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Review SM027: Come Forth! The Red, Red Gaze of Lugarugan!!

But would Satoshi getting curbstomped even count as an "actual battle" though?
But Rockruff was able to to pretty well in the short minute they battled. It took hits, but it got up ready to go every time.
 
I haven't seen the episode yet, but an interrupted battle isn't the worst result. To begin with, Ash losing in his first fight with a rival is incredibly predictable and no doubt would have spawned just as many complaints. At the same time, Ash winning the battle would have made Gladion look weak given the state of Ash's team. Here we have a middle ground. You won't be satisfied by it immediately but it builds-up their next encounter.

Actually, I hope they don't have a proper fight until it really matters. The best way to hype up a rivalry is to keep the two sides apart for as long as possible.
 
If not for their presence, theres a good chance this episode would've been better.

It wouldn't have made any difference. Team Rocket is a plot device, and if not them, the writers would have found another way to interrupt that battle. If the writers really wanted to show the result of that battle, they would have.

I've been saying that since forever. Never liked to see people blaming Team Rocket for stuff. But it's even more obvious now that Team Rocket is not required to appear in every episode as they were pre-Best Wishes.

I'd much rather see an appearance from the criminally underused Rocket trio than see Satoshi's Iwanko get absolutely crushed by Gladio's Lugarugan.

And the sad thing is you could say that about each one of Ash's classmates. Everyone's criminally underused this series. Except maybe Rotom.
 
But would Satoshi getting curbstomped even count as an "actual battle" though?

Yes. If all, it would have been a good wake up call for him.

Besides, it wasn't even all that onesided. Sure, Ash may have been at a disadvantage, but he handled the battle quite well. So, his eventual loss probably wouldn't even have been too terrible.
 
I was never all that interested in this episode...and I'm glad because it was pretty meh. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the only thing that interested me in this episode was the fact that Gladion's mutant mutt was in an Ultra Ball. Seriously, nothing else was interesting at all. Gladion barely interacted with Lillie (which the only thing that could have made this episode slightly interesting), the hyped up battle between Ash and Gladion was interrupted by TR (totally pointless), and overall everything was meh. Heck, even the part with the Skull Grunts added nothing interesting. The small flashback of Gladion finding his Umbreon as an Eevee was at least nice to see. Also can I just express my happiness ans how we FINALLY got to see an Umbreon use a dark-type move in the anime. Nice, it only took over a decade. Continental Crush looked amazing. It's only unfortunate, that we didn't get to see Gladion doing the full pose for it :( At the very least, Ash found out about Oliva's Grand Trial, so HOPEFULLY, he'll be heading to Akala to do those Trials soon.

4/10. Wasted potential.
 
Unfortunately, if less battles and more comedy instead is better for the target audience, then this whole series (and future ones) would rarely use battles, regardless of how many older fans that pisses off.
 
I don't know if the episode called attention to it or not, but maybe Gladion's lack of interactions with his sister was the whole point? They didn't interact much in the games outside of plot points. If he's meant to be a standoffish older brother then he needs to be, well, standoffish.
 
Y'know, it's kinda funny to me that people are calling Mr. Ow-the-Stone-EDGElord a serious character. Come on, he unironically refers to his Lycanroc as "The Crimson Gaze" and poses like he's a Jojo character.
I don't know if the episode called attention to it or not, but maybe Gladion's lack of interactions with his sister was the whole point? They didn't interact much in the games outside of plot points. If he's meant to be a standoffish older brother then he needs to be, well, standoffish.
That's what I was wondering. I think Lillie mentioned that Gladion didn't used to be like that. The plot thickens.
 
That sunset tho.

It was an alright episode in my book. The "Team Rocket interrupting in order to steal Pokemon®" plot device felt very old school. I'm sure we'll see much more of Satoshi and Gladion interacting in the future, so I don't mind getting just a taste of it in this episode. Glad we finally got a hint of the Island challenge coming up, too.

If I have to be completely honest though, I found the Pokemon commercials at the end of the episode a liiiitle more entertaining than the actual episode. That kid posing with the z ring bracelet was badass.
 
I like that episode- Gladion is a character with great potential-that's for sure- battle and soundtrack were nice too- 9/10.
On the other hand, SM TRio is the best TRio I've seen since early Hoenn- seriously- especially without that Jessie's performing/contest things.
 
Better to save Ash vs. Gladion for a more worthwhile series of episodes. The next episode has Ash and co. playing baseball!
The brother-sister interaction between Lillie and Gladion was on point though. In the anime, it's weird how we know from the beginning that Gladion is Lillie's brother.
This episode didn't really deliver anything at all besides a future plot point.
 
Seems battles are too much for children...

Looks that way. As I recall, I heard they really didn't care for extra the action and drama in XY(&Z). What's more, I think I heard that SM is doing better in the ratings, or at least finally doing better than Yokai Watch. Though I may have got that wrong :cautious:
 
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Is Rockruff always hyper? A few minutes of excitement would have been cute, but the continuous barking started to get irritating after ten minutes.

No battle between Gladion and Ash. I expected Gladion to completely crush Ash and Ash to get all fired up and look for all ways to get advice on how to train Rockruff. But Team Rocket had to interrupt in...

Loved Umbreon's voice.
 
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