Review SM066: Smash with Sketch! The Fierce Fighting Poké-Ping Pong!

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Watching Pokémon for "the plot" is the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Watching a tv serial for its plot is the silliest thing you've ever heard? What else do you expect from a tv show, shiny colours to distract little kids? A research paper on commercials?

 

[Master Weasel]

Illima's opponent creeped me the hell out. Like seriously, what was his deal? And why did he enter with that Mienshao when it sucked so bad? Bring a Pokemon who can play next time and maybe you won't lose.
.

I don’t think the Mienshao sucked. They wouldn’t have made it to the final round if it did. The issue was that the Mienshao’s trainer harsh attitude made it prone to making mistakes and he realized in the end that he should be more forgiving.

That’s what it looked like to me anyway. I’m waiting for a subtitled version of this episode to fill in any missing context.

 

[KyseL]

Watching a tv serial for its plot is the silliest thing you've ever heard? What else do you expect from a tv show, shiny colours to distract little kids? A research paper on commercials?

Pokémon in particular is (and has always been) an episodic series, with very little to no overarching plot (I mean, it exists, but it's never focused on it). There are stories in each episode, but if you're gonna write off each episode as "filler bad" then Pokémon is DEFINITELY a show you shouldn't be watching.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Pokémon in particular is (and has always been) an episodic series, with very little to no overarching plot (I mean, it exists, but it's never focused on it).

That's not true at all. Pokemon has always had an overarching plot and several sub-plots. Gym badges, new pokemon captured, new moves learned, new evolutions, etc. You can't simply choose and watch random episodes from a series without spoiling yourself or losing the track of plot progression. People are still talking about banned Dratini episode and how they confused about Tauros' existence.


View: https://mobile.twitter.com/hadenshi/status/974233395709460481/video/1

 

[WatcherMark]

Finally watched. Man, they went all out to make frickin' Ping Pong look epic.

Also, I would be more than happy to never see Ilima's cheerleaders ever again. The way they constantly chanted "Ilima-sama" really grated on me for some reason.

 

[Karatekid5]

A pretty fun episode and I LOVED the Lana/Kiawe bluffs! The humor in this series really loves to throw curveballs and it makes me very happy!
Though, I do think that this week's Bewear gag wasn't particularly clever and wasn't very well timed.

Regarding the Lillie vs Sophocles game, Sophocles should've technically been the winner, not Lillie. Unless she got other points off-screen, she overshot the table on her last hit, which would've either been a point for Sophocles or no point at all.

 

[Mayla]

Aside from Ilima continuing to be the human equivalent of oatmeal and Team Rocket leaving too soon (seriously, from the preview I thought there'd be way more shinanigans with them), this had a lot of fun moments. Kaki and Suiren's psych outs on each other was peak SM humor. Also, lol at Ilima very slowly and carefully explaining ping pong, which is literally just hitting a ball back and forth, and Satoshi going WHAT IS THIS CONCEPT I DON’T UNDERSTAND. Reminds me of classic Satoshi stupidity from the OS.

Spoiler

I honestly haven't enjoyed Pikachu at all this season except for now.

 

[IncineROAR]

The sad part is that Ash doesn't mention that he has friends in Kalos and ask Ilma to say hi from him. Idk if there is any form of communication with the other regions.

I kinda wonder if each generation after Gen 3 are alternate universes where Ash doesn't know that he existed in other regions.

Or the writers of the anime are terrible at continuity from previous episodes. Something has to eventually give for the anime story. DragonBall Z has a billion episodes but has better continuity than the Pokemon anime.

 

[radek.tadajewski.7]

Can we all agree that Ash and the Alolan Gang were seen in their ping-pong outfits throughout episode instead of their regular clothes? This is really similar to SM012 where they wore swimsuits in the entire episode instead of their normal clothes. I wish this kind of Anime Tennis reference of Team Rocket's costumes was added to the page, they resemble these characters from that old tennis anime.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Some scenes with light effects were dangerously close to the seizure inducing effects from the Porygon episode. I thought they supposed to not use that kind of effects anymore.

Can we all agree that Ash and the Alolan Gang were seen in their ping-pong outfits throughout episode instead of their regular clothes?

 

[radek.tadajewski.7]

Some scenes with light effects were dangerously close to the seizure inducing effects from the Porygon episode. I thought they supposed to not use that kind of effects anymore.

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Kiawe only took his shirt for a ping-pong battle with Lana, he later wore it back. Still acceptable. Besides, Kiawe's pants for ping-pong were seen even if he took his shirt off.

 

[Lillie]

Some scenes with light effects were dangerously close to the seizure inducing effects from the Porygon episode. I thought they supposed to not use that kind of effects anymore.

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Hm I thought that incident was caused by the strobe light effects, but yeah I can see what you mean since some of those background colors are too bright. Unless there were strobe light effects in the episode (I haven't had the chance to see the episode yet).

 

[KyseL]

Really liked this episode, but I have to admit nothing came close to the Suiren vs. Kaki game, it had some of the best animation of the episode and was a roller coaster of emotions through and through.

Spoiler: Even the versus card was great

 

[Lillie]

Really liked this episode, but I have to admit nothing came close to the Suiren vs. Kaki game, it had some of the best animation of the episode and was a roller coaster of emotions through and through.

Spoiler: Even the versus card was great

I love Lana's eyes in that, they make her look creepy.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Kiawe only took his shirt for a ping-pong battle with Lana, he later wore it back. Still acceptable. Besides, Kiawe's pants for ping-pong were seen even if he took his shirt off.

Still, he wasn't wearing his ping pong outfit through the whole episode.

I love Lana's eyes in that, they make her look creepy.

Her eyes are always creepy.

 

[Kirby4ever]

At the end of the Poke problem segment, I wonder how all of the Eeveelutions managed to swim through the ocean and go onto some random rock. Vaporeon we can understand, but what about the others? Flareon is weak to water.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

At the end of the Poke problem segment, I wonder how all of the Eeveelutions managed to swim through the ocean and go onto some random rock. Vaporeon we can understand, but what about the others? Flareon is weak to water.

Wasn't that just coast?

 

[SonansuMan]

I honestly love how much this episode brought out the personalities of each of the students during each round-- with Kiawe and Lana's dramatization towards the game, Lillie and Sophocles's quirky and incompetent playstyle, and Ash and Mallow's.... slapstick?

The fake outs Kiawe and Lana did after performing their Z-Moves was hilarious.

Sadly, I found the rest of the episode mostly predictable as the only significant characters in the Ping Pong tournament outside of Illima were treated as antagonists-- and were doomed to lose from the start.

The matches however were actually pretty entertaining. The animation came through and helped make everything feel impactful. It was great finally seeing Wobbuffet have some sort of significant role in an episode this series (the closest to doing something being SM062). Too bad the Bewear gag is forced yet again.

FINAL SCORE:
7/10

 

[Gabo2oo]

The Bewear gag is starting to get on my nerves again.
The VS screens were identical to the ones you see during in-game online battles, BTW.

Ilima is boring right?

I think plainness is supposed to be his character trait but they took the whole "normal" thing too far.

Some scenes with light effects were dangerously close to the seizure inducing effects from the Porygon episode. I thought they supposed to not use that kind of effects anymore.

They've used those colors from time to time, it's only a problem when they actually flicker.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The Bewear gag is starting to get on my nerves again.

Tell me about it. It feels like they're putting it there just because, which really irritates me. I don't even find Bewear's seeming omnipotentness pretty much at all amusing.

They've used those colors from time to time, it's only a problem when they actually flicker.

Exactly.