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Sword & Shield IV: Ultimate Sword & Shield (1134)

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
This was great for an episode and ok for a conclusion. I like how they kept Rose’s battling experience in the anime but wish it was a full team showdown so we could see Farfetch’d fight Escavalier (ironic that the Galar Pokémon doesn’t appear in the Galar arc). Disappointed with the lack of GMax Copperajah even if it looks ugly lol. It is weird how he’s surprised that Ash managed to make his Pokémon hit each other like it was 4D Chess. What do you expect when you’re just flailing around?

Will never care for Lucario but I admit that it was cool how it used its aura. Hopefully we don’t get into that type of continuity though. Cinderace was cool to see but I was not expecting that deep voice considering how high pitched its in game cry is. Pyro Ball looks great as expected but the nubs hands are still weird. Going to miss Raboot. Still think it’s weird that this is where they evolve

I love GMax Meowth. That is all

The wolves vs Eternatus battle was lame. The lack of buildup didn’t help. Was cool seeing them change into their respective forms though.

Overall good episode. Feels rushed and things like the Galar human characters and the aforementioned fight suffer as result. Also doesn’t help that 90% of the events were spoiled by advertising. Really wish the series was more Galar centered to let these things develop properly.
It’s no Flare or Galactic but it’s definitely better than Aqua/Magma/Plasma and around Aether. 8.5/10
 

Icy-Snowflake

Well-Known Member
Nice coincidence that, if they kept up with Sunday time slots, this would’ve aired on November 15th, which is the day SwSh came out last year.
Took me two days to realise there was the 5 day gap between EP039 and EP040. XD

I see nothing wrong with Lucario. He looks exactly what it's supposed to be.
Nothing's wrong, Lucario just got chubbier for a split second.
 
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TheCrazyMaster

Well-Known Member
Welp, now that I've officially watched the entire arc I may as well give my review on it.
I thought that the first episode was decent introduction to this arc, with Ash's Dynamax band began acting up being a good excuse to do some research and Go to Galar. I liked how Ash and Go's initial encounters with Zacian and Zamazenta respectively reflected their goals in this series, and I thought they had good excuses to split up. I found it fairly amusing how Sonia was established to be a $#!tty driver (and some dark part of me finds the concept of Sonia hypothetically running over Go without realizing it to be fairly amusing).
I'm also glad that we finally got to see Ash give Dragonite and Gengar some action, even if they admittedly didn't do all that much afterwards. Still no Farfetch'd though, I mean come on (pun absolutely intended)!
I liked how Rose was handled in this arc, between giving him a justified reason to pursue his dream of a prosperous Galar (even if he was clearly nuts) and how he showed an interest in supporting prosperous trainers, and how the reason for this was revealed to be for the sake of capturing Eternatus. Honestly, it's kind of messed up to think that he basically groomed Leon his entire life for the sake of catching it. Thought it was interesting that he went missing instead of being arrested, as it raises the possibility of his eventual return.
Speaking of Leon, while I would've liked to see him have a more shocked reaction to that revelation, I am glad that his focus remained on prioritizing the safety of the region straight from the get go. I also liked the chemistry between him and Ash throughout this arc, between him first wanting for him to get to safety and then working with him throughout the arc, with the two of them even splitting up to deal with Eternatus and Rose which also also helped signify the urgency of the situation. I thought Ash himself was very in character throughout this arc between doing what he thought was necessary to protect the people and Pokemon, to the point where he blocked the rocks being pelted at Coalossal and refusing to eat because he wanted to help the people and Pokemon (before giving in later). I also am glad that, while he stuck to his goal of traveling the world and gaining experiences from that, that he still showed that he was open minded by thinking about Roses offer after their initial conversation, showing that he's still open minded.
I also really liked the dynamic between Go and Sonia, and I honestly think the anime may very well be setting up Go to be a Professor in the future especially with Ash having been grouped together with Sonia's childhood friend, who happens to be the battler, possibly reflecting the Ash & Go dynamic. I also liked the connection that Go drew between the Dynamax clouds and the Storm cloud that Lugia emerged from, as in the anime universe this is indeed an interesting connection that they can dive into in the future.
Team Rocket were..... pointless. I liked that we saw them going old school and using a net launcher, but I honestly feel like the only reason they were there was to show of Gigantamax Meowth, who didn't really do anything.
While the same could easily be said for Raihan, I do feel like it would've been weird if he weren't involved in some way considering that his Gym was ground zero, and that as a Gym leader he took the situation at hand very seriously. That said I'm shooketh that not only does Raihan want to take Leon's title from him, but also his bae who didn't even seem like she was going to deny his advances before he left:eek:
I liked Riolu's evolution, as it was during a very Ash like battle, where Ash was being just as smart as he is at his best, and I loved that Lucario used his aura to tell Ash that he learned Aura Sphere. The same can not be said for Raboots evolution. I found Go's battle with Oleana to be a boring exchange of moves, and honestly the only things that I liked were Ember's "evolution" into Pyro Ball and Cinderace regaining its personality and signature high five!
I'm a little confused as to why macro cosmos had Eternatus considering it was previously established to be free (unless I missed something), but I thought it was handled pretty well, along with its 3D model. While I was initially worried about Go catching "main" legendaries, the fact that it was Zacian and Zamazenta who did all the work, combined with the fact that its Pokeball was sealed away justifies it for me.

With all that said, I feel like there were two big mood killers in this arc.
First off I couldn't help but feel like there was a lot of happy music in an arc that was supposedly very serious. I mean sure, it's a kids show, but I felt most other serious arcs committed to the mood of the story.
I also felt that, while we did have some great visuals (especially in the final episode) that they were outnumbered by the amount of "okay" visuals, which strikes me as being odd for a major arc.

At the end of the day I thought that this arc was well written, but I think I would've found it more engaging had it not been for my last two nitpicks.
 

Eddieursa

Marsh Trainer
You know something funny? Ash's Riolu evolved while battling a Ferrothorn and a Copperajah, which are Steel Types; and after evolving, Lucario adquires the Steel Type. Coincidence?

But there's one mistake too. Riolu is supposed to evolve to Lucario only at day, but it was at night when it happened. Why?
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
Can I just say...

Also not relevant to this episode, but for the next one I would very much like it if we get remixes of Rose and Mugendaina's battle themes. Do I expect it? Not really. But it would be cool.
It does still ultimately sadden me that we got neither of these? Well, Rose's theme there wasn't really a good place for since that thing really is just entirely too ominous, but the fact that we not only did not get the Mugendaina theme in any of its variants for the battle, but that the climactic moment that was straight out of the game didn't even use a new track was... disappointing.
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
I'm glad we didn't have to wait too long to see Meowth use his G-Max move, since he was unfairly cheated out of using a z-move! No excuse that they couldn't get Normalium if Ash had the same crystals as Kiawe, Mellow, and Soph. I hope they bring back Chewtle soon cause they were wanting to Gmax it... and it'd be really disappointing if it returned, evolved, and G-Maxed in its third appearance... They really ought to be catching more for the Boss too actually, hopefully they do in the next Galar trip, I can excuse it this time but during the other times they could have snuck a quick scene of James getting Cramorant or something.

Mid-battle evolutions returned, oh joy I sure missed those. /s
Lucario's evolution was awesome though at least, hopefully this is the last mid-battle evolution for Ash this saga. Now that Lucario and the extremely unearned Cinderace are out of the way I hope we get a sign of Ash's sixth cause the wait is annoying as heck

Goh didn't deserve getting to catch Eternatus either, and use something other than "iT's HiS gOaL" if you must defend this. It isn't right that Ash has been around for 20 years, never caught a legendary then some noob self-insert appears and gets one within a year, it's bull! I could excuse it had Ash gotten Nebby but he didn't, Goh really is the Rey Skywalker of the franchise -_-

No Farfetch'd.... I really do think that Sirfetch was supposed to have happened but due to the hiatus and them probably pushing this out earlier than intended resulted in him getting cut from the arc and his episodes pushed back. I won't fault them for this as it feels like the logical explanation given everyone but him appeared

I love Sonia but they sure rushed her becoming a Professor. At least this means she'll probably appear more but I do wish she was around a bit longer first

Rose escaped so.. they're totally going to think his brother is Rose. I can see that coming

6.5 Goh getting Eternatus ruined this
 
Everyone: OMG thank you Pokémon for keeping 7/12 of the bgm for this episode
Me: I don't care.
I've yet to see the dub so we will wait. Honestly Journey's dub sucks. Sarah sounds so off and I hate it.
Unpopular opinion but I don't really like Serena's sub voice actress, she sounds kinda generic (I haven't watched XY in sub though) I love Serena's dub voice though.
 
I have a question, between Ash's Charizard and Cinderace, who had more battles and experience?

I think I remember that Charmander evolved very fast
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
There are lots of little details in this arc that I think would have improved Sword and Shield's story quite a bit, just as there are aspects from Sword and Shield I wish the anime had included. If they could have been combined it might have been ideal.

Rose's plan of course is the big improvement, wanting a power source that will last a thousand years instead of worrying over Galar running out of power in a thousand years. As was how pro-active Leon was in finding out what was going on instead of just putting out Rose's fires. But even little things like Goh's speculation that energy vortexes and high tier legendary pokemon are linked were interesting inclusions. I feel less positive toward the thousands year old statue of Zacian and Zamazenta having a literal plaque that Goh could read to find their names out, the game version of Sonia finding in her studies references to Zacian and Zamazenta originating from a different region was probably better.

One thing I do wish they clarified is what was the deal with Eternatus roaming about freely in an earlier episode? They even reference it but nothing more. The talk about giving Eternatus power to "revive" it could imply that Eternatus was roaming about in a weakened state, but if that were the case and Rose succeeded in confining it then why not capture it in a poke ball when it was in that weakened state? Then you could spend as much time as you wanted testing to see if its full powered form could be controlled (and of course it can't, hence why even Eternatus goes crazy and it's power can't be used as a power source), instead of waiting until it was fully revived before demanding Leon catch it.
 

UglyToast

Well-Known Member
There are lots of little details in this arc that I think would have improved Sword and Shield's story quite a bit, just as there are aspects from Sword and Shield I wish the anime had included. If they could have been combined it might have been ideal.

Rose's plan of course is the big improvement, wanting a power source that will last a thousand years instead of worrying over Galar running out of power in a thousand years. As was how pro-active Leon was in finding out what was going on instead of just putting out Rose's fires. But even little things like Goh's speculation that energy vortexes and high tier legendary pokemon are linked were interesting inclusions. I feel less positive toward the thousands year old statue of Zacian and Zamazenta having a literal plaque that Goh could read to find their names out, the game version of Sonia finding in her studies references to Zacian and Zamazenta originating from a different region was probably better.

One thing I do wish they clarified is what was the deal with Eternatus roaming about freely in an earlier episode? They even reference it but nothing more. The talk about giving Eternatus power to "revive" it could imply that Eternatus was roaming about in a weakened state, but if that were the case and Rose succeeded in confining it then why not capture it in a poke ball when it was in that weakened state? Then you could spend as much time as you wanted testing to see if its full powered form could be controlled (and of course it can't, hence why even Eternatus goes crazy and it's power can't be used as a power source), instead of waiting until it was fully revived before demanding Leon catch it.
Villains in Pokemon are known as the peoples who failed science class in school, so that doesn't surprise me that much.
 

Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
This one just aired in my country so I finally got to watch a decent localized episode since... Well, since the XY and SM previews. Not perfect (nor acceptable by 2021 standards), but wow, what an improvement from the average. I didn't think I would hear Miyazaki's music ever again in Spanish TV. It's a bit ironic but the less effort TPCi put in unnecessary changes, the better for the quality of the show. Too bad it's an oasis in the middle of the greedy creative censorship desert.
 
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