Nov 22, 2013
I expected a lot more.
Pokémon: The Origin is the special dedicated to Red and Blue/Green, the original Poké-games. It has been introduced as an epic moment for everyone, both who played the games and who didn't. Actually it has lots of not-so-good elements that give it the status of "just-enjoyable-but-nothing-more".
Some of them are caused by the lenght of this special, combined to the intentions of the writers. I can understand this is a special and must be just 1:30 hours long, that's not the problem. But, knowing it must be this lenght, you just can't make it represent a game based on travelling, experiencing, growing
...
up with your Pokémon. One of the main Pokémon purposes is the journey. You just can't drop it down because you have a constricted lenght. So it should have been another pair of hands; maybe it could focus on just 1-2 events instead of giving a portrait of the ENTIRE JOURNEY in 1:30 hours.
So, following the single rating, I gave 5 to the story. Not because of the story itself; afterall it's greatly-built, with the Giovanni plot, the Red vs. Blue rivalry and finally that Mewtwo thing. But it's mostly based on the videogames, so that's not our point. You just can't do that in 1:30 hs. You must change your choice.
No problems for the art, where I gave a super-fair 8/10, it's clean and detailed, even if I prefer the main anime one. But this design is more suitable for a special like this, that has to recall some memories to someone.
Sound is good, too. Not as good as the main anime, that has majestic pieces. So 7/10, I didn't found ant OST that was memorable, but everyone was good.
Characters are a bad note... probably I can save - partially - just Red, that had some sort of character definition and development. Not that was so developed - it's only 1:30 afterall, I can understand this - but he was okay in the mood of becoming a Master and expecially in the Pokédex thing. The other ones were not defined at all. Blue has just a bunch of "I'm the best and --- the rest / I'm not the best anymore? How can this be possible". Oak appears rarely, Fuji too. Cubone was the only Pokémon to have a precise characterization! Let's not forget that every of Ash&co's Pokémon has an exact way of being. This should have existed here, too.
Enjoyment is 5/10 to me, because too many times I had to say "what? They skipped ALL OF THIS?". Caught Pokémon, Elite-4, every gym except Brock's one... and in addition, Giovanni's plot was so condensed I barely understood his sudden change of mind. That should take entire episodes - or 1:30 hours, like a movie. Why didn't they concentrate on that, for example?
Overall is a 6/10. Because I expected more epicness. I give it 7/10 being honest in my animelist, because afterall it wasn't that bad, but I want to give it 6 in this review. Because this special must not be over-considered, it had great elements to develop, but just episode 2 was REALLY enjoyable. Gigantic plot holes and sudden jumps from one thing to another made the rest not that great. In detail, first episode is 6.5/10, 2nd is probably even 9/10 because it WAS great, it WAS a story; 3rd is 6/10 and 4th is 6.5-7/10. A lot more could have been done with Origin.
Expecially saved because it's Pokémon. I expected more. More epicness, more story, more characters (that's why ep 2 was so good: do you remember Red screaming to Blue because he was going away in front of the emergency?), more Pokémon personalities, more development. But there wasn't so much of this...
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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