Here for the first ever extended catnip. (Sorry it took me so long to write this review.)
Hey, Axi
Glad to see you back again for a review of Chapter 2!
Firstly, describing how Mr. Gentleman goes to each club and the accompanying scenery really makes the story feel more organic. However, I'm not sure why there are only 2 lakes in the entirety of the world of this story. I know that this fanfic is based off of the Pokemon TCG 2 game on GBC but adding more stuff to these places would allow for the story to be more memorable and help it stand out a bit more from the game that it is based off of(104).
There is a specific plot reason behind there being only two lakes. Their world consists of 3 Islands. TCG Island (as depicted in the in-game map in the intro post in which there is only one lake) GR Island, (as depicted in the in-game map in the intro post in where there are no lakes) and Neo Island which is geographically identical to TCG Island. Ergo, only one lake there too. Not to say there couldn't be ponds, streams, and creeks though!
Another thing that I want to ask is why does Mr. Gentleman have beef with hats? Of all the inanimate objects he could have beef with, he has beef with hats? Like based off of the text he says "Hats. A means of concealing a perfectly wonderful head of natural hair! One did not visit the finest barber on TCG Island to merely cover up their work with some plebeian head covering!" Well, he'd probably be scrambling to find one once he starts balding in his 40's or 50's.
As for hats, why not? Simply an odd quirk.
Next, Mr. Gentleman's inner monologue about the women at the club only wanting to date him for the prestige reminded me of Johnny's backstory in Jojo;s Bizzare Adventure Steel Ball Run where all of his rich and royal friends abandoned him after he was paralysed from being shot in the spine. Anyways, Mr. Gentleman really had it rough here. I'm not sure how Mr. Gentleman has a rough time telling Sara and Amanda apart. Sara has blue hair and Amanda has blonde hair. Maybe it's because he hasn't been there in a really long time and thus forgot those two details? But then he says that he has always had trouble telling who was who between the both of them, I think that he might have some form of colour blindness but I'm not 100% sure if he does have it (Update: They keep switching hair dye to confuse people. Why do they do this? Then they get mad when they get confused with one another.).
They switch hair dye to keep the other person apologizing and on the defensive. That way it makes it harder for them to say no to whatever the girls are trying to manipulate their target into doing.
Aka, "You could make it up to me by buying me the nice dress I've been eyeing... don't worry! It's less than $400.00, I prooomise~!" Just as a random example. Though they would probably make it less unreasonable as the goal is to extract value from their target rather than be shot down lol... 😅
Anyways, free Joshua or at least pay him. This man has done too much work to be unpaid.
He does get paid. Might seem weird since it means kids get paid too. I suppose you could call it child labor, but so is school when you think about it. School just pays in education instead of money, but it's forced, so I think school might be worse than working at a TCG club since that's at least
optional.
Onto the battle section, Joshua gets beaten in such a short amount of time. I feel like it would have been a good chance to see his perspective on battling the champion of Pokemon TCG and the amount of mental turmoil it outs on him.
Woah! That's a really interesting idea!
I haven't had a duel from the pov of Mister Gentleman's
opponent before! But the reason is because it's based on a lets-play where I'M the one playing as 'Mister Gentleman'. Still, I think this might be something to try at some point. Neat idea!
Then again, you don't want to bore the readers with a scene that could be replaced in favour of something more exciting. Again, having Mr. Gentleman's game plan be presented to the reader allows them to follow Mr. Gentleman's actions during the game without being confused as to what he's doing and why he is doing a specific action during the game.
That's good. I wanted it to be reasonable for readers to follow along with.
Also, Amanda stop crying. This is a damn card game. It's not like Mr. Gentleman pulled a gun on you and threatened to kill you if you didn't forfeit the game! And also, you're facing the damn champion of Pokemon TCG! He is of course not going to be pulling any punches at all when facing against someone else in Pokemon TCG! And also, you are not a young girl. You're an adult (probably).
Yeah, she is an adult. But by crying, she can try to make him feel guilty and extract value from him!
If it works she might even win a game! She can't win with cards, so she has to apply pressure in other ways.
Oh wait, now Sara's acting like how Amy Rose acted towards Sonic in the older Sonic games. Not much to say about her battle other than the fact that it ends much quicker than Amanda's. Now Imakuni appears out of nowhere. He doesn't do much here but I'm willing to bet that he becomes a reoccurring side character later on.
I do plan to have him appear more in the series but this will be his only cameo for Book One. I also plan to maybe write a one-shot about him for how he became Imakuni.
This is also the first appearance of Doduo who follows Mr. Gentleman all the way to his home. I'm willing to bet that the two of them will be bros for life.
Not a bad bet at all!
In conclusion, I enjoyed this chapter as it was quite hilarious seeing Mr. Gentleman having to deal with the members of the water club.
I'm glad the humor worked for you! Readers seem to either be amused by it or hate it.
I look forward to reviewing the rest of the chapters when I can. Axihdio out!
Cool! Thanks for the review!
