S06:E18 - Buckball Season

[Thaliel 116]

Where did Fluttershy get her rad moves from?

[Grtxkkyz 388]

It was pretty fine, and had some really interesting background characters, such as that R63 Bulk Biceps. Who could have imagined Flutters had natural hability for a sport she didn't know. And Snails turned out to be quite useful despite his perpetual stupidity. Now they gotta redeem Snips later.

[Sonic5421 423]

Snails actually had a decent purpose for once. That it is actually kinda immense. Sure, he was still sorta dumb but he apparently is the zen at Buckball.

 

He sure is. Thanks to his empty-mindedness, he's able to maintain a zen state of mind. After all, did you see how he juggled those five buckets while balancing on another one that he was levitating as well? That takes a peaceful, calm state of mind to pull off so well like he did.

[SteveMorison 404]

Fluttershy: Looks like you two really do need practice!!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZHvd0ks7Es

[Sparklefan1234 170,571]

Still not worse than she was in The Cart Before The Ponies. Same with Applejack, for that matter. 

 

Speaking of that, this episode felt like a lot like The Cart Before The Ponies, in my opinion.

 

Especially, when AJ and Rainbow were making it less fun for Pinkie and Fluttershy because they were so focused on winning.  

Edited September 4, 2016 by Sparklefan1234

[weesh 690]

wow, Fluttershy plays a sport

 

It is a bit on the softer side of sports.  there is almost zero chance that a player will come into contact with a defending pegasus.  I can't see her playing rugby, but this sort of sport is on the fringe of believability.    

[TheWhiteBowser 187]

I enjoyed the episode. It applied a lot to how different people take pressure and either use it to their advantage or have it break them. And I honestly don't see how RD or AJ did anything intentionally wrong. Whether Flutters or Pinkie were naturals or not you still have to go through proper training in order to become better. But someponies train differently than others. Someponies get better by having fun playing the game while others get better through hard work and practice. Though I will say that is where this episode FAILS.

 

Basic understanding of humans is NO ONE IS BORN A NATURAL AT ANYTHING. You can be inherently good at something but having it become natural takes hard work and practice. Human intuition is a social construct. In fact some recent studies are suggesting the reason why more kids are being born with mental disorders isn't because of vaccinations it's because of evolution trying to experiment how to make humans smarter. And before you shoot me down on this need I remind you some of the greatest minds of our time had mental disabilities. Albert Einstein, Tesla, and many many more. Some scientists are wondering if kids born with Asperger's or ADHD have natural intuition unlike normal people who don't have it. Intuition is basically the ability to know how to do something before being introduced to it. This is actually why A LOT of artists have some form of mental disorder. Including myself being a video editor and writer and everything else. The ability some people have to understand things faster than others is amazing. 

 

Perhaps this episode was trying to delve into that? I'm probably overanalyzing and rambling but IDK.

[weesh 690]

Basic understanding of humans is NO ONE IS BORN A NATURAL AT ANYTHING. You can be inherently good at something but having it become natural takes hard work and practice. 

 

I disagree.  Some people are just naturally better at some things than other people.  And at a low level of competition, where no one has put much practice time in or effort to get better, this natural ability is a pretty important factor in success.  This can be both physical abilities (reactions, hand-eye coordination, or explosive first step) or mental (game flow, situational awareness, or calmness under stress)

 

obviously, this only gets you so far, and at high levels of competition, it is better to be a hard worker with a good training than to have natural ability.  

Edited September 5, 2016 by weesh

[TheWhiteBowser 187]

I disagree.  Some people are just naturally better at some things than other people.  And at a low level of competition, where no one has put much practice time in or effort to get better, this natural ability is a pretty important factor in success.  This can be both physical abilities (reactions, hand-eye coordination, or explosive first step) or mental (game flow, situational awareness, or calmness under stress)

 

obviously, this only gets you so far, and at high levels of competition, it is better to be a hard worker with a good training than to have natural ability.  

Dude that's what I said. Having an inherent ability to be better at something verses other people only gets you so far. Hard work and practice does the rest of the work to make you ready for the real world of competitive sports and other types of media. But to be a natural at something no one is born with that. I'm a fan of the blank slate theory the most. Of how all humans are mostly products of their environment unless naturally influenced by evolution

Edited September 5, 2016 by TheWhiteBowser

[weesh 690]

Dude that's what I said.

 

Is it?  you made a clear distinction between being a natural, and being good at something.  I've seen people people be immediately comfortable with a new competitive activity.

[Scootalove 10,689]

Another fun episode to add into the Season 6 mix.

 

Other than the new funny facial expressions from Fluttershy & Pinkie, it was fun seeing the writers play with a new plot this time around with the ponies learning how to play one game and its interesting concept. AJ and Dash pushing them to victory felt like one of those old sports movies where the coach pushes players too hard, realizes his mistakes, and then the team wins.

 

They added a spin to it, where the coaches learn from the players on the foundation that pressure isn't always a success. This episode made me actually like Snails.

[Music Chart Fan 819]

Overall, I feel like a bit of a broken record saying this, but I thought this was another not-awful but not-good episode that wasn't particularly entertaining. The lessons of not taking the game too seriously, not applying too much pressure and not ruining the fun for others are something that we've seen with Applejack and Rainbow Dash before, as recently as "The Cart Before The Ponies", and I'm not really sure what this episode added to those concepts. While I did relate to Fluttershy's outburst at Rainbow and Applejack, given how they treated Pinkie and Fluttershy to that point, I don't think I related to much else in the episode. I don't understand why Applejack, Rainbow, and, later, random residents of Ponyville took this single buckball game so seriously. I've almost never played or watched sports games, let alone really gotten "into" them, so I also just didn't relate to Rainbow's and Applejack's "Crush the competition, everyone's counting on you!" mentality. Additionally, the dialogue in this episode seemed very repetitive and overly simplistic, with many characters stating the obvious and repeating essentially the same thing over and over again. How many times did we hear iterations of how Applejack and Rainbow were taking the game seriously, etc., and how Pinkie and Fluttershy just thought the game was fun, etc.? It seems like the message of the episode was really pounded into the audience's heads more than was necessary.

 

First, the episode, at least initially, makes this game of buckball out to be a friendly family rivalry outside of any official league or anything, as though it's something the Apple family might do at one of their reunions. In fact, Applejack and Braeburn had to assemble teams specifically for this match, as though there were no preexisting teams or league that they would play in, which would make sense, since apparently most of Ponyville (and maybe even Appleloosa) had never heard of the game. So it seems to me that Applejack took Braeburn's "challenge" far too seriously from the beginning, even before she and Rainbow started stressing out Pinkie and Fluttershy. Why can't Applejack just leave Braeburn's trash-talking be, or just trash-talk back without feeling the need to prove him wrong? Why does Applejack need to recruit Rainbow Dash and other non-Apple-family residents of Ponyville to play an actual buckball game? Why does this game need to be made out to be defending the honor of the entire towns of Ponyville and Appleloosa? Why did Applejack and Rainbow hype up this single game to the point that residents of Ponyville and Appleloosa felt the need to travel there to cheer on their town's team?

 

And of course, Rainbow is tied up in all of this too. She instinctively (and inexplicably) feels a need to defend Ponyville's reputation in a game that she's literally never heard of prior to Applejack's telling her about it. And Rainbow goes from "What's buckball?" to "Buckball is the coolest game ever!" and "It's got it all!" in the very next scene. Shouldn't Rainbow perhaps actually play the game and/or watch it more before becoming so invested in it? This all comes across as a caricature of the basic traits of Rainbow's character, reducing her down to being "ultra-competitive" and "fiercely loyal" despite, to me, not really having good reason to be so in this case. Consequently, I don't relate much to Rainbow's and Applejack's behavior in this episode. I feel that I'm usually much more cautious about becoming deeply invested in new interests/hobbies/projects/etc., and I find Applejack's and Rainbow's "Crush the competition! Defend our honor! Everyone's counting on you!" mentality to be overblown and ridiculous.

 

I'm also not as inclined to give Rainbow and Applejack credit for eventually figuring out the problem themselves. Could Rainbow and Applejack not tell at the time that repeatedly yelling in Pinkie's and Fluttershy's faces and loading on the pressure wasn't having the intended effect? And even after Pinkie and Fluttershy snap, with Fluttershy's outburst and Pinkie's bursting into tears, Rainbow and Applejack say that they (still) don't get it. Rainbow says that it's "crazy talk" to suggest that telling Pinkie and Fluttershy how much everyone was counting on them would "mess them up somehow", and she and Applejack affirm with each other that of course doing that gets them ready to go and smash the competition. Only after all of that do they finally figure out what they did wrong and act to fix it.

 

Later, there are a couple of statements that Rainbow makes after "practicing" with Pinkie and Fluttershy once off the train that really don't seem to make much sense. For one, Rainbow says "Playing against you two is just as humiliating now as it was when we weren't trying to show you how awesome you are". How was trying to show Pinkie and Fluttershy how awesome they are part of the problem? Which part of Rainbow's and Applejack's previous behavior was showing Pinkie and Fluttershy how awesome they are - the training regimen, yelling at them, pressuring them by saying that everyone's counting on them and everyone's reputation is on the line? I really don't know what Rainbow was supposed to be referring to there. A little after that, Rainbow says that having fun is what makes Pinkie and Fluttershy "really, really, really good". What does that mean? That statement seems to imply that there's a direct proportional relationship between the amount of fun they're having and how good they are at the game, but that doesn't really make sense. Would we say that professional sports players (or anyone playing sports, for that matter) are better at the game the more fun they're having? Pinkie and Fluttershy should have fun because that motivates them to practice and get better and perform their best; having fun in itself isn't what makes them good at the game. It's also weird that Pinkie and Fluttershy have to have it explained to them by Rainbow and Applejack why they weren't playing well under pressure. Shouldn't Pinkie and Fluttershy be the ones saying that to Rainbow and Applejack, or at least agreeing with that conclusion, rather than being clueless about it themselves?

 

Finally, after Ponyville wins, Braeburn seems to be a good sport by telling Applejack that the Ponyville team played a pretty good game. But then Rainbow replies by saying "Hah! Good game? We bucked the hooves right off of you!". First, I wouldn't call eking out a win by going from 4-5 to 6-5 a particularly resounding victory, but also, Rainbow's being a rather bad sport by rubbing Appleloosa's defeat in Braeburn's face. It may be a sign that Rainbow is still taking the game too seriously when she says that rather than something like "Thanks! That was a close game, your team did pretty well too".

 

Now for some other miscellaneous observations:

 

In the beginning, why would Rainbow's scaring/disturbing Applejack's kick cause her to rapidly spin around in the air multiple times in the space of about a second? Also, I don't necessarily see how practicing "distance bucking" is helping Applejack to be better at buckball. From what we saw in the episode, the "buckers" stay in the middle of the field at a fairly similar distance from the goal the whole time.

 

Why do literally all the unicorns trying out for the team have to be either totally incompetent or not even trying at all? It seems beyond belief that there wasn't a single half-decent unicorn goalie until Snails happened to come along.

 

Obviously Pinkie's and Fluttershy's training regimens had little to do with what they would actually be doing in the game.

 

If I were a resident of Ponyville, I would not see any reason to "get fired up" over this one-time game with Appleloosa which I had never heard of. Rainbow even suggests that Princess Celestia will come to congratulate Pinkie and Fluttershy on beating Appleloosa. Why would Celestia do that? Why would she even care that much about this match at all?

 

Fluttershy asks how she and Pinkie can keep from worrying about letting everyone down, and Snails suggests that they just "not think about it". That seems like something easier said than done, particularly since Fluttershy has been shown to be the worrying type many times before.

 

Maybe it ought to be against the rules for Pinkie to stand on her head during buck-off, since that raises her kicking legs well above where they would be expected to be by standing on the ground, giving her an unfair advantage.

[ashi 261]

Andrea Libman talking to herself is always good. We really don't get enough Pinkie/Flutters.

[Sam4849 3]

I am kinda glad they made Snails relevant in this

[NeonCobalt 256]

This was an good episode. Not the best, but not the worst. The plot was actually pretty unique, for this show anyway. The animation was actually pretty good, and in my opinion, the highlight of the episode. When Fluttershy had her little rant, I found her facial expressions really amusing. This is the second week in a row we've seen "angry" Fluttershy, not that I'm complaining, she's very entertaining. I'm also glad that they gave Snails a role outside of comic relief. I also really liked the moral, and I hope people take it to heart. Overall, good episode. 8.5/10

[CastletonSnob 3,074]

Here's a song I wrote to the tune of Talkin' Baseball by Terry Cashman:

 

The ponies had won it
Celestia had done it
And Ponyville in panic all the while
Harmony was being born
Nightmare Moon we would scorn
The Mane Six came to save the day in style

We're talkin' buckball
Pinkie Pie and Rainbow

That's all I have so far. What do you think?

[JH24 385]

This episode was okay. Not really memorable or worth a re-watch for me personally. Plot was superficial and predictable, and dialogue wasn't as interesting. What I did like was how the writer gave Snails a positive role in this episode, showing that everyone has his or her own talents they can excel at. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by JH24

[ph00tbag 108]

I rather enjoyed this episode. It was kinda odd for me to see Fluttershy get so vocal about not wanting to play Buckball on the train, but other than that, the characters felt pretty natural. All in all, this episode was pretty simple, although I like how mature Dash and AJ were. All too often, those two, Dash in particular, are depicted as loath to compromise, but they pretty much figure it all out on their own, from start to finish. It's always good to see the writers capture the maturity that the Mane 6 has learned since the show's beginning.

 

Personally, I'm trying to figure how buckball would be played by humans.

[weesh 690]

Personally, I'm trying to figure how buckball would be played by humans.

 

me too!  human buckball thread

[honk friend 1,978]

It's not a new episode anymore without the animators tossing in silly faces for everyone to lose their shit about

[Truffles 2,033]

Finally, after Ponyville wins, Braeburn seems to be a good sport by telling Applejack that the Ponyville team played a pretty good game. But then Rainbow replies by saying "Hah! Good game? We bucked the hooves right off of you!". First, I wouldn't call eking out a win by going from 4-5 to 6-5 a particularly resounding victory, but also, Rainbow's being a rather bad sport by rubbing Appleloosa's defeat in Braeburn's face. It may be a sign that Rainbow is still taking the game too seriously when she says that rather than something like "Thanks! That was a close game, your team did pretty well too".

You bring up a good point. It seems Rainbow only learned the lesson as it applied to pushing too hard on her friends, but did not generalize the moral to a broader scope.

 

 

Rainbow even suggests that Princess Celestia will come to congratulate Pinkie and Fluttershy on beating Appleloosa. Why would Celestia do that? Why would she even care that much about this match at all?

 

And, as a matter of fact, she didn't. XD

But that bluster is just Rainbow being Rainbow, just like all the Mane 6 say the same when Pinkie does something absurd.

 

 

Maybe it ought to be against the rules for Pinkie to stand on her head during buck-off, since that raises her kicking legs well above where they would be expected to be by standing on the ground, giving her an unfair advantage.

 

Speaking of rules, one rule they didn't detail is where the unicorn player is allowed to move the basket. Can they move it all the way to the side of the circle? Or even to the same side as the opposing team's basket and try to get the opposing pegasus to knock it into the wrong one? I guess that's why the field is a circle so it's the same distance to the goal no matter where it is, though I wonder what the penalty is for moving the goal into the infield or if one basket is used to push and bash the other basket out of the way?

 

If the goal can be anywhere, I guess it is up to the pegasus defender to keep up with the movement of the goal? Though I would think a unicorn with good levitation magic skills could tire out most pegasi by moving it randomly all over the place and then only keep it steady for scoring when the defender is completely spent.

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

I enjoyed this episode, it taught a good overall lesson and had interesting/humorous moments, it wasn't one of my favorite episodes that featured Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and it made them come off as rather insensitive and pushy. Still it was a enjoyable episode and I loved Snails and seeing Appleloosa and Braeburn again. 8/10!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Babyyoshi309 1,829]

I have to things to say about this episode:

 

1) Snails was HILARIOUS in this episode, no doubt my favorite part of the episode. I used to despise Snips and Snails, now I only hate Snips. I love Snails now. 

 

2) Was there a new writer this episode or something, because this was the only episode I have ever watched where I though they were acting out of character. They made Pinkie Pie look stupid, we know already that Pinkie is not stupid, she just acts silly to make people laugh. And that is just one of the many out of character moments. Don't even get me started on Fluttershy...

(love what they did with Snails though  )

 

 

*Edit: 3rd thing to say:

 

It is now canon that Fluttershy can somehow telekineticly control her tail.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Babyyoshi309

[powerpuff-tsubasa 448]

good episode by the way. gotta love fluttershy's tail throwing

[cider float 2,538]

I've noticed Fluttershy can grab things with her hair and she has control over it, a trait she didn't used to have. I wonder why she could suddenly use her hair like that?