>>53891768Can honestly say I felt a bit deflated watching it the first time. Ash's crisis of confidence seemed to come out of nowhere, and his snapping at Serena seemed like a character regression. One that was undone by the end of the episode. I don't even consider it a good shipping episode, but then again, I also don't see Amourshipping as strongly in the actual season as a lot of amourshippers do.
I always thought Cynthia was kind of overrated as a final boss until BDSP, but given her portrayal in the anime, I get why she's so beloved. She completely shits on Paul 4-0, and then has such charisma that even Croagunk is like, "yeah sure, shoot your shot, Brock." People kept making comparisons to Avatar and Pokemon; Pokemon needs an Uncle Iroh character, and I think Cynthia could've been it.
