Thread: BW090: The Junior Cup Gets Underway! Kairyu VS Tunbear!!

With all this talk about Iris getting Dragonite and her being either raped in the first round or make it extremely far in the tournament due to a powerhouse dropped right into her lap, let me point out something to everyone; The name of the title tells it all Junior CUP

Pretty much every/any competition with "Cup" in the name means:

-There will be a batch of episodes with BS wins
-Possible evolutions during the course of the tournament with new moves being learned at "just the right time"
-Sometimes a main character returning and losing to a current main character is a ridiculous match
-Type disadvantages are going to be erased along with a Pokemon's strength due to plot
-Off the wall strategies that are so ridiculous that you don't even know what the logic behind the anime is anymore (considering if there was logic to begin with)

So, no matter what goes down I'm just going to be prepared for the crap the writers are going to throw our way in terms of plot, advertising for BW2 and whatever else they may cook up.

:| I wanted Iris to get a Dragon and all but don't they think they're going a bit far handing her a fully-evolved pseudo legend? Not only that but using it in a competition on episode after it was captured? Worst part of it though is they're probably just going to let Iris win and throw Langley under the bus just like what happened to Cabernet in the Donamite. Well at least Langley will enjoy battling a big dragon like she wanted.

Cilan definitely better get a new Pokemon now too.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Why is Georgia even here? She wasn't in the opening or the summaries.

The opening only featured Ash, his companions, and his rivals competing in the Junior Cup. Since Georgia is, technically, Iris's rival, the animators decided not to feature her in the opening. Furthermore, Georgia's main goal is to defeat powerful Dragon-type trainers, and Cynthia (who has a Garchomp) will sponsor this tournament. Georgia has participated in every other major tournament featured in BW thus far on this premise alone, even the Clubsplosion (which was dominated by Fighting-type pokemon). It would make sense for Georgia to appear here just as much as Trip, Bianca, and Stephan.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

The funniest part of it all is how Dawn is going to be background material in this tournament due to the large number of participants. Dawn's probably only going to get 3 battles at most. Now I know why they had her appear in those filler eps prior to the tournament.

We don't know how this tournament will be handled, how many characters will participate, and which characters will advance to the next round. This is only the first of what will probably be many episodes devoted to this tournament. And considering Dawn is in the opening (compared to Georgia), it is very likely that she will advance far in the Junior Cup.

Those filler episodes don't mean anything, either. Just because Misty and May got five episode appearances in AG and DP, respectively, does not mean that Dawn will also appear for five episodes. Dawn will remain as a guest star until this tournament ends.

I think its weird that they hyped this tournament up as being something new and different...when in reality its just another Don battle tournament. The only difference is the winner gets to face Adeku.

The fact that so many regular trainers can enter means there obviously wasn't any special requirement of being a skilled trainer or anything.

Like everyone else here...Dragonite? Really?

I can't bring myself to hate Iris or anything, but I'm very disappointed in how the writers are handling her. I wanted her to catch that Deino she bonded with from a while back, but no, that makes too much sense. Let's have it belong to some no-name chucklefuck COtD who is really bad at getting anywhere on time.

I didn't like how Dawn was basically given Togekiss either. At least Ash works hard for his Pokemon to evolve, most of them anyway. Now I feel like Axew will now take the back seat while Iris tries to control Dragonite for the next few weeks.

The whole Iris vs. Langley can go two ways:
Iris wins- I have a very bad feeling that this might be the last meeting (or maybe not) with Langley and she disappears since Iris successfully beats her (and thus their rivalry is "done"), all with a Dragonite she just got. This will fuel the fire that Iris is even more of a "Mary Sue".
Iris loses- I'm hoping for this, since it might give some development between Iris/Dragonite and to work with him. Maybe Iris will learn to not enter a semi-uncontrolled, very strong Pokemon that she just got in a tournament.

I recall saying a few times a while back that I was gonna pity the poor sucker who'd have to battle Iris first. Should've known it was going to be Georgia. If this doesn't backfire horrendously on Iris like it should, Georgia will know to be careful what she wishes for after this. Though I would mark out if Georgia, being the sole source of canon that acknowledges Iris' flaws, calls her out on taking a shortcut. Because that's exactly what this is.

In more ways than one this is very reminiscent of how the end of the first Don Battle was received. With something like this, it really doesn't matter if you love, hate, or are completely indifferent to Iris as a character. All ends of the spectrum are, more or less, seeing how this is complete bullshit from a storytelling, entertainment, and character development perspective. Just seeing the title of this thread earlier this morning made me go from feeling lukewarm about the tournament to outright dreading it. A total lack of reason to win the tournament (where practically everyone else deserved it more) didn't stop Iris before, so I wouldn't put it past the writers to do it again with the thinly-veiled excuse of marketing the sequel games.

There really is only two ways this can go. Iris loses early on and makes a LONG overdue step in the right direction provided that they point out the stuff everyone here has covered thoroughly, or Iris suffers no consequence of this conveniently-timed gift of power as usual and wrecks yet another potential for other rivals/main characters to develop and improve. Either way, this would have been a much better tournament if Iris didn't have a Dragonite, or better yet, just didn't participate.

Wow! I can't believe Iris is confirmed to capture a Dragonite. I wish she wins soon and battles with trip or drayden

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Iris is being handled this way for two reasons:

She is the Champion in BW2
The writers don't want Iris or Cilan to be neglected like Misty/Brock were.

I guess without a second quest like Contests the writers don't know how to show Iris' growth.

I believe more likely reason is because shes champion in BW2 games, which also explains why Iris was portrayed as exceptionally knowledgeable and strong trainer ever since we find out about Excadrill past. This also explains why she already has sufficient amount of experience in understanding dragon types properly with writers clearly trying to build her up s quickly as possible top have her become new champion of Unova at some point in future. After all anime is just tool used to help promote games for most part.

However that doesn't excuse them for crappy writing, when they could reflect changes which happened in games on anime screen in more believable manner having someone gradually evolve, instead of using easy way giving him powerful pokemon left and right and having him score wins with ease just to get to desired goal as quickly as possible making it look like everything was served on silver plate for him. That spells clear laziness from their part.

I doubt second theory has anything to do with it, because Iris screen time isn't that much bigger than Misty had, although when she is given focus its more centered around her goal and pokemon.
I don't buy whole "not knowing how to handle someone growth without contests" either because writers had plenty opportunities to do more with Axew and have him develop, do something more substantial with rivalry from Langley but they missed out on most opportunities leaving things for large part unchanged. At this point Misty got more development than Iris did showing writers know to do better , so that doesn't go much in her favor either.

However now that first impressions has calmed down, im going to be fair and wait until episodes finally air. Perhaps majority in here is wrong and there will be provided at least semi-justified excuse behind Dragonite capture. It all depends in what way whole thing will be executed with this being last chance for writers to do believable and justified growth with Iris character, making it feel that her goal is going somewhere. Judging by preview she was showed to be involved in helping Dragonite to calm down so my guess is that she managed somehow to befriend Yellow beast in sign of gratitude for helping him out deciding to join becoming her partner. Im sure even if this happens it will leave many people on sour note, but it will make receive of such powerful pokemon tad bit more justified.

What i really hope is that possession of such pokemon will backfire on Iris causing breakdown of connection with him, with some struggle and failure being added to Iris story to allow for meaningful character development and actual progression of goal. Hopefully Axew wont end up neglected with Dragonite overshadowing him, because baby dragon is whole reason behind Iris starting journey in first place and he finally started to be taken somewhere with Iris taking his training more seriously. I hope deep down that Axew development wont be screwed over because he is supposed to be indication of Iris growth in dragon master quest being sell to us from start how Iris and him are supposed to develop and evolve together learning how to bring out true potential on surface.

Than again, with all this randomly pulled decisions everything can happen .

with the league approching this could be Iris and Langleys final showdown!
so this will be a clear win for Iris!

more interested I'm in the new rival appearing than in the shity iris-langley rivalry!

I'm actually very happy about this! Ever since they said that Axew likely wont be evolving anytime soon (because they're too lazy to either animate it with the gang or explain why it's suddenly in a ball. Which is why I guess it gets humorously out of place moves like Outrage and GI while sill having room for stuff that would make sense for it's later forms like Dual Chop/ Dragon Claw/ Dragon Tail) I knew that there was nothing Iris could do that would make the thing evolve any sooner than "around the time she leaves the show". And to add to that she's fighting Ms. Dragon Buster! Now we get to finally see what she can do against a Dragon that's not Axew. Using Pokemon Logic I would say Iris has a clinch on this win (going up against a Pokemon with a Pokemon that has a MASSIVE type disadvantage but also has at least one attack that's very effective against it? Iris's chance to show how awesome a dragon trainer she is? Buster getting what she wants, a chance to face Iris in a head to head Dragon vs Buster battle? Yeah ... she got this.)

You know what else I want? I want that Hydreigon to be Iris's to. Like, one of the Pokemon she left behind to focus on going on a new journey with her new Axew. I would be amazed at the storm that would follow the reveal that Iris actually has her full BW2 team in the anime but decided to pull a Ash and start fresh.

Originally Posted by Reivaxe

I would be amazed at the storm that would follow the reveal that Iris actually has her full BW2 team in the anime but decided to pull a Ash and start fresh.

It is confirmed that her hometown, the Dragon Village, is in another region in the games. But in the anime she received Axew from the village elder for the purpose of becoming a Dragon Master, so it wouldn't make sense if she turned out to have previously trained another dragon.

Forget about Misty getting Gyrados and May getting Venasaur. Lol, can you imagine what will happen when Iris leaves the show and then makes a cameo? She'd probably come back with a Dialga and/or Palkia.

The crazy part is, I'm not being sarcastic and at this point I wouldn't put it past the writers to pull something like this off.

And I hope so much this is not the last we see of Georgia. I want her to call Iris out on her bull shit and get some good backstory here. It's not her fault she's stuck with a main character as a rival who has everything handed to her on a silver platter. Which is another reason why this episode will easily be full of shit because IIRC Georgia said in her debut episode for Iris to be a lot stronger the next time they meet. THAT ACTUALLY REQUIRES TRAINING AND WORKING HARD.

Catching a stage 3 Dragon an episode prior to a major tournament where you have a rematch against your rival WITH that pokemon is not hard work at all, it's just DEM and all sorts of fuckery. Whenever the fanbase starts rooting for a protagonist's rival over the protagonist themself there is obviously something wrong with the writing.

I'd love to say it "can't get much worse," but with the irony with the statement actually giving the opposite usually in TV and the fact that this is the premier Tournament episode, it doesn't seem likely.

When it says that Dragonite is "facing off" against Beartic, it doesn't mean that it's a 1v1. After all, you could say that Ash's Infernape was "facing off" against Paul's Electivire.

Also, the Hoenn League started off with 1v1s, this could just be a first round thing.

Or............It's just like every tournament in BW.

I don't mind Dragonite too much, I think that it's about time Iris got a Dragon-type that isn't going to stay a basic forever. I would have prefered it as Dratini, but whatever. Ash often put recently caught Pokémon into events like Gym battles, remember Cyndaquil?

But I do hope that it loses. Not because of it's power, I want it to have a lot of that, but because of Iris' lack of experience with powerful Dragons. Then I want Excadrill to come in and woop Beartic's....claws

There could've been a four/five episode gap before this and after BW089 to show Iris doing work. It might not've been much but something would've been better than nothing.

Episodes like this make me fear the fate of Bianca, Dawn, Ash, Cilan, Georgia, and possibly Burgundy.

It just doesn't seem fair for Iris, Trip, and Kenyan to do well in this tournament. Because well....they aren't worthy IMO. I'm aware Kenyan and Trip haven't performed yet but they are really just...meh. There should be some type of rule from now one, but only for BW only that if you won a previous tournament and have lost in the first round twice(but are also boring as shit which Cabby isn't) then you should not be allowed to enter. =)

Blah Just Blah. And poor Dawn, her cameo time is seriously being wasted so far.

Oh and for the record, I think Piplup only learned Ice Beam to promote Ice Aqua Jet with Miju BW style. Right now as much as these 2 are together, it's clearly obvious. Don't know if it will happen before or after this tourney though.