Sigh, time to critique Pkachu's performance again. I haven't really been mentioning it so far also, but I find it immensely baffling how much stock backgrounds are used, especially for this particular series. It's so ironic. It's not even like the animation quality is high enough to warrant it or let it slide. Anyway...
Satoshi vs Gumza Part 2. This fight pisses me off, primarily, because of how Pikachu and Gusokumusha were portrayed and some ideas here should have been used when Satoshi fought Alan, from the music that plays to Satoshi's strong will to not give up, even though it's not the actual finals match, which in turn doesn't matter. But first, Nyaheat; it actually lost fairly, considering the extra poison status effect. Pikachu vs Gusokumusha on the other hand, wow is this fight bad, and I just mean in terms of power-scaling. Starting from Pikachu's pathetic "*****-ass" (lack of term) reaction from getting hit from Throat Chop. No other Pokemon, including ones clearly weaker than Pikachu reacted in such a way (even when hit by it more than once in a single battle, again like Nyaheat and Ashirene), making Pikachu look weak and not ace caliber. Then Guso, in its weakened as hell state, somehow deflected a thunderbolt (this I can actually accept), took a direct Thunderbolt to the chest from nearly a fully healed Pikachu and kept going, and proceeded to block a S.Gigavolt (from Satoshi's Pikachu), the same move that Tapu Ko Ko (who was never even remotely as weakened as Guso was) always made sure to block before and usually sent it flying after getting hit by it. (The point being how Guso has so much stamina and endurance at this point.) So yeah, from here Pikachu is already panting, all from being hit by ONE attack and using a few regular one of its own. The panting may not last all that long, but the fact it happened and the aftermath of the battle had Pikachu pass out (indefinitely, unlike what has been seen in some other instances after intense battles), upsets me. Final blow being a horizontal Iron tail vs Liquidation non-struggle clash that has the former winning was poorly done, even if Gusk was possibly in a weaker state. If this was XY when they portrayed Pikachu's Iron tail as being on this really high level it's never been on before I'd have actually accepted it, but it has not been treated that way this S&M series, and it's never been shown or used to destroy Z-Moves unlike Liquiadation has. If Satoshi supported it again with QA beforehand (or used it while falling like he did back on Korrina's Lucario, Zakuro's Tyrunt, Sho's Raichu, or any other similar instance) to make it more powerful, I'd be fine with that. Lastly, the fact that Pikachu almost lost, when it had type advantage, full health, a very weakened opponent, and wasn't poisoned a single bit, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It could have been a challenging fight for Pikachu without it nearly losing in the process.
Guzma's/Gusk's development was predictable to me, but it's fairly surprising that it didn't take center stage and serve to to be used to defeat Satoshi, for like once, even though I have figured that the likelihood of Satoshi winning was still higher than Guzma doing so, personally (especially since Satoshi vs Gladio just has to happen, along with Satoshi vs Royal Mask). It's baffling, though, because Satoshi's development this series hasn't been as engaging and indepth as its been in some of the past series.
No usage of any of Guzma's themes from the games was really wack, also.
Whelp, saw Satoshi's mom (and Oak) in the previews, so looks like she will be here after all. Good, because I expected her to be at this particular league considering her frequent Alola visits. Meh, that's about all I want to say, considering I need to see the other episodes. (Once again, though... Melmetal hype!)
