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Review SM109: The Birth of an Island Queen! Satoshi's Grand Trial!!

If to be honest, this Soak strategy is more interesting than just spamming Quick Attack and Iron Tail. But Splishy Splash would have been better.
 
I honestly didn’t mind the electroweb, but it was the gigavolt havoc that pushed it too far for me. I personally would’ve preferred breakneck blitz. However, what’s done is done and at least now Ash has a steelium z.
 
BigDocFan said:
One thing I did like about the episode was Hapu offering Ash one of several Z-Crystals because Nanu just happened to have a Lycancium Z for a trainer who just happened to have a Lycanroc, Hapu was more believable as Pikachu got to choose
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A Lycanroc who just happened to know Stone Edge too.
 
On a totally unrelated topic, in the last episode's review thread I saw someone making such an irritating strawman (while also throwing shades on my second favorite series) that I just had to respond to it. But since that episode was so incredible, I didn't feel it was fair to post a negative comment on its thread. But since this week's episode is a pile of [REDACTED], why not comment here? I'm sure more negativity won't hurt this thread...

BE ADVISED, THE FOLLOWING POST MAY CONTAIN OPINIONS THAT YOU MAY NOT AGREE WITH! ALSO, IT IS VERY LONG! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

With that out of the way, mister sunstone here said:
sunsstone said:
To be honest, Sun and Moon series already surpassed XYZ series in terms of storytelling. This season showed us a lot such as the complexity of the characters and the depth of their relationship and even subject like death. Sun and Moon anime is doing so well in Japan but the audience of the West tend to bash it because of the art style. Trust me, a lot of people, especially in Pokemon Facebook group, don't give it enough chance because of the massive change from the epic XYZ series and it's too bad they're missing out.
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First of all, allow me to burst your bubble and tell you that no, Sun & Moon is NOT better than XYZ in terms of storytelling. A single episode that has an incredible and highly emotional story doesn't suddenly negate all the previous [REDACTED] they have released, all the story arcs they have rushed through, the terrible structure of said story arcs, the abysmal amount of time it took the writers to develop their characters, the writers' characterization of Ash, etc. Also, just because past series didn't tackle the theme of death, it doesn't mean that they were terrible is terms of story, nor does it make their story arcs any less impactful (if that's the criteria you use to judge a good story, then you must really hate a lot of well-know and highly praised pieces of media). In fact, "in terms of storytelling", while the episode was indeed impactful, it was also very sudden, since they never established, nor alluded, nor hinted to the fact that Mallow's mother passed away, which could have easily been done in past episode both directly and indirectly.

Second of all, while yes, people were initially thrown off by the change in art style, that's not the sole reason why people have given up on the series. The school setting, the fact that Ash's journey feels less like a journey, the fact that they took far to long to develop half of the cast in a meaningful way, the heavy emphasis on slapstick comedy and """"""funny"""""" faces, the lackluster battles (especially when it comes to Grand Trials), the fact that they rush through all of their story arcs are some of the valid complaints I've heard. And that's just naming a few problems. Heck, I was among the people who hated the new art style (and I still do), but I still gave Sun & Moon (and I'm still giving it) several chances. In fact let me share a personal experience. At one point early on, I actually gave up for some time on this series. The reason was episode 24, which just made me HATE this series for what it did to Ash. Remember (back in Best Wishes of all series) how Ash said that he likes to do things "fair and square"? Remember how, no matter how hard things got, he would always persevere and work hard to improve himself, leading to him overcoming any challenge? REMEMBER ALL OF THAT??? BECAUSE, APPARENTLY IN SM, WHEN ASH HAS A HARD TIME DOING A REPORT ON A SUBJECT HE LOVES, HE NOT ONLY ASKS SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT FOR HIM (BASICALLY STEALING SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK), BUT HE ALSO MAKES THEM PRESENT IT IN HIS PLACE, ESSENTIALLY, TURNING ASH INTO A CHEATER (AND ONE WHO, IN THE END, WINS, SINCE HE GETS OFF SCOT-FREE)!!!

...ahem... Sorry, just thinking about that episode gets me worked up. Anyways, the point I was trying to make is that I gave up for sometime on the series, not because of the art style, but because of the way they just turned Ash into a shadow of his former self (to put it mildly).

What I'm trying to say with this little novella of mine is that, just because YOU like the Sun & Moon series, that doesn't mean that it's a flawless cartoon and the best Pokémon series to ever be created, nor does it mean that people don't have legitimate reasons to dislike/not give a chance to /hate it.
 
From FinnishPokeFan92 (from Caption the Screenshots)
Ash: Hey, Pikachu! Remember our Gym battle with Brock?
Pikchu: Say no more, I'm on it.

Eh, many of us figured it would go something like this the moment we heard that Pikachu would be the one battling. (Do the producers just straight up NOT want any good battles this saga? It's bad enough there are barely any battles in general...).

Poor Lillie. Everyone else got something out of this arc (even Gladion and Hapu), and she got squat :cry:. Couldn't they have have had an extra episode where she finally got a Z-Ring? :confused_emoji:
 
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This was actually kind of a bad Grand Trial. Gigavolt Havoc defeating A GROUND TYPE even after being soaked just makes no sense. I really wish they could have made the battle longer also. Like have Hapu use as many Pokemon as she does in the games. This series hasn’t really had the strongest battles.
 
A Wild Luxray said:
This was actually kind of a bad Grand Trial. Gigavolt Havoc defeating A GROUND TYPE even after being soaked just makes no sense. I really wish they could have made the battle longer also. Like have Hapu use as many Pokemon as she does in the games. This series hasn’t really had the strongest battles.
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I never thought they'd pull another Brock after season 1, but somehow, they did. As soon as I saw Ash remembering Pikachu shocking him and Lana, I was thinking, "You better not be thinking about what I think you're thinking." And he was. Sigh. Such a letdown of a final grand trial.
 
Face it, this episode was doomed the moment they assigned Jun'ichi Fujisaku to it. Jun'ichi is more than capable of writing good episodes as seen with Mallow and the Forest Teacher and Real Life, Inquire Within, but so far just about every battle he's penned has been terrible. Remember that episode where Pikachu Deus ex Learned Electroweb and completely nulled Let's Snuggle Forever from an already powerful Mimikyu? Jun'ichi. Remember that episode that looked like it was building up to a great battle between Alolan Golem and Metagross only for the two to sit there exchanging facial hair for like 5 minutes? Jun'ichi.

Jun'ichi is perfectly good at writing slice of life (for the most part, some of his episodes have been less good than others), but he should never have been allowed to touch a Grand Trial episode of all things.

When her ceremony was done in a flash I thought, hey, maybe we'll get a decent battle afterall. Cut to 5 minutes or so of the characters relaxing at the beach filling time. The scene wasn't particularly bad in and of itself, but when you waste time in a battle episode you end up with garbage like Ash v Ritchie. The final battle that culminates the Poni arc doesn't even start until the second act, and it mostly just boils down to Pikachu and Mudsdale exchanging generic hits until Pikachu saves himself using Electroweb again, then blatantly cheats by using outside influence to wet the Mudsdale.

I'm sorry, but that's not how you write a battle. The hero is not supposed to cheat to win. I get what they were going for, using unconventional strategies to win, but in order for that to work it has to not be blatant cheating, unlike what we saw here. Why is the final 'Gym Badge' as it were a freaking 1v1? Why don't we get an Ash vs. Golurk rematch? And another thing, what happened to the Poni Island trial? I thought it was established that you had to do at least one trial to access the Grand Trial, but apparently they gave up on that.

The Poni Arc has been good enough leading up to this point, but this episode was really rather crappy, easily the worst since Brock and Olivia got completely ruined by Team Rocket attacking despite the previous episode having a similar interrupting Team Rocket attack in it.

I don't mind Sun and Moon focusing on slice of life and character interactions over battles and it's a nice change of pace in some ways, but if you're going to make battles once-in-a-while things then you have to make sure they're good when they do happen. Once again they have failed to do so in this instance.

On the plus side, Hapu's dress was pretty.
 
Please note: The thread is from 5 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.

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