Review XY025: Shōyō Gym Battle! Pikachu VS Chigoras!!

[Almonds]

The gym battle itself was pretty nice. I loved how Ash used new strategies, especially with Froakie. It looked pretty neat how a pokemon could climb up the rocks of Rock Tomb and Draco Meteor.

 

[ArvAl]

The gym battle itself was pretty nice. I loved how Ash used new strategies, especially with Froakie. It looked pretty neat how a pokemon could climb up the rocks of Rock Tomb and Draco Meteor.

Yeah that is a smart idea using Double Team on Froakie and climbed the Rock Tomb to use Water Pulse to smack Onix's head at point blank range.

 

[p96822]

This episode was really good because the battle was really fast pace

 

[Ambipom666]

Pikachu stars again. They have a Froakie and a Fletchling whom Ash has had for like 25-30 eps now. But they let Pika star. He has only been in 800-900 eps and countless battles.

Bad writing.

I think it's excusable here, since Froakie did do very well and Fletchling just had a bad typing. Also, as mentioned, Fletchling will hopefully be used in the next two gyms. I really liked this gym battle. The rock climbing was a nice lead up, "Rock Tomb Tomb" was a nice strategy and I loved how it "evolved"! I'm glad Tyrunt used Dragon Tail and Draco Meteor, I was kind of anxious it wouldn't do much to show off its Dragon-type. Hopefully great gym battles like these will be the standard again.

 

[Neo Blaze]

Kind of late, but I must say I really enjoyed this episode. Usually I'm not that much of a fan of self-invented techniques, but "Rock Tomb Tomb" was actually pretty nice. My only flaw would be Fletchling being in the battle. There was no real point, even the argument that Ash used it to find out Grant's tactics wasn't really apparent to me. Fletchling was down very fast, and that's a shame since Gym Battles have always been equal number vs. equal number (Roxie battle aside) and Fletchling will probably get its time to shine in the Shalour Gym Battle anyway.

Happy to see a win for Froakie, it was really good in this episode. And good to see Tyrunt, it has a really good design in my opinion and this episode really emphasized that.

Not much else to say, nice episode all around, good Gym Battle, I'll give it an 8.

 

[Jimmy95]

Neat battle! Loved the climbing of rocks and water right to Onix dome! What did Serena say before the battle started? I can't hear Japanese but she seemed blushing at Ash?

 

[Neo Blaze]

What did Serena say before the battle started? I can't hear Japanese but she seemed blushing at Ash?

She felt nervous for him. She said she didn't feel like that during the Santalune Gym Battle, but now she did because she now understood how hard it is to get a Gym Badge. And she knew how hard Ash and his Pokémon had been working ever since they saw Grant battle at the Battle Chateau, so she hoped that their efforts would bear fruit.

 

[Pikafanboy]

I loved Froakie's and Pikachu's matches, but I don't see the point of Fletchling needing to be involved. I was hoping when he said that Ash could use all of them Ash would win with just two anyway, but I guess this was to make Grant seem more powerful without needing Ash to lose and need a rematch. It isn't really offensive like the Roxie battle, Froakie and Pikachu virtually did all the work, so Ash would have won anyway. I'm pleased with Ash's strategy of jumping/bouncing off attacks for movement, and I enjoyed Pikachu knocking all the rocks back with Iron Tail in the end. Overall the episode did a great job showing off both the gym, via the rock climbing, and the battle. When I first saw Onix back in Grant's first episode, I thought it was silly to replace the ice fossil, but after the previous episode I find it understandable since it has to be in a cold environment.

 

[Satoshi Da Ze]

Came here expecting a few making a fuss over Pikachu finishing Chigoras with thunderbolt.

I think I would think it weird too, but it's the same Pikachu that had a thunderbolt powerful enough to work against an Iwark during Satoshi's first gym battle ever...

Anyway, the animation wasn't as impressive as in the previous non Rocket-dan battles, but it was fine enough. Glad they stopped abusing those generic scrolling blurry backgrounds during moves.
Not that I prefer when Satoshi seems to be so collected as it makes the battles seem easier than they were supposed to be but it's very nice to see happening once in a while. Shows how he seems to be much more skilled now than before. And feels IC with the Satoshi that climbed the Prism Tower to calm down a rampaging Gablias.

Good episode.