V Faction said:
I'm telling you and most of the fanbase at the very moment to get over it.
Indeed, May mentioned training it a good while ago, can't you people just accept that Shadow Ball was the end result of potentially several weeks of training? Some people are acting like just because we don't see a Pokemon struggle to learn a new move over an episode or several its "pulling a Squirtle" (which even in Squirtle's case does not apply).
I mean nobody gets upset when a Pokemon learns AND masters a move in mere moments (i.e Noctowl and Confusion) during a battle, but we're up in arms over the fact that Eevee learned just about the only neat move it can get while training? Would you prefer that we got stuck with a bunch of episodes of its biting and tackling things?
Age, strength and the moves a pokemon learns are not really linked to each other in the anime. The trainer is the most important factor. Therefore if Eevee performs well in its first contest it will be because May trained it well, not because it "pulled a Squirtle."
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*coughs* Ahem... Now that that's over with:
From the pictures I can see this episode may not be all that "exciting." But it more than makes up for it in character growth, emotion, bonding and such. I mean how often do we get to see Ash spend any length of time alone with one of his Pokemon aside from Pikachu? We should be thankful, not calling the episode awful because it wasn't full of battles.
We got to see quite a different side of Sceptile, as he learned to accept and appreciate Ash's protection and help, something it has always had a tough time doing. You could tell that Sceptile was increasingly impressed with Ash's bravery and determination, especially when he took on the Beedrill swarm with nothing but a stick, and when Ash continued to support Sceptile even when his knee was injured.
Sceptile lost his moves because of forsaken love, here he finds Ash loves him more than he ever knew. This gave him the inspiration needed to get his powers back, when no amount of practice and time seemed to work, he got his powers back the same way he lost them, through love. *gets choked up a bit, sappy music begins to play*
And I really don't get the Beedrill hatred. They aren't used all that often and it makes perfect sense. You anger a sworm of giant wasps, you either defend yourself or run, and most often running is the best bet. Besides they were Bug/Poison, a good choice to injure Sceptile so badly.
Lastly, that stream of light behind it confirms it for me, Sceptile used Quick Attack to get down to Ash before he could hit the ground. The scene with Sceptile holding his master who had been holding him up all this episode was so very sweet.
