I actually quite enjoyed this episode up until Latias just freeze framing the whole TRio army away....lame.
Other than that I adored finally seeing all of their Pokemon again, just as a complete absolute unit working together to finally get Pikachu. I really liked how they remembered Kojirou's softside for Manene and how it didn't battle much but played a role of a distraction or decoy just like in DP and AG. I thought they would play it off as being a wild Manene needing help but nope, Pikachu recognized it just like how he was suspicious of Nyarth's during BW! being a fake. That's one silverlining about MPM giving Pikachu some of his old personality back and desegrating his mannerisms from Satoshi who is just super pure and niave at times. That was a clever way of giving a "weak" TRio Pokemon a main role.
The released Pokemon got a cute little flashback. Then we have the muscle and main fighters of TRio's teams all keeping Pikachu separated from Kasumi, Takeshi and Satoshi so they can nail him down finally. But Pikachu is just too swift. On the other side of the coin it's always funny to see the strongest Pokemon in the world struggling against TRio's Pokemon even if it's multiple targets. You get stuff like Pikachu just not sending them flying with a full power T-bolt because they have to keep the fight going. There were several scenes where I kept thinking back to the win over Dande and it felt a little weird/jarring. Not like these aren't enemy/evil Pokemon.
I loved seeing all the Rocket Pokemon animated and using consistent moves/new moves, you can tell they did their research and tried to keep it all accurate. Also I forgot how massive Habunake is (super inconsistent about that thing's size during AG/DP) There was something cool about Luchabull just showing up and Flying Pressing it to save Pikachu out of the blue like that. The super attack scene was cool but felt like they had to end things too fast and I disliked that because all the Pokemon were assembled and I would have preferred Satoshi using Luchabull, Pikachu and Goukazaru to plow through them (but like I said it was also a bit jarring that Goukazaru wasn't mowing through the two Grass-types instantly unless fights are way faster in Anipoke ala DBZ)
Did not feel like TRio's finish, Latias just yeeting them away was quite anticlimatic. You run into the out-of-universe reasoning of her not just doing that from the get-go but I guess they wanted to further establish Satoshi's trust with her and him saving a random Pokemon from danger first setting up Latios's rescue. Fun episode overall if you take it for what it is and don't think too much. Imagine if this type of episode had 3 or 4 parts to draw it out as a whole real war like how the Avengers all split up to take care of a separate threat or something like that. Good to see best Fighters, martial artist and wrestler. I'm glad at the cute little shine they've given Goukazaru casually as an "overseer" these days.
Good episode. I just wanted more. Also Sonansu withstanding all that felt odd. But dang that guy is bulky and has always been, he took a full Hyper Beam from the Dragon's Holy Land's Kairyu after all.