Wow, another excellent battle. I believe the previous Ursula/Dawn battle, this one, and Zoey/Dawn are the best Contest battles in the whole anime. Very exciting, full of twists and turns, and strategic in nature. The only criticism I have with this battle are the points going down wayyyyy too much, for Dawn particularly. Ursula would do a regular attack and it felt like Dawn’s points bar would immediately be halved. I understand the need to make it suspenseful, but consistency in scoring seemed to be thrown to the wind for a lot of this battle.
But apart from that, really great. Ursula’s Gabite and Flareon put in work fr; they made a great combination. The Sandstorm + Scary Face especially was so cool and unique. Ursula cornering Dawn didn’t feel forced either. But of course Dawn recovering and ingeniously showcasing Ice Chandelier (multiple times at that) was amazing. When it came out of the ground and Kimi No Soba De started playing you know **** got real. Everyone being extremely impressed was deserved; no matter how many times it’s shown off Dawn’s ability to logically and creatively turn things around always impresses me. It really never feels like an asspull (I’m sorry May) and reminds me a lot of Ash. Love that subtext
Ursula being a bitter hater to the end was eh. She served her role well, but I wanted more character out of her.