Live Blogs The Great Walk to Masterhood: "Gotta Ketch'um": The Story of Ash

Kaoz2013-09-15 10:34:54

day 1839 they meet georgia, Iris's new rival, she totally pwns Iris {bw33} day 1842 ash catches a roggenrola {bw34}

Is it any wonder that I like Georgia, it appears that I enjoy all the new characters except Iris and Cilan. I get tsundere vibes off of her towards her opposition, same as with Burgundy. She needs to drag Iris off the show forever and have glorious yuri hate-sex with her, that would make me 3 different kinds of happy. Trivia: To go along with the hair color and personality, her Japanese name is Langley as in Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion, that's a neat homage even if it's completely unexpected.

In other news, after 30+ episodes we finally learn Iris's history, fantastic. So it turns out that while she grew up in the village of dragons, she would spend all day out in the woods and frolic and play with the Pokémon, but then a berry thief shows up, Drilbur, and she vows to stop him, eventually catching Drilbur and having many battles with him until his evolution. After Drayden, resident Dragon Master and unbeknownst to Ash also the opelucid gym leader, took an interest in them Iris challenged him, the 2 lost and Excadrill never listened to Iris again for years... until this ep is over anyway, then their friends once more for life.

Yeah, that didn't make me change my opinion of her at all. If her deal is to surpass this one guy, just like it is with Trip for Alder and unlike Trip was shown to already know how to train Pokémon, then please somebody tell me why at the start of Best Wishes she only has 2 on her team, 1 completely useless and the other insubordinate and she hasn't even attempted to get stronger by herself or try the gyms out for who knows how long?

Bw34, the above roster change happens and more importantly Team Rocket shows up again after being gone for 4 whole episodes, I was getting worried about them. 35 is filler, which sadly is bad, wherein Cilan turns into a detective... although Ash's roggenrola, I'm calling him Rocky, does save the day. 36 is also bad filler, but due to a technicality, as its events will factor in with a good 2 parter that's almost plot important but falls short and lands into good filler territory, (bw75+76) it might necessitate a watch... hope that made sense. It's basically the bw version of ep46 and ag102, the fossil Pokémon episode. 37 I already talked about while in Castelia.

day 1853 they meet luke and hear about an upcoming battle tournament + they star in a movie {bw38}

It's been a teeth grinding slow stumble and fall down to get to this point from the utter travesty that was bw1, but these 2 arcs back to back, skimming over some horrid plot, and then culminating with the 14th movie... they are pretty good and I enjoy them, was it worth the stupidity to get here? NO. Yet, it relieves me that the writers haven't lost all their marbles. At the same time it saddens me, as this is as it good as it gets.

As for 38 itself, it's just a really fun escapade, this is what the 3rd or 4th time Ash has been involved in film making? Circumstantial confirmation of 13th movie, by Ash recognizing that Luke has a zorua, and we get a direct lead into the following arc... TOURNAMENT TIME!!!

day 1860 the tournament begins with ash, iris, cilan, bianca, luke, burgundy, stephen, georgia, and trip entered

day 1862 iris wins the tournament {bw39-42}

Look out all those nominal characters! Hey Judge! You can eliminate the other half of the bracket now, it'll save some time! It's just refreshing seeing all these side-characters interact, Bianca and Stephan seem to hit it off well, and Burgundy and Georgia start to bond over their mutually shared feelings of love-hate for the two main not-characters. With all these other people to bounce dialogue off of, and Zorua causing illusion clone shenanigans besides; we hardly have to spend any time with the pointless pair of Iris+Cilan. The fights themselves are all very fluid. As for the end result... well Ash and Pikachu went easy on the excadrill, obviously enough. That's not just my fan-theory at work, going by what Ash says, and how Pikachu did/didn't attack or dodge when he clearly could have it really feels like they threw the match. While this is going on TR arrive in Nimbasa.

Lastly, assuming anyone cares, bw42 is a stopgap to me. Although it is true that the TR plot in Nimbasa is made of solid awesome, it is unfortunately also too closely tied to the other more fail-tastic things that happen in Nimbasa immeadiately after. So if I ever wanted to dust off my pen and dive into the pit of voles... my hypothetical AU would start here <shameless plug for fanfic that doesn't exist yet>

day 1864 meowth has been fired from TR and joins the group, Iris fails at catching him, meanwhile J+J plan to blow up some trains or something {bw43-46}

day 1871 they get to nimbasa city, to no one's surprise meowth was lying about being fired. {bw47+48}

OK Seriously. I know the spoiler's in the description and all, but was anyone surprised at all by the twist? It's been proven time and again throughout the entire show (the length and breadth of which is still in continuity... somehow in spite of bw1) that Team Rocket is as thick as thieves <hah> and would never betray or abandon each-other, even if they've thrown away their comedic villain identities.

Disregarding the untwist, having Meowth hang around them for a couple of episodes is a nice change from the regular balance of the narrative. Bw43 sets the stage, Ash gives him the benefit of the doubt, Pikachu only trusts him as far as he can throw him, Cilan is bemused by the novelty of being able to better communicate with Pokémon, without having any real issues with the cat, and Iris tries to catch him... I'll give her points for that, I would have assumed he had an abandoned ball stashed somewhere back in a dumpster in the ocean or something, but no; this whole time if Ash ever wanted to shut him up over the years, he could have chucked a ball at him... maybe to interrupt the motto?

44-46 basically just build upon that premise, though 46 does it best out of the 3. Then everything comes together in 47+48, but before I gush about that, I need to point something out, 25 actual episodes or 2 months time-wise from Castelia—>Nimbasa and Ash didn't even go through the desert on the way, what?

On second thought, if Unova has a desert and it wasn't in the anime, and Kanto doesn't have a desert yet there was one... maybe they're the same place! Which means Jigglypuff was from Unova! OK yeah probably not, but that's still a funny coincidence.

Jessie, James, and Meowth's finest hour is here! I mean the sheer audacity! They not only successfully steal every single damn Pokémon in the Nimbasa Pokémon center, they steal a get away train to store it all, and if it weren't for Pikachu being the most paranoid guy ever they would have gotten away with it without anybody noticing. Now that is a plan worthy of some applause.

"Ash, your calm attitude provides a unique flavor to the situation, but perhaps you haven't grasped the particulars." "Yeah Ash, don't be such a happy go lucky kid, if something isn't done the whole of Unova could blow up." "I just don't see what the big deal is, this will work out just like any other crazy Tuesday night." "WHAT?" movie14 and Eps 49-56

Comments

WorldTurtle Since: Dec, 1969

Mar 7th 2014 at 11:21:22 AM

Okay I love your teasers to the movies. Ash being so nonchalant about it is hilarious.

CaellachTigerEye Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 1st 2014 at 2:03:05 AM

Despite the maps in the anime looking just like the games, I always got the impression that they actually look rather different than the games. Castelia City, for instance, is actually more on the south-east coast of the Central Unova region, rather than smack-bang on the southern-central coast like in the games. Desert Resort is due west in the mainland, which is the direction they flew in for the aborted 2-part arc (it's also quite massive relative to Unovan land mass overall area, but not as all-encompassing).

Therefore after their not-adventure in the Desert Resort and Ash getting a badge, they are travelling along the eastern (and central) part of Central Unova, far enough from the desert that we don't see it but far enough inland that we don't see the coast. That's also why it takes 24/25 episode of travel in-between the two Gym Cities (I say 24/25 because it depends on whether you consider the Fishing competition episode to be in Castelia like it's meant to be, or later where the writers want us to think it's actually in).

To recap, the not-adventure in (aborted) 23-24 is all we see of Desert Resot (plus more of Castelia), and after their adventures in the area(s) they bypass the desert and travel along greener terrain more to the east until they pass it, then go more central until Nimbasa (City, not Town). This lasts 24 episodes. :)