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Review S17 EP04: A Shockingly Cheeky Friendship!

I knew all along that Serena would choose Fennekin, and not just from reading ahead--the opening theme spoiled it. And does anyone else think that Sycamore got a new VA?

Bonnie's first few eps are already better than Max's. He came across as a know-it-all, or at least he thought he knew everything. Statistics, maybe, but his battling skills sucked. Bonnie at least is doing something semi-useful, and is clearly eager to learn instead of acting smarter than she is.

Fletchling is already being established as this region's Pidgeotto expy. Let's hope he's a competent battler and not limited to scouting missions.

Little continuity snarl: Meowth says he can't translate the Pika-Dedenne shock-talk, yet he did so for Pika-Zapdos in Pokémon 2000. And speaking of TR, it's nice to see that Pika isn't just standing still and letting them catch him. Now he's jumping away from attacks that come out of nowhere. I'm liking that. It lets him show how fast he's supposed to be.

During the river scene, I was fully expecting the Inevitable Waterfall, only for TR to run into a rock. (I even made that joke in "Caption the Screenshots," using dialogue from The Emperor's New Groove.) Way to subvert that trope.

When Our Gang had to recharge Dedenne, why would Clemont pull out a Rube Goldberg machine when Ash had a living battery on his shoulder? Unless he just wanted to show off (and make something explode). At least the tech talk about static electricity was right. Thank you, Bill Nye.
 
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This episode was pretty good. I was pretty shocked that there were no commercials during "Who's That Pokemon?". Also, they've finally fixed the "To Be Continued" thing.
 
I found it odd how CN went through most of this entire episode with just one commercial break. Not that I’m complaining though. 
Anyway, I liked this episode. Not much happened except for Dedenne's capture, but I was still entertained for the most part. I especially loved all of the Bonnie and Dedenne cuteness!

Is it just me or did Serena sound a bit different in the beginning of the episode? I don’t know, but regardless she sounded normal at the end. I also thought Bunnelby sounded a bit different, but once again, not too sure.

My gosh, I loved Clemont and Bonnie in this episode. Bonnie is so adorable and I love that she'll be taking care of a Pokémon for the most part despite being too young to officially own one. It should be interesting to see how this plays through. I definitely hope she'll battle with Dedenne at some points.

Pikachu and Dedenne’s bonding was cute. I like how Pikachu acted as a big brother figure to the little guy.

I actually even somewhat enjoyed Team Rocket in the beginning. What the hell was with Jessie? She was trying to grab Dedenne like a predator. I also liked how Mewoth said, “I don’t speak electricity”. Those were entertaining moments, but after that…they were rather boring.

I also like how even though Bonnie really wanted Dedenne, she put that aside when Pikachu was lost and focused on finding him. It shows how mature she is, imo.

Now on to Clemont. I just love his invention scenes. He's so hilarious. I thought he’d only have a few small inventions, but here he busts out this giant generator out of nowhere. Then he just pulls out the broken piece before it explodes. At least this machine actually worked in healing Dedenne.

I found it funny how Clemont actually forgot that they were there to catch Dedenne. Lastly, I thought it was nice how when Bonnie “Nuzzled” Dedenne it actually listened to her and used the move. It shows that it is willing to take her commands, whci gives me more hope that it’ll listen to her in battle.

I’m glad Serena chose Fennekin. It really seems to suit her. So far, Fennekin doesn’t seem to be very fearful, like some new starters, and it was really quick to save Serena and even bring her back her hat. Seems like it’s already pretty loyal. I can't wait to see how they’ll work together in the future. 8/10.
 
I knew all along that Serena would choose Fennekin, and not just from reading ahead--the opening theme spoiled it. And does anyone else think that Sycamore got a new VA?

Bonnie's first few eps are already better than Max's. He came across as a know-it-all, or at least he thought he knew everything. Statistics, maybe, but his battling skills sucked. Bonnie at least is doing something semi-useful, and is clearly eager to learn instead of acting smarter than she is.

Fletchling is already being established as this region's Pidgeotto expy. Let's hope he's a competent battler and not limited to scouting missions.

Little continuity snarl: Meowth says he can't translate the Pika-Dedenne shock-talk, yet he did so for Pika-Zapdos in Pokémon 2000. And speaking of TR, it's nice to see that Pika isn't just standing still and letting them catch him. Now he's jumping away from attacks that come out of nowhere. I'm liking that. It lets him show how fast he's supposed to be.

During the river scene, I was fully expecting the Inevitable Waterfall, only for TR to run into a rock. (I even made that joke in "Caption the Screenshots," using dialogue from The Emperor's New Groove.) Way to subvert that trope.

When Our Gang had to recharge Dedenne, why would Clemont pull out a Rube Goldberg machine when Ash had a living battery on his shoulder? Unless he just wanted to show off (and make something explode). At least the tech talk about static electricity was right. Thank you, Bill Nye.

No, Jake Paque still Voices Professor Sycamore he's just using his Eric Voice from Movie 16.
 
Cute filler(-ish) episode. The raft bits with Team Rocket were great.

For those keeping score at home, this episode kept four pieces of Japanese bgm - the episode title screen (of course), the Team Rocket motto music, and the music during both battles with Team Rocket.
 
I really enjoyed this episode. But first:

What a coincidence, Serena, I knew which Pokémon you wanted before you walked in, too. In fact, I knew before you knew you were going to go on a journey. It’s possible I knew before your very introduction into the Pokémon Anime…

Anyway, Bonnie is completely adorable in how she wanted to take care of everything. She’s just so sweet. She’s much better than Max in that aspect, since she feels like a little kid, which makes her character better.

LOL, hilarious how Meowth can’t “speak electricity”. Seriously, how did Jessie expect him to know that? He learned how to speak by reading a book, not playing with power lines.

Crap! Is Jessie insane or something? She just turned into a frickin’ ninja or Power Ranger jumping around like a wild animal or something. Damn, were Dedenne and Pikachu really that important?

Speaking of which, although it was a bit annoying that a large portion of this episode was centered around just running from Team Rocket, it was good how Pikachu was actually trying to escape. After all, we remember this terrible reaction. 2.png

When Dedenne fell, I was like, “Oh no! He died!”

Once again, they had different “Before the Break” music for Who’s That Pokémon?, but used an older one for when they returned. Or rather, 2 seconds later, since there was no break. What was that all about? So I’m now pretty certain that this will be something that changes per episode, which I do enjoy.

So, I assume that whole “The future is now, thanks to science.” is Clemont’s catchphrase whenever he use one of his crappy inventions. Seriously, the entire handle came off? Well, at least that was hilarious the way he just stood there with it.

Not to mention it was even more funny the way Dedenne just casually walked away when it was about to explode.

Anyway, suddenly Team Rocket!

What did Foul Play do, 4 damage? Dedenne doesn’t have very high Attack. Just saying.

I loved it when they were about to capture Dedenne. The level of excitement was too damn high!

Also, I really liked the Nuzzle scene with Dedenne and Bonnie, because, not only was it adorable, but Dedenne actually obeyed her command. Leads me to think he’ll prove useful in the future.

So now Serena’s back and her Fennekin is badass. Also, did Vespiquen sound like Pikachu to anyone else? Probably just me.

And Serena’s heading on to start her journey. Yay. Not sure if I like her too much yet. While there isn’t too much we’ve seen of her, I foresee her being quite prissy and girly and afraid of everything like May was. But, I suppose I’ll wait and see.

Overall, great episode. Very cute. I should also mention: XY actually has good humor in it. Thank you, XY! It’s been so long since I could say that about an episode. I could hardly call BW’s “humor” funny, and we’re only 4 episodes in XY and I’ve found each of them to have something funny in them. But anyway, I’ll give it a 9/10.
 
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whoever writes TR's dialogue should have been fired by now, seriously. It's literally so bad it's insulting. James occasionally did a deeper and more posh voice in this episode which more matched Stuart's, which I think was the obvious better voice, he should keep that as his normal or be replaced completely, his voice is the most jarring thing about the XY dub. And Meowth needs to stop sounding like a high pitched smoker. Clemont's voice remains my favourite in the dub, I feel like Serena's shouldn't be as high as it is, and I like Bonnie's. Nothing to comment on story-wise cause I watched the subbed version first and enjoyed it.

loved the scene with Jessie jumping up and trying to snatch Dedenne though, I must have forgotten about that. it brought this to mind.
 
So there was some speculation about contractual obligations with Loeffler and co. keeping TPCI from using all Japanese bgm, but that doesn't seem to be the case. According to the credits, the composer for XY's dub score is Ed Goldfarb, who also arranged the theme song.

So yes, it would seem TPCI really is just replacing the music because they feel like it.
 
I must say, the dub voices were much better in this episode. Bonnie's in particular, I was kind of iffy about it in the preview episodes but it really clicked with me here. And even the veteran characters seemed to do a better job today. And James' "how rude!" when Pikachu and Dedenne ran away made me smile. Although I'm disappointed the "Head It" track was replaced, it really made the scene in the original.
 
My favorite part of this episode was when Team Rocket was in the raft, Inkay was riding on top of Wobbuffet's head.
 
Overall a very good episode. Bonnie is actually proving to be useful as well as enjoyable. While I have no real qualms with Max, he did seem more of a bratty know-it-all, yet was never really able to back anything up. Bonnie is actually eager to learn and help, while still maintaining a child mentality, and yet also understand priorities and what's important. While she really wanted Dedenne, when Pikachu got lost with it, she was more determined to find him than Dedenne, proving she knows what's important. I'm liking her character more with each episode. And the fact that Dedenne used Nuzzle when Bonnie didn't intentionally mean for it to attack proves that Dedenne has some potential, as well as already showing loyalty and forging quick bonds. I find that very encouraging.

Dedenne and Pikachu bonding like siblings was very cute. And both have a fondness for having their large/long tails stroked. Huh... didn't know that. Interesting trivia.

Pikachu and Dedenne actually trying to escape TRio was a very good change of pace. Unlike many past encounters, they actually made the effort to get away. Though how many of those electro-net bomb things do they have!? They must've thrown at least five of them at the two electric rodents. And, while what Meowth says contradicts The Power of One movie, it does make sense. After all, he learned how to speak through mimicry and books, not with electric outlets.

Clemont's catchphrase is pretty funny. Once again, he invokes the bottomless satchel bit to bring out an overly large machine. I do love how his invention names (well, most of them) tend to have fairly obvious and to-the-point names. At least the invention worked, as Dedenne was restored to full health. Though it was hilarious when the invention was about to go kaboom, he was almost casually holding the broken lever, and Dedenne merely walked away just moments before it did. That gag is becoming a favorite of mine (probably because I love to tinker and build as well, such as models, so I can understand how something like that could happen).

Bunnelby is proving to be very useful for the common regional Normal-type. It obviously wants to help any way it can, and it is a very good battler. Even though Diggersby has grown on me over time, I hope Bunnelby stays the way it is. It just seems to fit in the group better than its evolve form, but that's just me, I guess.

While it was a mega-duh that Serena would get Fennekin (how obvious was that, right?), it has proven to be a very courageous and loyal Pokemon. It protected Serena from Vespiquen without hesitation, even forcing it to flee with just one Ember. Unlike Torchic and Piplup, who got clobbered pretty easily at the start, Fennekin has shown its strength already. I like that a lot. It has potential. Here's hoping to a Delphox.

The only problem I have with this episode is that everyone was calling Dedenne just an Electric-type. No one acknowledged that it was part Fairy, even the Pokedex. I found that a bit odd. I know that a later episode will "fully" acknowledge the Fairy-type, but you think that at least the Pokedex would state that its a Electric/Fairy Pokemon, not just an Electric-type. Oh, well, that's just a minor complaint, so I won't harp on it.

Overall, a great episode. I give it a 9/10, it only lost one point because of some nitpicky complaints I have. But other than that, the XY anime is off to a blazing start.
 
whoever writes TR's dialogue should have been fired by now, seriously. It's literally so bad it's insulting. James occasionally did a deeper and more posh voice in this episode which more matched Stuart's, which I think was the obvious better voice, he should keep that as his normal or be replaced completely, his voice is the most jarring thing about the XY dub. And Meowth needs to stop sounding like a high pitched smoker. Clemont's voice remains my favourite in the dub, I feel like Serena's shouldn't be as high as it is, and I like Bonnie's. Nothing to comment on story-wise cause I watched the subbed version first and enjoyed it.

loved the scene with Jessie jumping up and trying to snatch Dedenne though, I must have forgotten about that. it brought this to mind.

LOL I totally agree with this. And yes, her voice is incredibly awkward and unnatural. Her VA should take lessons from Veronica Taylor or Misty's VA. Also just out of curiosity...the people who analyze and rate the episodes...did you not watch the Japanese version?
 
Overall a very good episode. Bonnie is actually proving to be useful as well as enjoyable. While I have no real qualms with Max, he did seem more of a bratty know-it-all, yet was never really able to back anything up. Bonnie is actually eager to learn and help, while still maintaining a child mentality, and yet also understand priorities and what's important. While she really wanted Dedenne, when Pikachu got lost with it, she was more determined to find him than Dedenne, proving she knows what's important. I'm liking her character more with each episode. And the fact that Dedenne used Nuzzle when Bonnie didn't intentionally mean for it to attack proves that Dedenne has some potential, as well as already showing loyalty and forging quick bonds. I find that very encouraging.

Dedenne and Pikachu bonding like siblings was very cute. And both have a fondness for having their large/long tails stroked. Huh... didn't know that. Interesting trivia.

Pikachu and Dedenne actually trying to escape TRio was a very good change of pace. Unlike many past encounters, they actually made the effort to get away. Though how many of those electro-net bomb things do they have!? They must've thrown at least five of them at the two electric rodents. And, while what Meowth says contradicts The Power of One movie, it does make sense. After all, he learned how to speak through mimicry and books, not with electric outlets.

Clemont's catchphrase is pretty funny. Once again, he invokes the bottomless satchel bit to bring out an overly large machine. I do love how his invention names (well, most of them) tend to have fairly obvious and to-the-point names. At least the invention worked, as Dedenne was restored to full health. Though it was hilarious when the invention was about to go kaboom, he was almost casually holding the broken lever, and Dedenne merely walked away just moments before it did. That gag is becoming a favorite of mine (probably because I love to tinker and build as well, such as models, so I can understand how something like that could happen).

Bunnelby is proving to be very useful for the common regional Normal-type. It obviously wants to help any way it can, and it is a very good battler. Even though Diggersby has grown on me over time, I hope Bunnelby stays the way it is. It just seems to fit in the group better than its evolve form, but that's just me, I guess.

While it was a mega-duh that Serena would get Fennekin (how obvious was that, right?), it has proven to be a very courageous and loyal Pokemon. It protected Serena from Vespiquen without hesitation, even forcing it to flee with just one Ember. Unlike Torchic and Piplup, who got clobbered pretty easily at the start, Fennekin has shown its strength already. I like that a lot. It has potential. Here's hoping to a Delphox.

The only problem I have with this episode is that everyone was calling Dedenne just an Electric-type. No one acknowledged that it was part Fairy, even the Pokedex. I found that a bit odd. I know that a later episode will "fully" acknowledge the Fairy-type, but you think that at least the Pokedex would state that its a Electric/Fairy Pokemon, not just an Electric-type. Oh, well, that's just a minor complaint, so I won't harp on it.

Overall, a great episode. I give it a 9/10, it only lost one point because of some nitpicky complaints I have. But other than that, the XY anime is off to a blazing start.

Actually Clemont said that in response to Bonnie commenting on the similarities that Pikachu and Dedenne had. He says they are both Electric types after all. I think they were more so waiting for the upcoming Fairy type reveal episode to acknowledge the type(which they do).

Also jesus TR was annoying this episode, seriously that rhyming was almost unbearable. I understand it during the motto but it was insane in this episode. Every other line was a rhyme.
 
Well, while the first two episodes started in quite a promising and interesting way, I wasn't so happy with the last two to be honest.
The third episode was only revolving around Ash trying to catch a region's standard bird Pokemon and this episode was all about Pikachu (and Dedenne) escaping from Team Rocket. As If we hadn't had that countless times before:sweat:
OK, these were the first episodes and all the new Pokemon will still have to be caught and all the new things and character haven't been introduced yet. So let's wait a little bit longer.

Nevertheless, I'm slowly but surely getting the feeling that there's something I won't like, and that is Bonnie and her awfully high-pitched voice. Isn't it already bad enough that they had to introduce a little kid as one of the new main characters that makes the show more childish instead of more mature? But to make things worse they had to give her an annoying voice that you can hardly stand. :uhoh:
Well, I just hope Bonnie won't dominate too much in the show.

And yeah, by the way, why does Serena want to find Ash so badly? What's the background? (I don't watch the Japanese episodes, you know)
 
I still can't get over how beautiful the animation looks this season. Especially during the scene where Pikachu and Dedenne were in the tunnel, or the battle scene with Team Rocket. It's like every episode is movie quality now.

The only thing that bothers me is some of the choppy dialogue heard in the episode. When Clemont said "I've caught Dedenne and I'm keeping it for Bonnie!" I cringed a little, because of the awkwardness of it.

Other than that, I found the episode very enjoyable.
 
The only thing that bothers me is some of the choppy dialogue heard in the episode. When Clemont said "I've caught Dedenne and I'm keeping it for Bonnie!" I cringed a little, because of the awkwardness of it.
In the Japanese version Bonnie says 'keep' in English as basically her signature line - but the problem is that adapting a randomly dropped in English word into an actual sentence doesn't really work that well, and obviously they haven't thought of a dub equivalent 'cute' way of saying 'catch it'.

Which makes me wonder what they'll get her to say in the upcoming episode where Bonnie uses 'keep' to refer to Viola.

They pick odd times to stick closely to the script, there was a great missed opportunity with the Team Rocket motto here, which bounced off the fact they were talking exclusively to Pokemon when delivering it. Sure it was nice for nostalgia to get the 'to protect the world from devastation' line back, but it would have been a good time with XY to go to a more direct adaptation. It helps to minimise the repetition of Team Rocket if their dialogue is mixed up.

So there was some speculation about contractual obligations with Loeffler and co. keeping TPCI from using all Japanese bgm, but that doesn't seem to be the case. According to the credits, the composer for XY's dub score is Ed Goldfarb, who also arranged the theme song.

So yes, it would seem TPCI really is just replacing the music because they feel like it.
Well, no, it just shows that instead of being contracted to do one song a series, they agree to a wider amount of music to be made.

Because the new opening theme arrangement is quite good, letting them do some music to replace it in other parts of the episode seems a reasonable trade off for TCPI to make when finding someone to do the opening.
 
Well, no, it just shows that instead of being contracted to do one song a series, they agree to a wider amount of music to be made.

Because the new opening theme arrangement is quite good, letting them do some music to replace it in other parts of the episode seems a reasonable trade off for TCPI to make when finding someone to do the opening.
If that's the case then TPCI are terrible negotiators.

If I were running the show, had a serviceable soundtrack already (with the Japanese score) and the theme song guys were like "Hey, let us do the show too" I'd tell them no. Extra work, extra money, not worth it. If they don't like it they don't have to do the theme song and they don't have to get paid for that. There are hundreds of artists in NY who are readily available for that sort of thing.

I'm sure the bean counters at TPCI have figured out how to squeeze every dollar out of this franchise and replacing the music somehow factors into that. I highly doubt *Pokemon Company International* is being strong-armed by a local band in New York on anything.
 
Ash has had Fletchling for one episode, how does he know all about how it likes having its wings cleaned?

I like how they didn't say Dedene is Fairy. Should just tell him fairies are normal and then he'll manages to fuck it up at the fairy gym by using some fighting types.

The magic bags are just annoying.
 
Also, they've finally fixed the "To Be Continued" thing.

Really? The file I watched didn't have this... it also actually had the ending theme (instrumental of the opening song) heard and the credits appearing on the whole screen without any interruptions... so I guess maybe what I watched came from some VOD service or something? and maybe they only fixed the TBC thing in the version that aired on CN

also for these complaining about Meowth's line regarding not understanding the electricity... well, in Movie 2 Meowth was standing just near Pikachu and Zapdos who also "talked" with voice in addition to the electricity they used... while here TRio were standing far away from Pikachu and Dedenne, so Meowth could only see the electricity but not hear their voice (if they even used voice, can't remember) so it kind of made sense to me
 
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