BW059 "Tornelos VS Voltolos VS Landlos (Part 1)" Review Thread

[Musashi]

Tornelos VS Voltolos VS Landlos (Part 1)


Animation - Team Kato
Screenplay - Yukiyoshi Ōhashi
Storyboard - Kazuomi Koga
Assistant director - Kazuomi Koga
Animation director - Tatsuya Annoura



Once again Satoshi tries to challenge Yacon to a gym battle, but once again he says he is too busy. However, Yacon says that if he brings him Resurrection Grass, he will battle him. Satoshi and friends then head to the island known as the "Legendary Island", Milos Island in search of Resurrection Grass!

[Ash's Battle Coach]

you know who would come in handy in this situation? Charizard!

Was lulzy watching everyones pokes getting curbstomped.

Also, what are trio trying to accomplish here exactly?

[Crysta Blade]

I love how they animated Iris' hair on the boat. Gorgeous!

Real sweet how Gothorita and Axew took a liking to each other. The lil' goth gal's got a cute voice, too.

I'm guessing Tornadus and Thundurus are fighting because they think the other damaged their shrine, yeah? Except that Team Rocket's to blame for that one.

Ouch, look at all those KOs! Pansage, Excadrill, Snivy, Pikachu and Stunfisk were all beaten quickly. Derpfish in particular looked real worried after Pikachu fell off.

It took a bit for Iris to cotton onto the fact that they wanted her to be a miko. "Me, a miko...?"

[Dogasu]

Did this episode seem rushed to anyone else? The editing felt very choppy to me, as if the producers were so worried about fitting everything in that they sped through the exposition as quickly as possible. This is especially obvious in Charles' abrupt appearance and how just about every pan shot in this episode was played at double speed. I feel like the editors never gave us a chance to catch our breaths.

Still, I liked the second half alright. Seeing everyone's unevolved pokemon go against the legendary duo was a bit painful to watch, but at least some pokemon like Maggyo and Doryuuzu got some nice screentime. Watching Dent stay behind to battle all by himself was great to see as well.

Yakon's walk at the beginning of the episode and Iris' random hopping also cracked me up, for some reason.

Oh, I also loved how the Rocket-Dan did jack shit in this episode. Them butting out really helped the rest of the episode.

[Musashi]

This two parter feels like a TV version of the second movie. But I do agree with Dogasu that things felt rushed. Could probably use a third part.

I really enjoyed just seeing two Pokemon going at it and blowing shit up. We rarely get a straight out street brawl between two Pokemon on this show.

But what I loved the most was how the TRio were, as @Yoshi-san phrased it, TROLOLOL. Welcome to how they felt every week for the past 14 years twerps!

[Yoshi-san]

The Kami duo were like LET'S BLOW SHIT UP

and the twerps were like WHAT DO WE DO? WE'RE USELESS!

And the TRio were all TROLOLOL

[martianmister]

* Is it me or Yuto's costume is resembling FRLG's Red?
* Oak is making advertisements again. Is it his new job?
* Landlos kicked out Voltolos and Tornelos from his island? I wonder why...

[Dogasu]

But what I loved the most was how the TRio were, as @Yoshi-san phrased it, TROLOLOL. Welcome to how they felt every week for the past 14 years twerps!

And the TRio were all TROLOLOL

What in the world are you two talking about?

[Hellwarden]

Haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Tell me, how was the animation? Also, in defense of the more, well, extremely fast paced episodes, we don't get them that often.

So, who did the best against the Cyclone and Bolt Strike Pokémon? Anyone even land a hit?

[Ampharos King]

This episode did feel a little bit rushed, but I did like Ash and co.'s pokemon going up against the legendary pokemon. Stunfisk and Excadrill, pokemon that hardly get any screentime, got some focus in this episode so it is a positive there. It was also nice to see a COTD's pokemon actually do something important for once.

Team Rocket contributing very little to nothing in this episode is not surprising, but they will have more screentime in this next episode as they try to capture the battle-weary legendary pokemon. If the two previous Kami really were angry under the assumption that the other destroyed its shrine, I want to see what will happen when they find out that TRio were responsible for this.

[The Fighting Misty]

I haven't seen this ep yet, but did this ep give us any indication of what happened to Giovanni or the rest of the organization. Did Zager say anything?

[Hellion]

End of semester and all night studying obliges, I watched this episode live and quite frankly... I fell asleep during the credits. It just... wasn't that good. A lot of the points I was gonna make have already been raised, but here goes.

Luewarm Points

+ Uneven animation: Sometimes it looked really great, and at other times... eeeeesh. A two parter like this with legendaries has to be epic and the epicness is sold in huge part through the music and the animation and here, I kinda felt both were kinda pedestrian for the mood the writers were trying to create. Not awful, but not really selling it either.

+ Dent and Yanappu: They were kicking ass. I liked that Dent was like, "Legendary pokémon on a rampage? Go ahead you guys, me and my vintage, we've got this in the bag." Man, Yanappu held his own until Satoshi, Iris and Shooti and Red's lovechild ran around the island. Yanappu got kicked a lot, got one hit in, but only when the second legendary appeared did Yanappu bite the dirt. Epic monkey is epic. That being said, I put Dent in the lukewarm category because I felt he was underused personality wise. I wanted to see more of Dent's personality in the dialogue heavy first half.

+ The gang's pokémon fighting: Nice to see a lot of them participating Tsutarja looked great and I liked the using of Vine Whip to dodge. She had a combo with Doryuuzu too. Maggyo and Pikachu teaming up as well. It was interesting to see different attacks, but once again, we really didn't see any personality from them. I was left wanting to see more.

Bad Points

- Convoluted plot and rushed pacing: The whole Yacon telling them to go to that island was ok, but Charles just had no reason to appear and was the sick Dredear really necessary? It just felt like the writers added things that weren't really necessary or entertaining and kinda rushed through the whole origin story of the island and the legendaries, and presenting the CotD/PotD of the episode, etc. all in 10 minutes. Then the fighting started and it kinda lacked dialogue between the main characters and more personality from them to really sell the fear, the terror, the danger of the whole fight between legendaries. Then, before we can even process that we're already summoning Landlos again?

- Team Rocket? Seriously... all this buildup for a blink-you-miss-it appearance? I'd pretend to care but really, I don't. It's their plan and come the episode's end, I had to ask myself whether or not they had actually appeared in it...

- Iris: When the guys started burning hay near the altar, I thought they were gonna burn Iris as a sacrifice to Landlos. DAMN YOU WRITERS FOR GIVING ME FALSE HOPES! In all seriousness, she was boring in this episode and it kinda felt like the writers kept trying to hype her up and make this about her by toning down every single other character in the episode, which really killed the episode in the end.

- CotD/PotD: The guy was really really really flat. Not only was he not personable, but he just failed to convey any sense of urgency or terror in this episode. The CotD fared slightly better but was still way too subdued.

Overall, this didn't have that epic, action packed, wow-is-the-world-really-going-to-end feel and it showed. Everyone was flat and subdued and the pacing was off. This felt like a rushed prelude to next week's episode.

[Samurott]

Even looking at this, I can feel what other people are saying, that this seriously lacks something. It's obvious that just like Nimbasa, everything's going to happen in the second half, but at least we got to watch legends massacre the junk out of everything.

[rubinek]

Just watched the episode and I really liked how fast-paced it was. I freaked out at the beginning because I thought that it was Trip who noticed the storms appearing, but apparently it was just some random CoTD -.- At any rate, my favourite moments have to be Cilan fighting the whole world by himself (figuratively xD) and Gothorita getting along with Axew (so cute!).

edit: TR trolling was also great. Forgot about this one, haha.

[Dogasu]

Again, someone needs to explain what they mean by the Rocket trio "trolling." All they did was watch the legendary duo fighting, saying that they were acting exactly like Dr. Zeger said they would and that everything's going according to plan.

I haven't seen this ep yet, but did this ep give us any indication of what happened to Giovanni or the rest of the organization. Did Zager say anything?

Sakaki was never mentioned, and Zager never appeared.

The Rocket trio only got about 15 seconds of screentime in this episode.