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Leap 'n' Climb: Stakataka! (1028)

Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
At least it was cool to see Lana surpass Kiawe. Wish they would make Lillie less frail though, even if just a little bit.
Well she was pretty close to jumping over it expect she got herself stuck on the top. Nice effort at least but I would have expected her to make the jump if she put in a bit more effort.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I don't mind her being wimpy during off-time. It's cute having someone else on Ash's fail level in the class activities (just from lack of drive instead of over excess of it) and I don't think we get the girls in enough butt monkey roles anymore. I think Lillie's about the only one allowed to lose at anything (it's at least kind of the joke that Lana's an over-the-top winner in many things, but Mallow is just blandly mediocre).

She just needs more pronounced competent moments when things actually get serious to balance it out like Ash does. She was at least reasonably smart this episode, trying to think up a plan to capture it (if in vain) and being the one to figure out all of Stakataka's attributes such as the fact it could walk away, she just needs more moments of using Snowy or Altaria effectively (or to just get her freaking secondary already).

I forgot to notice the 'sequel hook' at the end, with Bourgain changing his direction into making a baseball stadium. Wonder if that'll come into play in another episode.
 
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British Soul

Top Hat Regulator
the parts at the beginning with Ash reminded me of Yuma from Yugioh Zexal doing similar stunts with those boxes.
I thought the same, when both Ash and Kiawe descended to Yuma-levels of stupidity after Lana cleared 12.
 
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Dragalge

"Orange" Magical Girl
My thoughts on this episode overall were that I found the slapstick enjoyable and tame (like c’mon people it’s nowhere the level of some other shows lol) and my second favorite UB episode behind the Xurkitree/Blacephalon one.

Still there were some funny violence in this imo, that being Tsareena almost breaking Kiawe’s skull, Bourgain jumping and being hit by Bonemerang along with getting kicked in the head, and the facial damage done to those four classmates from being hit by the Beast Balls that Stakataka dodged. The show should definitely take this further with Ash and the others with this kind of thing!
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Well Ash has already been on a roll with the slapstick since the start of SM, the others I admit I liked seeing being in on the silly antics and injuries more. I remember a lot of people being amused when they saw the preview clip of Mallow getting swatted in the face, given she's seldom ever in the heat of a heavy slapstick plot.
 

keepitsimple

site of lies
They should take it further with the slapstick though. Maybe have the characters break some limbs or get a concussion or something.

Anyway watched this yesterday just to see what all the negative reaction was about and ended up liking it. Pretty fun, hilarious episode imo, it's nowhere near as terrible as the usual filler in earlier sagas
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
So in the end Satoshi was the one who caught the Tundetunde and sent it back home after all the shenanigans had ended. It was amusing seeing Satoshi's jumps getting sabotaged at least.
 

Satomine Night

The Power of Z!
I think this is the first time where Ash being the buttmonkey actually bothered me—mostly because I feel there was no need for it, at least not to that extent. What was the point of Ash stubbing his foot on the vaulting horse or tripping over a random Alolan Diglett and face-planting into the wall? Why not have him legitimately fail to make it over the wall, like Lillie did, or succeed at first and then struggle as the height of the wall increased? I would rather have seen Ash attempt and fail, rather than his attempts be unnecessarily thwarted. His failures could have been humorous.

Other than that, I enjoyed this episode enough. The vaulting practice at the beginning had a good amount of humor (aside from Ash's unnecessary pratfalls), with Lillie's pep talk to herself, followed by her subsequent failure to make it over the wall; Kiawe going overboard with his passion and his obsession with Wela Volcano; and Lana effortlessly and nonchalantly showing up everybody else. I also got a good laugh out of Kiawe's "rescue" of Bourgain. He literally high-kicked the dude out of the way!

Stakataka proved to be a challenge not because of its strength or even its size, but because of its biology. Even when it was thrashing about, it still didn't come off as truly threatening or violent. It was just a fish out of water who wanted to go home. I do wish the writers had focused more on the Ultra Guardians battling Stakataka and less on their Beast Ball throwing, but at the same time, it was clear early on that attacks weren't working on Stakataka, so why would the Ultra Guardians waste time on a pointless battle?
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I admit the class activities are starting to feel pointless, if not for the kinda spurious exercises, but for the fact Ash fails nearly ALL of them miserably. It never feels too much of a 'loser' degradation since Ash nearly always redeems himself later on, but it does make him being at the school feel a bit meaningless, while he learns and gains from Kukui and the other students, it's seldom by being in the actual class. Maybe that will actually be a plot point later on, but right now it seems strange.

In fact the large majority of the time, the characters who get the most importance tend to be the ones who most often have a failure rate in whatever the class is doing. Ash, Lillie and Kiawe all got shown up in this episode's exercise, and they were the ones who did the large bulk in figuring out how to stop Stakataka.
 

xEryChan

Demon Child
After the last Ultra Guardians episode, I had high hopes for the next one and well... it did not live up to that hype.

I did enjoy the PE class with them jumping over the vault, minus Ash constantly slaming into it face first. I actually got a laugh out of Sophocles jumping over. Togedemaru pushing him over and he looked so shocked, that was actually hilarious. I swear I love Kiawe, he never ceases to make me laugh. He had me cracking up when he got so passionate with jumping over the vault. But of course Lana has to be a show off right? I will admit I got a kick out of Kiawe’s reaction to Lana breaking his record so I’ll let that slide, it was just so funny.

Again with the recycled footage with the Ultra Guardians? I know they shortened it to save up time for the episode but come on. It takes up a lot of time and I would rather skip the footage of Ash and Co. morphing into the Ultra Guardians.

Kiawe had me cracking up several times. I don’t know what got me more, him using High Jump Kick on Bourgain to get save him or the fact that he seemed to be overly happy whenever Bourgain got hurt. I swear Kiawe is hilarious and he is my second favorite of Ash’s classmates behind Mallow.

I wish there would have been more of a battle between Stakataka and the Ultra Guardians instead of what we got. Also, Ash’s capture of Stakataka felt so underwhelming. I get that Stakataka just wanted to back but they could have done so much more with it before ultimately sending it back to its own world.

Honestly, this the most underwhelming Ultra Guardians episode we’ve gotten so far and I could not help but feel like it could have been better.

I think this is the first time where Ash being the buttmonkey actually bothered me—mostly because I feel there was no need for it, at least not to that extent. What was the point of Ash stubbing his foot on the vaulting horse or tripping over a random Alolan Diglett and face-planting into the wall? Why not have him legitimately fail to make it over the wall, like Lillie did, or succeed at first and then struggle as the height of the wall increased? I would rather have seen Ash attempt and fail, rather than his attempts be unnecessarily thwarted. His failures could have been humorous.

I agree. It was so ridiculous. I would have preferred to see him jump over and crash face first into the ground, that would have been so much better instead of what we actually got. It was just so unnecessary and was not even funny.
 

Vipsoccermaster

Well-Known Member
It's a fine episode, with some funny moments here and there, as well as all the slapstick that Ash gets. Good for him that he is helping Stakataka return home. Viren was just silly. A statue of him? Please. I agree with the Ultra Guardians that it doesn't even look like Viren.

Good start, too. I always liked seeing the small activities that Ash and his friends take on as lessons from Professor Kukui. Lana is very athletic, I like that. Really, looks can be deceiving whenever it comes to Lana. You don't think she can vault over 50 stacks of bricks? She can.
 

Ryu Taylor

Unwavering beliefs. Richter Taylor is my name now.
It'll always bug me how the dub pronounces Tsareena's name as just "Serena" with a Z instead of an S. Speaking of whom, she once again keeps her leg in place when stomping on Kiawe. No heel digging; just a stomp.

Of all of Viren's appearances, this is definitely his least scummy. He wasn't even remotely villainous here.

Stakataka sure got an intense-sounding theme, eh? Best of the Ultra Beast themes so far. Dub music's standard fare other than that, but ugh on TPCi keeping that one JP track when Stakataka got caught.

I would've preferred something relevant to how last week's episode ended, but this one was okay enough.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Weird. There was no commercial break after the theme song and title card.

I should have realized this was a Stakataka episode at the beginning when they kept calling everything stack like 6 stack 8 stack 10 stack 12 stack 15 stack

At first I thought Viren was controlling Stakataka haha

When Ash blew up Turtonator, I thought he had made a mistake and was about to get hit with another slapstick moment. I'm glad it actually helped him.

Both Viren and the Ultra Guardians being involved, two plots I never expected to show up in the same episode, it was a great one.

But weren't most of those also stopped in a laughably easy way like a curb stomp battle or just making peace with them? At least the UG aren't trying to take a laughable situation seriously.

BW26: not curbstomp. not making peace
BW45: not curbstomp. not making peace
XY19: not curbstomp. not making peace
XY54: not curbstomp. not making peace

and that's all the 4 episodes @p96822 mentioned

Ya this episode gave me episode 6 vibes, and that not a good thing imo.

Correct. People say there was only one episode when Ash ran into walls, but what difference does it make if he's just running into a vault stack or an Ultra beast, both of which are similar to walls?

And even when all 4 of them got hit in the face, only Ash and Kiawe are shown with messed up faces and missing teeth in the next frame, not Mallow and Lana.

It'll always bug me how the dub pronounces Tsareena's name as just "Serena" with a Z instead of an S

And how should it be pronounced?
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
BW26: not curbstomp. not making peace
BW45: not curbstomp. not making peace
XY19: not curbstomp. not making peace
XY54: not curbstomp. not making peace

and that's all the 4 episodes @p96822 mentioned

Both the Malamar face-offs ended pretty anti climatically. The first one was instantly defeated by Clemont's machine barging in, while the second time after brainwashed Inkay was no longer a problem they got utterly stomped in a few seconds. The episodes had some investment otherwise, but the Malamar's 'final boss round' was pretty pathetic.

I'll have to recheck the BW examples.

I just like these episodes because the UB are the few antagonists the twerps are forced to use brain power and strategy against.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
You'd think after just one generation passed the games' translators would have been more creative with names.
 

p96822

Evolve me please
Rewatching the episode, I think even though they though of s way to get on top of Stakataka it still felt like it had to be comedic to be comedic. Unlike Pokemon like Lampent or Malamar they had more story toward them then an issues like Stakataka having a statue on it. With the two Pokemon I mention the states were higher. If I was the writer of this episode, I would have made Stakataka using some of it's attacks to make more harder for them to pole volt over it.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
The thing is the Ultra Beasts they DID try to play seriously, they couldn't add up to the grandeur. They both got defeated more through plot armour than a resilient struggle by the heroes, making it feel like they never really stood a chance of being a threat anyway. Lots of previous baddies have in fact suffered a similar writing problem, making the dread and drama feel phoned in.

Playing things more light and comedic is unexpected but at least they played that to it's fuller potential.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Like how Tsareena herself says her own name: Zar-eena. Mallow keeps saying it as "Zerena."
and you don't hear Ash saying peeKAHchoo every episode the way Pikachu himself does smh:rolleyes:
 
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