Dewpider Gets Lana!? (1014)

[Vipsoccermaster]

This episode was fine, however, it felt boring. Sure, it was nice that the first half was devoted to Dewpider alone and the few instances of the narrator, and the second half felt it had a bit more life to it.The episode would have been great if Lana actually caught it, but she didn't. While I would have liked of Lana to get another Pokémon, I'm still fine even if she doesn't. As much as Lana needs a team change in Pokémon, she can solely focus her work with Popplio. Popplio's jealously, though. She seemed to be a bit worried that if Lana caught Dewpider, Popplio felt she wouldn't get as much attention as Dewpider is getting from Lana.

The ending of the episode, however, really feels like this episode is setting up for later, but we'll have to see about that.

 

[LilligantLewis]

Dewpider Ascending! is the best pun title in the history of this show (Before this, it was "Flint Sparks the Fire!")

Summary of this ep:
Dewpider vs. Pikipek!
Dewpider vs. Dugtrio!
Dewpider vs. Salandit!
Dewpider vs. Exeggutor!
Dewpider vs. Dewpider!
Dewpider vs. Grubbin!
Dewpider vs. Rattata!
Dewpider vs. Pangoro!
Dewpider vs. Morelull!!
Dewpider vs. Finneon!
Dewpider vs. Sharpedo!
POPPLIO MAKE A BALLOON
Who's that Pokémon?
It's Dewpider!
Dewpider vs. Poipole!
Dewpider vs. Spearow!
Dewpider vs. Surskit!
Dewpider vs. Surskit is a rivalry like Seviper and Zangoose!
Masquerain!

I was kinda disappointed that it took almost half of the episode for anyone of the main cast to appear.

This is actually something I really liked about this episode as it gave it quite a unique feel, and it made me wish more episodes were like this.

On the other hand, Lana has got a Z-ring and a Z-crystal which Mallow hasn't. That actually means much more, since Bounsweet's has meant squat. What nothable things has Bounsweet honestly done after evolution?

You moved the goalposts here, since the original conversation was about who hasn't yet had a team change, which Mallow has had.

has taught her a couple moves, but it doesn't seem like her primary focus a lot of the time.

Exactly. She was even the first main character's main Pokémon in several generations (so long that I don't even remember when) to learn a move offscreen, as she just casually mentioned she knew Hail. It would have been great to make an episode out of Lillie and Snowy struggling together to learn their first new move together.

Well, color me surprised! This episode was the perfect setup for Lana to catch Dewpider, and the summaries all made it seem like she would, so I'm really surprised she didn't. However, the end of the episode seemed to leave things a bit...incomplete, I suppose. There still might be a chance, however slim, that we'll see Dewpider in the future, perhaps when it has evolved into Araquanid.

I suppose the fact that Dewpider only had a crush on bubble-head Lana and didn't seem to recognize her when she didn't have that bubble on her head should have been a hint that she might not catch it. That made its crush rather superficial, after all. Popplio's "jealousy" turned out to be more anger than anything else, and its anger was justified, given that Dewpider was a bit of a jerk who attacked any Pokémon who got near Lana—including Pikachu and Shiron, who were trying to approach Dewpider, not Lana.

I didn't mind the first third or so of the episode focusing on Dewpider and its journey to find a new home. In fact, I actually liked that. It gave Dewpider more character, and it made it more satisfying when it finally found its own home at the end of the episode (even if I was disappointed that that home wasn't with Lana).

When both @satopi and @345ash-greninja both like the same post, you know it's something the forum can agree on!

May had at least one of these as well, yet I see no one complaining about it :/

then may I please direct you to post #19 in this very thread

Him getting one I agree was stupid.

to me the Charjabug race filler was one of the most entertaining fillers of this entire series

long going annoying trend.

well at the time, it wasn't yet, but now it has become that

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.

I would not agree "the whole Litten/Poipole thing" is a problem. In fact, the emotional Litten capture episode, which many dub the best of this whole series, wouldn't have had any impact at all without Litten's multiple prior apperances.

they only go against the grain out of necessity, not to spice things up.

What was necessary about Clemont's Luxray?

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.

They wanted Lillie's Pokémon to be white to match her white dress.

Malllow and Lana are basically dead in the wate

I would say Mallow is dead in the grass, but yes

it may have been decided in an internal vote

i really don't think they would be making decisions so objectively. It was almost certainly a conversation that ended up being decided purely subjectively.

 

[Mega Altaria]

This is actually something I really liked about this episode as it gave it quite a unique feel, and it made me wish more episodes were like this.

Well I guess they wanted to focus on Dewpider a lot more so I expected something important was going to happen to it. But I personally felt that the focus wasn’t used too well but what I liked from it at least is that it brought out the cute moments.

 

[DatsRight]

I found it interesting they put this and the Mallow episode in a 'special' double bill with a fair bit of advertising despite neither having any significance to the series in the long run so far. It's like they're trying to put some fanfare around the two characters to hide how few ideas they've got for them.

Hell in this one Lana was a de facto protagonist at best.

to me the Charjabug race filler was one of the most entertaining fillers of this entire series

The sad thing is that Charjabug, a humbly utilised secondary, is a more memorable character than Popplio, one of the heavily promoted main starters, right now.

Hell the key reason I wanted Dewpider to be caught was to give Popplio a foil, something to get personality from. Many were hopeful Popplio would be jealous of Dewpider's clinginess and that could have made for more characterisation moments or even more episode/development material (similar to how Turtonator fleshed out a little from his sibling rivalry with Marowak, or Togedemaru became more than just 'Pikachu's stalker' when she had Charjabug to bond with).

Sadly not only was Dewpider not caught, but Popplio's personality screen time was limited even in this one episode.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

to me the Charjabug race filler was one of the most entertaining fillers of this entire series

So that's where Alolan taxes go: to build extremely good replicas of...real life cities.

It was oddly too elaborate for a race indoors. Ha ha.

 

[Mega Altaria]

i really don't think they would be making decisions so objectively. It was almost certainly a conversation that ended up being decided purely subjectively.

I was looking at one possibility of what the writers wanted to happen to Dewpider in this episode. But it could also be possible that they came to a quick conclusion that Dewpider shouldn't be caught to which the majority of them concurred.

 

[Leonhart]

As much as Lana needs a team change in Pokémon, she can solely focus her work with Popplio.

Thing is though, she's been doing that since SM began and yet it's gotten her almost nowhere. So I don't see the point of the focus on Ashimari if we get no results.

 

[LilligantLewis]

I was looking at one possibility of what the writers wanted to happen to Dewpider in this episode. But it could also be possible that they came to a quick conclusion that Dewpider shouldn't be caught to which the majority of them concurred.

Well I just mean that I just really don't see them actually taking an objective vote and then biding by the results of it. Regardless of a quick conclusion or much deliberation, I really feel it's more logical for them to have had continued conversations about it and not just voted and told the minority: accept the result. It seems more logical to me for them to have conversations as a group until generally most people were on board with one idea. That's just how I imagine a writers' room though as I've never been in one. It just seems to me that it would really stifle the creative process to be randomly having strict votes to decide major plot points.

 

[Mega Altaria]

Well I just mean that I just really don't see them actually taking an objective vote and then biding by the results of it. Regardless of a quick conclusion or much deliberation, I really feel it's more logical for them to have had continued conversations about it and not just voted and told the minority: accept the result. It seems more logical to me for them to have conversations as a group until generally most people were on board with one idea. That's just how I imagine a writers' room though as I've never been in one. It just seems to me that it would really stifle the creative process to be randomly having strict votes to decide major plot points.

Well I guess if Dewpider was caught instead then it could have had very different results. At least the writers would have thought of the possible consequences of letting Lana catch one but it could even be possible that the writers thought it was inconvenient to add to the main cast for whatever reason. I would have expected them to have a list of advantages and disadvantages somewhere and the writers were left to decide and come up with the plan among each other. Either if the process was quick or slow, or whatever they did, we still don’t know exactly what went on with the meetings. But this time it already seems like everyone has accepted that Lana didn’t catch Dewpider.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Was it really necessary to make this episode at all. It's a poor combination of the Deino episode with the Litleo episode (and both were bad as well). Why couldn't they put the second half first so the already small relevance of the human characters would be slightly larger is beyond me.

And removing the only life support of a living being isn't playing around. Next time, I'll suck out all the blood of a kid, watch him gasp for breath, and then give it all back and say it's a joke.

 

[LilligantLewis]

Was it really necessary to make this episode at all.

It has one of the all time incredible pun titles dude

 

[Lord Starfish]

It has one of the all time incredible pun titles dude

Which the actual creators of the show had absolutely nothing to do with, as you can see from the very much pun-free original title that this thread carries.

...But as for the "necessity" of the episode... I mean, they seem to be obligated to feature every single Pokémon that isn't in the Porygon line at least once, so... kinda? At least as far as Pokémon Of The Week stories go this one had a bit of a unique twist on it with the whole nature documentary angle in the first half. Plus they did leave the door open for Shizukumo to maybe come back later... Not saying that it will, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did either.

 

[LilligantLewis]

Which the actual creators of the show had absolutely nothing to do with, as you can see from the very much pun-free original title that this thread carries.

I don't care since I only watch the dub, and btw, the person I was talking to also watches the dub.

 

[Soaring Pikachu]

I had my doubts about the Poke documentary beginning but I think the episode improves by the end. Once they started talking about a monarch searching for its new territory I found that more interesting. Tough call on whether to capture or not, there are good reasons on both sides of that.

 

[Bortgreen]

With Lana getting Eeeve, was Dewpider Pidgeot'd(not exactly)?