Everyone's Fully Powered! The Road to the Semifinals!! (1077)

[Serebii]

Everyone's Fully Powered! The Road to the Semifinals!!

The battle between Kiawe and Sophocles comes to a head with Sophocles unleashing Vikavolt's Z-Move against Charizard. With Sophocles having studied Kiawe's battle strategies intently, the battle is to be tense. In addition to that, the final Semi Final match between Lana and Guzma commences, with Guzma fully intent on winning the league so he can destroy it. Will Lana be able to stop him?

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Discuss

 

[WhiteBlair]

I'm impressed.

Primarina whitstand all of Golisopod's attacks, and yes, despite it looked like Golisopod was having a field day, Primarina managaed to turn the battle around with Icy Wind. Shame, Z-Move was so slow to deal the final blow to activate Emergency Exit, but oh well, we already knew Guzma was progressing into SF no matter what.

Good job, at least they didn't use swirling eye for Primarina's faint. Now that Lana is out, I'll just enjoy watching the remaining battles.

 

[Lord Godwin]

I think Lana vs Guzma did met the expectations and was one of the better battles in this league.

Was it confirmed if Top4 are 2vs2 or 3vs3?

 

[Zoruagible]

And the writer's pet finally went down, good riddance!
The battle was good... when Primarina was getting deserving beaten down. It shouldn't have gotten out a single attack! -.-

 

[TheScentedApple]

I thought for sure they would have gone the route of having Primarina use the normal Water Z-Move instead of her exclusive one since they went out their way to prevent Primarina from using Sparkling Aria and hurting her throat but alas I guess that Z-Move will be irrelevant now

 

[Doppelgänger]

I found the episode very boring. I'm not motivated to talk about it at all. It was too predictable and routine.

The only noteworthy parts:

-Guzma had the guts to have Golisopod to forget its signature move, First Impression, in favour of Throat Chop
-From the preview, it looks like Mimo is crushing on Gladion after he rescues her

Better luck next week.

 

[nuzamaki90]

The episode was really slow paced, like honestly the battles dragged on longer than they needed to. Neither Primarina or Vikavolt should’ve held out anywhere near as long as they did. Primarina especially, since those constant Poison Jabs and suffering from Poison should’ve brought her to her knees almost immediately.

The animation also continues to be a major problem because it was so jarring today. Don’t know why they always seem to just be dragging Vikavolt’s model across the screen instead of actually animating it, or having at the most 2-3 frames of the characters moving and reacting. It’s like a damn slideshow lol

My main complaint is how everyone bagging on Guzma comes off as really forced. He’s battling just as legitimately as everyone else, even better more so because he’s actually an experienced trainer, and his winning strategy always has to do with him taking advantage of the Pokemon’s most important factor. He’s more of a jerk rival than an actual villain, and everyone calling foul just seems really unnecessary and unfairly demonizing his character. It’s like the writers went “this guys a villain but he didn’t actually do anything wrong but let’s make him look bad anyway”.

 

[Ignition]

This is the first League episode since the Battle Royal episode that I actually enjoyed.

Sophocles vs Kiawe was a good match and actually felt like a Top 8 battle unlike the previous two matches. The bro moments between them was wholesome and although he lost, Sophocles still put up a good fight

Lana vs Guzma was brutal. The way Guzma had Golisopod constantly immobilized Primarina was clever. Kind of creepy how Golisopod approached Primarina while it limped away like it was a stalker. Icy Wind got some good use here in an attempt to slow down Golisopod so Primarina could could move. The way Golisopod cleaved through Oceanic Operetta was clean. Eevee being pissed because it couldn’t help Primarina was a nice touch.

I’d give this episode a 8/10. Main complaint was how the battles felt drawn out Was it me or this episode feel short? Knowing future episode titles and summaries probably committed to that

 

[NegaiFreak]

I wasn't exactly shocked by the results because we knew about them already through episode title spoilers, and the fact that it seemed so obvious.

That said, I enjoyed Guzma's battle far more than Kiawe's. Having Golisopod use Throat Chop at the beginning and following it up with Poison Jab on Lana's Primarina really put him in the driver's seat for basically the whole match.

Question is, how long can he stay in control of that driver's seat when he starts losing to Ash in the semifinals? Not long, obviously...

P.S. I'm starting to notice how slow these episodes are becoming. I mean, more time for the battles is great, but we could really use more than just the two in every single episode.

 

[satopi]

I thought that the battle was ok, almost comical like in the scenes where Golisopod sliced Primarina’s Giant Bubble. It was kind of tiring seeing the same moves but I liked how Guzma went for her throat and kept poisoning her throughout the battle.

I love how all of Ash’s rivals are at the top. About time Kiawe got some love! I still think Sophocles had a bit of a chance winning since Kiawe’s Charizard is old but still a battler when it has to be. No way was it going to lose to an electric bug!

 

[Sham]

All I gotta say is: finally.

 

[lolipiece]

Me tired. Me write thoughts. Then me sleep.

Kiawe vs Sophocles - Sophocles has come a long way from the being the cowardly weakling he was when the show started. Though he lost, he fought hard, and it's fitting it was to the one who trained him to begin with. I liked the strategies, particularly Sophocles' String Shot spam. It was smart to just keep firing until the move slowly kept covering Charizard.

Guzma vs Lana - Brutal. It was mostly one-sided, but Lana didn't go down without a fight. Guzma's cruel, but he's also dangerously intelligent. I also feel like I've seen that Liquidation cutting Oceanic Operetta in half from another anime...

Also minor tidbit I liked was Plumeria's increasingly cocky grin.

 

[lemoncatpower]

Another episode just like the rest... really hoping for these battles to heat up and I really think the next two battles will help with that.

Still can’t take Soph seriously, he shouldn’t have made it this far.

Lana shouldn’t have lasted as long either, I was just waiting for it to end at that point with how nothing worked and even the one thing that worked backfired.

Gladion should destroy kiawe If kiawe has trouble with soph. It’ll be interesting to see who Ash uses against Guzma too.

 

[NPT]

Now THIS is how you write a battle episode. Kiawe vs Sophocles was pretty good, and Lana getting destroyed by Guzma was satisfying to watch. Definitely a big improvement over the trainwreck that's SM133.

 

[Aleh]

The battle against Guzma was brutal. REALLY brutal. It was actually hard to watch for an anime of this kind, it looked like animal cruelty!
And Sophocles demonstrated he is a very capable battler using his intelligence instead of brute force, the opposite of Kiawe who looked clueless the whole time.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Also minor tidbit I liked was Plumeria's increasingly cocky grin.

That grin's gonna disappear real quick when Guzma actually has to battle Ash.

 

[Ignition]

Decidueye and Primarina get knocked out back to back in the Top 8 while Incineroar is the final boss? I see the writers know who’s the best starter

 

[SceptileTheBanana]

Lmao all the Lana hate is definitely coming out in this thread.

I know everyone has been saying it, but it was SO satisfying to see Writer’s Pet getting absolutely wrecked for once. I felt kinda bad for Primarina, but someone had to go down to put Lana in her place.

 

[DatsRight]

Lmao all the Lana hate is definitely coming out in this thread.

I know everyone has been saying it, but it was SO satisfying to see Writer’s Pet getting absolutely wrecked for once. I felt kinda bad for Primarina, but someone had to go down to put Lana in her place.

I think it's just that people want a bit of mortality from her. You can sympathise a lot more with a character that struggles or fails sometimes, so having that token time the multi talented character finally gets their ass whooped can be cathartic. Same thing happened when Mallow lost, since before then she only did full on curb stomps with a fully evolved Pokemon she didn't really train for.

Sure they didn't battle much in the first place, but seeing Ash and Kiawe struggle recurrently while the girls were only ever put in positions they absolutely dominated made them feel less fallible, like the world's most dubious winning streak. Sophocles getting this far was a bit dubious as well, though at least he was made to sweat his way there.

 

[Doppelgänger]

In all fairness, both battles this episode were terrible.

At least they found something interesting to hold their attention. I was so bored and unimpressed by the visuals I was really close to just skipping the episode.