, Rowlet was the true star here.
the MVP imo was still Rowlet
Rowlet--who had been the MVP of Ash's team during that battle--.
Rowlet was the real MVP though.
This is the first gym battle (or equivalent -- in this case, trial) I can remember where the fandom can agree that the star wasn't the Pokémon who knocked out the gym leader (Kahuna) final Pokémon.
I do recall some people saying Staravia starred against Maylene, but that's a whole nother situation because Ash did not even win that battle, so there wasn't even the typical "final knockout" option.
To add to this, I have to say that I'm surprised there haven't been more debates this saga about starring and who should be starring and counting how many times certain Pokémon have been starring etc.
That was all this forum ever did during gym battles the last two generations, most notably 1rkhachatryan
Well the ending was pretty anti climactic tbh. I'll forgive Lycanroc going down fast since he was tired but Rowlet's fainting was handled terribly, I mean it wenters down to a head butt pretty much, Rockruff didn't even use a move.
Rockruff used Rock Throw
Take that you stupid owl, lmao.
Rockruff winning it all makes this battle a bit better, but Ash still should have lost here. If he comes out of this series only having lost to Team Rocket and Gladion I will be very disappointed.
Wow, you just cannot be pleased can you? This whole saga you've been saying you hate SM and you wish Ash was more like XY Glory Season Ash. Now Ash is having Glory Season and you're still pissed?
I went back to watch it and I don't see the need for timing. Lycanroc throws the giant rock then they just hover there for a while. They could have easily dodged without having to wait. I will give credit for ensuring that Rowlet was at the right spot for it to happen, but it wasn't a timing strategy.
Even then, it just shows how easy you can avoid them. Them waiting til it's pretty close to hit and still being able to dodge just means that they could have easily dodged any time before with 0 risk. Still depowering the z-move
The reason for the timing was for Continental Crush to destroy Stealth Rock. If they had dodged early, Lycanroc would have just redirected Continental Crush towards them, and it wouldn't have destroyed Stealth Rock
Are you just trying to play dense or what? If you're actually serious and you think that any kind of butt shaking is twerking............just wow. The best advice I can give you at that point, dude, is for you to look up videos. Unbelievable. Truly an inconceivable amount of insolence in your obsession with remaining ignorant on a subject. What a rude way for you to respond to a thought-out three-sentence thought with a two-word sentence as if to say "I'm so right and you're so wrong that all I have to do is say one sentence dismissively towards you." Grow up. You really think if I shake my butt to the left and then shake it to the right 2 seconds later and keep up this slow arhythmic pace this is twerking? It's just moving my butt
Rowlett battles so much that it's sort of ridiculous he hasn't evolved as yet in the Japanese anime as yet
He wouldn't fit in the backpack if he evolved, just as Axew wouldn't fit in the hair
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I want to conclude my post by weighing in on the epic three-way debate among DatsRight, Sceptile Leaf Blade, and Bguy7.
I am squarely with DatsRight and Sceptile here. Team Rocket are pure trash, repetitive, and boring, and the anime has been all the better for it since BW when they stopped appearing in every episode. I hope they leave for good at some point. I know that may seem impossible, but I disagree. I agree Ash will never leave, but Team Rocket could feasibly leave after Generation X or Generation XI or something. Remember, there was once a time when we thought Brock would never leave. I was originally SO excited when I heard Team Rocket beat Ash in SM012, as it would have been the first time since the Meloetta two-parter that I would have cared about them. Then I actually saw the episode and that ended up being pure trash as well since they didn't even win the battle. SM's one opportunity to redeem TR was wasted.
I really prefer how SM does it over XY. XY had plenty of Team Rocket battles but they were always the same, and almost never more than bank animation just fit together, I'm pretty sure they didn't even make any new drawings for plenty of those fights, maybe apart from some backgrounds and the Team Rocket robot of the day. I'd rather get something a bit more personal and varied. XY had good gym battles but most other battles were abysmal, and most of the other episodes were very forgettable, focusing entirely on a CotD or PotD that we forget about again by the end of the episode. Aside from the Dugtrio episode, the Morelull episode, and the baseball episode we haven't really had an episode purely focused on a CotD/PotD yet in SM. There has always been some development for at least someone in the main cast or some kind of plot buildup. SM is probably my favourite season of Pokémon so far.
Not to mention that in the Dugtrio episode, Rotom gained its voice sampling feature which was later used, so that wasn't even a filler
It's kind of a give and take sort of thing. I can agree that it is better development for Lillie, but it's just not as exciting or interesting to watch, and at this point I think more excitement could go a long way for this series.
We may not care about the character as much, but the plots are much more interesting. Through the character of the week strategy they can introduce and fully resolve a plot within one episode, which makes any given episode more entertaining. Without it, we get things like the Stoutland episode we had a few weeks back, with no plot or climax to speak of. The episode simply consisted of everyone searching for treasure in a completely normal and non-interesting factor. There was no excitement, no problem to be solved, no plot. It was just kind of there, and otherwise completely worthless. With a few simple tweaks, the episode could have been about some treasure hunter and their Stoutland, looking for a legendary treasure, and teaching the main cast about Stounland along the way. Everything that was accomplished in the actual episode could have been accomplished here, but there could have also been an actual plot. Throw in either Team Rocket trying to steal the treasure or some sort of guardian of the treasure and you'd get an actual climax.
I'm just not sure how you think there wasn't a climax when we got 3 separate climaxes -- Stoutland vs. Garbodor, the reveal that Lana got a Z-ring (which was MINDblowing to me, as I thought only Ash and Kiawe would ever get them, truly a moment I'll never forget) and Lillie touching Stoutland. Let's say there was a TR or COTD climax as you wanted. It would have been unmemorable and would have had no long term impact of any of our characters! In the situation we actually had, all 3 climaxes had a permanent lasting impact on our main characters, making a truly memorable episode I'll never forget
The thing is stuff like Team Rocket may be more superficially climatic.
The word is actually climactic
climatic refers to climate, but climactic refers to climax
I agree with everything you said in the post