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Mallow & Lana! A Fully Powered Battle of Friendship!! (1073)

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
Because said competitions didn't have risks and factors against her. It's one thing doing something for fun but this is an official league where you must beat your opponent to progress. I personally didn't need any build up to this due to the fact it made logical sense to me (others probably not, everyone views art differently). It's only natural to feel scared and anxious in situations like that. Makes me wish they didn't Mallow so dirty in this series because she's the most "human" character we've had ever.
lmao what risks? She literally loses nothing out of this. This is not her goal, she just joined the League to have fun with her friends.
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
That was the only time though?
You said "a single move"... she did.....
lmao what risks? She literally loses nothing out of this. This is not her goal, she just joined the League to have fun with her friends.
Neither do none of the other participants? 80 percent of the competitors are competing because "lol why not?".
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
lmao what risks? She literally loses nothing out of this. This is not her goal, she just joined the League to have fun with her friends.
I would be the same as her like you mentioned, of course depending of the rewards, as I did before with my local arcade dance game tournament, I didn't feel salty for my loss. And the Alola League being the 1st one organized in that region, everyone would like to experience how it looks like. It's not like every citizen of Alola knows how the other regional Pokemon leagues looked like.
 

R0shan

Arcaknight
Disclaimer: I found out that that Manalo Conference is currently going on. I've only seen a few episodes of Sun & Moon and whatever battles from the series that I could find on YT. Therefore, I'm quite OOTL and not too familiar with some characters and their Pokemon.

I'm disappointed that the Top 16 of a league conference is only 1 vs 1. Once upon a time, in previous league conferences, that was a definitive 3 vs 3 (and a full battle at the Ever Grande Conference). This on top of the lack of any barrier to entry and the overall quality of the competitors makes this Manalo Conference seem watered down compared to former tournaments.

Regarding each battle:

Ash vs Faba: Hold up, isn't that cheating? You can't just force out an opponent's Pokemon like that, right? I guess Ash agreed to it, but Faba should have been disqualified then and there. Meltan ate Hypno's pendulum? That is "Pikachu! The horn!" levels of wackiness. That tiny piece of metal is strong as heck though, defeating Hypno quickly afterwards. Now if only Meltan evolved into Melmetal...

Guzma vs Ilima: Did Paul open up his own Pokemon School, because Guzma was ruthlessly intelligent here. That Scizor was very strong too, taking quite a few hits. If Ilima was supposed to be the tournament favorite, he certainly wasn't portrayed that way. All he did was just keep reusing Power-Up Punch, and he didn't have Mega Kangaskhan try to pincer attack Scizor, especially after Guzma was abusing Mama Kangaskhan's maternal instincts.

Hau vs Samson Oak: A quick unspectacular battle mainly to show Hau moving onto the next round and presumably facing Ash.

Lana vs Mallow: Reading the other posts in this thread, it seems this was slightly controversial because Mallow's conflict might have been forced and had appeared out of thin air. As I said above, I haven't seen much of SM, so I assumed that this was a plot point that finally resolved this episode, but if not...then I can understand the frustration. Nonetheless, the entire moment was rather cheesy. The Z-Move vs Z-Move was cool. I honestly thought Mallow would win because of her underdog role and her personal drama in the battle, but plot demanded Lana to move on. The concept of Lana vs Mallow should have been done in some other non-league episode (perhaps a minor school tournament), that way this battle could have been avoided, and the added time could have been used to flesh out Ash vs Faba or Guzma vs Ilima.
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
Ash vs Faba: Hold up, isn't that cheating? You can't just force out an opponent's Pokemon like that, right? I guess Ash agreed to it, but Faba should have been disqualified then and there. Meltan ate Hypno's pendulum? That is "Pikachu! The horn!" levels of wackiness. That tiny piece of metal is strong as heck though, defeating Hypno quickly afterwards. Now if only Meltan evolved into Melmetal...
Oh it was absolutely cheating. Which of course makes him questioning the validity of Meltan's victory afterwards all the more silly because it's pure unbridled hypocrisy.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
She has helped everyone and now she's the one needing help.
And that’s where the bs starts to come. Mallow was never big on battles, hell she was never big on the League, but she joined anyway because everyone thought it’d be fun. Her being so flustered isn’t characteristic or understandable in the slightest because she’s never went into anything (running the restaurant by herself, becoming the leader of the Bread Festival team, becoming a UG, battling Misty, etc etc) with those types of feelings. If anything, LANA should’ve been the one nervous, because she cared way more about this tournament than Mallow did, and it ultimately means much more to her than Mallow. Mallow has done a bunch of stuff on her own without her friends support and she was just fine. Again, Mallow suddenly not having confidence in herself and Tsareena when she literally always has makes no sense. Narratively, it’s bad writing and just forced drama.

Actually, let me remind you that Mallow's go-getter personality was partially a cover to hide the grudge she hold for herself's mean words towards her late mother. You can say SM has lots of lazy writing stuff but this definitely isn't one of them.

And that was addressed and Mallow developed from it all within the same episode. And that ultimately gave her even MORE confidence. So you have a girl who’s high off of confidence suddenly spazzing out and not understanding her Pokemon’s feelings because she’s battling in a competition that she barely cares about and joined for fun? Nah.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
.
Neither do none of the other participants? 80 percent of the competitors are competing because "lol why not?".
Exactly. And that is one of the reasons why it's so out of character for Mallow to react the way she did.

I would be the same as her like you mentioned, of course depending of the rewards.
You possibly reacting the way she did in a hypothetical situation doesn't exactly proves that what she did wasn't out of character nor that there was a build up towards it.

First, you aren't Mallow. You do not have the same traits, story and background as her. Second, this isn't real life. This is a show. It's the writers job to chose the character's traits and, if said character is going to change and act differently from before, it's also the writers job to build up towards that change, so the whole journey the character went through in the show will actually matter and not be just a complete waste of time.
 
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Red and Blue

Well-Known Member
Oh it was absolutely cheating. Which of course makes him questioning the validity of Meltan's victory afterwards all the more silly because it's pure unbridled hypocrisy.
Which is funny cause his actions basically granted Ash a freebie. Even if Hypno won Ash(or someone from the crowd) could have brought up Faba's dirty trick
 

WaterShuriken

"I..I..Iron Tail, Pikachu."
Yeah it felt too easy for Ash tbh

It was Faba, it was to be expected. He's just Aether Foundation's Team Rocket.

I myself really enjoyed this episode.

For being so petite, Meltan packs one heck of a punch with its attacks. Faba had the audacity to ask if what Meltan did was legal after what he pulled in the beginning. Flash Cannon, Headbutt, and Harden... I really hope we get Melmetal during the league to get Thunder Punch and Double Iron Bash added to its move list.

Guzma's strategy of being Mega Kangaskhan was a really good one. Playing mind tricks like that was a good way to overcome the power gap from Mega Evolution.

Hau and Samson's battle was just visual filler. I don't even know why Samson made it into the Top 16. Man. At least he should have used Vulpix. Poor thing was wasted on him.

Lana vs Mallow was really good. They have shown off that Mallow's not very good at solo battles and when she has won its because Tsaarena itself does the battling on her own. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here. It seems like this is going to be the kick-off to her own non-food goal. SM has always felt like a pre-series for Ash's classmates. You know like when we met Misty, Brock, Tracey, Iris, Cilan, and Clemont and they were all somewhat or fully experienced trainers with unseen backstory? This is that backstory for the classmates.
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
You possibly reacting the way she did in a hypothetical situation doesn't exactly proves that what she did wasn't out of character nor that there was a build up towards it.

First, you aren't Mallow. You do not have the same traits, story and background as her. Second, this isn't real life. This is a show. It's the writers job to chose the character's traits and, if said character is going to change and act differently from before, it's also the writers job to build up towards that change, so the whole journey the character went through in the show will actually matter and not be just a complete waste of time.
I would be nervous as well if I was from a place with a huge audience dealing against an opponent who is obviously better than me, as I don't want to be an embarrassment to him or anyone, no matter if I was a cheery person before. Nothing about being out of character.

As for the writers job to make the character development more believable, that's bs to me. The developments they made for the character that I cared in the last series was mediocre. They probably made mistakes and did controversial decisions but they don't care about the fan complaints. To me, my fanfiction was my way to butt out from them to deliver quality writings and now I'm watching the show mainly for entertainment. If the episode is entertaining that's awesome, otherwise that's too bad.
 

Blue Saturday

Unfurl your Blessed Wings!
In a sense Suiren supporting Mao felt like a mirror version of their childhood dynamic when they first met, Mao crying because they got lost and couldn’t find their way home and Suiren feeding her one of those sour berries and lying and saying it was sweet to cheer her up...she did the same here along with Amajo to help her friend continue fighting despite the odds that were against her. Mao’s certainly a big sister type character and mom friend but that doesn’t stop her from feeling her own insecurities and stress at times.

I think her motherly nature along with Amajo’s definitely come from her tragic loss of her mother from childhood. Mao is straightforward and headstrong but she’s still human. This demonstration of character v. character that we’ve watched over the course of S&M certainly has sparked some good and honest discussion on these characters, their agencies and overall fidelity up until this point. It’s a fitting finish at the league for this point and in the end Mao got her own self-victory in utilizing Bloom Doom. In the end she passed Tapu Koko and Yareyutan’s trial and perfected her Z-Move.
 

RLC

Well-Known Member
Who in their right mind sacrifices a Slaking that could tank that many Fighting-type moves? I'll tell you: Cameron, who also needlessly sacrificed a Pokemon during his league match.

The entire scene was just outrageously stupid and defies common sense. Slaking absorbs like fifteen super effective hits, then uses a resisted move to KO Hawlucha. It is then immediately KO'd by Talonflame with a neutral hit. And during this scene Sawyer is portrayed as some insightful genius.

Kalos' trainers were so stupid Ash was embarrassed enough to get a formal education in the very next region.
duh it's the pokemon anime people are stupid and really inefficient why do think we're so impressed that guzuma used his brain or anyone for that matter?cause they don't 3/4 of the time and that's why paul was so special he did it the most relatively speaking (and sinnoh as a whole) but obviously i'm talking in the context of comparing to other people/trainers in the show not real life if that was the case paul isn't really that smart either so i don't see the your deal with sawyer making an in universe smart and efficient move that's actually acceptable,also i'm telling you the anime doesn't make as big a deal about type match ups as you are doing right now your just gonna disappoint yourself if you expect anymore than what's presented time and time again
 

Twilight-Kun

Pokemon World Champion
Meltan seems pretty powerful if it can take a pokemon down in two hits
One hit, actually, since Reflect doubles as another version of Protect in the anime since Headbutt never physically touched Hypno and therefore no damage was taken

-
Primarina took no damage during the fight while Tsareena was immediately nearly downed by a single bubble

That's pathetic

Nice to see the bond between trainer and pokémon overcome through emotional manipulation, and Mallow pulling off a Z-Move, even to no avail was a nice cap to her character

If only we didn't only have half a dozen of them over the course of the entire series
...The fact that she's been training has been brought up several times. Is it really that much of a stretch that during the general training she's been repeatedly established to do, she learned a new move?
"Tell, don't show" is lousy writing, especially with a series like Pokémon, which is all about the growth of trainers and their bonds with their pokémon



I liked Lana’s strategy of "Use Sparkling Aria as defense, slow them with Icy Wind if they get close, then hit with Aqua Jet while they can't move to reset the cycle."

Meanwhile all Mallow had was "THROW LEAVES AND STOMP ON THEM" even after her epiphany
 
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Cradily17

Well-Known Member
I'll admit I laughed at how Meltan defeated Hypno, but that battle with Mallow vs. Lana was absolutely stupid even though I kind of had a feeling Lana would win. Mallow deserved to win after everything she's been through and being shafted so much. I was hoping to see her Tsareena shine, but thanks to the power of "writer bias", she couldn't even land a single move against Primarina. What a joke. I felt just like Olivia did after the battle. At least Lana won't last much longer in the league, though.
 

Xenon Blue

No Hard Feelings
The only good battle from this episode was Guzma vs llima, and it wasn't spectacular by any means. It did do what I was wanting from a battle; routine attacking and textbook response getting overwhelmed by unorthodox but ingenious tactics that abuse the opposing pokemon's trait. I just wish llima adapted better and use tactics such as pincering scizor between the mom and the baby to prevent Guzma's tactic, and then Guzma responding with a tactic such as setting up a situation where scizor dodges at the last second to make the two hit each other with a friendly fire. What we got though is llima autopiloting attacks and expecting for something to happen. So much for the "favorite" to win, if you can't adapt then you aren't going far. Overused animation is annoying but whatever
 
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