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Review SM126: Pikachu's Exciting Expedition!

Congratulations, anime. Your target age group has been lowered from 3 - 7 to 2 - 5 for having the narrator directly translate every single detail. If it's also going to be the case with the dub, we can expect the anime to jump to Disney Junior starting with the Sword and Shield series.

The idea of going around exploring, only to turn out they should've waited all along isn't really a bad plot. How it's played out is what counts, and learning new things that would provide help later on is useful. But alas, a major rule of this anime is to learn nothing because advancement means journey's end. Making this episode pointless either way.
 
BraixenFennekin said:
Pikachu's Exciting Adventure episode? What?! More like Pikachu's Boring Adventure Episode! OMG! This episode was worse! I hope this episode in English Dub does not air and get skipped! I give this episode a D.
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Well technically, this episode takes place during the events of the previous episode where Ash and Torracat were sent to the past by Celebi while Pikachu and the others went on stupid adventure looking for him. That'd explain why Ash's Pokemon were all dirty, it's because they were fighting over some berries after the encounter with a wild Crabrawler. Wouldn't it be better if Pikachu and the other Pokemon just waited for Ash and Torracat instead on searching for him and going on adventure?
 
HLqTEKY.gif


That pretty much sums up what this episode felt like to me. Though I will add just how stupid it was for Pikachu & co to travel through all those islands to find Ash when they could've just WAITED around the same spot where Ash disappeared since that's where he was obviously gonna show up.
 
RetroPokeFan said:
The Ultra Guardian medals must be super cursed or something because the moment someone puts them on, it immediately turns them super dumb.

Like, what was even the point of Ash’s Pokemon searching high and low to every section of Alola when they could have known that he’d have returned at the very same spot? It’s like that one mission in KH: 358/2 Days where Roxas is sent to find Xaldin who’s gone missing in Beast’s castle so he searches every nook and cranny for him only to then find him at the very spot he started at and then Xaldin claiming it to be a waste of time.

Like I’m sorry but I am seriously not liking what they’ve been doing to Pikachu in this region at all (either portraying him as the silly butt monkey much like Ash or the deus-ex machina creator’s pet that not even BW could pull off) and this was an absolute waste of the audience’s time, the Pokemon’s time and Iwane’s talent as well.

Oh well, maybe the league might serve both of them better but I ain’t getting no hopes up.

On the plus side: Gladion next week! Yaaay, something to get rid of the aftertaste of this episode.
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Hindsight is never a good argument.

For all they knew, Ash teleported to an entirely different location, hell they didn't even give any indication they knew were on Melemele Island at the end, it looked like they just accepted they were on any random Island, and then they were aware that Ash returned, probably only to realize that yeah they were on Melemele Island, it's not like any indication was given to "Oh yeah maybe we missed him at the location we first lost him at" they just suddenly became aware of something happening and decided to investigate.

This is even further evidenced by it taking Pikachu specifically a moment to acknowledge Ash had returned, probably in disbelief that Ash was actually there rather than immediately tackling Ash when they saw him (only after the moment of acknowledgement). Hence they didn't even know exactly where they were in the moment, or even think about returning to the location, so there's no guarantee they would've returned to the training location if they weren't prompted by Ash being returned in a flash of light.

And as for the whole "They could've known he'd have returned at the very same spot?" I don't know why people use hindsight to justify their arguments, I've seen it constantly as an argument against character's motivations many times in a quite a few shows. And I'm sitting there objectively trying to ask "How the hell could anyone have known" its always in situations where if you take out the audience hyper intelligent omniscience (whatever trope that's actually called), there's no reasonable way to assume anything would happen the way it did. In other words it only makes sense AFTER the fact (hindsight) rather than a justification to start with. There's always going to be MANY possibilities in the beginning of a problem with only one right result at the end. How you can justify knowing the right answer from the beginning even though the only reason they think they know the right answer is purely because of hindsight.

The worst example of this hindsight issue, is a television show where a character was trapped in another dimension. Both that one character as well as the character's friends and family have equal opportunity to get that one character back into the normal situation. As an audience member you see both parties doing their best to get the one character. But because you see that one character, you realize it was unnecessary for that character's friends and family to help, because that one character was finding a viable solution. And the argument is why did that character's friends and family bother to try and help that one character get out of the dimension when the character themselves can get out the dimension.

And I'm sitting here wondering, how the hell are THEY, the friends and family, supposed to KNOW that the other character can get themselves out of the dimension and their actions are rather redundant. Sure as an audience member we KNOW that said character has found a way to get out. But how are the characters supposed to know themselves? There's not a lot of logic being used here.

For example, Pikachu and the others, hell no one even know Ash disappeared because of Celebi, there was no indication whatsoever that would've pointed to the idea that Ash teleported through the use of some kind of tether (that he would return to the same location). So how could anyone reasonably at the beginning without audience awareness come to the conclusion that Ash would return to the same location. While in the beginning there is a valid assumption to be had that Ash teleported to a different location, and following that logic, there's no guarantee that Ash would be teleported back in the same location (barring any specific rules of teleportation which we clearly wouldn't know about). And that the only reason Pikachu and the others should've stayed in the location was only because Ash ACTUALLY did return to the same location (which was likely ONLY because of Celebi's ability).

And to add further, they didn't return to the EXACT same location they were in the beginning, since Ash and Torracat were initially apart when they got sucked up by Celebi's ability, only to have them be closer upon returning them, only likely to the same area rather than exactly the spot they left.

Now I would agree, someone should've stayed behind just in case, but I think that was the point of Rotom, at least he stayed relatively close to that spot. It was only the others that went really far. But I can't imagine Pokemon just sitting around and waiting. These aren't normal animal pets here, they're not like a pet dog who's going to wait for you at home, and will tackle you upon your return. These are intelligent animals that will actively go look instead of just waiting, if they sense something is wrong. Plus they could've learned to go look because of the humans wanting to look for something.

Plus even if you were to argue, I think previous lost Pokemon episode kind of counterargues as well. As Ash and the others had to SPECIFICALLY look for Meltan, Eevee and Shaymin, and had they just stayed in the same location and waited, Team Rocket would've absconded with the Pokemon (what's your argument there?). So really this is merely an argument with hindsight, which is really annoying since it comes off as absolute nonsense because someone "knowing better" doesn't equate to other people's "should've known better" that's ridiculous logic.
 
dman_dustin said:
Hindsight is never a good argument.

For all they knew, Ash teleported to an entirely different location, hell they didn't even give any indication they knew were on Melemele Island at the end, it looked like they just accepted they were on any random Island, and then they were aware that Ash returned, probably only to realize that yeah they were on Melemele Island, it's not like any indication was given to "Oh yeah maybe we missed him at the location we first lost him at" they just suddenly became aware of something happening and decided to investigate.

This is even further evidenced by it taking Pikachu specifically a moment to acknowledge Ash had returned, probably in disbelief that Ash was actually there rather than immediately tackling Ash when they saw him (only after the moment of acknowledgement). Hence they didn't even know exactly where they were in the moment, or even think about returning to the location, so there's no guarantee they would've returned to the training location if they weren't prompted by Ash being returned in a flash of light.

And as for the whole "They could've known he'd have returned at the very same spot?" I don't know why people use hindsight to justify their arguments, I've seen it constantly as an argument against character's motivations many times in a quite a few shows. And I'm sitting there objectively trying to ask "How the hell could anyone have known" its always in situations where if you take out the audience hyper intelligent omniscience (whatever trope that's actually called), there's no reasonable way to assume anything would happen the way it did. In other words it only makes sense AFTER the fact (hindsight) rather than a justification to start with. There's always going to be MANY possibilities in the beginning of a problem with only one right result at the end. How you can justify knowing the right answer from the beginning even though the only reason they think they know the right answer is purely because of hindsight.

The worst example of this hindsight issue, is a television show where a character was trapped in another dimension. Both that one character as well as the character's friends and family have equal opportunity to get that one character back into the normal situation. As an audience member you see both parties doing their best to get the one character. But because you see that one character, you realize it was unnecessary for that character's friends and family to help, because that one character was finding a viable solution. And the argument is why did that character's friends and family bother to try and help that one character get out of the dimension when the character themselves can get out the dimension.

And I'm sitting here wondering, how the hell are THEY, the friends and family, supposed to KNOW that the other character can get themselves out of the dimension and their actions are rather redundant. Sure as an audience member we KNOW that said character has found a way to get out. But how are the characters supposed to know themselves? There's not a lot of logic being used here.

For example, Pikachu and the others, hell no one even know Ash disappeared because of Celebi, there was no indication whatsoever that would've pointed to the idea that Ash teleported through the use of some kind of tether (that he would return to the same location). So how could anyone reasonably at the beginning without audience awareness come to the conclusion that Ash would return to the same location. While in the beginning there is a valid assumption to be had that Ash teleported to a different location, and following that logic, there's no guarantee that Ash would be teleported back in the same location (barring any specific rules of teleportation which we clearly wouldn't know about). And that the only reason Pikachu and the others should've stayed in the location was only because Ash ACTUALLY did return to the same location (which was likely ONLY because of Celebi's ability).

And to add further, they didn't return to the EXACT same location they were in the beginning, since Ash and Torracat were initially apart when they got sucked up by Celebi's ability, only to have them be closer upon returning them, only likely to the same area rather than exactly the spot they left.

Now I would agree, someone should've stayed behind just in case, but I think that was the point of Rotom, at least he stayed relatively close to that spot. It was only the others that went really far. But I can't imagine Pokemon just sitting around and waiting. These aren't normal animal pets here, they're not like a pet dog who's going to wait for you at home, and will tackle you upon your return. These are intelligent animals that will actively go look instead of just waiting, if they sense something is wrong. Plus they could've learned to go look because of the humans wanting to look for something.

Plus even if you were to argue, I think previous lost Pokemon episode kind of counterargues as well. As Ash and the others had to SPECIFICALLY look for Meltan, Eevee and Shaymin, and had they just stayed in the same location and waited, Team Rocket would've absconded with the Pokemon (what's your argument there?). So really this is merely an argument with hindsight, which is really annoying since it comes off as absolute nonsense because someone "knowing better" doesn't equate to other people's "should've known better" that's ridiculous logic.
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I think you take this far too seriously.


Especially for SM standards.
 
Diamond & Pearl said:
I think you take this far too seriously.


Especially for SM standards.
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My argument had little to do with Sun and Moon (outside of the prime example), and more to the point, I dislike people using hindsight to criticize character's motivations as if they should've known better, which no they shouldn't have known better, there's no reason they could've known better, they aren't aware of the knowledge the audience is aware of, they are only aware of their bubble of knowledge and experience.
 
dman_dustin said:
My argument had little to do with Sun and Moon (outside of the prime example), and more to the point, I dislike people using hindsight to criticize character's motivations as if they should've known better, which no they shouldn't have known better, there's no reason they could've known better, they aren't aware of the knowledge the audience is aware of, they are only aware of their bubble of knowledge and experience.
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So I decided to watch the first few minutes of the episode (because I refuse to dedicate more of my time to this episode) and while I agree that they wouldn't have known that Ash would come back in the exact same place, they also had no idea that Ash was teleported in the first place. They just knew that he disappeared. So instead of searching the entire region, a more logical thing to do would've been to just search the forest in which they were training and maybe the surrounding areas.
 
dman_dustin said:
My argument had little to do with Sun and Moon (outside of the prime example), and more to the point, I dislike people using hindsight to criticize character's motivations as if they should've known better, which no they shouldn't have known better, there's no reason they could've known better, they aren't aware of the knowledge the audience is aware of, they are only aware of their bubble of knowledge and experience.
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What I meant is that, had an episode like this been aired in for example the well-received XY, people wouldn't have reacted as impulsively as in the rather disliked SM, but more seriously. I have never seen someone like you before who commented as seriously and profoundly on an aspect of SM.
 
I agree that Pikachu and other had no reason to wait there, considering they didn't even know about the time travel. Searching the forest and then returning to the school was also sensible choices, but the school is deserted, for some reason, and it would be better to check out Kukui's home next, instead of going to the top of a mountain. I also wouldn't expect dman_dustin to return to the forum because of such an episode like this, so it was a surprise as well.
 
The only good thing I can say is that episode shows how Clefable is probably a better trainer for Meltan than Ash is. I mean, she can keep in line a continous growing army of them. Meanwhile, with Ash, nothing comes to mind as to how he trains his.
 
Gard81 said:
The only good thing I can say is that episode shows how Clefable is probably a better trainer for Meltan than Ash is. I mean, she can keep in line a continous growing army of them. Meanwhile, with Ash, nothing comes to mind as to how he trains his.
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Ash's Meltan has shown already that it's capable of battling perfectly well. I don't think Ash is that bad of a Trainer for it.
 
0cerge said:
I have feeling that it was kind of trolling for those who wanted to see what was going off-screen during main story. Okay, you know this now, do you want more? :p
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Which is frustrating, since there's been a lot of other episodes that have other plots happening in the background that sound much more interesting than what the episode was actually about

SM121: Everyone helping out at Aina Cafe while Mallow plays in the woods
SM122: Classmates training in Z-Moves while Team Rocket does nothing of note
SM123: Girls training their Z-Moves while Ash & Kiawe torture Sophocles
 
FinnishPokéFan92 said:
An episode being boring isn't a good enough reason for it to be skipped.
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Maybe not if it has significance to plot in a way that either moves it forward or presents character development. This episode however had none of that and was both boring and pointless even by filler standards. It basically unnecessarily turned a plot relevant episode into a 2 parter, showing us a perspective nobody was asking for.
 
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