Pokemon Diamond & Pearl

Following the end of Satoshi's Hoenn journey, he travels to the Sinnoh region for his next adventure en route to becoming a Pokémon Master. Immediately upon arrival, Team Rocket makes another attempt to snatch Pikachu, only for it to fail once again. However, Pikachu has fallen deep into a forest and it's up to Satoshi to find him! Along the way, he reunites with Takeshi—a Pokémon breeder with whom he has traveled through many regions—and meets his soon-to-be rival, Shinji, a power-hungry trainer who cares little for his Pokémons' feelings.

Still in search for Pikachu, Satoshi notices a powerful electric attack in the distance and heads toward it to find Pikachu with Team Rocket and Hikari—a novice trainer aiming to be the top Pokémon coordinator. After foiling Team Rocket's plans, Satoshi reunites with Pikachu and Hikari joins the group. And thus, Satoshi and his friends begin their journey through the exciting land of Sinnoh.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Satoshi Main

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Pikachu Main

Ootani, Ikue Japanese

Takeshi Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Hikari Main

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Pochama Main

Kozakura, Etsuko Japanese

Kojirou Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Shirona Supporting

Sakurai, Tomo Japanese

Haruka Supporting

Kawana, Midori Japanese

Musashi Supporting

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Nyarth Supporting

Inuyama, Inuko Japanese

Mori, Takemoto Producer

Werenko, Tim Producer

Tanaka, Shigehiro Producer

Odawara, Akiko Producer

Reviews

Jun 17, 2022

WEEBS_Taste_Ryuu

Recommended

Contains spoilers but I am keeping the major ones aside. I will be focusing on the characters and story as a whole, not stuffs like the arts or the music in any kind.

This is clearly the best Pokemon series story wise.

This series takes the best things from the previous regions and evolves one step further. The story now introduces us to the Sinnoh region and Hikari as the main heroine. Here, the things are kept really simple with goals set to the both characters Satoshi and Hikari from the get go.

All of the episodes are about Sinnoh region and so this is the longest region ... episode wise till this day. Because of this, it succeeds in giving time to develop not just Satoshi and each of his pokemons but also Hikari and her contest battles. Satoshi in this region is already self-flourished and knows what he can accomplish unlike before with a winning habit developed. He already was a mature and composed trainer but also learns to battle in an adaptive way giving him the freedom in his battles and imaginations.

Hikari on the other hand isn’t as experienced as Satoshi, so she learns through her journey and mistakes. The contest battles here are so much better visually and tactically which are now equally interesting as Satoshi’s battles. Hikari has her rivals to grow as a contest trainer with new tricks every now and then. Her wins and losses are carefully explained with valid reasons and solutions are also presented and are agreeable. The contest battles are now focused on the visual representation which wasn’t always the case before.

Pocchama (Piplup) made this series many times better.

The best thing from this series is introduction of a genuine rival for Satoshi. Satoshi had some rivals in the past trips but none of them really convinced to be one. We get Shinji in this series who gets introduced in first few episodes and plays a big part in the journey of Satoshi throughout the whole series. There also is the story of Shinji and Chimchar that left a good mark on the journey. There are rival battles here and there some with 3-on-3 and some with full battles.

There is a huge involvement of the enemy team (team galactic) and the champion, Shirona across the episodes. The legendries in this series are well explained of their capacities and origins. All of the elite fours also make their appearance with quite enough screen time. The league battles were also executed well than before.

To decorate the masterpiece with a cherry on top, the movies of Sinnoh regions are by far the best ones. Not only they are great individually, the movies are connected to each other forming a story on its own.

Not gonna lie but there are surely episodes that you get bored with and better off sleep but when you look at the whole journey, it's different than the others in a good way.

Overall, the series focuses on the story as a whole unlike before so they seem logical as well without much of plot armor or plot holes. The seriousness in the story keeps this region ahead of the other regions.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 16, 2025

Nezzuji

Mixed Feelings

Pokémon Diamond & Pearl is the third series of the Pokémon anime, following Pokémon Advanced Generation. It spans episodes 469 to 660 and features the Pokémon of the fourth generation. Overall, there are a lot of similarities with Advanced Generation: the pacing is generally the same, alternating between Ash’s battles and the Pokémon Contests—not with May (Haruka) this time, but with Dawn (Hikari). I admit I was a little disappointed that this new series didn’t introduce anything innovative, but instead simply reused the Pokémon Coordinator concept, which we already had plenty of time to explore with May. I would have preferred if Dawn had brought ... along a new way of battling, just as May introduced us to Coordinators in AG.

That said, I still think Dawn was used better as a character than May—whether in terms of humor, her goals, or even her design, she was more engaging than May, whom I sometimes found rather flat. Still, in my opinion, neither of them compares to Misty, the girl who traveled with Ash in the very first series. Unfortunately, I feel like May and Dawn were created mainly to “play the girl role.” They embody a lot of clichés: they spend time on their looks, don’t like getting dirty, need to have cute Pokémon, and are expected to behave gently. Misty, with her stronger personality, was capable of delivering both funny and heartfelt moments.

And then we still have Brock (Takeshi), who has been around for over 600 episodes, and honestly I don’t really understand why the series insists on keeping him. He brings almost nothing to the table—sure, he can cook and take care of Pokémon, but beyond that…? Nearly every episode just gives us the same tired gag where he falls in love with a random girl, and that’s it. I sincerely hope that in the next series, Brock will finally be replaced by a character who can actually contribute something to the story—just like the female companions have always done for Ash.

As for the series overall, there’s a slight improvement in visual quality, but a much bigger evolution in the way episodes are handled. The “filler” type of episodes are gradually disappearing, leaving more room for multi-episode storylines. That being said, filler episodes still play a big role in developing the bonds between the main characters and their Pokémon. I’m thinking in particular of Ash’s relationship with his Chimchar: we didn’t just see Chimchar evolve genetically, but also mentally. I especially loved the rivalry between Ash and Paul; I thought it was brilliantly executed, showing real development throughout the series. Ash kept trying to change Paul’s mindset—Paul trained his Pokémon harshly, focusing only on efficiency, even abandoning weaker ones. That’s how Ash ended up taking in Paul’s former Chimchar. Together, Ash and Chimchar worked to prove their worth to Paul, growing side by side until they gave us an incredible battle against him at the Sinnoh League, a true clash between two opposing training philosophies!

As with the previous series, here’s a quick recap of the movies to watch during this series:

Movie 10: Between episodes 39 and 40 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
Movie 11: Between episodes 85 and 86 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
Movie 12: Between episodes 133 and 134 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
Movie 13: Between episodes 176 and 177 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
I always repeat this in my Pokémon reviews, but the content of the movies should really be part of the main series. Discovering Legendary Pokémon through multi-episode arcs, or even dozens of episodes, would be incredible. Sadly, that will probably never happen.

The flaws of the Pokémon anime remain, and for me will always remain, the same: it constantly sticks to the bare minimum. The storylines aren’t very deep, everything stays simple and basic, following a very familiar formula (even if this has improved a little). The humor and life lessons are always very childlike, aiming more at keeping kids around the world glued to their TV screens than at moving adults with a powerful storyline. That’s why, objectively speaking, I’ll always struggle to give the Pokémon anime a higher score. Still, I do recognize that this series shows some evolution—so instead of not recommending it at all, I’ll admit I feel more mixed this time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 14, 2014

3rdStrikeFreak

Not Recommended

Preliminary (73/191 eps)

There is so much wrong with the Pokemon Diamond & Pearl anime in every general way. Such cringe worthy dialogue and an awful attempt to make Pokemon's fan base even more childish then ever before. While also repeating the same formula over and over... The original Pokemon anime did so much for me as a child. Now we already know the video games were a perfect match made in heaven for both adults and children. While some people thought the Pokemon anime was take it or leave for many of us who did watch it, We enjoyed it to death. It had a lot of ... great moments, some awesome character growth and of course seeing Ash mature even more. Also I watched the Pokemon anime for a good solid 9 years. Until this came out...

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl attempt to continue the anime even more is just painful for me. Ash still continues his own quest to become a Pokemon master... Something we have been seeing for nearly 10 Years at that point when this arc was new. He's joined by Brock once again and the newcomer Dawn. But all 3 characters are quite annoying to me. The growth and character development is so lackluster it's not even funny. The first 3 anime arcs did so much better for growth when it came to it's characters. I feel like Ash is back at square one once again despite the new region. Also some of the new characters thrown in the anime are just so unlikeable. The storyline is almost non existent at the point in time. Pokemon never had the deepest amount of story but this is just lazy.

The only thing in my opinion that saves Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is the art style. Seriously it is the best Pokemon has ever looked in so long. Really everything looks so well in the anime and the art style might have been the best at the time. Also the battles look great but sometimes you'll see the same thing over and over the deeper you dig into the anime. Music is also very bland as nothing sticks in your head. Most of the original voice actors have also been replaced but this happened in the Battle Frontier arc before it. Very poor voice acting and I must say it's dialogue is very cringe worthy most of the part. Also it's seems that the 4Kids voice actors fitted their roles more then the Pokemon USA dub. But this is just my opinion.

But also here's how a typical episode goes. Ash and Co wander through the area, A Person needs help, They tell some story that the audience doesn't care about, They go help the person, Team Rocket gets involved, They battle Team Rocket, BLASTING OFF AGAIN!!!!! Stupid Conclusion. Rinse and Repeat asides from some of the gym battles and the final Pokemon league. Seriously this has gone on too much... It's also an attempt to drag on the anime even more which makes this filler so painful.

There was only one villain in the anime I also found interesting BTW. She was a Pokemon Hunter named J who shows no remorse for any Pokemon. It was the only thing that got me interested in Diamond and Pearl. As she actually tries to kill Ash at one point. The sad part is she is killed off about Midway through the anime. Destroying any promise for that the rest of the anime would be enjoyable. Seriously it's the only thing I found worthwhile in Diamond and Pearl. But other then that the rest of the villains in the Pokemon anime are typical. The other villains are Team Galactic and they are typical. Just a bunch of evil people trying to "Make The World Better"! Also of course the Team Rocket trio makes multiple attempts to make Diamond and Pearl funny but whatever... They are just there for stupid attempt at humor or of course breaking the fourth wall... Once again putting Pokemon into it's kiddy stigma that it's always gotten.

Overall Pokemon Diamond & Pearl is just something I should have stopped watching. Seriously this is just a painful way to show off the Pokemon anime. The anime reached it's peak but this is a sad showing. The non existent storyline, awful character development and lack of anything enjoyable make this hard to stomach. Asides from one villain Pokemon Diamond and Pearl has lost so much from me. But the more the Pokemon anime continues the worse it will go on in my opinion.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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