Pokemon Anime General Discussion

[Kuzu]

A lot of enjoyment about later Pokemon seasons really comes down to how much you value the traditional formula. A lot of older fans swear by it, hence seasons like DP and XY being very popular, and seasons like BW and SM being very divisive and controversial for how much they deviate from said formula. 

 

Journeys is similarly divisive for that reason, mainly because of Go and  the series' structure. 

[KHCast]

Is X and Y as stretched out with filler as DP with its arcs? That’s all I’m really concerned about. Cause I got very bored at times in that series.

I love the animation I will say that. And the music. The battles are looking much more dynamic so far as well. 

 

will also say, it’s a bit trippy to see a location that Smash straight up uses lol. Prism tower. I think this is the first time this has happened? Like yeah, it’s pulled from the game not the anime, but they look very similar, and it’s specifically a unique area that shows up in both the game and anime, not just “stadium” or “buildings in saffron city”

[Soniman]

I dunno what yo tell you since DP is my favorite series and a lot of what I liked about it carries over into XY but of you mean the pacing well it's an entire years worth of episodes shorter than XY so there aren't any large tiller gaps between plot relevant episodes from what I can recall 

[KHCast]

Should I play a drinking game for every time I hear “the future is now” and “wow, science is so awesome!”?

 

Oh god I got to the episode with the fucking cringe rappers. Kill me right now, if I hear “yo” one more time...do these guys think they’re mordecai and rigby or something?

[Blue Blood]

11 hours ago, KHCast said:

Should I play a drinking game for every time I hear “the future is now” and “wow, science is so awesome!”?

lol that's just one of XY's running gags, along with Clemont's inventions exploding moments later. You'll get one shot per episode usually. Not the best drinking game tbh.

I'm speaking for the perspective of a person that was 20-something when XY first aired and under 10 when first watching the original series, but in terms of running jokes it really doesn't stick the landing. It doesn't begin to compare to Team Rocket's motto and blasting off.

I'm curious to hear what you think about the characters so far. BW had the trio clashing quite a lot with each other, but in XY they're all trueBBFs4eva and urgh I hate it. The only kind of friction you ever see between them is Clemont and Bonnie, and even the sibling dynamic was handled better in the RSE series. The point about Ash being something of a Pokémon prodigy is really run into the ground with his battle strategies and in particular with Froakie. XY looks and sounds great. No complaints on that front. It just sucks to watch. 

[KHCast]

@Blue Blood Honestly, it’s boring me more times than interesting me. From what I had watched in Sun and Moon, I think the “friend group” dynamic worked much better there and was able to keep things fresh for the most part. Here...it’s more of the same “friendship and love is great” stuff, but so far feels even more shallow than previous relationships. Like, Dawn and May definitely had more confrontational moments with Ash by this point of the show. It just feels...more formulaic and safe, while still feeling a bit less? Kinda like Sonic in that regard when I think about it lol. Idk, maybe they’ll get a bit better, but I get the feeling it won’t be by much even if it does. So far, this group of friends is just...kinda there. I actually like the BW gang more and I found “you’re such a kid” the most insufferable line to come out of iris’s mouth

I’m like 30 episodes in and ash is only on his second badge. (Against a dude with a...wall fetish? The fuck?) Oh fuck me this is gonna be awhile. 

I like Froakie, mostly cause Greninja, and I hear Ash’s Greninja is a fan favorite. But given the pacing of the show being slow as shit, I get the feeling It’s gonna be awhile before w see Greninja. Let’s see...I like how Ash doesn’t pull the Pokédex on every returning Pokemon. It’s visually very pretty.

 

Idk, it’s just...really boring. I know you love this season @Soniman but damn this is not giving me the best impression so far. 

[Soniman]

I mean.....If you find it boring then you find it boring, just skip it if you don't want to watch a 130 ep series you find unengaging..

The character dynamics don't change significantly between the group  and what you see is what you get with them.

If you don't find a series like DP enjoyable you probably won't like XY much either honestly.

[KHCast]

Skipping kinda defeats the whole point of me wanting to go through the whole series for the first time so...like boring or not, I’m gonna see it through so I can at least thoroughly talk about what I liked and didn’t like 

 

At the very least it’s good background noise to have on while I do other stuff lol

[Kuzu]

This is why  I said how much you like the series depends on how much you like the traditional Pokemon formula. XY plays the formula to the letter, and that's generally why its such a fan favorite season.

 

 

[KHCast]

Alright well I’m on the first X and Y anime movie. Brand new territory as ive never watched any of the X and Y films, so we’ll see how these hold up 

[KHCast]

So the X and Y movies have been pretty…meh. Like they feel more “just there” than anything. The one with the genie Pokemon didn’t even make use of most of Ash’s Pokemon, and Arceus was just…there despite the clear importance of his role? Was thinking given all the returning legendaries, they tie this heavier to past movies, but they just…didnt. Ash has clear deep relationships with some of them, so it sucked to see that they kinda hand waved it all outside ash ONCE going “wait, is that…” regarding Arceus when the original characters of the movie made mention of it.

 

As for the anime…it’s less boring than the startup, since more is happening now, but it still feels pretty empty for a lot of the time. I like Serina now tho, I find her arc to be a bit more endearing and grounded compared to the past female sidekicks, outside maybe Misty. I can see the appeal for her, but yeah that’s really all that’s changed. It still feels pretty…calm (if that’s the right word) compared to previous arcs, even during the conflicts, and I’m not a fan of the fact the gang just doesn’t seem to ever have any conflicts. It’s just your typical “oh I’m struggling emotionally with something, friendship saves the day” type of formula. The rivals this time around especially are a bore compared to BW, which had a varied amount of dynamics amongst them. Some hated the main group, some were friends, some were friends but it was obvious their rivalry with Ash took priority (Stephen was one of my favorite rivals) Here, everyone just loves eachother and that’s that. That being said, I like the big dude that dances with his Pokemon. I think he’s adorable. 
 

speaking of the rivals/side characters, that last BW movie, ended with the credits showing movie visualized versions of all the side characters, and man, it got me wishing these characters would show up in the movies. Outside Gary, I don’t anyone else does, and really, we really can’t count Gary, since he’s more or less along the lines of Oak or Ash’s mom as a mainstay franchise character

 

Anyway, X and Y is still meh. Not horrible, but just there. If I had to pick my favorite X and Y media outside the games right now, it’s still the Origins film. (Hoping the music from that shows up somewhere in the anime, cause man, that music that plays when Red’s Charizard mega evolves was hype as fuck)

 

Also Pancham is best character.

[DarkRula]

I'd say that mirrors my own thoughts when I watched the dub. When it got to XYZ it did get better for the sub, but the hype of the Ash-Greninja theme can easily do that. Which got me reflecting back, most of the music of the dub was toned down. There barely felt any energy to proceedings. Even during Serena's contest performances. The music made those scenes feel special in the sub, yet any semblance of that was wiped. Which then got me thinking that maybe watching sub before the dub was making me think even less of it than normal. Nope. XY's music is still bad compared to... pretty much any series before or after.

[KHCast]

I’ve been laughing for 5 minutes straight at this lol what the fuck hahaha XD

 

[KHCast]

Okay so XYZ got pretty fucking banger towards the end. I really enjoyed all the characters here. Idk what happened, but everyone (including the side characters) became MUCH better developed, and the story became much more interesting after the last movie. Bonnie ended up becoming one of the more endearing characters in the series for me just on the last couple episodes period. Also the animation with the last few episodes REALLY looked like the movies. 
 

I still am not sure if I like this series overall more than the others, but the last, say, 10-15 episodes were some of the best in the whole XY series, and were a good time. Ash had some pretty badass moments in them. Also the credits of the final episode? Hype

[Kuzu]

10 hours ago, KHCast said:

Okay so XYZ got pretty fucking banger towards the end. I really enjoyed all the characters here. Idk what happened, but everyone (including the side characters) became MUCH better developed, and the story became much more interesting after the last movie. Bonnie ended up becoming one of the more endearing characters in the series for me just on the last couple episodes period. Also the animation with the last few episodes REALLY looked like the movies. 
 

I still am not sure if I like this series overall more than the others, but the last, say, 10-15 episodes were some of the best in the whole XY series, and were a good time. Ash had some pretty badass moments in them. Also the credits of the final episode? Hype

Now you know why so many people love it. Its pure distilled hype.

[Soniman]

5 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Now you know why so many people love it. Its pure distilled hype.

It comes to a pretty hard iconic crash near the end but then immediately picks it back up again for the last stretch 

[KHCast]

So how come the final episode of XYZ (the one where Clement and Cyrus meet) wasn’t released outside Japan? Having watched it, it seemed pretty fun. 

[precita]

The reason the anime was poor for a decade and felt stale was because the writers made the mistake of keeping Misty/Brock and Team Rocket around multiple generations, instead of doing away with the former two earlier and not having TR appear in every episode like they do now.

The original trio during Johto had none of the same chemistry or interactions they did in Kanto. Ash spent more time interacting with the Johto filler characters than either Misty/Brock. Of course Misty suffered the most in Johto because the writers removed her temper and outgoing personality because they wanted her to be a mother for Togepi, but that just made her less interesting. Besides that she had no real goal to follow and rarely battled, so the writers couldn't do much with her but have her join Brock on the sidelines making background commentary. Later on Brock has the same problems especially by DP. Most of us original fans got bored with the show when we were the target audience when Johto was going on for this reason, and that's why the writers abandoned the original trio as a group forever.

The DP series is basically either loved or considered a slog based on what you grew up with. All the young kids on twitter love DP because it was their first saga, and that's why Dawn is really popular there. The plot eps and battles of DP are great, however it is as long and bloated as Johto is, so your mileage might vary. And as said Brock/TR get very stale especially during the DP era. Dawn has a well developed personality but the writers do tend to make her too much like Ash as the series goes on, but if you never watched May then Dawn feels a lot more fresh.

Besides all that, the dub of the recent seasons is poor so that's probably why the eps feel more stale than usual. XY and SM had all their original music removed and the dub music is so boring and plain it makes the eps dull to watch. If you want to watch XY/SM I really suggest watching it in Japanese subbed, it's uploaded on the, "usual sites" so it's not even hard to find.

 

 

 

[Tomboyish Mermaid]

Ah... the Pokémon anime... that awakes some wonderful memories... The anime isn't perfect, I have to admit that, but I would take this show over any other modern shallow cartoon of today. As for Misty, although she is my favorite character of the entire franchise, I mean... duh... you can tell that from my username, I have to say that people are in the right that the writers kept her way to long. She was always the weakest character of the show. People always give Iris such a hard time, but at least she did serve a bit of a purpose. Misty was only there for eye candy purpose. And you can tell, because she barely got any focused episode of her own. The characters that came after her were much better written. When Misty left, I was kinda sad about this, but it was for the better, because the writers could learn from Misty and write much better female leads. The sad thing is, I heard that the original writer wanted to write a story for Misty, that she run away from home because of the mental abuse of her older sisters and that she wanted to live on her own. 

[KHCast]

4 hours ago, precita said:

Besides all that, the dub of the recent seasons is poor so that's probably why the eps feel more stale than usual. XY and SM had all their original music removed and the dub music is so boring and plain it makes the eps dull to watch. If you want to watch XY/SM I really suggest watching it in Japanese subbed, it's uploaded on the, "usual sites" so it's not even hard to find.

 

I’ve had no issue with the music outside XY. It got a bit better in XYZ, and I’m fine with the chill music of Sun and Moon since it is meant to be more chill. SM certainly for me is a step up and is a lot more active so music or not, I don’t find myself anywhere near bored with it 

[precita]

I suppose the difference is a lot of people don't know what they're missing unless you saw the scenes in Japanese first and watched the dub after. Some people on youtube have uploaded side by side comparisons of the same scenes in Japan and then the dub, and you see how much worse the dub sounds. For example during Serena's final Master class showcase, her theme song played during her appeal making the scene seem much more special. The dub replaced it with this bland droning music that it just felt meh or whatever. All the scenes where AshGreninja happens are also 10x more hype in the Japanese version due to the theme music that plays... (sort of similar to Dragon Ball Z music during power ups), but the dub replaced it with dull tracks.

I dropped the dub after the DP anime ended because it just got progressively worse from there. Even Hoenn and DP had a lot of music changed but it still kept some tracks so it was bearable.

[PC the Hedgehog]

The final arc of XY post-league is one of the best arcs the anime ever had. It was (Pokemon) movie-quality epic.

[KHCast]

That moment where Ash goes “You don’t like the way the world is? so what?” Gave me goosebumps. Like Ash schoolin this old dude and giving him a philosophical lecture and everything was badass as fuck 

 

That entire arc was a good way as well to soften the blow of ash loosing again lol. They knew what they were doing by immediately jumping into the new crisis 

[precita]

Bonnie's arc with Squishy/Zygarde was really well done. In the Japanese version Bonnie's song she sings to Squishy is played for like 20+ episodes at the beginning of the XYZ arc, so when she uses it to stop the rampaging Zygarde it actually means something as it's played for 20 eps in a row after every ep. In the dub they never bring over the Japanese endings, so you see Bonnie singing this song out of context and you don't know why she's doing it. Just another reason the dub loses a lot of the emotional core of the original version.

In any case though I like most of the new supporting characters, Brock had seriously run stale by DP and had no reason to be in the show anymore. I'm glad the writers learned how to write some new male sidekicks, Clemont and Kiawe are my favorites especially, but Cilan and Go are alright too....rather than just replacing the female character every series. Brock should have honestly left either by the end of AG, or even at the end of Johto when Misty did.

[KHCast]

2 hours ago, precita said:

Bonnie's arc with Squishy/Zygarde was really well done. In the Japanese version Bonnie's song she sings to Squishy is played for like 20+ episodes at the beginning of the XYZ arc, so when she uses it to stop the rampaging Zygarde it actually means something as it's played for 20 eps in a row after every ep. In the dub they never bring over the Japanese endings, so you see Bonnie singing this song out of context and you don't know why she's doing it. Just another reason the dub loses a lot of the emotional core of the original version.

Bonnie does sing the song she sings to calm down Zygarde in previous episodes tho? It wasn’t out of context, I don’t think at least