

To be fair I strongly suspect the show doesn't have STAB. I'm not sure if the mechanic was ever referenced and I feel like usually if two Pokémon know the same attack the one with the same type has no advantage, like Pikachu's Thunderbolt not seeming any stronger than Tyson's Meowth's.