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Review SM146: Thank You, Alola! Respective Departures!!

The episode was rushed as hell, I couldn't process any sad scene because the episode was already preparing and rushing the next one. It's a shame, because it had very cool ideas: Ash figuring himself out while having an adventure on the Ultra Space, Mimikyu having an identity crisis, Mareanie having to deal with James abandoning her, Rotom joining the Aether Foundation, Ash's Pokemon choosing to stay, etc. Also, Sophocles, Lana and Mallow also deserved a moment to thank Ash for Kiawe kinda got that the last episode
what he did to them
.

I would have definitely traded 2 or 3 league episodes to see these stories better paced as they surely had potential to make for a more impactful ending. What we got was cute and memorable enough, to be fair.
 
I just realized something: Ash decided that he wants to travel the world right? How can he do that when that's exactly what he's been doing for over 20 years! He's has been through 7 Regions at this point and he decides to travel the world? How can you decide to travel the world when that's what you've been doing? It's like going to America and traveling to all fifty states and then deciding that you want to go to all fifty states when you've already just got done doing that. Like, it makes no sense at all! Uses Mind Blown Greninjaman fainted
 
I just realized something: Ash decided that he wants to travel the world right? How can he do that when that's exactly what he's been doing for over 20 years! He's has been through 7 Regions at this point and he decides to travel the world? How can you decide to travel the world when that's what you've been doing? It's like going to America and traveling to all fifty states and then deciding that you want to go to all fifty states when you've already just got done doing that. Like, it makes no sense at all! Uses Mind Blown Greninjaman fainted
He could always explore things that he didn't explore during his initial visits. It could be a good chance for more game locations to be featured in the anime.
 
He could always explore things that he didn't explore during his initial visits. It could be a good chance for more game locations to be featured in the anime.

Or revisit previous memorable characters or locations, there's no point in revisiting previous regions if all they'll do is new stuff.

On topic of revisiting, I hope Ash challenges Lt. Surge to a rematch (vice versa works too).

I didn't think about that...
 
This is it, the very last episode in Alola.

Yes, I have to admit it was quite emotional and thinking about Ash leaving Alola sure can make you become sentimental, considering he had his greatest achievement so far in that region.
However, there were a few aspects that I was actually missing:
  • There wasn't the usual flashback scene where Ash looks back to his most memorable moments in that region. Sure, why got Lilie's memories but they weren't half as interesting as Ash's to be honest.
  • The departure scene at the airport was too rushed if you ask me. Ash, Kukui and Bournet have almost become a family. So, you'd expect that scene to be much more emotional.
  • What really bugged me: Ash's Pokemon fought so hard for his champion title and we didn't even get one short scene where he says goodbye to them? Seriously? Now they're dumped at Kukui's house never to be seen again. Those great Pokemon sure deserve better!
All in all, there was way too much happening in this episode, so the writers were forced to give only short time slots to each character for their respective departures. So, instead of taking a break next week, we didn't they just make this a two-parter in which everbody gets plenty of time to say goodbye properly?

To end on a positive note, I'd like to cite the title of this episode and say: Thank you, Alola, for some great moments and especially for most memorable and intense league battles. ...and thank you for letting Ash finally win his first major tournament .
 
There wasn't the usual flashback scene where Ash looks back to his most memorable moments in that region. Sure, why got Lilie's memories but they weren't half as interesting as Ash's to be honest.
All of Lilie's memories are about his scenes, though.
 
Can anyone tell me if stuff like Mou and the Shaymin fleeing were mentioned in the past 2 episodes or continuing to be ignored?
 
Can anyone tell me if stuff like Mou and the Shaymin fleeing were mentioned in the past 2 episodes or continuing to be ignored?

Magearna was activated by Lillie's feelings, and it has a laser beam that apparently shows where in the Pokeworld Mohn is. Lillie, Gladion and Lusamine will follow it to an unknown region.

Ulu found some Gracidea flowers growing around the house, he showed them to Shaymin and it changed form. Its friends were waiting for it on the road so Shaymin was released and went with them.
 
I'm not sure if anyone here has pointed this out already or not, but did anyone notice how Sky Forme Shaymin's eyes looked a bit... different compared to other Sky Forme Shaymin we've seen in the anime?

Regular Sky Forme Shaymin
Shaymin_M11_Sky_Forme.png

Mallow's Sky Forme Shaymin
Mallow_Shaymin_Sky_Forme.png

(Notice the eyelashes.)

Someone on YouTube (I can't exactly recall who) pointed out that those eyes actually look kinda familiar...

Mallow_mother.png

(Notice the similar eyelashes.)

Reincarnation, perhaps?
 
Why leave the Alola Pokemon behind for Ash and Team Rocket?

I was hoping the anime would cover Mohn's disappearance rather than letting unresolved.

I was wondering why Ash wanted to return to Kanto. Seems like it came out of nowhere.
 
What time is it? It's review time (actually it's 12:30 (or, at least, it was, when I started writing this), but you get the idea)! So, we have ourselves the final episode of the Sun & Moon series. The ending to an entire regional arc. For such a big occasion, surely you'd expect nothing but a quality episode full of amazing writing and strong animation and great everything, right? Well...

We start off with everyone being back at school and preparing for their big vacation, when, suddenly, Lillie appears with Magearna right besides her. She then reveals to everyone that she and her family have decided to leave to search for Mohn with Magearna's help, revealing in a flashback that it has a pink beam that points towards where Mohn is.... Wait, WHAT?! Wait wait wait wait wait. Rewind a bit. Magearna has the power to find lost loved ones? Since when?! Does she even know who Mohn is (since she was basically unconscious when he bought her)? And how is she even able to tell where Mohn is?! Is her Soul-Heart supposed to be some kind of macguffin that magically solves important plot points? Seriously, we just started the episode, and already I have a bunch of question that are never gonna be explained (and here I was hoping the subs would actually make things clear; now I'm even more confused than before :bulbaFacepalm:).

Anyways, moving on from all that contrived nonsense, we've got Team Rocket slacking off and getting fed Bewear-brand honey (like always), when they suddenly receive a call from Giovanni, telling them to return to their Kanto HQ and personally brief him on their progress. This leads to them wondering what to do with said "progress" (aka. their caught Pokémon), since they're show to have bonded with Bewear and Stufful and to have become a family of sorts. Which also comes out of nowhere, since we've barely seen those four Pokémon interact (outside of the Bewear feeding time). Mareanie acting like a mother/big sister to the Stufful and Mimikyu and feeding them Bewear-style comes out of nowhere, since we've mostly seen her interact with more with James than with the rest of Team Rocket. Mimkyu being integrated into this "family" comes out of nowhere, since (outside of going berserk on Pikachu) we've mostly seen it in the background not giving a **** about what's going on with or what's happening to its supposed "family". It just... it's like all of these things were forced into the story just as an excuse to the TRio leave their Pokémon behind, whether they fit with the overall plot or not (which doesn't make sense, since the new series is gonna be around the world, meaning that they don't actually need to catch new Pokémon in order to blend in with the people of the region).

Moving on once more, after a small scene of the classmates apparently planning something big for Lillie and telling her to come to Mallow's restaurant the next day, we go back to the TRio packing everything from their base and wondering how they're gonna break the news to their Pokémon. Mareanie and Mimikyu then enter the base and James decides to tell her that he's leaving in a very patronising way (seriously, the way he's trying to explain to her that the TRio are going back to Kanto and have to leave her and Mimikyu behind is the equivalent of treating a Pokémon (creatures that have been well established to be as intelligent as humans) like a mindless beast who has no understanding of what words mean; which is actually a problem I've been having with this series as a whole: the writers this series have been treating Pokémon like they're real-life animals, incapable of understanding the human language or comprehending simple words, despite that not being the case and it being well-established that they're at least as smart as a human kid, which annoys the heck out of me), with her mistakenly believing that he's gonna take her with him. She then quickly goes to tell Mimikyu the news (I guess?), which lead to it going crazy for some reason.

We then switch to a scene of Ash, Pikachu and Rotom on the beach, with the latter wondering if and when Ash will tell his classmates about his decision to leave Alola and go around the world, since it's been hinted early in the episode that he isn't sure if he should tell his classmates that he's leaving or not (since they were shown to be visibly concerned that they'll never see Lillie again when she revealed that she's leaving to search for her dad). However, as soon as Ash tells him that he'll do it tomorrow for sure, they get ambushed by Mimikyu, which leads to a surprisingly alright battle... that abruptly ends with Mimikyu looking into the ocean, seeing its face, it getting melancholic all of the sudden and falling in the ocean. Ash and Pikachu become concerned about it and quickly save it from getting drowned and, once it wakes up from its blackout and sees Ash and Pikachu showing concern for its well being, decides to sobbingly leave. And, before Ash and Pikachu can cheerily leave for Kukui's home, Nebby suddenly appears behind Ash out of nowhere.

And this is where the biggest problem with this episode is (if you couldn't tell already). There are way to many things that happen without any kind of setup or build-up. Things just happen for the sake of happening, just so they could keep the plot moving. It doesn't matter whether it makes sense for them to happen or not or if they were established before or not or if they feel like pop out of thin air or not. And that's not even mentioning the fact that they shove so many things, so many plot points that barely get proper focus within the same episode, giving little to no time for a proper resolution to them. All of this is just very poor writing and storytelling which could've potentially been fixed if A) they would've made at least one more episode focusing on the ending so as to have more time to tie some of these loose ends in a more coherent and less jarring manner and B) would've actually focused on the character development and plot of this series a little more and would've actually shown half of the characters actually evolve and change over time (or at least allude to them growing in some way), so as to make things like Mimikyu's sudden change of heart less sudden.

And all of that continues throughout the episode. After Mimikyu leaves the twerps behind, Meowth comes out of nowhere and has a talk with Mimikyu, which suddenly cause it to go form Pikachu homicidal maniac to a regular, cheery and happy Pokémon. It just goes from "I'm gonna get that Pikachu" to "OMG, what have I become?!" to "Everything is sunshine and rainbows", all in the span of 2 and a half minutes. Again, it comes out of nowhere, it lacks setup or build-up, it's rushed and it's condensed within a very short scene, despite being a very important moment for the character. We then have Ash riding on Nebby's back as it heads towards Mallow's palce (where the classmates threw an "Alola Surprise!" farewell party for Lillie), revealing that he's been on adventure in Ultra Space, where he met and helped a never-before-seen Ultra Beast, followed by a flashback where it's revealed that, prior to going to the restaurant, he visited the Aether Foundation, where Rotom shows them his analysis, which leads to Lusamine offering it a job as a member of her organization (I'm really starting to feel like a broken record when I say this but, again, this also came out of nowhere and lacked any setup and/or build-up) and then Ash finally tells the gang that he's gonna leave Alola, ditch the Pokémon School and go a tour around the world, to which they are slightly sadden but overall happy for him. We then jump to the Aether family being all dressed up for their journey and everyone bidding them farewell, with Rotom deciding to comemorate the moment by taking a picture with the Aether family, the Kukuis, Hobbes, Faba, Wickie, Ash, the classmates and their Pokémon (bar poor Charizard, who's back to being nothing more than a background Pokémon and an HM slave), after which we get a Lillie/Ash moment as the ferry (which the Aether family's already on) is leaving (today's phrase is... yup, you've guessed it: it came out of nowhere and lacked any setup and/or build-up).

And then, we finally reach Ash's farewell. As Kukui and Burnet drive him to the airport, where he share a heartwarming moment with Burnet (that, personally, I think could've been more impactful if Ash actually had some more meaningful interactions with her; sure, she had a lot of interactions with Kukui, but not that many that I can think of with Ash). But, before that, Ash tells Kukui to take good care of his Pokémon... ... ... I'm sorry, WHAT?! You're leaving your Pokémon behind?! Okay, uhm... why? Is there a reason why you're not taking them with you? I mean, since you're touring the world instead of going for the Galar League, you don't have a reason to leave your party behind and you could actually take them with you and further train and bond with them, right? But you're not gonna do that, are you? And you're not gonna elaborate, not gonna show or explain why you're leaving them behind, you'll just... mention it in a couple of passing lines and leave us guessing as to why you did it? Okaaaay? This is... weird. And sudden. And lackluster. Man... poor Incineroar really got screwed out of getting some potential and much needed screen time in the new series. ... Ahem, anyways, as the plane is leaving Alola, all of the classmates fly by it on their Ultra Guardians Poké Rides (while also dressed in their uniforms) and give Ash an "Alola Surprise!", which I think was a nice way to give Ash a surprise farewell similar to the one they gave to Lillie, and a pretty creative use of their UG Pokémon. And, so, the episode ends. Or so you thought!

But wait, there's more. During the credits, we see Sophocles leaving with his cousin for Hoenn, Kiawe leaving to start his training with Olivia, Lana leaving to search for Manaphy with her father. And, then we have Ulu coming back home with a bunch of Gracidea flowers that he just happened to fin lying around somewhere on his way home, which trigger Shaymin's transformation from Land Form to Sky Form, its friends (who are also in Sky Forme) coming to Mallow's place to get it and it leaving in a very rushed manner (because of course they had to squeeze something "important" during the credits :bulbaFacepalm:; as if the rest of the episode didn't feel rushed enough). We then get a bunch of dulls tilts of what some of the other characters are up to, with the only things noteworthy being that Burnet is now pregnant and that she and Kukui are gonna have a kid soon.

And so, now the episode actually ends. And my Arceus, what an episode this was (and I don't mean that in a good way). The only things that were remotely interesting were the Aether family's new costumes, the scenes regarding Ash's departure from Alola towards the end of the episode (bar the "Take good care of my Pokémon, since I'm leaving them behind" part) and the revelation that Burnet is apparently pregnant now. The animation was mediocre to lackluster, the writing was sloppy, the plot was all over the place... And this is the finale of the series. I know quality has been a rare sight this series, but come one. This is supposed to be the big finish! This is where they should've brought their big guns; this is where they should've ended things on a high note! But this episode just left a very sour taste in my mouth. I didn't expect much and I was still disappointed.

Sigh... Well, here's hoping that the new series will actually improve on some of Sun & Moon's flaws (animation and character designs/moves animations already seem to have been drastically upgraded) and that character progression, the writing and storytelling will actually be better. After all, things can only go up from here, right? They can't get any worse, right?
 
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