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Review S20 EP43: When Regions Collide!

I loooved this episode. I really felt like it had everything: great action, great humor, great characterization.

Although I wasn't 100% sure of Misty's dub voice last time (due largely to the fact I'm just not used to hearing her new voice) I have to say I thought it was really great this episode. Her personality was still very much there, and really came across at certain moments (most notably: when she's responding to or teasing Ash). I was really happy with how she sounded this episode.

Honestly, I thought the dub lines in this episode were awesome. They really showed off the characters' personalities and weren't bland or watered down. In fact, they seemed to be a pretty good match of the original. Some of my favorites were Misty and Brock teasing Ash over the badges (and Kiawe asking if that was really true), Ash warning Lana and Mallow that Misty was tougher than she looked (to which Misty replied she looks plenty tough), Ash calling Psyduck a flake, almost everything out of Brock's mouth (man was it cool to see him in total action again!)...oh, and every comment and sound Ash made over his excitement over the gym, battling, etc. AND THEY KEPT MISTY'S BLUE SWEETHEART LINE! I was really impressed and satisfied with the end product.

The battles themselves were actually really epic. If I can stay interested in a battle, that's how I know it's good, and these were fantastic. Obviously, the best were between Kiawe and Brock and Ash and Misty. The animation on them was just stunning. Kiawe vs. Brock was like a match up I never knew I wanted until I had it, and it was awesome. And Ash v. Misty really just felt like a classic battle of the past but with the stunning new look of today. Both were perfect and even though both had the Mega Evolution v. Z Move thing going for them, they were unique and stood out on their own.

Kukui mentioning bringing gyms and the Pokémon League to Alola was super interesting. I'm almost starting to wonder, with the fascination the classmates had with Brock and Misty, if they will become gym leaders back home instead of trial captains. That'd be pretty cool!

I have but 2 complaints: 1) I really wish the post scenes from the original were dubbed over here, because I forgot Misty asking for Ash's Z-Ring wasn't actually part of the episode, 2) Why were there only 2 episodes of this?? There very easily could have been a minimum of 3.

I know chances are slim, but if Brock and Misty show back up in Alola at some point I'll cry tears of joy (again.)

This was so worth the extra week's wait and a perfect way to end the first dub season of SM.
 
Kukui mentioning bringing gyms and the Pokémon League to Alola was super interesting. I'm almost starting to wonder, with the fascination the classmates had with Brock and Misty, if they will become gym leaders back home instead of trial captains. That'd be pretty cool!

Actually bringing gyms to Alola, that would be a great way to pad out Sun and Moon, Island challenge isn't bad but I do miss gyms
 
My theory that Justin Anselmi voicing Geodude seems to have gone down the pan

Abe Goldfarb, Roger Callagy, Carter Cathcart, Michael Liscio Jr. and Marc Thompson remain the only candidates as Geodude sounds male
 
Now this was a good episode to end the season with. An episode against old friends, Z-moves and mega evolution being showcased, seeing how far Ash has come to finally beat Misty, learning of the Pokemon league which I hope comes sooner than we might hope and Jigglypuff.... that's going to be a thing in S21 isn't it? Overall I loved this episode. It was a good ending to the 1st season of SM and I await season 2 with good expectations going into next year. I will give this a 9.5/10.
 
There's only one *somewhat* good thing I have to say here, and that's oddly with music...the dub kept 5 pieces of music, being the Title Card, music that plays when Geodude fights Togedemaru, BW Title Screen, XY Wild Battle Music, and All Pokémon Appear from M15...the other 7 pieces (total of 12) got replaced, but hey, 41.7% of the OST kept is a high for this Season (still, there was almost *nothing* to keep this time, and it's still not a great peak ep. musically, even AG & late BW had higher peak eps. than this- nothing to be ecstatic about, IMO).

Now for the rest (skip past this post if you only want to read positive things, please):

- Season 20 only kept 15.1% in all of the OST, making this the 2nd worst dub season of all time in this regard (only Season 19 dubbed/XYZ was worse, to date). I can't sugarcoat the truth in this regard, sadly, my conscience is telling me otherwise- don't care how much hate I get, really, it needs to be said.

- Season 20 also has the most "Only 1 piece of Japanese music kept" episodes in the entire Pokémon English dub, 8 of them in all, a new low for the English dub in that particular aspect- one reason I'm not watching the dub after this point and am giving up on it, is due to how DIRE the OST kept situation has become in the English dub. The other is the annoying circus and goofy music everywhere with that Batman style theme Ed Goldfarb has composed, it simply doesn't fit and is extremely unfitting to me.

My Opinions on the Acting & Writing, Etc.:

And yeah, I know I'll get the same excuse about how long TPCi's VAs have been around/they've been the characters longer in English/etc, but frankly, that doesn't excuse the drop in voice acting quality I feel TPCi's tenure has had from the old days of the 4Kids Era, nonetheless. To me, just because something is around longer, doesn't make it better and I have the right to disagree with others, is what I'll say to that for my two cents.

Misty is so nasally and womanly when voiced by Knotz now (even her performance in the Mastermind Special was honestly closer to Rachael Lillis...even BW116 was a *little* closer for all of one lines she had there, too): her laugh in this episode is incredibly forced, and the voice is just a mesh of the one she used for May in Battle Frontier, but with a nasally tone to me. I seriously couldn't stand Knotz's take on Misty here, just took me out of scenes entirely.

Brock...what can I say, I neither understand nor will ever understand how Rogers (or anyone) thinks Brock is supposed to have such a deep, rough voice when the character is much younger than his "old man" voice indicates to this day. It's so rough and gravelly whenever he screamed in the battle against Kiawe in particular, and he sounds very constipated whenever it comes to any scene required a change in inflection. Like Misty, I really couldn't stand Rogers' take on him here: sadly, I still feel he was better in Battle Frontier as the character, than he is now.

Ash...all over the place like last week...whenever he yells I feel Natochenny makes him sound like a grown woman who is constipated and it just feels so, so non-boyish to me and forced. The rest of the episode Natochenny alternated between teenage girl and Taylor Ash impersonator to varying degrees of success and failure, but it still just doesn't fit well to me after more than a decade- disappointing considering she's been Ash longer, and her take *still* irritates me at various points.

Lillie & Mallow still sound like 30 year old women trying to be girls, rather than actual girls to me, Sophocles sounds good, Kiawe's voice cracked twice in the episode and went higher pitched when he said "Mega Evolution" and "It's not possible," and dub Rotom still sounds like they give Roger Callagy some kind of high-pitched filter which makes his voice very annoying to me, much more than when the saga began. Only Pikachu & Sophocles really sound right to me, honestly, everyone else just...not a fan of the voice acting at all in the English dub, don't think I ever will be at this point, but I gave it a chance countless times so I don't regret not at least *trying* to like it, but...sadly, I just can't.

Kukui's voice actor has a nice voice, but I just don't feel it fits this role too well: it fits the Professor part but the laidback part, just feels so forced- can't get behind his take either, even though I find it a lot less forced than most of the cast.

As for the script...I thought a lot of the rewrites were honestly rather stupid, reductive of the characters, and just Mr. Cathcart trying to be hip and cool for the sake of it, but my 5 least favorite script changes had to be:

"Psy-cute" from Lana (Very lame)
"That story has a familiar ring" from Brock (In Japanese he just said, "Yeah, I do remember that")
"When the chips are down" from Misty (Never heard a 10 year old girl speak like this in my life)
"Because Misty's Psyduck is kind of a flake" from Ash (What 10 year old calls things "flakes")
"I'm not called Brock the Rock for nothing, y'know!" from Brock (Stupid pun, and just copying what 4Kids did back in late Kanto for him)

And as for Psyduck, not as good as his old dub voice, but I expected worse: Geodude, on the other hand, I didn't like its dub voice much here- felt very generic and plain vs. the old one.

- The End for My Posts For a While, Thankfully -

Overall, I'll be happy to make this my last dub episode in likely a few years, if even that: all I have to say is the dub's just not my thing anymore, if you like it more power to you, but...for me, my path with it is probably over now.

I wish I could say nicer things than I am, I do, but my conscience simply won't allow me to turn a blind eye to the issues I have had (and sadly still do) with TPCi's dub in terms of quality. Each to their own, though, if you agree or disagree with anything/everything I'm saying that's fine, but I just don't think I can watch more of this at this stage.
 
Ugh, this episode, and hell this arc in general, really bothered me.

So, I don't get why they re-introduced Brock and Misty as if they didn't spend the entire previous day together. That seemed so weird. I thought it was funny Brock and Misty brought up the pity badges they gave Ash tho. Also, thankfully Misty's voice sounded normal this time around.

I was so happy to see Psyduck again. He is such a cutie. :X3: It was great to see him actually battle seriously. But did they forget about him not being able to swim? Because he seemed to be fine when he was trapped in Popplio's balloon. Anyway, it was nice that they gave the Alolans a chance to try out gym battles. Though I'll never understand why Sophocles wanted to Zing Zap Geodude. Even if he thought it was an electric-type, Zing Zap still wouldn't have been very effective at all... Too bad Togedemaru didn't get more battle time, but seeing her cuddling Pikachu was cute :X3:.

I'm really upset that Kiawe didn't use Marowak in his battle against Brock. The thing has barely done a thing since capture and sometimes I forget he even has it. Turtonator has had enough screen time and battles. Let Marowak do something other than just being an angry brat all the time. But overall, both that battle and Ash vs. Misty were nice. Giving Misty and Brock Mega Stones to allow for Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves to get focus was really cool.

However I have to say, this episode just made me mad more than anything.

I'm so irritated that they had the ability to write some decent gym battles, while every single Totem battle and Grand Trial so far has been mediocre at best. Why on earth did they put more effort into these pointless gym battles than the main challenge of this series. Also, the fact that they included Mega Evolution into this 'arc' just seemed so weird. Kanto isn't even a region associated with Mega Evolution. Why couldn't the gang go to Kalos or even Hoenn if they wanted to show off some Megas? They could have even gotten into the lore behind Mega Evolution with Sycamore or Steven. Why shove more Kanto at the audience when we just had a damn Kanto movie?

And of course, I'm livid that we saw none of Ash's old Pokemon here. We saw a grand total of 34 of Ash's old Pokemon for this 'arc' and 30 of them were Tauros and that disgusts me. We haven't seen most of Ash's old Pokemon in years and they couldn't bother to show them off for a few minutes, but we could have pointless shenanigans and battles with Misty and Brock? And freaking pointless af Jigglypuff? No, I'm sorry but no. Just no.

These 2 episodes felt like nothing but a complete waste of time. Even the nostalgia didn't do anything for me because most of it was so pointless. Overall, I feel like these should have been special episodes aired at a later time. There was no need to interrupt the Alola journey for this. 8/10 for this episode because the battles were good, but I did not care for this 'arc' in the slightest.
 
Actually bringing gyms to Alola, that would be a great way to pad out Sun and Moon, Island challenge isn't bad but I do miss gyms

I was super sick of watching gym battles, and preferred Island Trials, but don't like the way the anime has handled them. Since the classmates aren't trial captains, and likely won't be because the anime hasn't included the captains, I think it'd be super cool if they became some of Alola's first gym leaders at the end instead. That's not something I thought about before (even watching these episodes in Japanese) but really hearing in English how much the classmates admired Misty and Brock has now put the idea in my head.
 
What a wonderful episode! You could tell between the two episodes Michele Knotz was trying to do different things with Misty.
Music was really good today, though I know it was the same old stuff. There's nothing wrong with a little repetitiveness
The animation was absolutely superb. I especially loved Psyduck's smears.
I wonder how they'll do the Pokemon League this time. I know the rule is that if Ash wins a league the show is over but is it possible to break the rules a little? I wonder...


Anyway, that's the season finale. And it seems I have nothing left to post here.
It was a fun season, but I'll be on a lot less (other than the S21 title thread once it starts and a few other things). See you all next year!
 
"Didn't you get all of the ones from Kanto?" Nah Kanto has like 427 gyms. They're right in that Ash didn't really earn his first two though... Or his Grass one. Stopping a fire is cool but that wasn't a battle. Also, Ash got it from a "Air Battle" where it was cuz Pikachu is electric didn't he? Although I remember him fighting Misty. Eh, Gen 1 Mr Ketchip was BS.

...2v1? I don't think these Alola trainers know how a gym battle works XD. Expecting Psychic to wreck them all with Psychic when it gets a headache as per norm.

Confusion isn't a multi target move! and lol, the battle wasn't over. Psyduck would've lost anyway in that 2v1. Weird he's not a Goldduck yet.

Lol, trainers unaware of the Ground type Geodude. Not that Ash ever cared. Togedemaru would die from from Mud Slap lol. And since Snowy is still below level 5 it seems, one Gyro Ball would wreck her. Brock has this. Not sure why it isn't a Gravellor right now if the one from 990 episodes ago...

Hurray an official battle! and not 2v1! and oh Kiawe, you know he uses Rock types. This probably wont end well. Although technically Steelix - Mega cuz people like to spoil - will be weak to it. But that's not a Pokemon that should be used in a Rock gym, cuz Rock/Ground. Anyway, time to see some Mega battles!

I did think rocks being there was weird but assumed it was for Brock. I wonder if Steelix would've been forced to switch?

Mega beats Z moves, good stuff lol. Weird they seemed unaware of it since I recall Lana making Mega Gyrados jokes.

A Gyrados with a Flying type move lol. And yeah I guess Rain Dance+Hurricane is a good idea. Though a special Gyrados... also a good job she let him have those rocks but tbh, I think it WOULD be unfair if water gyms had to be in the water. Also, where did that Mega Stone come from!? at least Water/Dark works better than Water/Flying though. Neutral if it had been Dragon...

What's weird is the stones are usually visible.

RIP Mega Gyardados. I guess Ash has earned his badge properly now lol. Still though a special Gyardos...

"Visit me in Alola.". "sure." ...lol.

Three days lol? damn it Bewear. Also wasn't that Jigglypuff...

Fun episode.
 
Managed to watch yesterday's episode at last, it is so great to hear Bill Rogers playing Brock, I have to admit I do prefer him over Eric Stuart though mainly because I'm now accustomed to Bill Rogers

Team Rocket weren't really needed in this episode, a new scene with Brock and Misty would have been more suitable

Finally got a chance to savor Michele Knotz's voice as Psyduck as usually Psyduck are allocated a background role
 
That was great! How nostalgic it was to see Misty's Psyduck after being absent. Gyarados looks really scary. Poor Marowak, I feel sorry for it that Kiawe didn't use it to battle with Brock's Steelix, Turtonator is getting more spotlight than Marowak. Mega Evolution VS Z-Moves was really, really, something brilliant. If they were to bring gyms at Alola instead of those island trials, that would be even more better. 9/10. And here's my list of who read Who's That Pokemon? for this season so far. It's a best way to end this 20th season of Sun and Moon before moving out to the 21st season which will happen on January or February 2018.

Ash - SM001-002, SM020
Jessie, James and Meowth - SM003, SM012, SM016, SM038
Rapp and Wrapp - SM025
Ash and Lana - SM005
Ash and Sophocles - SM006
Ash, Lillie, Rotom Dex and Hobbes - SM008
Ash, Mallow and Rotom Dex - SM018, SM035
AsH and Hala - SM010
Ash, Kiawe and Rotom Dex - SM011
Ash, Kukui and Rotom Dex - SM015, SM021
Ash, Sophocles, Mallow, Kiawe and DJ Leo - SM023
Ash, Lana, Rotom Dex and Master Fisherman - SM033
Ash and Olivia - SM036
Ash, Lana, Mallow, Ida and Kanoa - SM040
Ash, Lillie, Lana, Mallow, Kiawe and Sophocles - SM004, SM007, SM009, SM013-014, SM017, SM019, SM022, SM024, SM026-SM032, SM034, SM037, SM039, SM041-043

When will this editing at Bulbapedia be active? I mean, some anime Pokedex entries are missing for Brionne, Dhelmise, Oranguru, Rapidash, Steelix and Gyarados. I wish someone could add these asap.
 
When will this editing at Bulbapedia be active? I mean, some anime Pokedex entries are missing for Brionne, Dhelmise, Oranguru, Rapidash, Steelix and Gyarados. I wish someone could add these asap.

A lot of stuff still to do apparently before we can edit once more which is a shame

Looking at the end credits, I have come to the assumption (guesswork, not confirmed) that Rebecca Becker voices Charjabug
 
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Another "let's cram as many events as we can into 22 minutes" episode, but I'll cut this one a bit more slack since it's a season finale. The highlights:
-Michele Knotz has really stepped up her game as Misty since the last episode. It's definitely still different from Lillis's take but is distanced considerably from her May voice. Speaking of which, her voice for Psyduck (which we haven't really gotten a good listen to since Sinnoh, I believe) is also on point: it's basically the same voice we all know and love that Haigney gave it, only slightly more buccal – which fits, being a cartoon duck and all.
-Bill Rogers continues doing Brock justice, having forgone most of his throatiness from the BF and Sinnoh era. Speaking of which, hearing that "Brock the Rock" line again in the dub brought a huge smile to my face.
-Ash continues to never live down his pity badges. Though the way he was able to change the subject was just as smooth.
-The battles themselves were also well written and animated, though I wonder why they showed Sophocles and Lillie interested in joining, seeing as they should have known they wouldn't have enough time to cram those battles in.
-Misty calls Ash a kid at the end? I wonder if Iris paid her a visit since the last time we saw them.
-I'm glad that Jigglypuff found a way to Alola, but how was it able to survive a night on top of a moving plane? Anime physics at their finest, I suppose.
 
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I just finished watching the episode so here so here's what I think.

(My take on the voice acting)

- Brock sounded very smooth. I was not a fan of Bill Rogers during the DP seasons, but his voice of Brock in these past two episodes have been a big improvement.....and this is after 7 years of not voicing the character.

- Misty sounded better in this episode, but honestly, I still miss Rachel Lilis' voice as Misty.

Don't get me wrong Michele is a very talented person, and I know she tried her best to voice Misty. But she did sound a little too forced. Maybe if Misty continues to have more recurring appearances in Sun & Moon I'll get more used to Michele's voice.

- Misty's Psyduck sounded very close to it's original voice actor. Whoever voiced it did a very good job.

- Geodude was.....meh. But to be fair, Geodude was not a very important Pokemon during the OS, and it's original voice was too generic to begin with.



(My take on the episode in genreal)

It was nice to see the Alola gang interacting some more with Misty and Brock, and discovering the type differences between the Kanto and Alolan variants of certain Pokemon like Geodude. It was also nice watching them learn about Mega Evolution and have a side by side comparison with Z-Moves. Hopefully we see more Mega Evolution battles in future episodes.

It was kind of funny seeing Misty being so kind and loving to Psyduck, when she was so cruel to him in the original series, and they kept the headache gag going too. The animation was amazing and we finally see Ash defeating Misty fair and square in a gym battle.

As others in here have mentioned, we have seen enough of Turtonator. I would have liked to see Kiawe used his Marowak against Brock. The poor thing has barely gotten any screen time since it's capture.

Same with Sophacles, he could've used his Charjabug against Geodude instead of Togedemaru. I know Charjabug was in a recent episode, but I've never seen it in a battle (unless I'm not remembering correctly).

I would liked to see Ash use Rowlet against Misty, then have it evolve during mid battle. Then having Dartrix successfully use Bloom Doom (Grassium Z) to defeat Mega Gyrados. That way everyone including Brock and Misty could've witnessed a Alolan starter evolution. But I can see why they used Pikachu instead (nostalgia).

Overall it was a very good episode, better than the previous one. It gets a 9/10 from me.
 
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