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The Pokémon Circus! Flareon and Jolteon (1187)

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Iris was relatively better, but a step down from Dawn, hence why I said it was a gradual decline. She had good interactions and some bits of development, but her character arc wasn't as well defined, especially until her return appearance in Journeys.
Serena still got an arc, but was the start of them snuffing out female battlers while not doing a terrific job giving them something else to do in place of it, especially since she had the disadvantage of being in a very action focused series.

The SM girls varied, but definitely got the short straw compared to the boys. Lillie got her own cast herd and an arc at the start of the series but was mostly a supporting character for Gladion afterwards.

Chloe is unintrusive and has some development, especially with the twist of long term not even liking Pokemon or even the main character at first, but struggles to hold episodes herself. I feel like the fact she started off a bit player suggests the writers didn't have much faith giving her star appeal.
People need to understand that a goal that has a clear competition factor doesn’t mean it’s better and case and point is with malnourished Contests yet you have people claiming it’s somehow better than a type specialist goal. Assuming this is what you’re going by. I will admit that Dawn’s contest goal was amazing because of the graphics, animation and awesomeness of it all but Dawn really didn’t have a lot more character growth than Iris. I feel like a lot of people mix up “goals” with “character development”. I don’t even consider Iris becoming the queen of Unova contributing to her character development since she acted no different than her time in BW really.

Iris’ character arc was excellent. She herself was ostracized for being “child like” and in return started doing the same thing to Ash who can be immature at times. It wasn’t until meeting him that she learned to embrace her inner child instead of being a hypocrite “mature one” out of the group. Her “you’re such a kid” turned in a tease from an actual insult.

Not to mention having to individually learn how to tend to all of her Pokemon’s needs and instead morph herself a trainer rather then try to change her Pokémon. She constantly kept trying to command Excadrill despite not valuing his feelings because she was so caught up in the battle with Drayden (this is later shown with her using Fraxure as a student and still not considering his feelings and kept commanding while she was training at school), she learned how to use Emolga’s Volt Switch to good use and not getting upset when she used it, finally gaining the trust of Dragonite and not giving up on him despite his attitude and finally she stopped babying Axew which resulted in him being the Champion’s ace and fully evolving.
 
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and finally she stopped babying Axew which resulted in him being the Champion’s ace and fully evolving.
This wasn’t a thing. She let Axew battle and be active plenty of times in BW. It just needed time to gain experience because it WAS a baby which is why she treated him like one, but she never restricted him from anything. It’s 2022 and people still don’t understand that Axew was literally a level 1 newborn at the start of BW.
 
Alright, here are my thoughts after my first watch:

I actually enjoyed this, while it was nothing exceptional I was okay with it. I liked how they tried to solve the conflict at the beginning. There were a couple of funny moments, and I overall enjoyed it. I wished it actually had Chloe development, though, and not "Chloe receives two evolution stones".

Rating after first watch: 7/10
Have you ever given a bad rating for any episode? What’s the point of rating if you enjoy everything.
 

British Soul

Top Hat Regulator
Not an essay time:
This whole "conflict" could've been avoided if the performers simply evolved their Eevees one at a time so neither were entirely blameless, but then the writers would need more content to pad out the episode and we wouldn't have seen Flareon/Jolteon work together to adjust to the unexpected situation and help their trainers learn a valuable lesson in broadening their horizons and Koharu's Eevee had some hand in this as well. Going into this episode, I knew there would be some emphasis on Koharu and Eevee, but it didn't offer anything new that the other Eeveelution episodes hadn't already offered. That aside, it really says alot for this episode when the most exciting part was GROOKEY FINALLY USING AN ATTACK after 40 smeefing episodes, now it can Branch Poke its way into trouble in future episodes. Also, I do like that the blokes, who look alike but all have the symbol of 3 with an o on top on their outfits offers a new take on the Joy/Jenny dynamic of old, something that Journeys likes to do, and the reason why I say that is that in the early days, we knew that the Joys/Jennys of a region were related, and in Journeys we see blokes who look alike but aren't related to the subsequent ones that appear, yet still cause Ash/Go to assume that they had met previously.
 
Have you ever given a bad rating for any episode? What’s the point of rating if you enjoy everything.
Fair point. If I rate an episode a 7 it is below average. Now the reason I enjoy everything is because everything is enjoyable.
Also, I do like that the blokes, who look alike but all have the symbol of 3 with an o on top on their outfits
I wonder what the deal exactly is with them. I hope we get some sort of answer.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
People need to understand that a goal that has a clear competition factor doesn’t mean it’s better and case and point is with malnourished Contests yet you have people claiming it’s somehow better than a type specialist goal. Assuming this is what you’re going by. I will admit that Dawn’s contest goal was amazing because of the graphics, animation and awesomeness of it all but Dawn really didn’t have a lot more character growth than Iris. I feel like a lot of people mix up “goals” with “character development”. I don’t even consider Iris becoming the queen of Unova contributing to her character development since she acted no different than her time in BW really.

Iris’ character arc was excellent. She herself was ostracized for being “child like” and in return started doing the same thing to Ash who can be immature at times. It wasn’t until meeting him that she learned to embrace her inner child instead of being a hypocrite “mature one” out of the group. Her “you’re such a kid” turned in a tease from an actual insult.

Not to mention having to individually learn how to tend to all of her Pokemon’s needs and instead morph herself a trainer rather then try to change her Pokémon. She constantly kept trying to command Excadrill despite not valuing his feelings because she was so caught up in the battle with Drayden (this is later shown with her using Fraxure as a student and still not considering his feelings and kept commanding while she was training at school), she learned how to use Emolga’s Volt Switch to good use and not getting upset when she used it, finally gaining the trust of Dragonite and not giving up on him despite his attitude and finally she stopped babying Axew which resulted in him being the Champion’s ace and fully evolving.
I definitely understand that, and like I said, Iris was still handled better than the later girls in terms of agency and ongoing involvement as a trainer (especially since she was allowed to have an ugly side as well as be challenged and struggle sometimes rather than just 'fall upwards' until she was suddenly competent like later girls or even some earlier ones such as Misty often did), It's just that Iris' overall development arc was relatively..... messy compared to her predeccessor, especially in how undefined her 'Dragon master' goal was (only half her team were even dragon types for that matter) and how one of her biggest achievements was offscreen after her series was done, with her BW bow out being pretty anti climatic by comparison.

I do agree on concerning characterisation over goal development, but goals that are established I still think should play into the character's ongoing role and given Dawn managed to get a neat ongoing element of BOTH, Iris still pales a little compared to her.

I generally consider Iris on par with a character like Kiawe, who is nicely defined, and has fun interactions and agency in tons of episodes, but is mostly good at being a strong supporting character with tidbits of development on the side. Consider it the curse of the type specialist protagonist. :p
 
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Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
This wasn’t a thing. She let Axew battle and be active plenty of times in BW. It just needed time to gain experience because it WAS a baby which is why she treated him like one, but she never restricted him from anything. It’s 2022 and people still don’t understand that Axew was literally a level 1 newborn at the start of BW.
Sorry but as an Iris fan this definitely was a thing. Ash constantly asked her to use Axew in battle and she kept saying “let Axew go at his own pace”. Emolga, Excadrill and Dragonite was used far more than Axew. The only times Axew had an official battle was during the club tournament and against Cynthia. Dawn’s Cyndaquil and May’s Eevee were babies as well and they still were used more than Axew. So at this point you’re just being biased.
 
The only times Axew had an official battle was during the club tournament and against Cynthia.
Um no this isn’t true. Your examples of Cyndaquil and Eevee are Pokémon who showed more natural talent early on. Iris saw Axew wasn’t a natural battler and decided to take it slow because everybody develops at their own pace, but she never restricted him. She literally used Axew against a Team Plasma grunt.
 
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ShadowForce720

Well-Known Member
Fair point. If I rate an episode a 7 it is below average. Now the reason I enjoy everything is because everything is enjoyable.

I wonder what the deal exactly is with them. I hope we get some sort of answer.
I too am interested in what their deal is. Were they separated at birth or something? But yeah, you're not the only one wondering that.
What would be hilarious is instead of it being a case of just all those characters being family or related to each other they wind up actually just being the same person and he is just pulling peoples leg and just pretends not to know what they are talking about when he is questioned about it. lol XD
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Um no this isn’t true. Your examples of Cyndaquil and Eevee are Pokémon who showed more natural talent early on. Iris saw Axew wasn’t a natural battler and decided to take it slow because everybody develops at their own pace, but she never restricted him. She literally used Axew against a Team Plasma grunt.
You said “baby Pokémon” and no Cyndaquil did not show a lot of natural talent, what anime were you watching? What does Axew being a natural battler have to do with anything? You’re moving the goal post since you said earlier it was just because he was a baby Pokémon.

Cyndaquil failed to defeat Zoey and couldn’t perfect the Ice Flame combo with Mamoswine. It’s only win so far was against Lyra’s Chikorita who was a grass type and a Pokémon Lyra just obtained.

Ash’s Noviern is a prime example of being a “baby” Pokemon who eventually came into its own skin and was able to be competent.
 
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You said “baby Pokémon” and no Cyndaquil did not show a lot of natural talent, what anime were you watching? What does Axew being a natural battler have to do with anything? You’re moving the goal post since you said earlier it was just because he was a baby Pokémon.

Cyndaquil failed to defeat Zoey and couldn’t perfect the Ice Flame combo with Mamoswine. It’s only win so far was against Lyra’s Chikorita who was a grass type and a Pokémon Lyra just obtained.

Ash’s Noviern is a prime example of being a “baby” Pokemon who eventually came into its own skin and was able to be competent.
You’re asking me what anime I’m watching when you don’t even know how many battles Axew has had? Lol ok. But yes Cyndaquil showed battle prowess a lot faster and was used accordingly because of it. “Natural talent” is simple as losing but showing coordination and competency in performing moves. Axew struggled with simple movement for a long time and not even being able to dodge properly. But nothing negates that Iris never restricted Axew and did use him throughout BW, she just went the slow approach. That was her judgement call and she had good reasons. Sorry but your narrative is a reach. Your argument was dead as soon as you said Axew only battled twice. This might be a hard concept for you to understand but Iris treating Axew like a baby (because it WAS) but also not restricting it can exist at the same time. That’s what she did.
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
You’re asking me what anime I’m watching when you don’t even know how many battles Axew has had? Lol ok. But yes Cyndaquil showed battle prowess a lot faster and was used accordingly because of it. “Natural talent” is simple as losing but showing coordination and competency in performing moves. Axew struggled with simple movement for a long time and not even being able to dodge properly. But nothing negates that Iris never restricted Axew and did use him throughout BW, she just went the slow approach. That was her judgement call and she had good reasons. Sorry but your narrative is a reach. Your argument was dead as soon as you said Axew only battled twice. This might be a hard concept for you to understand but Iris treating Axew like a baby but also not restricting it can exist at the same time. That’s what she did.
Because you said something wrong. Sorry a single battle from a series that’s nowhere near recent was missed. Besides your juvenile attempt of a “gotcha” moment and small battles with Scraggy you’ve got nothing and even then Scraggy became stronger despite them originally being on the same level and him hatching later. You already got proven wrong with Ash’s Noviern (who was arguably more timid and incompetent than Axew) becoming strong enough that he could battle Zapdos and help Ash in the Kalos league. If you wanna hyper focus on a small detail on an overall post then go off but like every character Iris is not flawless but as stated go off. This whole conversation is irrelevant in terms of this episode.
 
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British Soul

Top Hat Regulator
What would be hilarious is instead of it being a case of just all those characters being family or related to each other they wind up actually just being the same person and he is just pulling people's leg and just pretends not to know what they are talking about when he is questioned about it. lol XD
That would be funny and entirely plausible.
 
Because you said something wrong. Sorry a single battle from a series that’s nowhere near recent was missed. Besides your juvenile attempt of a “gotcha” moment and small battles with Scraggy you’ve got nothing and even then Scraggy became stronger despite them originally being on the same level and him hatching later. You already got proven wrong with Ash’s Noviern (who was arguably more timid and incompetent than Axew) becoming strong enough that he could battle Zapdos and help Ash in the Kalos league. If you wanna hyper focus on a small detail on an overall post then go off but like every character Iris is not flawless but as stated go off. This whole conversation is irrelevant in terms of this episode.
If you think those battles with Scraggy are the only other battles Axew has had, You’re further embarrassing yourself by not knowing anything. No matter which you spin it, fold it, spank it, your narrative that Axew only developed once Iris stopped babying it isn’t true at all because she never restricted it to begin with. It was simply a slow approach and it paid off. Using Noivern as an example when it achieved next to nothing and became one of Ash’s more pathetic Kalos mons doesn’t help your argument. Maybe you should rewatch BW.
 
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