Suede's Pokémon Journey, Episode 98

…okay I know I’m going to sound insane for going from defending AJ to this episode, and I want to emphasize that this is a Pokeball episode at best, but I feel like this episode is like, at least coherent and I feel like some of these criticisms were a little unfair. The main thing I want to defend is the handling of Charizard and Scyther’s rivalry, specifically the decision to not have them fight. A Charizard and Scyther fight would not go well…for Scyther. Not only is it at a type disadvantage, it’s old and gets winded even with the little training it does in the episode. Having a Charizard Ash can’t reign in fight a prideful elder that doesn’t know when to quit would be a disaster. If you look at their interactions very carefully, you can see a clear story. Charizard throws an attack at Ash that also spreads to the other Pokemon. They all flee, except Scyther who is too prideful to act like a coward even in such a disadvantageous situation. Charizard doesn’t take Scyther seriously due to its age, as we can see it mock Scyther for getting winded even while training. And Scyther fighting team rocket shows Charizard that Scyther is worthy of respect even though it wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight. Generic ending, but it is a coherent story, and I’d go as far as to say Charizard and Scyther’s age and power dynamic is rather unique and interesting for a show like Pokemon and should have been explored further. Also, I’m pretty sure the whole Walnut thing was that Farfetch’d was eating it and accidentally dropped it? That’s a thing birds do, maybe it should have been conveyed better, but I don’t think it warranted the reaction it got. I also think the show is making the valid choice to still have Ash not train Charizard even when it’s the perfect opportunity to. The episode also brings up the fact Ash hasn’t trained Snorlax at all. Really think about that. Ash has two Pokemon that he can’t train, a day where he doesn’t have anything to do….and he goes on vacation. Just like how he didn’t train for the League. The story is showing us Ash still hasn’t grown out of his old habits yet and won’t start to until he makes a breakthrough with Charizard, which he’s putting off Even the weakest of episodes were written by coherent adults, so I think they should be given the good faith that they were following some sort of logic even if it’s not readily apparent

Clayton