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The Great Farfetch'd Trial! (1140)

i2i

Big Bad Wolf
I wonder if there's some kinda schedule logistic about Iwane most likely working on this episode the same time the Dracovish ep was being made. But yeah might also just not want to casually show it battle before it's had a real showing.

Maybe they decide to switch the order of episodes for the live tv airings I know they do that all the time in west.
 
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Dragonsoldier77

Bittersweet Satisfaction
I just don't see how skipping some battles when they're very clearly still showing them means there's no journey. The point of watching the show WAS in this episode. We're seeing him battle right now. But we can't ALWAYS see him battle because there's so many other things to do in the show, and saying that yes he's still been battling during/after such gaps is in my opinion better than not doing that.

Because it makes what they DO show pointless. There is no stakes. What good is there in showing his progress now, when it isn’t even worth as much what he does off screen. The individual battles can still be enjoyed, and the battle in this episode was definitely enjoyable, but i wouldn’t say i watched a journey when i just saw the beginning and the end. The PWC at this point is just a wasted concept, because ash can be put at pokeball rank next week and in ultra the week after and i wouldn’t even be surprised. The ranks and the PWC has become just that pointless.

If the series had decided to off screen some gym battles, people would care consideribly less about gym battles in general because the badges wouldn’t have any value when ash can just get more of them off screen.
 

Rohanator

Well-Known Member
Because it makes what they DO show pointless. There is no stakes. What good is there in showing his progress now, when it isn’t even worth as much what he does off screen. The individual battles can still be enjoyed, and the battle in this episode was definitely enjoyable, but i wouldn’t say i watched a journey when i just saw the beginning and the end. The PWC at this point is just a wasted concept, because ash can be put at pokeball rank next week and in ultra the week after and i wouldn’t even be surprised. The ranks and the PWC has become just that pointless.

If the series had decided to off screen some gym battles, people would care consideribly less about gym battles in general because the badges wouldn’t have any value when ash can just get more of them off screen.
Well that just seems like a silly extreme example to suit your point. Yeah obviously if he was suddenly in Hyper Class or something next week I'd be upset too, but there's no reason to think they'd skip key things like that. Reaching a new rank for the first time, learning something valuable, beating an opponent he previously couldn't, they're not gonna offscreen those moments. I do agree I wish the jump this episode was smaller but let's not pretend they just threw some actual plans out the window or something.
 

Poke Master 7

Boulder Trainer
But... it's the SAME issue. As long as we get enough episodes like this that's preventing the offscreen thing from really being an issue, no? Or does the sheer knowledge of there existing battles in universe that you didn't see bother you even if you get to see as many battles as you would've regardless?
Considering that these battles are a part of Ash’s arc in this series in which he is one of the duel protagonists, yea, it’s an issue. It’s one thing if they’re just random irrelevant battles like in prior series but these are about Ash’s goal of climbing the ranks to get to Leon. They should be treated with just as much respect as the writers show Go’s goal. It was bad enough when they just skipped Ash getting back into the Super Class after his deviating loss to Bea followed by a losing streak, this is worse considering how high his rank is now compared to then.
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
I've stopped caring about Goh. I disliked him at first. Then for a long time he never did anything for me to care about him. All of this basic personality changes are called peak of character writing by folks on Twitter, I haven't seen anything like that an likely never will with the current trend of tell, not show.Nothing he does even matters to me now so there is no point in hating him or liking him. He just doesn't deserve any attention, for better or for worse.

And I heavily dislike JN Ash so I will almost be happy if he doesn't gets focus.

Overall, I'm more tempted to watch a show about the journey's of Tracey and Max than I am to watch these two sorry excuse of a character.
Then stop watching? Like if you don't like the two main characters the show revolves aroun to any degree there really isn't much for you here unless you're really invested in Chloe there really isn't much to get excited about otherwise. Don't really get the concept of hate-watching media like that
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
Serviceable episode. I like they are finally putting Ash's goal in the spotlight again, not to mention finally giving Farfetch'd much needed focus and development yet... I dunno, it feels hollow.

The battle was quite good and Farfetch'd showed what it can really do yet, it's hard to be excited specially with things such as Ash being ranked way higher than last time we were given an update. I understand and accept the focus on the every day adventures but if you are really wanting to put such battle-related goal, at least do a better job building it. As for right now, Ash's quest feels an after-thought. And no, that has nothing to do with "Goh steal mah Ash spotlight!!1!!" since it was kinda there on Sun and Moon as well.

The current regime doesn't really give a danm about battling related stuff and focus on more episodic, slice-of-life adventures either because of corporate mandate or they think today's children prefer that way. Still, the series seems to just be on an odd place where it's really undecided whether to go the path of being slice-of-like or doing tournament arcs. They are trying to make a compromise on balancing both but it's simply not working. Most of Journeys' best episodes always come from anything that don't relate to battling. I mean, aside from Ash vs Visquez and maybe both Bea matches and the Leon stuff, what else on Ash's goal was remotely interesting so far? The one-shot battles are nearly as bad as Goh having an easy times with captures. But while the later had shown improvements recently, the former really needs better work. For me it's clear the current staff have no idea how to handle the tournament and that's hurting the story. So far, the only thing sustaining it is Ash and Ash alone because he is our eternal protagonist and we, the audience, are enough commited to his character to want to see what happens next to him.

All in all the episode itself is fine but it just highlights the bigger problems that have been surrounding the series.

Gurdurr's face when its girder broke in half was priceless, the thought of it now using a pickaxe as a weapon however was terrifying and is going to leave a bodycount

Pokémon Go needs to release this variant. If they can make multiple hats and costumes for Pikachu, there is nothing preventing them from doing it.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I can safely say that Kamonegi was redeemed in this episode after being so stale and generally missing in most episodes until now. I really enjoyed seeing him in action, which was a little bittersweet considering that I would've loved seeing him take over Lucario's role completely in some of the previous episodes. I just find Kamonegi to be more interesting overall than Satoshi's other Pokemon.
 

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
What the hell is fury cutter gonna do to Aegislash?
Get stronger every time it connects.
1) yeah, but it's still a bit lame
2) I meant that the Bea arc also felt kinda disjointed, just like this "farfetch'd arc c
This entire series is disjointed.
Meteor Assault feels like a given after it evolves, but I wonder what attack is going to be replaced for it, i'm suspecting one of the dark moves. Maybe Brutal Swing? since if Farfetch'd stops acting like it has been it won't need to swing it's eventual leak upgrade around like crazy.

Fury Cutter was a surprise, but then again considering how often it swings it's leak it's an alright choice. Thinking about it, having both Night Slash and Leaf Blade would've been a bit redundant since they are both slash based high crit attacks, other than typing nothing's really different there.

also kind of funny that only in the pokemon world that a plant can break a steel beam in half.
Brutal Swing and Night Slash let it hit Ghost and Psychic types a lot better than it otherwise would. But if either of them were to go, it'd probably be Night Slash, since Sirfetch'd is based on a knight and random murder is not a knightly thing to do.
Do you guys get the feeling Ash is a supporting protagonist and Goh is the actual protagonist? Because it's starting to look that way given Goh is the one doing onscreen (but super cheap) progress.
Perhaps, but is it such a bad thing?
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
Tbh I was fine with the regular 1-minute battles, since they did have a purpose on their respective episode's story, so they worked to compliment both the small and large scale narratives. My only issue with them was that Pikachu and Riolu were the only ones doing them

This has been my argument.

People complain about 1 minute battles but that's only because of the Pokemon.

I'd rather see Dragonite, Gengar, Farfetch'd, Dracovish get 1 minute battles then a giant massive gap between episodes whereas with Go its capture, capture, oh you wanted Ash with that? Too bad.....capture capture capture.

i'll take a 1 minute Gengar battle than nothing for 10-20 episodes just for a single shot of highlights we didn't get to actually see.
 

Sidagam

Well-Known Member
Ah the PWC. Great concept. Incredibly poor execution. Pokemon seems to have forgotten the old basic storytelling technique of "show, don't tell." Ash jumping up 400 ranks is so poor. I mean having him rank up classes without seeing it was bad enough, but this is just stupid.

How hard would it be to have a 1-2 minute PWC battle every 1-3 episodes that features Gengar, Dragonite and Farfetch'd actually knocking up some on screen wins? Or learning new moves? Good to see some training though.

Anyway, apart from that PWC rant, this ep was pretty good. Finally, FINALLY Farfetch'd gets some attention, and didn't evolve, and has a long way to go so we can really get behind it. Better late than never, I guess. Battle was really entertaining, well animated etc. Really looking forward to seeing more of Farfetch'd
 
I said this when the show had Dragonite hard-carry a victory against Korrina and provided almost zero context to how it was able to do so. Showing these things is vitally important to make the narrative believable. Yes, it is 100% a problem when Journeys isn't showing enough since it dramatically undermines the PWC as the key progression point for Ash.

Sure, just like how the Dragonite victory was waved away by talking about how Dragonites are inherently powerful and Ash trains off-screen, the PWC can wave off important context and rely on off-screen battles as well, but it just makes the storytelling worse, something Journeys already isn't that good at.

As people have already mentioned, this episode was decent to good, but just continues to reveal fundamental flaws in the overall concept of the PWC. The execution is completely lackluster.
 
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Red and Blue

Well-Known Member
Get stronger every time it connects.

This entire series is disjointed.

Brutal Swing and Night Slash let it hit Ghost and Psychic types a lot better than it otherwise would. But if either of them were to go, it'd probably be Night Slash, since Sirfetch'd is based on a knight and random murder is not a knightly thing to do.

Perhaps, but is it such a bad thing?
Night Slash would look wicked with Sirfetch'd's giant leek so I'm hoping it doesn't go for Meteor Assault. It can ditch focus energy after evolving
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
Brutal Swing and Night Slash let it hit Ghost and Psychic types a lot better than it otherwise would. But if either of them were to go, it'd probably be Night Slash, since Sirfetch'd is based on a knight and random murder is not a knightly thing to do.

it doesn't need both of them though, and if it turns out to have Scrappy then it wouldn't matter.

Night Slash would look wicked with Sirfetch'd's giant leek so I'm hoping it doesn't go for Meteor Assault. It can ditch focus energy after evolving

there was a post earlier making me think about it, I think Brutal Swing should be replaced.

I think I understand the general idea for Farfetch'd's character now. It's introduced as essentially a rogue samurai street slasher, challenging whoever it can to test its "blade", joining Satoshi for the simple promise of getting stronger, seemingly not caring about anything else, including friendship. It just wants to swing its leek and get stronger, that's all there is to it, it's a warrior (Genba, the Gurdurr's trainer, described it as having a true warrior's eyes), it exists for battle. It doesn't DISLIKE being part of a team but it doesn't really care either, as shown in this week's episode where it starts to get so absorbed into training it becomes a danger to the people around it, and ignores Satoshi's attempts at socializing, it only listens to him when it's time for battle. When Satoshi starts wielding a leek himself it's not angry but very visibly confused. So where is this all going?

Rinto (Gallade guy) says "It seems like Farfetch'd-kun doesn't understand what's truly important yet" I think Farfetch'd actually doesn't have a current reason for wanting to get stronger, it's just the life it's lived (maybe we'll find out why, maybe not). It's a warrior, and war is all it knows. But its evolution is a knight, and what do knights do? They PROTECT. And having someone you want to protect is the best way to become stronger. In the new trailer Satoshi says "I believe in Farfetch'd" and in the same footage we see its eyes glint up a little (the audio could be for a different scene in the actual ep but we'll see). I think Farfetch'd will need to learn to appreciate Satoshi as a friend over simply as a trainer and gain a real purpose for getting stronger. And in the process it'll become happier, literally tranforming into Sirfetch'd which is usually depicted smiling.

If Rohanator's theory is correct then imo, getting rid of Brutal Swing for Meteor Assault would make the most sense, since it's not going to need to swing it's leak around like crazy if it became a protector like knight.
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
Incidentally prior to this episode I didn't realize that Kamonegi was played by Miki Shin'ichiro. But I realized it today and now I just cannot unhear it. His screams are just exactly the same as Kojiro when he's angry.
 

U.N. Owen

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night ...
I like Farfetch'd is your blood knight: will do anything for a battle for battling's sake.

As for Rinto, I still stick that he should have been Wally. Still, I see why they wouldn't do it here. The executives know that using a pre-existing character could have ruined the mysterious allure that is Rinto. Given Rinto's calm demeanor and said mysterious allure, I wonder if he is a member of the Masters 8. He's portrayed more like a typical wise master than he is a rival.

Also, give us Wally already! I don't care if Ayumu Murase is too expensive to reprise his role from Masters despite Masters not sharing actors with the main anime!
 

1rkhachatryan

Call me Robert guys
Hahaha abomination was no where to be seen, good lol.

Also this Farfetch'd is suddenly a bad ass, miss with this this offscreen bs. He got wrecked the last two times he was on screen and now is suddenly OP, oh please.

Not as bad as the BS they tried to pull with Gible but it's up there.
 
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