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Review S15 EP03: Lost at the Stamp Rally!

Iteru

Iteru

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BW51 - Lost at the Stamp Rally!http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/BW051

Running through Nimbasa City, Cilan leads Ash and Iris to the famous Stamp Rally located in the subway, where participants have to collect 60 stamps in order to be able to challenge either one of the Subway Boses Ingo or Emmet. While this approximately takes three days to complete, today is the last day! Confident that he can collect them in one day, Cilan starts while Ash and Iris go to see the Nimbasa sights and attractions. Will he be able to complete the rally by himself and challenge either Ingo or Emmet?
 
I'm still rather confused that Ash would rather play around the city than help Cilan try to get a chance to fight the Subway Bosses. It's also a shame that most of the ep gets devoted to helping the girl and her Axew, but I guess this was the only way we were going to get all of Nimbasa's sights in there. The battle was really fast, too, and I'm impressed that they even managed to damage them at all, but perhaps they just weren't meant to be too skilled in the anime. Okay ep.
 
During the games, isn't there a recurring theme of the Subway Bosses testing the strength of challengers? I think Ingo and Emmet were holding back, I mean, OHKO-ing Pansage and Tepig wouldn't have done much to show them Ash and Cilan's potential.

The battle was short, but I liked this episode. I really dug the emphasis on the subway, I guess that's what I get riding the subway to go pretty much anywhere in NYC.
 
My love for Cilan was embodied by his line just before the opening (annoyingly it has slipped my mind now).

It's kinda annoying that it comes down to a pink bow in order to make it a female Axew - how about a slight blush from Iris' one to hint at it instead? Considering we just had the rather brilliant gender reveal in the Purrloin episode, it sucks that we're down to the pink = girl cliché, especially when 5 seconds before hand Ash was in a full pink suit.

I didn't mind the lack of focus on the battle - the battle would likely just have felt drawn out had it started earlier. And Ash being dragged along to collect stamps wouldn't have made it any better.

I would have liked to see a bit more of the city itself, a longer scene on the Ferris Wheel and a bit more of the sports available. I suppose we had to have Tennis itself - Ping Pong probably would have been a no-go. It also seems odd that Ash seemed to have some knowledge of Football - when previously in all the other regions it was usually Baseball or made up sports. Seems like a missed opportunity to make reference to his being in an unknown region where things are different.

The COTD was extremely bland - as were the ice creams - who would put up with a soft serve cone when you could have one of those fancy ones that look like Vanillite?
 
Ambipom666 said:
During the games, isn't there a recurring theme of the Subway Bosses testing the strength of challengers?
Click to expand...

Yep, after beating them the first time at least, other victors that you talk to question if they were fighting at their full strength/capabilities.
 
The battle felt weird being sorta shoved in at the end there. There were some neat tricks shown, but really, given who Cilan and Ash were using against a goddamned Chandelure and Elektross, it felt like a pretty foregone conclusion. Then again, I guess it's nice to once in a while see that type logic CAN make a difference in how the battle goes... you know, since this series loves trying to convince us that following type logic will only make you fail. And it wasn't done so in an insultingly stupid way like it was with Ash vs Iris in the Don Battle finals.

Speaking of, Iris was surprisingly tolerable in this episode. Still didn't like her attitude towards Cilan in the episode... calling him a kid, and then describing Cilan's explanation of Pansage and Tepig's functionality in a tag battle as a "lecture" (because it fucking WASN'T a lecture). But for once, she actually came off as an actual friend of Ash's! Going around and doing stuff with him, having good fun without her usual pointless jabs at him... that's how she should be all the time. Not that I'm saying I don't like conflicts within the group or anything, but they've really overdone that bit this series to the point where Iris really didn't look like she belonged with the group. I'm not going as far to say she's really like that now, but this was a step in the right direction. The lost Axew subplot was bland as hell, as was its CotD trainer, because we really don't need another showing of Iris' flawless dragon-whispering abilities, but at least the way they went about it by getting Ash involved with the teamwork made it much more palatable than the previous times they've done this. And the bland CotD was mitigated by Cilan being an over-dramatic stamp nerd and metro (lol) connoisseur.

I honestly found Cilan's stamp subplot more interesting than the Ash/Iris bits, but that's hardly a surprise. Still, overall this wasn't a bad episode; it was actually fairly good. I can see what other people meant now about the Nimbasa City arc being something of a turning point for the series. There's still problems, sure, and it shouldn't have taken this long for things to actually get GOOD, but for a filler episode this was enjoyable and the aspects that annoyed me in this episode were minimal. Again, I wish the series was more consistent in this manner (especially with Iris), but I'll take what I can get. At least this shows they're capable of making good episodes with the BW group being functional... of course, based on the writers' past work, I knew that already, but I suppose it's comforting to know that talent isn't indefinitely lost for this series, like it seemed to be.

So yeah. Not bad, not bad.
 
Some people complained in the original review thread that this ep was too slow. I really disagree on that, it actually managed to cram a lot of content into a single ep if you ask me. I kinda wish we had gotten to see who won the tennis match, Pikachu and Axew sitting on the ref's seat together was cute. The battle was enjoyable for what it was.
 
I haven't seen the dub yet, but to clarify, in Japan they pretty much only advertised the battle. They made little to no mention of Erina, so the most we figured was she was a girl they met, then went and battled for half the episode. They really made it seem like the battle was the main focus. Then to have it just be not even five minutes long, at the end, with just a sudden "lolurdeadnow" finish was really underwhelming. Yeah I know the Subway Bosses are powerful, but a OHKO? Really? It was a let down. That's why I was unhappy with it, anyway.
 
What was Erina's dub name? Did they keep it or changed it?
 
Iris was totally prepared for the "longest lecture ever", but it didn't even last more than it usually did. Unless I'm missing something.

All in all, the episode was okay. Erina was SUPER cute!
 
Not much to say here but it was amusing for what it was, I guess - especially Cilan and his obsession with whatever he claims to be an expert about.

We need more Ash and Iris moments like in this episode.
 
Do train stations in the U.S. even do the whole stamp rally thing? It seems like a uniquely Japanese thing to me.
 
Dogasu said:
Do train stations in the U.S. even do the whole stamp rally thing? It seems like a uniquely Japanese thing to me.
Click to expand...

I live in New York and have never seen or even heard of anything like that before, not even in the city. It sounded like fun, though!

As for the episode, I liked it! Metro crazy Cilan was fun to see again, I liked the parts where he was trying to collect the different stamps. I also really loved the parts where Ash and Iris were exploring the city. My favorite was when they went to the football game, and Ash decides to cheer for the opposite team of Iris. If I took one of my friends to see a sports game and they decided to root for the team playing against my favorite one, I would probably punch 'em :p

The female Axew was so cute, and I liked Erina. She was a sweet, enjoyable character. I love the way Cilan freaked out everytime he messed up the trains.

And the episode was definitely not about the battle at all. It really was a bit of a let down, I wanted to see more of the Subway Bosses in battle. I must be the only one who found Iris' "get ready for a lecture" line funny. I like how she seems to completely detest every time Cilan brings up "evaluating time." I really enoy the characters' personalities in BW.
 
Cilan was way too adorable in this episode and Jason did a perfect job :D
 
This was a fairly entertaining episode for me. Lots of fun parts.

Loved seeing Ash and Iris go around the city, seeing all the sights.

Erina's parts were decent. Interesting Axew plot as well.

Cilan's subplot was very entertaining. He is similar to me because I freak out if we go the wrong way out on the road.

The battle, was meh. Decent enough.
 
I also live in New York. We don't get Stamp rallies, we get huge monstrous rats and sometimes you come out of the train and see a severed head. :(
 
By the way, did anyone else really notice how much better the art has gotten in this ep. Most of the scenes showing cities in DP didn't feel like cities. They felt like rough cutaways, this episode felt pretty alive.
 
I just didn't understand the part when Erina said she was meeting Axew at the Amusement Park, like her and her pokemon were meeting each other and then got lost? I might have heard it wrong, but. Anyway. I loved that this episode showcased the great parts of Nimbasa City, but otherwise, everything else about it was pretty bland.

It must be my game mechanical mind, but when Cilan told Pansage to use BULLET SEED on Chandelure, I wanted to cry. That's when I knew that this battle was going to end pretty quickly, and guess what, it did.

I really enjoyed the Musical bit of the episode. It was pretty interesting to see so many people crowded around that one tiny stage. And Ash in a pink suit....unforgettable.
 
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