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Review JN099: Mary of Spike Town!

Really liked the animation and OST in this ep. Anyone knows what's the OST used when G-gengar used Max Ooze and the one when Grimmsnarl used Stomping Tantrum?
 
Putting aside the part where this is a 1v1 battle at a point where official 1v1 battles shouldn't really be a thing anymore, this was a great battle. Excellent use of Dynamax, wide variety of moves shown, and tactical strategies employed by both sides make this one of the best PWC battles I've seen so far. A lot of peeps here already elaborated on why this battle was so amazing, so I won't talk much about that. Instead, I wanna point out one minor issue I have with this battle that's also present in some of the past PWC battles.

I'm not sure if this has also been an issue before Journeys or not, but there seems to be a trend in the PWC where Ash's opponents pull out a power-up towards the end of the battle, only for Ash's Pokemon to just brute force their way through it.
  • When Rinto's Gallade activated its Justified ability towards the end of its battle, Ash's Sirfetch'd just brute forced its way through it and won anyway, rendering the power-up seemingly pointless. This could be explained by Sirfetch'd getting significantly stronger after evolving in that battle, allowing it to overpower Gallade even with Justified activated.
  • When Bea's Machamp gained a power boost after using its G-Max attack, Ash's Mega Lucario just brute forced its way through it by spontaneously learning Steel Beam. While Lucario learning a new move in that exact moment felt a bit too convenient, it did help make its victory feel much more believable, so I guess it's fine here.
  • And now, when Marnie's Grimmsnarl tried using a boosted Stomping Tantrum, Ash's Gengar effortlessly breaks through the attack with a regular Shadow Ball, knocking out Grimmsnarl. This is probably the worst example of this issue, since we have a boosted attack being completely thwarted by an unboosted attack, which kinda made the battle's conclusion feel a bit anticlimactic despite the rest of the episode being spectacular.
It's a very small issue that didn't ruin my enjoyment of the battle, but I feel like they definitely could've wrapped up the battle much more nicely by having Gengar deal with the boosted Stomping Tantrum more tactically.

Regarding Gengar's Shadow Ball finishing off Grimmsnarl, I believe the Gigantimax ghost used Max Ooze, which powers up its Special Attack while in the battle.
 
This is rather late to post this, but better late than never...

They had to cram as much of the Marnie, Team Yell, and Piers moments and scenario from the Sword and Shield games in ONE episode.

  • Team Yell misleading Ash to Spikemuth in order to deter him from facing whilst helping Marnie advance in the championships is a references to what they exactly just did with sabotaging the Challengers in the games- especially from during their debut in the hotel in Motostoke to harassing Pokemon and people with excuses just to get in their way to progressing to the Championships - all to let Marnie win the championships due to their fears that Spikemuth's popularity diminishing due to it having no power spot for Dynamax/Gigantamax despite Pier's successful singing career and his dislikes towards Dynamaxing.
  • Piers's badass intro in his singing career, even owning an awesome bike - which he runs safely instead of otherwise despite the seriousness Ash found himself because of Team Yell.- which Piers took account for. Although the bike part wasn't from the games themselves.
  • Marnie bearing guilt over her fanbase's overzealous actions detrimenting her sportsmanship and competition - to which she had to tell Team Yell to cut all that crap out.
  • Marnie practicing to smiling.
And Gengar scarfing Grimmsnarl up whilst in Gigantamax before the next strike and shrinking back was surprising. But I ponder how Gengar had to bear having any small traces of hairs stuck possibly in it's mouth after spitting Grimmsnarl out...
 
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Regarding Gengar's Shadow Ball finishing off Grimmsnarl, I believe the Gigantimax ghost used Max Ooze, which powers up its Special Attack while in the battle.
The additional effects of regular Max Moves haven't been mentioned/acknowledged yet in the anime. Max Hailstorm was shown off for the first time in this episode, and yet you don't see any lingering hail effects after the attack was used. Max Starfall wasn't shown to have set up Misty Terrain too. Only G-Max moves have had noticeable bonus effects in the anime, as shown by Charizard's G-Max Wildfire, Machamp's G-Max Chi Strike, and Grimmsnarl's G-Max Snooze.
 
The additional effects of regular Max Moves haven't been mentioned/acknowledged yet in the anime. Max Hailstorm was shown off for the first time in this episode, and yet you don't see any lingering hail effects after the attack was used. Max Starfall wasn't shown to have set up Misty Terrain too. Only G-Max moves have had noticeable bonus effects in the anime, as shown by Charizard's G-Max Wildfire, Machamp's G-Max Chi Strike, and Grimmsnarl's G-Max Snooze.
In addition to this point, Grimmsnarl did land a Spirit Break on G-Max Gengar after it used Max Ooze, and Spirit Break always lowers Special Attack if it hits, so even if the Max Moves' effects weren't ignored, the Special Attack increase would have been cancelled out anyway.
 
Just hoping the Master Class battles won't be G-Max battles but regular, "honest" ones!
Those G-Max battles seem to be so forced with trainers focusing too much on them (like Marnie and Leon do) obviously not being very good at ordinary battles. I want my ordinary battles and the ones with Megaevolution back!
 
Just hoping the Master Class battles won't be G-Max battles but regular, "honest" ones!
Those G-Max battles seem to be so forced with trainers focusing too much on them (like Marnie and Leon do) obviously not being very good at ordinary battles. I want my ordinary battles and the ones with Megaevolution back!
We already know Raihan and Leon used G-max
 
Gengar utterly negating a Max Move while in base form with a regular move was hysterical
UNLIMITED POWER!
To be fair this exact thing happened several times with Z-Moves back in Alola too: Pikachu's newly-learned Electroweb was somehow able to completely negate all damage from Mimikyu's Let's Snuggle Forever (which is something that not even actual damage-negating moves like Protect can do, btw), and Guzma's Golisopod was able to completely block and counter Lana's Primarina's Oceanic Operetta with a basic Liquidation, so Max Moves being treated the same way is hardly surprising.
 
To be fair this exact thing happened several times with Z-Moves back in Alola too: Pikachu's newly-learned Electroweb was somehow able to completely negate all damage from Mimikyu's Let's Snuggle Forever (which is something that not even actual damage-negating moves like Protect can do, btw), and Guzma's Golisopod was able to completely block and counter Lana's Primarina's Oceanic Operetta with a basic Liquidation, so Max Moves being treated the same way is hardly surprising.
To be fair, I was only joking. I'm well aware it's a common practice in the anime for Pokemon to do things like that. Also, a lot of people (myself included,) regard that Pikachu vs Mimikyu fight to be complete and utter Deus ex Machina bullcrap anyway, so not even sure that's a good example.
 
Marnie really has a lot of things going for her character. Her friendly rivalry with her brother, Team Yell, her desire to make her hometown more popular, her conflict to smile more...And those were well represented and presented in an organic way, so I have no complaints about that. It was nice to finally see that outside of the games as well as Piers' concert.

However, the battle itself was..meh. It had a decent amount of moves showcased and I liked how both waited for the perfect moment to use Gigantamax, but it felt more like the "Obligatory Gengar win" than anything else. There weren't many cool strategies and the few ones that existed had awkward executions. It just felt boring and stake-less.

Ash's gigantic leap in the rankings and Marnie's arc being finished didn't help. Yeah, they said they would battle again, but the part when its said that Spikemuth will be popular again is what sells it. Also, Piers apparently isn't related at all to the PWC.

5.5/10
 
To be fair this exact thing happened several times with Z-Moves back in Alola too: Pikachu's newly-learned Electroweb was somehow able to completely negate all damage from Mimikyu's Let's Snuggle Forever (which is something that not even actual damage-negating moves like Protect can do, btw), and Guzma's Golisopod was able to completely block and counter Lana's Primarina's Oceanic Operetta with a basic Liquidation, so Max Moves being treated the same way is hardly surprising.
Can't wait for Pikachu to just... step to the left in order to dodge Charizard's Hellfire

Maybe that's why it can attack four times per turn, to counter dodging left, right, up, and down
 
Just hoping the Master Class battles won't be G-Max battles but regular, "honest" ones!
Those G-Max battles seem to be so forced with trainers focusing too much on them (like Marnie and Leon do) obviously not being very good at ordinary battles. I want my ordinary battles and the ones with Megaevolution back!

Why do you think the Galar games imply the actual strongest character in the game is Piers. He nearly gave Raihan a run for his money in the post game without using Dynamax.
 
Yesterday, i saw the episode 98 and episode 99. I loved them both. Marnie was very very nice, cuteamd kind girl. I liked the spike episode.

The chloe in circus episode was very cute and nice and kind also. Looking for friday episode.
 
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