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Old 12-23-2015, 09:45 AM   #226
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How do you mean "how long it's been since XY"? Isn't XY still airing?

Speaking of that, I wanted to write a topic on Ash's strongest team, but figured that since Kalos should be winding down, it would be best to reserve that until Ash has had his time in the region conference and we get the full battle records. Since there's always the potential Ash goes all the way this time, as pathetic as he's been in Kalos.
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Old 12-23-2015, 10:55 AM   #227
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tbh, I highly doubt he will win. Because, is he does, then what's left? This champion's tournament? That's like, a season at best. If Ash does win a league, then I think that would signify the end of Ash in the anime, or at least as a central protagonist.
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Old 12-23-2015, 11:03 AM   #228
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Why would the anime end if he wins?

He's done it before in the filler regions.
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Old 12-23-2015, 11:06 AM   #229
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I think I meant BW.

Hasn't Ash OHKOed every gym bar one this series? Behold the magical powers of Talonflame etc.
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Old 12-23-2015, 09:59 PM   #230
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercutio View Post
Hasn't Ash OHKOed every gym bar one this series? Behold the magical powers of Talonflame etc.
He lost to Gyms _ and _.

Spoiler: show
1 and 3.

The first gym he lost to was Viola's. That was a two-parter where he lost the match, promised to immediately train and immediately rematch, did, and won the rematch.

The second gym he lost to was Korrina's. Now this one is a bit more complicated because he technically only challenged the gym once. But here's how it went down:
  • First, he battled Korrina not really knowing who she was. She utterly wiped the floor with his Pikachu. After the match, IIRC, she mentions that she would have happily given him her gym's badge had he beaten her but he didn't so too bad.
  • Second, when Lucario went ape shit after Mega Evolving for the first time, he nearly murdered Pikachu.



    Remember?

    Again, this wasn't an official gym match. But it may as well have been given what we now know was to come next ...
  • Finally, we have the official gym battle. Yes, yes: it's the only official gym battle and it's the one he won. But still. I maintain that that first meeting, especially given her "Oh, yeah! You could have totally gotten the gym badge had ya beaten me!" attitude, was a de facto first gym battle for Ash versus Korrina. And that second time, the one where Lucario nearly eats Pikachu, is still a mirror of the same showdown we ultimately get in the real gym battle. So yes, he only officially challenges her gym once. But no, his Pikachu vs. her Lucario happened three times by the time he finally got that gym badge.
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Old 12-23-2015, 10:24 PM   #231
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tbh, I highly doubt he will win. Because, is he does, then what's left? This champion's tournament? That's like, a season at best. If Ash does win a league, then I think that would signify the end of Ash in the anime, or at least as a central protagonist.
Doppel disagreed with the second half of your post, but I'm going to raise my eyebrow a little earlier at you and disagree with the first half. An Elite Four challenge (minimum: 1), a Champion challenge (minimum: 1), and the Champion League, all only a single season? No way, man. If they ever did decide to have Ash win a regional league conference, I can all but guarantee you that from A to B, A marking the start of his first Elite Four challenge and B marking the end of his final Champion challenge before being crowned a Champion himself, would be one "Poké-season," i.e. at least one calendar year's worth of episodes if not two years' worth. Then as an entirely separate matter you would have the Champion League. There's no way they'd cram those two together into one block. It wouldn't even make sense to do so.

Realistically, they could draw out Ash's championship challenge pretty easily as follows. Not saying that they would, just that they could:
  1. he enters the Indigo League conference tournament and wins 1st place, earning his right to challenge the Elite Four of Kanto (episode count: ~13 to 20)
    • one episode for prelims opponent #1
    • one episode for prelims opponent #2
    • one episode for prelims opponent #3
    • one episode for Top 64 opponent
    • one episode for Top 32 opponent
    • one episode for Top 16 opponent
    • one episode for Top 8 opponent
    • two episodes for semifinals opponent
    • two or more episodes for finals opponent
    • n episodes for other characters we are following
    • m episodes for other league conference matters (e.g. random league filler)
  2. he challenges the Elite Four of Kanto and, miraculously, wins on his first try (episode count: ~4 to 8)
    • one to two episodes for Lorelei / Will battle
    • one to two episodes for Bruno / Koga battle
    • one to two episodes for Agatha / Bruno battle
    • one to two episodes for Lance / Karen battle
  3. he challenges the Champion of the Indigo League but loses; or he is turned away and told that the Champion is not in / will not see him (episode count: ~0 to 3)
  4. whether losing to the Champion outright or whether being turned away at the gate, Ash now embarks on a mission to train up by way of challenging other regions' Elite Fours. And he decides it'd be fun to do it by revisiting all of the places he's been to in his travels. :'(
  5. so he revisits Johto and oh yeah Johto shares a league conference with Kanto oh well he still does something there anyway (episode count: ??)
  6. then he revisits Hoenn and challenges their Elite Four (episode count: ~7 to 16)
    • one to two episodes for vs. Sidney
    • one to two episodes for vs. Phoebe
    • one to two episodes for vs. Glacia
    • one to two episodes for vs. Drake
    • one to three episodes for vs. Steven / Wallace (win or lose)
    • two to five episodes with Ash revisiting various Hoenn friends and haunts
  7. then he revisits Johto and challenges their Elite Four (episode count: ~7 to 16)
    • one to two episodes for vs. Aaron
    • one to two episodes for vs. Bertha
    • one to two episodes for vs. Flint
    • one to two episodes for vs. Lucian
    • one to three episodes for vs. Cynthia (win or lose)
    • two to five episodes with Ash revisiting various Sinnoh friends and haunts
  8. then he revisits Unova and challenges their Elite Four (episode count: ~7 to 16)
    • one to two episodes for vs. Shauntel
    • one to two episodes for vs. Marshal
    • one to two episodes for vs. Grimsley
    • one to two episodes for vs. Caitlin
    • one to three episodes for vs. Steven / Wallace
    • two to five episodes with Ash revisiting various Unova friends and haunts
  9. then he revisits Sinnoh and challenges their Elite Four (episode count: ~7 to 16)
    • one to two episodes for vs. Wikstrom
    • one to two episodes for vs. Malva
    • one to two episodes for vs. Drasna
    • one to two episodes for vs. Siebold
    • one to three episodes for vs. Diantha
    • two to five episodes with Ash revisiting various Kalos friends and haunts
  10. then you could have Scott give him a call and be like, "Where you at, son? THE BATTLE FRONTIER CALLS YOU!" and he flies back home to Kanto (in the anime) to train up with his pals, the Frontier Brains
  11. toss in some Kanto throwbacks (like Brock and/or Misty giving Ash some advice that he takes to heart and applies in his upcoming battles)
  12. have Ash re-challenge the Elite Four of his home region, even though he already beat them once before
    • you could change their membership from RBY to GSC at this point, or you could keep it the same and just change some of their team members and tactics. Anything works.
    • you can have him breeze through it in half the time you did before, or you could make it even more grand than last time. Again, whatever works.
  13. Ash re-challenges the Champion of his home region. (And if before he was turned away at the door, this time he's not.)
  14. And this time ... he wins. But not yet! First ... the epic, five-episode showdown!
    • Even though it's a 6v6 Singles match, you won't be having the match over and done with in just two or three episodes.
    • Instead, the HP meters are through the roof and we get to see the battles of a lifetime!
And this is JUST the Championship challenge of Ash's. For the crown to his home region, Kanto. Never mind other regions. Never mind dueling the other Champions in the Champion League and competing for the title of Pokémon Master.

C'mon, man. Think what you will, but you're not going to get very far by trying to convince me that there's no way the Pokémon anime could go on past one year (52 episodes) if they decided to instantly give Ash a regional conference win.

EDIT: I totally forgot to note in my schematic above ... he's not even allowed to challenge other regions' E4s until he can at least get a conference win under his belt in their home regions, I'm pretty sure. So you can tack on an additional league tournament's worth of episodes for every single of those regions I just listed.

Last edited by Talon87; 12-23-2015 at 10:30 PM.
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Old 12-23-2015, 11:14 PM   #232
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Johto-Kanto is unique since they share the same Elite Four. You pointed this out, but back in the early aughts that was evidence enough for why Ash was considered to win the Silver Conference. Ash even beat Gary in that tournament, so the stage was set for Ash taking the step he was too immature for back in Kanto.

Then, history happened.

I do agree that a championship run would take up a whole season, or perhaps more. I think if Ash DOES win in Kalos, he'll get an IOU to either face the Elite Four later, or Diantha later, if the intent is to not have him face the bosses in this season.

Though, if what I see is correct, "XY" has XYZ Summoned itself as a new series, so perhaps we'll see a lot more in this season than the Unova abortion?

Also, does Diantha like Ash? I seem to recall some champion having the hots for him. I can't remember who, but she looks like Diantha.
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Old 12-24-2015, 03:41 AM   #233
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Oh yeah I forgot about the Mega Lucario filler stuff that they counted as a match for some reason.
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Old 01-01-2016, 01:53 PM   #234
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I finally watched the Diancie movie on October 25. Been meaning to post about it ever since but, as with a lot of things, there were delays. Before it gets to be too long since seeing the movie, I figured I should go ahead and post about it.

We'll start off with the spoiler-free commentary. (Though as always, you're encouraged to quit reading here if you want to go into the movie completely, completely unbiased.)

I enjoyed the movie. Let's just get that one out of the way. On a scale of "Like or dislike?", I liked the movie. It wasn't my favorite Pokémon movie of all time. And Pokémon movies in general I don't hold very high. But it was fine. I didn't hate the movie, and I didn't feel at the end of it like I had wasted the last 90 minutes of my life.

Diancie is what sells this movie for me. She is the centerpiece, the star Pokémon of this film. If you like Diancie going in to the movie, you're going to come out of it with a smile on your face. It's great fun to see her simultaneously adorable and elegant design on screen so much, and the direction the writers decided to go in with her makes me wish for more opportunities to explore the Carbink Kingdom.

Alright, time for spoiler commentary ...

Spoiler: show
I was pleasantly surprised by the Chesnaught girl's villainy. Not surprised that she was a villain -- that was telegraphed for any viewer older than 7 -- but rather, surprised that they decided to make her a villain. It was a fun little twist for the tots in the audience, a good way to teach them the important lesson in life that you shouldn't trust a stranger just on the basis of how nice they appear to be. Even once the father was introduced, there was still ample room to write the daughter as being secretly good and wanting her dad to reform. But nope! They stuck to their guns and kept the girl a villain, ensuring kids would get the message.

I disliked Team Rocket's presence in this movie. I feel like if this film had been produced in the opening months of BW, we might very well not have even had Team Rocket show up in this movie, given the same storyline. 'Cause that's the thing: the storyline, as written, shoehorns the Rockets in in a way that mirrors how the TV series does it every other week. The script just plain doesn't require the Rockets' presence.

I thought the idea of the Delphox witch and Greninja ninja having feelings for one another was a cute one, and I much enjoyed their final moments in the movie both pre- and post-credits. But I wish that it had been better supported throughout the film. It seems to just show up out of nowhere once Yveltal has been resurrected. It would've been nicer if we had had more signs in the first three quarters of the film that the two had enough of a history to support the actions that we later see. Even if they were to have had no history and Greninja ninja was acting on pure physical attraction alone, at least show us this by having him display signs of infatuation earlier in the film. (And that wasn't the direction they opted to go in anyway, so this is a semi-moot point.)

I wasn't happy with Yveltal. I disliked the idea that he was roused from his slumber by several people landing forcefully in his lake. As if no wild Pokémon would have done this before now! I also wasn't too thrilled with the fact that the heroes call it a day when Yveltal flies off into the sunset to wreck havoc on unseen corners of the world. What the ... What good does it do you to have Xerneas turn into a tree here if Yveltal isn't even going to stay put here, but is going to Medusa other places instead!?

I was disappointed with Xerneas too. Thank God Diancie was the star of the film! Because man oh man was Xerneas boring.

I know this is a lot of negativity / criticism so far, but these are the things I'm more easily remembering right now. As far as my satisfaction with the film goes, it was more of a general "this is pleasant" / "I <3 Diancie " feeling.

The movies I have seen are as follows:
  • complete
    • 1 - Mewtwo Strikes Back (USA)
    • 2 - The Power of One (USA)
    • 3 - Spell of the Unown (USA)
    • 5 - Pokémon Heroes (JPN)
    • 8 - Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (JPN)
    • 17 - Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction (JPN)
  • incomplete
    • 6 - Jirachi Wish Maker (USA; last ten minutes or so)
    • 9 - Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (USA; last ten minutes or so)
So admittedly, I haven't seen that many Pokémon movies. Even still, I can rank the ones I have seen. And if I rank the ones I've seen from start to finish, I think my current ranking would go something like this:

8 > 5 > 17 > 2 > 1 = 3

Not really sure how I'd rank the bottom three, to be honest, but I'm pretty confident in saying that:
  1. The best Pokémon movie so far (that I have seen) was the 8th movie, the one with Sir Aaron and Lucario.
  2. The Diancie movie is grouped with the better movies.
  3. But it's also at the bottom of their pack. It's definitely worse than 8 and 5 in my book.
So that's not too bad for poor M17. It may not be Sir Aaron, but it's at least a better Pokémon movie than what I am used to seeing.

So yes: I have finally seen the Diancie movie. No plans to watch the Hoopa movie or any of the others right now, but I can at least say that I've finally seen the first Pokémon movie that in years I was excited to see.
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Old 01-01-2016, 02:00 PM   #235
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Talon, you think Mewtwo Strikes Back sucks

I don't even know who you are anymore!
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Old 01-02-2016, 09:41 PM   #236
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Talon, it should be mentioned that

Spoiler: show
A good deal of backstory for Riot and Marilyn is given in the tie-in promo video game "The Thieves and the 1000 Pokemon", which could be downloaded for free back in mid-2013. It got advertised during the post-episode segments of a couple XY episodes too, I believe.
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Old 02-09-2016, 12:52 AM   #237
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I don't even know how old this is, but...

Spoiler: show
What the heck? Ash's Greninja can turn into "Ash-Greninja" form? Is this Megaman.exe?
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Old 02-09-2016, 04:29 PM   #238
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Quote:
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I don't even know how old this is, but...

Spoiler: show
What the heck? Ash's Greninja can turn into "Ash-Greninja" form? Is this Megaman.exe?
September 12th.
You just barely missed being 5 months late.
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Old 02-09-2016, 11:33 PM   #239
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Does anyone know why Cartoon Network is just playing old episodes of XY and not new ones? Not that I don't like to see older episodes, but I watched XYZ episode 12 and I am just way to excited for it to come out in English.
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Old 02-10-2016, 05:51 PM   #240
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idk. I'd be glad it was that recent a set of stuff though, last time I paid attention to the anime England was showing Battle Frontier reruns despite BW being the newest season.
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Old 02-10-2016, 09:04 PM   #241
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Does anyone know why Cartoon Network is just playing old episodes of XY and not new ones? Not that I don't like to see older episodes, but I watched XYZ episode 12 and I am just way to excited for it to come out in English.
In 'Murica land, XYZ doesn't start until the 20th of this month. So expect XYZ012 to air around mid-April or so, if they don't go another a break.
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Old 02-17-2016, 04:50 AM   #242
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Quote:
Originally Posted by satosere View Post
Does anyone know why Cartoon Network is just playing old episodes of XY and not new ones? Not that I don't like to see older episodes, but I watched XYZ episode 12 and I am just way to excited for it to come out in English.
With little effort, you can find VERY well done subtitled episodes, and never need to deal with the dub again! I've been dub-clean since Sinnoh in fact, and dub-tv-dependent free for 12 years now.

A certain someone on this message board may know of the source im referring too, but I don't want to link to anything, but it should all be out in front of you ^_-
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Old 02-19-2016, 01:53 AM   #243
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Spoiler: show
It looks like Serena may be entering the Master Class soon! This obviously is the equivalent to the Grand Festival. Nifty, huh?March 17th: XY&Z019 - The Master Class Begins! A Maidens' Fight Where Sparks Fly!!

Last edited by AK2; 02-19-2016 at 01:55 AM. Reason: Testing
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Old 02-19-2016, 11:43 PM   #244
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Yaaay! Serena in the the Master Class!!!!
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Old 02-21-2016, 12:13 AM   #245
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Pokémon XYZ

So this morning I watched the premier of Pokémon XYZ of Cartoon Network. Really awesome!!! I'm obviously not going to give any spoilers because you guys can just watch it yourselves, but- let me just say- for some reason, I thought the very end of the episode was pretty cool. And not the mention the new theme! God I was so looking forward to a new theme.

Anyway, did you guys watch the first episode? If so, did you like it?
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Old 02-21-2016, 12:36 AM   #246
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While I did not see it myself, and I'm sure there are people here willing to discuss it with you, this topic is a little redundant as we already have a Pokemon XY thread (which includes XYZ), but a more appropriate place to discuss the dub might be the Pokemon sub-forum.

Also, if you don't want to spoil anything but still want to talk about it or just to get your feelings out about it, feel free to use spoiler tags. All you need to do is this:

[spoiler*] Insert spoiler here [/spoiler*] , without the *.


*pretends to have mod powers to move the thread*
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Old 02-21-2016, 09:08 AM   #247
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Let's just do this instead!
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:59 AM   #248
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XY was nice, I want to see more character developement for Eurika, Jessie and James on XY&Z, I hope Eurika and Citron stay for the next adventures after Kalos League, I don't mind if Serena leaves, she's very very childish in my opinion..
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Old 05-04-2016, 12:08 PM   #249
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I'm through Episode 020 of XY&Z now. I haven't posted here in a while, mostly due to lack of time and motivation. But with an ounce of each right now, I'll go ahead and offer a general status update from when we last talked.

I've been enjoying XY&Z okay so far. As someone in the center, it feels like the two most vocal camps are the poles -- those who think it's the best season ever and those who think it's the worst season ever -- and that the rest of us are keeping quiet. I would be lying if I claimed that my enjoyment of the series is as high as it was when I was regularly making weekly posts with pictures in the early days of XY. But I don't see the doom and gloom that so many apparently do. I think the season is overall stronger than Johto and (what I have seen of) Hoenn. I would compare it, both favorably and disfavorably, with the second half of Unova.

Serena: (spoilers through Episode 20 of XY&Z)

Spoiler: show
I'm pretty disappointed that ShoPro decided to go with Choice C:
  1. Serena becomes the Kalos Queen; she can't continue to journey with Ash because she has responsibilities as the Queen.
  2. Serena fails to become the Kalos Queen on this first attempt; she continues her journey with Ash, on into the next region. Especially if the new region is Kalos's next-door neighbor, and we're continuing to explore Kalos's history.
  3. Serena fails to become the Kalos Queen on this first attempt. She also discontinues her journey with Ash when it comes time for Ash to leave Kalos.
This entire time, I've been expecting it to be either A or B. C was always there as an option, of course, but I never really gave it much thought. Even now, I'm a little shocked that they decided to go with it. Serena is such a popular character with the anime's regular viewers that if you were to going to write her out of the show the most acceptable way would've been to have her be hog-tied to Kalos by social obligations as its new performance queen. Having her lose like this, only to make a promise to Yashio that {the specifics voiced in the episode} ... it just reeks of real-world, out-of-universe consequences for her and the other characters. "We're going to have Serena part ways with Ash at the end of Kalos because that's what we've done ever since Hoenn. But we're not going to give her the boot just yet, even though the timing would be pretty perfect right now for her in-universe character, because out-of-universe we want and need her to stick around to cheer Ash on at the league and have a tearful farewell as he heads out from France." It's like ... why would Serena not simply begin training with Yashio at this point? If she's willing to part ways with Ash ever, then she has no reason to not part now. If instead she's like, "No! Ash is my honey bunny and I'm not leaving his side!", then like ... how do you justify that she'd dump him just to train with an old bird for several months to years? She came this far through self-teaching alone. While I think she could use the help that Yashio has to offer, Serena is so attached to Ash that it's hard to imagine her not rationalizing that she can learn all she needs to learn by simply continuing on her journey with him. In fact, it's hard not to reason that Serena would find the idea of traveling with Ash to a new country irresistible. "Maybe there I can learn new techniques, meet new friends, hone my craft ..."

I dunno ... I'm just unhappy that Serena is all but confirmed to be written out of the show come the end of the year. I was really hoping she'd be our first multi-region female traveling companion since Misty, and that ShoPro might quit teasing and actually turn this Ash x Serena pairing into something more. But I suppose that, having stubbornly decided that they're never having Ash grow up, they're doing the right thing here: they know that it's already starting to get old that Serena clearly likes Ash but Ash stupidly doesn't see or misinterprets the signs, and so they've decided to have her leave at the end of Kalos instead of having her become the next Brock, i.e. the next pony whose trick we all once loved but all grew tired of when it went on for too long.

Ash: AK2 is optimistic that he'll go as far as the finals this time. I don't think he'll make it past the quarterfinals; and given how Unova went, even that could be too optimistic. But we'll see.

XY&Z's Zygarde plot: I'm honestly not too happy with this. The execution was poisoned from the start, I fear. I didn't like the differences between Anime Lysandre and Video Game Lysandre. I disliked (and now hate) Eureka's role in all of this. I don't think Squishy is an interesting character, and I'm not too interested in his greater forms either. It's kind of sad, but for me the best episodes in this story arc have typically been the ones farthest removed from the XY&Z plot. Like Serena's subplot with the Tripokalons. Or like a number of filler episodes that I enjoyed more than most.

XY&Z's Ash-Greninja plot: From where I am in the story, the jury is still too out on this one for me to be able to weigh in. I'm generally still not a fan, since I think it's silly that a Pokémon would take on the likeness of its human trainer whether undergoing normal evolution or mega evolution or burst evolution or what have you. But contradictorily I'm able to enjoy the idea of a Pokémon taking on the likeness of its trainer too. And I've always loved gijinkas, and the idea of Pokémon turning human, and the idea of humans turning into Pokémon, all sorts of ideas that relate somewhat to Ash-Greninja, so ... I guess you could sum it up by saying that 1) I'm conflicted ^^; and 2) my opinions are subject to change.

The fandom seems divided right now between those who think Sun and Moon will pursue burst evolution, which appears to be the manga-derived term for when a human mega evolves into a part-human part-Pokémon fusion, and those who do not. I'm mostly doubtful that Game Freak would do this, but as for whether I think it's a lovely or a horrible idea, again, my opinions seem to fluctuate. On the one hand I think it's silly and dumb and very Digimon-y, and I can understand the many fans who claim that they'll boycott Gen 7 if burst evolution becomes canon. But on the other hand I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested to see an exploration of the topic. I don't want it to be like what the manga was -- in the manga, actual Pokémon are trapped inside of crystals and doomed to spend the rest of their lives there as catalysts for a human to burst evolve -- but the idea of a human trainer and a max-happiness Pokémon undergoing a fusion mega evolution where they become half-human half-Pokémon ... I dunno, I simultaneously think it's stupid and exhilarating. We'll see.

I don't think it's the right fit for the canon games though, perhaps I can safely say. It feels like something best reserved for a fanfic or (at its most official) a spin-off game like Pokémon Ranger.

And the more the years pass, the more I find myself disliking that humans are even part of the discussion period with Pokémon. Which again is kinda contradictory to some of the thoughts and feelings expressed above. But like ... I really, really like how the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series handled it. I really wish that Pokémon were a world of magical creatures -- just magical creatures -- who could all talk, think, and behave like humans do. I realize it goes against a lot of fans' headcanons for the core franchise, and that a lot of people like the idea of Pokémon as being no more intelligent than house cats and other non-primates, but I dunno ... I really like PMD's take on things, and burst evolution would take us in the opposite direction of that, locking humans into the equation as being "ultimately important to the formation of the strongest warrior" instead of writing them out as completely unnecessary and quite frankly a nuisance that's in the way of good story writing.

If anyone would like to discuss episodes up through 21 (which I'll be watching shortly), feel free to engage me on those topics. I'm not going to provide essay-style posts for any of the episodes between last time and now, and going forward I can't promise more essay-style posts either. It's just going to be a lot more general and stream-of-consciousness, I think, like this post sort of was. I don't have the time to talk into the void and get no feedback, so if anyone here wants to know my thoughts on specific people, places, or events in the anime universe, you're going to have to be the one to bear the burden of initiating contact. Sorry not sorry.
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Old 05-04-2016, 12:25 PM   #250
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Double post. I had a few specific things I wanted to touch on, that felt like they didn't mesh with the more general discussion above.

1. I was really impressed by the depiction of Jessie's Gourgeist's Leech Seed. My impression of Leech Seed goes back to Bulbasaur vs. Venonat in Koga's gym, so to see a "leech seed" here that is more like a series of beanstalks from Jack & the Beanstalk ... it was pretty wild!

2. AK2 says that most of the people he's heard from on YouTube or elsewhere felt that (Episode 20 spoilers)

Spoiler: show
Serena got screwed out of a deserving win and that Elle turned in the inferior performance. I strongly disagree. Before I even talked with AK2 on the topic, I was strongly convinced by what we saw in XY&Z 020 that Elle deserved to hold onto her title as Kalos Queen. For me, the pinnacle of her performance -- and also one of the strongest counterarguments to the critics' reasoning -- is the part where she sort of dons Vivillon backpack-style and flies around the stage as though she is a gijinka Vivillon. She was gorgeous and the scene was spectacular. I could go into more depth but it's okay. For now, suffice it to say that I have always thought Elle did better than Serena in the finals.

3. I thought the Binacle episode was a pretty solid filler. Told AK2 I'd give it a 7 and maybe even an 8 out of 10. He informs me that the the fandom felt differently. He thought it was torture. Shrug. I liked it for what it was.

4. Pretty excited to see one of the upcoming episodes. (Without spoiling others who might not know of it, all I'll say is the codeword "clothes.")

5. Speaking of the Binacle episode -- 99% certain that the voice actor who voiced the old man is a really famous, established voice actor. I recognize his voice, I am positive of it. But I don't know his name. And have procrastinated looking back at the episode's credits to see who he is. Anyway, 99% certain that it was another awesome cameo from veteran voice actors.
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