Oct 13th: XY&Z045 - One Last Battle with Ash! Serena's Choice!!

[DatsRight]

There has to be some action in almost every episode. That's actually the purpose of the Team Rocket Trio.

It doesn't have to be repetitive and badly written action though. After all if they wanted action, wouldn't they want it to be a little more climatic and gratifying?

 

[satopi]

I hope Serena wrecks the whole stadium with her and Shauna's Performance.

 

[Daniel31]

i wish we could just close the thread because after ths statement theres nothing left o say.

Better then seeing "serena didnt struggle/work for anything" being spammed again and again

Well that basically sums up my thoughts.

Like myself and others have previously said, the outcome doesn't matter, but I can already imagine the salt/hate if Serena does win.

 

[Mrs. Oreo]

Just saw the new preview and I loved seeing Serena, Braixen, Sylveon and Pancham performing again cuz I missed that ever since Master Class ended hee hee. I'm surprised that Mairin's still around, but I'm glad that we'll see Palermo. :3

 

[Navin]

Serena is Serena and she has her own story to tell and hurdles to face. Perhaps a certain hurdle is more easily passed by Dawn and proves challenging for Serena? It doesn't matter. This is Serena's story and the emphasis is on how much more important it is for SERENA when she overcomes that hurdle. Evaluate a character based on her OWN merits not other's.

People don't make the mistake of criticizing her for being a little close to 'perfect' in characterization and how much better she was than her peers (her only true loss was against Elle and that was partially because Serena didn't realize that she had to make an act that everyone liked as opposed to just being technically sound). Honestly, she was at near-Sue status before the Master Class.

Serena's battle with Ash isn't about the outcome. It's about her stepping into Ash's world for a brief moment. It's about getting the chance to truly see him and communicate with him using his own language. It's about Serena obtaining yet another experience she would have never known had she never left home. It's about testing Serena's resolve about everything that she knew and finally putting away the aimless girl back home.

Eloquent, but overstated. Serena has been in a number of battles already, and she has already seen Ash's world by traveling with him.

Serena is finally going to venture out on her own. Everything that she learned is about to be truly tested. Serena has to pursue her goal using her own motivations and her own drive. Serena's journey is just barely starting.

Isn't that true for all the Pokegirls?

 

[Platinum fan.]

Yet is ending to us already...

I have to agree with this. It doesn't matter what they set up Serena for, she's leaving and any future development she gets offscreen happens offscreen. So if her real journey has just begun then we'll never see her real journey and it never happened. We can only judge her from how she was handled while onscreen.

I don't hate Serena. I'm critical on her because I like the character, so it annoys me to see how they drop the ball with her. I don't agree with the terms that she's "not rootable" or "doesn't deserve her achievements" she did train with her Pokemon. We saw several times her training Braixen and Pancham. Eevee debuted in a episode with her training her Pokemon. So I don't consider her DEM at all.

 

[DatsRight]

I have to agree with this. It doesn't matter what they set up Serena for, she's leaving and any future development she gets offscreen happens offscreen. So if her real journey has just begun then we'll never see her real journey and it never happened. We can only judge her from how she was handled while onscreen.

I don't hate Serena. I'm critical on her because I like the character, so it annoys me to see how they drop the ball with her. I don't agree with the terms that she's "not rootable" or "doesn't deserve her achievements" she did train with her Pokemon. We saw several times her training Braixen and Pancham. Eevee debuted in a episode with her training her Pokemon. So I don't consider her DEM at all.

Serena trained but the stipulations she always won or lost kind of sucked the gratification out of that. It's like training to your full strength to win a sports marathon, and then winning because everyone else has a broken leg. It's not nearly as satisfying. It never looked like she stood a chance of losing besides a fluke. Just having one instance she was genuinely outperformed and her competition looked dangerous could have made her look far more pressured and like she was putting effort into it, but they seemed to taint it all with this intentional vibe of her strategy being invincible when done right. No fallibility. Even Ash Greninja was beatable at full and optimal strength.

As said she is likeable, I support Amourshipping and her character is endearing, it's just I don't really find myself cheering for her to win.

 

[345ash-greninja]

So sad and heartbreaking. The best female companion ever in the anime so far will leave.

 

[yuoke]

So sad and heartbreaking. The best female companion ever in the anime so far will leave.

Not having iris (the best girl) come back at all was more heartbreaking.

 

[Soniman]

We barely even saw her training for her showcases. At least the previous girls were seen training.

Please, she trained the most out of all the XY group

Honestly, she was at near-Sue status before the Master Class.

Not really

 

[satopi]

I wish the Showcases were more cut throat and sabotaging like in real life fashion occupations rather than Serena losing because of tripping or a bias popularity contest. There's many ways to lose outside of battling or voting for whoever you like the most.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I wish the Showcases were more cut throat and sabotaging like in real life fashion occupations rather than Serena losing because of tripping or a bias popularity contest. There's many ways to lose outside of battling or voting for whoever you like the most.

She needed a Harley like rival to sabotage her performances.

 

[Frozocrone]

She needed a Harley like rival to sabotage her performances.

There was that one performance where Jessie intentionally rips her dress (well pushes her over and it rips), but yeah, a rival that makes it hard for her to win, either by sabotage or just being better would have been appreciated

 

[DatsRight]

There was that one performance where Jessie intentionally rips her dress (well pushes her over and it rips), but yeah, a rival that makes it hard for her to win, either by sabotage or just being better would have been appreciated

I'd have preferred the latter. Someone sabotaging her performances only furthered the idea she could only lose through interference. She just needed a tough opponent who could actually outperform her, other than Aria at the final of course.

 

[Frozocrone]

I'd have preferred the latter. Someone sabotaging her performances only furthered the idea she could only lose through interference. She just needed a tough opponent who could actually outperform her, other than Aria at the final of course.

Yeah, that's my one main criticism of her. I don't mind her personality, I like it, I just can't like how she's been written if that makes any sort of sense. Just having her work through adversary would have been enough for me to like her.

 

[DatsRight]

There were two very easy ways they could have made her development in the showcases more palpable:

1. Edit out the trip during both Shauna and Jessie's victories over her so that they genuinely outperformed her.

2. Alter her choreography between each loss so it looks like she has to change her approach (which shouldn't have been hard since she had more than one image song).

I also would have preferred her getting a good runner up position before she won a showcase altogether (possibly against Miette) to make her progress more plausible, though those two changes would have been simple enough to do in the time frame they had. Not to mention it would have made the showcases at least a little less repetitive.

 

[satopi]

There were two very easy ways they could have made her development in the showcases more palpable:

1. Edit out the trip during both Shauna and Jessie's victories over her so that they genuinely outperformed her.

2. Alter her choreography between each loss so it looks like she has to change her approach (which shouldn't have been hard since she had more than one image song).

I also would have preferred her getting a good runner up position before she won a showcase altogether (possibly against Miette) to make her progress more plausible, though those two changes would have been simple enough to do in the time frame they had. Not to mention it would have made the showcases at least a little less repetitive.

Or just not let her always win based on votes. It is a popularity contest after all and I think Shauna performed a bit longer than Serena anyway.

 

[Satomine Night]

I wish the Showcases were more cut throat and sabotaging like in real life fashion occupations rather than Serena losing because of tripping or a bias popularity contest. There's many ways to lose outside of battling or voting for whoever you like the most.

This is one of my main criticisms of Showcases - they weren't cutthroat enough. For instance, Amelia (the Performer with the Espeon and Shiny Dragonair) should have been treated as a greater threat to Serena. She was an already well-known, popular Performer who was competing in a Showcase held in her own hometown; the odds were completely in her favor, and Serena should have struggled more against her.

Of course, IMHO, part of the problem is the way Showcases were set up. I think they would have been more challenging if there had been multiple free performance rounds, rather than just one.

2. Alter her choreography between each loss so it looks like she has to change her approach (which shouldn't have been hard since she had more than one image song).

Even if she didn't have more than one image song, her choreography should have been different for each Performance. Ash's Gym battles aren't identical to each other; there was no reason why Serena's performances had to be nearly identical. She and her Pokémon also should have had different costumes for each Performance. (And this actually applies to all of the Performers, actually, not just to Serena.) That alone would have made the Performances more appealing to watch.

 

[DatsRight]

This is one of my main criticisms of Showcases - they weren't cutthroat enough. For instance, Amelia (the Performer with the Espeon and Shiny Dragonair) should have been treated as a greater threat to Serena. She was an already well-known, popular Performer who was competing in a Showcase held in her own hometown; the odds were completely in her favor, and Serena should have struggled more against her.

The whole fact that the other opponents found themselves ineffective against Serena even when the odds should have been in their favour only added to the idea they were all her underdog. I don't really get what they insisted on this approach, maybe for a few odd episodes and characters, sure, but to make Serena the undefeatable all the time took out the ability to root for her progression throughout the tournament.

Along with Ash being the ace throughout this series, there felt a lack of identification with the XY heroes and their arcs. It's like the writing team saw the complaints about the more blundering BW twerp squad (who had more evident moments of 'this loser is you' to them) and thought it was about the fans just wanting them to always be awesome and win, win, win all the time, even when realistically there should have been some difficulty in it. Can't they ever get a happy medium?

 

[Nerdy McNerdface]

The whole fact that the other opponents found themselves ineffective against Serena even when the odds should have been in their favour only added to the idea they were all her underdog. I don't really get what they insisted on this approach, maybe for a few odd episodes and characters, sure, but to make Serena the undefeatable all the time took out the ability to root for her progression throughout the tournament.

Along with Ash being the ace throughout this series, there felt a lack of identification with the XY heroes and their arcs. It's like the writing team saw the complaints about the more blundering BW twerp squad (who had more evident moments of 'this loser is you' to them) and thought it was about the fans just wanting them to always be awesome and win, win, win all the time, even when realistically there should have been some difficulty in it. Can't they ever get a happy medium?

The fandom already are like win, win, win.

Just look at Kalos league.