#sm102

the girl who always smokes

misty and lana kept in touch since the kanto visit! i adore that, and i adore their little (slightly romantically coded if you ask me) talk in the sunset. it was a very beautiful scene. misty is very taken in by alola, too. i’m wondering if she is terribly busy with the gym, and the way she talked sounded very much like a working adult, missing peaceful and calm places when the working life is so hectic.. it’s a little strange since she’s a child, too, but i think it goes well with the dynamic of the original trio, where brock and misty were always the more mature ones compared to ash, and they still are even when ash has come a long long way to become a less of a brat and more of a sweet summer child. this is absolutely the best way to depict the same dynamic, but levelled up! :)

and ash having giant exeggutor friends being somehow a shock to the rest of the class was a pretty fun thing! i guess they don’t just individually make friends with herds of pokemon all over alola? (i kind of thought for a moment we’d see the wimpod we met back then.. but i’m really glad to get a callback to ash and the exeggutor, that was extremely cute and good.)

and then ash during this scene at the shop was so funny and it’s such a small thing but i love this tiny choice in characterisation, not having any opinions for or against the girls’ enthusiasm for shopping, while kaki and sophocles are being the “i don’t get it” kinds of dudes.

he really doesn’t mind being there, even waiting for them! he doesn’t waste time considering how “different” girls’ interests are, and is just enjoying the view to treasure island!

please keep this up, make him be happy to join in on the feminine things!! or at least have him not being the one to condescendingly “not get the girly things”. he’s just happy to be there and happy that his friends are having fun, even if he’s doing his own thing.

(i kind of was confused for a moment, like, what are the boys doing there staring at the sea for?? what is happening in this scene? and then.. well. i could do without this kind of separation of “boys” and “girls” altogether in the shows i watch, but this is very tame all things considered.)

also, i’m not sure if this is weird or not, but the pokeproblem scene at the end when ash fell asleep in between misty and brock on the beach, and then it panned back to kukui’s house seemed kind of like an acknowledgement that the original trio look like a family, since i definitely felt like i was watching a reunion between siblings for a few moments there! (brock is a very motherly big brother-figure, especially when he was waiting for them at the beach with dinner! and i’m very glad there wasn’t anything i could recognize as romantically coded between ash and misty, to be honest :p). kukui and burnet watching them and smiling was really sweet, almost like parents taking care of their child and being happy seeing them happy. i thought the last minute or so plus the pokeproblem segment were this episode’s absolute highlights. ;U;