#((Say whatever you want about Orange Islands but it gave Ash the win he deserves.))

[miraculouscontent]

You said that you could roast XY&Z for days in your last post. What about it didn't you like?

Keeping things short (...well, short for my standards anyway):

In terms of strictly just the anime, XY did a lot of things right and was a step-up compared to Black & White. It raised a lot of people’s hopes and seemed to be taking things more seriously in terms of plot, like how Ash’s team was actually getting fully evolved and such (some cases of which are admittedly ridiculous since the series is pretty short yet he has a Goodra and a Noivern, the latter of whom he raised from an egg), but ultimately, XY&Z just brings back all of the old formulas.

me when anything involving Zygarde happens: Wow, it would be great if any of this actually existed or happened within the games instead of just the show flexing like, “Hey, look at this cool thing you can’t personally experience!”

Serena losing her final contest performance. I know they’re actually showcases but it’s just Pokemon contests with a different coat of paint, let’s be honest. I was already sour about the fact that someone in the show, again, gets to experience something we can’t (Gen 5 had Pokemon Musicals and that was the closest thing we got to this, but that was in Gen 5, not 6), but the thing about Serena losing her final contest performance is that it’s irritating for a multitude of reasons, not just the fact that we can’t do showcases ourselves (to be clear, it’s not about how exciting/unexciting showcases would’ve been in-game; it’s that they had to make up showcases to give Serena something to do because XY was so light on content).

- First is that what we saw of Aria’s performance was really generic and unimpressive, but the second thing is big and just--I’m sorry, whichever writer decided that it was a smart idea to have the winner between Serena (a rando from Vaniville Town who’s only just making a name for herself) and Aria (essentially a celebrity who’s been around for a long time) be decided by the people in the audience needs to be fired. It makes sense when it’s a bunch of no-names all competing against each other, but when it’s a no-name versus a celebrity? For Arceus’ sake, the whole reason contests were originally decided by judges is because judges are (at least supposed to be) impartial. Did it suck when May and Dawn lost their Grand Festival? Yes, of course it did, but at least it didn’t feel so much like it was weighed against them.

- Like, imagine sitting and watching this episode and seeing the in-show audience decide who wins, most of whom probably have Aria merchandise like posters and figures and just, like--”Wow, gee, it really seemed like Serena could’ve had it! Wonder what tipped the scales for the audience!”

- To put this into perspective, imagine if the show decided that the viewers - the actual, real-life viewers - of the show got to decide who won the showcase. Even if some of them honestly thought that Serena deserved to win, you don’t think a majority were like, “Who cares about Aria? Serena’s our main girl and she’s gotta WIN!”?

Speaking of Serena--

- Serena at Ash before leaving to go to Hoenn: Hippity hoppity your lips are now my (implied) property.

Ash Greninja was a cool concept that amounted to nothing. The idea that Ash has this special link with one of his Pokemon (”Hey, look at this really cool thing that you can’t actually experience in-game!” until Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and it’s underwhelming at best) and can feel their pain, but the link can cause him to get carried away because now he’s really experiencing the adrenaline rush of battle... that’s incredible! That’s a really neat idea!

- But... ultimately, it’s giving preferential treatment to a starter... again. Gen 6 already threw Charizard an extra bone by giving him a second Mega (and even when they got rid of Megas in Gen 8, they were like “lol let’s give him a Gigantimax form in advance and give him to the champion”; by the way, no, I didn’t play Sword & Shield because I’m a Living Dexer so the lack of - you know - Pokemon was a deal-breaker) and now here they are again not treating the starter lines fairly (even in-game, we have Protean Greninja, so it’s a double hitter). I was open to the idea and was getting swept up in the excitement, but... what does it mean in the end? It doesn’t amount to anything; Greninja is still another Pokemon who gets released essentially.

- Why didn’t they just do something with Pikachu (Ash Hat Pikachu was eventually a thing after all), which is something they could’ve easily carried over to future seasons and continued expanding upon? I mean, Ash’s Pikachu is already special in its own right and this would be like giving it the evolution it’s never going to get. Heck, even just like... they could have it where it wasn’t even either Ash nor Pikachu being special, but they engaged in some sort of special bonding ritual at some special place (anyone remember Ashachu? That was a cool concept too and they wasted it; could’ve even been a reason for them to make this connection at that place because Ash had been a Pikachu once before).

Alain’s existence. Just--like, his entire existence, fanservice Charizard X and all.

- I want to make it clear for anyone who didn’t experience XY&Z (count your blessings) that, when the Mega Evolutions specials were coming out, we were given at least the impression that it wasn’t going to have anything to do with the series. Then things started happening and this is essentially how it went down.

- everyone, seeing that Alain is part of the main series now: oh no

- everyone, seeing Ash plant the seed in Alain’s head about entering the League: oh no

- everyone, seeing Alain having a near-loss against Ash (after having a couple wins before) before Ash blacks out, ending the battle abruptly and leaving the battle undecided, which is similar to what they pulled with Sawyer (having Sawyer win once against Ash before the League so it would still have suspense and wouldn’t just be Ash wrecking him again) except now it’s in the opposite direction: OH NO

- The League finale episode, in Japanese, was essentially called, “Kalos League Victory! Satoshi's Ultimate Match!!” and yeah, it was blatant clickbait.

- Ash!Greninja pulls off a Giant Mega Death Water Shuriken for the final exchange of blows in the match (Water Shuriken VS Charizard X’s Blast Burn) and it amounts to literally nothing because Greninja goes down anyway (to a Fire move of all things, which somehow feels even more offensive).

- They didn’t play Ash’s theme when said Water Shuriken happened so it was semi-obvious that he wasn’t going to win. Heck, his mom didn’t even show up to watch the match from what I remember.

- So yeah, Ash lost and--People. Were. Livid. The dislike bar on the Japanese trailer for the following episode was insane. I think what it ultimately amounted to was that people were so sick of the formula and XY seemed like such a step up from the last attempt and people really thought that the writers were finally learning their lesson. They really thought everything was going to turn around, and--yeah. It just ended up being more of the same except worse because they did everything to make it look like they cared.