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Gym Battle! Z-Move VS Mega Evolution!! (986)

Genaller

Silver Soul
There’s a time and a place for everything and being a prick about it after getting a genuine complement really wasn’t called for (and if that banter really only was in good fun/wasn’t escalating into something more serious then Brock wouldn’t have needed to interrupt). I was actually fine with how Ash handled his KL loss and the first thing he says to his friends was that he was sorry he couldn’t meet their expectations (in a way I think he was also apologizing to the audience here) so it’s not like he doesn’t feel bad about the loss.

Also PDJ yeah it’s explicitly brought up on multiple occasions.
 
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Soaring Pikachu

Cool Trainer
The rocks in the Cerulean city gym really confused me for a while but I see they made it have multiple battlefields so its ok.
I was totally getting season 1 vibes from Ash getting ready to battle Misty. Good to see mega Gyrados and Mega Steelix, although I am a little puzzled as to why Brocks Geodude has not evolved yet.
 

roguedr4g0nite

WishiWashi Trainer
The site says it was meant to air today, but think you could be right, how annoying, really want to watch this episode in the dub.

I got the Racing Charjabug episode on Sling for some reason. It says it's episode 44 which makes no sense
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
"I've heard about Z-moves. Show me." *smirks*

Dang Brock has never been so cool before. His Onix (or rather, Steelix) certainly has come a long way from back when it would get KOed by a Tackle from a Koffing or a single Rollout from a Donphan.

Also it seems confirmed (or at least strongly indicated) that Steelix got returned to Brock, given he called it his partner rather than a pokemon he borrowed for this match. Makes some sense given Pewter is a Rock type gym and Steelix isn't a Rock type, so Brock' brother would have returned it once he was confident enough to no longer need it.

Poor Rotom's mind was getting scrambled by the way Misty and Ash were using their moves. Always great to see battles on this kind of scale. Now if only Ash's Alolan pokemon would learn some powerful non-Z-moves so they could take part in such battles.
 
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Almighty Zard

He has returned.
did the after credits scene air? or does the dub do them? Cause my recording device cut off during the credits so I don't know if that scene was shown.
 

Ryu Taylor

Unwavering beliefs. Richter Taylor is my name now.
Michele Knotz modified her performance as Misty a bit, because she doesn't sound too much like she did in the previous episode. Bill Rogers stayed the same, though, and he still sounded great. Honestly, if I were watching this at a younger age, I'd never know Eric Stuart was replaced.

As this is the season finale, this'll be the last time the laid-back greatness that is "Under the Alolan Sun" will be heard. Gotta say, I'll miss it. As for the rest of the soundtrack, it's great as usual. Important episodes like this tend to get the most meticulous musical attention. The only misstep was them keeping whatever theme that was when Sophocles and Lillie's battle against Brock started. Another one of those "mountain out of a hill" (no, not a molehill, because this situation was a bit too serious to be called a mere molehill; still, the point stands) Mima-isms. But other than that, the music (both the dub-exclusive music and the kept JP stuff (and I never thought I'd accept a use of an XY battle theme)) was great.

Battle, battle, battle. That's all this episode was, and it was a lot of fun. A great way to end the season. Now the wait for season 21 begins.

So how was the season in general? Well, I think we all know what its Japanese self drove me to, particularly its 21st episode (damn that one to Hell), but its dubbed self kept up the tradition of fixing the show to the point where it's an enjoyable Saturday morning cartoon. The acting from everyone but Lana, the writing apart from just a few gaffes and Samson Oak's awful puns (even though they're meant to be awful), and the music basically everywhere were all great this season. Now on the show's own merits, there were some boring episodes (the Oranguru one being the lowest point of the season if you ask me), lots of fun episodes, and some very heartfelt ones ("One Journey Ends, Another Begins..." being the highest point of this season if you ask me). Oh, and the animation's amazing. Just thought I'd say that, too. I don't know why it's being seen as a huge problem.

Best of luck to Season 21!
 

G4Pokefan

THE AURA IS WITH ME
Didn't know that this was the last episode of the Season. Great way to end it though.

-Got so much back-in-the-day feels from this episode. Seeing Psyduck was a nice surprise and the way it battles now and the way Misty treats it now?? Shocker!
- Nice that Brock got Steelix back.
-Seeing the Mega Evolutions felt kinda weird to me. They pretty much just pretended it no longer existed for a while there especially since we didn't get to see any new mega forms this generation. Wish there was a back story as to how they got the stones
-Not sure why they've been playing XY music lately this Season.
- Looks like we'll be seeing more of Jigglypuff

All in all, nice interesting season! Definitely enjoyed it more than XY series. Throughout this whole season, Professor K is officially the most seen and active Professor the Anime series has ever had! Swear he was almost in every single episode this year!

It seems from some of the clips ive seen these last few months, Season 21 is gonna be more serious, less comical.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Wow! The dubbers actually used the fandom term "pity badge" by making Misty say "I gave him a badge out of pity"

Incredible!!!
 

Vipsoccermaster

Well-Known Member
This episode was awesome, it brought back the memories of the original trio doing gym battling! Great way to finish off the season. Loved the moments that others may have already stated in the thread.

So we finally completed the 20th season, but now is the wait for the 21st season. Who knows when that will come. Definitely sometime in 2018. I think Disney, given that they did the airing for a whole year now, they did pretty good for the first year. Other than the long wait in between SM2 and SM3, Disney did well, given that they did a week of brand-new episodes back in May 2017 and aired a whopping 10 episodes in July 2017. Hopefully they do the special airings again.

The longest time we had to wait after the Japanese airing was SM4, with 171 days. The shortest time we had to wait was SM42, with 72 days (not counting the first two episodes, which were 18 days).

Bring on Season 21!
 

NPT

Just a member
Music-wise, this episode's dub kept 5 out of 12 Japanese pieces...

1. Come Along - short version (Title Card music)
2. A BW battle track (Plays during Geodude vs Togademaru and Snowball).
3. BW Title Screen theme
4. Kalos Wild Pokémon Battle theme
5. Red/Blue/Yellow Ending theme (Movie 15 version)


It's a little better than the last two episodes, but still not good enough. Goldfarb's garbage music ruined most of Ash and Misty's battle.
 
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Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
They didn't destroy Brock's Mega Evolution scene, and that's all I asked for this episode. Ash vs Misty was really bland, as expected.

Overall, awful season from the dub. And the next one will be even worse if we go with the XY pattern.
 
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Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
And that's the last time we ever have to hear that opening.... I hope. Hopefully it doesn't pull a BW and get worse as the series goes on.

I didn't like how they tried treating Geodude like Brock's signature Pokemon, just stop.... I don't think Geodude ever interacted with Psyduck, we barely even saw Geodude at all back in the day. Croagunk is Brock's signature Pokemon much like Misty's Psyduck, Ash's Pikachu, May's Blaziken, Dawn's Piplip, Cilan's Pansage, and Serena's Braixen. It's a big freaking shame he wasn't here, we better see Croagunk if Brock visits Alola, Marshtomp too as Swampert needs to be owned by somebody important already damn it!

And the episode could definitely have done without the other four classmates. All they needed was Kiawe and Ash duking it out with Brock and Misty. They could have easily used the pointless battle time slot with the others to explain how and where Brock/Misty got their Mega stones.

I do hope Kiawe gets to actually win a big battle at some point, they play him off like a big battler yet we never actually see him win against anybody. INB4 Kiawe kicks Ash's *** at the League.
Kiawe's battle with Brock was the highlight of this episode, it was nice getting to see Steelix be shown as the strongest of all the companion Pokemon by being able to withstand a freaking z-move! And it was nice that after all these years, Ash was finally allowed to beat Misty.... now can he please have that showdown with Giovanni?

8/10
 

Pokegirl Fan~

Liko>>>>>Ash
I loved the classmates gym battles, and Psyduck and I thought Brock and Kiawe's battle was pretty good. I found Ash and Misty's battle a bit lacking tbh and even though I thought Misty's voice sounded a bit better here than the last episode; I still feel like Michelle knotz could have done better. At least it didn't seem like everyone was all hyper this time.
 

roguedr4g0nite

WishiWashi Trainer
If the dub replaces Kalos tracks, it's music to my ears. Really wish they'd actually use Sun and Moon tracks. Anyways this was an ok episode. I really wanted to see Snowy have a full battle, but I guess I'll have to wait.
 
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