Review JN095: Farewell! The Wandering Rocket Gang!

So, after all that advertising, Butch and Cassidy are barely in the episode. I'm so disappointed, I couldn't be bothered to get Butch's name wrong.

The parts of Cassidy and Butch could also have been played by random people. Oh well... Still glad we saw them again and have an explanation why we didn't see them anymore after DP.

Too bad they also splitted up. Was it mentioned if they keep in touch? Also, it was hard to keep track off with all the blasting offs, but were the bakery and eathouse far apart or nearby eachother? Otherwise it was a very big coincidence Jessie, Meowth and Wobbuffet met Butch so shortly after Cassidy (which was already a big coincidence to begin with).

And like I suspected, the female Meowth wasn't Meowzie. This would also have been a huge coincidence. And Meowth once again lost the battle for attention to a Persian.

In classic PM19 style this hit a lot of the beats you might expect from a great episode whilst not actually being a great episode itself

What’s cool about being on holiday is I could get up early and sit on the beach in the pre-dawn to watch this by myself surrounded by nature, so I was feeling peaceful and benevolent. In that mindset there was definitely a moment in the episode where I felt like jumping into my phone screen and hugging Musashi. As ever, props to Megumi Hayashibara for making her just feel like a real person you could almost reach out and touch.

Equally my heart contracted to hear the original Rocket motto theme, Nyasu’s Ballad and Danka

But the episode felt so… empty? It was in any case devoid of plot, but I just feel the characters did stuff at random rather than with deliberation. On previous occasions, TRio members leaving one another to live their lives have been treated as huge moments with enormous emotional weight, on the internal understanding that they’re parting for good and may never be together again. Even though we the audience know better, it is important for the show not to brazenly make it obvious that it will be so or else there is no reason to feel anything. Look at this much better example from Yonemura’s (supposedly) own episode back in XY:



Equally, their reasons for returning were so lame. Oh Morpeko ate Yamato out of business? Boo boo. Nyasu’s love failure got about 5 seconds of import so it’s hard to feel any sympathy. How could you both allow Musashi to walk away for such weak reasons in the first place, and then not come back truly of your own accord?! Ugh.

Even more so than TRio stuff, Yamato and Kosaburo having left the Rocket Dan, and more significantly each other, is HUGE. There’s more to life yeah, but since you’re essentially doing the same job after retiring, why didn’t you stick together to do it?! This episode could have explored that or given them a chance to reunite, or had a longer term impact in any way but instead brought back these classic characters purely to put them on different buses. If I were a diehard YamaKosa fan I’d be pissed. (As it is, I’m a bit pissed but I’m still sat by the ocean so my nerves are soothed.)

I will have a rewatch once this is subbed but overall my first impression is that this was poorly written. Also, is the Gatchat gone then? Good riddance if so, at least something meaningful has come from this episode.

ii kanji said:

Also, is the Gatchat gone then? Good riddance if so, at least something meaningful has come from this episode.

Click to expand...

It is kinda disappointing Biff and Cassidy played such a small part, but if they’ve move on with their life…

Unfortunately it didn’t hit the emotional and dramatic heights of similar episodes from the past - the one where Meowth starts working at a ramen restaurant being one of my fave episodes ever.

So... did Team Rocket really say goodbye to Pelipper? Is the gatcha done for real? I don't really hate the gatcha as many people do, what I hate is that it keeps Jessie and James from getting their own Pokémon, and I dislike that.

Other than older characters returning, this was not a good episode quite honestly. There's barely any plot, and we have another fake breakup episode. Like seriously, these are starting to get old, epsecially considering how ham-fisted these ones are being handled. Boot and Lassity's returns barely invoked anything, as were the reasons for TR returning, and really the only reason why I'd enjoy this episode other than the aforementioned reason is that there's a small chance the Gacha doesn't return.
Honestly, this was not worth the watch, and this is one of the "watch once and never again"episodes for me.
3/10

PTOldMan said:

So... did Team Rocket really say goodbye to Pelipper? Is the gatcha done for real? I don't really hate the gatcha as many people do, what I hate is that it keeps Jessie and James from getting their own Pokémon, and I dislike that.

Click to expand...

I need subtitles to be sure. It could also be that they just stopped blaming their fails on the Prize Master.

I like that we got an explanation why Butch/Cassidy haven't been seen in years since they retired from TR. They could have been used more in the episode but at least it's better than never hearing from them again since early DP.

TR prove they're inseparable. I'm not so sure the Pelipper gotcha is gone for good though. I think people might be jumping the gun here since it could very well appear again the next time TR show up. I guess we'll see.

I agree with a lot of what other people said. TRio break up episodes have been done in the past with better execution, which did make this one feel a little flat despite its huge potential.

Also sorry not sorry...


she gets it from her mama

Gotta say, if the gatcha is in fact done, it’d be great if Pelipper becomes a member of their team. After all, they have bonded with it over the course of the series, it’s been shown to obey them in battle and here it chose to save them over the gatcha. Seems good grounds for it to join them.

I had a feeling it was gonna happen, but, what the heck:



That being said, if they got rid of the gacha, that would probably be the best thing that would happen in the series beyond Goh disciplining Grookey and it stuck.

Did anyone get the M09 reference?
Loved seeing TRio shenanigans in the beginning but this episode was a mix of The Scheme Team and Noodles! Roaming Off! Biff and Cassidy did not show up enough and at the end it was just... Team Rocket is back together. We got baited.
That being said a whole episode with Team Rocket is a million times better than a whole episode with Ash. Wish Jessie would have caught something here.

Kurolegacy said:

Gotta say, if the gatcha is in fact done, it’d be great if Pelipper becomes a member of their team. After all, they have bonded with it over the course of the series, it’s been shown to obey them in battle and here it chose to save them over the gatcha. Seems good grounds for it to join them.

Click to expand...

Instead of Pelipper being the Gotcha mon, it should have been Cramorant

Yamato! And! Kosanji!!! Welcome back my loves.

In true Journeys fashion this episode wasn't incredible (and would it have really killed them to show B&C more?) but man I'm just so happy to have finally seen them again that I can't complain too much. <3

I'm glad Butch/Cassidy got closure. This is probably going to be their final episode of the anime, but unlike that random DP filler from 2007 with Hippopotas, at least here they have proper closure. And again explains their long absence in the series and why Matori's team replaced them.

I'm glad we got some closure for Butch and Cassidy. Seems they left Team Rocket for good. I'm disappoitnted there wasn't enough of them though. Typical Journeys. Seems that gacha might be done also? Not amazing, but it was alright. Just seeing Biff and Cassidy again was nice enough for me.