Well... for those of you keeping up with Pokémon Special, the Ruby/Sapphire chapter finally ended last month.
So... what are your thoughts about the story that has been "ending" for over a year now?
First, I suppose, is that deus ex machina ending. There are several points that indicate it was in fact, premeditated, most of all the back-reference to episode 183 when Ruby was making some ambiguous statements. Coronis points out that we should have noticed the fact that all his Pokémon were already released from the Poké Balls. (Of course, this could also be a [wp]retcon[/wp].)
Personally, I think the part with the sudden return of Matsubusa and Aogiri was unnecessary. The story could have jumped straight to the happy ending without the need for a reset button of the time-travelling kind. Well, maybe not.... still, the violence there was gratuitious.
Another backreference of note is the ribbon that Kagari threw into the flames. It was never removed from the list of ribbons Ruby had. And he was able to participate in Contests of higher ranks without any trouble. Again, this might have been a retcon.
Then there are the forward-references, to coin a term. Contest Halls becoming Battle Tents... Sakaki picking up the ruby and the sapphire... the return of the Pokédex to Odamaki. (Speaking about that, Coronis also tells me that a forward-reference not originally present was inserted into volume 20, in episode 239.)
As an ending for RuSa, it has been a long time coming... (how many times have we thought that the end was near?) but despite all the time they had... it still could have been done better. Ah well, what's done is done.
An interesting article on Pokesho, not really related, has a few tables showing the insanity of the Pokémon Special serialisation scheme. As the author puts it, どういう小学生なら全部読めるのか、全くわかりません。 (What kind of primary school student can read all of it, I don't know at all.) We can probably look forward to DP starting in February or March 2007.
So... what are your thoughts about the story that has been "ending" for over a year now?
First, I suppose, is that deus ex machina ending. There are several points that indicate it was in fact, premeditated, most of all the back-reference to episode 183 when Ruby was making some ambiguous statements. Coronis points out that we should have noticed the fact that all his Pokémon were already released from the Poké Balls. (Of course, this could also be a [wp]retcon[/wp].)
Personally, I think the part with the sudden return of Matsubusa and Aogiri was unnecessary. The story could have jumped straight to the happy ending without the need for a reset button of the time-travelling kind. Well, maybe not.... still, the violence there was gratuitious.
Another backreference of note is the ribbon that Kagari threw into the flames. It was never removed from the list of ribbons Ruby had. And he was able to participate in Contests of higher ranks without any trouble. Again, this might have been a retcon.
Then there are the forward-references, to coin a term. Contest Halls becoming Battle Tents... Sakaki picking up the ruby and the sapphire... the return of the Pokédex to Odamaki. (Speaking about that, Coronis also tells me that a forward-reference not originally present was inserted into volume 20, in episode 239.)
As an ending for RuSa, it has been a long time coming... (how many times have we thought that the end was near?) but despite all the time they had... it still could have been done better. Ah well, what's done is done.
An interesting article on Pokesho, not really related, has a few tables showing the insanity of the Pokémon Special serialisation scheme. As the author puts it, どういう小学生なら全部読めるのか、全くわかりません。 (What kind of primary school student can read all of it, I don't know at all.) We can probably look forward to DP starting in February or March 2007.
