day 1942 virbank city, Luke returns to make another movie, and a meloetta starts stalking ash {bw82}
Fun fact, from this episode on is where I had to switch over to the Japanese version. If you enjoyed 38, you'll like 82 it's just more of the same movie making magic mischief mixed with Meloetta. Alliteration sure is fun sometimes. Not much else to say.
day 1943 ash gets 8th badge, cynthia shows up and iris loses a practice battle with her {bw83-85}
A 2 part gym battle, I don't recall that ever happening before. As such is the case, the bout with Roxie lives up to that hype and expectation. (It's really rocking.) Apparently it's so epic that Best Wishes goes into a second completely new season; unlike the dub with is multiple seasons, OG, AG, and DP had all been one continuous stream of episodes for each. This leads to some confusion, as season 2 of Black+White: Rival Destinies in English is actual parts of Best Wishes season 1+2, while Adventures in Unova the 3rd upcoming season will cover the rest of Best Wishes 2 until it ends.
Not that it was a hard bar to leap or anything but this is easily leagues ahead of the other gym bouts in Unova, at least we ended the circut on a high note. Oh and Ash finally scans a Koffing in his dex only took him 740+eps/15ish years/6ish years/. Of course he still has yet to scan Pikachu, only reason he even has an entry is because of Dawn in dp001.
As for where the plot goes after Ash's victory... Out of nowhere in 85 comes Cynthia fresh from Sinnoh and oh boy, you have no idea how happy I was. “Oh her, yeah she's the Sinnoh champ. What? Well of course, I'm on personal speaking terms with her annoying fools I travel with, I'm Ash fucking Ketchum. Admittedly, I might of paraphrased that, but that was the boiled down essence of the conversation.
Lastly, even with Garchomp barely doing anything, and after spontaneously learning giga impact Axew gets totally wrecked... I have the stupidest grin on my face, he really is completely useless. <frown> Why does Iris suck at being a trainer so much? Gee, I hope the writers don't pull something out of their asses to invalidate that fact. Oh and Oshawatt develops feelings for Meloetta, that's a punchline waiting to happen.
day 1944 dawn joins the group again, team rocket begins to plot something involving meloetta {bw86}
Huzzah, Dawn's back! A main character I actual give a damn about! Maybe things are finally looking up? Dawn's sudden reemergence drew parallels in my mind to when Misty just happened to be at Ash's house in ag132, but enough about better times; on with the episode. Meloetta seems very interested in Piplup's Contest skills, couple that with the way Buneary totally shot Oshy down in favor of Pikachu (as she should) and how Pachirisu played frisbee with his shell sword... I might like the little guy, but come on that much schadenfreude, you have to enjoy it.
Super happy reunion fun times whilst training for the world tournament junior cup as well as the Unova League continue into 87+88; both filler episodes. The former is good (for Best Wishes mind you); the whole group go exploring an island full of giant angry onix, the latter is bad; with Cilan reprising his detective role as per 35. Feel free to skip this one, but even that much stupidity pales in comparison to the very next plot point.
day 1949 iris catches a Dragonite... REALLY?! {bw89}
What, No. That didn't really happen, did it? For those of you who've actually read this far, you might be wondering why I didn't do anything fancy with that declaration, so as to make it stand out and properly extenuate my disbelief and rage. The answer's very simple. There isn't enough ink the world to do that.
This girl, this superfluous asinine child, does not under any circumstances deserve having a dragonite. He knows it too; doesn't do a damn thing she tells him too, only reason he allowed the capture was out of gratitude for her saving his life. She had years to get her Excadrill to start listening to her again, this only happened recently. It's not stated how long this “dragon master in training” has had Axew, but in that time, she's done a piss-poor job of making it effective in battle or for that matter affecting its level of strength in any positive manner. And the writers just gave her a dragonite?! A dratini I could have accepted, make her work for it ya know? But thiss... I— <twitch-twitch-scream>.
day 1951 Lacunosa town for the Pokémon WTJC, ash meets caitlin {unova el4:1/4}, ash's krokorok evolves into krookadile, trip wins tournament, dawn leaves for johto {bw90-93}
Sadly Stephan and Bianca couldn't make it to this mini-arc but the rest of the rivals are here, and Dawn getting put off by Burgundy and Georgia's beefs with Cilan and Iris is hilario— No, you know what? I'm still pissed about the dragonite scenario. I'm ecstatic that Trip won the whole thing, it means he got that exhibition match with Alder and was able to bring his character arc to a satisfying conclusion. More importantly to me anyway, it means Iris didn't win. Stupid girl doesn't garner the proper respect to even be called a bitch, she certainly doesn't deserve to win any tournaments through no action of her own.
Oh yeah, Dragonite powered through that whole thing on will power. I'm not knocking him down at all, I'm just saying Iris shouldn't get any praise because he certainly wasn't listening to her when he crushed Georgia and Dawn. Also boo to that! Either of them should have smacked Dragonite down, as a lesson to both of them: to listen to each-other and not be so irresponsible, reckless, or stupid depending on if it were Iris, Dragonite, or both you were teaching the lesson to.
Switching topics, now that he's finally evolved into a krookadile the sunglasses no longer look so dumb on his face.
Bye Dawn! See you whenever you conspire with Misty and May to return and shanghai Ash into a wedding against his will thereby leaving the show to be taken up after a time-skip by the presumed offspring of you four, with said character's traveling companions being Brock's whole new family and Max as a wise mentor and Jessie and James's kid being forced into villainy by crotchety old uncle Meowth.... What? I'm allowed to have my fan-preferred ending to a show I already know will never come to that point, I'm a hopeless optimist at heart.
day 1952-1953 they meet kotetsu (cameron) + watch his gym battle against marlon {bw94} Note: I refer to Cameron by his Japanese name out of force of habit. I hope it's not too distracting.
“Hello everybody, this is Kotetsu.” 'Hi Kotetsu'
“I know this might seem hard to believe, but compared to Kotetsu, our hero Ash looks like the successor to Sherlock Holmes!” <ahem>
Jokes aside, Kotetsu really is dumber than a sack of hammers, it's not just that he was late and forgetful about the WTJC, oh no he actually did not know or could not remember (whichever is worse) that one needs 8 badges to qualify for the League, having to be told such by Ash and making a mad scramble to face Marlon.... and he thought the Unova League was in Ecruteak in Johto. At least his battling skills are up to par and his riolu is obviously the brains of the outfit (though not by much.) Unfortunately, as he appears so late and replaces Dawn in the Japanese opening, I am forced to assume he is going to be the BW resident Ash's dream crusher.
Bw95 is stupid bad filler at a daycare in the same vein as ep148! Skip it, and witness the most anticipated event ever!
Next time... The only reason the entirety of Best Wishes has not been sentenced to discontunity hell (just 89% of it) and where this region should have ended if the writers were actually competent. Plus even more uninteresting pointless Iris-focus. Eps 96-102
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