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A Curry-zy Beautiful Battle! The Dance of Lurantis! (978)

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
Has Rotom ever translated pokemon speech? Its always seemed like it lost the ability to understand other pokemon when it became the Rotom dex. Heck, it itself rarely even speaks as if it is a pokemon, even though other characters refer to it as one.
I don't recall them saying anything about him losing the ability to understand other pokemon. So if the writers wanted to pull this off, it's not like they couldn't, even if they haven't done it before.

That's not really what i wanted though. I just want the totem battles to last longer than 7~8 min, but apparently that would be awful because there'd be no dialogue.
 

Satomine Night

The Power of Z!
You'd be surprised by how much you can express without saying words. Some of the best animations i've ever seen had no dialogue at all.
I didn't say anything about words. I'm well aware that a lot can be expressed without words. However, expression usually requires features one can use to make those expressions, and as I pointed out in my earlier post, Lurantis lacks a visible mouth, and a lot can be expressed with the mouth. The only facial feature Lurantis has with which to express emotions is its giant eyes (and it did have a "Oh crap" look in its eyes when Litten used Breakneck Blitz).
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
What I don't get is why people think Castform did anything more than Lurantis outside of the form change.

All it did was appear turn into its sunny form, fired off a couple water guns, and that was basically it.

I don't recall any insane strategies or tactics that would make Castform stand out. Sure it was hilarious that Castform was sunny form and used water gun since I think a comment suggested that wouldn't happen even though Litten was battling.

But technically I think Lurantis was more impressive simply because it was so huge.

At worst they were equal, but neither really was better than the other. The reason why Lurantis probably wasn't actively moving was obviously because of Solar Blade it was probably the only thing it could do to test challengers.

Unlike say Gumshoos had a lot better chance of using other strategies and tactics. Maybe a smaller Lurantis would've worked better for battling purposes, but I don't think this was supposed to be the equivalent of a gym leader battle. Just a really tough otherwise battle.

I guess we should wait for other trials before deciding, because Wishiwashi wasn't really all that impressive either, its possibly they (the writers) don't want Totem Pokemon to be powerful, if they really are testing to see if a trainer deserves another Z-crystal or not.

That being said even if Gumshoos was more impressive, Lurantis was definitely stronger, Pikachu beat Gumshoos without a Z-move, Ash beat Lurantis with one. Sure you could argue Pikachu > Litten or rather Thunderbolt > Breakneck Blitz, but I don't know if Pikachu would've done anything as impressive until either Gigavolt Havoc or Breakneck Blitz was used.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
I had no clue you guys would dislike the battle this much. I thought the battle relied more the strength of teamwork and how it can turn a battle around in your favor than being seen as that much of a strong threat. Grass Pokémon aren't that strong to begin with. I loved seeing Litten getting a bite out of Lurantis and using a Z move for the first time! And can we please acknowledge Rockruff's helpful nose before he/she starts acting up. The one thing I an say about using Z moves is that yes it does end the battle with a bang but having it be seen as a 1 shot hit KO to end the battle seems rather... boring. I hope Ash doesn't start to depend on Z moves as the way to only end a battle.

Also, I really liked the dream Ash had and how we learned that the girls and boys have separate rooms (obviously. :p) I also really enjoyed the mishaps that Ash and Mao chan got into, I thought that it was creative and so like them to get into some mess they got themselves into. I mean isn't that what happens when you're adventuring? ;) It's also really funny on how their cheeks got bloated by the vegetable Pokémon's scent, it definitely wasn't sweet. :p It's really cool that the writers are using the Totem Pokémon in different ways like the Raticate Totem Pokémon was causing havoc in the town by eating up the fruits, Gumshoos became Officer Jenny's partner, the Totem Pokémon Wishiwashi School Form was handled by the strong willed Lady Lana, and Ash and Mallow have been led to the Totem Lurantis in disguise as a curry ingredient hunt by Olivia on purpose.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
I didn't say anything about words. I'm well aware that a lot can be expressed without words. However, expression usually requires features one can use to make those expressions, and as I pointed out in my earlier post, Lurantis lacks a visible mouth, and a lot can be expressed with the mouth. The only facial feature Lurantis has with which to express emotions is its giant eyes (and it did have a "Oh crap" look in its eyes when Litten used Breakneck Blitz).

I don't think Lurantis is that expressionless just because it doesn't have a mouth. It still has a very expressive body that can express grace and power, and can be quite intimidating in general. Anyway, the body expression was just an example, they can still convey feelings through music, effects, lighting and etc...

This whole discussion is becoming quite absurd to me tbh. I can't see how Lurantis not having a mouth justifies totem battles not lasting longer
 
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Satomine Night

The Power of Z!
I don't think Lurantis is that expressionless just because it doesn't have a mouth. It still has a very expressive body that can express grace and power, and can be quite intimidating in general. Anyway, the body expression was just an example, they can still convey feelings through music, effects, lighting and etc...

This whole discussion is becoming quite absurd to me tbh. I can't see how Lurantis not having a mouth justifies totem battles not lasting longer
I never said Lurantis not having a mouth justified Totem battles not lasting longer. This whole discussion started with you saying that the animators could have made the Totem Pokémon convey its feelings through its facial expressions and body language, to make up for the lack of dialogue. My pointing out that the animators are a little limited in Lurantis's facial expressions due to the giant mantis's lack of a visible mouth was my disagreeing with you while also poking fun at Lurantis's design (in my original post).
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
I never said Lurantis not having a mouth justified Totem battles not lasting longer. This whole discussion started with you saying that the animators could have made the Totem Pokémon convey its feelings through its facial expressions and body language, to make up for the lack of dialogue. My pointing out that the animators are a little limited in Lurantis's facial expressions due to the giant mantis's lack of a visible mouth was my disagreeing with you while also poking fun at Lurantis's design (in my original post).

You're focusing on a small part of my post where i gave an example and acting like the entire point of the discussion was about Lurantis' body expressions and not how long the totem lasted.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
And who the heck cares about how expressive Lurantis can be based on body parts, lighting, colors, and such. I mean really.

I admire that they drew fingernails in some scenes and made small details like Turtonator and Alolan Marowak eating competitively at the end or a Pokémon like Litten and Castform reacting differently when it tasted one of the ingredients after the battle.
 

mehmeh1

Not thinking twice!
Liked the fight (though lurantis was kinda static), but they should've given mallow her own episode
 

Ryu Taylor

Unwavering beliefs. Richter Taylor is my name now.
That theme has been used in 3 episodes. BAD MIMA. Batman theme from the dub has been used in every episode. GOD BLESS GOPAL. (The dub only has like 8 themes that play in each in every episode, Batman, laundry, elevator, chase...).

I was right, then. Mima did bust that one out again, not realizing its welcome has been worn out. See, unlike many of the dub tracks, "We'll Fight Too!" was not composed to be stock music. Many dub tracks have been, hence why I can excuse their abundant reuses. And for that matter, the regional battle themes adapted from the games can be reused all they want as those were meant to be stock, too. The movie music was not, and the sooner Mima learns that, the better.

Plus, I must say it's pretty amazing how I know how the JP version functions even though I'm not even watching it anymore (yeah, I'm still in Japan as I post this, but I purposely skipped the episode yesterday; don't need JP episodes taking a huge **** on my summer vacation to add to the one M20 already took on it). I just took a completely wild guess and turned out to be right.
 

Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
I was right, then. Mima did bust that one out again, not realizing its welcome has been worn out. See, unlike many of the dub tracks, "We'll Fight Too!" was not composed to be stock music. Many dub tracks have been, hence why I can excuse their abundant reuses. And for that matter, the regional battle themes adapted from the games can be reused all they want as those were meant to be stock, too. The movie music was not, and the sooner Mima learns that, the better.

Plus, I must say it's pretty amazing how I know how the JP version functions even though I'm not even watching it anymore (yeah, I'm still in Japan as I post this, but I purposely skipped the episode yesterday). I just took a completely wild guess and turned out to be right.
I guess you don't know how to count then, because they haven't used that theme in today's episode.
 

Ryu Taylor

Unwavering beliefs. Richter Taylor is my name now.
I guess you don't know how to count then, because they haven't used that theme in today's episode.

I see. About time Mima showed some restraint.

I've only heard 2 of those 3 uses wastes (Ash vs. Hala, Everyone but Ash vs. Pallosand), so I don't know where else he wasted that track.
 

Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
I see. About time Mima showed some restraint.

I've only heard 2 of those 3 uses wastes (Ash vs. Hala, Everyone but Ash vs. Pallosand), so I don't know where else he wasted that track.
I guess it's bad for them to use movie tracks in the anime but it's good for the dub to use anime tracks in the movies (in the GGG era, of course).

I'm stopping this here because I don't want another dumb discussion in a thread that has nothing to do with it.
 
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Akkipeddi

All set to be a nice guy
Oh no, it is not that i thought Gumshoos battle was awful, but rather short. IMO totem battles have the potential to be just as exciting as gym battles (or maybe even more), since totem pokemon are stronger than normal pokemon and some of them can bring down entire teams. If they made the battle last longer it would seem like the totem pokemon was more resilient.

The series doesn't have that many battles, so it makes me really sad that the totem battle only lasts around 8 minutes which isn't even half of the episode.

Tbh, while I agree that the time allocated to the Totems have been fairly short, I don't think that's the main issue. As the Totem Gumshoos episode proved, while it wasn't long, the battle itself was fast paced and well done. My problem since then has simply been that the quality of the battles have been lacking. Whatever short amount of time was allocated to this Totem Lurantis battle was fine, but they could have come up with a much better battle than what we got.

Oh and I find the reason for Totem Lurantis not moving due to being huge in a small Jungle setting really absurd. Not that the anime always follows the games, but the ironic thing is that Totem Lurantis got a +1 in speed out of all things in the games, while the anime made it seem like it was literally caged given it didn't move a muscle. Even Snorlax and Turtonator being behemoths have moved.
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
Even Snorlax and Turtonator being behemoths have moved.

Are people ignoring that Snorlax and Turtonator actually had space to open.

Sure a whale in an ocean is going to move fine, but a whale in a bathtub is obviously going to have problem.

Having seen the episode, I think it makes sense that Lurantis could not move due to its size and the surrounding area.

It would be trying to fight a Snorlax in a broom closet for example.

If Lurantis had used a move like leaf blade (if it can learn that move), it's very likely that Lurantis forward movement would have caused it to most likely cut a tree down since there was that much space to move within.

On top of that Lurantis didn't even support such a moveset that encourages movement to begin with: Solar Blade, "Synthesis/I think" Petal Blizzard, sure it was missing a move (I think) but I doubt it would've made a difference. Being so big with Solar Blade, Lurantis didn't even need to move as much. Petal Blizzard (if that's what that was) seemed to have been used for opponents that got too close to it.

Now if Lurantis had been normal size I definitely would agree the battle would have been bad.

But there was nothing at all that would've supported Lurantis to move around all that much, it specifically required a different "strategy/tactic" given its surrounding area.

Just like if a whale in a bathtub is going to do something different than a whale in an ocean, or fighting Snorlax in a broom closet is going to be different than fighting a Snorlax in a living room and even further outside.
 

i2i

Big Bad Wolf
What I don't get is why people think Castform did anything more than Lurantis outside of the form change.

All it did was appear turn into its sunny form, fired off a couple water guns, and that was basically it.

I don't recall any insane strategies or tactics that would make Castform stand out. Sure it was hilarious that Castform was sunny form and used water gun since I think a comment suggested that wouldn't happen even though Litten was battling.

But technically I think Lurantis was more impressive simply because it was so huge.

At worst they were equal, but neither really was better than the other. The reason why Lurantis probably wasn't actively moving was obviously because of Solar Blade it was probably the only thing it could do to test challengers.

Unlike say Gumshoos had a lot better chance of using other strategies and tactics. Maybe a smaller Lurantis would've worked better for battling purposes, but I don't think this was supposed to be the equivalent of a gym leader battle. Just a really tough otherwise battle.

I guess we should wait for other trials before deciding, because Wishiwashi wasn't really all that impressive either, its possibly they (the writers) don't want Totem Pokemon to be powerful, if they really are testing to see if a trainer deserves another Z-crystal or not.

That being said even if Gumshoos was more impressive, Lurantis was definitely stronger, Pikachu beat Gumshoos without a Z-move, Ash beat Lurantis with one. Sure you could argue Pikachu > Litten or rather Thunderbolt > Breakneck Blitz, but I don't know if Pikachu would've done anything as impressive until either Gigavolt Havoc or Breakneck Blitz was used.

Didn't Castform use Sunny Day so Lurantis can use Solar Blade without charging first.
 

TheScentedApple

Well-Known Member
Going back over the episode, Solarblade hit all of one times and with the sun still being up whilst Lurantis using Synthesis, that would mean 3/4 of Lurantis' hp would have been replenished and then Litten fires off the Z-move, so unless Litten is like lvl 45 or something with Breakneck Blitz Scratch theres no way that should have one shot because thats basically what happened. Also Lurantis could have easily had no aura, it doesnt move at all, its like that tapping head meme, You dont need a +2 Speed Aura if you dont move, *taps head*
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
Wow, so much hatred in this thread, even though the episode wasn't that bad at all. Yeah, Lurantis could've moved a bit more, I guess that's not its battle style though. Venusaur never moves in battles either. The crowdedness of the forest is no excuse to me, Lurantis lives there and is a forest pokémon, it should have adapted somehow. Sceptile is also big but it can still move a lot in dense forests. People say Mallow should've done more, which makes me wonder what role they think she should've played in this episode. This was Ash's trial, not hers. You don't get complaints that Serena didn't do anything in the episodes with Ash's gym battles either. The battle could've been longer, but I think it was fine. As opposed to gym battles this battle was only against Lurantis and Castform, in most gym battles the leader has several pokémon so you change up the match-up every couple of minutes, and filling close to 20 minutes on the same match-up is a bit excessive I think, there's only so much you can do before it gets stale. I like that they dedicated the first half of the episode to gathering ingredients similar to what happens in the games.

I think some people here are also too focused on the game mechanics, even though the anime never power scales the move strengths exactly like that. The anime is more plot-driven than numbers-driven, and it always has been, that's why Greninja could still get away with using Cut at the league last season.
 

TheScentedApple

Well-Known Member
Wow, so much hatred in this thread, even though the episode wasn't that bad at all. Yeah, Lurantis could've moved a bit more, I guess that's not its battle style though. Venusaur never moves in battles either. The crowdedness of the forest is no excuse to me, Lurantis lives there and is a forest pokémon, it should have adapted somehow. Sceptile is also big but it can still move a lot in dense forests. People say Mallow should've done more, which makes me wonder what role they think she should've played in this episode. This was Ash's trial, not hers. You don't get complaints that Serena didn't do anything in the episodes with Ash's gym battles either. The battle could've been longer, but I think it was fine. As opposed to gym battles this battle was only against Lurantis and Castform, in most gym battles the leader has several pokémon so you change up the match-up every couple of minutes, and filling close to 20 minutes on the same match-up is a bit excessive I think, there's only so much you can do before it gets stale. I like that they dedicated the first half of the episode to gathering ingredients similar to what happens in the games.

Considering Mallow has had all of 2 focus episodes with only an evolution to an under-developed Pokemon to her name, we wanted her to get a capture here, Fomantis being the most likely and also after Steenee's evolution battle it hasn't actually battled again, so this episode could've shown us Magical Leaf or something, it didn't have to just sit there when diglett attacked, it's perfectly capable of slapping the heck out of it as well. The only reason I have a problem with the battle is the fact Lurantis used synthesis in the sun, if it hadn't I'd probably be in a completely different position.
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
Considering Mallow has had all of 2 focus episodes with only an evolution to an under-developed Pokemon to her name, we wanted her to get a capture here, Fomantis being the most likely and also after Steenee's evolution battle it hasn't actually battled again, so this episode could've shown us Magical Leaf or something, it didn't have to just sit there when diglett attacked, it's perfectly capable of slapping the heck out of it as well. The only reason I have a problem with the battle is the fact Lurantis used synthesis in the sun, if it hadn't I'd probably be in a completely different position.

That's a fair point. Mallow hasn't really done all that much. I guess they figured making it into a capture episode would've made the episode a bit cramped, as they wanted to focus the episode on the trial, and a lot of capture episodes tend to have a good amount of focus on the new pokémon (Charjabug aside). I do agree they need to do more with Mallow in the overall series, but I don't think this was the ideal episode to fit a capture in for her.
 
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