Yeah x”“D It’s a shame that I found their mirror!versions way more interesting (mirror!Serena challenged Satoshi to a Pokémon battle because she is used to destroy mirror!Satoshi in battles and Satoshi was claiming to be “not that Satoshi”/coming from another place (didn’t hear everything)… so she could check if it was mirror!Satoshi that way. GOOD LOGIC GURL. SOLVING EVERYTHING WITH POKEMON BATTLES, THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT /o/ And mirror!Citron was more assertive (not in Satoshi’s shadow), too! Didn’t notice big differences with Eureka (Edit: okay yes she gives suffixes to everyone and speaks formally and is admirative of her brother’s magic)) - so they were great but damniiiit, I don’t know to what extent it was a “you’ll never have these kind of people in the series anymore” thing or a “hey, we know there are these problems in the characters! We will work on that later, give us some more time even though it’s getting long!” thing.Though I found a little unnerving that the episode insisted so much on Serena’s worry (Edit: not that much, but definitely more than Eureka+Citron together) (seriously, I should have tried to count the number of times she said “Satoshi” or replace them in my head with “I want to try Pokémon training”) while Citron and Eureka were also worried (the focus she received was unfair to them!)… And there is that widespread delusion idea, in fictional works, that a crush on a stranger or someone you don’t know much is often stronger than FRIENDSHIP and TEAMWORK, I felt that the episode was going that way a little. Well, at the end, it was teamwork, and Eureka and Citron also turned it into that with her final question, but there was also the feeling that the series was baiting just to bait and that all Serena can bring to an episode is… having her eyes on Satoshi. I got the feeling, in XY006, that Serena’s whatever on Satoshi was a sort of… way to shield herself, an excuse to avoid having to stand on her own for herself and her own future, and that vibe never quite disappeared. So, Serena’s question at the end (“… We will always be together, right?”) still goes in that sense for me. Still not finding that really cute, though (? girl, what would you be doing with your life if Satoshi didn’t exist? Usually, Satoshi pushes people forwards, we hadn’t seen that much with Serena, so I’m expecting something à la Haruka with a “I’m too dependant” vibe. If it doesn’t happen soon, though, I’m gonna lose it again, because damn male-worship, give me back my series about ~friendship is the bestest thing in the world~. Together with Hanako’s hot chocolate.)So, it was a fun episode as stand-alone, even though not solving anything of the problems I have with XY /o/ (But I got the feeling it highlighted a few things that bothered me, so yay, I’m feeling less mistakenly paranoid about it. Serena not being a Pokémon battler is something the series is aware of. And Satoshi being so confident and not amazingly emotional about Pikachu… maybe too. So if it’s deliberate-> there is hope that it will get solved.)Also, I don’t remember any previous episode that didn’t have any other Pokémon than the group’s and Team Rocket’s? Their mirrored versions could be perceived as “other Pokémon”, but this struck me and I wasn’t able to remember if this had ever happened before (even in BW119, when we were getting focused on the group eating/solving Chaoboo’s problem and Nyarth talking to Akuroma, the Plasma-dan battled with Pokémon).… I got carried away and that ended up getting gratuitously long ooooops.Anyway. MIRROR!SATOSHI WAS SUCH A CUTE. HIM MISSING PIKACHU OPENED DOORS TO ANOTHER WORLD. DAMNIT. ;w;