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Review JN109: VS Kibana! Battle for Masters Eight!!

You know eps like this prove people complaining about Gengar being some kind of jobber for a long time were full of it. Gengar literally only lost two battles without getting a win in a particular match, and it only did poorly in Korrina's battle. In Volkner's it got an attack on Luxray and forced Volkner to recall it.

It's obvious people were exaggerating as usual because they couldn't comprehend the writers were not going to have all a Pokemon's wins back to back.
 
as always another standard "Journeys" battle no complaints as always!
Ladies and gentlemen, here is your Masters Eight lineup!

View attachment 159483
At first glance it seems like a predictable group (I'm not surprised two Charizards here XD)
Or even if the writers actually intend to let Ash win.
That brings me to my question from the start of the "PWC" Arc, is Ash seriously going to win the PWC?
sometimes I feel that could not be the case in this series.
 
I'm guessing the Masters 8 goes like this:

Round 1:
Ash vs. Cynthia
Alain vs. Diantha
Leon vs. Steven
Iris vs. Lance

Semi finals:
Ash vs. Alain
Iris vs. Leon

Finals:
Ash vs. Leon
 

Ash vs. Cynthia
Alain vs. Diantha
Leon vs. Steven
Iris vs. Lance

Semi finals:
Ash vs. Alain
Iris vs. Leon

Finals:
Ash vs. Leon

I don’t get why there’s so many people that think Steven will go down in the first round, he’s ranked 3rd best trainer in the world, why would they make Steven the number 3 and make him fall in the first round?

I’m not saying it won’t happen I just find that odd, they put him above Lance for a reason.

To me, Steven will at least win one battle.
 
I don’t get why there’s so many people that think Steven will go down in the first round, he’s ranked 3rd best trainer in the world, why would they make Steven the number 3 and make him fall in the first round?

I’m not saying it won’t happen I just find that odd, they put him above Lance for a reason.

To me, Steven will at least win one battle.
It seems unrealistic to me that Iris will lose in the first round, especially if it's against Lance. Iris is meant to be the best Dragon trainer, so why would she lose the first round? It goes against her dream if she's out before Lance. Obviously Ash will go against Alain and Leon will go against whoever else wins the first round. I don't disagree that Steven is good, but if I had to sacrifice one champion for the Semi finals, it would be Steven.
 
It seems unrealistic to me that Iris will lose in the first round, especially if it's against Lance. Iris is meant to be the best Dragon trainer, so why would she lose the first round? It goes against her dream if she's out before Lance.
Isn't Lance the same as her, though? As in, always described as the best Dragon trainer, or something along those lines.
 
Isn't Lance the same as her, though? As in, always described as the best Dragon trainer, or something along those lines.
There can only be one though and it makes more sense for it to be Iris because she was a main character.
 
I don’t get why there’s so many people that think Steven will go down in the first round, he’s ranked 3rd best trainer in the world, why would they make Steven the number 3 and make him fall in the first round?

I’m not saying it won’t happen I just find that odd, they put him above Lance for a reason.

To me, Steven will at least win one battle.
Because the ranking aren't finalized, literally masters 8 tournment is about seeing who's the strongest of the top 8.
 
as always another standard "Journeys" battle no complaints as always!

At first glance it seems like a predictable group (I'm not surprised two Charizards here XD)

That brings me to my question from the start of the "PWC" Arc, is Ash seriously going to win the PWC?
sometimes I feel that could not be the case in this series.

Why not? The anime broke the patterns before, it can do so again. It's just that the fans are simply several steps behind to realize that. Still waiting to see if Bulbapedia will reexamine what is actually considered a released Pokémon with Goh's Suicune.

What will ultimately determine Ash's victory or defeat is the narrative at hand. What does he gain from losing, and what does he gain from winning?
 
Why not? The anime broke the patterns before, it can do so again. It's just that the fans are simply several steps behind to realize that. Still waiting to see if Bulbapedia will reexamine what is actually considered a released Pokémon with Goh's Suicune.

What will ultimately determine Ash's victory or defeat is the narrative at hand. What does he gain from losing, and what does he gain from winning?
That the anime broke the patterns before does not guarantee that it will do it again with this (as with SM), at the moment I only see the glass half full with a possible victory of Ash in the PWC. :unsure:

I'm surprised that you say that, I say because of what I see here in most is that there is no narrative in question in "Journeys" or something like that. :confused:
 
With Alain returning, and let’s face it he’s gonna battle Ash, Ash is now going to have to face two Charizards, that are aces of their respective teams.
Regardless of their separate move-sets and gimmicks, having two Charizards to conquer would cancel out their hype. Perhaps the reason for Alain entering is to attempt to crown his Charizard as the strongest of all of them.
 
Even if the pacing dropped like a sack of bricks after Goodra came out, this was a decent battle. Lucario’s charging move was beautifully done (as well as it could be in the circumstances, anyway) and I’m so happy that Gengar got to dominate the battle so well-and Dragonite didn’t do poorly at all, either. Ash didn’t feel like a noob, so that’s a plus.

The master class line up is… definitely something. Can’t say I’m quite looking forward to whatever they’re gonna pull out with Alain.
 
With Alain returning, and let’s face it he’s gonna battle Ash, Ash is now going to have to face two Charizards, that are aces of their respective teams.
Regardless of their separate move-sets and gimmicks, having two Charizards to conquer would cancel out their hype. Perhaps the reason for Alain entering is to attempt to crown his Charizard as the strongest of all of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case though I'm open to other possible outcomes!:bulbaWave:
 
I'm honestly really surprised Gengar dominated so much of the battle. I really thought Lucario would get two wins here, but it barely appeared and only for the tail end and no Mega Evolution either. Got to give the writers props for this since I was expecting some major Lucario glorification.
 
I just realised that Flint must have really fallen off. Imagine battling Leon for a more secure position in the format, then losing top eight, apparently going behind Ash before this battle (judging by Iris already being in), and missing out right before the tournament. Ouch.
Whilst not the degree of Greninja v Charizard, or the long anticipated Cynthia v Ash battle, if it happens, it would have been awesome for a rematch between Ash and Flint.

Hopefully they show Iris previously battling Flint to reach her position, because I imagine something similar happened to here.
 
Ash also beat 3 members of his Kalos team this series. Hawlucha with Bea, Noviern with Drasna, and Goodra with Raihan.

I wonder if they did this purposely.
 
You know eps like this prove people complaining about Gengar being some kind of jobber for a long time were full of it. Gengar literally only lost two battles without getting a win in a particular match, and it only did poorly in Korrina's battle. In Volkner's it got an attack on Luxray and forced Volkner to recall it.

It's obvious people were exaggerating as usual because they couldn't comprehend the writers were not going to have all a Pokemon's wins back to back.
No they weren't. And how easy it is to criticize people in hindsight.

Journeys has been out for nearly three years now. In the bulk of those three years, Gengar had three PWC fights where out of the six Pokémon it battled, it only defeated one - and that one wasn't even the ace/last Pokémon to decide the fight. Meanwhile, Dragonite got to star in the Korrina & Iris battle, Lucario had the Bea and somewhat Volkner battle, and Pikachu had the Visquez, Volkner, and other one-off battles. Victory-wise, Gengar had a very poor showing and it was understandable for people to complain or voice their concern over its appearances, compared to its peers, in the limited time the writers even gave it.

The fact that in the past 5 months, out of the three years, that Gengar:
  • finally got character focus and the ability to Gigantamax
  • finally got PWC solo win
  • finally got two victories as the non "star" in a PWC battle
isn't people not comprehending the writer's ulterior design years in the making for the Shadow Pokémon. It's Journey's writers realizing that everything not named Pikachu, Lucario, and Dragonite, have been written poorly and need some demonstration of skill and depth if they're believed to be capable of battling against the established power of the Masters 8; Dracovish's recent performance against Drasna is a testament to that. Hence the increase in battling-related episodes for the three of them, as well as the party as a whole (ex. Dragonite's future training episode with Paul, Lucario's training with Greninja) in recent months. Which makes your point about fans not comprehending the writer's battling choices for Ash's team ludicrous as these are the same writers who would barely feature, develop, or animate Ash's team for months; I certainly wouldn't have expected for Dracovish to go on and win an Elite Four match for Ash after it was absent for like 13 episodes after its introduction and creation, and barely interacted with afterwards barring its unrealistic victory over Iris' Dragonite.
 
Yeah that's what I meant. It only lost two battles in a row (and in Volkner it did very well at least) and then got wins after. It won battles every other time it was used. There was no losing streak, it's just the long gap in PWC fights for it made it feel stretched out. Each of his current team has notable victories now, which the writers clearly planned out when the series started.
 
I doubt that the writers planned anything, they noticed their blunder and hastily tried to fix it.

That will be giving them so much credit, when the series suffers from subpar development.

Journeys is a series that runs on forcing hype and attempting to improvise.
 
I doubt that the writers planned anything, they noticed their blunder and hastily tried to fix it.

That will be giving them so much credit, when the series suffers from subpar development.

Journeys is a series that runs on forcing hype and attempting to improvise.
They most likely planned ahead of time to give each pokemon a major win before the Master Class. There's a reason Dragonite had no win here for example because it already got Iris and Korrina. Gengar got his Gmax victory over Marnie and now these two battles. Lucario's Mega Evolution victory was against Bea and now the syncing with Ash was here. Sirfetch'd and Dracovish got less obviously but they made sure to use them and only them against Drasna to give them something to do.
 
Please note: The thread is from 2 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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