• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Dewpider Gets Lana!? (1014)

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
And yet Sophocles still got a second Pokemon despite being arguably the most underdeveloped of the cast. No one was expecting all of the companions outside Ash to get a full party. But the girls should each have at least a second capture at this point.

Him getting one I agree was stupid. I mean why give them pokemon if they are not going to be used. Kiwae is a battler so it makes sense. Lillie seems to being find her own path so yeah she makes sense but the others are meh at best. My concern is eps like this will be the norm and certain ones will just end up helping pokemon getting people excited for a capture and this keeps happening and when a capture is happening it is so close to the end of SUMO that people just don't care.
 

AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I see your point (though we all know Emolga was caught to service the Pika-clone trend that Pachirisu started), but I guess I'd rather take story cohesion for Lana over unpredictability, especially since I feel she's been the best written SM character up to this point.
That’s true, Emolga was extremely random for Iris but in a way not so much since she was just apart of a long going annoying trend. I guess in a way I’m just not upset since we’ve got countless of bonding episodes with Pokémon that went nowhere. They were really pushing Lana’s the most but hey.


I just don't get this 'everyone getting the game version teams is boring so it's ok that Lana didn't catch Dewpider'. Did you even see how much focus they put on Dewpider in this episode? A major part of the episode literally followed Dewpider, and not Ash and co., with the focus being on Dewpider getting thrown around. And just look at the Lana/Dewpider bonding moments and how adorably the interactions were depicted between Lana and Dewpider. The whole seemed to be an excellent/perfect setup for Lana to catch Dewpider, so in the end, after all that set-up, Lana not catching Dewpider literally made zero sense. It really looked wierd how much focus they put on a POTD and had Lana interact with it so closely without having her catch it.
Well no, I wasn’t justifying her not catching it. I was saying it doesn’t matter to me personally. I would prefer if they did with the Trial Captians what they did with Cilan, Brock and Clement and keep their teams ambiguous. Going straight by the games is boring to me and really makes no sense since the anime character incarnations are suppose to share little to no characteristics of their game counterparts besides their designs. As I said in the post above, there have been plenty of Pokémon-character bonding episodes before SM even existed so it’s not all that shocking to me
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
Long "rant" of why I didn't like this episode or its existence as it contributes nothing to the series, even if later on they do something with it.
This is an episode that amplifies why the school orientation theme that some anime have been leaning on (like My Hero Acadamia, and other anime) just doesn't work for Pokemon. Now, to be clear its completely the executive producers at fault and their usual meddling, probably some animator who was complaining again, with the giant cast of characters that have to be animated because of the format.

But this episode was not good for multiple reasons:

1. There was absolutely no reason to spend a large chunk of the episode only on Dewpider, it reeks of sheer laziness from the screenwriter who didn't want to write a better episode......or perhaps the writer was forced to write this episode as it was for the overall problem of this episode.

2. The absolute random battle of the episode, which I would've thought would've had more meaning but it was just to showcase off Dewpider I guess.

3. Lana not catching Dewpider. And sure maybe this comes off superficially as to why I'm not liking parts of the series, but let's look at it from the executive position.

You an executive producer or otherwise the person who agreed/forced a school like theme for the Pokemon anime, with the main cast being incredibly larger than other series, and one of the issues has always been in every series one or more of Ash's traveling companions do absolutely nothing to contribute most of the time, I can't think of a series where both or all of Ash's companions during the series contributed equally. I mean of course there's the negative equal balance of Cilan and Iris, who didn't do absolutely nothing together, but then of course Cilan had the advantage over Iris for his quirks and personality (Sommelier of everything).

So you decide to make a school related theme for Pokemon where Ash and Pikachu the faces of the anime go to school likely to get on the school anime popularity train (yes because any anime that romanticizes going to school is going to be obviously popular.....somehow)

But then you decide that Ash will be the only human character to receive the most development while agreeing that the rest of the characters are basically stand ins just to fit the whole Pokemon is now at school thing.

I don't know about you but if you were going to do a Pokemon school theme anime, I'm pretty sure it would have succeeded more if you bothered to give any of the other characters at least far more developing roles. I mean Mallow I don't think she's going to have anything other than Steenee evolving from Bounsweet since only giving her irrelevant episodes gives her nothing except completely meaningless character building moments (some in which make no sense outside for plot reasons). Lana gets a Z-ring, masters the Z-move in a later episode, and is not doing anything else. And Lillie the one who received the most personal relevant development has now been used up and is now regulated to being appearance fodder.

Which leaves Kiawe and Sophocles, which for the exception of Lana and her Z-ring has been developed the most of Ash's classmates at least with the comparison to Mallow (unless evolution trumps capture for whatever reason). Hell even Kiawe got nice recent development and used a Z-move with his Alolan Marowak, and Sophocles has been getting a lot of focus with the whole Molayne, Chargabug and fake moving, and the Celesteela episodes, at least shows the writers are at least trying to make them relevant.

And that's just the classmates, I just don't know if I care too much about Team Rocket, Kukui to explain how they're doing.

It just shows that instead of actually bothering to properly develop a series and its characters, something that the Pokemon anime has always struggled with (for a good chunk of the characters), they decided to amplify this with a much bigger cast and they're intentionally hindering themselves by forcing these fillers.

I'm not actually suggesting any anime or television show out there be filler free, but I do think there's a difference between a meaningful filler and a meaningless filler. A meaningless filler in Pokemon refers to episodes that focus on a species of Pokemon and has little to do with none of the other characters (so basically any past generation episode where Ash's Pikachu was the only important Pokemon), or to a lesser extent and episode that barely has anything to do with the cast and simply exists to exist and to pad out a series.

While a meaningful filler would be the equivalent of the episode in Diamond and Pearl, when Brock went to restock supplies, and Ash and Dawn were taking care of all the Pokemon, and Pachirisu got sick. It was meaningful because it largely focused on the cast.

And hold on, I'm not saying meaningful filler episodes are good and meaningless filler episodes are bad but in series that amplifies the issues of why a school format was not ideal for obvious reasons for Pokemon is definitely why Sun and Moon should've had meaningful filler episodes (meaning the Pokemon of the day receiving minimal attention in comparison to actual important Pokemon).

So for example: An episode where Ash meets a character, a random nobody and the episode revolves on him having a meaningless three on three battle with Ash using Rowlet, Torracat, and Poipole, would do wonders for this show. Or how about Mallow, Lana, Lillie, Sophocles, Kiawe actually get some more battling in just to use their Pokemon. So basically the recent Kiawe episode could be considered meaningful filler if we ignore the whole Marowak using a z move for the first time because it dealt with the character.

The only problem however in regards to meaningful filler is that they tried to shove it onto Mallow, but the episode just weren't good enough to warrant them, perhaps if Mallow actually got development, perhaps the meaningful filler episodes she does get would be better, instead it seems that's the only thing they do.

So sure, perhaps we can call this episode half meaningful and half meaningless filler since it really didn't do any real favors for Lana, and it was just about Dewpider and how incredibly irrelevant it was. Dewpider could be relevant later but that also adds to a serious problem the anime faces sometimes, kind of with the whole Litten, Poipole thing.

Forcing a meaningful filler that later becomes non-filler because of the future events creates more issues than it solves for an already shaky format. You're going to deprive actual development for a character because you want to stretch out the story in a way that's completely meaningless in the long run and actually hurts the format of the show even more by not commiting any actual development until "later" this is most definitely not a series where should ever be shelving actual development for a later episode, because it makes it perfectly obvious that all you're doing is trying to stretch the series to make it more interesting than it is, because you obviously can't think of anything else to do. And even that depends on whether you actually follow through or it was just a meaningless/meaningful filler episode.

And it doesn't help that a large chunk of episode was just about Dewpider's day out in Alola, and just had a little bit to do with Lana and Dewpider. Like what the hell was even the point?


Well no, I wasn’t justifying her not catching it. I was saying it doesn’t matter to me personally. I would prefer if they did with the Trial Captians what they did with Cilan, Brock and Clement and keep their teams ambiguous. Going straight by the games is boring to me and really makes no sense since the anime character incarnations are suppose to share little to no characteristics of their game counterparts besides their designs. As I said in the post above, there have been plenty of Pokémon-character bonding episodes before SM even existed so it’s not all that shocking to me

Except there's a huge flaw in your argument, and that's the consideration the anime as a whole.

Take Cilan for example, the reason why he got Dwebble, was simply because he needed another grass type, but the reason they didn't stick with his, oh no, wait, they actually did, because he had Pansage. Dwebble was random because not only did they not have anything to go off with (Games wise, as far as Black and White were concerned), but they must've concluded that the other grass types just were not viable.

Brock on the other hand, they literally had nothing to go off with since he's not a 3rd, or 4th generation character and he didn't have a 2nd generation Pokemon in the games (at the time of 2nd generation), so they literally had to give him whatever they felt was right.

But take a look at Lana, she already has a Pokemon that she doesn't have in the games (at least Sun and Moon games wise, don't know about Ultra S&M), and that's Popplio, while everyone else did at least have something on their game team (with Kiawe taking a while for Marowak)

But there's nothing unique they can give Lana unless you think Wimpod/Golisopod is a much better reason.

You're argument is flawed because they have to focus on the current generation. They just can't randomly give Lana a Squirtle just because they feel like it, there has to be a reason for it, which is why giving Lana Dewpider makes sense.

Sure maybe it is boring and predictable but this is Pokemon, they only go against the grain out of necessity, not to spice things up.
 
Last edited:

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I'm willing to cut SM more slack in terms of filler because, while a lot of it is meaningless, it doesn't have nearly as many of the same monotonous retractions many previous series did with their filler, or even some non-filler. Even with this one, in spite of it's disappointing hype bait, if it were in a previous series, we likely would have cut most of Dewpider's screen time in half for generic Team Rocket shenaghans or even a COTD butting in, which after a while, ends up ten times more boring than even what the meaningless filler SM offers, which is at least often character driven.

Sure Dewpider might not have been relevant, but there was at least some deal of character agency with it, something to make it's brief appearance enjoyable, especially since they bothered to showcase it's species biology like it's bubble 'helmet' in detail. It's just that makes it even more of a shame it's likely a one-shot character.
 
Last edited:

OshyHikari

c l a r i t y
Because the main cast is getting quite stale with the same-y Pokemon. More Pokemon = more interaction = new fun things. By the end of SM, Ash will probably have a full party and he isn't even Alola native.

It's very sad when you think about it, but that's because Ash's status as the absolute main character and anime mascot means he unfortunately gets all the special treatment causing all the classmates to be left behind. Like when Tapu Koko recognised him to get a Z-Ring despite not even being from Alola, much like how it also goes for the SM/USUM protagonist despite he/she only recently moving to Alola.

It is terrible that since BW, Ash is the only one who is even allowed to have a full team, only because he's the face of the anime series. I hate it when the big main "mascot" character has to get all the development while everyone else is shafted.
 
Last edited:

Golden_Latias

#SlayQueenSlay
I mean, I don't think it was any better in OS when Misty and Brock had like nine Pokemon between them, and Psyduck, Togepi, and Vulpix to an extent were the only ones with any semblance of personality. I don't mind the companions having fewer Pokemon as long as they bounce off each other well and aren't "just there" all the time.

Which is why I'm extremely disappointed that Lana didn't catch Dewpider. Because she really needed it. Her problem is that Popplio is such an aquatic Pokemon that she's left not being able to do much outside of those aquatic settings. And as much as I hate to say it, Popplio may be up there with Brock's Mudkip as one if the blandest starter characters in the entire history of the anime. A teammate may have helped Popplio develop some more and show more personality. Instead, we get more false hype and fluff, and I seriously think Lana may go the entire series without a team change because the writers just don't seem to care about her anymore for whatever reason. And that's a shame because she showed promise with the Z-Ring and all.

It almost makes me wonder why they didn't just leave Lana off the show entirely and give Popplio to Lillie. It feels like that would have been so much easier to do.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
Haven’t posted in weeks and I come back to another SM episode that I couldn’t even sit through, and I’m glad I didn’t.

What a waste of an hour special this was
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
You guys are way to invested tbh, SM does not care about stuff like character arcs or capture lists, its just here to be goofy and hilarious and that's basically it. Yeah Kiwae and Sophocles caught extra Pokemon and the girls didnt but uhhh....what was my point again?

a-anyway, I accepted a long time ago that Malllow and Lana are basically dead in the water as far as development goes, no they're gonna stay static and kinda dull personality wise for the rest of the show and depending on what they do with Lillie she might end up joining them.

Not trying to sound cynicial, I just dont really try to get in depth character writing from this saga like I did in the past with YX and DP or whatever. Just gotta accept it I guess
 

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
You guys are way to invested tbh, SM does not care about stuff like character arcs or capture lists, its just here to be goofy and hilarious and that's basically it. Yeah Kiwae and Sophocles caught extra Pokemon and the girls didnt but uhhh....what was my point again?

a-anyway, I accepted a long time ago that Malllow and Lana are basically dead in the water as far as development goes, no they're gonna stay static and kinda dull personality wise for the rest of the show and depending on what they do with Lillie she might end up joining them.

Not trying to sound cynicial, I just dont really try to get in depth character writing from this saga like I did in the past with YX and DP or whatever. Just gotta accept it I guess

Honestly I feel BW did things better in a lot of ways which is weird to say since I at the time hated BW. But I keep forgetting SUMO is a vacation gen so yeah.
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
Honestly I feel BW did things better in a lot of ways which is weird to say since I at the time hated BW. But I keep forgetting SUMO is a vacation gen so yeah.
Nah, SM actually knows what the hell it wants to be and isnt a mess of unfocused ideas like BW was, at least to me
 

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
Nah, SM actually knows what the hell it wants to be and isnt a mess of unfocused ideas like BW was, at least to me

BW was a mess I'll agree but at least it had the pokemon spirit to with travelling gyms,etc I mean slice of life is great but I wish it was a mix of slice of life and keeping the pokemon vibe
 

Golden_Latias

#SlayQueenSlay
You guys are way to invested tbh, SM does not care about stuff like character arcs or capture lists, its just here to be goofy and hilarious and that's basically it. Yeah Kiwae and Sophocles caught extra Pokemon and the girls didnt but uhhh....what was my point again?

a-anyway, I accepted a long time ago that Malllow and Lana are basically dead in the water as far as development goes, no they're gonna stay static and kinda dull personality wise for the rest of the show and depending on what they do with Lillie she might end up joining them.

Not trying to sound cynicial, I just dont really try to get in depth character writing from this saga like I did in the past with YX and DP or whatever. Just gotta accept it I guess
With regards to Lana, I admit to feeling a little tricked. I thought that maybe her getting a Z-Ring would amount to something more. That maybe she'd start to evolve as a battler or find some way to incorporate it into her goal. I wanted to believe that if the writers didn't care about Lana, she wouldn't have gotten a Z-Ring in the first place.
But I was dead wrong there. She probably really only did get it so we could see the Water starter use the Water Z-Move two or three times.

Not to mention, once again, my favorite starter of the generation gets completely screwed over in the anime. And in retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised. Primarina is the feminine starter, and the feminine starters always have and always will get screwed over, because they'll never give it to Ash.
 
Last edited:

Zyar

Unknown Member
I felt like I was watching a Pikachu Short during the first ten minutes of this episode... an extremely boring Pikachu Short, because those at least have Pikachu and Meowth and other familiar pokémon. Whose idea was this? I don't give a sh*t about a potd leaving its nest and going on a journey. I'm aware the chances of Dewpider ending up being caught by Lana are actually high, but that happening would only make this episode half excusable.

The second half was better. I still don't like Pikachu's design this series that much and Poipole is such a bully lol (its voice is so annoying). Popplio, you're as adorable as ever. Lana, you're great, never change. And why the hell did we get such a beautiful animation for the evolution of a random Masquerain? The animators just felt like it? What? I wished we could see that kind of evolution sequence and animation for all evolutions...
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
I don't know about you guys but this was an interesting episode! I enjoyed observing Dewiper, it felt like I was watching the Pokémon version of the Discovery Channel! Poor thing kept getting random Pokémon bothering it even while it was minding its own business. It was cute on how it developed a crush on Lana and how it wanted to make her it's princess. And it's even sweeter that Lana's playing along. Dewiper was quite the character. The battle between it and Surskit (before it evolved) was cool to watch. I gasped when Surskit evolved! It reminded me of previous battles where the companions' Pokémon evolved and won through that way so I was sure that Dewiper was going to lose and end up with Lana comforting it and taking it back home with her.... until I actually saw its' evolution. :p Now, that's a neat trick! It had no interest in claiming the pond as its territory now that it realized it had wings!

I was so happy for Dewiper!! Poipole had some cute moments like always laughing and being a bit mischievous. I loved seeing Ash hold it as he was watching Dewiper battle. I was surprised that Lana didn't catch Dewiper but the ending left me very satisfied. Dewiper wasn't ready to be with it's partner yet. Great episode overall!:cool:
 

Zhydra

Master of Chaos!
The Dewpider not being captured was my only complaint.

Otherwise the first half of this episode was unique, relaxing and overall gold!

I just think aside from Lana the rest of the cast are just there for the ride.

7/10 for me. Unique for an episode and enjoyable... but that is the only thing I can say about it.
 

AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I mean of course there's the negative equal balance of Cilan and Iris, who didn't do absolutely nothing together, but then of course Cilan had the advantage over Iris for his quirks and personality (Sommelier of everything).

Except there's a huge flaw in your argument, and that's the consideration the anime as a whole.

Take Cilan for example, the reason why he got Dwebble, was simply because he needed another grass type, but the reason they didn't stick with his, oh no, wait, they actually did, because he had Pansage. Dwebble was random because not only did they not have anything to go off with (Games wise, as far as Black and White were concerned), but they must've concluded that the other grass types just were not viable.

Brock on the other hand, they literally had nothing to go off with since he's not a 3rd, or 4th generation character and he didn't have a 2nd generation Pokemon in the games (at the time of 2nd generation), so they literally had to give him whatever they felt was right.

But take a look at Lana, she already has a Pokemon that she doesn't have in the games (at least Sun and Moon games wise, don't know about Ultra S&M), and that's Popplio, while everyone else did at least have something on their game team (with Kiawe taking a while for Marowak)

But there's nothing unique they can give Lana unless you think Wimpod/Golisopod is a much better reason.

You're argument is flawed because they have to focus on the current generation. They just can't randomly give Lana a Squirtle just because they feel like it, there has to be a reason for it, which is why giving Lana Dewpider makes sense.
Sure maybe it is boring and predictable but this is Pokemon, they only go against the grain out of necessity, not to spice things up.
Yikes, except Iris and Cilan did interact and undoubtedly were meant to be written as polar episodes. If you honestly believe they never interacted... yikes because I’m willing to bet they’ve had more meaningful interactions than Dawn x Brock, Serena x Clemont and May x Brock.

Anyway focusing on the current generation didn’t stop Dawn from getting a Cyndaquil, Clemont from using Luxray, Iris getting a Dragonite and May from getting a Munchlax so that automatically cancels that argument. Black and White 2 came out early enough for them to have Cilan capture Maractus and Ferrothorn. Unova introduced 3 plus grass lines so if the writers truly wanted to stuff Cilan with them, they could of. Also what’s you’re excuse for Clemont? Someone who’s Magenton and Heliolisk were scrapped for Chespin and Bunnelby? Instead of not leaving those two Pokémon at the Gym and following the games they decided not to because as I said the anime doesn’t follow the games.
 
Last edited:

Golden_Latias

#SlayQueenSlay
All three examples you mentioned were promoting something, though. Dawn only got Cyndaquil for the HGSS promotion, Iris got Dragonite to promote older Pokemon being available in BW2, and May got Munchlax to promote DP. Not to mentiom Bulbasaur to promote FR/LG, and Eevee could serve as DP promotion as well. The only way it would be comparable with Lana is if the next Pokemon games are Kanto/DP remakes and she gets a Squirtle or Piplup or something to promote that, or her second capture is a Gen VIII Pokemon. Both are possible, but are they likely? Probably not.

For that matter, while Araquanid debuted in this episode, it wasn't focused on, and Ash himself has still never seen an Araquanid. This probably won't be all we see of Araquanid, so it's still on the table.
 

AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
All three examples you mentioned were promoting something, though. Dawn only got Cyndaquil for the HGSS promotion, Iris got Dragonite to promote older Pokemon being available in BW2, and May got Munchlax to promote DP. Not to mentiom Bulbasaur to promote FR/LG, and Eevee could serve as DP promotion as well. The only way it would be comparable with Lana is if the next Pokemon games are Kanto/DP remakes and she gets a Squirtle or Piplup or something to promote that, or her second capture is a Gen VIII Pokemon. Both are possible, but are they likely? Probably not.

For that matter, while Araquanid debuted in this episode, it wasn't focused on, and Ash himself has still never seen an Araquanid. This probably won't be all we see of Araquanid, so it's still on the table.
His argument was implying that focusing on the current Gen meant that main characters could only have Pokemon native to that generation which just isn’t true (also I used 4 examples). While Squirtle was just a random Pokémon I named for the heck of it, USUM did bring some past water Pokémon that Lana could use. Her not catching the Araquanid line won’t matter to me personally since the bubble goal was a personal goal between Popplio and herself and I don’t see why she needs multiple Pokémon doing the exact same thing (blowing bubbles).
 

Golden_Latias

#SlayQueenSlay
By that logic, she doesn't need a second Pokemon period. Meaning the only shot at a team change would be Popplio evolving, and at this point, I don't even know how likely that is. Popplio just seems like another merch mon to me, unfortunately.
 
Last edited:

xEryChan

Demon Child
Thoroughly disappointed with this weeks episode. Not only did Lana not get Dewpider like we all thought but this was a terrible filler. Seriously, it was so boring that I wanted to fall asleep during the first half and the second did not even save it for me. It was so bad.

I don’t even have anything else to say about it, that’s how bad it was.
 
Top