Review SM137: Undefeated Emperor Guzma!

[Nicolas721]

The episode was superb in terms of Guzma's characterization and progress. As others said, we saw the battle from his perspective, and how his respect was the most important thing to him and he was afraid of losing it. But at the end, his bravery ended up being more celebrated than if he had just given up or done something evil. We don't really see this kind of villain redemptions much in the anime. I loved the Plumeria focus too, it's a shame we didn't saw them enough.

However, the battle could have been better. Just like most of the series, Ash acted mostly on a reactive manner rather than in a truly strategic way, and he had the control of the battle through most of it. They should have find a way to make it more interesting in spite of all the dialogue.

 

[WatcherMark]

Okay, I'll start with the negatives first. Like others pointed out, Torracat's defeat was rushed a little and, while it had been fighting since the second half of last week's episode and it did get hit with a decent amount of strong moves, the fact that it didn't show that many signs of exhaustion made it feel like it went out way too quickly...

Did you miss the very beginning where it was panting pretty heavily. I could tell Nyaheat was running on fumes, and that was before it was poisoned and had an extended struggle using Fire Fang.

 

[mehmeh1]

Did you miss the very beginning where it was panting pretty heavily. I could tell Nyaheat was running on fumes, and that was before it was poisoned and had an extended struggle using Fire Fang.

He was panting at the beginning of this episode, but he seemed perfectly fine at the end of last week's

 

[BigDocFan]

Part of me is actually hoping we might see more of Guzma and the rest of Team Skull before Ash leaves Alola, see how things have changed for them

 

[Pulsaro23]

Did you miss the very beginning where it was panting pretty heavily. I could tell Nyaheat was running on fumes, and that was before it was poisoned and had an extended struggle using Fire Fang.

No, I didn't. But did you miss the part where I said "it didn't show that many signs of exhaustion" (as in it showed few signs of being worn out)? Yes, they had a five seconds scene of Torracat slightly panting (which wasn't even heavy panting). But it still did a decent job of keeping up with Golisopod and the moments where Torracat was bettered by Golisopod had more to do with the latter's incredible strength and prowess rather than the former's straight-up exhaustion (not to mention that it didn't even show signs of weariness during the battle). Couple that with the fact that it was declared unable to battle as soon as it hit the ground, despite the fact that it had no swirly eyes (which would've been an undeniable sign that it fainted) and that Nanu didn't even bother to check and make sure that this was the case (even though it did that for Guzma's Scizor in the exact same battle last episode), and I'm sure you can see why someone would think that they were trying to rush Torracat's defeat. And that very short blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene didn't improve the defeat, nor did it make it that much more believable.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Overall, this was a very solid episode for me. Besides the very solid animation, which was to be expected from the creative team at work here, my favorite moment was probably Guzma yelling his iconic catchphrase into the Heavens themselves. There may be some flaws, yeah, but they're easily ignorable and the episode can most certainly be called enjoyable.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Did you miss the very beginning where it was panting pretty heavily. I could tell Nyaheat was running on fumes, and that was before it was poisoned and had an extended struggle using Fire Fang.

Torracat was perfectly fine in the end of last week's episode, and suddenly began to pant in the beginning of the episode in spite of the episode picking up right where the last one ended.