By the way, what were the flashbacks of Olympia about? Don't understand Japanese.
It was from the pre-Anistar Gym battle episode where she first mentioned to them about the Ash-Greninja form (not by name, though, she was talking about how they would reach new heights of power, etc.)
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Excellent episode all round, battles were solid and it's good to see Clemont being relevant. Splash of drama thrown in with Ash going RIP in memes.
Was interesting that Ash and Greninja didn't even come close to transforming vs Luxray. Can easily be explained by the fact there wasn't any emotion (for lack of a better word) in the battle. He wasn't battling to protect someone (XYZ007 and 009), nor was he battling a rival like Sawyer or Alain. Probably would've happened if it was the Lumiose Gym where something was on the line, but here they were just doing it to do it, really. I love that animation when Luxray uses Electric Terrain. One problem I had with Clemont was how he got that footage of Ash-Greninja, lol. But the intention was more for it being flashbacks for the viewer's sake.
Alain says he has "more" than Charizard, presumably that means not just one other 'mon (Metang), which is expected. Was great seeing him get excited over battling Ash-Greninja, he was definitely more than a match for Charizard this time around. His response to the Kalos League was also obvious as he clearly has other priorities right now than to collect badges, but at least they brought the idea up with him in mind. Whether that amounts to something remains to be seen, but he'd be a worthy opponent for Ash at the pointy end of the League in my opinion. More than Sawyer tbh, by quite a margin.
I was pleased with Noivern's performance in it's first official battle. Moveset needs work obviously, whether it be Flamethrower or Dragon Pulse (these two make the most sense in my opinion). I'm pretty sure Acrobatics has replaced Tackle because they do literally the same thing, unlike Boomburst and Supersonic, so the fourth move slot is open in my eyes. Noivern ultimately lost because it didn't quite have the strength to keep going, although from what someone said earlier Alain mentioned it could've won if they went any longer. By the way, was the reason Ash chose Noivern over Pikachu because he wanted to give it some battle experience? I thought I heard him mention that when Pikachu got mad at him (also lol at Pikachu's reaction "WTF man I'd beat his ***!"). The Greninja vs Charizard battle was great, much more interesting than the first one where Greninja just got his **** pushed in. They were actually able to show their true strength. The way he blocked that Flamethrower was awesome, loved the way they used the Cut swords. Greninja got some really good hits in, none more so than the spinning double Cut at the end, which I can imagine him saying "this is for that Blast Burn, *****" when he goes for it.
It actually knocked Charizard down a bit. Then Ash faints because he becomes unsynchronised with Greninja, although I'm not sure if that was because of damage taken from Dragon Claw (speaking of which it was nice seeing them use the heightened senses to dodge T-Punch and notice the D-Claw) or whether the fact they don't have full control yet makes it unstable after time. His dream/nightmare was interesting, I guess it may just be his inner doubts that they can master it, or his fear that Greninja may leave him for it, as others have said.
As for Mairin, I don't think it was fake IF she was saying what I guessed she was saying (which I don't really know what she said as I know minimal Japanese - most of it learned from this show, haha). I see it as genuine if she was messaging Alain because she was told he was working hard to help out Chespie, so she was just giving him encouragement or something like that. I don't think it was forced, really.
No TR in this episode was a great decision, they would've been so unnecessary, this can't be denied. Maybe they compensated for how long their freaking motto took last week (was a good 2 minutes of a 20 minute episode JUST on that).
