Celebi: A Timeless Promise (1121)

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

I love watching the same complaints about Go's character followed by the complaining about those complaints. It's always the same posters too lol.

Pointless bickering aside, it was a nice episode. Not a fan of time travel episodes but if you exclude that, it was alright. Opening changing was cool but I'm not fan of the song or visuals.

There really wasn't any time travel in the episode tho? Mainly flashbacks

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

The time travel was the flashbacks we had along the way.

 

[Ignition]

The time travel was the flashbacks we had along the way.

Only answer I’ll accept

 

[WaterShuriken]

So I watched it again with English subs and WOW this episode was still boring. This episode felt contrived. Ariados and Pineco being in the exact same spots three years later seemed a bit odd. NO ONE ever in three years found the shrine and if they did, left the note intact. Then, precisely the day that Goh is there, present time Tokio shows up.

I felt like they were gonna kiss. You could Cut the tension in the air with Farfetch'd.

Weird, we didn't even have a quick silent Pallet Town scene with Ash sleeping with Pikachu or anything.

I don't know if it was due to Covid-19 and they couldn't get Ash and Pikachu's VAs in the studio in time and they had to make a quick episode in terms of VA and animation.

 

[Rune Knight]

So I watched it again with English subs and WOW this episode was still boring. This episode felt contrived. Ariados and Pineco being in the exact same spots three years later seemed a bit odd. NO ONE ever in three years found the shrine and if they did, left the note intact. Then, precisely the day that Goh is there, present time Tokio shows up.

I felt like they were gonna kiss. You could Cut the tension in the air with Farfetch'd.

Weird, we didn't even have a quick silent Pallet Town scene with Ash sleeping with Pikachu or anything.

I don't know if it was due to Covid-19 and they couldn't get Ash and Pikachu's VAs in the studio in time and they had to make a quick episode in terms of VA and animation.

They were.... going to do more than that.

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

I don't know if it was due to Covid-19 and they couldn't get Ash and Pikachu's VAs in the studio in time and they had to make a quick episode in terms of VA and animation.

Definetely not the case. Episodes tend to be made months in advance so that one was already decided and probably fully storyboarded by the time the covid escalated into chaos. It was a creative decision they took willingly.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

This was really such a beautiful episode that showcased and exemplified the character of Goh perfectly imo. Kinda annoying that people who hate on him would completely avoid episodes detailing his character but meh whatever. This was such a dialouge focused ep, thank god i waited for subs. Tokio and Goh together make suchhh a cute duo, Loved every moment of them together. This perfectly explains why Goh didnt try to get more friends and the You're like those other guys line he said to Ash in ep3. I am really grateful they didnt rehash the celebi uses time travel plot again this episode, really makes the previous complaints about it being the same episode null and void, celebi barely appeared, this was more a character episode for Goh, and it was great. Ash definitely didnt need to be here, they didnt disrespect him by not including him LOL. I also really loved the space talk they had although i wish they also mentioned solrock, lunatone, deoxys, elgyem and its evolution too but oh well. That paper still being readable after 3 years is iffy but im glad they reunited in the end although their reunion being cut off sucked, If tokio doesnt appear again it would be such a WASTED opportunity.

All in all an amazing episode for Goh, really enjoyed

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Spoiler: Animation director's after-episode image

Boy, sure would've been nice if we could've seen them talking instead of abruptly ending the episode for no reason

 

[Leonhart]

I thought this episode was interesting, or at least parts of it were. The inclusion of Celebi still irked me a bit since I think the species is overexposed, but the friendship between Gou and Tokio was sweet. I liked that Gou and Tokio managed to get some closure by meeting again, and I especially liked seeing several Gen II Pokemon that hadn't appeared in over 500 episodes like Yanyanma and Chikorita.

 

[CMButch]

Ending was cute and interesting but first 10 minutes were meh.. Usually when dub comes I like it more. I personally like dub better than sub when it comes to Pokemon.

 

[British Soul]

Spoiler: OP thoughts

I figured we'd get an updated OP at some point (especially since the old one still showed Scorbunny despite it evolving many epiosdes ago), it was only a matter of time tbph.
New OP shows that Raboot and Riolu will evolve at some point, well that's not surprising tbph. I'm sure the Heracross will be caught in the next episode, and then the Flygon 4 episodes later (Question mark over when Go will get Aerodactyl though). Also we see the SM cast sans Lillie as well, so I'm intrigued when we'll get Alola episodes (and if we'll see Lillie too).
EDIT: On further reflection, I suppose it makes sense that Lillie wasn't in the shot with the Alola cast given she left Alola with her family to look for Mohn at the end of Sun & Moon, something I completely forgot.

Given it was a Go focused episode, I was expecting it to be an Ash-lite episode (and we've had them before like AG001 for instance), but I wasn't expecting it to be completely Ash-less (first time in the main series at that), but given the narrative of the episode, I think Ash deserves a week off (SM gave the classmates a few weeks off, but that's another matter entirely).
What surprised me though was the shiny Celebi at the end (which is a reference to the now upcoming movie), then again we've seen the main series give a nod to the movies, such as the Mother and Daugther showing up in SM090.
One thing I did appreciate was Tokio's note explaining why he was a no show, and during the point when Go called him a jerk, I thought to myself "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this." (and yeah, falling ill is understandable) but I would've liked a bit more dialogue between the two at the end though to be fair. Another thing I appreciated was when Go was reading the note, he learned not make rash assumptions, misunderstandings happen, and that he was able to set aside the grudge as a result.

 

[mysticalglacia]

To be honest, I was expecting something more emotionally resonant than “he caught a cold”, but it was a nice episode regardless. There’s not really much to say about it, it shed some light on Go’s character and made him more likable. The random shiny Celebi at the end was unexpected but I loved that; they need to start casually showing shinies more. I also hope Tokio shows up again in the future as Go’s rival, he has a good design and I’d like to see Chikorita get some shine again.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

To be honest, I was expecting something more emotionally resonant than “he caught a cold”, but it was a nice episode regardless.

Catching a cold in this universe comes with dramatic moments, as Ash has taught us.

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

Tokio was lucky no one tried to take his clothes and pretend to be him.

 

[Simp4MrMime]

He better reappear later on. His design is too good to be a one timer

 

[Ace-Barn]

How are you going to go and rename my boy Tokio, Horace.

Tokio deserves justice, and to come back.

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

Horace, really?

But I guess it kind works with the time-related theme.

Also the good takeaway from this is it of ruins the day of everyone who falsely said Journeys!Tokio is a counterpart of the Tokio from Pokémon Horizon (whose name Viz kept) so that's a plus in my book.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Were they trying to channel the Spanish word "Horas" so they gave him that gruffy-sounding name.

...Because he clearly should have been named something close to "Años."

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

Hora means "hour" in brazilian portuguese so it's close enough to work for me.

It's not a quite easy name to localize in the sense of keeping the original thematic

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Just name him "Tim."

It's pretty close to "Time."