BW056 "Iris and Monozu! Day Care Training!!" Review Thread

[Iteru]

Discuss fillers here and irrelevant captures and evolution here. This thread is for the events of BW56 and BW56 only.

[The Fighting Misty]

I love how TR only got the typical 30 seconds of screentime in this episode as expected. Considering this is their first appearance after an 8 episode gap, I'd say its notable.

I like that this time the build up is more than just TR standing their like prior to the Don battle tournament. Its interesting to see the island at the end of the ep.

[Ampharos King]

I love how TR only got the typical 30 seconds of screentime in this episode as expected. Considering this is their first appearance after an 8 episode gap, I'd say its notable.

It was more than 30 seconds. About a minute of the episode was devoted to their setting up for the Kami trio episodes.

No surprise considering that it's been their first appearance since the end of their Battle Subway scheme.

And it wasn't much, except that Professor Seger is now officially present with TRio instead of giving them their orders on a computer.

[Likeitornot.]

I really wanted to take out a marker, and draw Jump's outline of lips back on.

It was a sweet episode, even though it was "Monozu come on, you can eat in front of me", then again, that's kind of a sign of trust in some creatures, eating right in front of you. I knew she'd never catch the Monozu, but I was still disappointed. Especially when the Monozu was returning into its ball, it turned and said its farewell to Iris. That was heart-warming.

[Bandit Keith]

C-C-C-Combo Breaker!

It's OVER!!!!

It IS JUUUUUUMMMPPP!!!!!

[Ampharos King]

Again, it was a shame that the writers spent well over a minute trying to introduce the Kami trio plot in this episode. This was an additional minute that the writers could have spent with either Ash and Cilan training the two aggressive Deino (since they were sent to the Daycare to increase their attacking power and speed, respectively), or Iris bonding with the third Deino. It felt like both of these purposes were cut short because the writers had spent that additional minute with something almost completely irrelevant with the plot of this episode.

We saw Ash training one of the Deino with Scraggy and Cilan training the other with his Dwebble for only a mere ten seconds. It felt like the other two Deino were there just to keep Ash and Cilan occupied so Iris could go at it alone with the third one, but as I have mentioned before, the writer was rather lazy with the execution.

There was also a point in this episode where Iris asked the Deino to come with her in the event that its trainer didn't return, but it felt to me that the Deino wanted to be reunited with its trainer as soon as possible. Although I did sympathize with Iris trying to bond with the Dragon-type pokemon, there was very little on-screen bonding go on to justify Iris's decision to take the Deino with her if the trainer had not shown up. The Deino might have felt more comfortable around Iris than the other characters because she was the only one who spoke to it through the heart, but everything else about their interaction hardly signaled an emotional connection. Iris either attempted to calm the pokemon down from being disappointed that its trainer didn't show up or had fun with the pokemon at the last minute. Regardless, nothing Iris could have done to warm up to the Deino would have been enough for the pokemon to forget about its true trainer.

This episode might have had a more lasting impression on me if the extra minute that had spent with TRio's own escapades were instead spent on the few things in this episode that were hardly touched upon. Did Ash and Cilan do as much as they should have with the other two Deino that they had "trained?" Ash and Cilan told the two Deino's trainers that they have made the pokemon stronger, but we just didn't see too much of it on-screen. Was Iris truly emotionally connected with Deino? Or did Iris feel obligated as a up-and-coming Dragon Master to attempt to build a connection with the pokemon just because she witnessed the Dragon Elder accomplish something similar in the past? Those were questions that this episode failed to provide sufficient enough answers to.

An extra note: I am glad that the writers have not forgotten that Ash's Swadloon existed. It was refreshing to see Ash command this pokemon in battle instead of the three starter lineup that he usually uses. Even though Swadloon was only seen for 20 seconds, I am still glad that he made an appearance. The same could have also been said about Cilan's Stunfisk.

[AceTrainer14]

I am simply disappointed that Iris did not capture the Deino. I was hoping that it would come into her ownership somehow and she would get another Dragon type (a pretty awesome one, at that) and would stick to her name of being a "Dragon Master". Fingers crossed that this episode at least inspired her to do more training with Axew or to capture another Pokemon, and that she at least meets another Deino in the future.

[Hellion]

I think the fact that the majority of the comments pertain to the Jump lookalike speak volume about the quality of the rest of the episode... or dare I say the lack thereof. Actually, I wouldn't say that because this wasn't an awful episode, nor was it very bad, but neither was it amazing or even good. I have to give credit to the writers in that they didn't fall into some of the traps I had pointed out in the preview thread, but they still failed to make anything out of this episode. If this episode was a food, it would be a Big Mac: Doesn't really taste like anything when you're consumming it, and you've forgotten what it tasted like 2 seconds afterwards. Let's break it down.

The Good

+ Satoshi, Dent and Bobby: Lumping those three together because they were pretty much the only entertaining part of the episode. They were having fun, they were comedic, but more than anything, they were engaging. Dent's broken back was hilarious, Satoshi going evil as well, and Bobby had its moments and pretty much made Pokémon Breeding more interesting than Brock ever did. I was pleasantly surprised to see them a lot throughout the episode which I was worried about, but I felt they were most effective and most personable when Iris was nowhere to be seen. They weren't really connected with the main story and I was more interested in what they were doing than what the episode was really about.

+ Rockets: They look ominous and I like it. Even though the writers spent some time on them, I didn't feel it took anything away from the other plots as there was just nothing in the main storyline that really made me impatient to get back to, but we'll get to that later.

The Lukewarm

- Satoshi and Dento's pokémon: Kudos to the writers for bringing out Sato and Dent's pokémon as one of the things I miss the most from DP is the scenes where all the pokémon are just hanging out and being personable. Sadly, the writers got the hanging out part in the episode, but not the personable part. Zuruggu and Ishizumai's blink-you-miss-it appearances felt a tad pointless, but Kurumayu and Maggyo just delivered blandness and whatareyoudoingonthemaincastness.

The Bad

- Iris: First off, I'm so very glad that the writers didn't go overboard with the glorification of Iris (though it was still mildly present), but overall, she was kinda really flat. The writers didn't go dramatic by having her really struggle, doubt herself, work had and adding some layers to her character; they didn't make her go comedic and entertaining, they kinda tried to go for that weird in-between place that didn't really work. I never rooted for Iris to get Monozu, I never really cared about her as a character throughout the episode or about what she was trying to do. The writing didn't make me dislike Iris in this episode but it didn't really make me like her either. She was kinda just bland here and I was like, "Can we skip this and get back to what the interesting characters are doing?"

- Monozu: Sometimes the animé makes me like a pokémon that I don't like in the games, this was not one of those times. The shy Monozu really didn't register with me nor did his sudden 180 personality wise make me care one bit about what happened to him. When he left Iris to go back to its trainer, I wasn't feeling sad for Iris nor did I ever feel at one point in the episode that there was a real bond between the two and that's what ultimately hurt the main plot the most: the Iris/Monozu friendship felt forced and was overall very flat.

Again, not a an episode that was filled with bad writing, as is usually the case with Iris episodes, but just an episode that wasn't effective, emotional or memorable, and that overall left me cold.

[Piplup]

I still need to watch a missing scene, but I watched the ep... nice ep, but expected and annoying that she didn't get it... while the ep had some emotional scenes, I think it'd work so much better as a sad two parter about Deino's trainer abandoning it and Iris getting it... oh well
Still a cute ep and I liked the Iris/Deino scenes and how Iris asked Ash and Cilan to continue without her cause she wants to wait with Deino, but Ash and Cilan refused cause they're friends...

[Hellion]

Iris asked Ash and Cilan to continue without her

WHY GIVE ME FALSE HOPES LIKE THAT, WRITERS? WHY? :P

[Masurao]

It wasn't bad..but it wasn't great. Bobby was an amusing character for being just as sparkly as Dento, and Ash getting pissed was pretty funny as well.

Iris wasn't annoying in this episode, and was kinda cute in some scenes ( gasp). However, given all the other glorification the writers have given her, I didn't really feel sorry for her..and had a "Too bad, so sad" mentality when she didn't get the Deino. She's still not a character I can see myself rooting for.

[H.M]

Welp.

You can say I'm really disappointed in no Deino for Iris. I guess the writers really want Axew to be her ~*~WAN AND ONRY DORAGON TAIPU UGGUUU~*~
But there might be a chance she'll meet another Druddigon (since it was "wasted" on a bland COTD) or Deino in the future. Sure, her main goal is to successfully raise Axew, but it didn't say elsewhere that she couldn't catch any other dragon-types while doing so.

This episode was just maximum trollage.

[The Fighting Misty]

I don't see why people are disappointed, it was obvious from the moment the preview aired that Iris wasn't going to keep Deino. The writers do eps like this all the time.

At this point I think Axew will remain her only dragon for the entire saga. They probably intend to give Iris some random cute pokemon ala Emonga next instead of a dragon.

[Araragi Hakase]

Episode was cute, but I wasn't buying the Iris and Monozu bond as much as I think the episode wanted me to, as expected.

We knew Iris wasn't going to get Monozu, but...why should she? He already had a trainer that cared for it, and why should he give it to her just because they bonded for a night or whatever?

It was nice to see that her time with Monozu made her remember her original goal to be a Dragon Master, though, hopefully a push in the right direction...especially if her main goal is to evolve Kibago, shouldn't she be concentrating on that instead of other dragon pokemon, anyway?

Overall, cute episode, but, meh. I didn't end the episode wanting Iris to get Monozu.

[H.M]

I don't see why people are disappointed, it was obvious from the moment the preview aired that Iris wasn't going to keep Deino. The writers do eps like this all the time.

Obvious to you and other people, but there will always will be people who think otherwise. Previews can be "trolling" as well. Too bad the preview for this episode was not the case, and Iris indeed did not get Deino.