Trainer Yusuf

I am not sure how to feel about this episode. I enjoyed it, but every second made me go "What."
And this time around and later times I will be using Japanese names because this my blog dammit.
Anyways,
Wasting early part of episode with recap of the episode was pretty pointless, especially given battles were not battles. I mean recaps are a part of every multiparter episode, but considering %90 of this episode is stock animation, and unlike other animators who use flashbacks to fill episodes, or animation directors of Best Wishes, Natsume is actually good and experienced.

Anyways, back to actual episode, I don't get why Satoshi has scanned Kuitaran if he saw Suwama's Kuitaran. Of course, I haven't watched the episode yet, so I don't know whether he scanned the thing or not. So I won't be debbling on this much. I don't care much for Jalorda beating a Pokémon he has type disadvantage against, given Best Wishes' nature, and Jalorda's exploitation.

I like the fact Maggyo and Gantle got victories, one second victories but victories for these guys are rarer than a Tomioka episode in Best Wishes.

I found Langley and Cabernet's banter with each other to be entertaining. Shumps have been overused for these two, but they were mainly funny, albeit not extremely enough to justify cast's attempts to lover the budget. They have certainly degraded to comedy relief, but I will be considerably more slow for calling Langley that until Souryuu City episodes. I do like how Langley is a Sommeliershipper though.

Kairyu vs. Mammoo, don't know how to go about this. On one hand, I am very glad Hikari is using Urara's tactics. On the other hand, Kairyu defeated Mammoo within three hits, with only one of them being an actual move. On the other hand, it was Kairyu who defeated Mammoo, not Iris, and Mammoo's win/lose ratio wasn't good enough, even though he is better than Zeustle and Doryuz. ON THE OTHER HAND, Iris didn't do much despite being supposed to do so. On the other other other other hand, she got served fantastically in today's episode. And lastly, Mammoo's only new move was Ice Fang, even though Avalanche would make more sense for it's battling style.

As for Zeustle vs. Cheaplorda, it went better than I expected. I actually kinda wanted Zeustle to survive a bit more, though. But eh, Shooty's comment against Dent in DBT when he said he wouldn't forget this loss, had some payoff. And Iwapalace lost.

As for character interactions, I really liked this episode. I liked Hikari's interactions with Iris, I liked Shirona's care towards Iris and Shooty, and I liked Shooty's Frank Miller-esque inner monologues, due to how hilariously cheesy they are.

As for the animation, there is a lot to say about it for this episode actually. Original animation on this episode looks fantastic, even great for Natsume... but such a massive portion of this episode is stock animation, flashbacks, and reusing of recent scenes, I can't decide whether it is a good example of stock animation can be utilized or just a massive testament to how incredibly lazy Best Wishes animators are, even the older ones like Natsume himself.

I will discuss latest episode later.