Review JN123: The Semifinals II: "Dazzle"

[Queen Cynthia]

Haven't seen the subbed episode yet (of course I'm absolutely looking forward to it), but I'm burning to know if they mentioned why Cynthia is going to retire

 

[BigDocFan]

Looking at Bulbapedia, with Cynthia planning to retire after the Masters Tournament, here is what I predict might happen

She'll offer Ash the role of Champion (regardless of whether he beats Leon or not)
Ash will decline and Paul will be offered the role

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Looking at Bulbapedia, with Cynthia planning to retire after the Masters Tournament, here is what I predict might happen

She'll offer Ash the role of Champion (regardless of whether he beats Leon or not)
Ash will decline and Paul will be offered the role

"Wow that battle showed me that I have a lot to learn even though my experience stat is maxed out. Guess I'll keep have to keep battling because Game Freak just delivered another truck filled with money to my house."

 

[Sai]

I like that battle overall so far and do like how Pikachu surprised and took her off guard, BUT I think this kind of shows how they have trouble handling Pikachu. They are respecting him as one of Ash long time Pokemon and it should be powerful but it seems it has to be at the sacrifice of his other Pokemon’s performance. Like Gengar should have gotten more respect in this battle than getting off a burn and chipping at spiritomb.

It’s like Pikachu is either not used enough compared to his current generation crew or its used too much at the expense of his new Pokemon’s performance.

Pikachu shining is a great thing although I get what you mean.

Pikachu carried the Steven battle and did well against Cynthia battling Spiritomb, Gastrodon and Togekiss. This is where Pikachu's strength as a champion-tier pokemon really shines. We saw this in the Kukui match too, Pikachu is usually allowed to be at its all powerful strength naturally at end of series leagues.

Pikachu is now capable of lasting against Champion tier pokemon. Had it not been for Destiny Bond I bet Pikachu would take out Togekiss at the least too before going down.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

I’m one matchup into the battle.

Dragonite vs Spiritomb.

This should have been one of the most interesting fights.

I… I can’t fathom how these writers got a job.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

I can’t fathom how these writers got a job

Tomioka's been around since the beginning, so I'm guessing it's due to seniority (written some 290 episodes)

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I’m one matchup into the battle.

Dragonite vs Spiritomb.

This should have been one of the most interesting fights.

I… I can’t fathom how these writers got a job.

It's to show off Cynthia's strength.

 

[puddleths]

It's almost jarring how big a deal Pikachu getting KO'd is made out to be, for me, as a long-time viewer of this series.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Poor gastrodon getting OHKO'd by Quick Attack though

At least Spiritomb got the last laugh

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Outside of Dragonite being made to job for the third time in a row, this was actually a really cool battle throughout. Cynthia and her Pokemon are merciless, and she kept Ash on his toes throughout: taking Dragonite out with multiple assaults of Dream Eater (and in the process undoing all the damage her Draco Meteor dealt), switching Rosereade out likely to heal its Burn, flinch-haxing Pikachu, and finally the use of Destiny Bond when the mouse's Protagonist Powers prevailed over another Ground-type yet again. Let's hope they keep this up in the next part, because so far this has easily been the best Masters 8 battle by a huge margin.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

switching Rosereade out likely to heal its Burn,

Oh, right! Roserade can have Natural Cure! Didn't even consider that! Smart play from Cynthia! I hope that's the case. The surprised reactions would definitely be worth it.

 

[Kairyu]

Overall quite meh. Still same problem as earlier battles: an excessive amount of switching as well as talking by the various spectators, which ultimately results in a time crunch with knockouts happening too fast and then there not being enough time for actual brawling in a continuous sequence.

Another issue is that there is an over-reliance on ranged beam attacks which results in battle choreography that is just not fun to watch as the mons are largely static and not moving around much when using these. By the way, whose bright idea was it to make Gengar have it's entire move-set made up of these kind of attacks? Rip Ice Punch...

All this together results in a battle that lacks intensity and quite frankly, was boring to watch at times.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

an excessive amount of switching

I personally think the switching played into Cynthia constantly keeping Ash on his toes and not giving him the chance to gain momentum against a single foe.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

It's to show off Cynthia's strength.

There’s ways to do that without making Ash’s team look like hatchlings.

 

[LeonMagnus]

There’s ways to do that without making Ash’s team look like hatchlings.

On top of this they did it by downplaying Ash’s intelligence. After Dragonite falls asleep he just stands there and let’s her get Dream Eaten over and over.

I think the problem is that they go in with the main idea of the episode to be a showcase of how tough Cynthia is so they wanted the viewer to walk away with seeing Ash as clearly the underdog but don’t care too much about the nuances to craft that plot point. Grastodon catching the rocks just straight up made no sense. Cynthia was caught off guard, she didn’t tell it to catch them, you could argue that it was experienced enough to do it without her command, but still she did nothing with its attempt to catch them. They should have straight up just been two consecutive surprise hits on it, then Pikachu follows up with a quick attack to finish it. Much more satisfying than what looks to be a OHKO.

I’m actually interested if anyone here has any ideas on how they would write this episode differently while still allowing Cynthia to be in the lead by one KO by the end.

 

[Sai]

Overall quite meh. Still same problem as earlier battles: an excessive amount of switching as well as talking by the various spectators, which ultimately results in a time crunch with knockouts happening too fast and then there not being enough time for actual brawling in a continuous sequence.

We basically saw that though, Dragonite and Gengar were all out for long periods of time for the battle (I'm honestly surprised how long Dragonite was kept around since it could have just been KO'd quicker than it was) and Pikachu as well. Gastrodon is the only pokemon that went down pretty fast but it was a no-brainer they'd drop it fast after it got focus in the Iris battle. Also don't understand the spectator commentary, all those scenes even TR's scenes last less than 20-30 seconds. Go and Hop barely talked in this episode and the pokedex was only used on Togekiss thankfully.

Another issue is that there is an over-reliance on ranged beam attacks which results in battle choreography that is just not fun to watch as the mons are largely static and not moving around much when using these. By the way, whose bright idea was it to make Gengar have it's entire move-set made up of these kind of attacks? Rip Ice Punch...

All this together results in a battle that lacks intensity and quite frankly, was boring to watch at times.

Outside of fighting pokemon (which we'll get with Sirfetch'd and Lucario when they get used), I'm not sure how the use of ranged attacks is different than any other battle. Togekiss was an aerial battler, Spiritomb literally can't move much due to its tomb and most battles in every series use ranged attacks (Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Ice beam, Razor Leaf, Water gun, etc are among the animes most common moves in every series and they're all ranged attacks).

I also thought this battle was actually very tightly paced because Cynthia sent out 4 pokemon in the same episode and kept switching, so the battle never lingered on one aspect for too long. And the switching wasn't just for the sake of it either, she used it to wear down Ash's team consistently. Roserade and Togekiss both dealt damage to Gengar and Pikachu, Spiritomb was used back and forth to take down Gengar, and I'm sure Cynthia planned to do the same with Gastrodon if it didn't get KO'd. The tactical switching is why Spiritomb didn't sweep Ash but it was a cumulative effort.

On top of this they did it by downplaying Ash’s intelligence. After Dragonite falls asleep he just stands there and let’s her get Dream Eaten over and over.

I assume he thought Dragonite would wake up, that's what I actually thought was going to happen too before it got KO'd.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

There’s ways to do that without making Ash’s team look like hatchlings.

They do that just fine on their own already as it is

 

[Sai]

Also technically most of Ash's JN team are hatchings or young pokemon, lol. Only Gengar isn't.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Switching out wouldn't really have helped since Dragonite would still be asleep whenever Ash sent it back out. In that situation it really is best just to hail mary and hope it wakes up in time. It would be different if Spiritomb wasn't already at full health because then Dream Eater would be much more troublesome.

I’ve got to disagree there. While Dragonite may have still been asleep when Ash sent it out again, there would have been at least an opportunity for it to wake up against another opponent and wouldn’t leave it as a sitting duck while Spiritomb basically negates any actual damage that had been done to it in the first place. It’s never a good move to simply turn a Pokémon in your team into a sacrificial lamb especially when Ash loses nothing by swapping out and, given that Dragonite went down without doing much, changes nothing about how the rest of the battle for this episode went aside from Ash having another usable Pokémon.

 

[Eitarou]

Remember those halcyon days when Dragonite was revered for being undefeated?