Preview XY117: The Forest's Curse and the White Bokurei!

[Shadao]

Phantump would have been a good capture had Frogadier and Noibat not evolve just yet. With Greninja and Noixern at their full stage, Ash has (not counting Pikachu) a fully-evolved team at his hand and giving him a Phantump right now would feel a bit jarring in comparison unless it evolves quickly as well. And by this point, Phantump doesn't really give much advantage then it could have a Gym earlier.

 

[Kirby4ever]

Standard issue filler. Go home people, nothing special to see here.

The fact it's the only episode this month without a picture isn't a good sign.

Look again, it has a picture. XY116 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

 

[Playerking]

Here is a new summary of the episode, courtesy of Dephender.

Ash and his friends see a group of Phantump suddenly fall from the sky right before their eyes. While they want to send the Phantump back to their friends, the Phantump have apparently never seen the outside world before and make a huge deal out of everything they see, thinking them extremely intriguing.

 

[ii kanji]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111

 

[ArvAl]

This is a combination of Goomy and Noibat's debut to Phantump, ladies and gentlemen.

Hmmm....

 

[ii kanji]

This is a combination of Goomy and Noibat's debut to Phantump, ladies and gentlemen.

In what sense?

 

[ArvAl]

In what sense?

Goodra falls from the sky at XY055 and Noibat's baby-ish behavior at XY076 before it matured when learned Fly.

 

[Playerking]

Goodra falls from the sky at XY055 and Noibat's baby-ish behavior at XY076 before it matured when learned Fly.

Except that Noibat was a baby and we don't know if this Phantump is a baby or not. Just because it hasn't seen the outside world and has probably only spent time in its homeland with its family, doesn't mean that it's a baby. And Noibat didn't act like it was constantly intrigued. So while the comparison to Goomy makes sense, I don't think it's similar to Noibat's and even if it was, then it's still technically an original concept.

 

[Mitchman]

I always wanted to see ash with Phantump, and later a Trevanant, its the last grass type in Kalos not introduced, and its the type of latecomer addition I can see them doing. I don't want to turn the discussion into a capture one, but if they never seen the outside world, I can see the Phantump wanting to join the group to see the world, leading to its capture.

 

[ian.settlemyer.5]

What kind of moves do you think that this Phantump knows?

 

[R!ck]

According to data broadcast Avalugg appears here so maybe Wulfric's debut, not a filler after all, nice.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Yeah it looks like this may not be totally filler after all, if this is going to be Wulfric's debut. If the data broadcast shows that Avalugg is featured and Ash is going to face him two episode later, I think its highly possible that Wulfric will be in this episode.

 

[SammyW27]

That better be Wulfirc's Avalugg...

 

[Poke Trey]

So this episode isn't going to be entirely filler? Well as long as we see Wulfric and maybe Avalugg too this should then be interesting.

 

[Gengarzilla]

I'd love for Ash to catch the Phantump, but its Shiny status alone makes this feel like a long shot. At least we could have Wulfric's possible debut here. Can't wait to see if that does happen here.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

I'd love for Ash to catch the Phantump, but its Shiny status alone makes this feel like a long shot. At least we could have Wulfric's possible debut here. Can't wait to see if that does happen here.

Same here but I have a feeling that this is just another random shiny pokemon appearance.

 

[デクナッツ]

Well, Phantump and Trevenant both have their signature move Forest's Curse, which turns the opponent into a Grass-type. Although, the Japanese in the title compared to the Japanese in Forest's Curse's name are different. Maybe it's a joke/reference to the move, because there is some cursed forest in this episode, or it is just referring to Phantump having the aforementioned move.

The only difference in the letters being used to spell the name (the Japanese in other words) is that move names only use hiragana and katakana (so the move name is Mori no Noroi in hiragana, i.e. もりののろい), but the title still says "Mori no Noroi" (the Forest's Curse), but the title has it written in kanji instead (i.e. 森の呪い), which move names don't use (the only difference is the way that "Forest's Curse" is written, but its pronunciation remains the same), which is a clear giveaway that Bokurei and Ohrot's move "Forest's Curse" has nothing to do with this, at least the title. This also means we're likely not getting Ohrot in this episode either unfortunately.

Same here but I have a feeling that this is just another random shiny pokemon appearance.

Yeah, the anime isn't generous to let Satoshi have a Shiny Pokémon or give him a Mega Stone or anything, that's too "over-powered" if you know what I mean.

 

[majestic honor of lugia]

Yeah, the anime isn't generous to let Satoshi have a Shiny Pokémon or give him a Mega Stone or anything, that's too "over-powered" if you know what I mean

Given that a shiny pokemon ≠ overpowered, and the fact that Ash did catch a shiny pokemon (Noctowl) in the past, you cannot rule out a pokemon as a potential catch candidate just for that reason. However, given the summary for this episode, I would say there is a favorable chance that he does not catch the phantump.

 

[デクナッツ]

Same here but I have a feeling that this is just another random shiny pokemon appearance.

Given that a shiny pokemon ≠ overpowered, and the fact that Ash did catch a shiny pokemon (Noctowl) in the past, you cannot rule out a pokemon as a potential catch candidate just for that reason. However, given the summary for this episode, I would say there is a favorable chance that he does not catch the phantump.

Yeah, but what I mean is that it's just too good to happen. I forgot about that instance though.

 

[majestic honor of lugia]

Yeah, but what I mean is that it's just too good to happen. I forgot about that instance though.

To me, I would say my viewpoint on the situation is more like this:

Phantump would have been a good capture had Frogadier and Noibat not evolve just yet. With Greninja and Noixern at their full stage, Ash has (not counting Pikachu) a fully-evolved team at his hand and giving him a Phantump right now would feel a bit jarring in comparison unless it evolves quickly as well. And by this point, Phantump doesn't really give much advantage then it could have a Gym earlier.

I would not call the phantump to be "too good" because it is shiny. Shiny is a huge deal, but it does not seem to be so much that way in the anime than in the games. There is a far higher frequency of shiny pokemon appearances in the anime, and characters within the anime tend to only remark that they "look different", or "that's an unusual color", or something along those lines. The anime does not treat them to be "too good" to obtain. Rather, they seem more apt to remark about their differences in appearance to the normal color, and then afterwords just simply move on with the plot. As a result, "too good", does not seem to apply to shiny pokemon in the anime, unlike, say, the capture of a legendary or other powerful pokemon.