#xy093

[wild-battlebond]

also what was up with this… nothing wrong with an ominous warning, but i don’t remember anything bad really happening to the two of them ?

[wild-battlebond]

and the gym battle WAS one of those ones that was just as cool as i remembered it, so that was fun.

notes from my notes app again:

confidence on the episode's part of just one match-up.. meowstic x2 VS frogadier and talonflame it's also an interesting choice in combination, since frogadier and talonflame have never really worked together all that often. (talonflame has also generally had bad luck in gym battles…) it's a good pick tho because switching between the two of them fighting separately and fighting together works really well and is fun to watch

pikachu's use as a timepiece… it's trainers and pokémon fulfilling different roles. as well-established in xy, ash is terrible at keeping rhythm, so it's a skill deficit pikachu can fill in for. it's also just nice to give him something to do while on the sidelines.

olympia doesn't have to distinctify between which meowstic she's issueing commands to. which makes sense.

rule of threes of futute sight, 1 to get caught offguard by, 1 to get the timing down, and 1 that can be predicted

[rohanite]

“...Sure dodged a bullet there, huh?”

[rohanite]

Huh, I hope this is actual foreshadowing for the “Greninja leaves Ash” part from the new opening.

[rohanite]

I’ve been thinking, in regards to Pikachu in Ash VS Olympia, you know how Pokeani tends to make characters behave a bit strangely as set up sometimes? Like normally Pikachu doesn’t mind sitting out gyms, but here he suddenly got upset about it, and ended up contributing, similarly to Ash VS Elesa in BW. It wasn’t done to show Ash was mistreating Pikachu or anything, it was merely a hint for the audience. But what I’d like to think is that seeing Pikachu get so visibly upset was part of the reason Ash thought of letting him help out, although the situation was likely quite desperate anyway. I actually like seeing Pikachu contribute in this way, we’ve seen him star in countless important battles in the past, and having him fulfill tasks like this every now and then would make him feel more like an equal partner to Ash in a way, offering his helping hand as a veteran to the newcomer Pokemon. Besides, the new Pokemon need as much battle time as they can get before their times run out, so I appreciate creative compromises like this, that allow Pikachu to not rob them of screen time while also staying relevant himself (another, slightly lesser, example of this is Pikachu snapping Ash out of his doubt in the gym battle VS Ramos).

[rohanite]

Everyday I get up, I thank my lords and saviours Talonflame, Tomioka and Iwane for the life I’ve been given, and rewatch Ash VS Olympia.

[rohanite]

Quality work Iwane. Quality work.

[rohanite]

I think today’s episode really showed us the benefits of double battles in the anime. First of all, since there are no Pokemon switches they can fully devote their time on the one matchup (which normally isn’t possible since battles VERY rarely spread between multiple episodes), in this case we had nearly the entire episode filled with Frogadier + Talonflame VS the two Meowstics, it was very fleshed out and didn’t feel rushed in any way. And unlike with 1v1′s (which can also avoid the time constraint issues), there’s a lot more going on since there’s twice as many Pokemon on the field, and there’s a lot more room for tactics by having the Pokemon help each other out, which Ash’s team displayed immaculately.  Also, in single battles the one to finish the match tends to overshadow the rest of the team (especially in the viewers eyes, with people constantly debating who’s going to “star” in an upcoming battle etc etc), while in doubles you can actually have both Pokemon win as a team and share the glory. Imo this was the best Double Battle of the entire series (I mean Pokemon as a whole, not just XY) thus far, and possibly my favourite Gym Battle as well. Well written, great visuals and I personally very much love both Talonflame and Frogadier. Objectively it’s a bit hard to compare it to most other Gyms due to the differing formats, but I’d say this is right up there with VS Fantina from DP overall quality wise (with Korrina and Clemont taking the cake hype wise due to Ash facing a Mega + Clemont being a traveling companion).