Starting off, man, bears repeating, but seeing Bea both train her Pokemon and even offer to train with Ash while Ash blows her off really did not sit well with me. The fact that there's been essentially zero onscreen training is bad enough, but I really feel like Ash would jump at the opportunity to train with Bea and if I was in charge of that specific scene, I would have had Ash get all excited and want to train, but Goh would remind him that they couldn't cause they had to meet up with Korrina. In a perfect world, Ash would have had onscreen training, but if that's what all I had to work with without meaningfully increasing the episode length, that would be the way to go I think in not making that scene kind of offensively annoying.
Moving on, some genuinely nice interactions between Bea, Korrina, and Ash. I actually didn't realize the actual meaning of what Bea said when she called her soft, but that twist makes perfect sense and made for a really cute scene there with her and Korrina. The build-up was nice and the mini-tension with how Goh and Ash were worried before realizing the truth was funny. That and their friendship was also nice to watch on screen with their differing perspectives on training, but ultimate understanding of the different approaches.
Some real nice Pokemon interactions to along with that(where is this regularly Journeys?!?!) made for a overall very comfy couple first half.
Alright, so with the battle, the only meaningful strategies from Ash were the Quick Attack -> Electro Web feint at the very beginning before Pikachu returned and the more underwhelming Shadow Clone -> missed Aura Sphere before the Octopus returned. Neither " battles " were especially tension filled and were both animated and written very blandly.
Kind of funny to here the announcer call the Hawlucha - Lucario cut a " marvelous exchange of blows " when it was incredibly weak tea and their exchange literally had zero impact and was undercut by pretty boring repeated animation and still frames. Genuinely the battle has been both flat from a writing and animation perspective thus far.
None of what Bea and her Pokemon are going in this episode comes across as impressive besides I guess the octopus attacking inside the electro web so Ash feeling like he's on the backfoot doesn't come across as gripping tension the way that Volkner v Ash did even with my problems with how Ash and his Pokemon were characterized cause of the lack of build-up of his Pokemon. Ash in general in this episode is very unimpressive.
Finally though, some really impressive and impactful cuts in the episode courtesy of Yusuke Oshida. Great use of smears, impact frames, and ESPECIALLY timing to create a series of exchanges that really convey how badly Lucario got pummeled there. Those cuts did more of than enough to really sell Machamp as Bea's ace so definite props there.
Now the scene with Ash brandishing the ME as Lucario is clearly being manhandled. I actually think this is completely in-character and makes sense and would be a great opportunity to really add depth to Ash and Lucario's relationship. Remember, Ash with Ash-Greninja had a similar inclination to try and rely on a boost for power. In XY, Ash is obsessed with winning and views AG as something to get more powerful and win which of course, leads to the set of consequences that I really think added substance to their relationship.
With Lucario, it's characterized as Ash being foolhardy and losing his temper with something that Lucario doesn't want to do just yet. My actual concern is not that, but with how quickly it's seems to be brushed off. Again, my main problem with the Ash and Lucario relationship is a lack of depth. Dissimilar with AG, whose boost problems were built up before it came to climatic disasters, not only does this really seems like it came out of nowhere, but comes off as incredibly unsubstantial and it feels like a momentary blip as Ash apologizes and Lucario just gives him a grin.
Leon talking about the bond potentially too deep and how meaningful that blip was feels both tone-deaf and divorced from what was actually shown, which is a Journeys special in how dialogue is handled.
All in all, a bit disappointed with how Lucario and Ash's relationship was handled here. I still think there are some definite opportunities for the next episode to both strengthen this moment from coming across as a momentary blip like flashing back to it before they finally Mega Evolve and go ham and in general add more to their relationship and I expect them to try to do so , but ultimately, I don't think the base they created here was good.
The episode was still just very " okay " for me.