Come Forth, Lycanroc with the Crimson Look!! (970)

[UltimateNinja]

You say lazy as if Team Rocket was the only thing they were lazy about...

Check out the four characters on the right hand side.
Then check the four characters on the left.

I have no problem with the copy&paste things at some point. Back to the days where battles were all flashy animations with background stripes, it quite annoyed me but they still managed to make the animation good. Still poor enough that they didn't even tried to hide this better, but it's not annoying or bad IMO.

You know what's even more hilarious?

The fact that people never did this for XY/XY&Z. Previous series constantly had similar shots, but the fact people are choosing to emphasize this now and laugh at SM is yet another stark reminder that people decided to hate on this series before it even began airing.

Super hilarious. Super hypocritical. Just another day in our lovely fandom.

Tell me who here in the crowd are outright blaming SM because of this error? Some points it out, the other respond to it. Happens in every episode with some obvious animations error, so chill.

 

[satopi]

Wow, I can't believe Gladion's appearing in the flesh!!! Team Skull's hideout and hearing that theme as Gladion's walking towards them, niiiiiice!! X3

-It's pretty cool seeing Ash command both his Pokémon as they're training together. Pikachu is also the best referee!

-Rockruff is so touched and admiring the Midnight Lycanroc's power

We're getting flashback scenes and we're starting to see Rockruff turning more rough and pumped up. Team Rocket is catching the hype fever as they're battling. Rockruff is getting brutally attacked in this battle. And it wouldn't be Team Rocket without them trying to steal Pikachu. Meowth's face when he saw Wobbuffet's driving the car... I like this lol. Oh nevermind.

GLADION HAS A Z RING?!!?! And that Bewear entrance.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I find it funny how people notice these animation errors. It makes me wonder if the animation staff purposely makes them at times to see if people notice lol

 

[Grey Wind]

You know what's even more hilarious?

The fact that people never did this for XY/XY&Z. Previous series constantly had similar shots, but the fact people are choosing to emphasize this now and laugh at SM is yet another stark reminder that people decided to hate on this series before it even began airing.

Super hilarious. Super hypocritical. Just another day in our lovely fandom.

People are poking fun at animation errors like they always do, chill out. It happens all the time (including for XY; I definitely remember jokes about how weird Luxray looked in the background at times).


I'm really happy we got to see Gladion relatively in the series, I was worried he'd be introduced late and given some rushed story line. I'm also glad they didn't go overboard with the edgy-ness. The five second battle kind of sucked, but at least it's setting up an overarching plot that'll hopefully be revisited sooner rather than later.

 

[Pokemon Fan]

Let's not forget how Trip was a clone of Paul.

About the only thing they had in common was that they could be rather rude and dismissive of others (Trip moreso).

 

[Rohanator]

Not even mad at that animation thing, that's hilarious. xD I'd probably throw something like that in myself as a troll if I worked on the show.

Anyway, yeaahh this episode was trash. I genuinely love the original stuff SM puts out, I had a great time watching last week's episode, the Dugtrio concert, etc etc. But when it comes to battles and setting up expectations for the future it somehow almost always falls short. I can't believe the narrator had the audacity to be all "When will they fight, and who will win??" when Gladio left, BRO NOW, NOW WAS THE TIME, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?. And yea SM Team Rocket's been great so far but this was super frustrating.

Gladio himself is also super boring, he's nothing but a serious good guy, I wanted to see some REAL edge.

The training portion was great though, I really do enjoy their handling of Ash's new Pokemon, makes me jealous that previous squads didn't have so much screentime and little quirks etc.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

What a shame. Lillie isn't the big little sister in this universe. But of course she isn't.

 

[Rampardo]

All of you complaining about the battle, direct your anger towards head writer Aya Matsui. She wrote this episode and it was her decision alone to have Team Rocket interrupt the battle.

No wonder Dragon Ball fans consider Aya Matsui leaving the franchise one of the best moment ever... she was doing really good destroying it with her awful head writing in the GT series.

And now we see what damage she is doing to Pokemon...

 

[desdar300]

I must say that I'm very mixed on this episode.
On one hand Gladion's introduction and his interactions*with Lille were nice but on the other hand that battle was underwhelming, made worse by TR interupping it for no reason.
Battles continue to be the weakest part of this seires ( in my opinion of course) with the last good one being the match Ash had against Hala. I really hope things improve.

 

[dman_dustin]

Not sure the criticisms of this episode.

It was just an introduction episode, not sure why it has to satisfy People's fan fiction desires.

Also to the people who think he's different than his game counterpart, unless him being anxious was SOLELY because Lillie took Cosmog in the games, and that's why he was the way he was, he looked identical to me.

After all the assumption is Gladion was nasty to the player because the player was at odds with Team Skull.

This could all be a pre-plot point. Gladion in the anime clearly has issues anyway if he doesn't want to "hang out" with his sister after not seeing her for a long time.

I think he was only interested in Ash from a purely battling perspective, but wants Ash to grow up some more to actually give him a good fight, because let's face it. Gladion at the moment is stronger than Ash and specifically Gladion's Pokemon are stronger than Ash's Alola Pokemon. Pikachu MIGHT be able to beat one of Gladion's Pokemon but not all of them.

 

[Satomine Night]

Also to the people who think he's different than his game counterpart, unless him being anxious was SOLELY because Lillie took Cosmog in the games, and that's why he was the way he was, he looked identical to me.

After all the assumption is Gladion was nasty to the player because the player was at odds with Team Skull.

This could all be a pre-plot point. Gladion in the anime clearly has issues anyway if he doesn't want to "hang out" with his sister after not seeing her for a long time.

I agree. Anime Gladion didn't seem different from his game counterpart. He was still moody and serious with a bit of an edgelord. The only difference is that we saw a bit of his kinder side, something we had to wait a long time to see in the games. The anime seems to be setting Gladion up as a serious character who is not actually a bad guy, which is what he was in the games, except that the player had to wait to learn that.

I think he was only interested in Ash from a purely battling perspective, but wants Ash to grow up some more to actually give him a good fight, because let's face it. Gladion at the moment is stronger than Ash and specifically Gladion's Pokemon are stronger than Ash's Alola Pokemon. Pikachu MIGHT be able to beat one of Gladion's Pokemon but not all of them.

Gladion pretty much blew Ash off until he saw Ash had a Z-Ring and Ash revealed he received his Z-Ring from Tapu Koko. Then Gladion's interest was piqued, but even then, he didn't actually agree to battle Ash; he said he would consider it. It's pretty clear Gladion was only interested in Ash from a purely battling perspective, as you said. He did compliment Ash's Rockruff, so he probably sees potential in Ash, but the only member of Ash's team who stands a chance against Gladion right now is Pikachu.

 

[Rohanator]

I think he was only interested in Ash from a purely battling perspective, but wants Ash to grow up some more to actually give him a good fight, because let's face it. Gladion at the moment is stronger than Ash and specifically Gladion's Pokemon are stronger than Ash's Alola Pokemon. Pikachu MIGHT be able to beat one of Gladion's Pokemon but not all of them.

And the best way to do that is to have him actually beat Ash. What fun is it if Ash gets a strong rival but isn't allowed to properly battle them until he's strong enough to win? It would've added great tension to the story if we actually saw Rockruff get blown away by the Z-move, further motivating both it and Ash to get stronger. Don't see what's so fanfiction like about wanting some basic requirements met from a rivalry. Things can get better sure, but they aren't good yet.

 

[Soniman]

Not sure the criticisms of this episode.

It was just an introduction episode, not sure why it has to satisfy People's fan fiction desires.

Oh yes two characters having a battle is definitely something you only see in fanfiction for this type of show

(physically cannot roll my eyes any harder at these types of responses to critcism)

 

[Hero of Truth]

Why couldn't they have Tomioka be Head Writer in SM too? Look what they have done now. Whoever assigned Matsui as Head Writer in SM needs to be fired. Yes, I said it. I mean, seriously? Have TR interrupt Gladion's-Ash's battle or even worse, have them appear in this episode?! I was worried when they revealed Tomioka wasn't Head Writer in SM, and now my fears have been confirmed. At the very least, they should have let Tomioka write this episode, would be miles better (cause he knows how to write such episodes)

 

[Rohanator]

Why couldn't they have Tomioka be Head Writer in SM too? Look what they have done now. Whoever assigned Matsui as Head Writer in SM needs to be fired. Yes, I said it. I mean, seriously? Have TR interrupt Gladion's-Ash's battle or even worse, have them appear in this episode?! I was worried when they revealed Tomioka wasn't Head Writer in SM, and now my fears have been confirmed. At the very least, they should have let Tomioka write this episode, would be miles better (cause he knows how to write such episodes)

The random episodes in between are some amazing stuff though so I'm fine with Matsui as series director, she's clearly fit for the kind of show that SM's going for. It's just unfortunate that that classic serious side of Pokemon still has to exist without being given as much care towards it. It feels like episodes like this one are only there out of obligation, rather than them actually really wanting to keep doing them.

 

[1rkhachatryan]

I'm actually glad the battle was interrupted tbh. I don't like curbstomp battles and there was no way in hell Rockruff would beating Lycanroc so better to avoid the pointless loss.

If it was something like Pikachu vs Lycanroc and the battle was interrupted then I would get the criticism but the main objective here was to show that Gladion was way stronger then Ash at this point and that was successful.

My only complaint was the lack of Lillie and Gladion moments and him outright blowing her off.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

All of you complaining about the battle, direct your anger towards head writer Aya Matsui. She wrote this episode and it was her decision alone to have Team Rocket interrupt the battle.

No wonder Dragon Ball fans consider Aya Matsui leaving the franchise one of the best moment ever... she was doing really good destroying it with her awful head writing in the GT series.

And now we see what damage she is doing to Pokemon...

Wait, she wrote Dragon Ball GT?

Now I'll watch out whenever her name comes up.

 

[Rohanator]

I'm actually glad the battle was interrupted tbh. I don't like curbstomp battles and there was no way in hell Rockruff would beating Lycanroc so better to avoid the pointless loss.

If it was something like Pikachu vs Lycanroc and the battle was interrupted then I would get the criticism but the main objective here was to show that Gladion was way stronger then Ash at this point and that was successful.

My only complaint was the lack of Lillie and Gladion moments and him outright blowing her off.

The problem is that they showed Gladion's superiority over Ash without any real stakes for him. Yeah sure the Z-move VS Team Rocket looked so strong its pretty clear that Rockruff would've gotten destroyed, but there was no reaction towards that fact from ASH. He didn't feel anything, it would've been much more satisfying to see him actually lose and express frustration over it. There's no emotional drive or passion for the rivalry, Gladion is "just some strong guy" for Ash, when he could've been "a guy who beat me, I'll show him!"

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

Why couldn't they have Tomioka be Head Writer in SM too? Look what they have done now. Whoever assigned Matsui as Head Writer in SM needs to be fired. Yes, I said it. I mean, seriously? Have TR interrupt Gladion's-Ash's battle or even worse, have them appear in this episode?! I was worried when they revealed Tomioka wasn't Head Writer in SM, and now my fears have been confirmed. At the very least, they should have let Tomioka write this episode, would be miles better (cause he knows how to write such episodes)

They did this kind of crap all the time in XY though; and the fact that Team Rocket appeared in every damn episode in XY makes things alot worse than they are in this series imo

 

[Frozocrone]

They could have used Team Skull (who were p****d off and sets up a 'betrayal') or Lillie (who Gladion won't battle in front of for some reason) instead of a generic and bland TR wants Pikachu thing IMO.