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Description
Show: Pokemon
Episode(s): 936-937
Year: 2016

Writer(s): Shinzō Fujita, Yūji Asada, Masakatsu Iijima
Director(s): Yūji Asada, Masaaki Iwane, Masakatsu Iijima, Tomohiro Koyama, Yasushi Nishitani

The short version of this review: youtu.be/UEGVGqJEeCo

The long version:

Before this moment I was willing to call XY the best the Pokemon anime has ever been; better, writing, better stories and better characters and battles to go with some stellar animation! Ash has come so far in his journey across the Kalos Region to the point where he seemed at the top of his game with a very powerful and loyal, albeit unbalanced team of really strong Pokemon! After Ash won against Wulfric gaining his eight badge I was hyped for the Kalos League, I forgot that I was watching a series that STRONGLY ENFORCES the Status Quo to keep Ash a weak novice no matter how good he gets. But this series did away with many of the clichès the Pokemon anime is usually littered with, hell Ash FINALLY got a fully evolved Water starter with a badass Greninja with its own Super Mode!

However when we got to the league things took a downward spiral from the word go. The MOMENT I learned Alain was going to be apart of this league I suspected something bad was going to happen. Now, given Alain has actually battled Ash before a couple times and won I suspected that Ash would finally overcome him and come out as the champion, I was WRONG! You see, it was shown in the Mega Evolution specials that Alain is pretty much Ash Ketchum if he was Bishonen, going so far as to have him ABLE TO TAKE ON LEGENDARY POKEMON! We've never seen Alain ever really have a goal beyond having the best Mega Pokemon in his Charizard, so him only battling Wulfric and Korrina for their badges is the logical step. But he SOMEHOW gets 8 badges in no time at all right before the start of the league and MAKES IT TO THE FINALS!? I can't believe this at all, it takes Ash forever to get 8 badges and yet Alain did it in a day! And unlike Tobias who was built specifically to be an obstacle for Ash to lose to, Alain is an established character!

Nevermind the fact that a large chunk of the Kalos League was skimmed over regarding Ash's battles and those of the game trio just to focus on Alain. They were really building up this final battle like it was gonna be the greatest fucking this ever! And in some respects it had the potential to be Ash's greatest battle, considering he's fighting his evil counterpart in a sense when you remember Alain is assisting a terrorist organization. That's right! Alain is a terrorist! Granted he's an accidental one as he was unawares of Team Flare and Lysandre's intentions but still, he counts as an asset to terrorism. Alain didn't really have a conscience and never ever questioned what he was told to do by Lysandre; so yeah he's essentially just another Team Flare pawn!

The battle itself, while it has great production values is marred by the fact that once again Pikachu and Greninja do most of the work! Noivern and Goodra don't even last very long in their own battles before getting taken out! And is it just me or am I the only one getting sick of forced ties in these battles? Either have one side lose or don't do it at all! But now we get to the final battle between Ash-Greninja and Mega Charizard X, and it's a washout! By the looks of the battle Water Shuriken doesn't even seem to hurt Charizard at all after it got ZAPPED BY THUNDERBOLT! And keep in mind this is before it Mega Evolves. Its super charged GIANT ORANGE WATER SHURIKEN didn't do any damage whatsoever! The plot armor Alain has on is thicker than the thickest adult diaper, and it smells twice as shitty because of how easily he manages to shake off anything!

The two Pokemon has Ash left, Goodra and Greninja, didn't battle the whole time until Charizard; who had sustained pretty big hits from Pikachu, who, mind you, beat down two Pokemon prior! Charizard was severely damaged when fighting Greninja! Ash-Greninja can apparently do things like Parry a Thunder Punch and multiple Dragon Claws, but after all that a BLAST BURN takes it down!? This is the same Greninja who was able to defeat a Mega Sceptile, it had a clear type disadvantage and still won. He gave the KALOS CHAMPION DIANTHA and her Mega Gardevior serious trouble in a battle when it was an imperfect transformation. Also this makes Lysandre's actions prior to the league meaningless if this super bonded Pokemon can be beaten by a Mega Evolution. What was the point of being attracted to Ash then?

What makes this loss even worse is the heavy amount of shilling the anime did to really make you believe Ash was gonna win the league this time! And some of the dialogue (like Alain admitting he's still not better than Ash even after JUST beating him) would fit better if Ash had WON! But my problem comes from this: after waiting 20 years to see Ash even come THIS FAR, THIS CLOSE to winning a league and losing it all what does he do? HE SMILES ABOUT LOSING LIKE A FUCKING DIPSHIT! Also, because of the mechanics of the Ash-Greninja transformation, Ash should be feeling every bit of pain Greninja felt throughout the battle; why didn't he collapse? Even after perfecting this transformation the problem still existed. So why isn't Ash writhing in agony, crying in pain, bawling like a baby or comatose from the battle? If I was in that amount of pain after losing my biggest battle ever I'd be crying my eyes bloody red! Or just be knocked out cold.

When Team Rocket shows more emotion towards the Twerp's loss then he does we have a BIG BIG PROBLEM! I don't feel sorry for Ash losing as much as I do for the Team Rocket Trio having chased this loser around the world for 2 decades being all for naught. Ash Ketchum no longer deserves any of my sympathy or admiration, fuck him! And the implications of what this means being "it's ok to lose" gives me a lot of mixed messages about what it's trying to say. Losing gracefully is one thing, but this far in the game and losing the way it happened here? THIS. IS. BULLSHIT! And if you're wondering the whole Team Flare conflict afterwards doesn't make up for any of it at all because as I said this makes Lysandre's draw to Ash make no sense. This is why you deal with the bad guys BEFORE THE LEAGUE so we can just have a fun battle! I didn't like having the villains connected to the league in Black and White and I don't like it here!

I haven't gotten this angry at Ash losing a Pokemon League since he lost to that fuckwit Cameron back in the dark days of Unova! And Cameron was perhaps the STUPIDEST AND MOST BRAINDEAD trainer I've ever seen! What makes the loss often though is that he didn't WIN THE LEAGUE after defeating Ash! Cameron rightfully got his ass kicked by that kid wth all the Eeveelutions. Nobody brings up how Alain was technically assisting Team Flare and how he's technically a bad guy, all just because he didn't agree with what they were doing and he gets away with his involvement in an act of terrorism! We didn't absolve the Nazis who didn't fully agree with Hitler's beliefs did we? We didn't just, let the members of Al Qaeda who realized Osama Bin Laden was a madman go did we? Alain deserves to be punished for helping Team Flare get as far as they did! And keep in mind their plan in the anime is watered down from their clear act of genocide from the games, but it's still pretty horrible.

I'm so angry I'm shaking like a seizure! Hold up homie let me spark up and take a breather; get some reefer in my lungs, I got grapes what'choo watching SON!? X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! And after seeing the Sun and Moon trailer I don't think I'm gonna keep up with the anime anymore. It looks too much like Yo-Kai Watch to me. I know they're trying to do the more cartoonish and comedic look of the Takeshi Shudo era but it's far too late for that now after so many years of a more updated Shonen style going for more action. Anyways I'm done bitching about this now after so long, I'mma play some ORAS and wait for S&M.

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 2
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 0
Lackluster Writing: 10
Annoyance: 9
Disturbing Content: 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 3
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 5
Character Derailment: 3

Final Score: 34/100

Pokemon is owned by Nintendo, Gamefreak and The Pokemon Company.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314

Description
Show: Pokemon
Episode(s): 936-937
Year: 2016

Writer(s): Shinzō Fujita, Yūji Asada, Masakatsu Iijima
Director(s): Yūji Asada, Masaaki Iwane, Masakatsu Iijima, Tomohiro Koyama, Yasushi Nishitani

The short version of this review: youtu.be/UEGVGqJEeCo

The long version:

Before this moment I was willing to call XY the best the Pokemon anime has ever been; better, writing, better stories and better characters and battles to go with some stellar animation! Ash has come so far in his journey across the Kalos Region to the point where he seemed at the top of his game with a very powerful and loyal, albeit unbalanced team of really strong Pokemon! After Ash won against Wulfric gaining his eight badge I was hyped for the Kalos League, I forgot that I was watching a series that STRONGLY ENFORCES the Status Quo to keep Ash a weak novice no matter how good he gets. But this series did away with many of the clichès the Pokemon anime is usually littered with, hell Ash FINALLY got a fully evolved Water starter with a badass Greninja with its own Super Mode!

However when we got to the league things took a downward spiral from the word go. The MOMENT I learned Alain was going to be apart of this league I suspected something bad was going to happen. Now, given Alain has actually battled Ash before a couple times and won I suspected that Ash would finally overcome him and come out as the champion, I was WRONG! You see, it was shown in the Mega Evolution specials that Alain is pretty much Ash Ketchum if he was Bishonen, going so far as to have him ABLE TO TAKE ON LEGENDARY POKEMON! We've never seen Alain ever really have a goal beyond having the best Mega Pokemon in his Charizard, so him only battling Wulfric and Korrina for their badges is the logical step. But he SOMEHOW gets 8 badges in no time at all right before the start of the league and MAKES IT TO THE FINALS!? I can't believe this at all, it takes Ash forever to get 8 badges and yet Alain did it in a day! And unlike Tobias who was built specifically to be an obstacle for Ash to lose to, Alain is an established character!

Nevermind the fact that a large chunk of the Kalos League was skimmed over regarding Ash's battles and those of the game trio just to focus on Alain. They were really building up this final battle like it was gonna be the greatest fucking this ever! And in some respects it had the potential to be Ash's greatest battle, considering he's fighting his evil counterpart in a sense when you remember Alain is assisting a terrorist organization. That's right! Alain is a terrorist! Granted he's an accidental one as he was unawares of Team Flare and Lysandre's intentions but still, he counts as an asset to terrorism. Alain didn't really have a conscience and never ever questioned what he was told to do by Lysandre; so yeah he's essentially just another Team Flare pawn!

The battle itself, while it has great production values is marred by the fact that once again Pikachu and Greninja do most of the work! Noivern and Goodra don't even last very long in their own battles before getting taken out! And is it just me or am I the only one getting sick of forced ties in these battles? Either have one side lose or don't do it at all! But now we get to the final battle between Ash-Greninja and Mega Charizard X, and it's a washout! By the looks of the battle Water Shuriken doesn't even seem to hurt Charizard at all after it got ZAPPED BY THUNDERBOLT! And keep in mind this is before it Mega Evolves. Its super charged GIANT ORANGE WATER SHURIKEN didn't do any damage whatsoever! The plot armor Alain has on is thicker than the thickest adult diaper, and it smells twice as shitty because of how easily he manages to shake off anything!

The two Pokemon has Ash left, Goodra and Greninja, didn't battle the whole time until Charizard; who had sustained pretty big hits from Pikachu, who, mind you, beat down two Pokemon prior! Charizard was severely damaged when fighting Greninja! Ash-Greninja can apparently do things like Parry a Thunder Punch and multiple Dragon Claws, but after all that a BLAST BURN takes it down!? This is the same Greninja who was able to defeat a Mega Sceptile, it had a clear type disadvantage and still won. He gave the KALOS CHAMPION DIANTHA and her Mega Gardevior serious trouble in a battle when it was an imperfect transformation. Also this makes Lysandre's actions prior to the league meaningless if this super bonded Pokemon can be beaten by a Mega Evolution. What was the point of being attracted to Ash then?

What makes this loss even worse is the heavy amount of shilling the anime did to really make you believe Ash was gonna win the league this time! And some of the dialogue (like Alain admitting he's still not better than Ash even after JUST beating him) would fit better if Ash had WON! But my problem comes from this: after waiting 20 years to see Ash even come THIS FAR, THIS CLOSE to winning a league and losing it all what does he do? HE SMILES ABOUT LOSING LIKE A FUCKING DIPSHIT! Also, because of the mechanics of the Ash-Greninja transformation, Ash should be feeling every bit of pain Greninja felt throughout the battle; why didn't he collapse? Even after perfecting this transformation the problem still existed. So why isn't Ash writhing in agony, crying in pain, bawling like a baby or comatose from the battle? If I was in that amount of pain after losing my biggest battle ever I'd be crying my eyes bloody red! Or just be knocked out cold.

When Team Rocket shows more emotion towards the Twerp's loss then he does we have a BIG BIG PROBLEM! I don't feel sorry for Ash losing as much as I do for the Team Rocket Trio having chased this loser around the world for 2 decades being all for naught. Ash Ketchum no longer deserves any of my sympathy or admiration, fuck him! And the implications of what this means being "it's ok to lose" gives me a lot of mixed messages about what it's trying to say. Losing gracefully is one thing, but this far in the game and losing the way it happened here? THIS. IS. BULLSHIT! And if you're wondering the whole Team Flare conflict afterwards doesn't make up for any of it at all because as I said this makes Lysandre's draw to Ash make no sense. This is why you deal with the bad guys BEFORE THE LEAGUE so we can just have a fun battle! I didn't like having the villains connected to the league in Black and White and I don't like it here!

I haven't gotten this angry at Ash losing a Pokemon League since he lost to that fuckwit Cameron back in the dark days of Unova! And Cameron was perhaps the STUPIDEST AND MOST BRAINDEAD trainer I've ever seen! What makes the loss often though is that he didn't WIN THE LEAGUE after defeating Ash! Cameron rightfully got his ass kicked by that kid wth all the Eeveelutions. Nobody brings up how Alain was technically assisting Team Flare and how he's technically a bad guy, all just because he didn't agree with what they were doing and he gets away with his involvement in an act of terrorism! We didn't absolve the Nazis who didn't fully agree with Hitler's beliefs did we? We didn't just, let the members of Al Qaeda who realized Osama Bin Laden was a madman go did we? Alain deserves to be punished for helping Team Flare get as far as they did! And keep in mind their plan in the anime is watered down from their clear act of genocide from the games, but it's still pretty horrible.

I'm so angry I'm shaking like a seizure! Hold up homie let me spark up and take a breather; get some reefer in my lungs, I got grapes what'choo watching SON!? X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! X, Y AND Z! And after seeing the Sun and Moon trailer I don't think I'm gonna keep up with the anime anymore. It looks too much like Yo-Kai Watch to me. I know they're trying to do the more cartoonish and comedic look of the Takeshi Shudo era but it's far too late for that now after so many years of a more updated Shonen style going for more action. Anyways I'm done bitching about this now after so long, I'mma play some ORAS and wait for S&M.

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 2
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 0
Lackluster Writing: 10
Annoyance: 9
Disturbing Content: 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 3
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 5
Character Derailment: 3

Final Score: 34/100

Pokemon is owned by Nintendo, Gamefreak and The Pokemon Company.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314