ScraftyIsTheBest
On to new Horizons!
Back on the topic of anime battles, it's also worth noting that despite Megas often being used in super mechanic mirror matches in the anime, I think the anime in general also did a very good job at showcasing the more nuanced aspects of Mega Evolution, and how those smaller things that change with Mega Evolving changed the tides of matches.
While Siebold vs Alain in the Mega Specials was a Mega mirror match, Mega Blastoise having Mega Launcher made its Dragon Pulse more powerful, and in addition to being super effective, securely allowed it to KO Alain's Mega Charizard X.
Trevor vs Alain was a Charizard Mega mirror match, and Trevor's Mega Charizard Y has Drought as its ability, which boosts Fire-type moves. This proved to be a double-edged sword as Alain's Mega Charizard X could use this itself to fire extra powerful Flamethrowers, and this ultimately led to Charizard Y's defeat.
Tierno vs. Sawyer was one example in XYZ itself, where Tierno tried to set up Rain Dance with his Blastoise before going down so that his Raichu could fire Thunders that never missed, but Sawyer then Mega Evolved his Sceptile, which changed its ability to Lightning Rod, completely blocking the Thunder (taking no damage) and invalidating Tierno's strategy, then using what was likely STAB Dragon Claw to deliver a stronger blow to Raichu to finish it off.
Another example that comes to mind is Ash vs Drasna, where Drasna Mega Evolved her Altaria, changing its second type to Fairy and granting it an immunity to Dragon, which made Dracovish's Dragon Rush ineffective, whereas it would've been super effective against normal Altaria.
The Masters 8 as a whole did a fantastic job at showcasing Megas, which were consistently in every battle, and how they changed the tides of matches. The infamous Leon vs Alain was a case where it backfired, because Leon had his Charizard learn Dragon Pulse, and while that would've been normally effective against Charizard, it was super effective against Mega Charizard X and thus led to the latter's rapid defeat. Diantha used her Mega Gardevoir as a magnum opus to overpower both Lance's Hydreigon and his Dynamax Dragonite and claim victory. Cynthia needed her Mega Garchomp to gain the edge against Iris's Haxorus, as stated.
But the best example in the Masters 8 imo is Steven's Metagross: Mega Metagross gains a substantial increase in speed and mobility thanks to becoming a levitating monster, and its brain power increases and its superb reaction speed increases as well: this combination of increased movement and reaction speed made Mega Metagross significantly faster, and as a result, Ash's Pikachu could not land a single hit on Mega Metagross who kept dodging its every move while tossing Pikachu around effortlessly, until Pikachu had to resort to a Z-Move (which never misses) to get a hit in and then finish it off with an Iron Tail to claim a narrow victory, and even then Mega Metagross was still able to dodge three of 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt's beams and block one with Flash Cannon, so it only took partial damage from the Z-Move itself.
While the slugfest mirror matches were cool, there have been several instances where the more nuanced parts of Mega Evolution as a transformation came into play in anime battles and turned the tides. I think the general mirror match Mega battles had a bit of an edge to them as well: Ash-Greninja always had the signature giant Water Shuriken that was its trademark, Mega Charizard X had an extra powerful Dragon Claw (that was larger) and blue hellfire Flamethrower, and vice versa.
But the main thing is generally, flavor wise Mega Evolution was distinct in that it was stated to be not only the pinnacle of a Pokemon's power in terms of physically achieving their ultimate form, its masterful use was indicative of a masterful bond between Trainer and Pokemon: Mega Evolution's lore both in the games and the anime was predicated on Trainer and Pokemon having a strong bond, and the anime made it clear that those who lacked a strong bond would not be able to control such a power. I think XY did a great job with this with Ash's arc with Greninja (which had a pseudo-Mega), where they went through a lot of trouble mastering their power, which made their showdowns against Mega Abomasnow, Mega Sceptile, and Mega Charizard X all the more satisfying/compelling narratively speaking, especially the latter two as Sawyer and Alain had narrative buildup.
Journeys tried something similar with Mega Lucario, and Mega Lucario's power was symbolic of Ash and Lucario having a strong bond, and the bond they share allowing them to claim victory, like against Cynthia's Togekiss *and* Garchomp as well as against Leon's Mr. Rime who was clearly a tricky opponent, using their combined aura to read Mr. Rime's rapid movements and fire an extremely powerful Aura Sphere to hit it and KO it. So in a sense Megas always worked there flavor wise because narratively they demanded a strong buildup of a bond that made their masterful use and victory with it feel rewarding. I will admit JN's execution of Ash and Lucario's development was kinda rushed, but the effort was there.
Z-Moves were obviously not a very nuanced mechanic so they were relatively simple in the anime as flashy sequences that were ultimate moves that decided a battle one way or another. Dynamax in a few cases did have some of the non-nuke move aspects come into play, like Cynthia's Max Togekiss spamming Max Airstream getting a substantial speed boost after Dynamax wore off, although this ultimately did not amount to much as Mega Lucario successfully landed a hit and one-shotted it. Some other aspects like debuffs and weather/terrain summoning, however, didn't really get shown off very much. Leon's G-Max Charizard generally only had G-Max Wildfire to show off and tended to straight up KO with it more often, it had Max Rockfall but did not summon weather with it, for instance. Lance tried to use Max Hailstorm to summon hail to whittle down Diantha's Mega Gardevoir, albeit unsuccessfully.
Terastal has only been seen once but I do think there's a lot of room for Horizons to showcase it in interesting ways as it unfolds, and perhaps Liko and Roy will find their own special use of it with their Sprigatito and Fuecoco respectively as their stories unfold, with them being the protagonists and all.
While Siebold vs Alain in the Mega Specials was a Mega mirror match, Mega Blastoise having Mega Launcher made its Dragon Pulse more powerful, and in addition to being super effective, securely allowed it to KO Alain's Mega Charizard X.
Trevor vs Alain was a Charizard Mega mirror match, and Trevor's Mega Charizard Y has Drought as its ability, which boosts Fire-type moves. This proved to be a double-edged sword as Alain's Mega Charizard X could use this itself to fire extra powerful Flamethrowers, and this ultimately led to Charizard Y's defeat.
Tierno vs. Sawyer was one example in XYZ itself, where Tierno tried to set up Rain Dance with his Blastoise before going down so that his Raichu could fire Thunders that never missed, but Sawyer then Mega Evolved his Sceptile, which changed its ability to Lightning Rod, completely blocking the Thunder (taking no damage) and invalidating Tierno's strategy, then using what was likely STAB Dragon Claw to deliver a stronger blow to Raichu to finish it off.
Another example that comes to mind is Ash vs Drasna, where Drasna Mega Evolved her Altaria, changing its second type to Fairy and granting it an immunity to Dragon, which made Dracovish's Dragon Rush ineffective, whereas it would've been super effective against normal Altaria.
The Masters 8 as a whole did a fantastic job at showcasing Megas, which were consistently in every battle, and how they changed the tides of matches. The infamous Leon vs Alain was a case where it backfired, because Leon had his Charizard learn Dragon Pulse, and while that would've been normally effective against Charizard, it was super effective against Mega Charizard X and thus led to the latter's rapid defeat. Diantha used her Mega Gardevoir as a magnum opus to overpower both Lance's Hydreigon and his Dynamax Dragonite and claim victory. Cynthia needed her Mega Garchomp to gain the edge against Iris's Haxorus, as stated.
But the best example in the Masters 8 imo is Steven's Metagross: Mega Metagross gains a substantial increase in speed and mobility thanks to becoming a levitating monster, and its brain power increases and its superb reaction speed increases as well: this combination of increased movement and reaction speed made Mega Metagross significantly faster, and as a result, Ash's Pikachu could not land a single hit on Mega Metagross who kept dodging its every move while tossing Pikachu around effortlessly, until Pikachu had to resort to a Z-Move (which never misses) to get a hit in and then finish it off with an Iron Tail to claim a narrow victory, and even then Mega Metagross was still able to dodge three of 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt's beams and block one with Flash Cannon, so it only took partial damage from the Z-Move itself.
While the slugfest mirror matches were cool, there have been several instances where the more nuanced parts of Mega Evolution as a transformation came into play in anime battles and turned the tides. I think the general mirror match Mega battles had a bit of an edge to them as well: Ash-Greninja always had the signature giant Water Shuriken that was its trademark, Mega Charizard X had an extra powerful Dragon Claw (that was larger) and blue hellfire Flamethrower, and vice versa.
But the main thing is generally, flavor wise Mega Evolution was distinct in that it was stated to be not only the pinnacle of a Pokemon's power in terms of physically achieving their ultimate form, its masterful use was indicative of a masterful bond between Trainer and Pokemon: Mega Evolution's lore both in the games and the anime was predicated on Trainer and Pokemon having a strong bond, and the anime made it clear that those who lacked a strong bond would not be able to control such a power. I think XY did a great job with this with Ash's arc with Greninja (which had a pseudo-Mega), where they went through a lot of trouble mastering their power, which made their showdowns against Mega Abomasnow, Mega Sceptile, and Mega Charizard X all the more satisfying/compelling narratively speaking, especially the latter two as Sawyer and Alain had narrative buildup.
Journeys tried something similar with Mega Lucario, and Mega Lucario's power was symbolic of Ash and Lucario having a strong bond, and the bond they share allowing them to claim victory, like against Cynthia's Togekiss *and* Garchomp as well as against Leon's Mr. Rime who was clearly a tricky opponent, using their combined aura to read Mr. Rime's rapid movements and fire an extremely powerful Aura Sphere to hit it and KO it. So in a sense Megas always worked there flavor wise because narratively they demanded a strong buildup of a bond that made their masterful use and victory with it feel rewarding. I will admit JN's execution of Ash and Lucario's development was kinda rushed, but the effort was there.
Z-Moves were obviously not a very nuanced mechanic so they were relatively simple in the anime as flashy sequences that were ultimate moves that decided a battle one way or another. Dynamax in a few cases did have some of the non-nuke move aspects come into play, like Cynthia's Max Togekiss spamming Max Airstream getting a substantial speed boost after Dynamax wore off, although this ultimately did not amount to much as Mega Lucario successfully landed a hit and one-shotted it. Some other aspects like debuffs and weather/terrain summoning, however, didn't really get shown off very much. Leon's G-Max Charizard generally only had G-Max Wildfire to show off and tended to straight up KO with it more often, it had Max Rockfall but did not summon weather with it, for instance. Lance tried to use Max Hailstorm to summon hail to whittle down Diantha's Mega Gardevoir, albeit unsuccessfully.
Terastal has only been seen once but I do think there's a lot of room for Horizons to showcase it in interesting ways as it unfolds, and perhaps Liko and Roy will find their own special use of it with their Sprigatito and Fuecoco respectively as their stories unfold, with them being the protagonists and all.