Review S14 EP42: Club Battle Finale: A Hero's Outcome!

[Trainer Gabriel]

Yes but to some like Shinneth and Dogasu, there was more than just Iris dragging down this arc. Ask them.

All the Likes I recieved from Shinneth for this whole debate imply that she agrees that Iris is still the biggest factor to the letdown of this arc. But I've got nothing more to say, as I thought I already made my point clear that Iris happens to be the number one most controversial part of the event, regardless.

 

[matt0044]

All the Likes I recieved from Shinneth for this whole debate imply that she agrees that Iris is still the biggest factor to the letdown of this arc. But I've got nothing more to say, as I thought I already made my point clear that Iris happens to be the number one most controversial part of the event, regardless.

Whatever you say. Though I agree with Shinneth on other stuff other than Iris. Speaking of which, Iris is just plain controversial with or without the arc.

 

[pokemike]

I'm very curious as to why Axew is hated for learning Outrage. The anime=/= the games.

Spoiler

In one of the next episodes Scraggy learns Hi Jump Kick. This is a move that is more powerful and more practical because it doesn't have as big of a draw back. Axew is older than Scraggy, trained longer, Battled more, and as of now is more powerful. So why is it that everyone can except Scraggy learning a 130 base power attack when its only draw back is that if it misses Scraggy takes damage, while Axew learns a 120 base power attack with the drawback of not being able to stop and getting confused afterward.
Scraggy ends up defeating a fully evolved opponent that it wouldn't have been able to defeat otherwise.

In pokemon, moves don't match up to the game in terms of power. We have had moves like whirlpool and fire spin doing far more damage than they should.

 

[Caseydia]

Whatever you say. Though I agree with Shinneth on other stuff other than Iris. Speaking of which, Iris is just plain controversial with or without the arc.

That's not true. If she didn't participate in the tournament, we wouldn't even be talking about her right now.

 

[Hellion]

I'm very curious as to why Axew is hated for learning Outrage.

Well, I think part of it is Axew learning a powerful move like Outrage (even though game =/= animé, outrage is still portrayed as a very powerful move), but if it was just that, I don't think there would be that much outrage about it. It's also the manner in which it was learned, the when it was learned, the what came before that ultimately makes this move on the writers' part somewhat jarring (ok, I'm stopping with the puns). Axew wasn't shown to be able hold its own in a real trainer battle as the only opponents he'd ever defeated were Zuruggu and Team Rocket's pokémon after they'd been tenderized by Ash and Cilan's pokémon, it was desperately losing this battle against Golett in the semifinals of a tournament, Iris was just standing on the sidelines saying, "Axew, no" At this point, had the writers been consequent with what they had done with Axew, they would've had him lose the battle, but instead... poof. Miraculously, it suddenly masters a very powerful move that totally destroys his opponent, despite Luke having a superior strategy and a much much stronger pokémon. Overall, it felt not the logical progression of Axew's characterization, but just a cheap cop-out to justify Iris making it to the finals.

Compared to Scraggy learning Hi Jump Kick, Scraggy didn't miraculously master the move, it was taught Hi Jump Kick by a stronger pokémon, did not immediately master the move (was shown to initially fail), there were no stakes in the battle and the pokémon he defeated wasn't totally destroyed and even still able to talk and fly afterwards, and Scraggy was shown subsequently to use this move against Axew and it didn't really make him a whole lot stronger. Overall, it felt much more like a natural progression of the character and less forced to give Ash something he did not deserve.

 

[matt0044]

That's not true. If she didn't participate in the tournament, we wouldn't even be talking about her right now.

But weren't we talking about her BEFORE the tournament? About how she's annoying and lacking in development so far? I admit that Iris's Club Battle victory upped the ante on people's hate on her but even without said victory or whatever, we'd still be talking about her.

Or did you mean something else?

 

[Shinneth]

For the record, I do feel that Iris is the aspect of this arc that drags it down the most. Yes, there are a ton of other problems not related to Iris at all that plagued the Don Battle as well and impeded my ability to enjoy it, but even in the first episode, which I consider to be the least-offensive one of the four, I had a foul attitude watching it because I already knew Iris would be winning the whole thing even though pretty much every character EXCEPT her had more engaging build-up for progressing and potentially winning the Don Battle. But if I hadn't spoiled myself ahead of time, I'd have been even more furious about this episode's outcome because it is essentially a swerve. By the third episode, it felt like Ash and Luke were the ones meant to be in the finals. Throughout the entire arc, I was not compelled in the least to see Iris win; if she wasn't deliberately being bitchy towards Georgia, she was killing the mood with her usual negative remarks when the characters are being awesome.

So all the factors pour into a simple equation:

A) We rarely ever saw Iris do serious training with her Pokemon, and only her Excadrill is qualified to take a beating. Prior to the Don Battle, Emolga was still not on the same page with Iris and Axew was clearly not suited to take on seasoned competitors yet.
B) Iris' attitude throughout the whole Don Battle arc didn't once make me connect with her or want her to win. She sure as hell didn't need this kind of win, either.
C) Just to get Iris moving up in the ranks, they completely drop Emolga's characterization for no reason whatsoever just to get her through the first two rounds. The bonus being that their clumsy attempt to "justify" it didn't occur until the SECOND time Iris used Emolga.
D) Again, just to prevent Iris from losing a battle she didn't deserve to win, Axew is granted the most conveniently-timed DEM in learning Outrage, which as we've said makes no sense given Axew's clearly-stated low level, how it managed to pull Outrage off the first time flawlessly even though it took forever to master Dragon Rage, and the fact that Outrage alone was enough to take Golett out. So Iris had no hand in that victory whatsoever, and her Axew now has a vastly overpowered move which does differ from other times Pokemon learned new moves spontaneously because they usually made sense given their level of expertise and did not single-handedly win them their battles. Games =/= Anime, yes, but the anime's been increasingly more faithful to mimicking game mechanics over the years (or at least until DP) and seeing as there was a perfectly usable Dragon-type move, Dual Chop, that could have been learned instead and would have made loads more sense. But nope, we've got Outrage instead. Just to make Iris and her Pokemon all the more extravagant for no reason.
E) After 4 episodes, the climax of the Don Battle is... a painfully foregone conclusion. Seriously. They may as well have just handed Iris the feathers and not bothered with the final battle. It's really not a good way to gage Ash's power versus Iris' when Pikachu was outrageously nerfed by being able to use only half its moves, and both moves were ineffective against Excadrill. Ash did what he could given his severely limited options, but there was no strategy from Iris. Any mook with an Excadrill could've beaten Ash, especially with the move set Iris' had. And honestly, did any of us REALLY want to see Ash vs Iris? They travel together. We could see them battle like... any time. We didn't need a lengthy tournament to railroad to this match-up. The only thing that would've been worthwhile would be Ash winning and Iris being humbled, possibly treating Ash a bit differently from now on, but nope. Dynamics did not change one bit. So the final battle was a grandiose waste of time, Iris didn't need the extra glorification, and even though it was a legit win on her part... it still feels cheap, because as I said, Ash had no real advantage in the battle whatsoever. Anyone could have beat him in that scenario. It should be a hollow victory, but like hell will the anime acknowledge that after all that time they wasted!

The fact that the Iris stuff related to the central plot of this arc is what makes it especially bad for me. The running gags, while godawful and overused, were still pointless side-distractions. Most of the battles sucked, but that's on par for the course of BW battles in general. Yeah, they should've upped the ante for a tournament like this, but it's still not quite as offensive as the stuff revolving around Iris is. Most of the bad battles WERE ones Iris was partaking in IMO, so there's that, too. Mix-n-matching rivals turned out to be an underutilized bust, but again, this is BW. They can only disappoint me so much before it hits rock bottom.

... So! The Don Battle had its good points, but were well outnumbered with bad points, and the core of the story contained the worst of them. That's what makes Iris' part in the tournament so notably bad to me... and probably others as well.

 

[matt0044]

For the record, I do feel that Iris is the aspect of this arc that drags it down the most. Yes, there are a ton of other problems not related to Iris at all that plagued the Don Battle as well and impeded my ability to enjoy it, but even in the first episode, which I consider to be the least-offensive one of the four, I had a foul attitude watching it because I already knew Iris would be winning the whole thing even though pretty much every character EXCEPT her had more engaging build-up for progressing and potentially winning the Don Battle. But if I hadn't spoiled myself ahead of time, I'd have been even more furious about this episode's outcome because it is essentially a swerve. By the third episode, it felt like Ash and Luke were the ones meant to be in the finals. Throughout the entire arc, I was not compelled in the least to see Iris win; if she wasn't deliberately being bitchy towards Georgia, she was killing the mood with her usual negative remarks when the characters are being awesome.

So all the factors pour into a simple equation:

A) We rarely ever saw Iris do serious training with her Pokemon, and only her Excadrill is qualified to take a beating. Prior to the Don Battle, Emolga was still not on the same page with Iris and Axew was clearly not suited to take on seasoned competitors yet.
B) Iris' attitude throughout the whole Don Battle arc didn't once make me connect with her or want her to win. She sure as hell didn't need this kind of win, either.
C) Just to get Iris moving up in the ranks, they completely drop Emolga's characterization for no reason whatsoever just to get her through the first two rounds. The bonus being that their clumsy attempt to "justify" it didn't occur until the SECOND time Iris used Emolga.
D) Again, just to prevent Iris from losing a battle she didn't deserve to win, Axew is granted the most conveniently-timed DEM in learning Outrage, which as we've said makes no sense given Axew's clearly-stated low level, how it managed to pull Outrage off the first time flawlessly even though it took forever to master Dragon Rage, and the fact that Outrage alone was enough to take Golett out. So Iris had no hand in that victory whatsoever, and her Axew now has a vastly overpowered move which does differ from other times Pokemon learned new moves spontaneously because they usually made sense given their level of expertise and did not single-handedly win them their battles. Games =/= Anime, yes, but the anime's been increasingly more faithful to mimicking game mechanics over the years (or at least until DP) and seeing as there was a perfectly usable Dragon-type move, Dual Chop, that could have been learned instead and would have made loads more sense. But nope, we've got Outrage instead. Just to make Iris and her Pokemon all the more extravagant for no reason.
E) After 4 episodes, the climax of the Don Battle is... a painfully foregone conclusion. Seriously. They may as well have just handed Iris the feathers and not bothered with the final battle. It's really not a good way to gage Ash's power versus Iris' when Pikachu was outrageously nerfed by being able to use only half its moves, and both moves were ineffective against Excadrill. Ash did what he could given his severely limited options, but there was no strategy from Iris. Any mook with an Excadrill could've beaten Ash, especially with the move set Iris' had. And honestly, did any of us REALLY want to see Ash vs Iris? They travel together. We could see them battle like... any time. We didn't need a lengthy tournament to railroad to this match-up. The only thing that would've been worthwhile would be Ash winning and Iris being humbled, possibly treating Ash a bit differently from now on, but nope. Dynamics did not change one bit. So the final battle was a grandiose waste of time, Iris didn't need the extra glorification, and even though it was a legit win on her part... it still feels cheap, because as I said, Ash had no real advantage in the battle whatsoever. Anyone could have beat him in that scenario. It should be a hollow victory, but like hell will the anime acknowledge that after all that time they wasted!

The fact that the Iris stuff related to the central plot of this arc is what makes it especially bad for me. The running gags, while godawful and overused, were still pointless side-distractions. Most of the battles sucked, but that's on par for the course of BW battles in general. Yeah, they should've upped the ante for a tournament like this, but it's still not quite as offensive as the stuff revolving around Iris is. Most of the bad battles WERE ones Iris was partaking in IMO, so there's that, too. Mix-n-matching rivals turned out to be an underutilized bust, but again, this is BW. They can only disappoint me so much before it hits rock bottom.

... So! The Don Battle had its good points, but were well outnumbered with bad points, and the core of the story contained the worst of them. That's what makes Iris' part in the tournament so notably bad to me... and probably others as well.

Wow, is it me or are the writer deliberately trying to make this saga suck hard? The quality couldn't have dropped this low from DP, could it? Granted, DP had a lot of bad points but it's good point kept me watching.

What's more is that these problems as you mentioned with Iris could've been fixed easily. Emolga could've been made to battle with Iris promising her all the apples she could eat if she battled. There could've been scenes where Iris trains hard with her Pokemon. There could've been real build-up to Iris's victory to develop her as well as her friendship with Ash.

But no, the writers just said screw it and went out of their way to make this arc bad, bad, bad! Considering the games they're based on, Best Wishes should've been much better than DP and not our Worst Wishes (pun intended).

 

[Caseydia]

But weren't we talking about her BEFORE the tournament? About how she's annoying and lacking in development so far? I admit that Iris's Club Battle victory upped the ante on people's hate on her but even without said victory or whatever, we'd still be talking about her.

Or did you mean something else?

No. You're right. I meant more than before. Since Iris won the thing, Iris is being complimented more. Unlike before when she was being trolled.

 

[Feenie]

I really don't see how Iris could've won against Ash... I mean, Ash who won against Gary and Paul... Two great trainers. Then, out of nowhere, Iris comes and wins. It just makes those two look really bad when they aren't. Not to mention Iris can't battle for jack normally. Maybe Excadrill could pull it off, but Axew always needs some kind of gimmick to win. Like, out of nowhere learning rage( or whatever it was:sweatlol: ) and doing his dragon sneeze. I guess that's not really a "gimmick" so to speak, but... I dunno, it seems weird to me that she could win against him.

 

[PokeMasterCroatia1997]

It was supposed to be this title! Decisive Don Battle! Satoshi VS Luke!! Not Satoshi VS Iris!!
Because Ash is a very powerful trainer even after defeating Burgundy, Georgia and Dino, he was excepting Luke in the finals because Luke face Cilan and won, then he face Iris and lose, so, if Luke would won a battle against Iris, he would battle all of his friends, but Ash may be able to stop him with final battle being my version of Zorua Vs. Pikachu and one of them take home the Wings. So the only change in Golett Vs. Axew battle could be that Axew learn Outrage, but it wasnt enough to defeat Golett and Golett wins and took itself and its trainer to the finals. Because Cilan was one round better than Burgundy, Iris could be one round better than Georgia if she loses to Luke, because it was stupid to see Ash and Iris in the finals because best friends never battle in the final round of the tournament. And now, they will face off in the semi-finals of the Junior Cup tournament! How pathetic! And even Ash loses to her then(Club Battle only, she will lose to Ash in Junior Cup)! Dont spam or hate this comment (im sorry what i wrote, honestly), if i was a writer for this episode, i will let Luke in the finals along with Ash.
Imagine! Zorua Vs. Pikachu! A great battle! I hope Ash meets up with Luke again and if they battle, they may end the battle in a draw because he has 1 win, 1 loss and then 1 draw.
Im out.