Review S14 EP27: The Dragon Master's Path!

Iteru

Iteru

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BW27 - "The Dragon Master's Path!"http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/BW027

Ash and Iris finish up a traning battle between Scraggy and Axew when suddenly a Druddigon attacks from the bushes! After a brief collision with one of its attacks with Pikachu's Electro Ball, a trainer appears and says that she has been looking for Druddigon, only for it to run away. Why is Druddigon running from this trainer and what has Iris picked up upon that nobody else has noticed about the Dragon-type Pokémon?
 
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I still just love this episode. Even more en english, because then I understands what they're saying :D
 
The Rockets dialogue sounded really weird. It's like the dub writers still can't figure out how to make them sound natural and badass at the same time. The acting seemed a bit poor this time around too. And what was with that music when Iris was sensing where Axew was?

But that aside, I really liked the plot of this episode. Iris got to be more proactive and the Rockets had their awesome "bitch please" moment.
 
You know, I was actually a bit disappointed that Emmy was just a one-off character. She's nice and has a interesting design. The animation for this ep was top notch. {It was a good first episode to watch in HD.} Yamask's Night Shade looks powerful.
 
I'm still disappoint that Emmie was such a boring character, because she has a really nice design and her Druddigon is really cool.

Not big on Yamask's voice, but the sound it made during Night Shade was really eerie and ghost-like, loved it!
 
I just love it when the Rockets impress me like that. :)

Night shade was pretty cool.

And Druddigon is sorta cute. I wish Emmy was more interesting too, since her design is lovely.
 
Emmi has all of the workings of a novice trainer. As she mentioned during this episode, Emmi had just started out with her father's Druddigon. Emmi has a powerful pokemon by her side, but she just isn't able to cut it with her meek personality.

This is because this entire episode was meant to highlight Iris's good points. Iris clearly wants to become the best Dragon Master she knows she can be. Iris has a lot of experience and knowledge in the innard workings of Dragon-Type pokemon in general. Iris was the only one in the group who was able to identify where Druddigon was hiding based on how the pokemon would react if its body temperature would drop. This was something that not even Druddigon's trainer showed an awareness of. Iris is also greatly attuned to nature and is capable of surviving by herself in the wild. Instead of Ash sending out a flying-type pokemon to search out the two Dragon-type pokemon from the sky, Iris was able to pintpoint their location based on the sounds she had observed. Emmi and Cilan were willing to take a "shortcut" to get to Axew and Druddigon, but Ash trusted Iris's instincts enough to follow her lead and wait out the additional time so the latter could get a trail on the Dragon-types.

We received a great amount of backstory and focus from Iris during this episode that was greatly welcomed. Prior to this episode, we only had a small taste of the relationship between Iris and Axew. We assumed at the time that Iris is only pushing Axew so far because she felt that she needed to prove herself as a capable Dragon Master. The time she spent with Ash and Cilan taught Iris that she did not need to rush Axew's development. Iris and Axew's relationship together stands more than just a simple obligation or a task passed down from a village elder. Iris truly cares about Axew's well-being in general.

So yes, the COTD in this episode was very inexperienced. This particular COTD stood out this way in order for the writers to highlight Iris's own strengths in comparison. The writers are comparing two trainers who are pushing for the same goal, but have vastly different roads ahead of them. Iris has a relatively young and inexperienced Dragon-Type pokemon, but she is able to compensate by using her own knowledge and skills. Emmi, on the other hand, was given a Dragon-Type pokemon powerful enough to give Ash's Tepig a run for its money, a pokemon that was able to master the most powerful Dragon-Type move in mere seconds; yet she herself is very flustered and confused under pressure.

I believe that Emmi's existence in this episode served as both a comparison and a contrast to Iris's own situation. Both trainers were given Dragon-Type pokemon by somebody they cared about.

Other than this, this episode was filled with the "usual" TRio appearing and causing trouble by stealing pokemon. Ash got a brief battle against Emmy and her Druddigon, but again, this episode was meant to highlight that an inexperienced trainer got immediate hold of a very powerful Dragon-type pokemon. Emmi was so confused that she actually needed Iris to stand by her side to offer a commanding presence when ordering her Druddigon to attack.
 
I liked this episode, especially at how they gave Druddigon a decent voice. It was great to see Axew finally mastering Dragon Rage, Draco Meteor was awesome to see, and Yamask's voice during Night Shade was so eerie and creepy.
 
I liked this episode. The dub was good... but it felt a little awkward.

Pros
- Axew learns Dragon Rage
- Iwane's animation
- Yamask's Night Shade voice
- Druddigon
- Iris's role in the episode

Cons
- This episode had some bizarre feel to it, for some reason.
- Team Rocket was a bit inferior compared to their two previous episodes...
- This episode had a lack of Pokémon... I wish we could've seen some more Pokémon in this episode.

An overall okay episode. It could've been better... I give it 7 points out of 10.
 
A very good episode, though with little emphasis on the Pokémon as characters this time around.

For the first time in quite a while we see a plot driven wholly by a plot by the TRio as they attempt to steal a Character of the Day's Pokémon, a daily occurrence in times past, but this time handled very differently.

  • the TRio use a robot for the first time since episode 6, and thankfully it isn't a Pokémon shaped gimmick
  • They use a pilotable robot with a cockpit for the first time in Unova
  • they attack viciously and without warning, revealing themselves and reciting the motto only once their targets appear to have been secured
  • they maintain the conviction and attitude they got once they arrived in Unova while staying true to their characters

In fact, the only thing that could have made the TRio's appearance in this episode better would have been...

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The black uniforms they came to Unova with. Now that I've seen that the Trio HAVENT regressed into goofballs once their switched back to their white outfits and have remained competent, I'm even more annoyed about Episode 23 costume change. Their apparently continued role as competent villains, especially in this episode, would have suited their black uniforms very well.

Heck, in the early Unova episodes the TRio tried to steal Pikachu in their new outfits several times and there wasn't a confusion of interests or intent at all, so i really don't know why the animators chose to hype up their uniform change before the series aired only for that to be a temporary gimmick while maintaining their new role.
 
This was a pretty good episode. I like that Axew finally knows how to use Dragon Rage. Dragon Rage looks so cool. Druddigon was also awesome. Did Emmy call Druddigon "Dragon" when she was telling it to use its moves?

Also, because of this episode, I appreciate Iris more.

TRio was also great. I LOVE their motto. I just wish they still had their black uniforms.
 
This is surely the point where Iris shows what her true potential is. In fact, now I greatly anticipate her battle with Ash in the raw. And it's all capped off with Axew finally mastering Dragon Rage. Iris is certainly a lot stronger than I thought.
 
Paperhorse said:
I just love it when the Rockets impress me like that. :)

Night shade was pretty cool.

And Druddigon is sorta cute. I wish Emmy was more interesting too, since her design is lovely.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought that, anyway I thought Druddigon's name was pronounced like Flygon's with the "gon" oh well. Anyway this was a pretty good episode I just noticed Cilan didn't say much though.
 
One of the many things I like about this ep is how well it establishes Iris's character. She's independent and headstrong, almost to a fault as we'll find out in a later episode.
 
I half-expected a comment about the Rockets "blasting off" near the end because they were pretty much literally doing that to escape... in a different way, of course.

So this was Plot Convenience no Jutsu! number one. This was an incredibly dull episode for me, but that's to be expected.
 
One of the really good Unova episodes.
We got an interesting background story that revealed much about Iris' past and her personal dream. (Considering that we've been waiting for her telling about her goal for quite a while, it was high time that we finally learned it)
Also, it was an action-packed episode revolving around dragon-type Pokemon. As these are my favorite Pokemon besides Electric-types, there's not really much to complain about. Sure, Draco Metero wasn't that impressive compared to what we've been used to since Sinnoh but it's obvious that Druddigon still has to improve.

In short, a very good episode and great entertainment!
 
The Dub made Axew mastering dragon rage make sense to me even if people didn't like it.

I'll compare it to weight lifting. There are no special tricks to being able to lift more weights except drugs apparently so the only way to become stronger is to keep doing reps of your maximum weight, and then eventually over time you'll be able lift even more weight. Or at the very least I'm pretty sure that's how getting stronger works (more work than the previous time).

How that relates to Axew mastering dragon rage is this, it seems Axew just couldn't handle the power of dragon rage, therefore it failed every time causing an involuntary reaction (sneezing). Using dragon rage over and over is probably a lot like my weight lifting analogy. Axew is getting used to the power of dragon rage, since it kept using it over and over, and is probably also finding strength to resist the "sneezing" reaction.

Thus at the point in this episode where Axew used it after Druddigon used Draco Meteor, it was just what Axew needed to pull out the stops and use Dragon Rage properly. Thus since Axew actually performed dragon rage properly, the first time, it probably knows how it feels and what to do, thus making the other times using dragon rage after this episode easier.

So going back to an old argument of "Axew mastering Dragon Rage was an ass pull." I can't help but think it wasn't. It was just the natural conclusion to using dragon rage over and over. The problem wasn't aim like Energy Ball with Turtwig, or it couldn't focus its energy very well, like I'm guessing Gible and Draco Meteor. The problem was Axew couldn't handle the power. That really can only be resolved from constantly using the attack over and over.
 
SuperTrainStationH said:
Now that I've seen that the Trio HAVENT regressed into goofballs once their switched back to their white outfits and have remained competent, I'm even more annoyed about Episode 23 costume change. Their apparently continued role as competent villains, especially in this episode, would have suited their black uniforms very well.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you keep using the word "competent" since they still failed miserably in this episode. The only difference is that they weren't being funny or entertaining while they were sucking at being threatening villains.
 
It seems I can count Night Shade as another move that has changed its appearance in the anime. But then again, I rather like this new version.
 
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