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Dragon Battle! Ash VS Iris!! (1154)

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Y’all this is the first episode we’ve seen Haxorus pokeball
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
Pansear and Panpour, no Pansage? I hope this means that we can expect a Cilan appearance

Alder was really done dirty, I had hoped that this series could redeem him like XY did with Steven's clone but I guess we'll never see him. Just gloss over the fact that Iris is champion and Ash beat her, should have just made her the new Gym Leader instead given how they handled it.

Ash jumped rank again but at least it was onscreen so can't complain too much.

Volkner is coming, great I guess? Why not Paul or Palmer? Hopefully this means Ash can battle Flint, I like Volkner I've just never really wanted a rematch against him. Ash battling Flint or Palmer would be more hype driven(I guess we know what that Luxray was about, RIP Clemont)
That girl looks like Nessa, hopefully it's her cause she's long overdue for an appearance. That Jigglypuff next to her gives me doubts though
No idea who the dudes(Is that Naruto's dad? lmao) are but hopefully this means that Ash will start getting the focus that he needs soon and PWC matches start being more occurring(And bigger than 2v2)

6.5/10 Hopefully Gary's return doesn't feel as rushed
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
So Drayden and Iris apparently knew about Dracovish had been discovered, but nothing else about it as neither had seen it before, and as I suspected that helped it beat Iris Dragonite, since they didn't know much about it and it threw Iris off her pace.

That and the fact Goh said that Dragonite couldn't hear Iris commands due to being stuck in it's mouth(why it didn't try to use Thunderpunch to get out) ...Dracovish is now an innocent but deadly creature now, thank you writers for making me see it that way.

It is now forever "Pure Evil" walking.
 
D

Deleted member 384931

Guest
Cant Draco Meteor looks like a performance, it was beautiful.

But both Iris'Dragonite and Satoshis Dracofish got robbed. 2 minutes for Dracofish.
 

Dephender

Gizakawayusu
Staff member
Moderator
Didn't intend to double post but I can't seem to edit this quote in.

Dephender'll probably get to it but:
"Dragonite, try to relax. You love Satoshi, don't you? So do your best. You're truly kind. My Haxorus, even back when it was a little Axew was very kind. But as we learned all sorts of moves, battling became more fun. It was fun for this little one, and it was fun for me. Say, Dragonite should go for having a fun battle too. That will also be fun for Satoshi too."

Yeah, that's mostly the gist of it.
 

kartan

New Member
Pansear and Panpour, no Pansage? I hope this means that we can expect a Cilan appearance

Alder was really done dirty, I had hoped that this series could redeem him like XY did with Steven's clone but I guess we'll never see him. Just gloss over the fact that Iris is champion and Ash beat her, should have just made her the new Gym Leader instead given how they handled it.

Ash jumped rank again but at least it was onscreen so can't complain too much.

Volkner is coming, great I guess? Why not Paul or Palmer? Hopefully this means Ash can battle Flint, I like Volkner I've just never really wanted a rematch against him. Ash battling Flint or Palmer would be more hype driven(I guess we know what that Luxray was about, RIP Clemont)
That girl looks like Nessa, hopefully it's her cause she's long overdue for an appearance. That Jigglypuff next to her gives me doubts though
No idea who the dudes(Is that Naruto's dad? lmao) are but hopefully this means that Ash will start getting the focus that he needs soon and PWC matches start being more occurring(And bigger than 2v2)

6.5/10 Hopefully Gary's return doesn't feel as rushed
I wonder if the guy in the middle is bruno. As for the woman next to the jigglypuff i would be happy if this would be green(Pokemon adventures), but i think this is just wishful thinking T_T
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
After seeing the episode subbed and avoiding all the spoilers I greatly enjoyed it a lot, yeah the battle wasnt super exciting but I sitll think it was a GOOD battle with a satisfying climax. Loved Iris interacting with Dragonite on a spiritual level, loved Dracovish getting his win, loved seeing Drayeden again and the call backs loved just seeing Iris jump arouund and be a cute excited Champion. Im not really surprised its getting a cold reception here, It hink I just have to accept Journeys isnt gonna win over people at this point no matter the ep since my level of enthusiams for the series is way higher then the majority's lol.

Anyway 8/10 great episode, SO hyped for Volkner again
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
A friend from another board brought a good point: about how Haxorus didn't seem to have any reaction seeing Ash and Pikachu again. Probably happened off-screen but it'd be nice seeing that Haxorus is the little Axew who used to get lost.

Also, Dragon Dance might be good for speed but it's still a weird move for a pokémon that's basically a special attacker.

By the way, I like to think Ash's Dragonite has Multiscale as his ability. Rinto's Gallade has showed they aren't against using HAs in the show.

The lack of Gou getting the Grass-type monkey of Isshu could hint at a Dent appearance....but then again he already has a Grass-type monkey of his own.

I think they avoided giving him Pansage cause he had Grookey already lol

Didn’t Iris say she’d battle Ash again once she gets in the ultra ball category?

For what I understood, yes.

Still, I'd put it in the same category of "never fullfilled promises" lol

You'd be surprised how cheap (and underpaid) the anime cast acutally is.

I remember seeing an article about an animator saying that payment isn't very good for Pokémon (though that came from a in-betweener if I remember correctly)
 
Pros
- Great character interactions between Iris and Ash, makes me genuinely want to rewatch BW again.
- Nice callbacks to BW like Haxorus hitting his head in the ground
- Great character writing moment between Iris and Ash's Dragonite
- Iris saying best wishes :D

Mixed
- Animation wasn't actually as bad as I had originally thought (would chalk that up to my 360p stream lol) and was actually pretty good in spurts, but still pretty underwhelming for what was supposed to the most hype battle of the series yet. Best animation in this episode was the Wide Breaker/Dragon Claw combo with the follow up in Psycho Cutter/Hurricane. Tons of cool smears and fluid animation that was a joy to see. Way down in second place goes to the Thunder Punch/Dragon claw combo alongside the Hurricane/Ice Beam follow up which was alright, but nothing really to write home about. Besides that, the pace and energy of the battle was a bit too slow for my liking with a real lacking of dynamism and had too much dead space with the kind of frenetic movement present in other stronger battles in Journeys like Ash vs Korrina only existing in flashes and ever present static shots that undermined the flow of the battle. There was also this unfortunate dichotomy between the general feeling of slowness animation wise in the battles versus the fact that a lot of the battles also went by so fast (Dragonite v Dracovish and Haxorus vs Dracovish) and those two things colliding together wasn't a great combination and didn't really allow me to get into the battle as much as I could of.

Cons
- Writing was nonexistent and had horrible implications for Journeys going forward and retroactively hurt the previous regions. Effectively literally no explanation for how Iris became Champion, not even a montage of Iris training and beating the Unova Elite 4 or Alder or anything of the sort. No real build-up, nor was there any development or highlight of Iris's progression to becoming Champion. The entire battle felt so fundamentally unsound and incoherent due to the context surrounding the battle just being completely out of whack. I felt nothing when Ash won because the tension was just removed from the battle since I didn't feel as if Iris was characterized as being powerful or a dangerous opponent at all really. The prestige and power of the Champion status holds just about zero weight as a consequence of this battle and it wasn't done in a way that makes sense at all. It's one thing to pursue the storyline of showcasing that Champions and E4s aren't gods and are actually humans that can be beaten, but this ain't it chief. It's as I've said before, Journeys looks to be pursuing story arcs and events that are on surface level really potentially cool and interesting, but in execution are really just a shell of thin bones with barely any meat or depth to bite into and chew on.
 
Last edited:
Didn't intend to double post but I can't seem to edit this quote in.

Dephender'll probably get to it but:
"Dragonite, try to relax. You love Satoshi, don't you? So do your best. You're truly kind. My Haxorus, even back when it was a little Axew was very kind. But as we learned all sorts of moves, battling became more fun. It was fun for this little one, and it was fun for me. Say, Dragonite should go for having a fun battle too. That will also be fun for Satoshi too."
LOL and people had the NERVE to say Iris speaking to Dragonite had no impact on the result. Our Queen of Unova is selfless and cares more about the happiness of dragons than winning a battle for her own agenda. I don’t know a better champion!
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
LOL and people had the NERVE to say Iris speaking to Dragonite had no impact on the result. Our Queen of Unova is selfless and cares more about the happiness of dragons than winning a battle for her own agenda. I don’t know a better champion!
People still don't understand that a "Pokemon Master" or a "Dragon Master" or a "Regional Champion" is not all about power
 

Dephender

Gizakawayusu
Staff member
Moderator
I remember seeing an article about an animator saying that payment isn't very good for Pokémon (though that came from a in-betweener if I remember correctly)

Inbetweeners are basically interns. It's not supposed to be a paying job, it's supposed to be a stepping stone to a career. There's lots of professions where interns don't get paid at all.
 
People still don't understand that a "Pokemon Master" or a "Dragon Master" or a "Regional Champion" is not all about power
Exactly! It annoys me how much Ash get praised for literally not doing anything impressive besides his usual asspulls and not having any real loyalty or connection to pokemon besides Pikachu. Maybe he should be a Pikachu master. If you ask me Iris is more on her way of becoming a Pokémon master than he is.
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
The episode was so much better with translations, in some ways this was better than Korrina.

LOL and people had the NERVE to say Iris speaking to Dragonite had no impact on the result. Our Queen of Unova is selfless and cares more about the happiness of dragons than winning a battle for her own agenda. I don’t know a better champion!

Even if you want to argue, Ash still had command in the battle, all it did at most was allow Ash to fully without distraction pull off his strategy without worrying about Dragonite.
Exactly! It annoys me how much Ash get praised for literally not doing anything impressive besides his usual asspulls and not having any real loyalty or connection to pokemon besides Pikachu. Maybe he should be a Pikachu master. If you ask me Iris is more on her way of becoming a Pokémon master than he is.

You do realize Ash didn't know what Iris said to Dragonite, right? That Iris's words had no impact on Ash as a trainer to Dragonite.
 

Twilight-Kun

Pokemon World Champion
I like how Iris became champion after battling one dragon trainer and learning about two dragon-types, and didn't have to battle an Elite Four or previous reigning champion to get the title

I guess Unova saw how Alola went about crowning its champion and went "Oh, you mean we don't have to waste money on tournaments anymore, we can just give it to people now? Sweet!"
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
LOL and people had the NERVE to say Iris speaking to Dragonite had no impact on the result. Our Queen of Unova is selfless and cares more about the happiness of dragons than winning a battle for her own agenda. I don’t know a better champion!

Dracovish still threw her and her Dragonite's pace off due to her not knowing about it, and despite this she did NOT see Draco Meteor coming until it was too late.

I knew some people would be in denial of Iris losing but not to this extreme.
 
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