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Review JN114: Training Battle of Flames! Satoshi VS Shinji!!

So time to watch the episode myself

  • You know, Ash completely blanking on an idea until it presents itself is in character. Please limit the bash fics.
  • Seems like Ash's team can still do some performances. Wonder if Oak's lab has some coordinator reserves who give lessons when Ash's gone.
  • Tons of tons of moveset changes and expansions today.
  • I like Ash's more intense reaction to seeing Paul. This is not Ash being chill....at least by Ash standards. He's wary and surprised in a way few people do.
  • Yeah, they do not pull punches. Paul is different from other rivals. Glad the anime remembers that. He's not Gary. He's something else.
  • And the anime remembered that Pokemon train on their own at the lab, fixing a gripe I had with the first episode that treated Infernape as weird for it.
  • I wonder if Professor Oak being rather chill around Paul is a bit to how he handled Ash and Gary in Poke Corral or just coincidence.
  • Honestly, I've never watched BW001 but...did Oak note and react to the start of Trip versus Ash? Kind of wondering about how it compares and contrasts with this and Ash and Gary's rivalry.
  • Aipom cameo
  • Not entirely sure I'm up for Paul being this casual....I could see a dub edit that would work here with Paul going 'do whatever you want' or otherwise being a bit more aloof about it. Kind of like how Gary kept some arrogance in the dub he lost in the sub in Johto as noted by the lamented and lost Suede reviews
  • Honestly this could easily have set up Gengar learning Fire Punch. Will O Wisp isn't bad, and with Gengar's speed it probably works better, but food for thought.
  • Bulbasaur as a spotter is fitting, catching Oshawott's Schalchop and stuff.
  • The air practice with the flying types is a nice subtle callback to Oak mentioning the birds race each other when Unfeazant was bussed.
  • Dracovish gets the classic waterfall gag....though kind of interesting its done with Glalie.
  • 'Festivities' is an interesting description for Paul declining the WCS. Wonder what word the Dub will use for it.
  • There is a pun with Palptioad and Gible chewing on Goh, I'm sure of it.
  • 'Only using Pokemon you are using in the Masters Tournament'. So that's the line....eh if the writers change their minds that is easily changeable. Plus I do like how Paul seems to pick up that Ash would likely use another mon if it came up, like Torterra there would start jumping like a kitten if Ash asked him if he wanted to go.
  • Honestly the Tauros and Muk seem to be on the less prominent cameo roles today, which honestly is nice. They get a lot of them compared to the others.
  • Nice bit of subtle stuff there. Not only is Lance known for Hyper Beam spam, but the Bullet Punch hit a ton before Hyper Beam struck again is a nice display of priority effect without being too obvious about it. Though I will miss Reversal, it was a nice personality move for Lucario IMO.
  • Probably can do some subtle stuff with Dragonite. I.E 'Ash stop doing the mirror match thing. You like doing that, but it's a coin flip if it works out or backfires on you'. Especially with the mirror featuring two of the same moves too, but the different moves made the difference (Rock beats Flying)
  • Outside of some subtle Alain tactics with Agility Metagross, not really sure I can gleam somethin subtle here. This was Paul being Paul but in a helpful way.
  • Helping growth is what a Gym Leader does...guess if you can help Ash you can help anyone. I could see Paul snark that.
  • Boldore's also a pretty low key show, alongside Tauros and Muk. That's...bit less nice
 
I'm pretty sure that aside from Gengar learning Will-o-wisp and Lucario learning Bullet Punch the only other possible moveset changes are Talonflame learning Flamethrower (as it's the only one of Ash's Fire-types to have never used it at any point), and Bulbasaur, Bayleef, and Leavanny learning Leaf Storm (unless that was just supposed to be Razor Leaf, but Snivy and Sceptile were among the Pokemon performing the vague leafy move, and it looked the same for everyone, which is what makes me think it might have been Leaf Storm, since both Sceptile and Snivy have it and their species is incapable of learning Razor Leaf). That said, it's all very ambiguous, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
Anyone else finds it funny that Talonflame (Taking away that single thing that made Talonflame special and stand-out from the other Fire types, not having Flamethrower), Corphish (Depowering it with Water Gun while it has 2 stronger water moves already), Infernape, Bayleef, Leavanny and Bulbasaur (I guess Leaf Storm is the grass type version of Flamethrower, since every Grass type at Oaks has it now got a new move despite Ash not even planning to use them. Then what was the point. Also every single set of Pokemon (With this i mean at least one Pokemon from each generation at Oaks), got a new move.

I think this episode also more or less confirmed the Journeys mons are gonna hang out at Oaks, rather than in the dome, when Journeys is over.
 
What a decent and preparation episode for Ash and Goh return home to greet all his pokemon from his previous adventure and at the same time helping the recent one to gave everything they can to trained before the Master 8 with Paul also being a Gym Leader as a testimony for three potential pokemon that Ash is going to faced of the region champion owned in the tournament. Glad Paul character development is really accomplish something else to chase other dream.

Overall rating: A-
 
I'm pretty sure that aside from Gengar learning Will-o-wisp and Lucario learning Bullet Punch the only other possible moveset changes are Talonflame learning Flamethrower (as it's the only one of Ash's Fire-types to have never used it at any point), and Bulbasaur, Bayleef, and Leavanny learning Leaf Storm (unless that was just supposed to be Razor Leaf, but Snivy and Sceptile were among the Pokemon performing the vague leafy move, and it looked the same for everyone, which is what makes me think it might have been Leaf Storm, since both Sceptile and Snivy have it and their species is incapable of learning Razor Leaf). That said, it's all very ambiguous, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
And Corphish's Water Gun.
 
Another great episode. I don't have much to add here, I'm glad we've finally gotten a wholehearted Oak Lab reunion since late-AG. It was a joy to see almost all of Ash's Pokémon training and just... moving around individually as opposed to mere group shots. I wonder hoy many actors they got in total for this thing.

Nice bit of development for Paul too of course. I've never been a fan of fully dropping characters after their arc ends if the show goes on, so I enjoy these appearances with casual info drops like him being offered a Gym Leader position, or fully addressing Infernape (something he didn't quite get to do after the Sinnoh League).

Speaking of, I wonder why they've never fully committed to either including Tracey or sending him off permanently. We're in a weird limbo where it's not strange he's not in the episode, but they still keep telling us he works at the lab off-screen.

The battle itself was pretty good too. I didn't quite get the format though, I thought a mere "3v3, no switching" meant the winning Pokémon remains in battle after defeating an opponent. This format makes sense too, but I can't recall the last time we saw it, let alone how it was described or referred to.



I always like to compare artstyles but most of the flashbacks weren't shot-by-shot redraws. I much prefer it that way though.

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I can't remember this scene, assuming it even exists. Apparently Chimchar never used Flamethrower before the Tag Battle Tournament so...
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The "explanation" (really the whole episode) would have been so much more of a headscratcher if not for the interview with the scriptwriter. Linked for those interested.

Watching with the knowledge he wasn't supposed to be here makes the sloppy writing understandable.
Do you have the full source on this? I didn't know about this interview, now I wonder if I've missed some others too.
 
Awesome ep all things considered, Paul has grown a lot but hasn’t lost what made him so entertaining to watch in the first place. Finally Ash’s team and reserves are shown training together. Wasn’t expecting Gengar and Infernape bonding but makes sense given their similar backstories. The battle was good too, 3v3s for half an episode gotta be rushed but they crammed a lot of action into it. They nailed the Ash and Paul dynamic man. It’s about time we got an updated group shot picture as well, episode 68 should’ve done that imo

Biggest L is that reserves won’t be in M8. But I like how major ones like Greninja and Infernape are developing Lucario and Gengar. Feels like they’re still there in spirit. Also curious on the updated movesets
 
The battle itself was pretty good too. I didn't quite get the format though, I thought a mere "3v3, no switching" meant the winning Pokémon remains in battle after defeating an opponent. This format makes sense too, but I can't recall the last time we saw it, let alone how it was described or referred to.
This is basically the classic Ash/Paul format. In addition to being used for two of their earliest battles, Ash also battles Paul's brother Reggie with the same rules (per Reggie's suggestion, seemingly as an attempt to mirror his brother's battle with Ash).

I think it was also referred to as "best of 3" in DP, but given their history I think Ash knew exactly what Paul was getting at.
 
Gengar being friends with Ash's fire types relieves my subtle worry of Ash giving Gengar to Allister when the saga ends. Hopefully all his Pokemon are dropped at Oak's instead of left with Go's Pokemon too. It's weird Ash's Pokemon are spread across so many places now, his Alola pokemon at Kukui, Squirtle is still with the Squad, and Greninja and Goodra are still in kalos.
 
Also, as "gamefied" as the last two generations of the anime have become (or tried to, minus Ash's Pokemon having abilities, mostly) I can appreciate Will-o-Wisp still causing damage.
 
I’d settle for him not using his reserves if they were doing a good job of developing his JN team but they kind of already screwed the pooch on that, so it just ends up feeling disappointing since there’s no time to fix any of the issues now, so to me its just a show case of the same kind of battles we’ve seen already in this series.
 
Also, as "gamefied" as the last two generations of the anime have become (or tried to, minus Ash's Pokemon having abilities, mostly) I can appreciate Will-o-Wisp still causing damage.
I think it just burned Metagross, like it does in the games. Metagross was just hurt by the burn damage.
 
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