Weekly Anime Discussion - You bet your ass there's spoilers

The Don battles are a lot more enjoyable than contests, and if anything are a much better idea, giving the idea that battling is important again, and without us having to see jesse wearing stupid costumes etc.

The battle clubs presented a good idea at the start of the season, but they would have been too repetitive if they'd continued the way they first presented. These don battle tournaments however, do add a new dynamic, and of course, the battle tournament at the start of the victini movies was a really good battle competition, even if emolga did ruin it for iris instantly.

One bit I did just remember, Cilan has done his only good thing in the whole series in a tournament "Fly my Stunfisk!" I'm serious, if he could continue that, maybe with a wailord or magcargo, I'd give him his dues as a good character.

Shame the Druddigon in the next episode won't eat him.

[Linkachu]

The Don battles are a lot more enjoyable than contests, and if anything are a much better idea, giving the idea that battling is important again, and without us having to see jesse wearing stupid costumes etc.

I liked Jessie wearing stupid costumes. :x

I also can't say that the Don battles are more enjoyable nor a better idea than the contests because I personally loved them. Battling never felt unimportant throughout Hoenn or Sinnoh, the contests simply gave us something new and more to look forward to. If anything, some of Dawn's contests were downright awesome. But each to their own, hey?

I also can't say that the Don battles are more enjoyable nor a better idea than the contests because I personally loved them. Battling never felt unimportant throughout Hoenn or Sinnoh, the contests simply gave us something new and more to look forward to. If anything, some of Dawn's contests were downright awesome. But each to their own, hey?

They're pretty much the same thing, with lots of rivals and main characters competing in them. IMO Dawn's contests were brought down by some really bland and boring rivalries. Zoey pretty much became a Mary Sue as DP progressed, Kenny was just a bad/pointless character in general, Nando had potential but disappeared for 85% of DP, and Ursula simply came too late.

The way the DP contests were written made it seem like Dawn had no real reason to triumph over her rivalries at all. The Dawn/Zoey rivalry was never really engaging whatsoever, probably because it was in the shadow of the Ash/Paul and May/Drew rivalries the entire time.

To be honest the only DP coordinator I really liked was Ursula, which is a shame because she came too late into the saga to make much impact. We never even got to see her beat Dawn once. :/

[Linkachu]

I only have one thing to say regarding the Celestial Tower episode:

Cilan cross-dressing is both hilarious and creepy as hell.

Also, this.



And this!



Iris - Queen of the Safety Patrol.

Pikachu as Boufallant is brilliant, almost as good as the ridiculous afros in the other episode.

I am getting a little sick of episodes based around Axew getting kidnapped/lost etc it's basically just recycling the togepi episodes minus metronome, one or two would be fine, but it's pretty much the only screen time iris gets is finding axew or competing in tournaments.

Just watched the dub of the alder episode, Trip was far too much like cheren in it, and I preferred the old kanto episode with bruno which pretty much had all the same themes. Shame alder didn't catch that gigalith though, it is such an awesome pokémon, and might have gotten him that date with jenny after it saved her =P

It's a shame we won't have a crazy plot twist and alder turns out to be ash's dad

I like the Don battle tournaments have Iris and Cilan competing in them. It shows they don't have to just focus on Ash.

One thing that always bugged me about Misty/Brock is they hardly ever battled besides certain times. I honestly think the tag battle tournament in DP was Brock's only tournament in his entire 13 year run in the anime. That's pretty sad when you think about it. I also believe aside from the Whirl Cup, Misty was never in any other tournaments either, and that only lasted like 2 episodes.

Cilan is battling Gym leaders, engaging in tournaments and he even defeated Ash's main rival (Trip) this saga before Ash did.

The donamite tournament ends this week, I'll be honest, I was shocked that Bianca of all people beat Trip, if that's not a blow to ash's ego then I don't know what else could be =P

2 parter coming up about carracosta, will be interesting to see, although I do think it's a shame that ash meets so many interesting ancient pokémon and despite trying to catch an aerodactyl, has never caught one, heck brock could have been useful in sinnoh owning a rampardos or bastiodon... Alas, maybe next generation....

So Kenyan wins the tournament, pretty much a given.

Its nice that we have some female rivals in the anime for once, given that there were virtually never any female battlers in the show that were recurring characters. I mean there was Casey in Johto, but she bombed as a trainer and the writing in Johto was terrible so she never amounted to anything.

Still sad there's no female trainer who does Gyms on the main cast, but its obvious that's never going to happen.

I just saw some scenes from next weeks episode of pokemon and was shown something that made my heart stop. Pokemon has had several masked heroes over the years. Now they have an Accelgor-themed super hero based off of KAMEN RIDER!! My life is complete!

Link to the pictures: http://www.serebii.net/anime/pictures/b ... /718.shtml

Accelguard is awesome. Fact.


Moreover, I'm so glad to see tepig's original trainer showing up soon, if I were ash I'd have boldore headbutt them against a wall, then let tepig use flamethrower and burn their hair off, and finally knock his teeth out.... But only because I'm so friendly. I will happily point out that tepig went ages where it just continually lost in battle against everything, but also this will likely be tepigs evolution episode, or in the run up to its evolution.

With brycen appearing on the 10th may, I assume his gym battle will be the 17th and 24th respectively. Unless ash loses, I'll reiterate my old point, this series is wonderfully shorter than previous, however I think we won't have a real idea on what's going to start happening, until 23rd june when black and white 2 come out... If the post elite 4 finding the seven sages etc has a much bigger storyline for all we know the keldeo movie might be a precursor to a whole other storyline around black and white 2.... I'm not holding out on that one, but it might at least have a few extra tidbits we weren't expecting =)

I can see the Unova league starting around episode 100. It seems Unova will be longer than Kanto, (Kanto ended at 83 episodes), but shorter than Hoenn, which was 130 episodes.

Its obvious we're getting a second arc based on BW2, likely functioning the same way Orange Islands and Battle Frontier did. For that reason I assume Iris and Cilan will stay, I can't imagine any cast changes at this point.

The latest black and white 2 information makes me think the unova league could be further away, ash could have the league pushed back by whatever the hell kyurem does to wipe out a chunk of unova!

Also, damn the episode preview showing archen attacking the carracosta, I really want ash to catch one!!!

Interesting to see the 7th Gym coming up already...it seems like this saga is ending sooner than expected. Unless there's some massive stalling between this, the 8th Gym and the league.

This saga almost feels rushed to me...Iris and Cilan still feel too new as if I don't even really know them yet. Same for the rivalries, Trip is so poorly developed.

I never felt this way when watching AG or DP, especially given how often the spotlight was given to May and Dawn. I know Iris isn't going to get as much focus as they did but I still feel like the writers aren't focusing on her as much as they should.

We're 80 episodes into BW already, and Iris still only has 3 pokemon and her quest is almost non-existent.

It's confirmed that one of the new Black and White 2 gym leaders will be appearing in the anime, of course this doesn't necessarily mean ash will be challenging them, although I can imagine a new unova tournament coming up possibly with battle frontier features that will link to BW2. We might see the league postponed with the crazy weather and freezing of the landscape caused by black and white kyurem, with the next season being centered around ash exploring the new areas of Unova, helping the new professor research the general goings on. Most likely we're staying in Unova past the league, or the league won't happen until after an entire filler season. The new gym leaders will add an amount of new incentive for ash, but I think we'll see a lot more development for Iris and Cilan. With the pre-unova pokemon appearing in BW2 I'm happy to see Iris catching a few older pokémon, I'd still be very happy to see bagon, as her having a deino seems less and less likely all the time =(

I actually really like your ideas RLRL. If something like that happens, I might start watching the anime after all.

Back when BW disappointed me for the first time, I said I would watch the anime once they reached Nimbasa...but that didn't happen because more stuff pissed me off in the meantime XD The lack of Team Plasma is a real blow as well, but oh well. I'm still waiting for something to pull me in, but I just haven't found anything yet. Oshawott won't evolve, Iris annoys me, and Trip, um....yeah.

YAY! Tepig finally evolved, now there are only surprises left for Ash's team, thank moose for that!

I'm hoping possible additions to his team could be, Ferroseed mostly because Ferrothorn is my favourite gen 5 addition to the pokédex.
As we saw with scraggy finally breaking his "no dark types" streak (followed by krokorok), a steel, psychic, or ghost type would be great to see. Unfortunately I can't imagine Ash with a Reuniclus at this point, and would hate for him to have a gothitelle. I had high hopes for Sigilyph as it's just a wonderful pokémon, but I think it would be a little too odd for ash to have.
The problem with ferroseed would be that's 3 grass types he owns this generation. I thought it was odd when he caught Sewaddle and Palpitoad, but unless he's going to end up with another fire type (please oh please oh please get a larvesta) I can't really think of anything else that he could end up catching this generation.
Although I'd love to see him trade Unfezant for Braviary.

Time will tell as they say, maybe with the new Unova areas giving us old pokémon ash will catch something like Riolu or something, or bring back gible ^_^

Gible will very likely return, also because Iris likes dragons and almost certainly she will get to see it. You know since Ash rotates his pokemon for the first time ever, it would be nice to see more of his older pokemon rotated back in...even though I kinda doubt it will happen.

I also think after the league we'll see the return of some older characters in the show. I wouldn't be surprised if Dawn or Brock get a cameo, but then again they might not appear at all.

I enjoyed the brock vs latias episode with nurse joy, I'd love to see more specials again like we had before

Well I'm assuming everyone has seen the new coro coro scan! Best Wishes 2 from june 21st, I'm really looking forward to seeing how exactly the anime changes from one to the other, although I'm also really quite disappointed that we won't get to see the gym battle in opelucid city. I was really looking forward to seeing either Ash facing iris, or drayden, and seeing how they worked that into the anime.

Dawn's return could prove interesting, although i hope the combee next to her in the promo photo isn't actually hers, even if she has a vespiquen within a few episodes, it's still going to be fairly unimpressive.
I am however very happy to see Eevee and Glaceon in the bottom corner, if Ash gets a glaceon it will once again be him having exactly the same pokémon as May, but I'm guessing by Cynthia's new outfit she's going to be the one with a Glaceon. Maybe she'll give Riolu and Eevee to Ash and Iris respectfully. Still wondering about that Dragonite, but then again, it might just be another one of cynthias pokémon, or prof oaks.

Giovanni returning fills me with excitement, although I have to wonder what he's actually going to do with jesse and james, after you know, firing them, then rehiring them, and then them being largely incompetent in Unova. I hope he'll have a larger role, maybe even we'll see the return of Mewtwo after the Meoletta storyline, that would explain all the awesome mewtwo events and things we've had for a while.

Ok I'm done letting my mind run wild now... What does everyone else think? (aside from, RLRL you were right, it was changing completely)

Well I imagine Dawn is getting a cameo similar to May's Wallace Cup appearance or Misty back in AG. I really can't see Dawn staying beyond 4-5 episodes, the Contests aren't coming back and they wouldn't have a coordinator in the series without them.

I am glad to see Cynthia return. I hope Ash wins the league now.