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Master Class Choices! (912)

Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
Because the writers didn't want to put effort on them other than animating some of Serena's team routines, and started the whole "guys battle while the girls do pretty things" nonsense.
Don't forget the stock footage lol. They can have the same animations but place them on different backgrounds and heck that looks too repetitive. I wonder how they could not get away with it even this one was when I felt it kinda became set in some way. Heck this one had a one time rival that never appeared again.
 
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DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I thought it quite surprising how Serena beat Amelia, who had a hometown (or home city in this case) advantage. Amelia was a pretty worthless attempt to give Serena another recurring rival. Also I noticed that this episode seemed to be the first Showcase episode where Team Rocket was not in it.

Serena relied a bit too much on the 'straw loser' approach over having legit rivals, no one ever really forced her to change her game. Since they wanted Jessie to start getting legit better after the last episode, they had to move onto a COTD jobber with Jessie getting her wins offscreen so she wouldn't interrupt Serena's progress.

Remember that you can't give a character good adversity unless you're able to write a believable way to defeat them or at fail, let them lose at times. Dawn had good rivals and a more challenging Jessie, but that's because they knew how to upgrade her approach in a long running arc. For Serena they wanted a quick arc where they could recycle as many animation frames as possible.
 
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Leonhart

Imagineer
KenzeyEevee said:
I am still surprised Ash let her do her Showcase first before doing his gym battle

I was surprised too given his selfishness when it comes to his Gym matches in general, although seeing him be considerate of Serena's goal was nice.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
I was surprised too given his selfishness when it comes to his Gym matches in general, although seeing him be considerate of Serena's goal was nice.
Why were y'all surprised? Ash let Dawn go to her Grand Festival before his Volkner rematch. In general, Ash has grown and is supporting of his female friends' goals a lot. Do you really think Ash is that Selfish? Ash isn't Kanto Ash guys
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
I mean, it's not like Serena's stuff was put on the other side of the continent further away from the league. It was in the way in a little detour.
It wasn't the league it was Snowbelle City.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Same principle.
I think it's a bigger deal than you think because most people would expect Ash and Serena to get all their Keys and Badges (3 and 8) before either one of them does their final competition, so the Master Class Showcase happening before Snowbelle City was a bit of a surprise.
 

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
Why were y'all surprised? Ash let Dawn go to her Grand Festival before his Volkner rematch. In general, Ash has grown and is supporting of his female friends' goals a lot. Do you really think Ash is that Selfish? Ash isn't Kanto Ash guys
I think the biggest difference between the two is that Ash had no choice when it came to Volkner. He had to repair the power system so what else were they going to do? Here Ash had to explicitly go out of his way in a detour that, ultimately, probably changed his life given what happened afterwards.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
I think the biggest difference between the two is that Ash had no choice when it came to Volkner. He had to repair the power system so what else were they going to do? Here Ash had to explicitly go out of his way in a detour that, ultimately, probably changed his life given what happened afterwards.
Either way, I had no expectation of Ash being selfish and pissed that he had to go to Serena's first. I'm surprised to hear people expected XYZ ash to behave that immaturely.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Are you...


Are you saying Amourshipping is real.
What? Not at all. I'm talking about the fact that people would expect the Master Class Showcase to come after the eighth gym, because from a storytelling perspective, it narratively seems that it would make sense to get all the Keys and Badges out of the way first, and then proceed to the two final showdown competitions, since they are meant to be final showdowns after all.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
What? Not at all. I'm talking about the fact that people would expect the Master Class Showcase to come after the eighth gym, because from a storytelling perspective, it narratively seems that it would make sense to get all the Keys and Badges out of the way first, and then proceed to the two final showdown competitions, since they are meant to be final showdowns after all.
Well, I, for one, blame the fact the writers were running out of episodes to air and thus this discrepancy was made.

I'm more surprised the showcase just didn't take place in Lumiose City.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Well, I, for one, blame the fact the writers were running out of episodes to air and thus this discrepancy was made.

I'm more surprised the showcase just didn't take place in Lumiose City.
I'm not blaming anything. The number of episodes has nothing to do with it since they could have just switched them around. What I actually think is they knew what they were setting up at Snowbelle Gym with the Greninja arc, and after having that deep arc, they didn't want to tonally and emotionally shift things so weirdly during the Master Class Showcase, only to then immediately shift back to being so serious for the league. They wanted to make the Snowbelle Gym and its arc happen as close to the league as possible in terms of number of episodes apart.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
I'm not blaming anything. The number of episodes has nothing to do with it since they could have just switched them around. What I actually think is they knew what they were setting up at Snowbelle Gym with the Greninja arc, and after having that deep arc, they didn't want to tonally and emotionally shift things so weirdly during the Master Class Showcase, only to then immediately shift back to being so serious for the league. They wanted to make the Snowbelle Gym and its arc happen as close to the league as possible in terms of number of episodes apart.
Too bad they very, very subtly had to promote the Magearna movie with that strange Clemont episode right after that deep arc, then.

It's fine. My stoic feels were intact during Clemont's wacky episode. Ha ha.
 

vondecayle

Well-Known Member
Love the pink Dragonair!!!!!! Reminds me that I have one in pokemon X.

Amelia was such a great COTD. She should’ve become a recurrent rival. I think her performance was better than Serena’s to be honest.

Far fetched to me that Serena won in a town where Amelia is popular. Showcase performances should be judged by judges imo.
 

Dragonsoldier77

Bittersweet Satisfaction
Far fetched to me that Serena won in a town where Amelia is popular.

I mean some people criticize showcase by saying it’s just a glorified popularity contest, and this ep is very blatantly putting the point that popularity isn’t what actually decides the winner but what the performers bring.

So that’s pretty much missing the point of the ep.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
I mean some people criticize showcase by saying it’s just a glorified popularity contest, and this ep is very blatantly putting the point that popularity isn’t what actually decides the winner but what the performers bring.
And then Aria's incredibly lackluster performance comes up and completely laughs at this.

Fanbases are important!
 

Dragonsoldier77

Bittersweet Satisfaction
And then Aria's incredibly lackluster performance comes up and completely laughs at this.

Fanbases are important!
Yeah the performance that we barely even saw, because the cameraman was too busy showing how everyone else was thinking of how amazing aria’s performance was.

How over exaggerated amelia’s popularity was even compared to aria, that was still neaten by serena definitely didn’t mean a thing.
 
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