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Review S19 EP35: A Riveting Rivalry!

Wow. Great battle. And barring a few obviously recycled frames, the animation was on point.
And I can't stress how happy I am to see Ash make it to the finals. Great job, Ash.
 
Certainly not bad, but not tops either... still can't quite understand why Ash had to win just barely 6-5. Sawyer had a nice string of growth and my be the strongest Rookie ever produced by this anime. But come on, Ash is at the top of his game in the Kalos region, no amounts of planning and "countering" should be bring his team to the limit when you're a class above the trainer you're facing.
 
Damn, that was just epic.

I was wondering what happened to Pikachu after hitting the King's Shield. I forgot that it lowered a stat. Anyway, Ash's strategy on preventing the sword from using it's shield to protect itself was great.

Alright, finally Salamence is in the building. I though for sure Ash would use Goodra against him to put Ice Beam to good use, but I didn't expect Ash to send out his Pokemon first. I'm actually surprised that Noivern managed to do enough to Salamence to knock him out. He's barely gotten any battles and Salamence was just hammering him with SE attacks. Regardless, I'm glad the match ended in a tie. Noivern needed to get a K.O. and Salamence is my absolute favorite Pokemon, so I definitely wanted him to get a win as well. So it was truly the best result for me. But I loved how Sawyer was like "I can't afford to lose again, so let me use my not very effective fire-type move on this dragon!". :p

I'm quite shocked that Ash chose to send Goodra out against Slurpuff. I would have thought he'd use Pikachu to get in some damage before sending out the dragon. Oh well. I did like that Sawyer took the time to boost Slurpuff's defenses while he was using the first Bide instead of the typical attack spam. I also loved how he had Slurpuff use her sense of smell to find Goodra in the smoke. Now what I didn't like was how Ash didn't have Goodra use Rain Dance at all. Slurpuff's main method of attacking was blasting Flamethrower (why Sawyer didn't command more Fairy moves idk) and all he did was counter back with Ice Beam. Why not use Rain Dance to weaken the already not very effective fire attack even further; not to mention power up Greninja's moves for when he came out? Regardless, I'm probably the only person happy that this battle ended in a draw. Slurpuff has been nothing but a punching bag since her debut and I'm glad she finally defeated a Pokemon, and one of Ash's strongest at that. She deserved it.

Finally, the last two take the stage. Greninja vs. Sceptile. Obviously the best match of the entire battle. I mean, everything was just amazing. It was fast paced and I loved everything, from Greninja using water Kunai knives to use Cut and elements like Ash "spiritually" being on the battlefield with Greninja. The best thing is that Greninja didn't struggle at all. He cut through and ran across Sceptile's Frenzy Plant like it was nothing and counter-attacked perfectly each time. This was a truly amazing battle.

Overall, I'd rate this with a 9/10. The only real issue I had was Ash not using Rain Dance against Slurpuff, but even that wasn't a big deal.
 
Oh why did the commercial have to ruin Stand Tall possibly being used during the battle?:rolleyes:

That aside, this episode had some of the best animation I have ever seen in the Pokemon anime. Heck, Greninja pulling out the water throwing knives was just too lit. Whenever I tell people the list of shows that inspire me to an artist/animator I mention Pokemon and I have to show them this episode.

I did want to see Goodra go up against Sceptile though, but it was writer's choice the end.
 
Epic battle! Finally, I was looking forward to this ever since I saw the opening for the first time. Goodra is still tough, I thought Slurpuff would beat him but it is nice to see that Goodra is still a tank. Noivern vs Salamance was good, since Noivern didn't have that much experience, I wasn't expecting him to win, so a double KO seemed to be the right choice. Pikachu got 2 wins there. The fight was good but it looked like there is no gravity when wood was floating :p
10/10, I have added this battle to my favorites.
Next battle, Ash vs Alain!
 
This was without a doubt a great and worthy semi-finals battle. It had everything that fans could wih for: strategic thinking, intensity, spirit and great action-packed scenes. I was literally being kept at the edge of my seat for the whole 20 minutes and I can only repeat that, apart from Sinnoh, this must have been one of Ash's most mature and best battles. He's really developed a lot! (And at the same time, I feel outraged when thinking about what they're going to do to him in that childish SM Anime...)
All battles were very intense and exciting and I think each single result was justified and fair (something you can't always take for granted) The absolute highlight, however, was that epic battle between MegaSceptile and Ash-Greninja, of course. Everything was just amazing and what I liked best was the fact that Ash-Greninja didn't have to struggle that much but was superior all the time, so the outcome of the battle wasn't that close but pretty clear instead.
Ash and Ash-Greninja - simply one of the best ideas the Anime has ever produced!

To sum it up, there's no need for further comments because this whole match was simply fantastic!
Now, I'm looking forward to Ash vs. Alain, the two strongest trainers in Kalos.
 
I really like that move that Pikachu pulled on Aegislash. I knew Ash was going to use those wood pieces somehow, but I really didn't see that coming with Pikachu knocking it into the back of its shield like that to prevent it from using King's Shield.

I guess I can't say that I'm really disappointed about how Noivern's & Goodra's parts in their respective battles played out. They're the two Pokes of Ash's that have the least amount of battle experience. Giving them each a double knockout was probably the best they could get.

The battle between Ash-Greninja & M-Sceptile was pretty awesome. Although.... I really wish Ash had taught it better moves by now than Water Shuriken & Cut. I mean, Sawyer has M-Sceptile using some pretty high-level moves here, and I really wanted A-G to have learned some higher level moves by now, too. Oh well, just goes to show you that type advantage & high level moves mean nothing to Ash, lol....

And I really like how it was emphasized that A-G & Ash were united as one using the attack moves together. I did take notice that when A-G got hit, Ash reacted in pain as well.

That ending, though, where they shook hands and talked about how they're going to battle each other again, someday? Yeah... Sorry, Sawyer, you're going to get sent to limbo h-ll (just like all the other characters who have ever said this) where we will never see you again ever.

All in all a good episode, I thought.
 
Super awesome battle in the end - one of the best ever actually - though I do doubt a 4* inefective 25 power move would kill the Sceptile lol, ah well a good ending moment. Hope the final is just as good.

Main annoyance though was Ash saying he had a plan for Aegislash... then not telling Pikachu about it and doing it anyway. Unless Pika got bored and hit the floor and it just happened to be what Ash wanted him to do.
 
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There is one explanation I found between a Salamence WTP image.

latest
This one is actual WTP? image of this episode,
WTP_XY128.png
but this one is actually taken from episode XY045 which doesn't fit into it at all.
 
I was happy that Ash won this battle and Ash-Greninja was awesome, but I would have been happier if Ash won this battle 6-3 or 6-4 instead of 6-5 as Ash was sho to be ahead of Sawyer for the most part of their rivalry.
 
I was happy that Ash won this battle and Ash-Greninja was awesome, but I would have been happier if Ash won this battle 6-3 or 6-4 instead of 6-5 as Ash was sho to be ahead of Sawyer for the most part of their rivalry.
He would have still won if he didn't use pikachu for the 3rd time. That would have made it a 6-4
 
So, the battle concludes, and Ash wins. I like that Sawyer is apparently not very disappointed about his loss.

Pikachu hurling a wood piece into Aegislash's shield was my favorite part of the episode. Yeah, probably not! And I was happy to learn that Aegislash has Fury Cutter in its moveset; for some reason, Bug-type Pokémon and Bug-type moves do not get much love from the fans. Or maybe, it is just me!? :whistle:

For me, Salamence versus Noivern did not have anything out of the way remarkable, but wow, Slurpuff did actually put a great show here (yes, I was rooting for him, instead of Goodra; sorry Ash!), after doing pretty bad since his debut. Slurpuff, you earned my respect, buddy; keep up the good work. (y) Also, Dazzling Gleam's animation was pretty cool; what's with rainbow rays being shot out from Slurpuff. GREAT!;):cool:

And props to Slurpuff using his scent detection to locate Goodra, just how Noivern uses his echo-location. Writers, you did a pretty good job there! (y)

And of course, there's the Sceptile versus Greninja. I found nothing out-of-the-way remarkable here either, as it was just basically clash of moves and relentless attacking; a flavor of intense battling, marked by the delectable aroma of victory! And so, just like that, Ash advances to the finals, for the first time in forever, it seems!

Writers, what's with that Salamence in Who's That Pokémon? IIRC, The Clumsy Crier Quiets the Chaos! also featured Salamence; you could have easily found someone else, like maybe Marill or Emolga or anyone else, even if it did not appear in the episode. No, I am not a fan of Pokémon reappearing on 'Who's That Pokémon?'. Period.
 
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