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Review JN007: The Hoenn Region, Site of Fierce Fights! The Battle Frontier Challenge!!

An alright episode. Despite, the battle of Ash against the Character of the Day, which I'll don't remember whatever his name was except, he just a down version of Guzma. Nevertheless, this episode is where Go need to be improving himself as he always kept catching and never experience a true battle before.

Overall rating: B+
 
I have to confess, this episode was a disappointment

Scyther being knocked out in 1 move without landing an attack. Over far too quickly

And Mimey forfeiting the match it seems

Hariyama vs Mimey was disappointing

As expected, there was a brief montage of battles

Hopefully Go will take battling more seriously and train his Pokemon
 
An average episode though my opinion of it is still soured by a few points like the obvious Mimey issue. I'll detail them more in my review later.

Glad to see Ash is still a badass though the gag of him being attacked by Pokemon for no reason is getting exhausting, Scorbunny needs its comeuppance soon.
 
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Definitely not as bad as it could have been, but there were still a number of flaws with it. For instance Go catching another thing in a single PokéBall with zero effort and the battles mostly being OHKOs, although that's more the format's fault than the episode. You just cannot do a decent tournament episode in 22 minutes.

I'm 90% sure the episode took place at the actual Battle Frontier site from the game since you could see a giant tower in the background, there was a building that looked like the Battle Factory and they had the arches over the pier also from the game, with the tournament presumably taking place inside the Battle Dome. That and it sure as Hell wasn't in Lavaridge Town given that it was surrounded by ocean and unless Team Aqua succeeded in their goal Lavaridge is in the center of Hoenn. So my guess would be that it was a one-off tournament held at the Battle Dome sponsored by Lavaridge Town. Even if it goes against what we saw in Advanced Generation it was nice to see the actual Battle Frontier in the anime, especially given that we didn't get to see it in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Pikachu vs. Mightyena was good at least even if it was too short. I also liked hearing those game tracks and it was good to have an episode without the out of place country music piece they love so much. Seeing Go still bonding with the bug types he caught last week and not just Scyther was good too. I hope that idol lady ends up being like Anna and appearing whenever they go to Hoenn in the future.

Overall could have been worse, but it was really brought down by the 'you have to be episodic' thing which I suspect is going to keep strangling the show if they're going to have to set the conflict up and resolve it in 22 minutes every time. We may never get to see a good long battle again with the way things are looking now. If this is the price to pay for airing prime time Sunday (which is already a bad slot since it runs against Chibi Maruko-chan) then they should just move it back to Thursday where it used to be.

The lack of continuity to past series (if this was the Battle Frontier it goes completely against what was established regarding it back in AG and if it was supposed to be Lavaridge Town then that's even worse still because it's messing with the game as well as the past anime) is still a glaring flaw.

Not the worst episode we've had for sure, but it does leave me feeling very uneasy about the future of the anime going into the next decade.
 
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I did not see the episode maybe I will give it a try I love battles

What battle musics did they use? SWSH tracks?
 
That Mr. Mime serious face was most definitely inspired by Detective Pikachu.

2mf8ob.jpg
 
P_S_B said:
The lack of continuity to past series (if this was the Battle Frontier it goes completely against what was established regarding it back in AG and if it was supposed to be Lavaridge Town then that's even worse still because it's messing with the game as well as the past anime) is still a glaring flaw.
Click to expand...
I can name of reference to a past series right off the top of my head. Ash repeats a strategy he did in the Alola League.
 
FinnishPokéFan92 said:
I can name of reference to a past series right off the top of my head. Ash repeats a strategy he did in the Alola League.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is a repeat of the electroweb bounce attack he used in Alola, but I wouldn't call it a continuity reference in the same way that say a character can recall something that happened or they meet an old acquaintance once again.

It's just a thing that the electroweb can do, just like Satoshi uses other attacks in specific ways across multiple series. Hell, even having the electroweb move is a reference technically speaking.
 
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Part of me is hoping that Houji might become a recurring character this series, a rival for Ash and maybe even Go.

Need to wait for the subtitles but I feel the ending did imply something
 
First of all, what’s even Mr. Mine doing with the bug types in the beginning? And why the hell does Mr. Mime do all these creepy expressions while attacking?
And did it get itself to faint when it saw Mightyena or something?

And lastly, why do the advertisement girl and the character of the day have literal fangs for teeth?
 
P_S_B said:
Japanese characters who display a cat theme often come with a fang or two like that.
Click to expand...
Well, I thought the CotD having fangs was weird, but passed it off as an attempt to make him look like his Pokemon, but seeing the announcer and him, both in a short space of time led me to believe Hoenn is now plagued with some weird trend of filing your teeth to resemble fangs.
 
PkmnTrainerV said:
Well, I thought the CotD having fangs was weird, but passed it off as an attempt to make him look like his Pokemon, but seeing the announcer and him, both in a short space of time led me to believe Hoenn is now plagued with some weird trend of filing your teeth to resemble fangs.
Click to expand...
The idol having fangs isn't weird, but yeah, him having fangs as well could be considered an odd design choice when he otherwise has no cat theme. I must admit I hadn't noticed that he had them as well.
 
Panky.. said:
Glad to see Ash is still a badass though the gag of him being attacked by Pokemon for no reason is getting exhausting, Scorbunny needs its comeuppance soon.
Click to expand...
this so much scorbunny is getting on my nerves
 
Wonder if this will reduce comments of Go being better than Ash....

I will give the episode credit for remembering quantity versus quality.
 
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