The Great Butler

Butler, how good are the chances that Giovanni and/or Zager will have a good role in Episode N?

Butler, why do you think we're getting a two week skip after the episode on December 20th (with the next episode airing on January 10th rather than January 3rd)?

This has happened twice before, in 2006 and 2007, but only because 2 episodes were aired on the last day before the Christmas week. But we're supposedly only getting 1 (the Hydregion one) here. Do you think the TR Kids' Station event that's going on in that same week has something to do with it?

Can you believe the Sinnoh stans and how beserk they're going in the Ash accomplishments thread?

Yeah, you've got a good point. If Ash lost after using Pikachu, Leavanny, Pignite and Krookodile, I would be more upset. But yeah, this League was messed up and rushed. I hope Episode N is an improvement.

It's such an insult to the fans though because Ash was able to beat the Junior Cup winner during the League, he was able to beat the Clubsplosion winner during the League but he LOST TO KOTETSU!? What were these writers thinking?

Kotetsu beats Ash. The name of the final League episode is "Unova League Conclusion! Pikachu vs Luccario!" If Ash won and went on to face Virgil, they would have gave it a different title like "Unova League Conclusion! Pikachu vs Eevee!" It's clear Ash loses to Kotetsu then Kotetsu loses to Virgil in a battle. Even if Ash wins, his battle with Virgil will be extremely short and rushed. This League was a mess all around.

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Hilariously, some genius troll on the day last month when 3.0 came out slipped in a fake spoiler that Mari is the daughter of Shinji and Asuka from the future/alternate timeline of the original series.
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Lol! How could anyone believe that; how would that make any sense?

....Wait, what am I saying? It's Anno, of course people would believe it might happen.


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I just think it's utterly glorious that Anno figured out a way to first raise the hopes of the fans he hates - with the ending of 2.22 - only to completely annihilate it with the sequel and then rub it in with the "Curse of Eva."
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I think I know what you're talking about (Shinji saves Rei except it turns out he didn't) but could you elaborate? And what's with the "Curse of Eva"?


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They say that the writers of Pokemon are Eva fans. I wish that actually was reflected in it more than just Paul and Reggie's Japanese names.
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Georgia's Japanese name ("Langley") may have been a reference too, given that the character is an arrogant, red-haired female tsundere.

I actually never knew that the Rocketshippers blamed Meowth as well for Jessie and James not getting together until Matori told me earlier today. So basically you can't even say Rocketshippers are fans of the TRio as a whole. I don't get those Rocketshippers. I really don't.

This is one of those times where I wouldn't mind being trolled XD Plus, I'd love to see the look on the Rocketshippers' faces!

Butler, that Meowth Balloon could just be to tie in with all the Meowth merchandise and advertising they have going around. It may leave after one episode.

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not to mention from that angle, you can't really tell if they actually are in the balloon or not - their Pokemon certainly are, so they could be crouching in the basket.
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I really don't think so. Why would they be crouching, and I'm sure that if they were then we'd still see some of them when the deflated balloon shot upward.


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-This is what I'm going to do: If they're like how they were in the beginning of BW - at least semi-serious but hinting at something bigger - I'll cautiously give it more time. If they're still serious, I'll eat crow and accept it. But if I give it five episodes and I see them acting like brain-dead idiots (which makes Dogasu's remarks about lobotomies hilariously backward), disturbing boss fantasies, Amoonguss gassing James and like such nonsense, I'm finished. The only times I'll watch again are when Ghetsis and Colress appear.
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That sounds good. I'll be dissapointed (SEVERELY dissapointed) if you're right and they are idiots again, but I'll still stick with BW to the end, mainly just because it shouldn't be that long to go (after all, it should only be 20 or 30 something episodes). Oh, and yeah, I too HATE Dogasu's constant "lobotomized" statements and all the crap he says about BW Team Rocket. He needs to stick with calling them "robots", because he obviously doesn't know what a lobotomy really is. If the TRio was lobotomized, they'd act alot more like they did in AG and DP than they do in BW.


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I have seen plenty of Asuka VS. Rei shipping wars
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Which I have never understood. Who Shinji ends up with is the least of his concerns, does it really matter if he's romantically together with anyone?

I mean, if asked I'd lean toward Asuka (because Rei's true nature makes romance with Shinji creepy), but I honestly don't care, and I don't believe the ending of "End of Evangelion" even counted as it happening between them.

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You forgot that when they had a balloon and were serious at the beginning of BW, it was a generic black balloon with an R on it, not that nightmarish monstrosity.
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Yeah, and they were in black uniforms back then too. Switching back to white didn't make them idiots, bringing back the Meowth hot air balloon (which may not even show up again afterward given that they seem to be in a different machine in that screencap from the Episode N press release) likely won't either.


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The fact it's getting popped, presumably by Unfezant, in the exact same identical way it got popped in previous series just drives it home even more.
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And again I point out that if you watch the clip, they aren't in the balloon anymore when it's popped and deflating. I'm pretty sure they'll be jetpacking out of there.


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I hope I'm completely wrong about that, but if that's all this arc ends up being, I'm finally dropping the show.
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That's what you said prior to Operation Tempest, when you were convinced it was going to be a total wreck. And, while it was far from perfect, it turned out not being bad at all. Let's just be patient and wait. If things DO turn out as bad as you fear, then you can by all means drop the show. I already dropped it back in Johto, then playing catch-up occasionally throughout AG and DP, and often being severely underwhelmed. BW brought me fully back again.


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a fandom that actually challenges Evangelion's for sheer levels of cancer.
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Well, I'll certainly agree with you there, sadly enough. Just look at the fan response on here. It's all "it's such a step down from older sagas!" and "it's terrible because the writers try to do different things and don't do what I expect of them!" I hope you're wrong and that Episode N doesn't go the way of Trip......

So, what do you think about Amoonguss, Frillish(F), the writers playing Rocket-Dan Forever during the preview, and the Meowth Balloon?

I'm seriously trying to stay optimistic that this will be a game chager for Pokemon but seeing that balloon again and seeing it popped like old days isn't helping much. I really really really hope that this isn't a sign of TR returning back to idiots. This seriously has the potential to be one of the best arcs in Pokemon if done right but they need to keep TR serious, they need to bring in Giovanni and Zager to fight Plasma, they need to develop N, Ash and his friends, and they need to give Plasma a large role. Will they do this though? Probably not. The Kids' Show excuse that some people use has got to stop though. I have seen a few anime shows. Two of them were Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon. They are shows for kids but they were able to do dark things, add depth and development. Why can't Pokemon? It's frustrating. If they screw Episode N up, I will not be happy at all.

Butler, what do you think of the new Episode N trailer. Did it please you or bother you?

Well, we got Team Plasma, but no skipped episode annoucement. I guess we really ARE just gonna have to wait until Dec. 19 - 21. Sigh.....

Also, I'm in before you start fretting about TR being reset to idiots. It's just one Meowth hot-air balloon. That's it. One that TR don't seem to even be in anymore when it's popped. They aren't shown looking or acting goofy in those scenes at all (they actually still looks serious), so I really think the people saying "old TR is back!" are crying wolf like they did back when BW025 aired.

Yeah, the new set is great. There were a lot of avatars I was actually considering getting but this Giovanni one really stuck out to me. And since I already had a Zager one for so long and never had a Giovanni one, I chose this one.

Butler, you chose the new Zager avatar! Awesome!

Thanks! I'm not really planning on staying, just posting this fic I forgot to finish posting and going back to the boring business reporting I do now!

I hope so too since, again, if the skipped episodes aren't announced this Thursday then I'm pretty much certain that annoucing them is the real purpose behind that Team Rocket three-day Kids Station event, and I will really hate having to wait two whole weeks for that. Though I still will be happy if just Team Plasma is shown in animated form this Thursday so that the people denying their presence will finally STFU.

Seriously, the main reason these fans keep denying Team Plasma will appear is that they've become so stuck on the idea that Team Plasma were "Porygon'd" after the two-parter got postponed, and that an entire story arc planned out for them got scrapped as a result. But that's not true. Team Rocket, now that they've become serious villains, was always going to be the evil team appearing occasionally throughout Ash's badge quest; complete with a pre-League finale where the evil team leader controls some Legendaries. I'm pretty damn sure that N and Team Plasma having their arc occur after the League and up till the very end of BW was planned from the start. The postponing of the 2-parter may have caused some small changes, but nothing THAT big. People who bash BW by saying that "it could have been better, but the pulling of TR vs. TP changed how the entire show was supposed to go!" are full of it.