"The Club Battle Hearts of Fury, Emolga Versus Sawk!" Review Thread

[Iteru]

BW41 - The Club Battle Hearts of Fury, Emolga Versus Sawk!

The Club Battle between Ash and Georgia continues! Snivy manages to counter Pawniard's OHKO attack Guillotine with Leaf Blade and Pawniard's blades are stuck into the rock that makes up the field. Taking the opportunity to unleash a powerful Leaf Storm which cannot be blocked, Ash and Snivy win the match which means that Ash has advanced to the semi-finals. With three places left for the semi-finals, will Cilan and Iris advance or will some of their friends make it instead?

Time zone changes suck :P

[TPrower]

I liked finally seeing this in English. True, Emolga's full obedience may be up for debate, but why should that matter? Just take what you get: good battles and a good episode.

Yeah, Cilan kinda blew his battle, but he did a good job boosting Luke's confidence. I hope we see him again, and maybe his Larvesta will be a full-fledged Volcarona. =)

[Itsuki]

Cilan in this episode oh my god. Let me love you.

Still love Georgia too. and i sort of ship her with burgundy

[Samurott]

I really think Iris shows her understanding of Emolga, which justifies this for me. Yeah, Cilan, you really should learn to keep your mouth shut. We all love your antics anyway.

[Xenon]

This episode was alright, I was kind of ignored that Luke beat Cilan though it was almost like he let him because he was giving him tips throughout the entire battle. But I guess Stunfisk made up for it, Iris's battle was alright I thought it was kind of boring.

[Eitarou]

Stunfisk totally threw that match.

[Itsuki]

It's Stunfisk. DX It's like just throwing a whoopie cushion into the ring and hoping for the best.

[MizuTaipu]

TCPi needs to seriously stop cranking the French aspect of Burgundy's character up to eleven. She's seriously the most heavily rewritten character in the Best Wishes dub so far. I can't wait to see dub-only fans reaction to the next episode. :-P

[Eitarou]

You know, now I get why they changed Tasting Time to Evaluating Time...

Such a line would be kind of gross in the English Dub, wouldn't it?

[TPrower]

You know, now I get why they changed Tasting Time to Evaluating Time...

Such a line would be kind of gross in the English Dub, wouldn't it?

Especially considering Burgundy actually tried to "taste" Snivy once. XD

[Contrary]

This episode was pretty fun. But you know what would have made it better? If, you know, it was Jimmy Ray who fought Stephan and Sawk. This episode seriously needed some creepy stalker goodness.

Stunfisk totally threw that match.

Just to troll Cilan. She is a fickle mistress, isn't she?

[FinalArcadia]

Wow, Cilan really knows how to pose. XD

His battle with Luke was the most entertaining yet. It kind of made me think that Luke would be a better main protagonist instead of Ash...

Speaking of Ash, didn't anyone else keep forgetting that he was even there? He just sort of faded into the background... The part where he said that Cilan makes the best Pokemon food made me laugh, though. Far away, a single tear rolls down Brock's cheek.

[Serperiority]

Another great BW episode.

I do have the feeling that the title screen was a tad bit crowded, especially of the long episode title.

The battles were pretty entertaining, especially Iris VS Stephan. Luke VS Cilan was decent, but way too much talk and less battle. Iris's strategy was great. Nice to finally see a Sawk in the anime. The Derpfish was great. I love the strategies used.

For Ash VS Georgia, it was nice to see Snivy recover so quickly. I loved how Snivy was so smug. That's my grass-type starter.

This episode was also great in showing each character's personality. I have to say, the characters in this series are really diverse. I like it.

[FinalArcadia]

Speaking of Snivy, I loved when she smacked Burgundy away. Burgundy totally deserved that after making everyone endure her constant French babbling.

[Shinneth]

I still think Emolga suddenly becoming totally straightened out is bullshit she totally should've just thrown the match the second she realized she couldn't seduce the Sawk to do her bidding, especially since this is TWICE now that Emolga's done this and... god, it's so lazy. Why is everything about Iris so lazily handled?

And still, knowing ahead of time that she's gonna win this whole thing puts such a sour taste in my mouth. All she's doing outside of her battling is being a bitch to Georgia and bitching about Cilan being awesome. Why the fuck should anybody actively want her to win this? The way the writers set this up is just all wrong. If you knew nothing about the end result, you could've sworn they're doing what they can to build up either Ash or Luke as the winner. They're the ones who are really affected by what's going on here. I still question the logic of being able to physically break status moves, too. It was bullshit when Trip's Servine did it, and it's bullshit now. I honestly don't remember status shit like this being canceled out so easily before BW. And oh, nice how Static disables Sawk right at the most convenient moment. Just like everything about Iris' storyline.

And why so relentless with the unfunny running gags? Stephan's in particular was brought up like every other minute, literally. Bianca, you could've been so useful bringing some actual flavor to the peanut gallery the way Burgundy and Georgia do, but nope, you're eternally stuck in the stupid Zorua gag, huh? It's like the writers are actively tryng to make me not like her. It doesn't work that way, writers. You made Bianca an otherwise likable character, remember? One stupid running gag accomplishes nothing but filling up time. But obviously that was probably your main concern here because why worry about the quality of the battles, right?

But admittedly I did like Cilan/Luke. Yes, it was overly verbose, but I like how that actually backfired on Cilan and was probably the main cause for his loss. Hoisted by his own petard, as it were. Things like that are nice. And it helped make Luke a more enjoyable character... and I'm not gonna lie, using String Shot to block water is actually pretty damn clever. That makes loads more sense than beating up sparkles shaped like hearts into pieces even though it's not supposed to be solid matter.

But yeah, that battle, anything Burgundy does, and anything Georgia does that doesn't involve Iris pretty much prevents the episode from being a TOTAL travesty.

Still, events like this are supposed to be epic and not so horribly flawed. Remember the Tag Battle? How flawed was that? Not very, right? You could see the effort being put in there. Don Battle? A royal fucking mess. I can't tell if the writers just had feuds about what direction they wanted to take the saga (which would explain a lack of focus and the clusterfucked feeling) or if they just plain didn't care and tossed a coin to determine who'd win the whole thing.

My guess is that it's a little bit of both. And good god, it's only gonna get worse from here...