Finals IV: Partner (1221)

[pickapika]

My goal is to have this thread surpass Down To The Fiery Finish

your will is my bump

 

[Almighty Zard]

People really need to distinguish between trainer and pokemon here. Pikachu, after having tanked a shitton of damage/recoil vs multiple pokemon(after aggron lowered its defenses), was matching Paul's strongest pokemon until Ash basically forfeitted the battle.

Pikachu's perfomance vs Paul was strong even if Ash used him badly. Problem with ash mons is ash varies from idiot to genius so strong mons will often be made to look pathetic(torterra) and weak ones will be made to look strong(torkoal) if you just go by the final outcome.

Pika-Elekid is a pretty good example of this. In actuality Pikachu was able to tank signifcantly more damage than an amped elekid but because it's draw you have people assuming equality.

Pikachu still put in alot more effort here than back then, to the point where there is no excuse to reset Pikachu like what unova did ever again.

 

[Spyro39]

My goal is to have this thread surpass Down To The Fiery Finish

We did manage to surpass the Ash wins Alola League episode thread lol.

 

[Ryker101]

Few more random things
- At 17 matchups this is officially the most we’ve gotten in a full battle, surpassing Ash vs Paul (14) and Kukui/Cynthia (13)
- Both of Dracovish’s KOs were against grass types using dragon rush
- Excluding the clipshow against Diantha, all of Rillaboom’s KOs have been from acrobatics (chesnaught, goodra, dragonite, sirfetchd)
- Here Ash switched out his pokemon on 3 occasions, which is tied with Paul (SL) for the most he’s done in one battle
- Another similarity to Ash vs Cynthia is his opponent’s penultimate pokemon dynamaxes and he defeats their ace in base form
- This is the only battle where Leon’s Charizard didn’t get a single KO
- Generally speaking, Ash and Leon have faced similar opponents throughout the PWC: Both beat Raihan, a dragon-type M8 member outside of M8 (Lance/Iris), Flint/Volkner depending on who matched their starter’s type, Leon fought Alain whilst Ash beat Steven, lastly a female champion in semis who can mega evolve their ace

Overall loved this fight and can’t wait to rewatch it sometime

 

[DayQuil95]

We did manage to surpass the Ash wins Alola League episode thread lol.

Soon this positivity shall outweigh the salt

 

[Ignition]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1591319849783156736

 

[doofinc]

Pretty cool that this finale happened literally 1 week before Scarlet/Violet tbh. Maxes out the hype for Pokemon right when needed and I'm locked in now for Scarlet/Violet.

They also didn't do the commercial break until like 3/4 through of the episode. They knew they couldn't interrupt the battle for as long as possible and thank god they kept as much of it together as possible.

 

[RafaSceptile]

Ok so finally my review but before of that, a small review of the previous 3 episodes:

-Overall a very solid battle with switching Pokemon, good strategies, good performance of most Pokemon and also good cameos. Dragon tail strategy may be how diantha lost so badly in the end. Also finally 10MV was not a guaranteed win, but it was strong enough to get Charizard outside of Gmax.

Now for the episode: PEAK POKEMON ANIME

The weakest part was obviously Pikachu vs Cinderace which was very short, but the rest of the episode is so good that I don't care.
Pikachu vs Charizard has the best animation since Pikachu vs Tapu Koko, it was such an intense Battle from start to finish, it had cameos of every Ash's friends + Delia, Oak, Kukui, Burnet and Lei/Reí. It also has a lot of small details like Todd Snap during a scene, another scene that is reminiscent of the Pikachu vs Charizard from the opening, Pikachu climbing rocks like he did against Grant and Ash's exercises before the final Battle like those he did in XYZ during the episode where Serena crossdresses like Ash.

But obviously the best part is when Pikachu faints, but it activates Ash's tenacity skill from Pokemon Masters and remembers the lines that Ash said when they met for the first time, and then he see all his friends, all of Ash's Pokemon during the 9 regions he travelled. That moment is so strong for the people who watched this anime from 25 years that I cannot blame the people who cried with it (including me in my re watch), it was absolutely beautiful.
And the final Clash between (B) Thunderbolt and Flare Blast has to be the best animated scene in the entire Pokemon Anime.

An absolute 11/10 episode, and the amount of happiness that I have seen in all social media about this battle is enough for me to consider this battle the best in the entire anime. Not even Kukui or Paul can match that nowadays.

 

[Almighty Zard]

Last bit of Galar DLC promotion? Cinderace getting one shot by Pikachu in that form was a bit disappointing, I honestly wish we got GMAX Intellion

Can't help but wonder if it's because of how it's designed, that could potentially be why we don't get it?

 

[Yce288]

Even if we want to consider this episode as Journeys best episode there are some negative points in it:
1.The Gigantamax showdown lasted only one turn with no explanation that make sense for it.
2.I feel that some characters like Misty and May lost their anime personalities and they look and act just like their game versions:
Misty watched the battle while wearing her swimsuit from RB and FRLG with a towel like her FRLG artwork, also when all the Kanto gym leaders appeared in episode 18 in a silhouette, Misty also looked like that.
May looks exactly like her game version from ORAS with her contest outfit.
3.I'm glad all of Ash's Pokemon appeared in Pikachu's mind, but thats mean that Ash remembers his Pidgeot, but he doesnt keep his promise to it.
4.Why didnt Leon wear his cap when he visited Ash and Pikachu after the battle?
5.Why Iris stopped wearing her champion outfit after she lost to Cynthia?
6.What was the point of the empty seat?
7.The ending for this episode was Supereffective Type, you would think that episode important as this will have a special ending, i'm mean the Alola league arc had a new version of Type: Wild and during the Kalos league arc we had the characters songs project.

 

[Ash-Pikachu]

Pretty cool that this finale happened literally 1 week before Scarlet/Violet tbh. Maxes out the hype for Pokemon right when needed and I'm locked in now for Scarlet/Violet.

They also didn't do the commercial break until like 3/4 through of the episode. They knew they couldn't interrupt the battle for as long as possible and thank god they kept as much of it together as possible.

Honestly, I haven't really been keeping up with Pokemon Scarlet/Violet that much but I'm honestly way more excited to play it after I saw the trailer for the battle let alone see the entire battle play out. The hype for Pokemon is at an all-time high which seems very fitting since Scarlet and Violet seem to be a new direction for the series.

I actually didn't notice that and I'm now more grateful for how they handled the commercial break. They honestly couldn't have started it at a better time.

 

[Yce288]

A lot of people are bringing up that Misty is wearing her FRLG outfit but she already wore that set in the SM long ago

Just as a reference. It seems like it’s just swim wear tbh and a nice nod

This is the swimsuit she wears in RB and FRLG, but since Red and Blue didnt have many colors in them, we only knew the color of the swimsuit in FRLG which is blue, and i know that she already wore it in Sun and Moon, i only pointed out that she looked and acted like her game version in this episode.

 

[masdog]

Can't help but wonder if it's because of how it's designed, that could potentially be why we don't get it?

That’s a good guess. GMAX Intellion is a sniper, so I can see the show going the safe route and not showing that form.

This is the swimsuit she wears in RB and FRLG, but since Red and Blue didnt have many colors in them, we only knew the color of the swimsuit in FRLG which is blue, and i know that she already wore it in Sun and Moon, i only pointed out that she looked and acted like her game version in this episode.

How can we say she acted like her game version here? The Misty scenes were stills, and she didn’t have any dialog.

 

[KukuiFanatic501]

2.I feel that some characters like Misty and May lost their anime personalities and they look and act just like their game versions:
Misty watched the battle while wearing her swimsuit from RB and FRLG with a towel like her FRLG artwork, also when all the Kanto gym leaders appeared in episode 18 in a silhouette, Misty also looked like that.
May looks exactly like her game version from ORAS with her contest outfit.

I’m not really sure how this is a negative? They acted like that because they were stills without the voices, and Mays case is obvious why that is.

3.I'm glad all of Ash's Pokemon appeared in Pikachu's mind, but thats mean that Ash remembers his Pidgeot, but he doesnt keep his promise to it.

I’m pretty sure this dream was from Pikachus point of view, rather than Ashes.

4.Why didnt Leon wear his cap when he visited Ash and Pikachu after the battle?
5.Why Iris stopped wearing her champion outfit after she lost to Cynthia?
6.What was the point of the empty seat?

I’m also not sure what are the point of these are either.

 

[Spyro39]

4.Why didnt Leon wear his cap when he visited Ash and Pikachu after the battle?

The way I see it, the cap is sort of like Leon's crown as the Monarch. Once Ash won, Leon doesn't wear the cap after the battle as a way of symbolizing him no longer being the Monarch and passing down the title to Ash.

5.Why Iris stopped wearing her champion outfit after she lost to Cynthia?

Iris only wears her Champion outfit in battles. She didn't wear it in her debut return episode in JN, heading into the locker room where all the other participants were in JN115, or cheering for Ash in the stadium in JN118, which were all non-battle moments for her.

6.What was the point of the empty seat?

To bait us into thinking what other friend of Ash was going to join Dawn and Chloe...

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1591319849783156736

Makes sense given we've seen them in the same place but...

Should've been Cilan and Clemont instead. Just to make fun with their VAs' other work.

 

[KukuiFanatic501]

So since this episode clearly shows May and Max knows Serena, anyone have an idea of how they met and recognized each other as Ashs past travel companions?

 

[ChampioN One]

So since this episode clearly shows May and Max knows Serena, anyone have an idea of how they met and recognized each other as Ashs past travel companions?

Well get a side series showing Serena's journey in Hoenn (yes I've smoked a ton of Hopium).

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

This is canon to me now

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1592097190822182913

 

[KukuiFanatic501]

Ash announced he defeated Wallace while running past Serena, Serena and Lisia are a duo and Wallace is related to Lisia, both May and Ash competed in the Wallace Cup. I’m assuming Lisia would know of Ash since she competed in the Wallace Cup and got pretty far

Didn’t Lisia seem to not know what was going on when May, Serena and Max we’re watching the battle?