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Battling With Elegance and a Big Smile (867)

Dragalge

"Orange" Magical Girl
This was a fine episode to me. Not as fantastic emotional like XY60 personally but pretty good too only because Braixen evolved and almost roasted Aria's Delphox and Aromatisse. Really glad Clemont didn't hold back against Shota and getting to see Clemont train is awesome in general. Overall I'd give it an 8/10.
 

Blue Saturday

Unfurl your Blessed Wings!
Dayum clemont, way to be a jerk using a luxray on a treecko. You know full well the kid doesn't have any plot armor.
Crap, I laughed like a hyena XD

Anyway, I'm excited for Shota. I do like the idea of "student surpassing master." He can be a sort of Wally type rival and ultimately show his improvement, well if he is a rival. I know I like his voice and design a lot.
 

pixcalibur

Can't stop laughing
Pretty good Serena focused episode. Doing a good job distributing character focus so far. Ash and Bonnie getting some interaction time, pretty much like siblings in a way. And without Clemont in the way, Bonnie is able to go a step further in her "Keep" attempt, haha.

Well, Elle seems like a pretty down to earth character. Good thing for the bit of disguise there so that Serena doesn't figure out it was her until the end. Those two should get along ok given they like similar things.

The battle seemed more like a tutoring session, so shouldn't have had a winner, though odd way to interrupt the battle. Wonder what inspiration Serena got from glancing at Ash there, similar to that seen when he glanced at Serena when he battled Korrina. Lol, no Volt for evolution for once. Will be a bigger thing if Volt isn't used for Ash's pokemon evolving. Nice little performance bit with the flamethrower, though kinda looks like what's done in contests. Interesting to see how they'll twist that up later on.

Overall, Serena getting some more solid development.
 
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XXD17

Draco rex
That alone made my day. I'm so happy. I hope she makes it to the big leagues and gets as much involve in the Kalos Queen competition as the Grand Festival in Sinnoh. When Team Rocket does something other than Team Rocket stuff, they're at their best.

Braixen is so fabulous. I loved this episode as well. I appreciate how "female-lead character focused episode" in XY have the female-lead character really focused. Twice now that Ash is barely doing anything in Serena episodes. Excellent.
Though I found the "crying" pointless, it was still pretty moving to watch, and I loved how Pancham and Fennekin responded.

Also, Shota is so hideous, and his voice is extremely annoying. If there was any part of him that I liked before this episode, it's now gone. :rolleyes:

I'm still holding out in Shota being a plot tool for Ash to bring back sceptile...that's literally the only thing I can see him being useful for...that and the possible acquisition of the sceptilite...if all goes well, Shota happens upon a sceptiite because of treecko's affinity for it and since he doesn't have a sceptile, he gives it to Ash...Ash asks Korrina about it and gets a ring...if he beats Ash at the league, it would probably be almost Cameron level bad...I'm all for Ash losing to Alain...
 

PanpourHoopa

Well-Known Member
It this an upcoming usa episode that has already aired in Japan? I watch the new episodes but didn't watch the first few when xy first aired, so that's my best guess.
 
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Wow Serena's developed a lot recently. After doing nothing for 40 episodes she is finally going somewhere. I mean in just 17 episodes she has gone from being a person who wasn't confident in what she's doing to becoming a much more determined person, finding her dream, capturing her first Pokémon, getting a design change AND getting her first evolution which was I think a sign that Fennekin was going to evolve into Braxien and start a new future just like Serena hence the flashbacks.

I think that Serena might be the fastest most unique developed character yet.
 

Captain America X

Well-Known Member
So we can't use main characters as example even though we don't see minor characters often so we don't know exactly how their progression went, because we only see them showing their badges and most of the time the artists don't even mind drawing the badges, they just draw random stuff, like Gary said he had 8 badges, but there was like 10 there (however, through the series right after Ash went to a gym Gary was often there, so we do know that he followed at least partially the order of the badges).
"Oh but Ash does that just because he has to show how the game works"
Lol. Several things that Ash does are very different from how the game works. We all know that.

Regarding Paul, Roark is the first, he might have challenged Gardenia off-screen (which is not a wild guess because he was near Gardenia's city when he appeared again after the first gym battle).If he did, that would mean he followed the game's order until there, because its roarke - gardenia - Maylene - Fantina. I don't remember if Paul said in the original that he got 8 badges right after Byron's battle, but that wouldn't mean much anyway if he at least followed the sequence most of the time (which we don't know, but we do know that Roarke is the first and Maylene and Fantina comes after and that Gardenia gym might've happened in between )

Sure he does a few things differently,but not every single thing.By your logic than Ash would be challenging gyms unknown to us,but he is the only trainer that we know of that challenges those particular gyms in that particular order.So yes,the only reason Ash fights the gym leaders in that particular order is to show the order in which the player will fight the gym leader.

Also those random stuff you are talking about are the other gyms located in the region.Considering that all of Ash's league rivals who show their gym badges will show gym badges that are way different than the ones we know.And Gary only went to 4 of the gyms Ash went to(losing in the 4th one) so no he was not often there.

Also Paul never fought Crasher Wake so that still screws up the order doesn't it?
 

Weavy

I come and go suddenly
This episode was quite heart-warming. Lots of interactions going on by the looks of it.

The battle was OK. Nothing special really. As expected, Serena's Fekkekin evolved into Braixen. I did like the flashbacks during the process, it shows how far they've come since the start. Personally hoping it goes all the way, but I'm hoping to see development regardless.

Serena is defiantly becoming a more interesting character lately. Hoping it stays that way.
 
I didn't get to this one until today because I honestly wasn't too interested in it. It was alright, I guess.

I mean, yay for more BS evolutions and useless/unneeded TR moments if you're really into that.

Also, this is the first time we saw boutiques properly displayed, and they kinda glossed over that.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
I didn't get to this one until today because I honestly wasn't too interested in it. It was alright, I guess.

I mean, yay for more BS evolutions and useless/unneeded TR moments if you're really into that.

Also, this is the first time we saw boutiques properly displayed, and they kinda glossed over that.

TR's scenes weren't useless. It showed that Jessie is still trying to be Kalos Queen and this time she is going to train for it.
I would rather watch scenes like that than watching TR attacking them again and having a ridiculous fight. TR has a lot more potential as antiheroes and comic relief than they have as villains.
How is that a BS evolution? Fennekin was battling and she wanted to show how much she cared about Serena after having a fight with her so Fennekin stood up despite being hurt and then she evolved. She also battled, had some bonding moments with her trainer and had some development before unlike pokemons like Boldore. It wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
What else would they do with the boutiques? Change Serena's design for the third time after only a few episodes? Have Serena and Elle to be surprised at seeing the boutique like they never saw a clothing store before?
 
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Ballzeh

Member
- About Serena : I just like her more and more ! After she decided to cut her hair, i was "wow she really did that" and i found this interesting because it showed how determinate she is to become a new person (the "old" Serena was quite fearful about realizing her dreams) and, of course, a Kalos Queen. And this episode with Elle/Aria (that she didnt even recognize first :eek:) just intensify this ! Well, Fennekin evolved into Braixen but he was so cute before that :(

- About the others : That was cool to see Clemont training with his Luxray and to see Shota too ! Epic battles incoming for Ash :)
Nice moment between Ash and Bonnie and TR being TR... haha

9/10 for this episode !
 
TR's scenes weren't useless. It showed that Jessie is still trying to be Kalos Queen and this time she is going to train for it.
I would rather watch scenes like that than watching TR attacking them again and having a ridiculous fight. TR has a lot more potential as antiheroes and comic relief than they have as villains.
How is that a BS evolution? Fennekin was battling and she wanted to show how much she cared about Serena after having a fight with her so Fennekin stood up despite being hurt and then she evolved. She also battled, had some bonding moments with her trainer and had some development before unlike pokemons like Boldore. It wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
What else would they do with the boutiques? Change Serena's design for the third time after only a few episodes? Have Serena and Elle to be surprised at seeing the boutique like they never saw a clothing store before?

Wasn't that established an episode or two back though? I mean fair enough they didn't do anything like attack the group, but they could have just left them out of the episode.

It's the most sinful evolution of this series so far because Fenniken has done literally nothing in terms of battling this entire series... It's had what, like two or three actual battles?

I'm just saying lmao she mentioned checking out a boutique in Lumiose before in like episode 7 and that never happened.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
Wasn't that established an episode or two back though? I mean fair enough they didn't do anything like attack the group, but they could have just left them out of the episode.

It's the most sinful evolution of this series so far because Fenniken has done literally nothing in terms of battling this entire series... It's had what, like two or three actual battles?

I'm just saying lmao she mentioned checking out a boutique in Lumiose before in like episode 7 and that never happened.
That she was going to train for this perfomance and use Meowth? No.
The most sinful evolution? Lol she certainly battled more than Sliggoo and Luxray. She battled several times against TR, some wild pokemons like that horde of swirlix, Shauna, Shauna/Tierno/Trevor, Pancham and now she evolved while battling Elle. Besides, pokemon do not evolve only by battling, the bond they have with their trainer can play a huge part too.
Also it is the first evolution of a starter pokemon, it's not supposed to be hard.
 
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That she was going to train for this perfomance and use Meowth? No.
The most sinful evolution? Lol she certainly battled more than Sliggoo and Luxray. She battled several times against TR, some wild pokemons like that horde of swirlix, Shauna, Shauna/Tierno/Trevor, Pancham and now she evolved while battling Elle. Besides, pokemon do not evolve only by battling, the bond they have with their trainer can play a huge part too.
Also it is the first evolution of a starter pokemon, it's not supposed to be hard.

Because God forbid we have an episode without TR making an appearance. I don't know if the scene where she was whipping Meowth was supposed to be funny, but it was pointless.

The difference between Fenniken's and Sliggoo/Luxray is that we know Goomy/Luxio did stuff off-screen, to the point where Shinx evolved into Luxio in the first place; in other words, we don't know how much experience they each got off screen. With Fenniken, we saw from XY003 to now that it had, what, like three or four official battles with a couple sprinkled in TR involvements. I mean fair point that not all pokemon evolve by battle experience, and that would apply to things like Togepi, Golbat, Eevee, etc... but this isn't exactly one of them. I'm not saying this is the only sinful evolution thus far, but it is by far the most sinful.

I suppose I'll expect Braixen to evolve into Delphox around XY120 after another four official battles and a few more TR involvements then?
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
Because God forbid we have an episode without TR making an appearance. I don't know if the scene where she was whipping Meowth was supposed to be funny, but it was pointless.
Yeah because 1 minute of TR that actually foreshadows the way Jessie will act in the next Showcase (which is really important for Serena, because Jessie could be a threat just like she was for Dawn in some Contests) is the worst thing ever and it ruined the episode. If they haven't showed Jessie training then people would be complaining that she's better now, but she hasn't trained at all and that's out of character and makes no sense.

The difference between Fenniken's and Sliggoo/Luxray is that we know Goomy/Luxio did stuff off-screen, to the point where Shinx evolved into Luxio in the first place; in other words, we don't know how much experience they each got off screen. With Fenniken, we saw from XY003 to now that it had, what, like three or four official battles with a couple sprinkled in TR involvements. I mean fair point that not all pokemon evolve by battle experience, and that would apply to things like Togepi, Golbat, Eevee, etc... but this isn't exactly one of them. I'm not saying this is the only sinful evolution thus far, but it is by far the most sinful.

What we know about Sliggoo and Luxray's past is that they were beaten once. Nothing else besides that. We don't know if Luxio battled a lot to evolve, he could be just like caterpie who battled absolutely nothing and evolved anyway.

The anime doesn't work like the game. It's not only Togepi, Golbat and etc... that can evolve by having a strong bond with their trainer or by doing something entirely different from battling.

I suppose I'll expect Braixen to evolve into Delphox around XY120 after another four official battles and a few more TR involvements then?
That's exactly the opposite of what i said. I said that usually the first evolution doesn't take a lot to happen, while the final evolution usually takes more time.
Of course, we have some exceptions like Luxray. Who had like 2 battles on-screen and you keep saying it is way better than Braixen's because Braixen didn't battle enough...
 
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Yeah because 1 minute of TR that actually foreshadows the way Jessie will act in the next Showcase (which is really important for Serena, because Jessie could be a threat just like she was for Dawn in some Contests) is the worst thing ever and it ruined the episode. If they haven't showed Jessie training then people would be complaining that she's better now, but she hasn't trained at all and that's out of character and makes no sense.

It didn't ruin the episode, per say. I guess my major gripe with this is that they sprinkle the usually horrible TRio appearances throughout other episodes, and it's slightly irritating seeing them infringe on a Serena episode, which we haven't had a lot of. Like, instead of putting TRio in a random episode trying to steal Pikachu for the nth time, they could put Jessie's deal there instead.

What we know about Sliggoo and Luxray's past is that they were beaten once. Nothing else besides that. We don't know if Luxio battled a lot to evolve, he could be just like caterpie who battled absolutely nothing and evolved anyway.

That's the thing though, we haven't actually seen their full pasts. We see where they are now, but we haven't seen how they got there, which means the interpretations could be anything.

The anime doesn't work like the game. It's not only Togepi, Golbat and etc... that can evolve by having a strong bond with their trainer or by doing something entirely different from battling.

Which is a sin in itself because the anime is based on the games. I know it isn't exactly like the games, but I always compare the anime in relation to the games, in case you haven't picked up on where I'm coming from.

That's exactly the opposite of what i said. I said that usually the first evolution doesn't take a lot to happen, while the final evolution usually takes more time.
Of course, we have some exceptions like Luxray. Who had like 2 battles on-screen and you keep saying it is way better than Braixen's because Braixen didn't battle enough...

Again, we have no idea how much Luxio/ray did off screen, but it was enough for where Shinx evolved into Luxio. I'm calling Braixen the most sinful evolution, but it's not like I haven't thought any of the other evolutions this series have been sinful, it's just I've found this one to be worse. I mean, just wait, Goodra's coming in two weeks. Are you going to complain about me calling that one sinful too?

Now, I'm not trying to attack you or anything, this is just how I interpret this show. Truth be told, I don't even know why you started following up on me so much. I know there's no we're going to see eye-to-eye on this stuff, so I'll end it by saying what I originally said: the episode was just alright, and Fenniken evolving looked like the writers saying, "Hey, lets give her a Braixen, sure!"
 
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