Re: XY090: The Happy Dance Comes After the Quiz!? The Hyakkoku TriPokalon Tournament!
I can agree to the fact that Serena's been shown to be a class above her rivals as of now, something I've said in the past. However, I feel it's more how the writers have kind of limited themselves with how Showcases are done rather than them feeling like it's boring. It's not like Contests in say, DP, where they could have a double episode for the Contests because of the battling portion to it and how the elimination bracket went, it's far shorter. They've kind of forced themselves to add these more pointless, I guess, distractions just to fill in the time for the 20 minute episode. This does lead in to what you said later about the amount of contestants in these Showcases because there's far less than I can remember in DP.
Although, I do somewhat feel like Showcases could easily span two episodes if they stopped cutting corners in some places, like showing the full Free Performances for Shauna/Jessie, include some more pomp and ceremony around the beginning, middle and end (the last two Showcases we've kind of just been thrown straight into the actual thing with some minor build-up). It just feels as though they've tried to shorten everything down and then gone "oh wait we should probably add something here to create some problem". The Master Class Showcase might end up being a bit more fleshed out, or I can only hope it will be.
(I feel like I'm forgetting to add another point here but I can't remember what it was, lol)
I said this Showcase was okay, but that's for Showcase standards anyway. I hate how the writers are forcing themselves to inject cheap melodrama during these competitions. Will we ever be able to watch a Showcase episode in which Serena's only worries are her rivals? The writers have made Jessie, Miette, Nini, and even Shauna represent little to no challenge, so in order to remedy this they're trying to make Serena struggle by adding these little mishaps along the way, like her furisode in Dendemille or Eevee disappearing here in Anistar.
Maybe the writers find the Showcase concept rather boring...
I can agree to the fact that Serena's been shown to be a class above her rivals as of now, something I've said in the past. However, I feel it's more how the writers have kind of limited themselves with how Showcases are done rather than them feeling like it's boring. It's not like Contests in say, DP, where they could have a double episode for the Contests because of the battling portion to it and how the elimination bracket went, it's far shorter. They've kind of forced themselves to add these more pointless, I guess, distractions just to fill in the time for the 20 minute episode. This does lead in to what you said later about the amount of contestants in these Showcases because there's far less than I can remember in DP.
Although, I do somewhat feel like Showcases could easily span two episodes if they stopped cutting corners in some places, like showing the full Free Performances for Shauna/Jessie, include some more pomp and ceremony around the beginning, middle and end (the last two Showcases we've kind of just been thrown straight into the actual thing with some minor build-up). It just feels as though they've tried to shorten everything down and then gone "oh wait we should probably add something here to create some problem". The Master Class Showcase might end up being a bit more fleshed out, or I can only hope it will be.
(I feel like I'm forgetting to add another point here but I can't remember what it was, lol)