CN Talkback: Pokemon The Series: XY: "Battling Into The Hall Of Fame!" [11/1]

[Light Lucario]

Join Ash and Pikachu as they travel through the Kalos region, making new friends and catch more Pokemon along the way.

Recently:
Ash and his friends meet Korrina, the Shalour City Gym Leader
Korrina's Lucario defeats Ash's Pikachu
Korrina decides to join the group as they go find the Lucarionite that would allow for Lucario to Mega Evolve.
Ash and his friends arrive in Geosenge Town find Lucarionite
Korrina defeats her grandfather's Blaziken in order to earn the Lucarionite
Lucario begins to Mega Evolve.
Lucario is unable to control its new aura after Mega Evolving.
Korrina battles against Gurkinn and loses.
Gurkinn tells Korrina to go Pomace Mountain to train
Ash and his friends continue to follow Korrina to learn more about Mega Evolution.
Mega Lucario is able to control its powers temporarily before it collapses.
Ash and his friends arrive at Pomace Mountain.
Lucario gains control of its aura as Mega Lucario and learns Aura Sphere.
Korrina and Lucario leave the group.
Ash captures a Hawlucha.
Ash's Fletching evolves into Fletchinder.
Ash's Froakie learns Cut.
Ash and his friends meet Tierno, Shauna and Trevor at a Summer Camp.

Last Time:
"Foggy Pokemon Orienteering!"
Ash and his friends start a new competition at Professor Sycamore's Summer Camp called Pokemon Orienteering. The teams head out, but they're soon stuck in a fog and get separated from their Pokemon. Will everyone be reunited before the competition ends?

This Time:
"Battling Into The Hall Of Fame!"
Saturday, November, 1st, 8:00am Eastern
Encore: Sunday, November, 8th, 7:00am Eastern
Ash and his friends are close to the end of Professor Sycamore's Pokemon Summer Camp and there are only a few more activities left. Team Rocket are now ready to unleash their new plan to steal everyone's Pokemon. Will Ash and his friends be able to stop them?​

Notes:
The 17th season of Pokemon is officially here to promote the sixth generation.
Hoenn Confirmed! Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire will be released on November 21st.
More Mega Pokemon and new features have been revealed.
The OR/AS Demo has been released in the U.S. by receiving a code via an email from Pokemon.com and there are other methods of getting the code in the future.
Pokemon X and Y are available worldwide!
You can get a serial code to download Diancie for X/Y.
The new Pokemon movie will premiere next Saturday at 2:30PM following a classic Pokemon marathon.
Pokemon XY premieres are now at 8AM instead of 8:30AM.
Re-runs of Pokemon BW Adventures in Unova are now on weekdays at 7:00am.
Please stay on topic when discussing the episode and do not focus on any kind of edits.
Please avoid using spoilers, including vague ones, in these talkbacks. Thank you.

 

[Lerkero]

I wish Team Rocket would have kept stable employment as chefs. It's not often that the series depicts them as talented for something besides acting and dress-up. Heck, they could probably be actors too.

That was a great battle. I am still wishing for a Squirtle series, or at least a mini-series. Ash has been uninteresting this season and after seeing all those first level pokemon it made me realize how slow evolution is taking. I expected Froakie to be evolved by this time, but perhaps it will evolve after the 3rd gym battle.

It seems like Ash will be in Shalour City in the next episode, so I guess that means we won't get to see what kind of training he and his pokemon had in mimicking Squirtle's moves.

 

[ShadowBlinky]

Who's that Pokemon?
Meowth: "That's right!"

 

[Light Lucario]

I wish Team Rocket would have kept stable employment as chefs. It's not often that the series depicts them as talented for something besides acting and dress-up. Heck, they could probably be actors too.

They've often been shown as being good at selling souvenirs, especially during the Johto and Sinnoh Leagues. Despite their desire to steal Pokemon for Team Rocket, they would be probably be perfectly fine setting up their own legit business selling food and goodies to people.

That was a great battle. I am still wishing for a Squirtle series, or at least a mini-series. Ash has been uninteresting this season and after seeing all those first level pokemon it made me realize how slow evolution is taking. I expected Froakie to be evolved by this time, but perhaps it will evolve after the 3rd gym battle.

Like I've mentioned before, it usually takes awhile for Pokemon in the anime to evolve, especially starter Pokemon. It took them about a hundred episodes for Turtwig to evolve in DP and even longer for Chimchar as well. It took Tepig over seventy episodes for it to evolve in BW and Treecko evolved about sixty episodes into AG. They usually have the starters evolve later since they're marktable and they probably want to keep their base forms in the anime for at least the first year or so. They only time they evolved a starter Pokemon quickly was with Charmander and I don't think that worked out too well given how little screentime Charmeleon had before it evolved. Given how popular Greninja seems to be, I would expect that Froakie to evolve at some point, but it would probably be within the second year of XY, similar to when they evolved Treecko and Tepig.

Anyway, I thought that this episode was pretty good. I wasn't too surprised that Team Rocket blew their cover. I thought that they could possibly forget why they were even at the camp because they enjoyed the work so much, similar to what happened in the Summer Academy arc in DP. Of course, it didn't work out and they still blasted off with none of the money they made. At least Bunnelby got a chance to shine before Clemont used Chespin for the battle.

The battle was pretty good. I think that was the first triple battle we've seen in any of the anime series, so that's neat. I just wish that Ash had used Froakie instead of Pikachu. They had the perfect opportunity to have two groups of starters battling it out, but they missed it. I like Pikachu, but I think it's been getting too much attention in XY with how it's won both of Ash's Gym battles thus far. The first one was understandable, but I would have preferred it if Froakie won the second Gym battle, especially when I think it needs more screentime anyway. Still, it was nice to see Ash, Serena and Clemont working together. While Serena did end up losing, she was still able to do some damage with Fennekin before losing and was able to gain some more experience. Of course, they won and got into the camp's Hall of Fame.

I kind of liked how Ash wanted to use Tierno's dance moves for his battle style. I thought that they were building up to that with how he was so impressed with Tierno's dance moves during their last battle. It was also nice to see that the arc had an effect on both Ash and Serena, although I forgot that she was going to try the Pokemon Performance stuff since I didn't think it was too clear if she was into it or not. Overall, the episode was a pretty good way to end the arc. The arc itself was fairly enjoyable. Some of the episodes in the middle of it were boring, but I liked the focus on Serena and the triple battle was cool. I hope that next week's episode will be fun to watch as well.

 

[Megumi]

An okay episode. I thought the group battle was better than usual, mostly because of Tierno's group.

 

[Light Lucario]

While I liked this arc, I also thought that the Summer Academy arc in DP was better. It was a bit more fun, the characters they interacted with had more personality than the trio of rivals here and it had better writing, although DP in general had really good writing anyway. I do like how this arc had an impact on both Ash and Serena though.