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Review S14 EP41: The Club Battle Hearts of Fury: Emolga Versus Sawk!

Iteru

Iteru

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BW41 - The Club Battle Hearts of Fury, Emolga Versus Sawk!http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/BW041

The Club Battle between Ash and Georgia continues! Snivy manages to counter Pawniard's OHKO attack Guillotine with Leaf Blade and Pawniard's blades are stuck into the rock that makes up the field. Taking the opportunity to unleash a powerful Leaf Storm which cannot be blocked, Ash and Snivy win the match which means that Ash has advanced to the semi-finals. With three places left for the semi-finals, will Cilan and Iris advance or will some of their friends make it instead?

Time zone changes suck :p
 
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I liked finally seeing this in English. True, Emolga's full obedience may be up for debate, but why should that matter? Just take what you get: good battles and a good episode.

Yeah, Cilan kinda blew his battle, but he did a good job boosting Luke's confidence. I hope we see him again, and maybe his Larvesta will be a full-fledged Volcarona. =)
 
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Cilan in this episode oh my god. Let me love you.

Still love Georgia too. and i sort of ship her with burgundy
 
I really think Iris shows her understanding of Emolga, which justifies this for me. Yeah, Cilan, you really should learn to keep your mouth shut. We all love your antics anyway.
 
This episode was alright, I was kind of ignored that Luke beat Cilan though it was almost like he let him because he was giving him tips throughout the entire battle. But I guess Stunfisk made up for it, Iris's battle was alright I thought it was kind of boring.
 
It's Stunfisk. DX It's like just throwing a whoopie cushion into the ring and hoping for the best.
 
TCPi needs to seriously stop cranking the French aspect of Burgundy's character up to eleven. She's seriously the most heavily rewritten character in the Best Wishes dub so far. I can't wait to see dub-only fans reaction to the next episode. :p
 
Eitarou said:
You know, now I get why they changed Tasting Time to Evaluating Time...

Such a line would be kind of gross in the English Dub, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

Especially considering Burgundy actually tried to "taste" Snivy once. XD
 
This episode was pretty fun. But you know what would have made it better? If, you know, it was Jimmy Ray who fought Stephan and Sawk. This episode seriously needed some creepy stalker goodness.

Eitarou said:
Stunfisk totally threw that match.
Click to expand...
Just to troll Cilan. She is a fickle mistress, isn't she?
 
Wow, Cilan really knows how to pose. XD

His battle with Luke was the most entertaining yet. It kind of made me think that Luke would be a better main protagonist instead of Ash...

Speaking of Ash, didn't anyone else keep forgetting that he was even there? He just sort of faded into the background... The part where he said that Cilan makes the best Pokemon food made me laugh, though. Far away, a single tear rolls down Brock's cheek.
 
Another great BW episode.

I do have the feeling that the title screen was a tad bit crowded, especially of the long episode title.

The battles were pretty entertaining, especially Iris VS Stephan. Luke VS Cilan was decent, but way too much talk and less battle. Iris's strategy was great. Nice to finally see a Sawk in the anime. The Derpfish was great. I love the strategies used.

For Ash VS Georgia, it was nice to see Snivy recover so quickly. I loved how Snivy was so smug. That's my grass-type starter.

This episode was also great in showing each character's personality. I have to say, the characters in this series are really diverse. I like it.
 
Speaking of Snivy, I loved when she smacked Burgundy away. Burgundy totally deserved that after making everyone endure her constant French babbling.
 
I still think Emolga suddenly becoming totally straightened out is bullshit she totally should've just thrown the match the second she realized she couldn't seduce the Sawk to do her bidding, especially since this is TWICE now that Emolga's done this and... god, it's so lazy. Why is everything about Iris so lazily handled?

And still, knowing ahead of time that she's gonna win this whole thing puts such a sour taste in my mouth. All she's doing outside of her battling is being a bitch to Georgia and bitching about Cilan being awesome. Why the fuck should anybody actively want her to win this? The way the writers set this up is just all wrong. If you knew nothing about the end result, you could've sworn they're doing what they can to build up either Ash or Luke as the winner. They're the ones who are really affected by what's going on here. I still question the logic of being able to physically break status moves, too. It was bullshit when Trip's Servine did it, and it's bullshit now. I honestly don't remember status shit like this being canceled out so easily before BW. And oh, nice how Static disables Sawk right at the most convenient moment. Just like everything about Iris' storyline.

And why so relentless with the unfunny running gags? Stephan's in particular was brought up like every other minute, literally. Bianca, you could've been so useful bringing some actual flavor to the peanut gallery the way Burgundy and Georgia do, but nope, you're eternally stuck in the stupid Zorua gag, huh? It's like the writers are actively tryng to make me not like her. It doesn't work that way, writers. You made Bianca an otherwise likable character, remember? One stupid running gag accomplishes nothing but filling up time. But obviously that was probably your main concern here because why worry about the quality of the battles, right?

But admittedly I did like Cilan/Luke. Yes, it was overly verbose, but I like how that actually backfired on Cilan and was probably the main cause for his loss. Hoisted by his own petard, as it were. Things like that are nice. And it helped make Luke a more enjoyable character... and I'm not gonna lie, using String Shot to block water is actually pretty damn clever. That makes loads more sense than beating up sparkles shaped like hearts into pieces even though it's not supposed to be solid matter.

But yeah, that battle, anything Burgundy does, and anything Georgia does that doesn't involve Iris pretty much prevents the episode from being a TOTAL travesty.

Still, events like this are supposed to be epic and not so horribly flawed. Remember the Tag Battle? How flawed was that? Not very, right? You could see the effort being put in there. Don Battle? A royal fucking mess. I can't tell if the writers just had feuds about what direction they wanted to take the saga (which would explain a lack of focus and the clusterfucked feeling) or if they just plain didn't care and tossed a coin to determine who'd win the whole thing.

My guess is that it's a little bit of both. And good god, it's only gonna get worse from here...
 
I guess all of the main characters do their training off-screen.

It was bad enough to see that Emolga decided to obey Iris's commands when she was shown to cause trouble in her previous apperance, but now it seems that Cilan had taught Stunfisk its "brand-new" Scald move off-screen as well.

Aside from these minor inconveniences, the battles in this episode were well executed. It was nice to see that Cilan was fighting against a "novice" trainer like Luke who assumed that there must only be one way for each pokemon to battle. Cilan ordering Stunfisk to "fly" in the air is proof that his battle style is becoming more unconventional, reflecting on his previous status as a Gym Leader who would fight several types of challengers.

Iris's match against Stephan is also further evidence that persistence and luck (such as the activation of Emolga's Static) play a huge role when deciding the outcome of a battle. Iris had a complete disadvantage in this battle right from the start. Aside from Sawk receiving special training to resist Emolga's Attract attacks, he used Bulk Up several times throughout the battle to increase his attacking power. Emolga was unable to use any Flying-type attacks that could have given it an upper hand. If it were not for Emolga's Static ability, who knows if Iris would have been able to win this battle?

The character interactions in this episode weren't too intrusive on the battling as they had been in the first two episodes. I have to say that this was the best episode of the Club Battle Tournament saga. It was nice to see that the writer of this episode gave room for Cilan, Iris, and Luke to develop as characters.
 
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Iris's strategy was great, Emolga used Static, along with the side effect of Close Combat, to dramatically slow down Sawk to the point of complete immobilization. She then defeated Sawk with a powerful Volt Switch attack.
 
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I love all the luck that happened in this episode. Snivy's battle was anti-climactic, given how last episode was a cliffhanger. I also found it odd that Ash would command Snivy to attack Pawniard, who was using Guillotine of all moves, and is quite the sharp-edged pokemon, head on with Leaf Blade. Regardless, Snivy is great. Luke's battle and victory were cool, even though Cilan battled him with a fish. (Luke absorbed everything Cilan said quickly.) I like the development of what a gym leader is, oddly. Iris and Emolga against Sawk--again, I like the luck aspect of the battle. I found the use of Attract excellent (though, accustomed with the games as I am, I had to accept that odd, substantive hearts can be destroyed) at the end, as I merely supposed that a paralyzed, infatuated Sawk wouldn't be able to get an attack off.

Bianca's fascination with Zorua is starting to get a little heavy--granted, you may have gotten tired of it an episode or two ago.

Oh, right:

Ash: Huh? Stunfisk flies?
 
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Slight improvement on last week. Absolutely no Trip, for one thing.

The battles are still lacking, but it's good to see Stunfisk once again in Cilan and Luke's battle. Cilan should've won, though; he definitely had the upper-hand, even with all the advice he was giving to Luke. Stephan and Iris' battle was awful. Right from the beginning, there was no chance of me enjoying it, what with Emolga's obedience problems vanishing into thin air for apparently no reason, but what the heck was that heart punching crap all about? Simply avoiding the attack would have been fine, guys. Sawk was the much better combatant, but of course, pure luck and Static had to come to Emolga and Iris' rescue. I wish Stephan used a Throh with Guts instead, that would have created a nice twist.

Man, are the jokes getting old. Stephan couldn't have put it better, even if he's one of the main culprits of this tedium. Get me out of Groundhog Day, Dialga! The only parts I liked were Burgundy and Georgia's comments, which are far more entertaining than anything Iris comes up with. Again, as I wondered two weeks ago, why should I side with her in the rivalry with Georgia, especially since she's actually deliberately annoying Georgia? Our leading lady, everyone. Georgia feels like my representative in the show.

By far the best thing in the episode was Snivy. She looked adorable when Ash held her in his arms, and I loved it when she used Vine Whip on Burgundy. She clearly holds long grudges.

Just one episode remaining, and oh boy, I'm not looking forward to it. At all.
 
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