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Review XY091: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TryPokaron Tournament!!

Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

I said this Showcase was okay, but that's for Showcase standards anyway. I hate how the writers are forcing themselves to inject cheap melodrama during these competitions. Will we ever be able to watch a Showcase episode in which Serena's only worries are her rivals? The writers have made Jessie, Miette, Nini, and even Shauna represent little to no challenge, so in order to remedy this they're trying to make Serena struggle by adding these little mishaps along the way, like her furisode in Dendemille or Eevee disappearing here in Anistar.

Maybe the writers find the Showcase concept rather boring...

I can agree to the fact that Serena's been shown to be a class above her rivals as of now, something I've said in the past. However, I feel it's more how the writers have kind of limited themselves with how Showcases are done rather than them feeling like it's boring. It's not like Contests in say, DP, where they could have a double episode for the Contests because of the battling portion to it and how the elimination bracket went, it's far shorter. They've kind of forced themselves to add these more pointless, I guess, distractions just to fill in the time for the 20 minute episode. This does lead in to what you said later about the amount of contestants in these Showcases because there's far less than I can remember in DP.

Although, I do somewhat feel like Showcases could easily span two episodes if they stopped cutting corners in some places, like showing the full Free Performances for Shauna/Jessie, include some more pomp and ceremony around the beginning, middle and end (the last two Showcases we've kind of just been thrown straight into the actual thing with some minor build-up). It just feels as though they've tried to shorten everything down and then gone "oh wait we should probably add something here to create some problem". The Master Class Showcase might end up being a bit more fleshed out, or I can only hope it will be.

(I feel like I'm forgetting to add another point here but I can't remember what it was, lol)
 
Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

I can agree to the fact that Serena's been shown to be a class above her rivals as of now, something I've said in the past. However, I feel it's more how the writers have kind of limited themselves with how Showcases are done rather than them feeling like it's boring. It's not like Contests in say, DP, where they could have a double episode for the Contests because of the battling portion to it and how the elimination bracket went, it's far shorter. They've kind of forced themselves to add these more pointless, I guess, distractions just to fill in the time for the 20 minute episode. This does lead in to what you said later about the amount of contestants in these Showcases because there's far less than I can remember in DP.

Although, I do somewhat feel like Showcases could easily span two episodes if they stopped cutting corners in some places, like showing the full Free Performances for Shauna/Jessie, include some more pomp and ceremony around the beginning, middle and end (the last two Showcases we've kind of just been thrown straight into the actual thing with some minor build-up). It just feels as though they've tried to shorten everything down and then gone "oh wait we should probably add something here to create some problem". The Master Class Showcase might end up being a bit more fleshed out, or I can only hope it will be.

(I feel like I'm forgetting to add another point here but I can't remember what it was, lol)

I agree that the writers have painted themselves into a corner with the way Pokémon Showcases work. The Theme Performance usually consists of a not-so-interesting activity and so there isn't much to gain from showing Serena's rivals baking or answering questions when we have seen Serena doing just that. Even if the Poké Puffs and questions are different, it feels redundant, and the writers are well aware of that as not even our main character Serena got to answer all the needed questions to advance to the second round here in this Showcase.

I think if the writers were having trouble to fill a 20-minute episode, Serena would have answered one other question and her rivals would have answered all their questions too, but they didn't. The writers skipped one of Serena's questions and didn't show much of the other contestants because seeing characters taking a quiz isn't that exciting. Therefore they're not adding drama because they don't have enough content, instead they're skipping content because it's boring and adding drama to make up for it.

Unfortunately, this isn't a problem affecting only the first round, since Jessie's performance was cut short to show Ash and company looking for Serena's Eevee, and even Serena's performance was interrupted with a flashback of Eevee's disappearance, an issue that had been solved literally two minutes ago. Like you said, the writers had the option of showing Jessie delivering a good performance with her Gourgeist, but they chose not to, just like in the Dendemille Showcase they chose to focus on Serena's tailoring skills rather than on Miette's performance.

For this reason, I think the writers have realized how boring Showcases really are, and so they're not focusing on the proceedings of the competition but instead relying on drama to entertain their audience. The Eevee drama wasn't needed, they could have shown more of Jessie's performance, but that's not interesting enough. They have no idea how to make these competitions exciting on their own, so they will add a new issue for Serena to solve in each Showcase. Haircut drama, dress drama, Eevee gone missing drama, what's next?
 
Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

Haircut drama, dress drama, Eevee gone missing drama, what's next?

For Serena's next Showcase, Satoshi appears to be late from training and won't make it!! Will Serena find the strength to be able to continue her performance?!
 
Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

I was thinking something along those lines as well Hilbert, lol. Like he goes to the bathroom mid-Showcase and doesn't come back, Serena runs out all worried, then finds out he's having a battle with someone he knows. :p

Unfortunately, this isn't a problem affecting only the first round, since Jessie's performance was cut short to show Ash and company looking for Serena's Eevee, and even Serena's performance was interrupted with a flashback of Eevee's disappearance, an issue that had been solved literally two minutes ago.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the scene you mentioned here was at the end of the previous episode where Serena asked Eevee to teach them her dance, or something along those lines if the subs from that episode are right. This lead to the addition of those backflip-jump-things that Braixen and Pancham did afterwards.
 
Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

Another disappointment with an episode I was looking forward to.
I expected it to be closer to the plot idea I had, which I touched on in the preview thread - ie. Serena trains Eevee to perform with her, it gets scared/suffers stage fright & runs away before the performance. Our heroes can't find it in time & she has to do a performance on the fly with Pancham & Braixen instead. Possibly, she even loses to display her over-confidence/inexperience.
But no, we get a few minutes of drama (that wasn't very dramatic, imo) & then everything's alright - Serena easily finds Eevee, the drama doesn't affect her at all, she wins, etc. .... zzz ....

Also, there must be battles in Showcases at some time - otherwise, why was Aria show to be an experienced & accomplished Trainer in episode 64?
 
Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!

I kinda wish they showed us all of Jessie's performance instead of having Eevee get lost. The Pumpjin light was really cool and I actually liked the Seed Bomb fireworks since it went well with Jessie's mature theme. I was looking forward to her progress. This episode was a disappointment compared to when Serena won her first Key
 
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