Review JN125: The Semifinals IV: "Impact"

[Vengeful Ghost]

That's literally the plot of Diamond, Pearl and Platinum games. An inexperienced trailer raises a Pokémon that ends up defeating Cynthia.

Imo Ash should lose to every opponent that’s older than him, including Gym Leaders and the like because most of them have more experienced Pokémon and therefore Ash should never be winning any of them with his comparatively newer Pokémon that he gets in each region.

What? That’s literally exactly like the games? Well shut up

Honestly, I don't see the logic behind "my experience should trump you 100% of the time" without denying all of fiction.

Apparently, Goliath should have won against David; the dragon should have eaten the knight; Muzan and All For One should have won their respective mangas; and many many more.

 

[Daren]

Honestly, I don't see the logic behind "my experience should trump you 100% of the time" without denying all of fiction.

Apparently, Goliath should have won against David; the dragon should have eaten the knight; Muzan and All For One should have won their respective mangas; and many many more.

At this point I think everyone needs to agree to just politely ignore the experience question since Ash is stuck in a weird time void where he can enter eight major tournaments, several smaller competitions, and two major non-tournament competitions in less than a year.

Realistically that's probably more battling than most of the Champions have gotten done in the same time period, especially when a lot of them have non-training side hobbies or jobs.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Also, it's not like Ash's Lucario is the only character in existence to beat others with oodles of experience, even in Pokemon itself: Infernape was portrayed as stronger than Pikachu despite the latter technically being more experienced too. And in the games it's perfectly possible for a Pokemon that was originally hatched from an egg to become part of a player's Champion Team eventually (heck, I myself used the Riolu that hatches from the egg that Riley gives you in my main team in my first Platinum playthrough, and once he caught up with the rest of my team's levels he more than pulled his weight), so it's not like Ash raising Lucario so well in such a short amount of time is that ludicrous within the context of his universe.

And even in a general sense, fiction aimed at kid audiences is absolutely stacked with young and inexperienced characters defeating or surpassing opponents that are older and more experienced than them, and yet Ash seems to get more heat for this than basically every other child protagonist combined (seriously, if you think Ash is too overpowered you clearly haven't seen any other shonen anime before). Heck, every player character in Pokemon is a child that canonically beats every experienced adult in their home region and no one bats an eye at this, but now that Ash is suddenly doing the same after decades of tripping near the finish line he's a cheater loaded with plot armor?? Sorry, but to me this feels more like double standards than anything else.

 

[Daren]

And even in a general sense, fiction aimed at kid audiences is absolutely stacked with young and inexperienced characters defeating or surpassing opponents that are older and more experienced than them, and yet Ash seems to get more heat for this than basically every other child protagonist combined (seriously, if you think Ash is too overpowered you clearly haven't seen any other shonen anime before). Heck, every player character in Pokemon is a child that canonically beats every experienced adult in their home region and no one bats an eye at this, but now that Ash is suddenly doing the same after decades of tripping near the finish line he's a cheater loaded with plot armor?? Sorry, but to me this feels more like double standards than anything else.

Ash is basically a victim of the tendency for pop culture--especially in the internet age--to stick characters into narrow caricatured boxes. These boxes are something complimentary (or intended to be) but sometimes not, and the show's generally slow decline viewers means that for a lot of people Ash's visible career ended with him losing again after another years long adventure.
So pop culture Ash is a loser. Meanwhile, pop culture Cynthia was turned into a juggernaut so him beating her is going to cause complaints.

(In some cases this tendency is worrying. I've seen people stretch quite far to dismiss historical records because they don't fit the pop culture version of a real person they learned through memes or video games--the historical community around China's Three Kingdoms has a lot of issues with this)

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

And even in a general sense, fiction aimed at kid audiences is absolutely stacked with young and inexperienced characters defeating or surpassing opponents that are older and more experienced than them, and yet Ash seems to get more heat for this than basically every other child protagonist combined (seriously, if you think Ash is too overpowered you clearly haven't seen any other shonen anime before). Heck, every player character in Pokemon is a child that canonically beats every experienced adult in their home region and no one bats an eye at this, but now that Ash is suddenly doing the same after decades of tripping near the finish line he's a cheater loaded with plot armor?? Sorry, but to me this feels more like double standards than anything else

Wait until you read history and literature. The Epic of Sundiata has a crippled kid get up and walk, become a great hunter, a great conqueror, and then found the Mali Empire.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Wait until you read history and literature. The Epic of Sundiata has a crippled kid get up and walk, become a great hunter, a great conqueror, and then found the Mali Empire.

Oh, I have taken literature courses before, so I'm quite aware of things like that. Heck, it's even happened in real life: Tutankhamun (you know, the boy pharaoh who had crippling deformities and all) had a pretty successful reign where he undid a lot of the economic damage his father's reign had done to the kingdom, restored the old Egyptian religion, and even led a couple of military campaigns. So yeah, turns out that even reality itself disagrees with the "young children are never allowed to be better than experienced adults at anything because it makes no sense" take

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Oh, I have taken literature courses before, so I'm quite aware of things like that. Heck, it's even happened in real life: Tutankhamum (you know, the boy pharaoh who had crippling deformities and all) had a pretty successful reign where he undid a lot of the economic damage his father's reign had done to the kingdom, restored the old Egyptian religion, and even led a couple of military campaigns. So yeah, turns out that even reality itself disagrees with the "young children are never allowed to be better than experienced adults at anything because it makes no sense" take

Don’t forget Mozart being a piano prodigy from age 5

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

Oh, I have taken literature courses before, so I'm quite aware of things like that. Heck, it's even happened in real life: Tutankhamun (you know, the boy pharaoh who had crippling deformities and all) had a pretty successful reign where he undid a lot of the economic damage his father's reign had done to the kingdom, restored the old Egyptian religion, and even led a couple of military campaigns. So yeah, turns out that even reality itself disagrees with the "young children are never allowed to be better than experienced adults at anything because it makes no sense" take

Reality is often stranger than fiction. The people of the Central Asian Steppes often taught their children the art of the bow and how to ride horses. They do try to uphold this tradition to this day.

 

[Imtnt]

After JNs did so much good for showing again the past characters (or at leadt their cameos), it was strange in 3 episodes of the Semis we didnt see any - but Oak's place (and in this round they focused on Oak).

So besides his core family far away happy for him for that super win, there were only Goh and Hop happy for him + Leon is pumped to battle.

Where are those we didn't get to see in Jns like Max and May.. where are the rivals he had in Pwc, the Prof and Chloe.. and where are characters he used to travel with..

I would say mega sized disappointment if it will be like that also around the final, just to get the extra episodes for Goh...

 

[Queen Cynthia]

2. Sirfetch'd already damaged Garchomp as we know. Both pokemon were not at full health. Lucario punched it in the gut so hard it panted for breath. Reversal is the strongest fighting move at low health and its win made perfect sense.

In the clip show, Cynthia was given the title "Cynthia the wise" due to her massive experience. So, if she heard Ash call for "Reversal" while her Garchomp was in the middle of attacking Lucario head on, wouldn't Cynthia be smart enough to realize the danger and command Garchomp to cancel her attack? She could, for example, have Garchomp dodge Lucario's attack by using Garchomp's ability to fly at very high speed (as it was said in the first seminfinals episode) So, dodging would have been easy for Garchomp. Then, she could have quickly turned around in mid-air and attack Lucario from behind where he would have been defenseless and an easy target.
Now, some user might call me a denialist but it's scenes like this (or rather the fact that Cynthia wasn't allowed to make such a move) that make me think the writers didn't even want Cynthia to give a chance to win...

That's literally the plot of Diamond, Pearl and Platinum games. An inexperienced trailer raises a Pokémon that ends up defeating Cynthia.

But let's not forget we're talking about the Anime and not the games here. And as we all know you can't compare the show with game mechanics.

Cynthia literally prepared her team to an almost game-level competitiveness. It makes no sense to me that she literally had all offensive moves of the same time on her Garchomp.

find it extremely inconsistent that Cynthia planned many complex tactics but added ZERO (hell, negative because it doesn’t even cover all its STAB) coverage on its Garchomp.

Thanks for bringing that up! Because it's another perfect example of the writers making Cynthia weaker on purpose so Ash can defeat her. First, Cynthia wasn't allowed to use Mega-Garchomp and then the writer gave her ace a weaker moveset that has disadvantages against her last opponent Lucario.
Guys, don't tell me this hadn't all been planned and there wasn't a reason behing all this. It's all going together like the piezes of a puzzle if you ask me! You're getting my point now?

And in the games it's perfectly possible for a Pokemon that was originally hatched from an egg to become part of a player's Champion Team eventually

Heck, every player character in Pokemon is a child that canonically beats every experienced adult in their home region and no one bats an eye at this, but now that Ash is suddenly doing the same after decades of tripping near the finish line he's a cheater loaded with plot armor?? Sorry, but to me this feels more like double standards than anything else.

Well, again this is the Anime we're talking about. An implausible concept in the games (which I think it is) will still not make any sense, even if it's carried over to the games. Honestly, that doesn't make it better in any way.
I don't know why we're starting to compare the show with the games again when we already agreed those are two different worlds. Cherry-picking only those aspects from the games that seem to explain what happened in a single episode sounds more like double standards to me.

At this point I think everyone needs to agree to just politely ignore the experience question since Ash is stuck in a weird time void where he can enter eight major tournaments, several smaller competitions, and two major non-tournament competitions in less than a year.

I'll say it one last time and then I'll leave it at that:

My main concern and the biggest problem I have with Journeys and the PWC in particular is that Ash is simply not ready for the Masters Eight when he's competing with a team that's been around for roughly 100 episodes.
Apart from Pikachu, only Sirfetch'd had some previous battling experience. As far as Gengar is concerned, I highly doubt that his former trainer who abandoned it after all, did lots of serious training with it. So, we have a more or less inexperienced team and we're actually supposed to believe that within the ridiculously short amount of time of roughly 120 episodes Ash can turn these Pokemon into powerhouse that can hold a candle to veteran champion's Pokemon that have been trained for all their lives. I'm not talking about the fact we hardly got any serious training episodes or that Lucario's sudden, magical power boost seemed totally exaggerated given the fact Greninja had to fight hard to develop that skill over many many episodes. And to those who deny that training and experience matter: Yes, it does! Just look at sports or music: Experience and training is in fact all that matters.

I mean it's not like the writers didn't know how to do it better. You want to know what made perfectly sense in my eyes? Iris' battle against Cynthia was a perfect example of how Ash should have been treated in the Masters Eight:
A young, rather inexperienced champion (Iris) putting up a very good fight but eventually losing because logically, her Pokemon can't be on the same power level as the veteran champions Steven, Lance, Diantha or Cynthia. If the same had happened to Ash, it would have made perfect sense! Let's not forget the PWC takes place regularly and we don't need gym battles anymore. So, what's the problem with Ash losing and trying again at the end of Scarlet/Violet for example?

And finally, let's just assume for a moment the writers wanted Ash to be in the Masters Eight and to get at least one plausible win. What should they have done instead? Since SM the well-known gym challenges have no longer been an inevitable part of the show. So, if the writers wanted Ash to deserve a place in the Master Eight and actually win it, they should have started making preparations for it long ago. What do I mean by that? Simply don't give Ash new Pokemon at the start of every new adventure. Instead have him gather an all-star team consisting of his strongest Pokemon (Charizard, Infernape, Lycanroc, Greninja and many more) and have him do some massive and intense training with them (and them alone) over the course of at least two or three regions.
Then, and only then, Ash would rightfully deserve a place in the Master Eight and him defeating other champions (without invisible writers support and contrived, forced wins) would make sense. That's what you expect from the greatest tournament in the Pokemon universe as a fan who's been watching the show since day 1.

 

[Kamisen]

In the clip show, Cynthia was given the title "Cynthia the wise" due to her massive experience. So, if she heard Ash call for "Reversal" while her Garchomp was in the middle of attacking Lucario head on, wouldn't Cynthia be smart enough to realize the danger and command Garchomp to cancel her attack? She could, for example, have Garchomp dodge Lucario's attack by using Garchomp's ability to fly at very high speed (as it was said in the first seminfinals episode) So, dodging would have been easy for Garchomp. Then, she could have quickly turned around in mid-air and attack Lucario from behind where he would have been defenseless and an easy target.

The Reversal literally hit Garchomp at the same time its claw hit Lucario's arm. You sound like you're coming up with strange excuses now for why Cynthia can't lose trying to re-write the battle in her favor.

Thanks for bringing that up! Because it's another perfect example of the writers making Cynthia weaker on purpose so Ash can defeat her. First, Cynthia wasn't allowed to use Mega-Garchomp and then the writer gave her ace a weaker moveset that has disadvantages against her last opponent Lucario.

Togekiss literally delivered all of Lucario's damage. If Togekiss hadn't Dmax Lucario would have beaten it with two bullet punches, it was barely a threat in its regular stage. Lucario would have been at almost full health besides that 1 air slash if it hadn't Dmax. Togekiss wore Lucario down considerably for the last battle.

 

[Daren]

I mean it's not like the writers didn't know how to do it better. You want to know what made perfectly sense in my eyes? Iris' battle against Cynthia was a perfect example of how Ash should have been treated in the Masters Eight:
A young, rather inexperienced champion (Iris) putting up a very good fight but eventually losing because logically, her Pokemon can't be on the same power level as the veteran champions Steven, Lance, Diantha or Cynthia. If the same had happened to Ash, it would have made perfect sense! Let's not forget the PWC takes place regularly and we don't need gym battles anymore. So, what's the problem with Ash losing and trying again at the end of Scarlet/Violet for example?

The problem is that every single series is written around the idea that plenty of people will watch that series and only that series. They're not going to move the climax JN was setting up to Scarlet/Violet; the weird thing with Gary in the original series was just because the show wasn't intended to go that long and they had to hastily rewrite things. If they'd known Johto wasn't the end either they may well have kept Ash vs Gary in Kanto and used Silver in G/S/C instead.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

But let's not forget we're talking about the Anime and not the games here. And as we all know you can't compare the show with game mechanics.

Aren’t you using game mechanics to justify why Cynthia should win? You can’t conveniently pick and choose when to follow what logic.

 

[Imtnt]

In the clip show, Cynthia was given the title "Cynthia the wise" due to her massive experience. So, if she heard Ash call for "Reversal" while her Garchomp was in the middle of attacking Lucario head on, wouldn't Cynthia be smart enough to realize the danger and command Garchomp to cancel her attack? She could, for example, have Garchomp dodge Lucario's attack by using Garchomp's ability to fly at very high speed (as it was said in the first seminfinals episode) So, dodging would have been easy for Garchomp. Then, she could have quickly turned around in mid-air and attack Lucario from behind where he would have been defenseless and an easy target.
Now, some user might call me a denialist but it's scenes like this (or rather the fact that Cynthia wasn't allowed to make such a move) that make me think the writers didn't even want Cynthia to give a chance to win...

You went too far. The reversal was the best thing Ash did in m8 so far.0

I'm not talking about the fact we hardly got any serious training episodes or that Lucario's sudden, magical power boost seemed totally exaggerated...

Yes and yes.

...given the fact Greninja had to fight hard to develop that skill over many many episodes.

Lucario's bond with Ash in understandable. He mastered faster aura for a reason. Add Mega evolution to the party with a gimick to make it stronger than just AshLucario. So it is ok.

And finally, let's just assume for a moment the writers wanted Ash to be in the Masters Eight and to get at least one plausible win. What should they have done instead? Since SM the well-known gym challenges have no longer been an inevitable part of the show. So, if the writers wanted Ash to deserve a place in the Master Eight and actually win it, they should have started making preparations for it long ago. What do I mean by that? Simply don't give Ash new Pokemon at the start of every new adventure. Instead have him gather an all-star team consisting of his strongest Pokemon (Charizard, Infernape, Lycanroc, Greninja and many more) and have him do some massive and intense training with them (and them alone) over the course of at least two or three regions.
Then, and only then, Ash would rightfully deserve a place in the Master Eight and him defeating other champions (without invisible writers support and contrived, forced wins) would make sense. That's what you expect from the greatest tournament in the Pokemon universe as a fan who's been watching the show since day 1.

Not only then, and not them alone, but sure it would be wiser for the show inorder to compete stronger rivals and inorder to duplicate the progress with Pikachu to others. When it comes to Pwc it is even a better advice, and will meet what we hope for.
BUT!
Ash told prof Oak he wants to start over

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Well, again this is the Anime we're talking about. An implausible concept in the games (which I think it is) will still not make any sense, even if it's carried over to the games. Honestly, that doesn't make it better in any way.
I don't know why we're starting to compare the show with the games again when we already agreed those are two different worlds. Cherry-picking only those aspects from the games that seem to explain what happened in a single episode sounds more like double standards to me.

I didn't mention just the Pokemon games, though: I also pointed out that there are lots of stories out there that have kids going up against adults and winning despite the former lacking experience compared to the latter, and as other comments mentioned afterwards, such a thing can and does happen in real life, so it's not like Ash and Lucario are doing anything too ludicrous in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it's not like Lucario is the only baby Pokemon to become strong in such a short amount of time even in the anime: May's Eevee was able to beat Brock's Marshtomp and win its first ever Contest shortly after hatching, Noibat evolved into Noivern and gave a Zapdos a rough time despite having minimal on-screen training, Brock's Happiny had crazy super strength literally right from the start.

Besides, they did show us that Ash gave Riolu a lot of extra attention (to the point that Pikachu of all Pokemon felt the need to throw a tantrum about it) because being a recently-hatced baby he naturally would need a lot of extra care to catch up with the rest of the team. Could this have been executed better? Definitely, but it's also not like Lucario became overpowered out of nowhere. Ash training him so efficiently in such a short time is also not really meant to hype up Lucario as this super-strong individual, but rather highlight how much Ash has grown as a trainer due to how well he can train an infant Pokemon so quickly.

Sidenote, I personally find the "Ash's Lucario too OP" takes to be kind of overblown, because the only real issue with Luke is his tendency to win battles in one hit after taking an unbelievable amount of punishment, which while definitely a problem with the writing, it's... really not that much of a power display and also not even a Lucario-exclusive issue: the battle against Drasna had both Sirfetch'd and Dracovish winning the same way, and in Hoenn Swellow was even more egregious example of "takes a billion nukes to the face only to knock out its opponent in one moderately-strong attack" than Lucario ever has been. The giant Aura Sphere could possibly count as "overpowered", but it really doesn't look like it's useful against anything that isn't a Dynamaxed Pokemon since it's so absurdly slow, meaning a smaller and more mobile opponent can likely play around it easily. Plus, Togekiss demonstrated that it's not even guaranteed to defeat a Dynamaxed opponent anyway.

On a final note, you yourself love to mention the games whenever they support your argument, so it's really telling that whenever anyone points out aspects of the games that fly against your preconcieved notions you're quick to dimsiss them as not counting: in the same comment you complain about Cynthia being nerfed by her Garchomp having a moveset that Lucario resists, but since the type chart is technically a "game thing", then by your logic that also shouldn't matter. I mean, don't get me wrong; I personally would have preferred Garchomp to have at least a Ground-type attack to smack Lucario with too, but it's very obvious that you would have complained no matter what the writers did: sorry, but it really feels that if Garchomp had had a more effective moveset, you would instead be complaining about Lucario being too unrealistically durable (if Lucario had endured the hits) or too unrealistically fast (if Lucario had dodged most of them), so that point about Garchomp's moveset seems very moot.

 

[PrettySylveon]

But let's not forget we're talking about the Anime and not the games here. And as we all know you can't compare the show with game mechanics.

The anime shows time and time again that it is completely different from the games.

 

[Queen Cynthia]

If Togekiss hadn't Dmax Lucario would have beaten it with two bullet punches, it was barely a threat in its regular stage

Well, I see no reason to believe this would actually have happened. Togekiss was displayed to be extremely tanky. If the writers had written the battle so that (regular) Togekiss keeps flying around Lucario and doesn't get close to him, Lucario would have been at the mercy of Togekiss because all of his close-range attacks would have been useless and Aura Sphere could have easily been dodged by the flying Togekiss.
I do not understand why they wanted Togekiss to make direct contact, and that seems suspicious to me, but oh well....

The problem is that every single series is written around the idea that plenty of people will watch that series and only that series. They're not going to move the climax JN was setting up to Scarlet/Violet; the weird thing with Gary in the original series was just because the show wasn't intended to go that long and they had to hastily rewrite things. If they'd known Johto wasn't the end either they may well have kept Ash vs Gary in Kanto and used Silver in G/S/C instead.

I do understand what you mean. But in that case, the show has a massive conceptual problem if you ask me. Shouldn't the writers know by now that there are probably countless fans out there who watch more than one series? Admittedly, I don't have any official statistics but I find it hard to believe that the majority of fans only watches one series.

Aren’t you using game mechanics to justify why Cynthia should win? You can’t conveniently pick and choose when to follow what logic.

On a final note, you yourself love to mention the games whenever they support your argument, so it's really telling that whenever anyone points out aspects of the games that fly against your preconcieved notions you're quick to dimsiss them as not counting: in the same comment you complain about Cynthia being nerfed by her Garchomp having a moveset that Lucario resists, but since the type chart is technically a "game thing", then by your logic that also shouldn't matter.

Actually, I don't remember where I would have used game mechanics to justify Cynthia's victory. I just outlined a few manoeuvres like dynamical dodging and other tactical considerations that wouldn't have worked in the games anyways. These are typical moves you only see in the Anime. Should I have used game mechanics somewhere then just the very basic concepts. I mean, we all agree that we can't completely separate the show from the games, don't we? For example, the rule saying that Ground-type Pokemon are immune to Electric-type attacks has to be obeyed both in the games and the show. So, if I was referring to game mechanics, then I guess it was the very basic concepts that have to be there no matter what for the show to make sense in the first place.


Anyways, I'll leave it at that now. The battle is over, we can't change the questionable result anymore and I don't care about Ash vs. Leon anyways.
The key message I'm taking away from this is that Cynthia isn't retiring and we'll hopefully see the Her Majesty again someday. That's why I'll keep watching the show.

 

[vivian20]

While im sad that Cynthia lost, I think they made it in a way it is easier to her fans cope with it. She would retire if she won , so we can say losing was actually good for her. It makes sense, if you always win, you get bored. We can also justify that Cynthia was playing nuzlock, that would explain the bad garchomp moveset and the weak gastrodon. That said, cynthia would still win if it wasnt for the spirit bomb aura sphere. That thing blocked togekiss max airstreams , and only ash uses it. Garchomp attacked lucario BEFORE it used reversal. Lucario doesnt have endure. His moveset in this battle was bullet punch, aura sphere, double team, reversal .But lucario resisted dragon claw and used reversal.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

That said, cynthia would still win if it wasnt for the spirit bomb aura sphere. That thing blocked togekiss max airstreams , and only ash uses it.

That attack failed to KO Togekiss. It was the Bullet Punches that did most of the damage.

Garchomp attacked lucario BEFORE it used reversal. Lucario doesnt have endure. His moveset in this battle was bullet punch, aura sphere, double team, reversal .But lucario resisted dragon claw and used reversal.

Dragon Claw never made contact, since Reversal struck first.

 

[vivian20]

That attack failed to KO Togekiss. It was the Bullet Punches that did most of the damage.
Spirit bomb can be used as a shield. Togekiss resisted , but it blocked max airstream, at least , most of it. Sure , lucario displayed other ways to counter max airstream, but Cynthia could come up with a way to hit lucario if ash used the same strategy over and over again. While to dodge the move is rather normal, to run inside max airstream should be outright imposible for a lucario. We have seem pokemon running on water based moves before in the anime, but not in air based moves. Lucario used max airstream to jump , and it worked , but physics say Lucario should just have fallen on max airstream, and game machanics say that it shouldnt miss.
Dragon Claw never made contact, since Reversal struck first.

Mega Lucario (ASH) VS Dynamax Togekiss (CYNTHIA) - Full Battle English Subbed at 0: 35, we see lucario losing momento and falling on max airstream , but he just used it to jump futher. This is outright impossible. I know this is an anime, but even an anime has to follow some logic. The anime showed pokemon jumping on moves based on solid and liquid things before( physically possible if your feet move fast enough), not gas and energy moves.

Mega Lucario vs Garchomp Final Battle Pokémon (2019) Episode 125 at 1:19, dragon claw hits . Lucario resists and uses reversal.