Review SM076: Super Decisive Battle! Pikachu VS Mimikkyu!!

[ii kanji]

Boy am I glad that Electro Ball is dead and buried - it's been a long time coming! Wish we'd had a little more foreshadowing (even a hint 1-2 episodes before would have been enough!) because as it was on the line of DEM... Given how strongly Mimikyu had dominated the first half of the battle, Pikachu winning so well felt pretty forced.

This was also not the only bullshit pulled in this episode. Do people in Pokeani world just not question anything? Why was Matori cool with the idea that they were going to use Z-moves to capture a common Kanto electric rat? Why was Acerola cool with the idea that the TRio were going to steal Pikachu? Why was Satoshi cool with the idea that his villainous stalkers have acquired a Z-ring?

Otherwise the episode suffered IMO from showing most of the best bits in the previews, namely the Fairy Z pose & the tail vs tail battle. Didn't hel that they pulled the first bit of the battle animation directly from SM 3. The only new and really awesome bit was the chase through the shelves, but that was pretty brief.

I'm glad they used Kiteruguma the way they did and I wonder whether its moment with Mimikyu was a reference to the implied prior acquaintance of the two?

Thumbs up also for Kojirou and Sonansu apparently now being glomp buddies - I noticed at least 3 scenes of the pair all over each other. It's about bloody time the two of them developed something resembling a relationship!

 

[kantoskies]

I know this has been standard since like...2012 but I'll forever be salt about the motto being stock footage and this episode is a perfect example of why:

• The Rocket trio hasn't encountered Satoshi in quite a few episodes
• There has been significant buildup to this battle/confrontation
• The setting is in a unique environment

Like think of how much cooler their entrance would have been if it hadn't used the brightly-colored animation from 2 years ago. The fact that the trio doesn't even recite it nearly as much this series as before should be even more reason why the animation should change every now and then. Again I know this is super old news at this point but I still can't seem to move how one of the best character traits of the trio has been reduced to garbage.

Also wasn't a fan of all the reused animation during the battle, and I let out an audible groan when the classmates showed up. Is that how some people feel when the Rocket trio shows up in other episodes? other than that it was a pretty good episode! I just hope this doesn't mean the Rocket trio will be gone for the next 10 episodes....

 

[Gengarzilla]

I'm in two minds here with this new move thing. Personally, I was alright with Electro Ball as I thought it worked better with Pikachu's speed-oriented style (signature move or not, Volt Tackle was basically just an electric Quick Attack at its core) and rather enjoyed the one time it was used in tandem with Static as what I believe was a visibly more powerful blow to Roxie's paralyzed Garbodor, but Electroweb seems like it has the potential to be used in a variety of unique and creative ways beyond the speed drop. Done well, I think it'll be a valuable asset in the future.

 

[Idon'tcare]

And thus, the final obvious legacy of the Best Wishes series is laid to rest...

ElecBall was actually good in Best Wishes, were Pikachu used combonation moves with it and even a giant one.

But after the BW series (which I like) it suddenly lost all its spark, so it needed replacing and ElecNet looks cool.

 

[Dogasu]

Unless you mean in general, I can't imagine why you feel that way since the beginning of the episode started with Electroball doing weird things and then later in the battle it was also doing weird things, that perhaps Pikachu dreading MImikyu's Z-move when it hit Electro ball and Pikachu, Pikachu due to surge of adrenaline managed to pull off electroweb, aka requiring Pikachu to use a move that protected it from the damage.

Like ii kanji says above, it would have been better if they had foreshadowed an event as major as this at least one or two episodes before, if not earlier. Pikachu literally only started having problems with Electro Ball the morning before the battle and *yet* it's able to turn that into a new move that just so happens to also be strong enough to protect itself from one of the most powerful Z-Moves out there.

And then there's the bullshit with Satoshi conveniently being able to use 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt again, for no reason whatsoever!

Basically the episode's writer made Mimikyu way too strong and so he resorted to one asspull after the other in order to award SatoPi the win. Ugh.

 

[Gengarzilla]

And then there's the bullshit with Satoshi conveniently being able to use 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt again, for no reason whatsoever!

I personally think everyone who says something along those lines is jumping to conclusions way too early. Didn't the much loved Ash-Greninja also start out as an unexplained and highly convenient phenonena? Really, the fact that we've seen this Z-move again is a good thing, it's reassurance that the writers haven't already abandoned this plot thread and perhaps intend to explore it somewhere down the line.

 

[SonansuMan]

This episode left me with somewhat mixed emotions, but upon watching it with subs and seeing the whole thing my opinion towards it has changed.

On hand one, it's great to see an actual Pikachu + Mimikyu showdown that lasted more than a minute, but on the other hand I found it a little too DEM. As more people have said above, it would've been better to simply have the move foreshadowed a few episodes earlier. A good portion of the battle also relied on the stock footage from SM003. Had that footage not counted, there really wasn't too much that happened, but it was nice to show both Mimikyu and TRio be confident yet again. Had plot armor not existed, they would've won about a year ago.

Other nice moments I liked that happened throughout the episode was TRio's polite attitude toward Acerola, Nanu's laziness and how the plot built up in up in the first place, and how Bewear was used.

Bewear caring for Mimikyu was one of the cutest moments I've ever seen out of this series. S̶o̶r̶r̶y̶ ̶P̶o̶i̶p̶o̶l̶e̶!
+1

FINAL SCORE:
8.3/10

 

[SammyW27]

Oh, Arceus on a scooter...

I thought Bewear would take the TRio away just before they could win again. This...this might actually be worse

Excuse me, waiter! There's been a mix-up! I've got a Best Wishes episode in my Sun & Moon series!

 

[Zyar]

I loved the episode, even if I had some gripes with it. To be honest, the writers could've put a little more thought into such an important battle or at least had the care of thinking ahead and foreshadow the handouts Pikachu would be given during the battle.

It is to be expected Team Rocket will lose, it's the way they lose that really matters. Mimikkyu dominated the whole fight, even after Kiteruguma interrupted and allowed Pikachu to have a bit of a break. I mean, I understand the writers were probably going for a dramatic effect by having Pikachu suddenly learn a new move in just the right moment, when everything seemed hopeless. But how about letting Satoshi and Pikachu be smart and win by using a well-thought out strategy instead?

But setting those problems aside, this episode had a lot of nice details that I found endearing.

Kojiro and Sonansu fearhugs.
Musashi encouraging Mimikkyu before the battle and Mimikkyu showing such excitement.
Nyasu once again doing his maneki-neko pose <3
Sonansu was simply hilarious throughout the second part of the episode.
Kiteruguma apparently sympathizing with Mimikkyu's resolve and respecting its battle with its hated rival. And, once the battle was over, gently picking up Mimikkyu even when Musashi wanted to keep going. You really are the wisest of the wise, Kiteruguma!

 

[Gabo2oo]

The pose for Fairy Z-Moves is different for the male character in the games, but I'm glad they ignored that and just had all four of them doing the female pose. The logo for the move is also way spookier in the anime.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

foreshadow the handouts Pikachu would be given during the battle.

They did

We saw the Electro Ball break apart numerous times before they realized it had become Electro Web, and we saw the Pikashunium Z like twenty episodes ago during the Lusamine Retrieval Arc

Has Ash used Gigavolt Havoc ever since?

I also like how Mimikyu inadvertently landed on Pikachu with its Z-Move just as Pikachu had created an Electro Ball, crushing it into Electro Web and causing it to protect Pikachu during the Z-Move

Good Job Breaking It, Villain!

 

[Zyar]

They did

We saw the Electro Ball break apart numerous times before they realized it had become Electro Web, and we saw the Pikashunium Z like twenty episodes ago during the Lusamine Retrieval Arc

I mean with longer time. It can hardly be called foreshadowing if they started throwing hints at us just at the start of this episode. Everything was just too convenient for Satoshi and Pikachu. I like it more when they have to work hard and be smart to win, not just with luck. And, at the very least, the writers could've made the battle a bit more even-handed between Pikachu and Mimikkyu. But they wanted to make it look more dramatic by having Pikachu against the ropes practically the whole time.

 

[Rudrarocks]

This was a coool ep.
You tell that foreshadowing is required. But in no move learnt( except iron tail) foreshadowing was done. So why complain bout it, just bcoz its an sm ep

 

[dman_dustin]

Like ii kanji says above, it would have been better if they had foreshadowed an event as major as this at least one or two episodes before, if not earlier.

I don't recall any move ever properly being foreshadowed before it actually appeared, I mean yeah sure maybe some hint would be nice but that never happens because a few things usually happen.

1. A Pokemon tries to learn a move requiring more time,
2. A Pokemon randomly learns it for whatever reason like Noctowl, Rowlet with Razor Leaf, or Lycanroc with Stone Edge
3. A Pokemon starts to learn a new move in the beginning of the episode and gets it in the end, although my memory fails if this has happened outside of Pikachu just now with Electroweb
4. A Pokemon is taught and learns within the same move.

We're not going to get the continuity of something like a Pokemon's move behaving weirdly with no real explanation only for it to come together in some episode later down the road when it learns a new move.

Pikachu literally only started having problems with Electro Ball the morning before the battle and *yet* it's able to turn that into a new move that just so happens to also be strong enough to protect itself from one of the most powerful Z-Moves out there.

We've seen similar examples, this was about Ash putting faith in Pikachu like usual, like I said Pikachu's electroball was having issues earlier in the episode, and it was a move still attached to Pikachu, countess series either anime related or live action, we've always seen when a "hero" is pushed to a particular point they have to suddenly be able to push themselves beyond the limit and pull something out of them, it could be considered an asspull, but the problem with calling it an asspull is the way the shows are limited by time constraint and especially for something like Pokemon financial restraint, there's only so much show that you can show. At some point it has to be realistic that a superhuman individual would have the ability to dig deep inside themselves and pull out what they need in times of great distress, because being put in those situations is the only realistic way to dig deep, you need to push yourself in such an extreme manner to pull out something useful, you can't just do it in normal training conditions, sure it could be foreshadowed, it could also happen randomly because some things might happen if no effort is put in because putting effort is detrimental.

But situations like this, it does make sense, is it sudden, sure, why have Pikachu suddenly learn a new move now all of a sudden even though it also has a specific Z-move? But it does make sense.

And then there's the bullshit with Satoshi conveniently being able to use 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt again, for no reason whatsoever!

I can't agree with the fundamental principal that the Z-move was specifically designed JUST for them that no other Pikachu can have access too. So Electrium-Z changing into the proper Z-crystal makes sense, its about their bond about their trust, they the writers can asspull 10,000,000 volt thunderbolt all they want since the Z-move is an asspull to begin with (just to clarify I'm not actually against the Z-move, I'm just making a point) and Gamefreak helped them out.

Basically the episode's writer made Mimikyu way too strong

Mimikyu has always been overpowered and not in a positive way, I'm not against Team Rocket having challenging Pokemon, but I am against them being overpowered and only beaten as a result of plot. Ash (especially Pikachu) deserves better than to be treated like this and I'll get to why more with the next quote.

and so he resorted to one asspull after the other in order to award SatoPi the win. Ugh.

And this is going to keep happening when they keep treating Ash like an underdog, it was cute the first few generations, thought it was better DP, than that disgusting generation had to happen, then I though XY handled it pretty well though I'm sure he definitely was treated like an underdog in some fashion or another, and now onto Sun and Moon, where now he's being treated as HALF Competent enough to not be considered an underdog but equally is also treated like an Underdog, it's honestly disgusting to me as an Ash fan.

Pikachu should NOT have struggled as much it did against Mimikyu, just like how Ash deserved to lose to Trip in the Unova league, because Serperior clearly knocked out Pikachu, but Ash yelling Pikachu somehow brought it back to life enough to do a big combo that basically one shotted Serperior, the underdog mentality needs to stop with these writers, I'm very sick of Ash always being on the defense for no damn reason, and getting almost knocked out only for conveniently Ash to somehow pull through, is there no appeal in a relatively equal fight. Is it somehow better to watch someone getting their asses handed to them only for them to counter the momentum and beat their opponent, look maybe it works for wrestling for audience purposes, but this isn't wrestling its an anime.

But my criticism of one sided fights cannot completely be used here, because even if Mimikyu did use a Z-move, the fact of the matter, similarly to Hala's Z-move, Pikachu did not take the damage that Pikachu would have received, if it worked without question. Pikachu would've lost Hariyama just like Pikachu would've lost here. But Pikachu not wanting to disappoint Ash managed to create a barrier reducing the damage to likely absolutely zero, and managed to pull it around, just like Hala, you could argue Jessie pulled the Z-move card at a disadvantageous time, because had Jessie used a normal move, the result would've been likely different, like Hala who assumed Pikachu wouldn't have the durability to dodge most of the All Out Pummeling (the Fighting Z-move).

This was not a Serperior moment, which I'm at least slightly content about, but this was definitely an unnecessary one sided battle with Ash pulling the win because he managed to turn things around at the last moment, something that as I said I'm not entirely happy about, but I'm not completely bitter as I was when Ash battled Trip in the Unova League.

 

[Gard81]

The battle was great....up until Pikachu using Electro Web as a shield (that just reminds me too much of Thunder Armor). Don't get me wrong, as far as battles go, this one was pretty top-notch for the SM series (not saying much, though, because, well, it's SM).
Now, I'm not upset that Electro-Web replaced Electro-Ball; wasn't that much of a fan of it and it's nice that Pikachu learned something after all these years. What I'm upset about is how it was introduced.
I wouldn't much rather preferred a clash of Z-moves between TR and Ash. Like just before Mimikyu engulfs Pikachu in its cloak, Ash would perform his Z-move and the energy from it reaches Pikachu under the cloak and it causes a massive explosion of thunder, propelling Mimikyu upward and KO-ing it. Would be more awesome than some makeshift mouse trap. But no, we had to wait until his Z-Crystal decided to change shape for some stupid reason that we have yet to know.

 

[Idon'tcare]

The way the SatoPika Z has been appearing is no different from when Satoshi-Gekkouga appeared in the first few episodes, a sudden power-up that came out of nowhere when Satoshi was battling against a difficult opponent. So by that logic the sudden appearance of Satoshi-Gekkouga should have been seen be an ass-pull too, yet for some reason people knew not to view it like that and then it got a full explanation in later episodes and this will happen with the SatoPika Z (heck it hasn't even been named that yet in the anime).

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The way the SatoPika Z has been appearing is no different from when Satoshi-Gekkouga appeared in the first few episodes, a sudden power-up that came out of nowhere when Satoshi was battling against a difficult opponent. So by that logic the sudden appearance of Satoshi-Gekkouga should have been seen be an ass-pull too, yet for some reason people knew not to view it like that and then it got a full explanation in later episodes and this will happen with the SatoPika Z (heck it hasn't even been named that yet in the anime).

I guess people were just blinded by Greninja's popularity...

 

[Neo Blaze]

Lol, the scene where Bewear finds out TR has tricked him and the robot dolls start breaking down was pretty creepy and fitting for a somewhat Ghost-themed episode. The muffled "So...." by the Wobbuffet doll at the end of the scene was absolutely hilarious.

I like how they transformed one move into another. Electro Ball basically changed into Electro Web due to splitting apart. This is seen also when Pikachu first uses the move after escaping from Mimikyu's Z-Move. It fires off an Electro Ball but it transforms into Electro Web. I wonder if this will be the standard animation, probably so.

The return of 10.000.000 Volt Thunderbolt was cool but so out of left field. You gotta wonder what triggers it? It probably conveniently appears to Ash whenever he is in a dire situation, although I gotta say using the move on a trio of criminals Ash has been curbstomping for over 21 years is pretty overkill, even if Mimikyu was having the upper hand for a while.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The return of 10.000.000 Volt Thunderbolt was cool but so out of left field. You gotta wonder what triggers it? It probably conveniently appears to Ash whenever he is in a dire situation, although I gotta say using the move on a trio of criminals Ash has been curbstomping for over 21 years is pretty overkill, even if Mimikyu was having the upper hand for a while.

Recall how Ash-Greninja also appeared during dire situations, initially without any kind of explanation. I've got a feeling that Pikashunium Z will also be explained somewhere down the line.

My personal theory is that it has something to do with how the Tapu transformed Ash's Z-Ring into a Z-Power Ring, although I'm perfectly open for other logical explanations.

 

[Neo Blaze]

Recall how Ash-Greninja also appeared during dire situations, initially without any kind of explanation. I've got a feeling that Pikashunium Z will also be explained somewhere down the line.

My personal theory is that it has something to do with how the Tapu transformed Ash's Z-Ring into a Z-Power Ring, although I'm perfectly open for other logical explanations.

That would make sense. That said, I do hope they won't rely on it too much. Having Ash win a lot of important battles with an out of left field uber z-Move like that would be lame. I hope it fails at least once, with the opponent surviving the move (although I don't see how you survive an overpowered rainbow-colored thunderstorm like that).