That's not the point. The point is that it is utterly disgraceful that Pikachu should take even one of the battles, let alone both, given the terrible battle record of the majority of his team. Why would resurrecting Palpitoad or Boldore and getting them to battle instead of the rat
yet again take away from the plot?[/QUOTE
Ja,ja,ja,with Palpitoad. Paliptoad is the most forgettable pokemon and since Elesa he only has two appearances. The fact that is boring pokemon and specially the fact that is a Water-.type (dingdongdingdong) makes it outclassed.
I know gym battles etc. are more important than random battles and I know all too well that the writers are heavily biased towards Pikachu, but that doesn't make it any better. I just feel this was a total waste of an episode.
-The majority of Ash's team can still evolve, and yet none did. With Palpitoad and Boldore, there isn't excuse. With the starters and Scraggy,it is marketing reasons.
-The majority of Ash's team have terrible movesets, and yet none learned a new move. The movesets are like in AG, average.
-Most of Ash's team has shockingly bad screentime, and yet none appeared other than the one with the most screentime of any Pokemon, ever. This is true, however. The handling of the team is bad, I admitit.
-There are around 40 old Pokemon rotting at Oak's lab a few of which usually appear during filler saga's, many need appearances, like Kingler who hasn't battled since mid-Johto, and yet none appeared and none look likely to. Keep dreaming.
-There are several poorly-developed human characters, Trip, Burgundy, Georgia and older ones that could return for an episode, but none did.
-There are a good number of un-debuted Pokemon and yet none appeared. This episode has one.
What did happen?
-Pikachu got yet another battle.
-Cilan's same old Brock-stale comic relief routine.
- Axew 'battled' and showed it had learned squat and developed nil. That thing would have a hard job beating a magikarp.
Is this show perfect? Clearly not. So until it is, there is no excuse to do nothing whatsoever with episode after episode for no reason other than pure laziness. There are lots of improvements to be made and development to be had but they do nothing. Lets not pretend they don't have time, the writers just can't be bothered to write.
People slag off the kanto saga but at least they didn't have thoroughly pointless tat so often.
The saga shouldn't be perfect for tyou. The preferable way is that the writing will be on par to the best saga, who BW sadly isn't.
Why do you keep misquoting me? I never said he would be in every single episode, but it seems he will be in every other one at the every least, which, given the appearances of the other Pokemon on his team, is absolutely disgraceful.
Yes, Axew battling is fine, my point was that he has learnt next to nothing about battling for the entirety of BW. He is shown all the time, but isn't actually developed, in the same was as Oshawott is. The writers constantly spam the cutesy's but don't actually do anything with them. That's what has made this saga the most atrocious one in the history of Pokemon, the decent, interesting Pokemon never appeared and the cute ones stole all the screentime and yet achieved absolutely nothing other than cheap comic relief. Oshawott, Axew, Pikachu and early on, Tepig were the things the writers used to ruin this saga. If a certain Pokemon is going to lose every battle its in then it can bog off and let something decent win in its place.
Axew and Oshawott are weak for different reasons. Axew because it's a baby and Oshawott because... bad writing. Pikachu is a powerhouse in the BW only behind Krookodile (although in BW Ash is "weaker" than in DP.
Next saga, my desperate hope is that there are NO cutesy mascots on Ash's team and the Axew's/Piplup's of this world not to steal Ash's Pokemon's screentime by pratting around with balloons or lose all the time (Axew) or being trained all the time at the expense of Ash's team and using way too much screentime for cheap comic relief (Piplup). The writers are ruining this programme.
If the writers put evolved pokemon, Tomy and co. won't be happy. And the comedy part isn't for you.
Yep, you got it there. Dragonite was the lazy writers way of not evolving or developing Axew at all. They seem to decide part of the way into BW that Oshawott and Axew were going to be their cutesy-pimping tools and so haven't bothered making them competent battlers.
I have to agree that the case of those pokemon is bad writing of BW, thing that BW has in abundance.
Kibago has gotten some development, he's not the same Pokemon who couldn't even Scratch Yanappu in the Pendra episode in early BW. He's clearly gotten stronger and as a character, he's become more confident. Take the battle against Luke where he was running around screaming his head off and lost his cool and compare that to the battle against Shirona and how he was confident and strong himself stood up to Gablias the best way he could. Kibago's grown as a Pokemon, that's obvious. A loss to Banipuuchi couldn't be helped, it's an Ice-type after all and Kibago does have the staying power to buffer super-effective hits like Kairyu. BW doesn't do on-screen training, most of it is clearly happening after screen. With good reason too because on-screen training is extremely boring, for the most part the writers are keeping Kibago and Zuruggu's power-levels around the same areas. Kibago just doesn't get many battles, which is a shame. Even the village matriarch acknowledged Kibago had gotten stronger, so yeah, the writers are spitting it right in the viewers faces that Kibago has become stronger. If anything, if Langley and Iris battle again, Kibago will be facing off against Langley's Baivanilla after the dynamic they had in the Ice phobia episode - what with Baivanilla having a thing for "Dragon boys" as Langley said and being a freshly caught. Doryuzu would get Tsunbear since it played a significant role in the episode he started obeying Iris(Plus their last bout ended in a tie.) and Kairyu would get Kirikizan, as he has never battled it before and he has an iron will and ability to stand up to Ice-type attacks and has already beaten Tsunbear.
It's true that Axew is getting stronger (unlike Oshawott who sometimes regress mid-saga?) but it has bad writing for him and it doesn't feel that way many times. And hope with Georgia, at least is better than what naughtyun wanted for the series.
I don't think that is a bad episode, getting note that I expected 0 minutes of battling in it given the VA List. At least they get battles, wins and they develop Cilan.