Review BW077: Flaming Memories! Pokabu VS Enbuoh!!

[Dogasu]

Flaming Memories! Pokabu VS Enbuoh!!



Animation - Team Kato
Screenplay - Junki Takegami
Storyboard - Ken'ichi Nishida
Assistant director - Ken'ichi Nishida
Animation director - Tomohiro Koyama



While resting at a Battle Club in Astilbe Town, Satoshi and his friends meet a young boy named Suwama. Suwama was the trainer who left Satoshi's Pokabu for being too weak and hopes to prove how right he was by challenging Satoshi to a double battle. Satoshi's Tsutraja tries to keep Pokabu's head in the game while Suwama attacks with his Kuitaran and Emboar. Will Pokabu snap out of its daze in time!?

 

[Eitarou]

I like how Oshawott was asleep during the courtroom scene.

More courtroom Cilan, please. The world wants it. The world needs it.

Reused plot aside, this episode was awesome.

I like Pignite's voice, and his Flame Charge animation was cool.

 

[Adil]

MY GOD! Need some time to describe Chaoboo's pure EPICNESS.

Till then, have fun with Dento sama:

 

[Spindae2]

Pignite is awesome! And the ire Pledge animation is wonderful! Really great stuff!

Here I liked Ash's Snivy for possibly the very first time! But it should've been K.O. after the heat Crash! who wouldn't be! ?

A quite solid episode ! The only bad thing is how fast Emboar and Heatmor have gone KO! there should've been at least some more moves!

 

[Iteru]

Noooooooo, Chaoboo's voice is horrible ;__;

Er, I loved Tsutarja in this one, especially the slap to Pokabu's face to get it to stop being so upset. And I agree that the Nitro Charge animation was awesome after evolution. Suwama asking for Chaoboo to go back to him was rich xD

 

[Moe]

Sure, I have a pile of complaints about the episode, the clichéd come from behind win, etc. But the courtroom Cilan and the fantastic ending made it epic.

 

[Ashs Battle Coach]

This episode may have single-handedly made me like Tepig/Pignite. It was awesome. And snivy was just pure boss in this Ep. From slapping tepig, which was halarious, to taking the hit. Oh and Fire pledge looked badass. The flamethrower to Suwamas face was a nice touch also. The win felt a bit cheap though, to fast after he evolved. Apart from that, yea awesome ep : )

 

[Eitarou]

Suwama's a douche, yet I kinda hope he comes back.

Till then, have fun with Dento sama:

I declare this episode guilty, for being epic.

 

[WatcherMark]

This was a pretty good episode, but the KO of Embuoh and Kuitaran was complete bull. Despite having taken almost no damage during the battle (in fact, I think Kuitaran was still at full health), both Pokemon were knocked out by a single Fire Pledge/Flame Charge combo.

But yeah, the Courtroom scenes were pure win... and the show's use of a couple of move combinations reminded me of D&P.

 

[Hellion]

Is it just me or does Chaobu kinda looks different than Bel's... like too round and egg shaped. Oh well, good episode. Tsutarja was awesome in this one, and I really liked how much she cared about Pokabu, gave him her fighting spirit and then sacrificed herself to get him motivated. ; ___ ; You go girl! Courtroom Dento was just hilarious and totally random Dent flavoured craziness, I loved it. Never change Dent, never change! LOL at Mijumaru sleeping through it all. I also really liked Pokabu's former trainer. His expression were priceless and I loved that he tried to get Chaobu to come back to him.

I'm still not sold on Chaobu as a character, but this episode endeared him to me somewhat.

 

[Moe]

This was a pretty good episode, but the KO of Embuoh and Kuitaran was complete bull. Despite having taken almost no damage during the battle (in fact, I think Kuitaran was still at full health), both Pokemon were knocked out by a single Fire Pledge/Flame Charge combo.

I was thinking while that was happening that perhaps it was Tepig's Blaze - Tepig certainly seemed pumped up after Snivy KO'd - but I suppose Cilan wouldn't have let that slip if it was Blaze.

and the show's use of a couple of move combinations reminded me of D&P.

Which is especially useful when they seem to be about to introduce the Pledge moves. Perhaps Ash will remember the joy of good combinations...

But yeah, the Courtroom scenes were pure win...

More thinking makes me wish Leavanny was in this episode, would be brilliant in the court room trying to calm everyone down and then frantically making bigger leaves for Pignite after evolving. Though at least having Krokorok appear meant that there's some consistency for next episode.

 

[WatcherMark]

After checking the screencaps for this episode at Filb, I was reminded of a couple of other points of this episode:

- Can anyone tell me what Suwama was saying to the trainer he defeated at the beginning of the episode?
- When Suwama was seen releasing Pokabu, the Poke Ball effect was the same as the standard. This was pretty disappointing, and I hate how nice little details that DP introduced like this have been removed for BW.
- I really wish Kuitaran had been given more to do... it could have been replaced with any already introduced Fire-type from Generation V and it would have served the same purpose. A wasted debut (but not as wasted as the couple we've got coming up).
- Seems Flame Burst was finally represented in the anime thanks to the opening battle.
- Come on Satoshi, as much as I love it I think Zuruggu is long-overdue for some downtime at Araragi's. Seriously though, even a little screen-time for Kenhallow, Hahakomori, Gamagaru or Gantle would be nice.
- Tsutarja watching Chaoboo using Fire Pledge in wonder is making me think that she may be learning a combination move next...
- Nice to see Don George outside of a tournament setting. We haven't seen that since Satoshi trained for his rematch against Aloe.
- Normally I would say that Suwama is far more interesting that Shooty... but at this point I think we all agree that most characters more interesting than Shooty.

 

[Hurricane Kishore]

Ash's very first victory in Battle club !
But there was any people around like Suwama first battle in the beginning of the episode !
I wonder , If Suwama going to be back for Revenge against Ash .
And Also
Paul still the only trainer who's mistreated his fire type but never got the taste of it's Flamethrower !
I WANNA SEE MORE DOUBLE BATTLE

 

[Froakie]

Tepig looked so cute in this episode! I agree that pignite looks a little different than Bel's.

I don't know if I want suwama to come back, I mean that plot had been done before.

 

[Scizorhands]

Pignite's reaction to burn his previous trainer's face was predictable, although I see it again as a big Deja Vu from Charmander's story; as he did the same thing to his precious trainer, with a little help of Pikachu's Thundershock. Also, in a minor way, Cyndaquil's story; since the trainer who wanted to capture it (Koji, I think) tried to steal Ash's Cyndaquil in a net. As result, he was badly burned when it used a Flamethrower at him, causing him to run away.

 

[WatcherMark]

If Suwama was to return (which could happen... I still believe that Harley and Urara were originally one-time rivals that were popular enough with the writers to be brought back) then I wouldn't want the whole 'Pokabu abandonment' story to take the main focus like Hikozaru did with Shinji. But I wouldn't mind seeing him again, I'll admit.

 

[Masurao]

This episode reminds us all why Snivy is one of Ash's most fun Pokemon this season.

The courtroom scene was alright, and Suwama was a really fun character. Worlds better than Trip. I really liked the animation of Heat Pledge, and Tepig was cute. However, Pignite still remains kinda bland to me.

Good episode overall, and I kinda hope Suwama returns.

 

[Ampharos King]

The courtroom scene was meh and all it did was make the entire context of the episode feel somewhat glorified when it should not have been. This was a plot point that had only been briefly mentioned near the end of an episode that aired more than a year and a half ago, yet the writers wanted to make it seem like Suwama is important enough to explain his perspective on the issue. I can understand wjy Iris is upset, considering that she wanted to catch that Tepig at first and was disgusted when she found out that someone tied its mouth to a post. But what are the other pokemon on the jury doing there?

Since they belong to Ash and co. and some of them are Tepig's friends, it is already clear that they will be biased to support one side. It was annoying to hear all of those pokemon screaming after Iris finished yelling at Suwama first. It didn't help the plot move along and it made me feel that all of those pokemon should not have been in the episode. The problem with BW is that it makes every little instance of wrongdoing into a big promotion; one side is clearly wrong and half of the episode needs to be spent to jam that lesson into the wrongdoer's head. Ironically, there was no "fair trial" here, not even in this courtroom.

It only took a few minutes for Paul to explain why he treated his Chimchar harshly in DP, and without the theatrics it made the entire plot move along very quickly and actually provided a rational context for Paul's decisions when he trained his pokemon. Yes, there were certainly some disagreements and hostility between the two sides back then, but it was not something that was just focused on to make one side feel like dirt. That little plot point made all of the difference when everything related to Paul had been settled at the end of DP. This culminated in the consesus that even though two individuals may share the same goals, they may be different in the methods that they use to get there. It was a solution that benefitted both sides of the Chimchar issue.

After that big mishap of a scene, the plot finally started to move along and the episode got progressively better. Once the writer started to focus more on Tepig's feelings, Ash and co. were able to understand why it wants to be with its original trainer and that it felt guilty for losing in a battle to please Suwama. For once, we got some real interaction between Tepig and Snivy.

The double battle would have been decent if it had not been something that was repeated from the DP tag battle arc. In both cases, Ash's side uses a Grass-type starter pokemon and a Fire-type starter pokemon against a fully evolved pokemon and a non-evolution pokemon. The fire-type starter was not willing to fight back at first, which meant that the Grass-type starter had to fend against the two powerful opponents. Eventually the Grass-type was defeated while it protected the Fire-type, which later made the Fire-type feel guilty enough to want to battle against the opposition. Although the contexts of both matches were different (Ash is battling by himself here, while he was tagged with another trainer in DP), it didn't make the match feel any better.

And as with BW tradition, whenever a pokemon is seen struggling against an opponent that it cannot defeat on its own, it will evolve into its next stage and learn a new attack. Yes, Tepig evolves into a Pignite, learns Fire Pledge, and somehow defeats two fully evolved Fire-type pokemon (including its evolution). I am not really a big fan of these turnarounds, but BW has overplayed these evolutions to the point that I do not care as much anymore.

And to go back to another trainer that released his Fire-type pokemon because it did not win any matches for him, it seems that Suwama wants Pignite back after seeing how powerful it has become. Pignite uses Flamethrower to burn his face. This scene may have been intentionally duplicated from the events that happened in the original series, in which Ash's Charmander did nearly the exact same things to its former trainer.

Overall, this episode would have been great for any newcomer of the series. It finally resolved Tepig's problems with losing, Tepig finally evolved into its mid-stage form, and Snivy and Tepig finally got to interact on a personal level. But for someone like me, who had watched the series from the very beginning, this felt like a repeat of two episodes from the past in tandem with a horrible courtoom scene. Meh episode. On another note, I hope that Ash's other starters will learn their respective Pledge moves so that the writers can expand on combination attacks in the anime.

 

[Appletree]

Suwama is Unova-Jun Fukuyama voiced-Damian, but I didn't have a problem with him at all. Infact, I like him. I hope we will see him again

I'm happy Tepig evolved and Pignite looked really adorable and huggable. But his voice...boo. Glad he didn't start to stop listening to Ash when Piggy evolved. Snivy motivating Tepig was also really cool.

Aside from that all, episode was predictable. The court scene...I felt it didn't fit in the episode but I did laugh though.

 

[WatcherMark]

I'm happy Tepig evolved and Pignite looked really adorable and huggable. But his voice...boo. Glad he didn't start to stop listening to Ash when Piggy evolved. Snivy motivating Tepig was also really cool.

Satoshi's Lizard and Hikari's Inomoo were initially obidient... it wasn't until a little while afterwards that they started acting up.