Ultra Class! VS Elite Four Drasna! (1193)

[Power Up]

I just watched it with subs as well. There's some narrative improvement with Noivern apparently taking a lot of damage from Dracovish(that didn't come across at all originally, but maybe that has more to do with how bad the animation of the episode was?) with the announcer mentioning that it was a super effective hit. That's the only thing that I can say helped lessen the horrible writing with the final Noivern/Dracovish battle.

All of the critiques I have of Sirfetch'd performance still basically 100% apply. I still don't understand how Dracovish suddenly became a massive tank out of nowhere, but as mentioned earlier, the climax is better justified to be fair

That's about it.

 

[Almighty Zard]

I just watched it with subs as well. There's some narrative improvement with Noivern apparently taking a lot of damage from Dracovish(that didn't come across at all, but maybe that has more to do with how bad the animation of the episode was?) with the announcer mentioning that it was a super effective hit. That's the only thing that I can say helped lessen the horrible writing with the final Noivern/Dracovish battle.

That's about it. I'm not seeing this major enhancement.

minor enhancement at least imo, cause i've seen matches worse than this narrative wise.

I won't deny the flaws, but still this is far from the worst match Ash has ever been in.

 

[Ignition]

While I will say the moments with the two jumping out of their Pokéballs to encourage each other helped made me less critical about the episode, the execution was very underwhelming for what it is. Hope this newfound friendship keeps appearing until Journeys is over.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Wow, this almost made Ash vs Gladion (Poni Island Edition) and Ash vs Hapu look good

Why were these the episodes they chose to air to celebrate 25 years of Pokemon, when the effort they put into them wouldn't be enough to power a single low-watt bulb?

These felt spiteful

Do we know what episodes they're animating now, rather than these they animated months ago? I hope those have the time and effort you'd put into an anniversary episode celebrating a milestone

...which means it'll be one of those two-in-one episodes, won't it?

 

[Ryker101]

Why does sirfetchd never use detect anymore either

I was hoping we could’ve seen fury cutter replaced at least, unless MA replaced it

 

[Blood Red]

Wow, this almost made Ash vs Gladion (Poni Island Edition) and Ash vs Hapu look good

Why were these the episodes they chose to air to celebrate 25 years of Pokemon, when the effort they put into them wouldn't be enough to power a single low-watt bulb?

These felt spiteful

Do we know what episodes they're animating now, rather than these they animated months ago? I hope those have the time and effort you'd put into an anniversary episode celebrating a milestone

...which means it'll be one of those two-in-one episodes, won't it?

C'mon, you can't blame them can you? After all, they had to spend the anniversary working on this minor character's battle when they could've been working on Goh catching another Legendary. They just disliked the idea of giving the wrong character focus during this all-important day.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Why does the anime feel the need to KEEP SHOWING ME WET ALTARIA!? Why couldn't the anime just let me live my carefree life of thinking Altaria's wings were clouds? Why do you do this to me Anime? STAHP!

On a slightly more serious note. I feel like a lot of the complaints could've gone away if Ash had switched out Dracovish after the Wet altaria scene right into a Sirfectch'd Meteor Assault. Either Altaria could've sky attacked to take advantage of ash wanting to switch for an actual decent double knockout or Noivern could've come out and immediately taken advantage of Meteor Assault's recoil sense that wasn't actually taken advantage of even though it was noted in multiple instances in the previous episode that Meteor Assault takes time to charge and takes time to recover from. I feel like that would've been a more organic way to get the double KO, it wouldn't have given time for Altaria to dry off, and it wouldn't have given us another Stupid Ash moment. *I know He didn't know Mega Altaria changed to part Fairy sense he's never seen a mega Altaria but by that same token Dransa hadn't seen a Dracovish up until she WATCHED ash's previous battles so Ash really didn't have an excuse.*

That was definitely my main issue with the episode but I don't have much of an issue with the rest of it. I enjoyed that Sirfetched and Dracovish got moments where the Anime had very little to absolutely none. I wish their dynamic had been foreshadowed better instead of it being built up in only the previous episode but I guess this is more of a better late than never scenario. Also, I still don't get how hyper class works. Why is it randomly 3v3 then 1v1 then 2v2. It should all be 3v3 at least. This is not how a big tournament should work. Especially a multi region based tournament. It's honestly dumb the more I think about it so I'm gonna stop thinking about it.

7.8 / 10 To much Wet Altaria

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Now that I've seen the better subs, I really don't get the hate for this episode. The battle definitely had some pacing and choreography issues, but overall, it wasn't as bad as this thread makes it out to be. The dialog fills in a lot of the gaps, and the end result seems logical.

Honestly the more I think about it I have zero problems with the writing of the episode or the narrative. The writing is strong, what with Wikstrom coming back into the narrative, seeing Sirfetchd growth and cheering it on and seeing it's ultimate victory, Drasna being characterised really well in the short time we got with her, her rivalry against Ash in the beginning, Clemont training Ash's mons to prepare and set them up for this battle and cheering him on, the battle being unpredictable with the matchups, Ash's strategy of making altaria wet bringing back one of the best SM memes in a mega form while also being unique and out of the box, that's what Ash is known for. Dracovish and Sirfetchd's camaraderie shining through, the episode ending on a beautiful and funny bonnie clemont moment
The screenplay and story were flawless and done well, it's just the execution in terms of the choreography and animation were so bad it brings down the whole episode for me. Honestly any other day i wouldn't have minded this much but knowing that
A) This is the 25th anniversary
B) Ash is finally beating an E4

I wanted more pomp then what we got

 

[TheNewGuy]

Today was no such thing, and Ash has looked terrible this entire series and not strong in anyway. Just because he beat people doesn't mean he deserved to or that half of the battles were good. He absolutely deserved to lose multiple of the battles he won this region especially this one and the Volkner battle for instance which was a mess.

I don't care if he beats Cynthia or Leon too, if it's done in the bs way that it was today then it's stupid and he's weak as hell.

You are entitled to believe this, just know that it absolutely flies in the face of all established logic of the show.

You're not weak when you're canonically stronger than an entire region, beat Champions and beat Elite 4 members, and are ranked 9th in a league format that appears to contain every notable trainer in the world.

You personally being unhappy with the circumstances, not liking the way the battles go down, is absolutely fair, but also separate to any conversation about Ash's strength.

John Cena around 2006/2007 especially got this kind of heat - being beaten up most of the match, comes back, wins. But there was little doubt that he was the "strongest" wrestler within the fiction of WWE around that time, even if the circumstances of his wins were annoying, repetitive or unpleasant.

You can think of Ash as a badly-written but strong trainer if you like. That would be fair and also not anti-logic, which your current position is.

 

[DayQuil95]

I really liked the episode as far as interactions go, it was really nice seeing Dracovish and Sirfetch'd being best buddies like that, and the battle was lacking, but had its good moments that manage to hook you in. Nice episode.
I just hope they are using that animation budget for the Masters 8 because the series started with a pretty good animation, and then everything suddenly looked like slide shows.

 

[GMax Helios]

Well, I just watched the episode and... Yeah, I'm convinced this was an April Fools joke.

 

[Fairplay]

Dragon Rush, at least, looked kind of nice, especially when it clashed with Noiverns attack. Nonetheless, I honestly do not understand why this series (In general Pokemon Journeys) reverted to such sloppy animation. It looks straight up cheap. Journeys definitely has the worst animation in all of Pokemon seasons. It is baffling how the quality overall (stiffness, sloppy animation, straight up ugly at times (e.g. Wild Bolt from the episode prior), at times foto slides) sucks. Can we go back to XY animation please?
The stiffness of each scenes and lack of battle choreography is also astonishing.

The way they structured this battle in general was very weak. Tanking zillion hits from Drasna's Pokemon but then a sudden one hit ko from Ash's Pokemon? Surely, it is important to depict Drasna as a very strong trainer considering her status. However, it allowed the fight to regress to nonsense. Moreover, it does not make it seem like Ash deserved the win.

The choice of battle music was also... a choice.

Overall a big meh.

 

[Chano]

I hope they don't forget about this new friendship the duck and Vish have like they did with Lucario and Cinderace.

 

[GMax Helios]

Also, I really have to ask, why did Clemont battle Drasna? He should've known he stood no chance against her.

 

[BobbbidyBob]

I saw the episode with subs and I think it wasn’t that bad, I think it sets up Ash’s next loss, this battle signifies that his battles are getting harder and his next ones won’t be easy, I think that’s what they were going for (the writers I mean)

 

[Twilight-Kun]

I saw the episode with subs and I think it wasn’t that bad, I think it sets up Ash’s next loss, this battle signifies that his battles are getting harder and his next ones won’t be easy, I think that’s what they were going for (the writers I mean)

This battle showed that it doesn't matter if the deck's stacked against Ash, he'll win for no reason because his pokemon abruptly become immune to moves so they can land a finishing blow

 

[Soniman]

Also, I really have to ask, why did Clemont battle Drasna? He should've known he stood no chance against her.

Either as some inspection type deal the champion league members do to gym leaders to measure their skill, or maybe Clemont was gunning for PWC before being quickly shot down by Drasna

 

[Jiffunk]

Say what you want about the battle, but can we appreciate how Drasna's personality was written. I loved how intimidating and menacing she was throughout the episode.

 

[masdog]

Either as some inspection type deal the champion league members do to gym leaders to measure their skill, or maybe Clemont was gunning for PWC before being quickly shot down by Drasna

Or he could have challenged the Elite Four. I thought that gym leaders could do that at any time…

 

[Illusio]

Episode was OK, there were some fun moments and I liked the new friendship between Mr. Fish and Duck Knight even if it's a bit late, but the battle itself was a bit weak. It would've been better if there was a little more strategy on Ash's side so that it felt more like he was getting over a large obstacle.