BW92: Ash, Iris, and Shootie! The Last Battle!!

[Adyniz]

Screenplay: 大橋志吉 Yukiyoshi Ōhashi
Storyboard: うえだしげる Shigeru Ueda
Assistant director: うえだしげる Shigeru Ueda
Animation director: 緒方厚 Atsushi Ogata

[Masurao]

Given the summary for the next episode, Ash and Trips battle will likely be squeezed in this episode. So either Ash/Iris' battle will be rushed or Ash/Trip's. Or both.

[Adyniz]

So I see no one's posted this yet?

10 days ago...

FUCK YES! Warubiru evolves, and Dragonite loses. YES YES! *TEARS*

It doesn't show any new moves though, just that Stone Edge... But YES! SO HAPPY!

[Silktree]

Given the summary for the next episode, Ash and Trips battle will likely be squeezed in this episode. So either Ash/Iris' battle will be rushed or Ash/Trip's. Or both.

I don't see why either battle will necessarily be rushed; one episode is more than enough time for two 1vs1 battles. Trip's semi-final battle will most likely be rushed or ignored altogether, though.

[Ampharos King]

And this shoddy tournament will end with an Ōhashi episode. Yawn.

It's almost given that Trip will use his Serperior here, but I want to know what Ash will use in his battle against Trip (probably Pika).

[BlazeMaster]

So I see no one's posted this yet?

So, it looks like Ash wins, Krokorok evolves, and Dawn is still around to watch the battle.

I love Iris' expression and Dragonite's too in the last pic.

In a way I'm happy that Krokorok doesn't just get a new move to troll Dragonite, but I'm still desperate for that fourth move...

[Caseydia]

Given the summary for the next episode, Ash and Trips battle will likely be squeezed in this episode. So either Ash/Iris' battle will be rushed or Ash/Trip's. Or both.

I don't see why either battle will necessarily be rushed; one episode is more than enough time for two 1vs1 battles. Trip's semi-final battle will most likely be rushed or ignored altogether, though.

all the battles seemed more rushed the usual. The only ones that seem more attentive is Iris's. It's insane.

[Geodude]

Stone Edge also being a Rock-type move that Dragonite resists.

Don't know where you're getting that from. Dragonite has always been weak against Rock.

[Moe]

Don't know where you're getting that from. Dragonite has always been weak against Rock.

From the bit where I misread the type chart. Still, I think not having a double weakness against Dragonite is better than having a super effective move, especially when Pokemon the last two weeks with 4x effective Ice attacks don't get anywhere.

That said it does probably weaken my argument a bit - but I do find it hard to think that Krokorok will be particularly effective in battle and combined with the mid-battle evolution it will end up looking like a cheap win, especially because of how ridiculously overpowered Dragonite has been.

As the last pre-league major battle tournament, I wanted to see Ash show a lot of skill here and get a hard fought clear win in a tough battle to show that he is league ready. I can't see that happening in the battle against Dragonite, and his next battle is another loss to Trip.

[Flying Christi]

Now that the whole tournament has been spoiled, I guess we can now just wait two more weeks, and then simply sit back and enjoy the battles. (I'm referring to the news on the Bulbapedia main page btw) :)

[HumanDawn]

While I realise there's probably some sarcasm there - you'd think it would be natural to learn something off your travelling partners?

I didn't intend any sarcasm O_o Learning something off your travelling partners? There's Scraggy.

Ash has seen many and defeated a few Dragonite, has experience training a Dragon type and has experience dealing with Pokemon disobeying - every single component of this storyline with Iris has already been done with Ash, yet he's never given the chance to show that off.

There's understanding the heart of dragons... the Dragon mind reading... All of which she might use in this episode.

The fact it takes yet another damn mid-battle evolution to finish the job off only compounds that problem, he wins with luck when he could just have easily won with skill and experience.

The skill and experience caused the evolution. There's luck in all battles.

From the bit where I misread the type chart. Still, I think not having a double weakness against Dragonite is better than having a super effective move, especially when Pokemon the last two weeks with 4x effective Ice attacks don't get anywhere.

You forget Stone Edge's special move ability. Stone Edge has a higher chance of causing a critical hits, which double the move's power. That will be Dragonite's demise in this battle. Critical hits are luck based too. It's using the current Pokemon's capabilities to win, so I don't see how that would be luck based when Krokorok has already proved to be a strong Pokemon. Ash will have already studied Dragonite. Exposing its weak point will be Ash's victory it seems.

As the last pre-league major battle tournament, I wanted to see Ash show a lot of skill here and get a hard fought clear win in a tough battle to show that he is league ready. I can't see that happening in the battle against Dragonite, and his next battle is another loss to Trip

If Trip curbstomped him, I'd agree. But we haven't seen the episode yet so I can't decide.

[Moe]

I didn't intend any sarcasm O_o Learning something off your travelling partners? There's Scraggy.

Scraggy who gets left looking weak because Axew gets to jump up a power level at random despite both of them training at a fairly even pace? What did Iris learn out of that - try slightly hard and get far better results than anyone else because you're Iris?

There are just too large gaps in the strength of various Pokemon to make these battles and evolutions believable - Georgia's Beartic has been shown to be clearly powerful - yet falls in one hit. Yet the same Pokemon is supposed to be believably defeated by a Krokorok that couldn't defeat a Swoobat and has had one training episode since.

There's understanding the heart of dragons... the Dragon mind reading... All of which she might use in this episode.

So why travel with Ash in the first place? If he never plays any direct role in her development there's no overlap in their storylines. Iris can't keep coming up against problems and solving them all on her own with no struggle or development.

Do we need to engineer a Dragon Type Champion's appearance just to have someone with the ability to give basic advice to Iris?

The skill and experience caused the evolution. There's luck in all battles.

Then show that - Ash goes in to this tournament having used Krokorok in three battles, and having trained Pokemon he's not using at all in the pre-tournament episodes. If things are worked towards, then you don't assume luck, but when Ash brings out Pokemon he doesn't train - they evolve to win him battles, over and over again throughout BW.

You forget Stone Edge's special move ability. Stone Edge has a higher chance of causing a critical hits, which double the move's power. That will be Dragonite's demise in this battle. Critical hits are luck based too. It's using the current Pokemon's capabilities to win, so I don't see how that would be luck based when Krokorok has already proved to be a strong Pokemon. Ash will have already studied Dragonite. Exposing its weak point will be Ash's victory it seems.

So Stone Edge could end up being 4x effective, just like the Ice type moves Beartic was using that did nothing? Making Dragonite as strong as it was against Beartic means that Krokorok has to go to unbelievable levels of strength to get a win.

Ash constantly getting wins out of tough battles with evolutions is not good writing.

[Masurao]

Then show that - Ash goes in to this tournament having used Krokorok in three battles, and having trained Pokemon he's not using at all in the pre-tournament episodes. If things are worked towards, then you don't assume luck, but when Ash brings out Pokemon he doesn't train - they evolve to win him battles, over and over again throughout BW.

Ash constantly getting wins out of tough battles with evolutions is not good writing.

This whole saga has bad writing. As I said, even with strategy it would have been a stretch for any of Ash's current Pokemon to beat Iris' Dragonite.The anime itself doesn't view mid-battle evolution as cheap, nor does it with learning new moves at the brink of defeat. Blame the writers for giving Iris a Pokemon stronger than any of Ash's right before the tournament.

Iris winning this tournament with an overpowered Pokemon she was just given (while having overcome it's issues in two episodes) would have been far worse writing than any of Ash's mid-battle evolutions. At least Krokorok has seen time out of the Pokeball enough, and had an actual training episode. It's evolution is not hard to swallow. Roggenrola was the one who sticks out the most as one that was actually bad.

[GreatLiver]

Do any of you ever notice you're over thinking things. The writers aren't writing to please you, they're not writing for people who critique the validity of things such as mid-battle evolutions. They're writing a children's television show. Their main goal with these evolutions is to make them look cool and dramatic. Having ash chug along battling wild Pokemon to get his team to evolve has no suspense, and is overall pretty uninteresting, especially if you're the age of their target demographic. Having him up against a wall and then having his Pokemon pull out the win with a dramatic evolution or new move is exciting. It's hardly something new.

When I was 8 and watching Ash's battle with Mandy, was I upset that a Pokemon with just about no development got a deus ex evolution? No, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that krabby could come out of nowhere to win the battle. Stop pretending the writers are trying to cater to you, because it couldn't be further from the truth.

[Alan Smithee]

The reason why Krokkodile is the Deus Ex Machina because the writers are advertising, remember? Every part of this episode is saying, "BUY POCKET MONSTERS BLACK 2 AND WHITE 2! BUY POCKET MONSTERS BLACK 2 AND WHITE 2!" Doesn't anyone understand?

In all seriousness, at least Krookodile got to evolve and beat the Psuedo-Legend.