BW 050 "Raimon Gym! Magnificent Electric Shock Battle!!" Review Thread

[Musashi]

Raimon Gym! Magnificent Electric Shock Battle!!


Animation - Team Kato
Screenplay - Junki Takegami
Storyboard - Hiromasa Amano
Assistant director - Ken'ichi Nishida
Animation director - Mizuho Tajima



The day of Satoshi's gym battle against Kamiture has finally arrived! Will Satoshi be able to win his fourth badge?

[Eitarou]

So, once again, Snivy is reduced to being nothing more than a gender indicator...

How sad.

[Grave-E]

Gettin' real tired of Pikachu this series. I guess all this attention is all to compensate for it sitting out of so many important fights during DP, and as part of this 'brand new series' thing they're trying to re-establish it as the most iconic 'mon. I suppose it's cool that they're giving it a bit more personallity in episodes like this but...I...honestly don't care. I want this sort of thing for the new guys.

As for the actual Gym? Well, it was a bit naff, though given this series track record with battles thus far, I really can't say I'm surprised. The actual fighting has taken a noticable nosedive this gen, imo, and all match-ups seem to flash by quickly.

The various reactions to certain pokemon being sent out, or the effects of moves, were really fun though. Ash realising he couldn't MeroMero Emonga out of submission was priceless, as was his realisation that sending out a Grass type was pretty much suicide (yeah, like that's stopped him before...), and Kamiture really does live up to her 'Charisma Model' title. She differs greatly from her game counterpart, though she's not a Jasmine and is actually entertaining, I'm fine with it! Hope this isn't the last we've seen of her.

[Masurao]

While there were some amusing bit's here, and there...... Pikachu one-shotting both Emonga, and Tynamo was terrible. Pikachu needs to stay the hell out of the next gym. Another disappointing gym down the drain.

Really writers, what happened to all the nice battles you did in DP?

[Musashi]

This is why Junki Takegami should not be writing gym episodes. He doesn't know how to write battles, so he just fills up time with stupid bs.

[Adamant]

Expecting lots of people to complain about plot points they don't know enough Japanese to have properly understood in 3, 2, 1...

EDIT: Oh hey, too late.

For the record, the reason why Satoshi botched the battle was very well explained as him attempting to overthink everything and try to strategize ahead of time, panicking when things didn't work out the way he had intended them to. When Pikachu gave him a wake-up shock, he finally realized that taking things as they come, adapting to that, and improvising with what options he has available is how he battles best, used pikachu in such a manner for the rest of the battle, and thus avoided getting hit by obvious counters. No bad writing here.

[LightningKimba]

The episode had more of Elesa, and she's always welcome to watch. Outside that, like Musa said, the battle wasn't anything to write home about in terms of entertainment, with probably Pikachu vs Tynamo being the highlight battle? That's what it seems like, honestly.

[Adamant]

Which plot points are you referring to, may I ask?

These. Damn you people post fast :P

For the record, the reason why Satoshi botched the battle was very well explained as him attempting to overthink everything and try to strategize ahead of time, panicking when things didn't work out the way he had intended them to. When Pikachu gave him a wake-up shock, he finally realized that taking things as they come, adapting to that, and improvising with what options he has available is how he battles best, used pikachu in such a manner for the rest of the battle, and thus avoided getting hit by obvious counters. No bad writing here.

[Joshawott]

Expecting lots of people to complain about plot points they don't know enough Japanese to have properly understood in 3, 2, 1...

EDIT: Oh hey, too late.

For the record, the reason why Satoshi botched the battle was very well explained as him attempting to overthink everything and try to strategize ahead of time, panicking when things didn't work out the way he had intended them to. When Pikachu gave him a wake-up shock, he finally realized that taking things as they come, adapting to that, and improvising with what options he has available is how he battles best, used pikachu in such a manner for the rest of the battle, and thus avoided getting hit by obvious counters. No bad writing here.

So one of the first times this series that Ash actually tries to think logically, he ends up botching it up by thinking too much xD? I admit, when I first saw the scans of Ash trying to plan out a team I thought "Wait a second, I am looking at Ash Ketchum aren't I?" =3

[Dogasu]

Satoshi hasn't been this entertaining in a long time. Loved seeing him make everything up as he went along.

I also noticed that Satoshi was using the same sort of pen during the cold opening that Kimimaro used in Advanced Generation.

[Hellion]

Just a reminder to stay on the topic of this episode and not the other users. The topic of the thread is this week's episode, not expectations of what other users' post will be like. If you feel that a user has misunderstood the episode, please refrain from making snide comment about the users themselves and kindly focus on explaining to them what actually transpired in the episode. This counts as a warning to all, debate the interpretations, ideas and opinions, not the users making them.

[WatcherMark]

Ok, I had a couple of major problems with this episode and that was Satoshi and Pikachu acting incredibly out of character.

First of all, when has Satoshi ever been so paralyzed with indecision when it comes to battling? Even back in the early-Kanto days, he always made his choice and stuck by it. He was never the kind to second-guess himself, let alone drive himself crazy. But here, we've got him running out of the gym battle so he can return to the Pokemon Center, call Araragi and have himself sent a different Pokemon. Then, after Tsutarja was defeated Satoshi went through it again, even sitting down to think extensively about it. Hell, even the referee was getting sick of this and was ready to disqualify him.

Where was this during the Gym Battle against Arti, where he used Kurumiru and Pikachu over Hatobo? Satoshi's always gone with his gut instinct in the past. This bullshit was just to lengthen the episode, and I guarantee it wouldn't have happened had Team Rocket been around to pad out the episode.

Second was Pikachu, who was getting angry to the point of attacking people at being left out of the Gym Battle. Since when has Pikachu had a problem with being left out of battles recently? Or, in fact, ever. The only time I can recall when Pikachu became desperate to battle was against Shigeru's Kamex in the Johto League, but even then he put up with being left out with a minimum of fuss. But now, he's getting all worked up for no reason. Pikachu has never had a problem with not participating in a Gym Battle, so where this came from is beyond me.

Good points? Well, to be honest I can't think of any. I hate that Tsutarja's Gym Battle debut went so badly and that, once again, Attract failed. I also don't like that Satoshi's Gamagaru is male... what is this show's problem with giving Satoshi female Pokemon. In all his time on the show he's only been known to own four (and one of those got traded for a boy). I also can't understand why Kamiture used Shibishirasu last given that it was weak enough to not even take a single Iron Tail. I fully expected Zebraika to be used last.

[Eitarou]

How sad how Zebstrika was defeated by only one of Ash's Pokemon in this episode and yet it demolished Bianca's entire team in the last one.

I'm not sure who got the bigger middle finger, Bianca or Zebstrika....

[Flying Christi]

Wasn't a bad battle, but I didn't expect Emonga and Shibishirasu to get 1-Hit-KO'd. There wasn't really much battling and Kamitsure actually came across as a bit easy to beat, looking at the punishment her party took.
And finally, Satoshi forgetting that Tsutarja was female was pretty funny!!

[Chaosblazer]

How sad how Zebstrika was defeated by only one of Ash's Pokemon in this episode and yet it demolished Bianca's entire team in the last one.

I'm not sure who got the bigger middle finger, Bianca or Zebstrika....

Palpitoad had type advantage, and barely won, I hardly see any problems there

As far as Tynamo getting dropkicked is concerned alot of people kept referring to it as "unova's magikarp" gotta be careful what you say I guess cause it might just be true.