This has to be my least favorite gym battle so far in Unova.
There were some great moments, and funny moments like Ash leaving the gym in the middle of the battle. But everything else was just nauseatingly bad.
- Palpitoad is male. I mean why give it such a feminine voice? I mean it was very feminine in this battle, even more so than it has been in the past few episodes. So yeah, not really cool. But I expected prior to this episode that Palpitoad was male, way to cheapen it here. And I'll get to why this is even worse down the line.
Palpitoad has a feminine voice? Really I mean I know it's nasely but it still seemed pretty masculine to me. Then again I'm a big a NOFX fan and this is purely a matter of opinion.
- Snivy lost. If anyone should've lost it should've been the rat but I'll get to that it an moment.
Snivy lost because it was at an extreme type disadvantage. Not only was Emolga faster but Ash's plan to use attract failed because he didn't put enough thought into his plan. Seems like a good reason to me.
- Ash was completely and utterly out of character. Whomever wrote this, kindly stay the hell away from gyms from now on. Seriously, I don't care what kind of message you're trying to shove down our throats but honestly you did not need to make Ash do horribly that you had to resort to Cheapchu as your last resort.
That was kind of the point. This episode was almost like a message to the fandom. I mean how long have people complaining about Ash not paying enough attention to type match-ups? This episode proves that Ash's strength lies in his ability to think on his feet not his ability to plan ahead.
- Pikachu.
A)Okay so let me get this straight. Elesa's Emolga isn't male and is female, and yet she didn't use ONE attract on Pikachu at all. What the hell. This is what really irritates me. It's like the writer went "Oh we did the attract thing just to confirm Palpitoad and Emolga's gender" but no sense it using it in a way that might actually cost Ash the entire battle by not using it on Pikachu. It doesn't help any that Elesa just let Pikachu use that OHKO quick attack on Emolga.
So not spamming the same attack is bad writing? There's a number of explanations here. As Trip and Stephen both demonstrated using Attract leaves you wide open for a counter attack. Elesa knew that if she wanted to win she couldn't take chances so rather than rely on cheap trick she decided to go for the kill. Luckily Ash also went for the kill.
B). Pikachu being chosen in this. I mean it's bad enough that Ash is completely and utterly out of character. They really had to bring in Pikachu in all this and make it be the one that smacks Ash upside the head. Roggenrola would've been so much better. Sure it takes 1x damage from electric attacks, but honestly all Tynamo ever did (as far as I saw) was tackle. Ooh Roggenrola is going to be knocked out from a tackle.
Pikachu loves to prove it's strength, and it loves to please Ash too. That should be apparent after all these years. When you combine the two, of course Pikachu is more than willing to battle. It saw it's a trainer in a bind and wanted to help, simple as that. The only reason Ash chose to use Palpitoad over Roggenrolla is because Palpitoad had more battle experience recently.
The only decent match which has it's downsides as well is Palpitoad's battle with Zebstrika. And the only reason why I can't praise it for being the best battle, is because of that stupid close call it had, where it looked like it was knocked out.
So you think that Ash not being able to sweep Elesa's strongest Pokemon is bad writing? -___-
In all of Elesa's years of experience do you really think this is first time someone has tried using a member of the Tympole line against her? It would have been bad writing if Elesa didn't have a strategy against this.
I don't know how this episode that revolved primarily around the gym battle, could have so many things wrong with it. And I can't blame the gym being sucky merely just because of Pikachu. Because there were so many other things wrong with this gym that Pikachu is merely icing on the rotten nasty cake.
Opinion =/= fact. Many of us here enjoyed this battle. Besides everything with you is a flaw somehow. Nothing is ever good enough for you.
Now I didn't watch this is perfect quality, so maybe my irritation primarily stems from the fact I was getting annoyed with the quality not being perfect. So I'm going to reserve final judgement until I can actually see it in better quality. But from what I saw and what I expected, least favorite gym of Unova so far.
Wait? This is you holding back? Holy ****! I'd hate to see you at your worst then. :O
Just because it's justifiable doesn't mean it isn't bad writing. Since when has bad writing been solely associated to apparently been written by someone who only has a small grasp of the language their writing.
Wait what? Not to be a d
ick but I really don't understand the argument you're trying to make. Are you saying the writers are bad because they only know Japanese or what?
The simple fact is, Ash was COMPLETELY out of character, that's why it's bad writing. It's like suddenly Ash gets pissed off at Oshawott for showing up every time and then kicking him (literally) for not waiting to be called.
Again that was the whole point of the episode. I'm glad to hear that didn't go over your head.
Ash shouldn't have been strategizing at all in the freaking first place. I don't know if this was really screw with Ash's character but I'm not buying it. I don't care how he badly he saw Bianca losing, or how bad he lost to Bianca's dad, he still should not have been so indecisive in a way that nearly cost him the match.
In the past you've complained when Ash hasn't been strategizing. And now that he is you have a problem too? I really don't understand you. The message here is to basically play to your strengths and to stop trying to be something you're not. In case you didn't pick up on that.
And we certainly did not need Pikachu to send that message to him, when he should've just done with what he's used to.
And after all these years he's used to using Pikachu. It's his oldest Pokemon and the one with the most training. It even has a type advantage over Emolga so there really was no reason for him not to use Pikachu.
Now had there been any sort of build up to this, sure I would be fine with it. Like Yugioh GX for a moment for a reference. Jaden lost badly to Zane, although he was seemingly close to winning. The next time Jaden battled Zane, he wasn't battling like he usually does and it nearly cost him, since he was "over thinking it" and wasn't playing the game to his best. When he realized this, sure the match ended in a tie, but he was back to himself, and realized he could do it his way just fine, and was the better duelist because of it.
But how does that apply to Ash? He didn't badly lose to Elesa. As far as I can tell there was no reason for him to doubt his own battling method, so much that he had to over think the situation and have it nearly cost him the badge.
But there were plenty of catalysts for Ash's gear shift. Being berated by Trip, Being intimidated after watching Bianca's gym battle, losing to Bianca's Dad, Cilan and Iris putting pressure on him the night before. After all that you'd have to be an idiot not to step back and ask yourself what you're doing wrong in those situations. Unfortunately Ash over thought it. But he managed to pull a win in the end.
So it comes down to, who honestly believes that some of us didn't like this episode just because we "didn't understand it?" Honestly that sounds like a petty counterargument for my opinion. Who says "I didn't understand the meaning" and even if I didn't understand it, what makes it less bad writing, when this episode should not have been written this way in the first place.
Seems like a pretty strong argument to me. You can't appreciate writing if you can't understand it. That's like Helen Keller telling you you're favorite band sucks. What does she know, she can't understand it?
Ash should've went in there with what he wanted to use and won the usual way he does things. He chose Palpitoad because it's a ground type, Ash has instinctively chosen Pokemon that were super effective against the Pokemon in question prior to this so it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could've just had Palpitoad and used it merely because he knew it was a ground type.
And in the end he did that with Pikachu. It works out. So what were you expecting exactly? You just wanted Ash to sweep every single one of Elesa's Pokemon? Not only would that be boring it would be a repeat of his first battle with Wattson. Now THAT would be bad writing.
So it doesn't matter if Ash's indecisiveness is justifiable, it doesn't suddenly change my opinion of the gym, just because the writers apparently wanted to try something new and make Ash look completely out of character. And mostly to make this gym battle last an entire episode, because apparently, they could not fill the entire episode with Ash being normal Ash so they had to throw in some B.S. out of character stuff just to fill out the time.
Yeah but you're too stubborn to listen to reason. Ash OOC behavior was the whole point of the episode. I'm pretty sure this wasn't an attempt to fill out an entire episode. I mean really we've had plenty of those. Hell Ash's last gym battle was like that. I'm all for some variety.
I'm still not sure how this lasted twenty two minutes, when it really did come off as incredibly rushed and the battles didn't seem that long at all. I mean I usually underestimate how much content can be shoved in the span of a single episode, but for this episode it seems I overestimated how much content can be in an episode, because this episode felt really empty. Edit: Though the quality of the way I saw the episode might have something to do with why it felt so empty.
This episode wasn't rushed, you're just impossible to please.
Oh so because originally some people didn't know Japanese suddenly they should initially be okay with Ash's match with Liza and Tate, or they should accept the battle Pikachu's against Regice.
Some people enjoyed those episodes. Just because you hated it dosen't mean everyone else did.
Even people who speak Japanese said those matches suck, so what in the hell does knowing the language have anything to do with how one perceives an episode based on what you can. A person with an angry face visually beating the crap out of someone, pretty much says that person is pissed and hates the person he is beating. You really do not do understand the Russian words coming out of his mouth saying "I hate you, I hate you" when it's pretty damn obvious that there is no love between the two.
Now that's a bit of a fallacy. At the time of writing this the only Japanese poster I've seen here is Elekible-Kid and their seemed pretty adamant about enjoying the episode. So...yeah.
Understanding what a character is doing in an episode is only half of the experience. In order to really enjoy the episode you need to understand the character's motivations that's the other half of the experience. That's the basic rule of writing.
You're argument only works when people are bored of dialogue heavy episodes. There was enough visual clues to know exactly what was happening. It's pretty damn clear cut obvious what's happening. You know maybe I could've initially missed the "Pikachu made Ash realize he shouldn't be overthinking things" possibly, but it was pretty clear cut that Ash was strategizing, and it wasn't exactly working for him. But it's pretty obvious that Pikachu snapped Ash out of his indecisiveness.
See the above point.
But you still seem to think that your explanation is somehow going to make the episode better for me, why would it? It's still completely out of character for Ash to sit down, think of way to beat a gym leader, and then be so indecisive or messed up during the battle.
But being OOC was IC. It's natural for someone like to Ash to question his usual methods given the aforementioned pre-cursors.
I'm sorry but I don't recall Ash ever pausing in the middle of a battle to get a Pokemon he thinks that can actually defeat the opponent like what just happened. Ash has ALWAYS stuck with the Pokemon he had chosen prior to the match.
Again that was the point.
So it is mind boggling that you think that not liking what happened had anything to with understanding the language being spoke. It's pretty damn clear what happened.
It's mind boggling the way you do your mental gymnastics to convince yourself that your opinion = fact.
What is there something specific you want to point out to me, that I'm apparently wrong about?
Quite a few things actually.
I didn't like it because, I'm sure people will claim that Palpitoad's win against Zebstrika was purely just to give it a win, and it's sudden endurance being DEM or something to that effect.
Well even in game Palpitoad are pretty bulky (that dosen't apply to grass attacks). Plus it took two attacks that it was double resistant to and two weak attacks that did neutral damage. Nothing unusual about that.
We already know Pikachu's gender, so that's not a good argument.
...And that's relevant why?
If you hate everything about this show, then why do you bother watching? In all my years, honestly I can't ever remember seeing you post about something you like. It makes no sense honestly. And it only serves to annoy the people here. Honestly you're starting to make me miss Teshub.