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Review JN129: The Finals I: "Torrent"

This is so much better than Ash vs Cynthia already, the battle is going great so far! If it keeps this up it might be a top 5, even top 3/2 battle as a whole.
Positives:
Seeing Dawn and Chloe cheering on Ash was cute
TRio Ash’s biggest fans
Corphish, Kingler, Buizel and Oshawott are happy
Allister, M8, and Marnie cameos
Animation was sick, the zoom up shot of Cinderace reminding me of the XY days
Libero Cinderace
Inteleon vs Gengar was excellent! I love seeing Inteleon using Countershield and Gengar countering it by using Will-O-Wisp!
GMAX Gengar using Max Ooze was great and I liked how it KOed Inteleon. Inteleon’s finger guns and how it dodger attacks with its slender build was great.
Mr. Rime tap dancing! Seeing it freeze the Sludge Bomb and Gengar was great, and seeing Cursed Body activate was great too. Liked how Gengar was KOed with Psychic Terrain plus Expanding Force. Also Mr Rime ice skating!!!!
Negatives:
No GMAX Inteleon
Dawn and Chloe being the only one at the stadium and not Ash’s own mom is WTF. Brock, Misty, and especially Serena have to show up physically. This is my major complaint.
 
Gengar vs. Intelleon was really good, people may not notice without subs but Gengar's cursed body is one of the reasons it won. Really liked how Intelleon's legs were cuffed together too. The torrent attack splashing on Gengar was also very well animated. I was surprised to see the Project Mew crew at the beginning too. It doesn't really make sense why Iris and the other champs didn't stay at the stadium, but at least Cynthia and Diantha are still there.

cricketlaxwolvesbandy said:
This is so much better than Ash vs Cynthia already, the battle is going great so far! If it keeps this up it might be a top 5, even top 3/2 battle as a whole.
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I mean the start is very similar to Cynthia's. Leon constantly switches his pokemon (taking out Cinderace) the same way Cynthia switched with Spiritomb and then Roserade/Togekiss, and Ash's strategy on one pokemon was very similar to what he used with Pikachu last time. I think the Cynthia one had a slightly stronger start, as Spiritomb's strategy to immobilize Dragonite and wearing down his team and then Destiny Bonding Pikachu were excellent moves. I don't really view it as that much better. Gengar performed well in both.

But so far this is good too, Mr. Rime was also fun.
 
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I really enjoyed this episode. I admit, I'm not all for Dande letting Satoshi use all his gimmicks in for the battle. I mean, I get that it makes things more exciting and action packed (as if the Masters finals weren't already exciting enough) but in the end all it'll do is make Satoshi look bad; if Satoshi wins, it'll feel like he only won due to an unfair advantage but if he loses it makes it look like he can't defeat the champion even with extra power on his side. The poor kid can't win either way. I only wish Dande had a Z-Ring or Mega Ring stashed away somewhere. Also, nice to see him and his brother finally share a scene.

We had some great animation in this episode, the best part being when Intereon used its own version of Counter Shield (even if Gangar did forget it could fly for a few seconds). I also admit, I was never much of a fan of Barrikohru before this episode but seeing it in action has really made me appreciate the guy. I loved how it moved and battled, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more next week. Also nice to see Gigantamax Gangar for what is probably the final time, although it disappoints me that we'll probably never get to see Gigantamax Pikachu again as a trade-off. I also liked how the show remembered that G-Max Terror prevents an opponent from switching, even though that wasn't a factor in this battle.

I love how Hikari just randomly decided to turn up for this... guess her VA is easily available right now. Real shame Satoshi's mom couldn't be bothered to make the trip, considering how easy and cheap it is to travel between regions in this series. It baffles me she and Okido made it to Alola and not this... I get the sense Galar is closer than Alola and this competition looks like a much bigger deal than the Manalo Conference did.
 
Lightning Flame Blast said:
What do you know, Ash actually feels competent and even drew first blood! That’s a great start.

The animation definitely feels lively this time around. I love how nimble all of Leon’s pokemon felt moving through the field (I’m obsessed with Mr. Time’s tap dancing)
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dont jinx it, you know a combined strike team of paul, alain, and that one fuck with a darkrai are just going to cash out and make Ash job
 
So far, bar outcome, seems the main hiccup could be the companion count. We'll see how that goes I suppose. Cameos are theoretically endless with this one in potential, so short of Finals #.5: Cameo, they can't really please everyone.
 
I was concerned about this episode at first after watching the rest of Journeys' third season but thankfully it seems like my concerns can rest. The animation in the battle was pretty great; It's not XY or SM levels of good but it's still a lot better than the first half of the M8. It feels much more fast-paced like Ash vs Cynthia. I also like how Leon basically stole Ash's counter-shield strategy he used during the Ash vs Cynthia fight with Intileon, that was a very neat little surprise. I also like how we get to see some cameos from the other champions watching the battle, that was pretty nice. Also, Piplup appears in this episode. And every episode features Dawn's Piplup and it is automatically an amazing 100/10.

But the episode does have some problems It felt like most of the episode was just commentary and setup rather than actually seeing the battle. It's not a massive issue with the episode or anything, I just wished the episode got to the battle a little sooner. There's also the fact that despite the episode(s) being advertised that all of Ash's past companions will come to the stadium to watch...we only see Dawn and Chloe. Though, to be fair the other companions could return in the later parts so I'll let this slide for now.

This episode was pretty good, nothing amazing but it is a good start to Ash vs Leon.

Score:
7/10, can't wait for the next three parts.
 
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After being conflicted about it at first, I now love and appreciate this episode for doing something that I always wanted to happen.
It finally giving my Inteleon so much love from the Twitter community after being ridiculed for 3 years <3

IIRC, a similar thing happened with Rillaboom.

Who ever would've guessed that all it needed to take for people to finally start warming up to the Galar Starters was to see those mofos in a proper battle?

Could've saved so much time.
Thanks for nothing Goh

(Now I can only imagine how popular the Galar Starters would've been if they went to Ash? :unsure:)
 
Rainbow-Rain said:
After being conflicted about it at first, I now love and appreciate this episode for doing something that I always wanted to happen.
It finally giving my Inteleon so much love from the Twitter community after being ridiculed for 3 years <3

IIRC, a similar thing happened with Rillaboom.

Who ever would've guessed that all it needed to take for people to finally start warming up to the Galar Starters was to see those mofos in a proper battle?

Could've saved so much time.
Thanks for nothing Goh

(Now I can only imagine how popular the Galar Starters would've been if they went to Ash? :unsure:)
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Ash makes any mon he touches popular or more popular than they already are. He's powerful that way.
 
Rintro said:
Gengar vs. Intelleon was really good, people may not notice without subs but Gengar's cursed body is one of the reasons it won. Really liked how Intelleon's legs were cuffed together too.
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That's actually G-Max Terror's side effect. It prevents the target from switching out.
WatcherMark said:
I also liked how the show remembered that G-Max Terror prevents an opponent from switching, even though that wasn't a factor in this battle.
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If it wasn't for G-Max Terror, Leon could've switched Inteleon out before G-Max Gengar had the opportunity to knock it out. It was definitely a factor in this battle, especially since it's already been shown that Leon can dynamically switch his Pokemon throughout a battle (eg. immediately switching Cinderace out after Pikachu was also switched out).

Another small detail I noticed on a second viewing was that Inteleon's final attack forced Gengar's G-Max phase to end early, since Gengar only got to use two Max moves. The commentator attributed it to Inteleon's Dark Pulse hitting a critical weak point, which might be soft confirmation that Inteleon has its Hidden Ability, Sniper. Anyway, thanks to Inteleon's efforts, Mr. Rime didn't have to deal with Gengar's G-Max form and could easily take it out.
 
KrspaceT said:
Ash makes any mon he touches popular or more popular than they already are. He's powerful that way.
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All this episode did was validate literally EVERYTHING people like @Ghost Diplocaulus @Unireon @A Wild Luxray @Enzo and @Kurolegacy have been saying right from the very start!

These guys KNEW that Goh wouldn't be able to show off the Galarian Starters true potential.

They KNEW that the Galar Starters needed an actual Trainer who Battles and not just collects Pokemon

These guys should seriously applaud themselves because EVERY SINGLE THING they said about Goh having all the Starters was completely correct
tenor (2).gif
 
I must’ve missed the part where Goh didn’t battle with Intellion because it definitely did in two major PM episodes at least, and also the part where Ash battling Leon’s somehow means it’s because of Ash that it got to look cool when it’s Leon’s Pokémon?
 
Soniman said:
I must’ve missed the part where Goh didn’t battle with Intellion because it definitely did in two major PM episodes at least, and also the part where Ash battling Leon’s somehow means it’s because of Ash that it got to look cool when it’s Leon’s Pokémon?
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I'm sorry but my memory is fuzzy.
I remember the Kingdra episode but where else did it battle?

But I was saying that because we saw how Inteleon, Cinderace, and Rillaboom with someone who actually battles more often, it managed to give them a better reception in people's eyes than they did when they were shown with Goh

Edit: Oh never mind I just remembered that Battle Royale episode
 
Kurolegacy said:
You know, it’s worth noting that with them having had Iris leave and Koharu show up for the finals, they missed the opportunity to have Koharu meet all of Ash’s female traveling companion who returned in Journeys.
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I still don't understand why Iris left if she was going to watch Ash battle anyways?

Diantha and Cynthia got to stick around
 
Okay, I finally finished watching the episode and so far I'm enjoying this battle. And I gotta say, THIS is what I was expecting to see an Undefeated World Champion do in a battle: I love how we saw Leon not only execute multiple different strategies that employ Abilities and move combos (seriously, his use of Cinderace's Libero and Mr. Rime's Psychic Terrain+Expanding Force was just... chef's kiss) but even borrow one of Ash's most famous ones in Counter Shield. It's a huge shame we only ever got Leon brute-forcing his way through opponents up until now, but better late than never I suppose.

With Ash getting the first KO I'm starting to suspect that we indeed might end up getting a Drake-esque situation where Ash manages to beat Leon's team down to Charizard with most of his Pokemon still active only for Charizard to pull off a comeback sweep that concludes with a very narrow by-the-skin-of-his-teeth win for Ash. Or maybe Leon will conserve his World Champion title regardless, but it'll most likely be a close fight either way.

Now, regarding the removal of the Gimmick Restriction... I am still holding onto the hope that we'll see Leon use multiple Gigantamaxes courtesy of Eternatus's energy (Inteleon might be down, but Leon's still got three other Gigantamax-capable Pokemon. Granted, I would have preferred G-Max Inteleon over Rillaboom since we've already seen the latter and not the former, but oh well), and with Ash having already used up G-Max Gengar it'll certainly be an uphill climb for our boy and his team. Heck, if anything, Ash is in kind of a bind right now: of the Pokemon that he's still got left Pikachu and Lucario are really the only semi-safe answers he's got for Mr. Rime, but those two are his remaining Gimmick users, so he can't really afford to tire them out this early (especially when Pikachu has already taken a big hit from Cinderace's Scorching Sands), and while Freeze-Dry is currently out of commission, that won't be the case forever, so should Ash decide to take advantage of Mr. Rime's lack of Ice STAB and send out one of his dragons, regardless of if it's Dragonite or Dracovish they need to defeat Mr. Rime right away (because remember that Freeze-Dry has the secondary effect of being super effective on Water-types, meaning that both Dragonite and Dracovish have a x4 weakness to it).

Dawn and Chloe coming to Wyndon Stadium to cheer on Ash is sweet too, if somewhat random. My guess is that they have a sixth sense that alerted them to Goh's absence and, knowing that Ash will need all the in-person cheerleaders he can get, they both decided to fill in that vacancy :p

In conclusion, I'm looking forward to what comes next. I just hope Dragonite gets a win because she's gone too long without one.

Rainbow-Rain said:
All this episode did was validate literally EVERYTHING people like @Ghost Diplocaulus @Unireon @A Wild Luxray @Enzo and @Kurolegacy have been saying right from the very start!

These guys KNEW that Goh wouldn't be able to show off the Galarian Starters true potential.

They KNEW that the Galar Starters needed an actual Trainer who Battles and not just collects Pokemon

These guys should seriously applaud themselves because EVERY SINGLE THING they said about Goh having all the Starters was completely correct
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D'aww, I'm flattered! :bulbaLove:

You shouldn't applaud me too much for this, though. I mean, to be fair, Goh did get to show off both Cinderace and Inteleon a little bit, so really it was mainly the Grookey line that got the worst deal. And we were hardly the only people pointing out that giving all three Galar Starters to Goh wasn't the best idea even on this forum. Pretty sure that at least @Hidden Mew was at least skeptical of that writing decision as well, for example.
 
Soniman said:
I must’ve missed the part where Goh didn’t battle with Intellion because it definitely did in two major PM episodes at least, and also the part where Ash battling Leon’s somehow means it’s because of Ash that it got to look cool when it’s Leon’s Pokémon?
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Go might get occasional spats but honestly, compare him in his showing of the Galar starters to the likes of Ash, May, Dawn, Paul, Trip, Alain, Sawyer, etc when it came to showing the starters in impressive ways. It doesn’t even begin to compare. Leon basically gives us a peek into what kind of showing we could have had for the starters had they gone to a trainer with a more action oriented goal that gave the Pokémon moments to really shine.
 
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I am not seeing anyone mention it so was it just the video I watched or did some of the animations seem... slower than they should have been? Didn't effect my enjoyment but it was noticable to me.
 
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