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How do you feel about the SM arcs?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 384931
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Deleted member 384931

Guest
Hey! What is your opinion about the SM arcs? Which one is your favorite? And which one do you really hate?
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
I liked some of them, the arc where Lusamine gets captured by Nihilego and goes crazy was quite memorable but half of them felt kind of rushed. Especially the recent Necrozma arc. I hope Pokemon Adventures take on Necrozma proves more exciting!
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
SM really lacks in the story department for me. There's a lot of exposition but rarely any action getting done. And it's always Ash & Gladion who actually seems to care about the dilemma. Sad that a recurring character does more in the entire series than the classmates do. All of the arcs feel rushed and could use an additional episode or too.

In order I say: Necrozma>Akala>Aether>>>>>>>>Ula'Ula
(Though if one includes Litten's build up to being captured, then that's my favorite).

Necrozma: First off, I love how Gladion came back. He has no time to just sit & reiterate what's already known & he never hesitates to get into the action. I also like that the Aether trio, the Professors, Kahunas, and everyone else actually do something. Seeing Nebby again was also great. The Z Energy scene leading up to the Alola Legends using their Z Moves to help Necrozma use Ultra Burst is my favorite scene. And that purple waste of space was released! My only complaints were Rocket appearing at all(ew Mega Aggron) the fact that there's so much reiteration of the situation, and that the classmates weren't really doing anything (except Lana using a Z Move ig)

Akala: Finally got to another island and its trials. I'm a fan of Marowak being captured, the Totem battles, and Rockruff finally evolving (still hate Lycanroc though). I'm not really a fan of Lana suddenly getting a Z Ring and how they skipped the Fire Totem. Also the Stoutland episode was boring.

Aether: I liked Cosmog and Solgaleo + the Tapus characterization in this arc. The shift to Ash bonding with Nebby instead of Lillie was weird but I got used to it. Also Kukui finally showing us a Pokémon. My favorite part was the Silvally evolution and the Pikashnium Z. The rest was meh. The family issue felt butchered compared to the games and Lillie's speech to Clefable and Lusamine was seriously lacking. Lusamine having 6 boosted Pokémon was great at first but the Lilligant and Steenee/Rowlet moments really through it off. Faba being this insane was a sour taste imo. What did he gain from all of this exactly? And Solgaleo just sat there during the entire fight. You'd think in a world full of Poison/Rock types, a Psychic/Steel would actually be used.

Ula'Ula: Nanu, Krookodile, and Tapu Bulu were the only good part of this arc. Rest was a mistake I'm trying to forget happened.
 

U.N. Owen

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night ...
If I can sum it up in one word, it would be experimental.

The writers have never had to write successive arcs before. Usually, they would just nest arcs within each other. These arcs lack a major concept of pacing which causes problems. I'm not saying long arcs are better. After all, shows like Star Wars: The Clone Wars show us that we can do good arcs in two to five episodes. It's also a focus problem. All arcs so far lack a sense of focus on the characters because Ash needs the spotlight because he's their biggest money maker. Going back to Star Wars, they weren't afraid to make other characters the star, even when they, the money makers, were present in arc.
 

pokedigijedi

Saiyan Jedi
I am not a fan of them, too much comedy not enough action, well that and Ash's classmates are all weak with the exception Kiawe and Ash himself (which, while nothing new, is sad nonetheless to say in my opinion) I also don't like how the game's story line has been watered down, again nothing but it feels especially bad here almost as bad as with the Unova arc.

I have nothing to say about Aether that hasn't already been said, the UB arc took the sense of danger out of the UBs and reduced them to a joke.

They gave Necrozma a full fledged happy ending instead of the Bittersweet ending it had in the games, normally I don't mind and even prefer a happy ending but I felt the way it happened in the games was better since it showed that you won't always get a full fledged happy ending.

I won't go into detail on Poipole, because I have nothing else to say on it that I haven't already said, it was just a tease that is all.

All in all though, I still consider the Alola arc better than Unova arc if only slightly so if Ash fails school I am going to rank it as bad as Unova if not worse because losing the league all the time is bad enough but failing school would be unacceptable in my opinion
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I liked the Hoshigumo-chan stuff mainly due to the climax, even though I wish Satoshi hadn't hogged Hoshigumo-chan to himself since Lilie deserved that subplot more. The Necrozma arc was trash, however. Too much wasted potential.
 

Akkipeddi

All set to be a nice guy
They range from bad to underwhelming/average in the order of Ula'ula>Necrozma>Akala>>Aether.

Ula'ula: I liked this arc the best since it was just Ash and Team Rocket, without any of the classmates, who I frankly just can't stand and find a massive waste of time. I especially liked the episode where Team Rocket got their Z Ring, as well as the episode where Ash met Acerola and got defeated by Nanu. The last two episodes weren't so great again, as I found the Pikachu vs Mimikyu battle lame, and the Ash vs Nanu battle was pretty rubbish.

Necrozma: Not bad, just underwhelming. Gladion returning was a plus, and the BGM was really good for this arc. But battles, for such a big arc were short and just poor in general, and often I found too much staring at each other for some reason. Team Rocket were criminally underused, and Matori Matrix didn't feel any more competent than regular J&J. Poipole also was a waste of space for 20+ episodes, and when it was time for its release, I didn't even care since it contributed so little. Animation also was subpar for this arc.

Akala: Hated this arc. Both Totem battles were rubbish. Lana's Z Crystal felt undeserved, and the Stoutland episode where she found her Z Ring was boring af. Also, they totally skipped Totem Salazzle and Ash didn't even need to challenge three Trials to face the Grand Trial.

Aether: oh boy, where should I start. Worst arc in the entire anime for me. Funny how an arc focusing on a character made me hate her much more instead of appreciating her, but that's what the did to Lillie. I was indifferent about her prior to this arc, but once this arc happened, she's my joint least favorite. They butchered the family story, since Lusamine wasn't even evil. And yet, they force this drama between Lusamine and Lillie, which frankly just made Lillie look like a spoilt and ungrateful kid. Not to mention, that awful speech in SM054, where apparently after Lusamine went through so much crap, Lillie yells 'I hate you'. This arc made my sympathize with Lusamine more than Lillie. Beyond that, SM052, SM053 and SM054 were awful episodes, filled with unnecessary 'humour'. Also, who can forget the DEM 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt. Solgaleo's role was literally to be a magic bus, and it had such an unmemorable farewell.
 

ash&charizardfan

Humans are tools
That depends on the expectation, i think they were pretty fine thugh aether arc was somewhat underwhelming maybe because it was much better executed in the games.
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
If I can sum it up in one word, it would be experimental.

The writers have never had to write successive arcs before. Usually, they would just nest arcs within each other. These arcs lack a major concept of pacing which causes problems. I'm not saying long arcs are better. After all, shows like Star Wars: The Clone Wars show us that we can do good arcs in two to five episodes. It's also a focus problem. All arcs so far lack a sense of focus on the characters because Ash needs the spotlight because he's their biggest money maker. Going back to Star Wars, they weren't afraid to make other characters the star, even when they, the money makers, were present in arc.
I feel like the anime team should take another look at Pokemon Adventures manga, specifically the original RBG, Y, and GSC story arcs. Some of you may have hear me call them story arcs as a whole and technically they are labelled that way however... their more like seasons madeup of story arcs than a whole story arc. Anyways, I recommend you guys try it out, it does everything that the Sun and Moon anime series tries to do right including giving the focus spotlight to multiple characters across different storylines succesfully. In fact, the GSC story arc doesn't just tell the story of the main characters but, like the japanese movie title of The Power of Us, it tells EVERYONE'S STORY and holy crap it's a exciting experience seeing the Pokemon world at so many different points of views, gym leaders, villains, seemingly minor supporting characters that are actually far more important than you may have thought as a kid. It's just so freaking amazing, there's even a Gym Leader Tournament where all 16, YES 16, Gym Leaders fight against each other, it's so freaking epic and you know what? The most interesting storyline out of all the 16 Gym Leaders is actually Janine, a character rarely explored in other adaptations, who's confused and angry because her father, Koga, disappeared and she has no idea what to do with her life since she has no master anymore and we get to see the WORLD OF POKEMON from her point of view. These are all story arcs that are built together, built up to something in the end and unlike the anime, we, Adventure fans, actually get to see the GS Ball in action in one of them lol!

This is the kind of stuff that would be awesome to see in animated form. Honestly I don't think taking away the spotlight from Ash a lot, I mean like giving other characters dedicated storylines spanning different episodes long, will hurt the anime series, I think it will enhance it! For example, Giovanni. Personally, I think the anime's take on Giovanni is too hollow. They portray him as a greedy power-hungry businessman with no other reason explained. Like Pokemon Adventures, they could look at Giovanni's character from the games more faithfully, that he is a power hungry businessman but he's doing it for the sake of becoming a stronger trainer, to be the very best, the POKEMON MASTER but through darker means. I mean let's be honest, if you read Pokemon Adventures or seen Pokemon Generations/Origins than you know Giovanni's character is severely underused in the anime. It's something Ash could relate to with Giovanni but at the same time heavily oppose him.

I feel like the anime crew can learn a lot from Pokemon Adventures... or rather... they can built upon their success with the XYZ series which in many ways feels like an adaptation of the original RGB story arc. Honestly, I can't recall a single bad episode from the XYZ series, even the filler content were really good. I feel like if they could just built that into separate story arcs that later feel more connected over time, building up to some big finale like Pokemon Adventures, they'd built more interesting storylines. The thing is they have succeeded in a way with XYZ, so they can do it with full-fledge story arcs. Honestly though I'm keeping my expectations low, I'm just hoping they don't go back to the stone ages of the Kanto, Johto and Hoenn filler.

Talking about this has given me an idea for a thread...
 
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TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
They're hit/miss. Aether was doomed from the start simply because there was no way they were going to have one of the protagonists' parents turn out to be evil/insane. SM's real talent is in creating entertaining filler.
 

FlygontheRavager

#1 Pokémon Anime Fan!
Aether was doomed from the start simply because there was no way they were going to have one of the protagonists' parents turn out to be evil/insane.

Actually, I believe that turning Lusamine from an abusive mother to a person who loves her kids yet isn’t the best parent was a good decision. This should explain my opinion better: http://aminoapps.com/p/16f6ua
 

Zhydra

Master of Chaos!
They're hit/miss. Aether was doomed from the start simply because there was no way they were going to have one of the protagonists' parents turn out to be evil/insane. SM's real talent is in creating entertaining filler.

That depends on the expectation, i think they were pretty fine thugh aether arc was somewhat underwhelming maybe because it was much better executed in the games.

Am I the only one of the few who likes that arc because it covers most of the plot beats from the games and gave me enough emotions to get invested?

Nebby was still the main focus along with the big mystery behinds Lillie's trauma.

In fact the family drama in the Aether family, still happened due to how Lillie wandered down to the labs, nearly got abducted by Nihilego to the point she can't remember, how Gladion took the weight of being unable to do anything about it at the time.
Big bonus in how Lusamine didn't exactly bother to question how it happened and was generally neglectful as a parent.

In fact the change on Lusamine is the BIG reason a lot of people gripe about the arc, especially since they gleefully ignore any form of depth Gamefreak tried and failed to implement with her character in the vanilla games. (One piece of dialogue from Lillie about off screen stuff we could have seen and a piece of dialogue with her motive for doing all of the wormhole crap in the first place. Stuff saying that she wasn't always the nut job she was when we met her in the games.)
So when the anime portrays Lusamine at her most mentally stable by removing those factors (Nihilego venom and possible Mohn disappearing, that resulted in her downward spiral into an abusive parent.) People cry foul because they are not getting what they wanted. (Yet people don't seem to mind this with Malva being/ becoming a good girl in the XY/Z anime when in the games... she threaten to burn you alive.)
Even in the anime, Lusamine is still not a good parent, she just isn't an abusive one. (The only trait of her character that people care about.) Once Gladion appropriately tore into Lusamine for her neglectful behavior, she starts undergoing character development, showing to her kids that she does care about them.

I don't call the Aether Arc a villain arc, since only Faba and Nihilego are the only two antagonistic forces. (So I just toss it into the story arc department.)
Speaking of which, Nebby still went into the box, his power, Nihilego shows up and caused trouble that resulted in Lusamine going into Ultra Space with it. (While the anime gave us a better reason to care about rescuing her than in the vanilla games.) Which results in Lillie and the others going on a mission to rescue her, while I do agree that the Solgaleo evolution episode was the worse episode in the S/M series and the big Z move came out of nowhere, what was any different about the Mother Beast fight outside of her actually using moves. (Unlike the games where you just fight her pokemon!)

Lusamine still went crazy during this. (Due to Nihilego venom being in the mix by this point.) Shouting nasty/ threatening things to her kids. "I hate you, stay away or I will do something scary." As well as nearly killing them, while Nebby could have done a bit more, Lusamine's pokemon could have fought more, the episode still covers the fact that our heroes are trying to rescue her. (When in the vanilla games, going into Ultra Deep Sea made little sense for those that hate Lusamine to point of just wanting to leave her there. Which was about everyone.) In fact, Lillie still gave Lusamine a big speech in regards to her behavior, covering the emotion beats perfectly. Then Nihilego makes everything worse and Ash pulls that Z move that came out of nowhere, Lusamine gets separated from Nihilego and our heroes get her out of Ultra Space.
It isn't a perfect Arc, but it gets more hate than it deserves.
Also this is to FlygontheRavager.
I made a debate with someone about S/M vs US/UM in how Lusamine was portrayed.
 
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Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
In fact the change on Lusamine is the BIG reason a lot of people gripe about the arc, especially since they gleefully ignore any form of depth Gamefreak tried and failed to implement with her character in the vanilla games. (One piece of dialogue from Lillie about off screen stuff we could have seen and a piece of dialogue with her motive for doing all of the wormhole crap in the first place. Stuff saying that she wasn't always the nut job she was when we met her in the games.)
So when the anime portrays Lusamine at her most mentally stable by removing those factors (Nihilego venom and possible Mohn disappearing, that resulted in her downward spiral into an abusive parent.) People cry foul because they are not getting what they wanted. (Yet people don't seem to mind this with Malva being/ becoming a good girl in the XY/Z anime when in the games... she threaten to burn you alive.)
Even in the anime, Lusamine is still not a good parent, she just isn't an abusive one. (The only trait of her character that people care about.) Once Gladion appropriately tore into Lusamine for her neglectful behavior, she starts undergoing character development, showing to her kids that she does care about them.
I find her being deceptive and being hellbent on getting Nihilego to the point of neglecting her kids to be the best handling of her character. She knows she's dismissive of anyone not worth her attention and not afraid to be blunt on how she feels. It's better than her just being some mom who priorities end up getting blurred due to work and suddenly goes insane from her inner interest in UBs. Plus her impact on Lillie/Gladion's lifestyle is more meaningful in the games. The negative attributes of her character help make her more memorable and factors into her popularity.

Malva didn't have that much of an impact during the Flare arc. She never seemed to have evil intentions. Her character does less than Lusamine so it's less noteworthy. And you're comparing Malva's one line in the games (after Flare is defeated, mind you) to an entire climax of a more memorable story (game wise).
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I like Solgaleo's evolution episode. It's a nice calm-before-the-storm episode, and I think they did very well in making the evolution and Solgaleo's reveal cool. Of course if you've played the games before the surprise is essentially spoiled but if you tune that out it's really good. I love how they used the Island Guardians to assist the evolution through a ritual (while in the games you just play on some random flutes never to be seen again), and the role they played in helping out actually getting to the point they could go with the Z-Move, by upgrading Ash's Z-Ring and Tapu Koko showing the pose for Searing Sunraze Smash. The dubs kind of destroy a bit of the atmosphere though by replacing a lot of the music, the music selection in the dubs is quite bad in this episode. Goldfarb music score is fine for the slice-of-life episodes but for the hype climactic moments I think it falls short.

I do see where people come from when they say 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt came out of nowhere. I don't agree with it, I think it was foreshadowed in Season 20 through Ash's rematch with Tapu Koko, but I do think that that episode was a bit too long ago compared to this one so that there's a disconnect there. Another battle in between that showed progress with Gigavolt Havoc in between would've helped out a lot. Aether arc dropped the ball in some places by not having quite enough buildup or foreshadowing (also the Lillie-Clefable moment), but apart from those things I think it's a great story arc.

For Lusamine, I like what they did in the anime and made her more nuanced. Of course she isn't as hostile to Lillie and Gladion as in the games, the situation is different. In the games Lillie stole Nebby from her and Gladion stole Type Null. And although Gladion also does that in the anime Lusamine never knew about that until she learned the full story.
 

Dragalge

"Orange" Magical Girl
While the ending of the Aether arc was kind of messy, the buildup to them entering the wormhole was very well done imo and frankly, I found it to have the best buildup of any of these arcs to date (Akala being the worst for me). It also had one of the best SM episodes imo with that being the one where Type: Null evolves and Gladion saving her sister as opposed to Ash. Most of the ingame stuff is better but one thing the anime did right was utilizing Gladion way more.

With that said, I still like the Necrozma arc the most. Aside from a few gripes, I liked everything else and the part where everyone in Alola contributed on helping out in the end. For Akala, I enjoyed the last two episodes and the two trials were decent along with Marowak's capture imo. I just wish the pacing was much better because it felt jumbled all around to me.

Ula'ula had its good points too but it baffles me seeing people saying the classmates tagging along would have been a waste when Acelora did near-squat to contribute anything meaningful. You could remove her and nothing of sort would have changed. Her personality was fine but whatever she did was forgettable. Everything else was tolerable to good for me.

Overall for me Necrozma ------> Aether = Ula Ula => Akala
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
ash&charizardfan said:
That depends on the expectation, i think they were pretty fine thugh aether arc was somewhat underwhelming maybe because it was much better executed in the games.

Lusamine seemed somewhat nicer in the SM saga, which I feel made her more underwhelming compared to how she was portrayed in the games.
 

Apslup

Feelin' Fine.
Sun and Moon is generally a mixed bag in terms of quality for me. Whenever something cool or interesting does happen, it usually comes at the expense of a whole load of Comedy filler, which is alright but not in abundance like it is in the series. Anyway, here are my opinions about what I think about the Arcs:

Akala: So overwhelmingly average: I thought the Olivia battle was pretty fun and the Marowak capture was pretty good to, but Lana getting a Z Ring and the underwhelming Totem Pokemon battles were pretty bad.
Ather: Lillie got a little bit too much spotlight tbh but it isn't anything terrible. This arc was pretty ok overall, but I HATED the bit where they all acted like they were friends and used that Group Z-Move to go after Lusamine since it just wasn't justified in my eyes.
Ula'Ula: Nanu and Acerola are pretty cool. I stopped watching the Anime for a bit during this time so I don't really know what happens.
Ultra Guardians: I was so excited for this because it had so much Potential, but most of the time it was pretty disappointing, but the ending was pretty good IMO. I didn't like how Poipole was basically just Nebby 2.0, but whatever I'll pass.
 

Zhydra

Master of Chaos!
I find her being deceptive and being hellbent on getting Nihilego to the point of neglecting her kids to be the best handling of her character. She knows she's dismissive of anyone not worth her attention and not afraid to be blunt on how she feels. It's better than her just being some mom who priorities end up getting blurred due to work and suddenly goes insane from her inner interest in UBs. Plus her impact on Lillie/Gladion's lifestyle is more meaningful in the games. The negative attributes of her character help make her more memorable and factors into her popularity.

Malva didn't have that much of an impact during the Flare arc. She never seemed to have evil intentions. Her character does less than Lusamine so it's less noteworthy. And you're comparing Malva's one line in the games (after Flare is defeated, mind you) to an entire climax of a more memorable story (game wise).

So the most one dimensional interpretation of Lusamine's character are the only meaningful high lights to you and the fan base? Villain does NOT have to equal, irredeemable scum, that was never the intention for Lusamine in S/M and it is evident when the anime and US/UM try to give her more depth. (If anything, S/M was the version that screwed her up. By only focusing on her villainy and half assing the depths to her character that the game tried to tell you about in the last quarter of the plot and after everything was said and done.)

In the games, they gave the back story on Mohn disappearing into an ultra wormhole and causing all sorts of trauma to Lusamine. In addition, they out of the way to imply that she was intoxicated by Nihilego before you met her. (Enhances your traits ten fold, dull mental inhibitors and redirect your priorities for the benefit of Nihilego.
Compare certain scenes with her in S/M to US/UM. The later is where Lusamine is less extreme and her plans have nothing to do with Nihilego, but to stop Necrozma, who was the looming threat of the story. (Note, the Mohn trauma still resulted in messing her up and resulting in her becoming abusive, the entire part of Lusamine's development in the Ultra games is getting the wake up call that she isn't as good of a person as she thinks she is and turning herself around for the better..)
Before you say, nothing in the games suggested that she wasn't infected by Nihilego. The difference starts becoming apparent in US/UM right after you meet Nihilego and beat it, unlike the vanilla games, she makes no crazy smile and the URS arrive to explain Necrozma. In addition in S/M she was very vague about what Aether was doing down at the labs, in contrast to US/UM where she flat out told you that Aether was doing a wormhole experiment and it wasn't going as well as planned.
More examples that Lusamine was drugged out of her mind in S/M
Are here
Here
Here

Also, Lusamine in the anime, didn't suddenly go insane from her inner interest in the UB's. It was implied through the Arc, that since she was a child, she wanted to meet an Ultra Beast, two times they flat out told us, the third one was when Lusamine was in brief awe at Nihilego's arrival before focusing on protecting her kids. Once Nihilego took her into Ultra Space, that is when Lusamine gets dooped up on the venom via becoming the mother and became nuts, because THAT IS WHAT NIHILEGO VENOM DOES TO YOU! It makes you got nuts from your our of control traits and flaws by dulling the conscious barrier between what ever impulse goes through your head and common sense.
 
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