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Review SM137: Undefeated Emperor Guzma!

Meh, this episode felt like more talking that battling. I found myself skipping a lot of parts, just because of how I wanted to just finish up the battle already. Just like with Gladion's Lycanroc, Golisopod felt too strong to me. I get that he's Guzma's strongest and all, and I could deal with him taking on both Pikachu and Torracat, but when he took that Gigavolt Havoc, a super-effective Z-Move, like it was nothing, just by putting up his shield arms..yeah no. That's when it became ridiculous to me.

Guzma's entire emotional whatever the hell was going on stuff also felt really...weird. Like, maybe I'd care more if Guzma was introduced earlier and we actually saw all of his struggles and stuff, but having just a few episodes of him prior to this made me really detached from the whole emotional thing they were trying to do. I really just couldn't have cared less.

Overall, I think this is one of the worst episodes from this league, and a horrible semi-final match. 3/10 for the episode. Only good thing that came from this is that Ash is heading to the finals.
 
I actually felt like it was kinda bad form for Satoshi to use a Z-Move when Guzma had promised to not use any... I mean, I know it's not against the rules and was entirely Guzma's choice, but it still feels like Satoshi shouldn't have used one either to keep the battle even.
 
Nyaheat: Didn't work!
Mezase Pokemon Master: Didn't work!
Sparking Gigabolt: Didn't work!
That's some strong Gusokumusha!
So, Skull Gang is still active after all.
Plumeri without make-up:
124331
 
I admit that I haven't kept up with a lot of SM's recent episodes, but now that he's out, I'd like to ask what Guzma's whole deal is against Z-moves. I'd have thought someone who likes beating his opponents down to a pulp would have been all over something that's essentially a nuke skill. Did that Kukui and Guzma flashback scene give us any big reason why he wasn't keen on them?
 
Gengarzilla said:
I admit that I haven't kept up with a lot of SM's recent episodes, but now that he's out, I'd like to ask what Guzma's whole deal is against Z-moves. I'd have thought someone who likes beating his opponents down to a pulp would have been all over something that's essentially a nuke skill.
Click to expand...
Not in the anime I think, but in the games it was stated that he never got a Z-Ring despite being so strong, most likely because the kahunas didn't approve of his battle style. And everyone wants a Z-Ring, so he was probably pissed off but played it off as an "I don't need one anyway" attitude. You could guess the same applies in the anime.
 
Gengarzilla said:
I admit that I haven't kept up with a lot of SM's recent episodes, but now that he's out, I'd like to ask what Guzma's whole deal is against Z-moves. I'd have thought someone who likes beating his opponents down to a pulp would have been all over something that's essentially a nuke skill. Did that Kukui and Guzma flashback scene give us any big reason why he wasn't keen on them?
Click to expand...
Not really. He just hated that he could never beat Kukui and started hating everything he spoke highly of in response
 
One small thing I noticed: Remember Ash vs Nanu where Nanu provoked Ash? Guzma does the same thing today, but Ash was a lot calmer during this fight. He learned his lesson.

This episode was one of the most emotional battles I have watched.. This battle was from Guzma's perspective and it worked very well imo.

The best part of the episode for me was the whole sequence where Notebook of the Heart was playing. Guzma going all-out was awesome, him supporting Golisopod got me and the Skull gang cheering him up after his defeat was heartwarming.
Guzma symbolises Team Skull for me during this series. When things matter, they ran away. Their leader motivates the members to become stronger. I was sceptical about a happy ending, but it worked for me because of the way it was handled in this episode.

9/10
 
Panky.. said:
Problems I had with the episode though were the quick conclusion to Torracat's battle. I feel like he fainted way too easily just so that they could get on with the battle, not to mention that Torracat didn't have swirly eyes yet Nanu called it straight away.
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Yeah, I watched the previous episode right before this one, and Torracat was definetly not as tired as it was first shown here. It wasn't even panting.

JeoDude said:
This episode was one of the most emotional battles I have watched.. This battle was from Guzma's perspective and it worked very well imo.
Click to expand...
It was really interesting how they put in dramatic music when Ash was going to use Sparking Gigavolt. I didn't expect the whole narrative to be biased towards Guzma but it was for the best, even if he was to lose.
 
I'm happy with how this episode turned out. The animation was great and best of all, even though our boy Guzma lost, he got a happy ending. I just love how Team Skull has this close family bond. Seeing Guzma walk out of the stadium in high spirits after his team asked him for tips and showed their dedication to him just made me happy. Also great to see Plumeria showing her caring side towards Guzma.
 
With this episode I'm guessing the Skull-dan plot's pretty much done? Because I haven't been following up I have no idea what happened before so it's just a guess, seemed like so at least.
 
So... Nanu didn’t even bother to check if Torracat has fainted. And it made no sense for it to become weak suddenly. It wasn’t panting at all in the previous episode and is suddenly panting now?

Torracat’s KO is my least favourite part of this episode.
 
I expected Guzma to change his ways thanks to a pep talk from Satoshi. I'm glad that was not the case, it was all Golisopod. I was also surprised he didn't say anything to Satoshi after the battle, again I had an expectation of him to mutter "... good battle, kid" to him or something. Instead, he remained cool and silent towards Satoshi and Kukui and that's cool. Change takes more time and overcoming your biggest fear is a pretty awesome start already. (Though, this means that Guzma probably won't give a Dawn Stone to Satoshi as a thank you gift but oh well.)

The flashbacks, Plumeria's thoughts on Guz&Goli and the last moment with Team Skull made this episode my new favorite. It's a little sad that this was all we got of Guzma (and Plumeria) but... it was so wholesome! :bulbaLove:
 
I've been so totally happy about all those fantastic league-episodes lately and this one was no exception. Very well done, totally awesome and intense battles that kept me on the edge of my chair, and great, moving character development

Speaking of character development: I especially liked those Guzma-Kuki-Hala-flashbacks, Plumeria giving us the necessary background information and thus adding so much depth to this epsiode and last but not least, those emotional moments when Guzma started to realize he's been wrong. Great job!
Though, there's one thing that was missing: What exactly was it that Hala wanted Guzma to learn in order for him to become stronger? "Pokemon battles are a complicated affair" as it was stated during the preview for next week? Really, that's all? No, it must have been something more profound.

Also, I'm very very proud of Ash. Defending against Pin Missile with Electroweb, tricking Guzma into believing that he didn't know Golisopod would block Thunderbolt, just for Pikachu to rush in and sweep its legs with Iron Tail. That was simply fantastic and something we definitely need to see more often. Great battle which Ash deserved to win!

And although I can already anticipate who's gonna win this league, I'm looking forward to (hopefully) great and intense finals!
 
Okay, I'll start with the negatives first. Like others pointed out, Torracat's defeat was rushed a little and, while it had been fighting since the second half of last week's episode and it did get hit with a decent amount of strong moves, the fact that it didn't show that many signs of exhaustion made it feel like it went out way too quickly (not to mention that we didn't even get the swirly eyes, nor did we see Nanu at the very least checking to see if it's really unable to battle). I also wasn't a big fan of the fact that they abandoned a few of the setups from Ash and Guzma's previous battle (like Ash dodging First Impression, a move that Plumeria even said "Nobody's ever dodged it", or him using Corkscrew Crash, since he was training Pikachu in order to boost Iron Tail's strength so that they could damage Golisopod with this Z-Move the next time they battled) or of Golisopod's slow-motion moments during the later portions of the episode (which, at that point, stated to feel kind of weird and overdone).

But, other than those things, this episode was fantastic. The battle (for the most part) was well animated and featured some nice strategies from Ash, while also continuing to do a great job of showing Guzma's signature brutal battle style (though I do find it kind of weird that Pikachu suddenly shook off all the pain from Throat Chop after groaning so much from it a few moments earlier). They finally expanded on Guzma's past and the reason behind his fallout with Kukui and Hala's teachings (which, if you ask me, should've happened all the way back in SM128, when they tried (and failed) to explain Guzma's motivation). They also did a great job handling both Guzma's story (which could've been better if they would've given Guzma some more screen time and expanded on his character before this battle, but that's been a persisting problem of this series, so I digress) and his "redemption" (though I wish that Kukui and Guzma would've gotten a proper reconciliation). Not to mention that it was nice to see them touch upon Team Skull's relation with Guzma and vice versa, as well as them expanding on Guzma's relation with his Golisopod. And then there's that stunning moment where Guzma finally said his iconic phrase.

Overall, a very enjoyable and well written episode. It definitely has some flaws and the story and Guzma's character could've definitely benefited from some additional build-up prior to the league, but, as I've said before, this has been a problem for the entire series as a whole and, at this point, I'm just glad the SM crew finally managed to properly end an arc in a well-done, consistent and (mostly) coherent manner, while also being respectful to the source material and not involving some kind of stupid/silly/nonsensical/plot device-y thingamajig.
 
I’d just like to say how glad I am that the people here on this forum are way more rational and willing to point out the positives of an episode then Reddit, which has basically devolved into a giant circlejerk about how bad the show is, even when most of it is pretty good.

For example, this episode; this episode had a lot of awesome moments, like Guzma’s backstory and his revelation in the middle of the battle. There could’ve been a bit more action and Torracat fainting was pretty questionable, but overall this was a really good episode. This makes me wish that Guzma had been introduced at the beginning of the season so that we could’ve gotten one or two more episodes involving him, as he was one of the best characters of this series along with Gladion.
 
The episode was mostly good, but that insert song when Pikachu and Golisopod were battling felt really off to me and it clashed with the action on-screen.
 
Ash vs. Guzma
  • I didn’t expect Torracat to go down so early in the Episode :( You fought a good fight, sweet prince
  • Ash chooses Pikachu as his next Pokémon, making Lycanroc his only Pokémon yet to battle in the league, which makes me think we’ll get an epic Lycanroc vs. Lycanroc battle in the finals
  • Pikachu taking Golisopod to town while the original Pokémon theme played in the background was an awesome moment
  • I swear I forgot Rotom existed until he just now got a random line of dialogue LOL
  • Guzma’s storyline was wrapped up about as well as it could’ve been; he learned to stop running away from things that intimidated him, good for him! And Ash lives to see another day in the tournament :3

Post-Battle
  • aww Guzma got a really sweet farewell scene with Plumeria and all his cronies still being by his side despite him being embarrassed by the defeat ;(
  • Torracat not sharing his food <3

Next Week
  • omg Ash’s mom finally showed up to support her only child!!
  • looks like a certain evolution to Meltan might show up too...
 
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