Review Japanese "Kyurem VS the Sacred Swordsman: Keldeo" & "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital" DVD

[Dogasu]

The DVD and Blu-ray for the second Best Wishes! movie (#15 overall) comes out in Japan today!

This is the first time this movie has been made available on DVD / Blu-ray anywhere in the world. This is also the first chance most of you guys here will get to watch the Meloetta short.

I know most of you have already expressed your opinions about the movie itself in the dub review thread, so please use this thread to talk about the Japanese version and the Meloetta short.

 

[Karamazov]

Re: Japanese "Kyurem VS the Sacred Swordsman: Keldeo" & "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital"

So, what was the dazzling recital actually about? Besides involving Meloetta and a recital, what interesting things happened?

 

[Dogasu]

Re: Japanese "Kyurem VS the Sacred Swordsman: Keldeo" & "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital"

http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f10/kyu...eloettas-dazzling-recital-136268/#post4184770

Here's the plot of "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital." I'll post my actual thoughts on the short later.

- The short begins with all these pokemon gathered in front of Meloetta's stage. The titular pokemon flies in front of everyone, belts out a song, and makes a "Melody Tree" (メロディツリー) spring up. From this tree, five "Melody Berries" (メロディベリー) bloom. These berries create a wonderful sound that compliments Meloetta's singing.
- Nyasu is going completely crazy for Meloetta while this is going on and begins scratching the rock that he and Sonansu are sitting on, for some reason. Well, this "rock" ends up being Iwapalace, and it's not too happy about this cat pokemon scratching up its home! It lets out a powerful Sandstorm attack that scatters four of the Melody Berries away! Meloetta, with the remaining Melody Berry in her hands, floats down sadly onto the stage and mourns the loss of her Berries.
- Nyasu tells Sonansu that he plans to gather all the Melody Berries and present them to Meloetta to make her fall in love with him. Sonansu, being Sonansu, agrees. When Nyasu looks down, however, he sees that Pikachu, Mijumaru, Tsutarja, Kibago, Zurug, Emonga, and Yanapp have already started searching! He doesn't have any time to lose!
- The first Berry is found at the top of a giant tree where Waninoko is playing jump rope with Fushigidane's Vine Whip. Pikachu, Mijumaru, and Yanapp approach them and ask them to help get the Berry down. Nyasu, meanwhile, starts to climb the tree as fast as he can. He looks over and sees Waninoko usingHydro Pump and Mijumaru using Water Gun to boost Pikachu up the tree, enabling it to grab the Berry right as Nyasu reaches the top! Pikachu starts to fall, but luckily Fushigidane is able to catch it with its Vine Whip. Nyasu falls off the tree and creates a big Nyasu-size crater in the ground.
- Melody Berry #2 is found in the hands of Togepi in a rocky area of the forest. Chicorita and Achamo are nearby. The baby pokemon falls over, dropping the Berry and sending it rolling down a hill covered in holes, so Tsutarja and Emonga start to chase after it. After tripping over each other and falling into numerous holes, the pokemon reach the edge of a cliff. There, Chicorita uses its Vine Whip (I guess someone on the staff really likes this technique?) to catch the Melody Berry right as it's about to fall over the edge. Nyasu and Sonansu, meanwhile, fall into a hole and are carried away by a group of Digda. When they reach the Dugtrio at the end of the line, the two of them are sent blasting off.
- Pikachu and Mijumaru search for the third Berry near a pond. There, they meet Potchama and Zenigame and ask for their help. Potchama claims to know where the Melody Berry is and shows them a Pearlu pearl, but the others sigh and tell them that that's not it. Suddenly, they spot the Melody Berry in the claw of a Heigani! Heigani jumps underwater, so Mijumaru, Potchama, and Zenigame go in after it. What ensues is this weird "battle" where Heigani, completely unaware of what it's doing, accidentally deflects every attempt to retrieve the Berry from it. This swinging its claws around while keeping its eyes closed thing that Heigani does continues for a while, but eventually the Melody Berry is jetted out of the water where Pikachu can catch it.
- This sequence also features a ridiculous Koduck scene where it basically just stares at the camera, sweats, and lets out the most hilarious screech as it tries to figure out what's going on. I hope all of you get to see this scene, in Japanese, at least once.
- So during that previous struggle, Heigani sends Nyasu and Sonansu blasting off. As they fly through the sky, they discover the fourth and final Melody Berry sitting on top of a Fuwaride's head. Nyasu is able to get his hands on the Berry temporarily, but all the other pokemon who had been participating in the search so far spot the Berry and create a long chain of pokemon to get up to Fuwaride. Pikachu climbs up the chain and grabs the Berry.
- Now that all four of the missing Melody Berries have been found, the pokemon return them to Meloetta. A performance begins where the delighted pokemon sings that same song she's been singing in the TV series the past few weeks. Gureggru is on stage, for some reason, and has the best blank look on its face ever as Meloetta dances around it. Once that's over, it transforms into its Step Forme. The short's ending theme begins to play as all the pokemon join in on the dance.

A few other things:

- As you may have noticed from the synopsis, the base stage version of the pokemon were used whenever possible. So we get Achamo as a stand-in for Haruka's Burshamo, Chicorita as a stand-in for Satoshi's Bayleaf, etc. The only notable exceptions are Iwapalace and Charbu, the latter of whom is only seen in the crowd shots at the beginning and end.
- The narrator only has like five or six lines in this whole thing. Nyasu ends up doing most of the exposition.
- Throughout the short, we see random transition shots of Gureggru just sitting there, staring at the camera and puffing out its cheeks.
- Nyasu and Sonansu blast off three times in this short, and Nyasus says "ya na kanjii~!" at least two of those times. The final time they blast off, Sonansu joins in as well.
- The pictures of lots of (small and cute) legendary pokemon are hidden throughout the short as Easter eggs. There's a Celebi-shaped spot in a tree in the foreground, for example. The pokemon's locations are revealed during the ending theme.

 

[Adil]

Re: Japanese "Kyurem VS the Sacred Swordsman: Keldeo" & "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital"

Rewatched both, Japanese and the English, versions. I have noted down some of the scenes which were absent from the CN airing in a blog post:
M15 comparison - Original/JP VS Cartoon Network airing - Blogs - Bulbagarden Forums

 

[Eitarou]

Re: Japanese "Kyurem VS the Sacred Swordsman: Keldeo" & "Meloetta's Dazzling Recital"

Personally, I felt like this was kind of a waste of time.

I will say this, though: the visuals were beautiful.

Nice cameos, too. Except that damn Pichu...go away, you unimportant Shoko role.

Spoiler