Review JN132: The Finals IV: "Partner"

[FinnishPokéFan92]

This is pretty understandable. The last 4 months or so have been an absolute drag to get through thanks to the constant breaks and 4 goddamn clip shows. Plus, outside of this battle and Ash's battle with Champion Cynthia, most have been kinda lackluster.

I think each battle in the tournament was enjoyable in one way or another. Sure the starting battle was overly short and the first semifinals match was mostly skipped, and I admit that those battles were amongst the weaker ones in the tournament but Iris vs Cynthia and Lance vs Diantha were both perfectly great battles IMO.

 

[Soniman]

I tried to make an "English" version of the final part with the Pokémon Theme and the original sound effects. Maybe they will make something like this for the Dub version?... i hope yes!

Be very prepared for Ed Goldfarb to massacre this scene with his bad, unfitting dub music. He’s almost never delivered satisfyingly when it comes to emotional moments in the anime (most recent example being the Alola episode)

 

[flowerfun]

Be very prepared for Ed Goldfarb to massacre this scene with his bad, unfitting dub music. He’s almost never delivered satisfyingly when it comes to emotional moments in the anime (most recent example being the Alola episode)

You mean JN111? I'd like to see a scene of the dub for that one.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Be very prepared for Ed Goldfarb to massacre this scene with his bad, unfitting dub music. He’s almost never delivered satisfyingly when it comes to emotional moments in the anime (most recent example being the Alola episode)

He'd have to be an absolute fool to not use the first opening, but you know he'll massacre this moment by adding some dull music that doesn't get you hyped for a scene that absolutely should.

 

[Soniman]

You mean JN111? I'd like to see a scene of the dub for that one.

https://twitter.com/shirtjs/status/1583843615968620544?s=46&t=AM1_nnJCj-xF41A2nFa0Ow

There you go

 

[Kurolegacy]

Be very prepared for Ed Goldfarb to massacre this scene with his bad, unfitting dub music. He’s almost never delivered satisfyingly when it comes to emotional moments in the anime (most recent example being the Alola episode)

I still remember the terrible music choice that was made for the final clash of Tarrocat and Incineroar. The sub got XYZ while the sun got generic music.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Spoiler: My friends, lend me your energy!

Artist unknown (Twitter)

 

[LeonMagnus]

Forgot to mention, thank you writers for making Hop actually take his brother’s loss on board without whining about it. He actually seems like a decent person now, and not a joke. Speaking of which, Max (who was a kid when he was throwing tantrums at his family’s loss, so he got a pass) seen Ash lose the Johto Championships on TV, now he’s seen him become the very best.

Spoiler

Whilst speaking of the deserving appraisal of the episode, there was one thing I didn’t understand.
Pikachu and Cinderace just randomly stopped their Gigantamaxes? They used one move and were back to normal - Cinderace I can understand becuase it was eventually knocked out, but Pikachu?

I wonder if this has to do with them not having time to flesh out Hop. Though I agree that I prefer him like this. I think the problem he had in the game that depressed him is that he wanted to be like his brother and challenge him. Your character basically surpassed both Hop and his brother so it was doubly crushing.

I also noticed the Sonia was also cheering for Leon in anime version where as in the game she’s not shy about letting you know she’s 100% behind you beating him. Though I got the impression in the game that she was frankly tired of hearing about how unbearable he was.

 

[Vincentz0811]

During Leon's Charizard and Ash's Pikachu final moves, it doesn't look like they're using Fire Blast or Thunderbolt. To me, it looks like they're using Flare Blitz and Volt Tackle toward each other and it doesn't make much sense to me because both of their moves look different. I don't know why the animators decide to make it like that. Does anybody agree with me?

 

[LeonMagnus]

During Leon's Charizard and Ash's Pikachu final moves, it doesn't look like they're using Fire Blast or Thunderbolt. To me, it looks like they're using Flare Blitz and Volt Tackle toward each other and it doesn't make much sense to me because both of their moves look different. I don't know why the animators decide to make it like that. Does anybody agree with me?

Just a trope effect

 

[Vincentz0811]

Just a trope effect

Yeah, I guess. But it doesn't make it perfect though.

 

[Gabo2oo]

That beginning part is so scripted because she obviously already knew

But that's just about every person in the universe recording themselves after learning something exciting? People do this all the time man, it's simply sharing the news and your excitement with your followers, not pretending to be doing a live reaction.

 

[LeonMagnus]

Yeah, I guess. But it doesn't make it perfect though.

It’s not really about it being perfect. Its just a trope used in anime like a clashing of will power between two rivals. Its much more dramatic than having a projectile power struggle where the thunderbolt just breaks through the fire blast and engulfs charizard.

I agree with you though, I don’t like that they do that.

 

[vivian20]

So , pikachu remembered volt tackle again?

Pikachu managed to take down two pokemon of each champion on this championship, including Steven´s and leon´s aces.

Vs steven: Took down Cradily and metagross.
Vs Cynthia: took down gastrodon and spiritomb
Vs Leon : took down cinderace and Charizard

Cynthia was the only champion that was able to take pikachu down.
Nice to see all ash´s travel companions watching the match , as well as all Ash´s pokemon in Pikachu´s flashback/near death experience.

 

[pharaohyami5000]

I re-watched that scene and posted the screenshots below

Spoiler

View attachment 165597

View attachment 165598

It looks to me that only Ash was allowed to use all three gimmicks. He said "Use all of them, Satoshi"

Anyways, I think that one-gimmick-per match rule was pretty unnecessary. The Masters Eight should have been allowed to go all out right from the start

Ah, but you forgot this.

Spoiler: middle

Therefore, Leon would have allowed anyone to fight at their full strength at this final battle. Including Cynthia, who we've seen wield Mega Evolution and Dynamax. Z-Move unknown as it seems she doesn't use any in the Sun/Moon games (correct me otherwise).

 

[Shadao]

Ah, but you forgot this.

Spoiler: middle

View attachment 165621

Therefore, Leon would have allowed anyone to fight at their full strength at this final battle. Including Cynthia, who we've seen wield Mega Evolution and Dynamax. Z-Move unknown as it seems she doesn't use any in the Sun/Moon games (correct me otherwise).

Cynthia has an Alola Pokémon, thus it wouldn't be out of the question for Cynthia to have her own Z-Move.

Ash and Cynthia would be pioneers to the idea of Pokémon Masters learning and acquiring multiple gimmicks rather than just sticking to one. Leon would no doubt seek to obtain other gimmicks to better improve himself.

 

[Handy Man]

I just realized there’s one little detail about this episode that I really appreciated, one that I haven’t seen anyone else mention. At the very end of the episode, we see that gigantic trophy in Ash’s hotel room. However, when Goh wakes him up by calling him, we can see that Ash excitedly says “it must be about Project Mew!” Despite Ash winning his biggest tournament ever, he still lacks an ego. He legitimately wanted to hear about how Goh was doing, over bragging about his win against Leon. This shows that Ash never lost sight of who he really is, and he remains humble, even when he won something that no one else besides Leon did. Nice scene overall.

 

[Reborn Talonflame]

Whilst not as prominent as other cameos shown off in this segment of the show, another person I would have love to have seen is Scott. Just think, he was basically the one who provided Ash the chance to develop substantially more as a trainer thanks to the Battle Frontier, effectively scouting him early on. Yeah, a lot of characters recognised Ash’s potential at the time, but Scott was the first major promoter/figure in the Pokemon world to have seen it and decided he wanted to help manifest it through his battling empire.
It would have been so cool to have a scene of him smiling and watching on, proclaiming something like, “I knew he was something special”.

 

[90'sPokéfan]

The tournament is over. Just like Leon, I too thought about the past while the battle was going on. I once again saw the moment Ash won the Orange League with Pikachu as his last pokémon standing. Maybe not as spectacular these days, back than it was not only the first ever full battle in the anime, which made it something special at the time, it also felt like a big deal for me back than.

We saw every former main character and some extra cameos. And the elder siblings both supported the younger ones when the fight became tense. This was a nice touch. We also saw the old party members (a lot only in spirit), even those who were released etc. I wonder if Todd was able to take a nice picture of Eternatus.

Ash's (main) trophies are getting bigger every time. His Orange League trophy was like a hand sized dumbbell, his Alolo League trophy was a lot bigger, but this one... Good thing Gengar pushed it up, Ash underestimated the weight of it.

I wonder how the project mew episodes will be. And afterwards, I wonder...

For the episode itself, the final fakeout after the commercial break wasn't needed for me. I couldn't see pikachu losing after we saw all the old Pokémon and the original opening started to play. Cinderace went down a little to fast I feel. Maybe the writers should have let Dracovish do at least a little damage to the pokémon in the last episode.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

Someone made a collage of people being upset about being spoiled on Facebook. Just because our internet viewing habits would have spoiled us via unofficial doesn't really justify news outlets and official channels spoiling people. It's not fair that I was one of the very few unspoiled internet users because my unemployed ass stayed up until 2:30 am. https://twitter.com/GamingXperience/status/1591498315975495680