XY tr - complete fixed collection
they're NOW well-BALANCED
and Worthy of OS-BW canon!
Details Below...
In Kalos we don't really have serious TR "stories" and "arcs" to tell, unfortunately, like they were in Unova. Team Rocket back to their roots and traditional roles on the show after such serious endeavors could be a nice thing but it doesn't necessarily need to exclude them from relevance and plots of their own. Sadly, that's exactly the case with XY TR and the catastrophic result of vocal backlash over their roles in BW. They are deprived of sense, story, continuity and logic of their own and - most of the time - feel really off, like they don't belong in their own continuity anymore, in some of their pointless appearances they feel like past relics completely oblivious to the fact they've been through recent successes and become a bit more respected within their criminal organization, a position they're supposed to defend if they want to keep it and learn from some of their past mistakes. They are still them but sometimes they ought to do something new, something different and more relevant/useful than their old antics, right? Meanwhile, in the original XY series they are no longer capable of restraint, blast off without mercy (in many situations forced) and obsess over Pikachu all the time (in many situations forced) while seemingly ignoring literally every other good prospect. Sometimes, even when they do something OK, something that feels like it BELONGS, there is still something off about them, whether a line of dialogue or pointless, degrading appearance. Sometimes you can tell the writers knew how they were supposed to handle them but they didn't really care about Team Rocket quality anymore because they were forced to write them in "the old style" and told to do everything in their power to spam episodes with them even when they didn't want to. So, they're able to utilize tech or get in touch with HQ (even if that's just off-screen but not an ogoing story) but all they do are pointless things and remain seemigly uncaring about results. In effect, they are effectively made into pretentious fools rather than exccentric but hardworking, unlucky villains (and make no mistake, they're supposed to be the latter). In the distant past it wasn't a problem because HQ and the boss ignored them, they were at their lowest, without tech and gadgets, so even when they fooled around a lot (hungry and broken) it didn't matter - you could tell they were doing their best, anyone else in their shoes would've given up on evil a long time ago. But not anymore. Now the characters NEED more balance. The purpose of this project was to give them justice!
So what's this exactly?
The complete collection of XY series but Rocket Gang is "fixed" here so the continuity between BW-XY-SM-Journeys as well as future series seems less jarring. Pokemon Showcases and Flare Gang arcs are more consolidated now as well, which makes for a better viewing experience and further benefits Rocket Gang’s narrative during Flare Gang arc. Besides, even if you aren’t a Rocket Gang fan this complete collection has still plenty to offer you – consistency and consequence that’s on par with everything else in the series, with XY Rocket Gang effectively brought up to the levels of SM/Journeys which means they’re far less annoying and more grounded. They have clearly defined place in episodes and narrative now, sometimes only with a cameo, and all of their POINTLESS, invasive, degrading appearances were removed. The effect is *surprisingly* nice flow of XY series that I never knew I could appreciate so much!
Episodes without “[NUMBER]” at the end of the name are episodes with TR in them. In Japanese, with English subtitles (ever since XY series the English dub quality and score choices became terrible so I'm not going to do any dub edits). Episodes are the same quality as original uploads by the sub team.
With a very few exceptions almost all edits were done with lossless methods, timings of subtitles were readjusted where needed. Changes include small dialogue edits, gentle cuts, removal of scenes, re-ordering of episodes (with positive effect on Rocket Gang pacing) and larger edits of some of the episodes. Also, a few episodes I decided to remove completely because they don’t contribute anything to the series but do a huge disservice to Rocket Gang’s characterization (or narrative) so it wasn’t just worth the work to salvage them like the others. For Flare Gang’s arc I left most of the episodes intact but to provide better pacing and improve Rocket Gang’s narrative in it I used short 4-5 minute long segments in some places to fill in the blanks (I've taken those from my Flare Gang compilation). I managed to keep the structure of the entire series mostly the same, without things being “off” such as higher tier evolutions shown before their actual episodes – though some of it was unavoidable, in particular a certain green blob visible in Eureka’s bag in some of the reordered episodes, or narrator lines at the beginning sometimes. Nothing major though, the narrative and progression of stories are not confusing at all, and Flare Gang arc being an actual finale to the series with Showcases resolved earlier so they’re not getting in the way… makes perfect sense and reminds us of the nice flow of Plasma Gang’s arc in Best Wishes or Solgaleo’s arc in Sun & Moon!
Now I have XY TR that I can fully enjoy and treat as part of flawless canon. They aren’t jarring and all over the place with pointless, low quality appearances. If you’re like me - you care for solid direction and logic behind them - maybe you’ll want to take a look? Because they are pretty cool now and my heart doesn’t ache anymore!
Episodes without “[NUMBER]” at the end of the name are episodes with TR in them. In Japanese, with English subtitles (ever since XY series the English dub quality and score choices became terrible so I'm not going to do any dub edits). Episodes are the same quality as original uploads by the sub team.
With a very few exceptions almost all edits were done with lossless methods, timings of subtitles were readjusted where needed. Changes include small dialogue edits, gentle cuts, removal of scenes, re-ordering of episodes (with positive effect on Rocket Gang pacing) and larger edits of some of the episodes. Also, a few episodes I decided to remove completely because they don’t contribute anything to the series but do a huge disservice to Rocket Gang’s characterization (or narrative) so it wasn’t just worth the work to salvage them like the others. For Flare Gang’s arc I left most of the episodes intact but to provide better pacing and improve Rocket Gang’s narrative in it I used short 4-5 minute long segments in some places to fill in the blanks (I've taken those from my Flare Gang compilation). I managed to keep the structure of the entire series mostly the same, without things being “off” such as higher tier evolutions shown before their actual episodes – though some of it was unavoidable, in particular a certain green blob visible in Eureka’s bag in some of the reordered episodes, or narrator lines at the beginning sometimes. Nothing major though, the narrative and progression of stories are not confusing at all, and Flare Gang arc being an actual finale to the series with Showcases resolved earlier so they’re not getting in the way… makes perfect sense and reminds us of the nice flow of Plasma Gang’s arc in Best Wishes or Solgaleo’s arc in Sun & Moon!
Now I have XY TR that I can fully enjoy and treat as part of flawless canon. They aren’t jarring and all over the place with pointless, low quality appearances. If you’re like me - you care for solid direction and logic behind them - maybe you’ll want to take a look? Because they are pretty cool now and my heart doesn’t ache anymore!
Episodes Below!
Download them here. Enjoy!
IMPORTANT: Not going to change torrent file for this but Onbat-Onvern evolution episode was completely out of order (in a major way). So just change number of episode 048 to '057B' after download. (but please seed if you can, so you can actually keep a copy of the original numbered 048 in the folder, just in case to be able to seed it, thanks!)
KEY FEATURES OF THIS COLLECTION:
- Simply put: TRio are no longer jarring coming out of Best Wishes and a better balance between serious/lighthearted, with quality over quantity. They are actually worthy successors to BW’s legacy and after binge watching in succession you’ll certainly find them acceptable as continuous canon, unlike the messy writing in the original XY version. It’s true that Decolora Adventure arc in Best Wishes made them blast off again on regular basis and included them in more traditional filler roles in most of its episodes - but I always viewed it as a “respite for the past’s sake” (which worked for that short filler arc of the Decolora Archipelago) rather than the beginning of the forced “every damn episode for the past’s sake!” treatment. So leaving Decolora Islands I expected to see some more of these novel solutions introduced in BW, at least in portion, like their tech schemes, not always involved in weekly plots, restrain when needed, dedication or even apparent successes towards Rocket Gang’s goals because they gotta uphold their somehow good reputation now. All of which turned out to be true *in most of their interestingly written, high-quality XY episodes* but not quite in the bigger picture because their XY writing was completely schizophrenic and conflicting at times. Putting them in almost every damn episode in places they clearly didn’t belong to with piss-poor motivations behind their actions largely contributed to pointless, distracting avalanche of their extremely annoying, low quality appearances throughout the entire series... Well, now it’s all gone! They are well-balanced and closer to SM/Journeys. They no longer stalk the brats at every corner and can sit out some of the episodes (or even many episodes) where they aren’t needed, just like in SM/Journeys! Which is how they should have been in XY to begin with!
- They no longer obsess over Pikachu like it’s the only thing that matters, you can notice their schemes actually involve other Pokemon as well. Needless, forced references to Pikachu removed from many of their schemes that simply have nothing to do with it! It comes off so naturally that you won’t even recognize these dialogue changes. Now it’s how it ought to be!
- In some other cases where changes were needed their motivations are much better now, with most of their needless, ridiculously motivated, not-fun intrusions removed completely.
- Pacing is good and one may notice a pattern in their activities, like research into Mega Evolution, Pokemon-control experiments, research into Squishy and Flare Gang’s activities without needless, stupid distractions, and other off-screen activities that don’t involve the brats. Makes sense that the boss still tolerates them or that they have direct line of communication with him.
- There is also the Vanipeti episode where merely two dialogue changes were enough to fix their original, ridiculous, forced motivation (“making and selling ice-cream”) and turn it into a science scheme at the request of Professor Seger (weapon testing similar to their Dangoro scheme from Best Wishes), so yep, they’re still in touch at times, why shouldn’t they be? A small nod of justice because their relationship was pretty good and there is no reason why they shouldn't actually stay in touch. Also, the mention of Seger feels completely organic in this episode because Kojiro even uses his “let me explain our science!” segment here, you know, the one that first appeared towards the end of BW!
- The ratio of blast-off VS no-blast-off-or-more-varied-exit has been effectively reduced to 50/50 or less. While no longer using rocket jet packs to escape, they’re still allowed to make off-screen retreat on occasions if their schemes fail and quietly slip away. Also, got rid of forced, needless skyward blast-offs in plots - with exits other than skyward blast-offs being more common now, like they used to do back in the good old days at times (running away, sinking etc.). This sort of variety really helps with the transition from BW to XY (makes them more believable as partially successful, more competent schemers with some of that scheming dealt with behind-the-scenes) and is then replaced by Kiteruguma’s fun, original exits of SM, with skyward blast-offs brought back in full force only for Journeys.
- More frequent shenanigan adventures with TRio effectively stalking the brats from the bushes (rather than bumping into them by chance) occur around Showcases, when they’re more focused on Musashi’s personal side quest and traveling to the same contest destinations as the brats. Unlike the Pokemon contests of AG/DP, she is not really shown actively training for Showcases with her Pokemon by her side here - all of it delegated to off-screen, sadly. But at least she is no longer over-obsessing over capturing others’ Pokemon for her performances since such pointless, short-lived, distracting, inefficient appearances of theirs were all removed! This actually contributes to her development as a more mature performer after AG-DP and doesn’t do her the disservice of aimless, brainless Pokemon kidnapping sprees based on some far-fetched fantasies of her performances magically working out for the better – motivations that were only used as shallow excuses to include them in plots of those episodes in the first place, even though they should have been absent in those. So now everything is as it should have been from the start and TRio aren’t as pointlessly degraded in the narrative of the show.
- Three of the episodes with very similar plots, mostly ridiculous on their own, I actually managed to turn into a single one but filled with quality, while cutting down on all the useless, bad quality stuff. It’s pretty impressive how well it worked out and good example of how Rocket Gang TRio can be used to advance development of Satoshi’s Pokemon in a fillery, wacky adventure but at the same time as more efficient threats and characters actively involved in said plot, so it’s actually believable, not forced and deus-ex-machina.
- Their role in Flare arc is more consolidated, with gentle nods towards careful investigation rather than quick, wacky, short-lived snatching attempts in episodes they don’t belong to. Also, they don’t tell the boss such unbelievable crap in the end (that they controlled 100% Zygarde and single-handedly defeated Lysandre). Instead, they present the truth – yes, in more colorful light but still mostly the truth - and they did in fact play a role in defeating Flare so there is no need to lie. Makes sense, they achieved some things and researched some stuff, though their apparent lack of captured Pokemon and more significant, more substantial results prompted the boss to monitor them more closely in Alola presumably. The continuity makes more sense now!
- Different subtle changes or cuts where needed, resulting in better pacing and coherent narrative behind Rocket Gang activities in the series.
I can rest in peace now because with all those Rocket Gang flaws and distractions eliminated it is actually possible to appreciate XY series as a consistent whole and part of larger canon saga!
Enjoy!~
IMPORTANT: Not going to change torrent file for this but Onbat-Onvern evolution episode was completely out of order (in a major way). So just change number of episode 048 to '057B' after download. (but please seed if you can, so you can actually keep a copy of the original numbered 048 in the folder, just in case to be able to seed it, thanks!)
KEY FEATURES OF THIS COLLECTION:
- Simply put: TRio are no longer jarring coming out of Best Wishes and a better balance between serious/lighthearted, with quality over quantity. They are actually worthy successors to BW’s legacy and after binge watching in succession you’ll certainly find them acceptable as continuous canon, unlike the messy writing in the original XY version. It’s true that Decolora Adventure arc in Best Wishes made them blast off again on regular basis and included them in more traditional filler roles in most of its episodes - but I always viewed it as a “respite for the past’s sake” (which worked for that short filler arc of the Decolora Archipelago) rather than the beginning of the forced “every damn episode for the past’s sake!” treatment. So leaving Decolora Islands I expected to see some more of these novel solutions introduced in BW, at least in portion, like their tech schemes, not always involved in weekly plots, restrain when needed, dedication or even apparent successes towards Rocket Gang’s goals because they gotta uphold their somehow good reputation now. All of which turned out to be true *in most of their interestingly written, high-quality XY episodes* but not quite in the bigger picture because their XY writing was completely schizophrenic and conflicting at times. Putting them in almost every damn episode in places they clearly didn’t belong to with piss-poor motivations behind their actions largely contributed to pointless, distracting avalanche of their extremely annoying, low quality appearances throughout the entire series... Well, now it’s all gone! They are well-balanced and closer to SM/Journeys. They no longer stalk the brats at every corner and can sit out some of the episodes (or even many episodes) where they aren’t needed, just like in SM/Journeys! Which is how they should have been in XY to begin with!
- They no longer obsess over Pikachu like it’s the only thing that matters, you can notice their schemes actually involve other Pokemon as well. Needless, forced references to Pikachu removed from many of their schemes that simply have nothing to do with it! It comes off so naturally that you won’t even recognize these dialogue changes. Now it’s how it ought to be!
- In some other cases where changes were needed their motivations are much better now, with most of their needless, ridiculously motivated, not-fun intrusions removed completely.
- Pacing is good and one may notice a pattern in their activities, like research into Mega Evolution, Pokemon-control experiments, research into Squishy and Flare Gang’s activities without needless, stupid distractions, and other off-screen activities that don’t involve the brats. Makes sense that the boss still tolerates them or that they have direct line of communication with him.
- There is also the Vanipeti episode where merely two dialogue changes were enough to fix their original, ridiculous, forced motivation (“making and selling ice-cream”) and turn it into a science scheme at the request of Professor Seger (weapon testing similar to their Dangoro scheme from Best Wishes), so yep, they’re still in touch at times, why shouldn’t they be? A small nod of justice because their relationship was pretty good and there is no reason why they shouldn't actually stay in touch. Also, the mention of Seger feels completely organic in this episode because Kojiro even uses his “let me explain our science!” segment here, you know, the one that first appeared towards the end of BW!
- The ratio of blast-off VS no-blast-off-or-more-varied-exit has been effectively reduced to 50/50 or less. While no longer using rocket jet packs to escape, they’re still allowed to make off-screen retreat on occasions if their schemes fail and quietly slip away. Also, got rid of forced, needless skyward blast-offs in plots - with exits other than skyward blast-offs being more common now, like they used to do back in the good old days at times (running away, sinking etc.). This sort of variety really helps with the transition from BW to XY (makes them more believable as partially successful, more competent schemers with some of that scheming dealt with behind-the-scenes) and is then replaced by Kiteruguma’s fun, original exits of SM, with skyward blast-offs brought back in full force only for Journeys.
- More frequent shenanigan adventures with TRio effectively stalking the brats from the bushes (rather than bumping into them by chance) occur around Showcases, when they’re more focused on Musashi’s personal side quest and traveling to the same contest destinations as the brats. Unlike the Pokemon contests of AG/DP, she is not really shown actively training for Showcases with her Pokemon by her side here - all of it delegated to off-screen, sadly. But at least she is no longer over-obsessing over capturing others’ Pokemon for her performances since such pointless, short-lived, distracting, inefficient appearances of theirs were all removed! This actually contributes to her development as a more mature performer after AG-DP and doesn’t do her the disservice of aimless, brainless Pokemon kidnapping sprees based on some far-fetched fantasies of her performances magically working out for the better – motivations that were only used as shallow excuses to include them in plots of those episodes in the first place, even though they should have been absent in those. So now everything is as it should have been from the start and TRio aren’t as pointlessly degraded in the narrative of the show.
- Three of the episodes with very similar plots, mostly ridiculous on their own, I actually managed to turn into a single one but filled with quality, while cutting down on all the useless, bad quality stuff. It’s pretty impressive how well it worked out and good example of how Rocket Gang TRio can be used to advance development of Satoshi’s Pokemon in a fillery, wacky adventure but at the same time as more efficient threats and characters actively involved in said plot, so it’s actually believable, not forced and deus-ex-machina.
- Their role in Flare arc is more consolidated, with gentle nods towards careful investigation rather than quick, wacky, short-lived snatching attempts in episodes they don’t belong to. Also, they don’t tell the boss such unbelievable crap in the end (that they controlled 100% Zygarde and single-handedly defeated Lysandre). Instead, they present the truth – yes, in more colorful light but still mostly the truth - and they did in fact play a role in defeating Flare so there is no need to lie. Makes sense, they achieved some things and researched some stuff, though their apparent lack of captured Pokemon and more significant, more substantial results prompted the boss to monitor them more closely in Alola presumably. The continuity makes more sense now!
- Different subtle changes or cuts where needed, resulting in better pacing and coherent narrative behind Rocket Gang activities in the series.
I can rest in peace now because with all those Rocket Gang flaws and distractions eliminated it is actually possible to appreciate XY series as a consistent whole and part of larger canon saga!
Enjoy!~