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

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The regional Pokemon Professor should know, at the very least.

That comment kinda reminds me of the Pokémon Adventures manga, where Kukui recognizes Cosmog as a Legendary Pokémon, but when Rotom Pokédex mentions Necrozma, both Kukui and Burnet are like, "Yeah, I have no idea what the heck that is." That baffles me to almost no end.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

AFAIK Mallow didn't even know that Shaymin was mythical. I suppose that most people in Pokemon World just don't need to know much about pokemon, in particular how rare they are.

Mallow might not know Shaymin's mythical but it doesn’t change the fact that it is and the cast found (will find) two mythicals in the span of a few episodes with Ash maybe even capturing one.

It seems even stranger when you factor in Nebby and Poipole. This group seems to stumble upon a number of legendary and rare Pokémon comparable to the previous movies.

 

[DarkraiKnight]

I would have preferred if Satoshi at least remembered his deal with Takeshi and his Iwark back in the day (since Kanto pandering to the top is not a shame in this series), and he would have triggered his tactic out of that memory. Not only would it save some more time on screen by cutting a boring beach relaxing scene, but also it would have been dealt way better. What Satoshi did on the battlefield is literally the same thing repeating itself after 22 years, and there are literally no references to it, which bugs me in a way.


Both are as bad as each other, tbh.

I would've preferred if he'd remembered back to that moment as well, tbh. Of course, people who just entered the series wouldn't know said moment, so I guess that's why they didn't do it that way.

 

[ii kanji]

This proves it - Fujisaku is the new Junki Takegami.

 

[KrspaceT]

This proves it - Fujisaku is the new Junki Takegami.

Outside of a few writers and Iwane, I can only go 'who' and 'why' about that reference

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

This proves it - Fujisaku is the new Junki Takegami.

Not a long time member so... what did Junk Takegami do to earn him this 'fame'?

 

[ii kanji]

Outside of a few writers and Iwane, I can only go 'who' and 'why' about that reference

Not a long time member so... what did Junk Takegami do to earn him this 'fame'?

If you don't know...

Just kidding

Ok, how to even explain who Takegami is... He wrote this episode for a start and was just infamously bad at battles but amazing at writing filler TRio junk. Everyone used to dread if he was credited for a battle-centric episode because you just knew it would be crap.

Fujisaku is the same energy and I love it.

 

[KrspaceT]

If you don't know...

Just kidding

Ok, how to even explain who Takegami is... He wrote this episode for a start and was just infamously bad at battles but amazing at writing filler TRio junk. Everyone used to dread if he was credited for a battle-centric episode because you just knew it would be crap.

Fujisaku is the same energy and I love it.

Got some episodes to these guys names?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Got some episodes to these guys names?

Here are complete lists of both of their episodes:

Category:Episodes written by Junki Takegami - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

Category:Episodes written by Jun'ichi Fujisaku - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

 

[KrspaceT]

Broken family guy?

Did his qualities decline since the O.G? While he wrote a good number of average episodes, he also write some of the bigger early episodes like Charmander and Holy Matrimony.

Though when it comes to the new guy....yeah his battles probably peaked at Lana v Wishiwashi-Totem.

 

[Pulsaro23]

Looks like I was so busy with deconstructing someone's argument that I forgot to do my usual shtick on what I would do to improve bad Sun & Moon episodes. Silly me.

As Dogasu pointed out, Hapu's ceremony should have been shortened and the beach scene should have never been made (I mean, come on writers, for once don't drag on and on with comedic skits). Not much else for me to say here.

Anyways, onto the main course: first of all, the battle should have been a 3v3. Have it start with the obvious Golruk vs Pikachu rematch (which the little mouse obviously wins). The have Hapu send either an Excadrill or an Alolan Dugtrio, which leads to Ash deciding to play smart, recall Pikachu back and send Torracat. That way Torracat finally gets to do something meaningful during Ash's island challenge and it also makes sens for him to use it (since both Excadrill and Dugtrio are part Steel-type, meaning they are weak to Fire). After Torracat defeats Hapu's second Pokémon, she finally send out the star of her party, Mudsdale. Despite Torracat's attempts at knocking it out, Mudsdale remains calm and gains more strength (thanks to its Stamina), which leads to it basically one-shotting the fiery feline. Ash then sends out Pikachu and, after using its Quick Attacks to make quick strikes on Mudsdale, Hapu decides to finish it fast by unleashing her Z-Move, Tectonic Rage (which, I'd like to add, SHOULD'VE BEEN BETTER ANIMATED). Pikachu actually gets hit by the Z-Move and barely survives it, but the classmates and Ash start cheering for him, leading to Pikachu using his full willpower in order to get up and execute Breakneck Blitz with Ash (which would've been a better choice than pulling the Gigavolt Havoc Deus Ex Machina). Alternatively, the Z-Move actually knocks out Pikachu, causing Ash to use the obvious choice, Rowlet, thus winning.

Let's see, am I forgetting something?... ... ... !

Oh, that's right! HAVE AN EPISODE WHERE ASH COMPLETES ONE OF THE KRIFFING PONI ISLAND TRIALS! Preferably, the Vast Poni Canyon one, since Kommo-o is part Fighting-type, meaning that he could get a Fightium-Z for his Torracat form the Totem. I mean, come on writers. Even that stupid "anime logic" card can't be used to help cover your butts this time.

 

[ii kanji]

Got some episodes to these guys names?

"Hey if you make a ground-type wet then it could totes be taken down by Pikachu!"
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

"This filler's kinda billed to be about a competition... but eh I just want to write Musashi."
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

"If you want me to make you cry I will..."
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

"How can I get my episode banned?"
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

"Musashiiiiii uwuwuwuuwuwuuwuwuwwuwu"
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

In summary, I think they're both fab and totally underrated, but utter shit at writing battles.

 

[KrspaceT]

Beyond a rant about how Tectonic Rage was kind of.....(?????)......why are the writers being nervous about giving Ash Z-Moves?

I mean Normal/Rock/Grass/Electric/Steel isn't the best spread regardless of what Ash does for the league (Capture spree, old mon call up, the feared 3 x 3 focus), but you writers can get around that pretty easily.

You control the move types, even if you don't touch Pikachu's base move set you have the potential for 14 types of Z-Moves. Off the top of my head...

Pikachu
Electric
Steel
Normal

Rowlet
Flying
Grass
Ghost
Dark (More with Decidueye evo)

Lycanroc
Rock
Ground
Psychic
Dragon

Torracat
Fire
Fighting
Bug

...And even then, you could make the list more natural and less fanficy by having two more Alola Pokemon on hand....

This isn't Mega Evos, it's not hard to set up. Plus you actually had something over XY here: Ash had the super trick of the generation. I can applaud you for that.

Why aren't you doing a decent job at it? Wouldn't call it a horrible job, but not decent.

Don't even need to touch the Z-Move animation issues (they could always improve that in future) to raise the question of why the writers are being odd with it.

Again let me point out the above part: a criticism of XY was Ash's lack of Megas. Sure it made for a good fight of the D v G variety

Spoiler

but the fact he never got Megas at all is a sore spot to many. Ash-Greninja is awesome, but there is no arguing the lost opportunity present.

Then SM gave Ash the regional trick, and we were happy. Heck I am pretty sure I even troped it as a good thing. And they didn't keep it to just one crystal.

But the crystal trickle has not kept up, and I dread the potential loss of crystals at the end of the series. For all of the fant ranting I'd rather have them sit on his dresser top forever after the series ends than get lost or something.

Look SM writers, you can write slice of life stories. You are not as horrible at them as AG-BW were, even bar the occasional Ralts episode that was good there. You can also write those with Ash getting a Z-Crystal at the end.

Here's an example: Ash has to spend a day with a grouchy old person in Iki Town. Slice of life comedy happens with Ash and the old person clashing over ideals and views and what not. However Ash in the end impresses the old person, and they go give him a crystal as a reward.

There, done. Slice of Life fans are happy. Battle fans are happy. Ash fans are happy. It wouldn't even break the bank budget wise. You even hid evos and captures unusually well before, like with Steenee and Chargabug.

You have options between 'battle takes the crystal' for extensive work, and having Ash pull them out of thin air like he's a Yu Gi Oh Protagonist with the winning card draw.

Heck in my own fic I came to the idea of having Ash develop the ability to basically Storm Access Z-Crystals/craft them on the spot via the energy Pokemon moves give off to let him get crystals out of Alola. It's something I foreshadowed for several chapters before he did it, explored the issues why he isn't able to spam it or 100% them out of the gate, and the fans have not murdered me for it.

You can even ass pull it in an acceptably interesting and cool way if you must. Look writers...it's not that hard to have Ash amass the things.

More trials, making the slice of life episodes lean into them, let Ash do something like he's a spiky haired card player, just do something.

 

[Nicolas721]

After seeing how my and many of you guys' low expectations becoming true I couldn't do anything but laugh. The writers created a very toxic set of rules for Kahuna battles, and stood with them until the end: 1) Ash always evades the enemy Z-move, 2) The Kahuna's Pokemon are paralyzed and doomed after Ash does something creative, 3) No more than 4 Pokemon in total can participate and 4) Every battle is worse than the previous one (well that one was subjective, but you get the point). Let's pray for them to be gone by the time the league starts,

What is really sad is how this arc had a nice buildup of Hapu learning to respect Ash, and we saw very little of that in this episode. I didn't really feel invested in these two characters finally facing each other. There should have been another episode about their relationship, I support the idea of a trial that was suggested above, combined with the coronation and beach scenes and maybe a Lana and Lillie subplot. Anyway, I will still fondly remember this arc's first 5 episodes.

 

[Gabo2oo]

I'm beginning to think the problem with this show may not be the writers, but whoever decides to assign them each episode. They all have certain stuff they do better but it looks like they're just picked at random for each episode. Sometimes it's the same for animation directors.

 

[Shadowlarvitar]

Such a disappointing end to what was a great arc until this point. Absolutely terrible excuse for the equivalent of a final gym too, only one Pokemon gets to fight in the Grand Trial again? And unlike all the other islands, Ash didn't do squat to earn his right to battle her.

Also, 'oh hey let's make a big deal about Hapu owning two Pokemon but when it comes to the trial, only use Mudsdale!'. Nanu used all of his Pokemon we were shown previously. This should have been a four on four at least, let all of Ash's gang get in some Trial fighting for a change. Better yet, he should have just lost if they wanted all that stuff at the beginning of the episode. Mudsdale should have curbstomped Pikachu into next week anyways.... that way the battle could truly be the focus and not feel rushed as if the writers just wanted to throw the Trials away and get back to slice of life stuff.

 

[KrspaceT]

I'm beginning to think the problem with this show may not be the writers, but whoever decides to assign them each episode. They all have certain stuff they do better but it looks like they're just picked at random for each episode. Sometimes it's the same for animation directors.

Honestly that's a pretty good concern, especially as it applies to non-Pokemon media as well. Ever see how Comic fans react to certain writers being put on certain assignments?

 

[0cerge]

I think, there is still chance for another Grand trial which will be really Final, because League isn't opened yet. So it's a bit early to be dissapointed about bad ending of trials. Although Hapu wasn't good at trial as a new kahuna.

 

[Pulsaro23]

I'm not a huge fan of Ground-types losing their immunity when wet, but at the same time, I'm sort of...proud?...of the anime for sticking to its own rules.

Plus, like I said, at least the anime is keeping consistent with itself so fair play there.

I really wouldn't count this episode's consistency with the most inconsistent series in the anime's history as a positive.

 

[DarkraiKnight]

I really wouldn't count this episode's consistency with the most inconsistent series in the anime's history as a positive.

Why not? Even if the OS wasn't a great series in terms of battling strategies/logic, nothing happened after Pikachu shocked Brock's Onix (within the OS or any other series) to prove that the strategy was illegitimate.