The Pledge We Made That Day! The Ho-Oh Legend of the Johto Region!! (1098)

[Ultra Beast Lover]

It'd be nice if they went into more of the lore of the world. That's always fun. I know they don't intend on doing more with the concept but if they talked about the Aura Guardians a little more, or maybe about a town that legendaries arrive in sometimes, it could pique people's interest. It feels like forever since we've had a good legend that we didn't already know, at least I think it's been a while

 

[dentula]

I'm slowly becoming more invested in this series, and this episode was actually very enjoyable.

The narrative was done very well and I really appreciate the attention to detail, like how the kid was holding onto Cyndaquil's hand when the stairway went into goopy mode. I also liked that Ash and co. didn't get immediate gratification for seeing Ho-oh -- only the old man who's been working hard to see Ho-oh for years.

Also, apparently Hoot-hoot have a similar lifespan to humans. Second confirmed case if anyone remembers that one episode with... the Noctowl and the plane... stuff.

At first I figured the Stantler and Misdreavus duo was a Team Rocket ploy, but was glad they're just two wild mons who like to hang out in the tower to mess with people hahah. The lack of TR was a plus.

My only gripe with the episode was how easily Go catches stuff. This is my biggest turn off with the series in general but I'm slowly starting to tolerate it.

Looking forward to the next ep with the Dragonite, and more episodes in the future that explore the universe lore.

 

[thor94]

After seeing all of Go's captures for the sake of his dumb goal, no one can call Ash's captures bad...I mean technically you can but compared to this. Ash had to earn the right the catch most of his Pokemon, all of the characters did except for the gifts and even then sometimes they had to, all of the other characters had to befriend their Pokemon, earn their trust, go on a zany adventure, and even then they often had to learn how to work together with this new Pokemon. Go just throws a ball and they're like, "Oh, ok." I'm not even really sure Go counts as a real trainer and not just a collector, if even that, trainers build teams of their favorite Pokemon, it takes a bunch of dedication and hard work, a collector is just in it for the bragging rights. I get that he wants to be friends with all Pokemon but Ash was already doing that.

In fact you are kinda wrong. Beside the usual regional bird and bulbasaur, almost all Ash pokemon were caught using "friendship power/talk no jutsu" instead of usual real fight

I'd prefer it if Go's goal was just to find and befriend Mew. Finding a mythical on Mew's level is already big, but being a friend of Mew's would be incredible. Or, maybe he'd want to unlock the mysteries of different Pokemon. Or, as Dzentelmen said, he could want to see them all. I just can't feel proud of Go's accomplishment, in the games this would make sense but in a series where Pokemon aren't put into suspended animation and need food and feel neglected if you don't play with them it just feels wrong. While SuMo was slow I at least could care about most of the classmates dreams because they were realistic, and as dull as Cilan was I was at least interested in what a Connoisseur was.

Excepted if the 2019 serie take care of continuity like it look appear for the moment, that goal would be pale compared to ash who already befriended mew but also dozen other legendaries including giratina and ultimate God arceus (damn, ash is the only human beside damos to obtain arceus friendship, and the first and only one to date in history to befriend giratina those two beat mew by light years gap) and ash already have seen all existing pokemon beside galar.

Ash has basically the same status of a companion at this point.

At this point, i would say ash status as main character become even worse than bonnie and max

 

[Twilight-Kun]

I just wish they didn't retcon the legend of Ho-Oh from it reviving pokémon who died in a fire to "go here and wave a feather to summon it"

 

[satopi]

I don’t know about you guys but I kind of enjoyed this episode. I just love seeing someone who eventually gave up their dream just to have someone help realize it and prove them wrong, making them a lot happier and fulfilled just warms my heart.

I knew Go was the new Red right when he started catching em all like Ash used to briefly do in BW (but at least he rotate battle with them.) Not the best episode but not the worst. Ash recounting his first time meeting Ho oh at the beginning of his journey and seeing Ho oh again in the current timeline were the highlights of this episode.

 

[mysticalglacia]

This was enjoyable. While not the episode I wanted, I thought the message was quite realistic and pretty heartwarming. Like satopi said, I personally really like storylines revolving around unfulfilled dreams or goals, and that’s what we got here.

The way the episode was going with as little incorporation of Ash’s reactions as possible, I thought he really wasn’t going to say anything about Ho-Oh. I’m glad I was wrong (though a part of me still thinks they just did that to reanimate that damn scene again lmao). The Stantler/Misdreavus thing was just unnecessary- as was Go catching them with as little effort as possible- yet again. That brings me to something I have a problem with: direction. It feels like things are just happening with no solid reasoning or significance other than the writers wanted them to. Isn’t that like anything? Well, sure, writers want things to happen so they write them. But writing needs to have a structure, something even the tired old formulas stuck to. I knew PM was going to be episodic, but I would feel better about it if there was something stringing these events together. I do believe this gets better later on, but as of these first few episodes it’s missed the mark. I mostly enjoy these episodes, but it’s missing that something to make me fully like them.

The animation quality was much better this time: a lot more dynamic shots and movement. Hope this continues in the future; battles especially.

 

[LilligantLewis]

I don't like how the dub started to pronounce Johto Johdo.

This was the first time since Goh started using his Gokédex that the camera actually showed other stuff while she's talking instead of wasting multiple seconds of valuable screentime on a freezeframe of one still image of said Pokémon.

I didn't like the montage of still images as they climbed up the final few flights.

Two more effortless captures for Go (Misdreavus and Stantler). YAWN. Is it so hard to add a short battle?

Wow. This is gonna sound stupid but despite how much Goh always catches everything, for some reason I did not expect their solution/way out of this to be his catching them both.

Go thinks catching every pokémon will give him enough skill or experience to catch Mew. His goal was originally make Mew his first pokémon but that all changed because of Scorbunny

It's so stupid how he went from one extreme, to another, for seemingly no reason.

The set up is not bad but it sure needs some form of compromise. Doesn't have to be Galar gyms - and please, anything but that - but I dunno, things such as Don George's tournaments can help a bit.

I even wished that Flute Cup a few episodes ago had been at least a 2-parter, but I guess that wouldn't make sense when Goh is gonna get swept, and Ash is gonna sweep everything. Nothing else makes sense, and there's no reason to stretch it out to two episodes. Then again, at least until Goh gets better and/or Ash gets competition somehow, tournaments probably aren't going to be more than one episode. I also don't understand why Chloe hasn't done more. I went into this anime thinking it was an anime with at least three main characters, since that's how every previous generation has been, and for the first few episodes I was surprised Chloe hadn't done anything. Now I'm less surprised since I get the shtick, but it's a stupid shtick tbh, for multiple reasons: first of all, with just the two of them, you're right, there's nothing going on. A third character could spice things up. Second of all, it's a waste of the character Chloe. I wonder why she even appears in the op.

Anyway, about the Rotom voice actress, how does she act so bad and still gets the money and role? Is it because she looks kind of Gaijin? She won a prize? Its her last wish before dying and they gave her the role? Was it connections? Or do they said to her to do it bad on purpose? I'm really curious...

I'm not sure how true this is but I've heard it's bc she speaks English?

I think that, ever since the start of BW, there's been a steady slump in the anime. The staff wanted to do new stuff and reinvent everything which meant dumping the old formula which was fine.

Well I think the biggest problem is not switching it up after BW, but the fact that they now keep switching it up every generation. If it was a one-time switch after BW, but then BW-PJ was all another "connected" story for several generations the way that OS-DP felt, then it wouldn't be a problem. But instead, Da!-XY feels like a separate thing from BW, then SM feels like separate from XYZ, then PJ now feels separate from SM. It's the multiple separations that causes the bigger problem to me, and the slump, as you say.

It'd be nice if they went into more of the lore of the world. That's always fun. I know they don't intend on doing more with the concept but if they talked about the Aura Guardians a little more, or maybe about a town that legendaries arrive in sometimes, it could pique people's interest. It feels like forever since we've had a good legend that we didn't already know, at least I think it's been a while

I think the biggest reason for the lack of recent new legends is that SM movies were in an AU. It always felt to me that the movies were where the best fleshing-out of anime-only stories related to legends happened. They've lost this opportunity by switching up the movies.

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

It's so stupid how he went from one extreme, to another, for seemingly no reason.

It does kind of fit with his character though. Go seems to have similar traits to a pokemon researcher due to knowing so much obscure facts about them, how he studies the environments for situations like when the Lugia raid started, and he had tons of monitors set up to look for Mew (episode 6 even showed this right before he caught Paras & Parasect since he wanted to study them first), so it would make sense for someone who likes studying pokemon to catch as many of them as possible in order to observe them.

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

I also don't understand why Chloe hasn't done more. I went into this anime thinking it was an anime with at least three main characters, since that's how every previous generation has been, and for the first few episodes I was surprised Chloe hadn't done anything. Now I'm less surprised since I get the shtick, but it's a stupid shtick tbh, for multiple reasons: first of all, with just the two of them, you're right, there's nothing going on. A third character could spice things up. Second of all, it's a waste of the character Chloe. I wonder why she even appears in the op.

That's because the show was made and is being sold as Ash's and Goh's adventure. Try to think of it like DP where Ash and Dawn were the ones to drive the journey and Brock was only there for the ride. The key difference is that unlike Brock, Chloe doesn't need to appear every episode and the set up allow it for that to be justfied.

As for why she's even in the show in the first place, it's for the same reason Hidaka's used to explain why they keep changing the girls.

 

[Bguy7]

Oh wow, a Ho-Oh episode for the first time since Battle Frontier, if I'm not mistaken. That's pretty cool. A little bummed out that Ash didn't get to see it this time though. What I found kind of interesting is that Ash stated how he's always wanted to battle Ho-Oh some day. As far as I can remember, that's never been a goal of Ash's in the show, but it was in the I Choose You movie, which ended with Ash battling Ho-Oh.

 

[Pikachu52]

So I’m got mixed feelings about this series so far. There’s things it’s doing quite well, but this episode wasn’t it.

It’s reverting back to something common in the previous series, sidelining Ash in favour of a character of the day.

Chad and his grandfather are given ten maybe fifteen minutes of screentime, with alot of the motives of each character explained quickly by Chad or in a brief flashback. So the audience doesn‘t really have enough time to emotionally bond with either of them to make the pay off at the end, where Ho-oh appears worthwhile. Add to that the stakes are just so low. To make Ho-oh appear, all Ash, Goh and their new friends have to do is climb the tower and avoid the illusions of Misdrevous and Stantler - who are easily defeated by Goh‘s Pokéball.

And it’s disappointing because they actually had already had a similar plot involving Ho-oh in the movie, I choose you! The difference is in I choose you, it’s actually done well. We the audience are with Ash and Pikachu when they first meet Ho-oh, we know the significance to thier friendship. We the audience spend time with Ash, we see him at his best and worst, we get to understand why Ho-oh is such a big deal for him, so the payoff at the end is much more emotionally satisfying. Plus the stakes are higher - Ash is almost killed at one point in the film.

Even the chronicles episode Search for the Legend, which had the same theme and had to work in the confines of a twenty to thirty minute episode, did this better. Probably because we experience Silver through Ritchie’s eyes and we get to know him as he does. We’re gradually introduced as opposed to dumped with a lot of information very quickly. And the stakes are higher - they‘re climbing an active volcano and Team Rocket are trying to capture them.

And why does Goh seem to catch Pokémon so easily. He throws the ball and they go inside - and that’s it. He doesn’t have to battle them or, as is more common for Pokémon befriend and bond with them. The audience has no reason to emotionally invest in Goh’s goal or bond with the Pokémon, because they’re given such little screentime.