Last Call, First Round! (642)

[TicoPokemonMaster]

Where to start, well I liked the party scene especially everyone's favorite scene Dawn/Zoey romance. It was very interesting to see the Grand Festival with three different stages. It felt like it was mimicing the beauty, smart and cute contests in the game. Then the judges are presented, Mr.Contesta, Mr. Suikzo, three Nurse Joys, and the lovely, dancing, french babe.... sorry got carried away, Fantina.

here come Ursula, her appeal was rather intersting one of the best appeals. Nando appeal was boring, no wonder he didn't show up much the writers might not have had intersting appeals to give him.

Zoey appeal was interesting as well with using aqua ring as hoops to go through.Plus her finale was great. Jessie, what is there to say here (there is so much) I loved Jessie development this time around during contest, her drive, her wacky out there ideas of appeal ( getting hit by yanmega to reveal her new dress) wonder why the judges don't say anything about her including herself in the appeal. then again Fantina was estatic about the appeal.

Kenny, kenny who? Ooo yeah the poor excuse of a rival. it shows how interested the writers were to include him in the festival, might as well not have him show up at all. Kenny should take this as a wake up call and change his profesion to gym battles. His pokemon's powers are to strong for contest. That or his mind was not think how to use those moves in a contest.

Dawn's appeal was the best of them all it is a shame that she was near the bottom of the scoreboard, she should have placed were Nando was. nice to see Buneary shine, to bad it might be her only performance. I have to say that I was almost worried that cyndaquil's flame wheel might have melt the ice and made buneary fall but luckly it didn't happen. Very interesting to see the smokescreen and ice beam combo to form an ice ball.

overall interesting ep, can't wait to see the other three eps.

[Platinum fan.]

A nice way to start the Grand Festival. Shame Kenny's done already his new Empoleon and Floatzel got no justice. Seriously I think Dawn is the only Sinnoh trainer strong enough to control a Penguin. Barry and Kenny both turned Empoleon into a joke Pokemon, for crying out loud give one too Dawn and she'll show you how it's done. Back on topic the episode was good, I even liked Ash training Gible during the GF it actually fit in nicely this time around, without taking spotlight away from the Coordinator's. Nando has redeemed himself even if his appeal was boring, he has offically surpassed Kenny and got better treatment. Jessie, Ursula, and even Dawn's appeal's were all nice. Ursula's was cool just for the evolution, Jessie's was outstanding for changing clothes while being attacked, Dawn's was cute but boring, up until the end where Cyndaquil had flame wing's while on top Bunneary's Ice ball thing and the smokescreen to cover it. I also liked how Dawn had a little pep talk with her four plush toy's and two giant Pokemon, I love moment's like that. Overall Looking forward to the next one.

[KingMinun]

Already best GF so far imo.
I was extremely surprised to see a main character get eliminated so early, and especially Kenny, I felt so sorry for him. Poor guy, but I don't understand why he isn't staying for the rest of the festival, anyone know why?

Also we saw some awesome appeals, Nando's, Ursula's, and Zoey's were great, and I loved Dawn's, especially Cyndaquil flapping its wings on the ice ball, that was an awesome appeal.
Jessie's wasn't that appealing to me.

But now I'm even more excited for the rest of the GF. Next weeks episode looks very very good, with Pachurisu's hamster ball.

This GF is going to rock!

[S.Suikun]

Already best GF so far imo.
I was extremely surprised to see a main character get eliminated so early, and especially Kenny, I felt so sorry for him. Poor guy, but I don't understand why he isn't staying for the rest of the festival, anyone know why?

Well, let's face it - Kenny is hardly the most interesting rival. Still, it's a shame to see him (possibly) written off like this. The least he could have done is stick around to support everyone else from the stands. Unless saving money on VA talent is REALLY that important...meh, it's a nice twist but a little disappointing at the same time.

[FlyAsADunsparce]

I liked the episode a lot!

Ursula's appeal was very original and special. Vaporeon en Flareon didn't do much besides evolving en floating around though. Was a very nice appeal after all!

Nando's appeal was the best to me. I really liked Kricketot flying around Altaria. Also, Altaria is amazing.

Jessie's appeal was the 2nd best. Too bad they only showed the end of her appeal. Fantina was going crazy, i liked it a lot too!

Zoey: Lumineon is so cool! Gastrodon looks kinda awkard though. I liked appeal, especially the end!

Kenny: FACEPALM MAJOR FAILZZ LOLS

Dawn's appeal was nice too. Nothing special though. Just some sliding down an ice slide. Liked the end with the fire wings and the ice ball though.

Good thing they eliminated Kenny already. So it's Dawn vs Ursula up next. Probably Dawn vs Jessie after that and then Dawn vs Zoey! Exciting...

[TicoPokemonMaster]

Kenny lost in appeals just like Gary lost in prelims in Kanto. Flash Cannon and Whirlpool combination didn't worked out. Dawn's combination was nice but there is no explanation how can a Cyndaquil turn the flames at its back, just more of Anime physics. Nando has collected seven badges. So Jessie, Zoey, Ursula and dawn are moving on.

And next match is Dawn vs Ursula.

I can see your comparsion to Kenny and Gary but I have to give Gary some credit. It is show that he atleast won a battle in the ice field in the kanto prelims.

[CyberCubed]

Anyone think the Blaziken/Sceptile appeal was a reference to Ash/May's last contest together?


Anyway Kenny failing the appeals was a shocker. Even bigger was that he just....leaves? Its like the writers just wrote him off for no reason. The least I'd expect was him to stay and cheer in the stands.

Hey, its Nando. Its been what....3 years since his last appearance? I bet he'll do more in the league than GF.

There was a lot of lesbianism in this episode. I thought Zoey/Candice were a couple?

Pretty decent start to the GF overall.

[Wordy]

La~ Kenny got majorly screwed over. Of course I was irritated that he used another water appeal, but I've been used to it from all these other watery appeals, so I was kinda bored during Zoey's as well.

Yesss... Ursula is amazing again. I think she's my favourite DP character- but she's going to be screwed over next episode instead. Joy. Her twin Eevee were adorable, and I loved how her big finish was the evolution- and it looked good as well, what with all the water and fire effects. It wasn't just the usual boring shine. I knew that they would probably know Hidden Power. Fresh and exciting, unlike all the water. Again.

Nando- we didn't really see that much, but I enjoyed what I saw- all nice and musical. Kricketot and Altaria- adowable again! Kricketot probably won't be there for the League though. Unless it knows Bide, in which case it'll become Ubertot. Stupid Bide Piplup...

Jessie- another fantastic appeal. She's gonna get screwed over as well, no doubt. Shame, I'd love to see her come in at least the Top 4. If she's in the Semis, I'm happy. She leapt on Seviper's head and trusted in Yanmega enough to allow it to attack her head on confident in her Pokemon. This really has been the series in which Jessie has matured from tricky tactics. She won four contests (one unofficial, with Aipom) and got one from Salvia and the other was won by James. And I looove Fantina's expression~

I would love to see the Rattata+Lickilicky and the Cleffa+Steelix appeals. Would be fun.

Zoey- Oh, dear lord. As soon as the pool was uncovered, I felt like crying. Could we go without a watery appeal for one Contest?! Shellos and Finneon evolved. Great. Fab etc. I really lack enthusiasm for Zoey, so maybe I am a tad biased, but this appeal bored me. And then she jumps onto the whirlpool. For a moment I was hoping she would drown or something. Poetic justice and all that.

Kenny- Poor kid~ I much preferred his over Zoey's. At least it showed a bit of imagination on the water front, and it's always nice to see offscreen evolutions (less so for Shellos and Finneon 'cause they were boooring) because Prinplup was cool. Floatzel seemed to be quite the good performer as well. Shame that it (apparently) couldn't recover from the fall.

Dawn- Oh, here's something new- but with ice. Ice and water, what no coordinator can do without! The sliding was cute, and seeing Cyndaquil's 'wings' and it holding up Buneary, frozen in the heart of the sphere, was actually quite the pleasing effect. Going out on a high, in my honest opinion.

And then, the results- and Kenny doesn't get through. Oh yeah, but Zoey does. (Not that she would ever fail anyway.) So we see Kenny, who is leaving Lake Valor to train some more. Not even offering moral support by cheering from the sides. Stereotyping.

Quite the neat episode- these were some of the best appeals I've seen since Hoenn, where the whole thing was delightfully new and we could not predict a future full of sparkles and water. Ursula next- and she has to lose because we already know the finale. At least she'll put up a fight.

[Bisasam]

Anyone think the Blaziken/Sceptile appeal was a reference to Ash/May's last contest together?

Yeah, I wanted to post that as well. It was really cool.

But the pure EPIC WIN was the Steelix/Cleffa appeal, LOL.

[HoennMaster]

And so the Grand Festival finally starts. This is already lining up to be better then the previous two....combined.

By far the best appeal was..........Steelix and Cleffa. A great combo. lol

I loved Dawn, Ursula, and Jessie's appeals. Kenny's and Zoey's were good too, Nandos was ok.

I am so glad they got rid of Kenny early. Means we don't have to waste battle time on him.

[_Taidow_]

My opinons

~ Dawn
+ She thanked her pkmn for getting her this far.
+ Her appeal was purty.

~ Zoey
+ Glameow didn't appear.
- Zoey is cheating on Candice w/ Dawn.
- She didn't drown....

~ Kenny
+ Empoleon and Floatzel did great on the first half.
- His Flash Cannon was oo strong.
- Kenny got disqualified early...
- Water appeal.

~ Ursula
+ Plusle ad Minun are back.
+ Her appeal was great.
- She wats to end Zoey and Dawn's affair so she can get Dawn for herself.

~ Nando
+ He has 7 badges.
+ Altaria.
- Kricketot.

~ Jessie
+ Her strange appeal.
+ She made it past the appeals.

~ Ash
+ Practicing with Gible.
+ Draco Meteor almost hit Kenny. I guess Piplup needed a temp.

~ Brock
+ Flirts with everyone there lol.

~ In general
- Johanna did not personally show up at Lake Valor.
+ Three pairs of judges.
+ Fantina being a judge.
- Wallace not being a judge.
+ Wobbuffet cheered... lol.

[Thriller]

I totally forgot about the Grand Festival starting!

- Nozomi now has Gaston & Lumineon. No comment due to how boring those Pokemon are.

-Kengo now has Empoleon & Floatzel. I was totally expecting Cyber to complain at the latter but alas, he didn't. I think it's pretty stupid for him to have an Empoleon, not only because Jun has one already, but because it was an entire bridge of Piplup family members owned by main characters, it's now ruined.

- Nando (aka the only coordinator this season who wasn't given a stupid Dub name) now has Kricketot and Altaria. Great choices there, but odd for him to go back and get another Kricketot.

- Urara did something very interesting here, evolved two Eevee's (which can't evolve by themselves) midway! I'm surprised they allowed that.

What about Miss Mushashi? How well did she do?

[ijea4444]

Anyone think the Blaziken/Sceptile appeal was a reference to Ash/May's last contest together?


Anyway Kenny failing the appeals was a shocker. Even bigger was that he just....leaves? Its like the writers just wrote him off for no reason. The least I'd expect was him to stay and cheer in the stands.

Hey, its Nando. Its been what....3 years since his last appearance? I bet he'll do more in the league than GF.

There was a lot of lesbianism in this episode. I thought Zoey/Candice were a couple?

Pretty decent start to the GF overall.

I thought it was wierd that of all pokemon they did chose sceptile and blaziken.


I thought this episode went way too fast. The start was slow then all of a sudden Fantina comes out of the ground, we see a bunch of appeals happening and someone changes clothes during an appeal. I wish they could have slowed it down a little, but I guess thats what I get for getting my expectations so high. I would have liked it if we saw Plusle/Minun/Wormadam, Alakazam/Machoke/Breloom and from the looks of DP175 we're not going to see any of Ursala's other pokemon. I hope the Ursala battle in DP175 takes up ~13+ minutes of the episode, unlike this one where everything was jammed at the end.

Oh well it was still a good episode.

[CyberCubed]

The appeals were definitely rushed to get them all in the same ep. Some we didn't see more than for about 30 seconds.

[Ciccone]

Yay, episode review time! I'll try to include as many details on all the "Contest gore" as I can! Ok to start things off, we see Johanna sitting in her living room back in Twinleaf Town with Glameow viewing an interview involving Dawn. Nice to see Johanna watching the Grand Festival, it must be exciting watching your daughter compete. I was surprised by how suddenly this episode started though, Dawn and friends were already at the Grand Festival and Nando appeared, finally. He has such a pleasant voice in the Japanese version. He had 7 badges but one I didn't recognize, guess he went to other gyms lol. Kenny appeared next, poking Dawn's cheek like some kind of child. Then after Kenny starts teasing Dawn, with the usual "Pikari" thing, those two awful Plusle and Minun arrived and gave Dawn bad hair with their static :S

After Dawn fixed her hair, that sinister rival Ursula appeared with her smug face, as usual. Then the star rival, Zoey, appeared and there was that cute moment when Dawn greeted her and the Sandgem theme played in the background, aw! While all that was going on, Jessie was getting interviewed by that Sinnoh Now woman, and Jessie was as overconfident as ever (even though she won 2 ribbons by default lol). Back in the Lake Valor Hotel, Dawn gave the usual pep-talk to her team of Pokemon, probably to excite them about the challenges the next day. After showing them her mom's old ribbon, she then thanked all her Pokemon for fighting at her side which was awesome. This is why I like Dawn; she's naturally gracious. In the morning Ash and Gible started doing the usual training we've all come to expect during a GF tournament, apparently to perfect Draco Meteor :S

This time Draco Meteor hit Kenny instead of Piplup lol. Dawn had the usual pre-Contest anxiety and she couldn't brush her hair the way she wanted too. Luckily, Brock and Zoey arrived and it gave me goosebumps to see Zoey brushing Dawn's hair for her; it brought back memories of other occasions. FINALLY, the festival began and I noticed there were three stages; one pink, one blue, one green. The announcer said it was a double performance appeal round first and she introduced the judges aswell; Contesta, Sukizo, and three Joy's and I loved their headsets. Then suddenly Fantina from Hearthome appeared as a guest judge I believe and I was surprised! The 6 judges paired up in to groups of two to start judging the Appeal Round performances from all three of the stages I saw earlier. As luck would have it, Ursula was the first one to get down on the stage!

She sent out her new Pokemon; a pair of Eevee. Dawn looked up the species in her Dex, which is when I noticed she had a new dress haha. At first I thought it was an odd choice as May once used Eevee and it's movepool was limited. However, Ursula made great use of her Eevee. First she had them "fly" using Iron Tail which was an odd choice but when combine in midair by Hidden Power, the effect was pretty. Then Ursula tossed those Fire and Water Stones and I knew what was coming! Evolution during the appeal round was something different since the effect was magnified and Flareon and Vaporeon looked great right after evolving (though again, they were flying?). For her finale, she had them both send out an aura of fire and water which turned into a bubble-like effect. Kinda strange but unique. The judges loved it and both Dawn and Kenny seemed very impressed by Ursula as she got better after losing so many times.

Nando appeared next with his new Kricketot and Altaria; both Pokemon suit him nicely I think. Some glitter effect from Altaria combined with a musical effect from Kricketot to give off rainbow-colored music notes, awesome! Of course it dazzled everyone, especially the judges. The Jessie debuted on stage with Seviper's Haze and wind via Yanmega which turned into an odd whirlwind of smoke as she climbed atop Seviper's head. She then "absorbed" Silver Wind from Yanmega, and I was shocked! But then it turned out to be her method of revealing her new outfit that was under her old one, nice. Fantina was excited and she lept up to dance lol. After some other appeals, the blue stage was set and revealed to contain a pool of water beneath it. Zoey appeared with her new Lumineon (evolved from Finneon) and Gastrodon (evolved from her Shellos)and they combined Aqua Ring and Water Pulse to create "water rings" that exploded into giant whirlpools. It was certainly creative <3

Kenny appeared with a new Floatzel and his Empoleon that apparently evolved from Prinplup. Using Water attacks and Razor Wind, they made flying, spinning, aqua discs! Then his Floatzel used Whirlpool and Empoleon used Flash Cannon and they collided, causing more pretty lights. But with an attack like that, you can expect recoil and his Floatzel got blasted away, wow. Wonder if the judges liked it. Dawn seemed a bit worried about Kenny and his Pokemon but even more nervous as her turn approached. I'd be nervous too if my rivals had all improved since out last encounter. Dawn finally appeared on stage with Cyndaquil and Buneary. Buneary used Ice Beam and it spiraled until it became a slide (or more like a whole playground) of ice! Dawn had Cyndaquil ride the slide with it's Flame Wheel and I loved the contrast between Fire and Ice. Buneary got on the slide and rode it too and it was so cute!

For the finale, they used Smokescreen to hide their next move which Ursula seemed to think was a bad idea. However, it was concealing Buneary's "ice cocoon" with Cyndaquil on the top forming wings of fire! It looked amazing and Pikachu and Piplup were evening dancing with joy? It was funny/cute to watch. Ursula seemed unfazed with Dawn's success, which might be her downfall later. The judges decided who would go on to the next stage (Contest battles) and they tallied up the scores. Everyone minus Kenny made it. I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I was actually disappointed with that and I'm sad he didn't make it. At least he was a good sport about it. It ended with Kenny leaving that same evening, though I wish he had stayed to watch. Honestly, this must have been the very best Grand Festival premier ever, so many appeals and so much drama. It gets an A+ or a 11/10 since I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

[celebitrainer]

Oh my God, they killed Kenny!!

I was shocked that they eliminated a main rival this early; it would have been nice to see Dawn v. Kenny in the battle round, but, oh well.

Am I missing something? When did Jessie get her fifth ribbon? There was Solaceon Town; that contest during Ash's battle with Wake; the one James entered disguised as Jessie; she was given a ribbon by the princess; but which ribbon am I missing?

[saladbar112]

Oh my God, they killed Kenny!!

I was shocked that they eliminated a main rival this early; it would have been nice to see Dawn v. Kenny in the battle round, but, oh well.

Am I missing something? When did Jessie get her fifth ribbon? There was Solaceon Town; that contest during Ash's battle with Wake; the one James entered disguised as Jessie; she was given a ribbon by the princess; but which ribbon am I missing?

she got her 4th during the beach school episode

[Pink sneasel]

Omg, here are some cameos in the winners line up! Sakura, the youngest kimono girl who owned an espeon way back in johto is second to last in the top row just has green hair. Plus there's a Misty looking girl in the same row, just with pigtails. And the first girl looks really familiar too, I just can't remember where I saw her before...

Is it weird that the most interesting thing about the episode to me was a few small cameos? I mean the appeals were great and I was shocked that Kenny messed up and lost. Ursula's appeal showed she had serious skill, using two freshly evolved pokemon. You'd think that flareon and vaporeon would need to adjust to their new skills to be effective since she obviously couldn't train with them beforehand. But then again, her appeal was really simple, having them both continue using the same move from before their evolution to finish the appeal. Since it was nothing new, they probably had no problem controlling it in their new forms.

Jessie's appeal was actually amazing. Dull at first, but revealing a new outfit with yanmega's attack was an expected twist for me. Shows just how much better and creative she's gotten.

Kenny's appeal was great, but going after Zoey made it look like he was using a similar appeal in the first part, even if he did his in a much better way. He should have just stopped with the first part and I feel he would have been fine. Whatever he was going for looked like it would have been awesome in the latter part, but it seems he underestimated his empoleon's strength. A little more practice with that combo is what he needed, unless that was a freak mishap, which I guess can happen to anyone.

Dawn's appeal was very predictable and I admit rather cute. The whole slide part had a sort of childlike whimsy to it and hiding the formation of the ice ball with smokescreen led to a beautiful reveal. But like I said before, the ice ball was kinda expected.

[Poke Master 7]

Gotta say, I like the start of this Grand Festival. It really has the potential to be the best one of the 3 we've seen thus far. It was a nice start having all of Dawn's rivals each having some time to see her before the Grand Festival started. Also it's good to see that despite the fact that Ursala is made to be the Harley type rival, that she's not at all trying to cheat or deceive Dawn like Harley did to May, she wants to settle things fair and square.

One has to wonder why Fontina doesn't have her own substitute gym leader with how often that she's away. I mean wasn't Misty worried about having the gym shut down due to having no leader around it for too long?

As for the appeals, I thought they were really great. You gotta hand it to Ursala though for using evolution in her appeal. Now if that hadn't gotten her through, nothing would. Interesting though how after all this time of using her pokemon as the center of attention, Jessie used herself in it now. Zoey's appeal was interesting with water, especially how she stood on the water at the end. With Nando, it wasn't really filled with much visual as far as moves but I suppose whatever move Krickotot used was just that amazing. Dawn's appeal seemed a little generic to her normal ice appeals though the ending of the appeal was great with Cyndaquil on the ice ball with its flame shaped like wings.

Now when it comes to Kenny, it's really sad that the had him eliminated in the appeal round, thats literally the first time we've seen that with a rival. I really gotta wonder though why they even needed to do that yet they had all those random generic coordinators pass on. Though I guess its just a fact that with Jessie there, they had to focus on 6 coordinators so to cut down on time, they cut it down to 5 for the battles. But the sad thing is, with there being no Johto Battle Frontier coming after Sinnoh, if Dawn leaves after Sinnoh then this'll be the last we see of Kenny and that's seriously anticlimactic. Though it is kinda funny that out of 3 people who chose Piplup, Dawn is the only one who doesn't have an Empoleon now, though given the treatment they get, Dawn would probably be the only one who's Empoleon would actually win for a change.

Now for a random thought, since Ash was training Gible here like he was Snorunt in Hoenn, what're the odds that Ash's Gible will meet Ursala's Gabite before the end of the Grand Festival?

[Thriller]

Eh-Hem...

How far did Miss Mushashi advance??