Review SM082: Dance Dance in Evolution?

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Everybody is saying that Steenee didn't deserve this evolution or that it hasn't done much since the previous evolution. While not anything overly bug, she has been participating in various confrontations that could count as experience, like the battle in Ultra Space.

 

[Sakuraa]

This episode was okay. It was clearly only meant for Steenee to evolve even though it felt random as hell. Seriously, Steenee spent the first half of the episode doing nothing but practicing her dancing, then just so happened to be the only one to not get trapped by TR before evolving to save everyone. I'm also a bit disappointed that this wasn't a Kiawe episode since dancing is his major thing in the games, plus his Marowak in this show loves to dance. On the contrary, they made him the joke of the episode by getting burned by Marowak twice. I would have much prefered this be an episode where Marowak got something and saved Steenee's evolution for an episode where she actually did something meaningful.

I'm really disappointed in Steenee evolving into Tsareena here. She literally did nothing before evolving from Bounsweet to Steenee, now once again she just evolved into Tsareena for the sake of plot. No build up in either case. The literal only reason for it not being complete BS is the fact that Steenee only needed to learn Stomp to evolve. If it was due to level, I'd say this was ridiculous.

7/10. In general it was decent as an episode, as a Steenee episode it was poor.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Mao's pokemon just evolved into its third form, without doing anything worthwhile, yay!
RIP Amamaiko, you will be missed.
If Shiron can use attacks from inside the cage, why didn't the others attack as well? Or why didn't they try to break the cage? Or, a better question...

Spoiler

WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST CRAWL OUT OF THESE CAGES!? These bars are ridiculously wide apart!

Why do everyone wears different footwear?

 

[SamurottMan]

Mao's pokemon just evolved into its third form, without doing anything worthwhile, yay!
RIP Amamaiko, you will be missed.
If Shiron can use attacks from inside the cage, why didn't the others attack as well? Or why didn't they try to break the cage? Or, a better question...

Spoiler

View attachment 111750
View attachment 111751
View attachment 111752 WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST CRAWL OUT OF THESE CAGES!? These bars are ridiculously wide apart!

Why do everyone wears different footwear?

Dancing shoes maybe?

 

[SammyW27]

Incoming Mahou Shojo jokes...again!

Fruit Stand Lady was secretly a gilf?!?!

Spoiler

Sorry Iris, but we're stripping you of your title of "Most Least Deserved Freebies" and giving it to Mallow.

"NO! I put so little effort into getting it!"

I just hope that this episode isn't banned because of James' crossdressing (he went full Frankernfurter this time!), or becausea Passimian appeared. (though at least then we'd know if it's the whole species that's the problem like poor Jynx, or the animators' unfortunate disguise for Ash)

 

[NeoMiniTails]

Why are people acting like Tsareena's evolution is so shocking? The only requirement for it to evolve is "It evolves from Steenee when leveled up while knowing Stomp." There isn't huge levelling up requirements.

Also, Pokemon don't just level up from battling. She is always helping Mao with everything, including the restaurant and its her main Pokemon she uses in battle.

Her level ups also have consistency in that it always happens when she tries to protect Mao or help her in dire times.

Its no different than Ekans evolution to Arbok despite it was always losing... Or Caterpie's quick evolutions.

Also, with so many evolutions going on, its likely that the series is going to get dark very soon.

 

[BraixenFennekin]

@BigDocFan can you update the sm082 page to edit from trivia, that ending animation from "twerp, Twerpette" which include Mallow's Tsareena?

 

[kantoskies]

On the one hand censoring Kojiro's crossdressing would be wildly inconsistent with both how the dub has handled it since its first season since the only time anything like it was censored was the infamous EP018 and that was just because of the giant inflatable breasts, meanwhile his outfit in this episode isn't very scandalous and it's not really the focus of many shots. You could even argue that the dub has sometimes exaggerated the concept of effeminate villains. It would also be inconsistent with how American entertainment as a whole views the concept-- childrens' cartoons in the west don't find stuff like a man wearing a dress very taboo as long as it's played up as a joke/it's a villain wearing it. But on the other hand TPCi is so inconsistent with everything they do for the dub it really wouldn't surprise me if they edited it.

I do see them editing the music in that scene to be generic synth stuff and just have Jessie and James speak their lines, Serena's performance a few years back had the same problem (in the original she was singing DoriDori but in the dub they put in synth stuff and whenever her mouth was shown on-screen she was either talking or gasping).

 

[Gengarzilla]

...and yet again people decry an evolution because, in their eyes, it wasn't "earned". Ugh. If you ask me, this argument is beginning to sound ridiculously petty.

All Steenee needed here was Stomp. Nothing more. No battle experience, no strong friendship, no evolution stone, no trade, nothing. With that in mind, I'm actually amazed that this hasn't happened sooner since it's one of the easier evolution methods.

Since I'm on the subject: Spontaneous evolutions have been a thing for over a thousand episodes, why is it just now becoming a problem? What makes Mallow's new Tsareena a worse offender than Ash's fan-favourite Charizard, who literally evolved because an Aerodactyl taunted it?

 

[Shadowlarvitar]

...and yet again people decry an evolution because, in their eyes, it wasn't "earned". Ugh. If you ask me, this argument is beginning to sound ridiculously petty.

All Steenee needed here was Stomp. Nothing more. No battle experience, no strong friendship, no evolution stone, no trade, nothing. With that in mind, I'm actually amazed that this hasn't happened sooner since it's one of the easier evolution methods.

Since I'm on the subject: Spontaneous evolutions have been a thing for over a thousand episodes, why is it just now becoming a problem? What makes Mallow's new Tsareena a worse offender than Ash's fan-favourite Charizard, who literally evolved because an Aerodactyl taunted it?

Charizard was done to show off that whole Pokemon won't obey you thing in the games though, and it led to Ash having to work to earn Charizard's respect. Can't say the same for this, they easily could have but I guess they don't want to focus on Mallow enough to do a disobedient Pokemon arc....

 

[Karatekid5]

An overall decent episode, but for an episode that involved Oricorio (one of my favorite Alolan Pokemon) I was a bit disappointed. Still, I like how we got to hear it sing and dance, and how it shows a new side to Moani.

Onto the subject of Steenee, I do think it needed to do a little more before evolving. Maybe she could've learned stomp in a previous episode as foreshadowing and have the battle in this episode trigger the evolution. Still, Mallow gets very little focus so the evolution didn't have nearly as big of an impact anyway. But given the personality most Tsareena have (which would contrast greatly with Steenee's) I think an arc regarding it would be very positive for Mallow's character growth and would unlock more of her complexities. At least for the short term it would be another goal for her to strive for, and she and Ash could bond on the issue of disobedient Pokemon. Ash could share some of his experiences regarding Charizard which would help motivate Mallow. Seeing how much Kanto throwback we get these days it wouldn't feel too out of place.
Poor Rowlet... I know he's pretty much been wacky slapstick bird most of the time but now he's really gonna be feeling the pain, much much more than he deserves (outside of his annoying moments he's such a sweet little bird!). He doesn't even attack Steenee anymore anyways, he just likes the sweet scent. While marketing might disallow it, he'll hopefully evolve into Dartrix at least and gain some respect. The Dartrix and Tsareena personalities for the species would make for an interesting duo.

Then there's Kiawe. I agree that it would've worked better if this was his episode, since his big thing from the games was his passion for traditional dancing. Seeing him screw up his dance twice in a goofy way was honestly a little upsetting. While I love silly Kiawe, we don't get enough serious Kiawe these days, especially since the early episodes set him up to be a more stoic character.

 

[L-05308]

The argument that Steenee’s evolution was undeserved does actually have legs. Steenee has only ever had two focus episodes- being the two where it evolved. Mallow episodes are rare but Steenee doesn’t even do anything in those.

As for the Ultra Space showdown, Steenee did less than most.

Sure Steenee doesn’t evolve by experience but just by learning Stomp, but if Charjabug can get a focus episode before evolution- it too not requiring experience for evolution- Steenee should have.

64 episodes Steenee was on the main cast and, as a species, it has had less focus and active involvement than Mimikyu, Mareanie, Incineroar and even Crabrawler.

 

[SamurottMan]

...And the fact that levels and experience are hardly big factors for evolution in the anime...

It makes no sense to apply game logic now, when it hasn't mattered in the anime before anyway. The anime has made it clear that experience and battling isn't the only thing that could trigger an evolution (and there are countless of evolutions that prove that). A bigger focus has been the willpower of the Pokemon.

In my opinion, the earlier Tsareena appeared, the better, because she has more room for development and screentime now, because Steenee had no coflict and the writers definitely couldn't paint her as a strong Pokemon either. Also noting, that despite not getting a lot of scenes, Steenee is still more memorable and had more to do than Popplio, Togedemaru, Tortunator which definitely have it worse right now.

Spoiler

Level's don't exist in the anime. It's time to learn, it's been 21 years!!?!?!?!?

Spoiler

Or maybe the issue is the image of a strong feminine character being a strong feminine character

 

[Cresselia92]

Just because rushed evolutions happened in the past doesn’t change the fact that this whole thing felt rushed as heck.

Both Mallow and her Pokémon have been struggling in getting some screentime and meaningful development for quite some time, and getting the fast forward mashed on them certainly isn’t helping matters and just feels like a slap in the face.

Besides, there isn’t even any guarantee that the evolution will give them this craved spotlight. Just like many things have been hand waved despite having potential for development, there is no certainty that they will get something meaningful, either. And even if they do, it still seems a bit “too little, too late”, especially if they’ll rush things with the other characters as well.

It’s truly a pity. I actually liked Mallow as a character in the games, and I’m not much a fan of how she has been mishandled so far. I just hope they won’t push more that fast forward button and have any hypothetical “disobedience phase due to becoming OP too soon” solved in one episode flat. Now that would be just rubbing salt on the wound.

 

[ii kanji]

Maybe I'm a little too laissez-faire in these matters, but I can see it from both sides: on one hand, Amamaiko did not get a huge amount of spotlight... ever, making this evolution seem somewhat out of the blue. On the other, if we had to wait for her to get "adequate" development we might have been waiting forever, and plenty of Pokemon have evolved for less in the past.

From my viewpoint, although we may not have seen much active service from her, we did actually see a lot of her as an Amamaiko, enough to build a strong impression of her character at least - deeply devoted to Mao, throws herself into being helpful, a little airy-fairy at times. If they use this evolution to further develop their relationship it will clearly have been worth it. If not... well, it's happened now, at least we can say we've been able to spend time with all 3 evolutionary stages of the Amakaji line!

 

[BigDocFan]

Having gone out with my brother yesterday, I am finally able to comment on this episode

Nice to see Team Rocket actually planning their traps in advance by sneaking into the school at night, slightly more realistic

Despite the use of brats, Ash and his classmates fail to realize the trap and despite plenty of time to move away, they fail

Nice to see the Old Lady get a name, one that Mallow is aware of and nice to see her get more action

Great to see Harper and Sarah return and teasing her about Ash being her boyfriend

 

[Zyar]

I don't know if Amamaiko evolving was good or bad, or deserved or not, but I do enjoy callbacks, and the fact that she evolved while everyone was trapped and while dealing with the Rocket Gang and her first attack was once again on Nyasu at least put a smile on my face because of the "nostalgia". I just love that sort of thing.

Not a great episode. Team Rocket was the best from it, but that might be 'cause I've missed them. The not-so-good art style was also a bit of an impediment to fully enjoy it, but having recently had a bunch of nicely animated episodes, a reducement in quality is to be expected.

I guess we'll never see Satoshi and his pokemon's dance.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Nice to see the Old Lady get a name, one that Mallow is aware of and nice to see her get more action

Yeah. And Mallow just had just casually know this lady's name all along like it was no a big deal, and coincidentally had never mentioned how she knew it all the time while nobody else did. Heck, even Meowth lampshades how they finally know her name! Now that is what I call self-awareness!

 

[BigDocFan]

Yeah. And Mallow just had just casually know this lady's name all along like it was no a big deal, and coincidentally had never mentioned how she knew it all the time while nobody else did. Heck, even Meowth lampshades how they finally know her name! Now that is what I call self-awareness!

Here was me thinking that was dub exclusive but clearly not

 

[L-05308]

Level's don't exist in the anime. It's time to learn, it's been 21 years!!?!?!?!?

Or maybe the issue is the image of a strong feminine character being a strong feminine character

I’m not talking about experience, I would have just liked to see Steenee have some focus that didn’t involve it evolving. Togedamaru may have had as little focus as Steenee but Popplio and Snowy have had way more focus.

I view Tsareena as less of a strong female character and more of an ugly fruit fetish emalgamation drawn by someone on deviantart.