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Review SM134: Everyone's Fully Powered! The Road to the Semifinals!!

Wow, I think this is the first league episode I truly enjoyed. I'm so proud of my boy Sophy. He didn't go down super easily and put up a nice fight against Kiawe. I thought it was interesting that the Z-Moves each of them used weren't the ones that would have been super effective against the opponent. I mean it makes sense in Sophocles's case since he doesn't have an Electrium-Z, but Kiawe does have Firum-Z and Charizard of course knows fire-type moves. So...why not just use Inferno Overdrive my dude? Really tho, the only thing I kinda disliked was Sophocles's excessive use of Sting Shot. I wish he would have used more of Vikavolt's electric-typed moves.

Lana vs. Guzma was tragic. Sorry sis, but there's only much that can be done against ya boy Guzma. That said, I'm proud of her for putting up such a great fight. She did great during this entire league. I'm glad the best girl got a proper sendoff with a really great match.

I also gotta say, I loved seeing Team Skull cheering for Guzma. 8/10.
 
The best episode in the entire league indeed. I just love how tense and scary-looking Guzma vs Suiren was.

But what I liked the most is Guzma's line and how he delivers it before leaving the stadium "Worthless girl". I know it's not the first time he says it, however I loved in here for some reason.
 
It was nice seeing Sophocles Parents watching the match on TV, shame we didn't get a cameo of Lana's family doing the same

At least next episode sees Mimo visiting the stadium to watch
 
I felt bad for Primarina and Lana being destroyed by Guzma and his Golisopod. I hope Ash revenges for Lana on defeating Guzma.

I give this episode a B.
 
So, I was gonna wait for the subbed version of the episode to be uploaded somewhere (so I could actually get what the characters are saying), but since it seems to either be coming later than usual or to have been postponed indefinitely, I guess I'll do my review now. So, compared to last week's episode, this one was better. Far better. Actually, scratch that, it was infinitely better.

The Kiawe vs Sophocles match was very well-done and enjoyable. I really loved how, as soon as the recap of last week's... debacle ended and we got to where the previous episode left off, Charizard basically reduced Sophocles' Savage Spin-Out to ashes. Seems fitting, considering it's a powerful Fire-type and all. It was also nice and refreshing to see some actual strategies being used during the battle (like Charizard using its Fire Punch on the ground to escape from an attack; that was a nice moment). It still felt like they made Sophocles far more competent at battling then he should be, considering that he started to get into them and seriously train just a couple of weeks before the League began, but I personally didn't really mind it that much, since it made the match more interesting.

And then there was the battle between Ya Boi Guzma and Lana, which was just glorious. The menacing way in which Guzma was portrayed, his despicable and vicious strategies, his and his Pokémon's unmatched strength, all of that was just perfect and well executed. Guzma is truly depicted as destruction in its human form and I'm so glad that the anime didn't shy away from adapting that part of his character and, instead, decided to build onto it (unlike a certain other villain from the Sun and Moon games whose character and personality were completely revamped). My only problems with this part of the episode was the fact that they would cut away from battle to either the scene of the Team Skull Grunts rapping (which they used three times, with the only change being Plumeria's pose and (I assume) the lyrics) or the scene of the classmates' Pokémon cheering (which was used at least 4 times throughout the episode, with very few changes to it). They could've also made the battle seem more ruthless if they actually made it look like Golisopod's claws were actually pinching Primarina when it used Poison Jab, instead of appearing as if they were just touching it, but I digress.

Overall, great episode and massive improvement over the pile of trash that was last week's episode. It wasn't really enough to improve my thoughts on the Alola League as a whole or to wash that Fujisaku taste out of my mouth, but I do have to say that this episode, along with the preview for the next episode and what we know about the other league episodes, did give me some semblance of hype and hope regarding the rest of the league (at least, until the next Fujisaku episode comes and destroys them).
 
Damn took way too long for me to find a sub. Wasn't expecting those matchups. Guess Gladio is winning the league then because if Gladio was going to lose it's more conventional for it to be during the semi finals. Unless Kaki wins.

The battles were fine but, fuck can we get 3 v 3s at least for the semifinals.

Good on Suiren for pointing out that Guzma wasn't breaking any rules.
 
Damn took way too long for me to find a sub. Wasn't expecting those matchups. Guess Gladio is winning the league then because if Gladio was going to lose it's more conventional for it to be during the semi finals. Unless Kaki wins.

The battles were fine but, fuck can we get 3 v 3s at least for the semifinals.

Good on Suiren for pointing out that Guzma wasn't breaking any rules.

...I am still convinced we'll be seeing an Ash win because the fans don't want him to win this league....plus people are saying that the Pokemon co are more involved in this one. They may want more wins than the anime staff do....

Then again people are saying that Masuda is basically Abridged Alucard or Abridged Queen of E these days so who knows...

(I have no idea if that is funny or not. If it isn't I apologize....)

Such a satisfying episode

Watching Guzma get proven right and everyone getting offended that he used legitimate tactics to defeat an opponent was a nice treat

....There is a difference between what is legal and what is....sportsmany for lack of a better way of putting it. I am pretty sure you could use the images of Golisopod holding Primarina as a in universe documentry image of what a Golisopods feeding habits might look like after all.
 
I agree with everyone, both battles were nice. Kiawe vs Sophocles had some cool strategies, but what I liked more than the battle was the fact that Sophocles wasn't really afraid to take on a Kahuna's Pokémon and that he make some significant damage to it. It's possibly the most evened out battle in the league.

Guzma vs Lana, as others put it, was dark and uncomfortable in a good way. I expected Guzma to only use one strategy as with his previous battle, but he actually used many with tricks rarely seen before and Lana also hold her own with her Ice tactics. The little details such as Shaymin being useful, Sandy being angry and Skull being the only supporters of Guzma made everything better. A great way to start the "Skull mini Arc".

Sadly, the Z-move was evaded again (the percentage of Z-moves that have made direct damage to their enemy in the league is currently 4/11=36% ) and I have to rant about it. It seems like the writers are afraid that kids won't use them if they don't cause a knockout, but them being so easy to evade makes it even worse. Now their latest trick is having a 1 meter sword coming from a regular move rip in half a giant bubble coming from a Z-move. I would rewrite that part as the Golisopod gets captured in the bubble, but it uses the water to make his liquidation stronger and destroys it, which would fit with Guzma's personality. The evasion isn't really that bad and doesn't erase the battle's good points, but without it the episode would have been really good.

8/10
 
....There is a difference between what is legal and what is....sportsmany for lack of a better way of putting it. I am pretty sure you could use the images of Golisopod holding Primarina as a in universe documentry image of what a Golisopods feeding habits might look like after all.
The word you're looking for is sportsmanlike.
There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of your opponents weaknesses
That's not what people are upset about. People are fine with him using legitimate tactics. People are upset with the brutality and savageness of those tactics, and how his battling style makes it look he's torturing a Pokemon at some points, if that makes sense. If you look at the episode, Olivia looks visibly upset with how the battle is progressing, but she can't do anything because Guzma's not actually cheating.
 
I've wanted Suiren to get back at Team Skull for teasing Popplio ever since that one early Sun and Moon episode, and at first I was sad it wasn't addressed here. But now it feels like reminding everyone of that would've given the already unnerving battle an even darker tone, so maybe it's better it wasn't brought up.

I can't wait for Satoshi vs Guzma...
 
What's really annoying me at the moment is how some of the characters are going on about Guzma's supposed 'violent' fighting style when I'm not seeing him do anything that hasn't been done a thousand times during this series. I guarantee, if Satoshi had used the same 'put the baby between yourself and the mother' style against Ilima's Garura then all his classmates would have congratulated him on a brilliant strategy. It was even worse this episode, because again Guzma didn't use anything against Suiren that I wouldn't have expected Satoshi to have used had he been facing her... he's taught his Pokemon moves to counter opponents' specific styles (remember in Sinnoh how he taught Heracros Sleep Talk because he knew Naoshi liked to spam Sing?), he made use of Ashirene's weakness of not being able to move fast on land (Satoshi's going for Kekking's weak leg in the Kalos League), and he countered the Z-Move and struck back with his own (like we saw earlier this very episode?!). But no, because he's the head of Team Skull everyone goes on about how his brutal style of battling when I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

At least Kaki and Suiren were the voices of reason against their classmates by pointing out Guzma is breaking no rules and this is just another style of battle. The only thing Guzma did wrong was insult Suiren after he won, which is certainly bad form.
 
There was some decent animation in this episode compared to the previous ones. Still no 3D backgrounds but they did simulate some camera rotation with panoramic 2D.

Something like this is kind of a big blunder in my opinion, though:
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I liked mamane and suiren so much in this match. I felt so bad for both speciallily because she and he both did their best.
 
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