Pokemon Sun & Moon E08 Review: Egg Bandits

Pokemon Sun & Moon, Episode 8: Who'll Be In Charge of the Egg? / Lillie's Egg-xhilirating Challenge

We've got our Lana and Sophocles spotlight episodes, so this time it's Lillie and her Pokemon-phobia that gets thrown into the spotlight, and... I did remember talking about how annoying Lillie's one-note character shtick could become if the animation wasn't so expressive, and I stand by it. The plotline of this episode, after a pretty long and pointless prologue featuring a hyperactive Togedemaru, ends up with the class deciding that maybe the best way for Lillie to start working to actually touching a Pokemon is for Lillie to learn caring for a Pokemon egg, one of the two that Samson Oak has.

The episode is paced really, really slowly, though, with elaborate scenes showing Ash and company getting into Lillie's car and eventually her mansion, and Lillie's own bookworm enthusiasm showing off, and it definitely hurts the pacing of the episode as it ends up being pretty dang boring. We get hints of Lillie's backstory from an exposition story time from mr. butler, who notes that there was a traumatic experience in Lillie's childhood at a time when she went out of home with her mother that caused her to be unable to touch Pokemon. There's a brief bit of fun moments where Ash tries to get Lillie to touch Pikachu, a sleeping Rowlet and a pretend-he's-a-regular-pokedex Rotom, but ultimately Lillie ends up just sticking to observing and feeding (from a distance) the Pokemon that arrives in her park.

Because this episode really doesn't have a whole ton of plot, we get a showcase of a new Generation VII Pokemon, Oricorio (pom pom form!) and Ash tests out Rowlet in having him fight in a proper match. The animation's neat, and we get some dynamic action for both birds, but it's ultimately just pretty filler, and a way to get everyone out of the mansion so Lillie is alone with the egg.

And then some bastard Salandit who's been following our heroes since the school attack Lillie, intent on presumably eating the egg, which is what drives Lillie to jump in the way and rescue the egg, touching the egg at once. Pikachu, Oricorio and Rowlet beat the shit out of Salandit and drives it away. Lillie, able to at least touch eggs now, ends up solving her plot of the episode, huzzah!

Overall, a very, very slow-paced episode. The animation's still as gorgeous as ever, but I genuinely don't think there's enough content to justify stretching this into a full episode. The butler fight isn't terribly interesting, and neither is long scenes explaining Lillie's love for Pokemon and how she feeds Butterfrees or whatever. I dunno... a better writing team could definitely rewritten this episode to feel a lot less padded and bland, I'm sure. 

Rotom Index:

• Pokemon: Pikachu, Bounsweet, Popplio, Togedemaru, Rotom, Salandit, Komala, Charizard, Lilligant, Lilipup, Cleffa, Rowlet, Butterfree, Boldore, Cubone, Ledyba, Misdreavus, Caterpie, Whimsicott, Trapinch, Petilil, Cottonee, Parasect, Paras, Sudowoodo, Bonsly, Roggenrola, Psyduck, Emolga, Spinarak, Rufflet, Metapod, Fletchling, Oricorio, Exeggcute
• Humans: Lana, Sophocles, Mallow, Lillie, Ash, Kiawe, Samson Oak, Professor Kukui, Lusamine, Gladion

Assorted Notes:

• So presumably the egg that Ash and Delia delivered from Kanto's Oak to Alola's Oak is... a regular Vulpix egg? That's very underwhelming. 
• I am not sure if it's an accident or not, but two of the Pokemon in the picture are called Lilligant and Lillipup. Considering that neither of their original Japanese names have "Lillie" anywhere in it, I do think it's coincidence, but I'm curious if the animators actually took a look through the international names.
• Love the brief snippets we get of the Pokemon playground. Highlights include a Paras perched on a Parasect, and the unlikely pair of Ledyba and Misdreavus chasing each other through some tunnels. 
• Rowlet does a lot of kicking in this episode, which is hilarious because he is a smol baby owl. 
• Dub Changes:
• The butler is called James in the original Japanese. Obviously, since the dub already have a prominent character called James, he's renamed into "Hobbs".