Preview JN127: Go's Challenge! The Road to Mew!! (Part 2)

[Imtnt]

Maybe Project Mew will be the bad guys and this arc will repet the narative of the last seasons when in the final round there are troubles...

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Maybe Project Mew will be the bad guys and this arc will repet the narative of the last seasons when in the final round there are troubles...

I've never been a fan of the theory of them being bad guys. I don't think it's very likely.

 

[PokeMasterLA]

You think the head of Project Mew might turn out to be evil? Like, he could be a Team Rocket operative or something. Hell, this whole, "Project Mew," thing could just be a Team Rocket operation in disguise, so they can trick unsuspecting trainers into finding Mew for them. After all, Giovanni is seeking Mew out too.

If you're talking about the guy with the Mime Jr (I don't remember his name). I will say that I always got "evil" vibes from him since the first time he appeared, probably due to his design.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that he is secretly using Project Mew and it's participants for some sort of malicious purposes, then having Goh, Gary, Horace and the two Urshifu trainers (forgot their names too) going after him and taking him down.

 

[Blob]

If you're talking about the guy with the Mime Jr (I don't remember his name). I will say that I always got "evil" vibes from him since the first time he appeared, probably due to his design.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that he is secretly using Project Mew and it's participants for some sort of malicious purposes, then having Goh, Gary, Horace and the two Urshifu trainers (forgot their names too) going after him and taking him down.

How dare they drag Gary through the mud like that.

 

[SammyW27]

On one hand...Project Mew NEEDS a multi-part finale.

But on the other...I don't think many people wanted it to interrupt the Master's 8. Though better Project Mew than a Chloe filler or clipshows.

Though I'm still apprehensive had how rushed or anti-climactic it could be, even with two episodes. Heck, we've had multi-part episodes that were STILL rushed & anti-climactic...<_< (Right. Teams Aqua, Magma, and Plasma? )

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

On one hand...Project Mew NEEDS a multi-part finale.

But on the other...I don't think many people wanted it to interrupt the Master's 8. Though better Project Mew than a Chloe filler or clipshows.

Though I'm still apprehensive had how rushed or anti-climactic it could be, even with two episodes. Heck, we've had multi-part episodes that were STILL rushed & anti-climactic...<_< (Right. Teams Aqua, Magma, and Plasma? )

It's better to place it here. It makes sense for a break to take place before the finals, and leaving said finals as the true finale of the series seems more fitting than leaving Goh's goal as said finale, regardless of how you feel about Goh.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I don't really see the appeal of making the head of Project Mew evil. I guess it would be a twist, but I don't really see the benefit of doing so, especially so late into the series and without much, if any, hints towards that twist beforehand. The characters already in Project Mew are already forgettable, which arguably isn't that bad when the main objective is for Goh to join Project Mew so he can learn more about Mew, so I don't think making the leader secretly evil would make it more interesting. It would be more interesting for Goh to get into Project Mew, realize he wouldn't be able to work for both Project Mew and be a Research Fellow for Professor Cerise at the same time and think about his plans for the future before making a decision on what to do next.

 

[Kurolegacy]

It's better to place it here. It makes sense for a break to take place before the finals, and leaving said finals as the true finale of the series seems more fitting than leaving Goh's goal as said finale, regardless of how you feel about Goh.

What I don’t get is, why not just have the Project Mew finale placed before the Masters 8 tournament rather than mixing everyone’s story finales together. It just reads extremely weird narratively as it feels like everyone is stepping on one another’s toes. It would be like being in the middle of a league only for the Grand Festival to suddenly come up and we go over to that before resuming the league.

 

[SammyW27]

Though this isn't from an official source, so let's take it with a grain of salt...<_<

 

[Hidden Mew]

What I don’t get is, why not just have the Project Mew finale placed before the Masters 8 tournament rather than mixing everyone’s story finales together. It just reads extremely weird narratively as it feels like everyone is stepping on one another’s toes. It would be like being in the middle of a league only for the Grand Festival to suddenly come up and we go over to that before resuming the league.

I don't think that's a good comparison. A Grand Festival would require more episodes to wrap up than either Goh or Chloe's storylines would, if only because it is a battle active goal. It also wouldn't really help their budget or prevent the animators from potentially being overworked to go from one battle active goal to another one. Going from the Master Class to Chloe or Goh's goals potentially would help them out in that regard.

Like I mentioned earlier, I don't see the problem. Maybe it will feel differently whenever I actually watch how the Master Class matches unfold, but wrapping up other storylines in between the Master Class battles sounds fine on paper. I really don't know why people expected the Master Class battles to go one right after another with no breaks. That might have been fine if they actually did skip the non-Ash battles, but since they want to show all of the matches, that would be a lot of battles to have the audience sit through. Not to mention it probably would have been hard for their animation budget and the animators. Using some downtime between matches to resolve other storylines doesn't read as a weird narrative choice. It's making use of their time so that they don't put off the conclusions for these storylines at the last minute to make them potentially feel more rushed.

I also definitely could have seen people complaining about Goh's Project Mew being treated with more importance if it wasn't resolved until after the Master Class and using that as a new reason to complain about him. Saving Ash vs. Leon for as close to the end of the series as possible instead makes more sense to me, especially when they may only have enough time for sending off the cast and leading into the next series by the time the battle ends.

 

[Kurolegacy]

I don't think that's a good comparison. A Grand Festival would require more episodes to wrap up than either Goh or Chloe's storylines would, if only because it is a battle active goal. It also wouldn't really help their budget or prevent the animators from potentially being overworked to go from one battle active goal to another one. Going from the Master Class to Chloe or Goh's goals potentially would help them out in that regard.

Like I mentioned earlier, I don't see the problem. Maybe it will feel differently whenever I actually watch how the Master Class matches unfold, but wrapping up other storylines in between the Master Class battles sounds fine on paper. I really don't know why people expected the Master Class battles to go one right after another with no breaks. That might have been fine if they actually did skip the non-Ash battles, but since they want to show all of the matches, that would be a lot of battles to have the audience sit through. Not to mention it probably would have been hard for their animation budget and the animators. Using some downtime between matches to resolve other storylines doesn't read as a weird narrative choice. It's making use of their time so that they don't put off the conclusions for these storylines at the last minute to make them potentially feel more rushed.

I also definitely could have seen people complaining about Goh's Project Mew being treated with more importance if it wasn't resolved until after the Master Class and using that as a new reason to complain about him. Saving Ash vs. Leon for as close to the end of the series as possible instead makes more sense to me, especially when they may only have enough time for sending off the cast and leading into the next series by the time the battle ends.

I cant really agree that even on paper that it sounds fine due to it coming across as being narratively unfocused by jumping all over the place going from point A to point Q then back to go to point B before jumping off to point G and then back to get to point C. As a roadmap, it ends up looking like a mess when it comes to narratives that aren’t subnarratives of a bigger one. Now if they had established that there’s breaks between rounds like with big sporting events, it could have worked since these things could occur in that down time rather than the plot just pausing suddenly to shift elsewhere.

And I’m not really sure how much the budget can be blamed either considering that, assuming that Ash vs Leon is no longer than 4 episodes, we’d be clocking in at 12 episodes for the Masters 8. Meanwhile the Alola League clocked in at 17 episodes full of battles.

And even with people’s complaints, if they wanted to treat Ash’s goal as the grand finale, it doesn’t really make sense why they didn’t resolve the Project Mew storyline first, thus freeing up the story for that.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I cant really agree that even on paper that it sounds fine due to it coming across as being narratively unfocused by jumping all over the place going from point A to point Q then back to go to point B before jumping off to point G and then back to get to point C. As a roadmap, it ends up looking like a mess when it comes to narratives that aren’t subnarratives of a bigger one. Now if they had established that there’s breaks between rounds like with big sporting events, it could have worked since these things could occur in that down time rather than the plot just pausing suddenly to shift elsewhere.

I assumed that there were just breaks between each round in-universe, but if that isn't the case, I can understand this issue a bit more. Still, I think that going through the entire Master Class tournament without any breaks would have been a bit much and it would have made them end the tournament possibly too soon given that they have three months left before the next series starts. Using time between matches to wrap up other storylines still comes off more like an effective use of managing their time to me as opposed to a weird, confusing or messy narrative.

And I’m not really sure how much the budget can be blamed either considering that, assuming that Ash vs Leon is no longer than 4 episodes, we’d be clocking in at 12 episodes for the Masters 8. Meanwhile the Alola League clocked in at 17 episodes full of battles.

I don't really think that the Alola League is the best comparison. Yes, it was full of battles, but those were mostly one-on-one match ups. That wouldn't put as much of a strain on the audience, the budget or the animators compared to battles against Champions, especially with the semi-finals and finals being full battles. It feels more like an apples and oranges kind of comparison.

 

[Kurolegacy]

I don't really think that the Alola League is the best comparison. Yes, it was full of battles, but those were mostly one-on-one match ups. That wouldn't put as much of a strain on the audience, the budget or the animators compared to battles against Champions, especially with the semi-finals and finals being full battles. It feels more like an apples and oranges kind of comparison.

Maybe but compared to what we’ve been getting in the Masters 8 tournament, the Alola League made more usage of their animation. One major complaint that the Masters 8 has had is that a lot of the battles just feel like they were taken out of the games and put into anime form, complete with Pokémon not even dodging an oncoming attack. The Alola league’s battles were anything but static like that and definitely made good use of their animation budget. We may not have had larger battles but we had battles that felt like anime Pokémon battle. Never thought I’d defend the Alola league on something but in terms of animation quality, it had the better showing with few exceptions.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I swear Goh better not catch Mew. Him meeting Mew is all he needs.