Preview JN017: Hibanny, Use Your Flaming Kick! Face Tomorrow!!

[L-05308]

Yeah, just a new fire type move

 

[Sobble Bubble-O-Seven]

I was thinking Scorbunny might dynamax, but I guess that won't happen. Not anytime soon at least.

 

[Everclear]

I know this sounds premature but PLEASE let this be an episode where TRio appears. Episodes without them are boring. At least give them something to do.

 

[Henry Suarez]

Probably a new move for Scorbunny, too soon for evolution and yes I'm watching this show and Scorbunny has been gaining experience little by little, helping Go catch Scyther, Sandile, next week fighting Mankey and he's also probably getting experience by the way of Go catching mons, etc..

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

The Ash's Alola team and his Classmates' pokemon say "Alola!"

Even they did more than Scorbunny.

The only fire type move it has experience enough to learn imo is Ember.

 

[Egakor]

Even they did more than Scorbunny.

The only fire type move it has experience enough to learn imo is Ember.

Experienced or not, the writers can just give it Blaze Kick or Flame Charge as long as that is what they want it to have. It's not the first time the anime did something like this anyway.

 

[Silktree]

He brought Scyther to Hoenn, Beedrill to Unova and will be using those two, Butterfree and Tailow (and probably Dewgong, as it's listed) in the Cubone episode. Let's be fair now.

As for the comparison to past companions' mascots:

Axew's first battle: BW009 (loss to Pansage; it mastered Dragon Rage in BW027 without having won a single battle prior)
Fennekin's first battle: XY021 (where it turned out to know Hidden Power and Flamethrower out of nowhere)
Popplio's first battle: SM016 (it used Bubble Beam, but at least it had belonged to Lana for a while)
Scorbunny's battles so far: PM006 (Venonat and Scyther), PM007 (loss), PM008 (not a win, but it stopped Beartic's antics), PM014 (Sandile, loss to Golurk), PM015 (probably Mankey)

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Experienced or not, the writers can just give it Blaze Kick or Flame Charge as long as that is what they want it to have. It's not the first time the anime did something like this anyway.

That'll be just another point towards how conveniently Go seems to get stuff.

Scorbunny's battles so far: PM006 (Venonat and Scyther), PM007 (loss), PM008 (not a win, but it stopped Beartic's antics), PM014 (Sandile, loss to Golurk), PM015 (probably Mankey)

If we're counting 10 second skirmishes as "battles" then Fennekin battled Team Rocket in XY007, and saves Serena from a Vespiquen in XY004.

 

[ii kanji]

This really doesn’t sound like it’s going to be my cup of tea based on the tiny amount of info so far, but I will give props to the creators for allowing Hibunny an episode to focus on training/upskilling rather than this just happening at random.

 

[Pulsaro23]

Hibanny has gained lots of experience alongside Go.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H47ow4_Cmk0

The guy who's barely battles and has never trained his Pokémon and the buns who got destroyed in most of those battles? Yeah, right.

Now, while I think that, appearance wise, Raboot really suits Go and compliments his design, if Scorbunny somehow ends up evolving in this episode, despite having done nothing substantial for 12 episodes, then this will be the most unearned evolution yet.

 

[BigDocFan]

I hope this isn't another episode set in Kanto, one thing I like about this series is the variety of locations but three set in Kanto would be dull

 

[Pulsaro23]

Axew's first battle: BW009 (loss to Pansage; it mastered Dragon Rage in BW027 without having won a single battle prior)

For all of Iris' faults (and the BW series', in general), at least she and Axew actually trained to try and master that move. What exactly has Go done towards improving his and his Pokémon's skills?

And even if we count cases where this happened in the past and say "oh, they've done this before", it doesn't make it any less of a problem or somehow excuse it. It just means that this is an issue that's been present in the anime for some time (but it's still an issue nonetheless).

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Its way too early for Scorbunny to evolve. Gou hasn't even focused on Scorbunny much cause he's too busy catching everything he sees.

 

[Daenerys]

What exactly has Go done towards improving his and his Pokémon's skills?

Here we go again. What part of 'Go is mainly a collector' do people not understand? This constant outcry for him to battle more is silly because he's clearly not trying to go down that road yet some people keep trying to shove him into that category, which I suspect isn't even about their own desire to see him improve, but a way for them to criticize him even more when he screws up.

And I'm 100% positive that even if Go did start training Scorbunny more and focusing on improving his battling skills, the same folks who complain about him not training enough would then proceed to complain about him taking the spotlight away from Ash some more. That's the next chapter in the 'How to hate Go' handbook. :/

 

[Pulsaro23]

Here we go again. What part of 'Go is mainly a collector' do people not understand?

Ahem, you seem to have missed the post I was responding to and how the guy who made it said that Go's Scorbunny suddenly mastering a new move and/or evolving in this episode makes sense and is totally justified, because it happened in the past, with one of his examples being Iris' Axew and how he mastered Dragon Rage. To which my counter was that Iris actually trained Axew on multiple occasions in order to have him master Dragon Sneeze, while Go hasn't trained his Scorbunny at all, so it gaining experience out of the void and suddenly learning a new move and/or evolving isn't the same (and, even if it was the same, it would still be a problem, just not a problem exclusive to Go). So, you see, there actually is some context behind me throwing that question out there and it's not me hating on Go for no reason, as you seem to be implying in that little post of yours.

This constant outcry for him to battle more is silly because he's clearly not trying to go down that road yet some people keep trying to shove him into that category, which I suspect isn't even about their own desire to see him improve, but a way for them to criticize him even more when he screws up.

Oh boy, it's gonna be one of these nights. You know, I'm really getting tired of Go defenders trying to paint their opposition as unreasonable and insane and how they act as if there are no problems with him and his characterization and that were just hating him for no reason. We've had this discussions multiple times. Go being able to catch fully-evolved and/or powerful Pokémon contradicts both the preestablished rules of the anime and the way the games he's supposed to represent work. Go wanting to catch all Pokémon out there just for the sake of creating his own Pokédex is shallow and it somehow leading to Mew doesn't make sense at all. His Pokémon having the personality of a brick and automatically loving him despite him not bonding with them and them not even knowing him is mindboggling. And one of his Pokémon becoming stronger despite him not even training them (even after getting into situations that prove that him training his Pokémon would be for the better) is moronic as hell. I'm not gonna sit here and explain why, because there have already been numerous post out there made on multiple threads explaining this. But Go isn't a perfect character, the way he is written isn't impeccable and there are reasons for us to criticize him and not like him. Period.

And I'm 100% positive that even if Go did start training Scorbunny more and focusing on improving his battling skills, the same folks who complain about him not training enough would then proceed to complain about him taking the spotlight away from Ash some more.

It all depends on how it would be written. If they dedicated the entire series to Go and pushed Ash to the sidelines for multiple episodes in a row, then yeah, we would have a problem. But if the writers managed to give each of them equal screen time (or as equal as they can make it) and they both got their chances to shine often and would both actively help each other out, then it would actually work.

Or maybe we're just mindless haters who would detest him no matter what.

That's the next chapter in the 'How to hate Go' handbook. :/

Well, maybe, juts maybe if Go and Scorbunny (and this series in general) were better written, then people wouldn't have that big of a problem with them, right? Hmmm...



Ahem! Anyways, I need to go and defend Fort Trinity against an army of Risen so, if you'll excuse me, ta-ta.

 

[Panky..]

Here we go again. What part of 'Go is mainly a collector' do people not understand? This constant outcry for him to battle more is silly because he's clearly not trying to go down that road yet some people keep trying to shove him into that category, which I suspect isn't even about their own desire to see him improve, but a way for them to criticize him even more when he screws up.

And I'm 100% positive that even if Go did start training Scorbunny more and focusing on improving his battling skills, the same folks who complain about him not training enough would then proceed to complain about him taking the spotlight away from Ash some more. That's the next chapter in the 'How to hate Go' handbook. :/

I'll just add to @Pulsaro23's point here in short.

Brock wanted to be a Pokemon breeder yet he knew the importance of battling and training his Pokemom. The same applies to Serena/Dawn/May (Coordinating/Performing), Cilan (Connoisseur), Max/Bonnie (aspiring trainers) etc. Heck for that matter, even that little skirmish with Gengar helped Koharu bond with Yamper and gave her a lesson of sorts. On the other hand there's Gou, who catches his Pokemon for no reason at all other than his own little collecting hobby (the Dex log/checklist is the entire reason he even started doing it, you can't deny that) that doesn't even have any correlation to his goal, and they pretty much just lie in his zoo for most of the time. Even Scorbunny has become nothing more than a cosmetic with the way Gou is handling it (makes it wasted potential) despite it being so overeager to battle that it disobeys its trainer. Gou pretty much avoided battling and training intentionally even when the situation called for it, instead he resorted to chucking a shit ton of asspulled Pokeballs (regular ones at that, instead of specialized ones like Quick Balls). They actually took that one negative step further and handed him powerful Pokemon on a silver platter to avoid having him battle and train.

Yet according to you, everyone who criticizes Gou's character "do it just for fun" and are unreasonable trolls?

 

[Islander Princess]

Yeah, they're not gonna have the secondary mascot of this series evolve after 17 episodes. I'll be shocked if Scorbunny ever evolves, honestly.

This sounds like it's going to be a pretty dull episode, to be honest. I agree that I'm glad some Scorbunny development is going to be happening onscreen instead of just pulling it out of thin air, but I don't know if I needed to see an entire episode devoted to it.

 

[Alola]

What part of 'Go is mainly a collector' do people not understand? This constant outcry for him to battle more is silly because he's clearly not trying to go down that road yet some people keep trying to shove him into that category, which I suspect isn't even about their own desire to see him improve, but a way for them to criticize him even more when he screws up.

The thing is, though, that his collection goal does require a level of battling to an extent; the anime has made it clear (so far) that there will be some catches Go simply won't chuck a Poke Ball for. Just look at the Raid Battle we just witnessed (which, I'm sure won't be the last). I'd agree with your point if he was pulling an early XY Serena, refusing to battle unless she was practically forced; however, ever since Go caught Scorbunny, he's used it to battle, whether it was against Pokemon of the day or characters of the day. That, or Scorbunny volunteers itself often enough to warrant a desire to see its battling honed.

And I'm 100% positive that even if Go did start training Scorbunny more and focusing on improving his battling skills, the same folks who complain about him not training enough would then proceed to complain about him taking the spotlight away from Ash some more.

I am one of the "folk" who desire to see more training from Go and his Scorbunny. I won't complain about spotlight being stolen from Ash, just as I didn't complain about all the other times his friends ever had focus battling-wise in the series; it's actually one of my favorite parts of the show, as we've already seen Ash battle and train, time and again.

 

[CometCartoons]

I feel like scorbunny will learn a fire type move.

 

[BigDocFan]

Looking at the moves Scorbunny can learn, I think Ember would be a good one. Its not that strong which is good considering Scorbunny's battle experience, Flame Charge is a bit overused in the anime I feel