Wasn't the topic about battles where Ash takes alot of punishment, then wins with a few hits?
No, the problem is the wild inconsistencies in how Dracovish and Sirfetch'd performed in the battle and the fundamental problem JN has with portraying battles and power levels that make logical sense with Pokemon that have so few battles(especially Dracovish) in a region that is supposed to be uber competitive. That pervasive problem is the context in which this battle is in. There needs to be proper justification for something like an E4 that is completely destroying Ash to just get one-shot like that, justification that is significantly heightened given the seriousness of the match and again, the quality of the opponent.
And I don't have a problem with the Ramos battle, I actually agree with you on this. But today's battle was the same: There was a 2 episode built up for Meteor Assault and Dragon Rush. Drasna dominated the entire battle, but as soon as Ash was able to hit her, he won.
Also, other than the scene between Dracovish and Altaria(which Ash took advantage of), the battle felt way more serious and intense than usual. If this wasn't the series' anniverssary I would've even expected Ash to lose.
It's not the same, for example, the JN two partner establishes that Meteor Assault as powerful, completely one-shots Clemont's Pokemon. Almost immediately in the battle with Noivern, Sirfetch'd is put on the back foot and uses Meteor Assault that Noivern completely shrugs off. Now there isn't much of a problem yet, Drasna is an E4 and established in the episode itself as a super powerful trainer so it makes sense for that to happen. Noivern recalled with it coming off as it literally had no scratch on it.
It starts up again in the same way with Dracovish with Altaria just clowning on it and (I don't have the subs for this), Ash's strategy to make Altaria wet fails as well.
So at this point, literally everything is going wrong, neither Noivern or Mega Altaria come across as having any significant damage to them and have just been manhandling Dracovish and Sirfetch'd. And yet somehow in the next few seconds, with literally no explanation or narrative reason how this happened, Sirfetch'd randomly OHKO's Mega Altaria with Meteor Assault, the same Meteor Assault that Noivern literally brushed off with a block and the viewer is supposed to believe that Mega Altaria, Drasna's ace and theoretically more powerful than Noivern , goes down to it after taking what looks like minimal damage by Dracovish.
This is completely incoherent, inconsistent, and insulting. There's no in-battle explanation for this as far as I can tell. Maybe there's one in the subs? I guess it might be the bond between Sirfetch'd and Dravovish that allowed for the incredibly powerful E4 Mega Ace to be randomly downed after one clash to a move that literally did basically nothing to the weaker Pokemon on its team team? It's not even that Sirfetch'd got a clean shot in, it somehow overpowered Mega Altaria's own move.
Unless the subs have a stronger narrative justification, nothing in what I've described is defensible and is embarrassing writing. For a battle like this, there is a high bar to meet to have Ash on the backfoot as he was and be so completely overpowered yet come out the victor in the way he did with Sirfetch'd. Just doesn't make sense
It's a similar story with the last match between Dracovish. Noivern has basically been portrayed to have minimal damage done to it, Dracovish has somehow become a massive tank out of nowhere after previously looking like a complete glass cannon in the Iris battle and just continues to be clowned on by Noivern until once again, it somehow overpowers Noivern in the final clash and ends up taking it down.
There's no defensible writing here. I could maybe accept the bond between Sirfetch'd and Noivern allowed for Sirfetch'd to win his battle if this battle wasn't in this context with Drasna with how the battle had been going earlier in one of the most important battles Ash will have in the PWC.
There's no comparison between this battle with Ramos and Frogadier. The context is completely different, the narrative backbone is not only strong, but also completely justifiable for the battle and what was built-up.
