Pokemon: The Origin

Pokémon are marvelous creatures that come in a variety of types and sizes, with abilities, powers, and personalities as diverse as they are numerous. Doctor Yukinari Ookido has dedicated his life to studying these fascinating beings, that can be caught, trained, traded, and battled against each other. There's only so much he can do from his lab though. With this in mind, Ookido entrusts two young boys with a Pokémon of their own and a computerized encyclopedia to catalog them. One of them, Green, is brash, passionate, slightly arrogant, and Doctor Ookido's own nephew. The other boy, Red, is equally passionate, and filled with a wide-eyed, mildly naive sense of wonder.

Pokémon: The Origin follows Red in his journey through the region of Kanto in his attempt to complete his "Pokédex" by capturing and cataloging all the Pokémon that exist. Along the way he'll discover there's more to himself and his goals than he originally thought. Red will have to put both himself and his Pokémon to the test in special Gyms whose leaders are steps along the way to the Pokémon League, in order to challenge the Elite Four and become a Pokémon League Champion.

Aside from his goals to become a Champion, Red has other problems brewing. There are others who capture and train Pokémon for more sinister reasons, with the infamous criminal organization Team Rocket being one of them. If Red can defeat them, fellow trainers, his rival Green, and wild Pokémon all through Kanto, he just may fulfill his own dream, and Doctor Ookido's as well.

Red Main

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Ookido, Green Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Pikachu Supporting

Takeshi Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Kasumi Supporting

Mewtwo Supporting

Eievui Supporting

Mew Supporting

Gengar Supporting

Fushigidane Supporting

Kuroki, Rui Producer

Katou, Hiroyuki Producer

Nishizawa, Masatomo Producer

Takahashi, Hideya Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 13, 2024

soberkatz110

Recommended

I'm just gonna jump right into this review. This is quite easily my favorite Pokemon anime of all time. My views may be biased since I watched this as a kid, but whatever.
I may even say that this short, 4 episode series is better than the original anime, as much as I like that one too.

First off, the story and animation. The story plays out almost exactly as the original games. Our main character, Red, wants to become a good Pokemon Trainer to surpass his rival Blue and complete the Pokedex for Blue's grandfather, Professor Oak. It's nothing too special, but it still manages to ... be really great in its own way. Despite being rated TV-Y7, the anime isn't afraid to be mature enough for older audiences to enjoy, but not too mature for kids. We really, REALLY need more shows like that.

Battles are strategic with a few creative and unexpected ways of Red winning, and the animation and hype for the battles is WONDERFUL. I always get super excited just watching them. The camera movement and attack animations are just so fluid and wild, it makes it hard to keep your eyes off the screen. Unlike the original Pokemon anime, which just has a Pokemon's arms light up with energy or something as it scratches the opponent. Something I also like is how the Pokemon in this anime actually sound like animals - not just saying their names as forms of communication. Humans don't understand the Pokemon's language either, which makes it feel somewhat more realistic. (No offense, Ash)

Secondly, the music. Most of it is remakes of the soundtracks from the original games, but man do they sound amazing and nostalgic as ever, no matter how many times you listen to them. Despite being "modern", it still sounds somewhat video game-like too, if that makes sense.

Next up is the characters. Red is one of the best protagonists I've seen in a Pokemon anime for a while. He starts out realistically, not knowing a thing about Pokemon. He doesn't even knw how to use them in battle properly, treating his Charmander poorly and rushing it in battle, not forming any kind of connection. But as the series goes on, Red and Charmander take on more opponents and grow together. Red starts to mature and become a great Trainer.
Now onto his rival Blue Oak. I'll be honest, I never really liked him. I thought he was a typical jerk and a bit too mean to Red. But as I've grown and rewatched the series he's honestly one of my favorite characters. He's an overconfident snob, yes, but he has those small moments where he can be somewhat friendly towards Red, and show his weaknesses. He's pretty funny at times too. I'm sick of modern Pokemon "rivals" being all friendly and buddy-buddy with you now, forcing you to battle them multiple times throughout the series. (I really, really hated Nemona and Hop. Sorry.) Bring back Blue.
Brock is honestly way cooler in this series and feels much more serious, like he's meant to lead the Rock-Type Gym. He's also very helpful towards Red.
Giovanni genuinely feels like a threatening antagonist in this - his English dub voice is my personal favorite out of any voice he's ever had in other Pokemon animes. I won't spoil how his character develops, you just have to watch it to find out.

Last thing I'll cover is the voice acting. I've always watched this series in English dub, so I'm not too sure what the Japanese dub sounds like. But the voice acting for the English dub is really, really good. (Fun fact - this show is the reason why Bryce Papenbrook is one of my top favorite anime voice actors) There's a lot of emotion and good dialogue, and the voices fit the characters extremely well. Some of the lines still give me chills to this day.

The only thing stopping me from giving this anime a 10/10 is how incredibly short it is. While it's super great, only the highlights of the main game are presented. I get it, it's only a TV special, but I would've loved to see Red's battles with some more Gym Leaders and Trainers.
I would also love to see some Origins versions of the other games, such as Gold/Silver, Black/White, X/Y, Sun/Moon, you name it. (The games released after those ones aren't very good in my opinion aside from Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee which I liked.)

I 100% recommend this series to any Pokemon fan. You'll love it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 27, 2015

Pilar_S

Mixed Feelings

[English and Spanish review]

[English]
Why you may want to watch it?
This is made for Pokemon game's fans. If you played Pokemon red or blue in your gameboy you will be very happy to watch the "real" story in these chapters. Nevertheless, they take just some events of the game's story (maybe not your favorites), so sometimes you will say: "Nooo, why they didn't show when..." and that's a little bit frustating.
But it has great things for the fans: same battle music, same dialogues with the other characters, real Team Rocket, etc.

Why I didn't like it that much?
I would prefer it maybe to be long enough ... to tell every part of the game. The main character "Red" lacks a little bit of personality. The battles are great, but, as a Pokemon fan I guess my expectations were higher!!

[Spanish]

Por qué podrías quere verlo?
Esta serie está hecha para los fanáticos de Pokemon el juego. Si jugaste Pokemon rojo o azul en tu Gameboy estarás muy feliz de ver la historia "real" en estos episodios. Sin embargo, solo toman algunos eventos de la historia del juego (quizás no sean tus favoritos), así que algunas veces dirás: "Nooo, por qué no mostraron cuando..." y eso es un poco frustrante.
Pero tiene cosas geniales para los fanáticos: la misma música de batalla, los mismos diálogos con los otros personajes, el equipo Rocket real, etc.

Por qué no me gustó tanto?
Creo que preferiría que fuera lo suficientemente larga para contar todo el juego. Al personaje principal "Red" le falta un poco de personalidad. Las batallas son geniales, pero, como una fanática de Pokemon, creo que mis expectativas eran mucho mayores!!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 23, 2020

Kaethar

Not Recommended

spoilers brehs! (though I'm just trying to convince you to not waste your time)
Pokemon, a multi-billion dollar media franchise (the highest grossing one ever in fact), apparently couldn't afford to give their fans a proper adaptation of their most iconic game. Instead, they settled with this 4 episode mess whose entire purpose is to answer the question: "What if mega evolution was a thing in gen 1 lol?". This would've been better answered in a quick cute drawing posted on twitter or a short animation on Youtube. However, this is what we got, so this is what I'm talking about.
Even if you haven't played the ... first Pokemon game (or its 2 remakes), you'll probably realize what's going on during the start of the second episode, where the MC has to narrate a bunch of things he did off-screen (about a fifth of the game). Yes, this adaptation fast forwards through most of its source material. Even worse, these fast forwards aren't interesting at all and can be summarized as "I went to gym X, beat gym leader Y and got gym badge Z". No effort put in, not even a joke about some of the game's dumber moments, no references to appeal to fans, nothing. The conversations that get shown are at a glacial pace, not allowing the few fights that are shown to have any breathing room.
They even dare to let the more important fights of the game happen off-screen. I shit you not, they skip the entire Elite Four and show only one sixth of the fight with the champion. After which we are delighted with our protagonist finishing his pokedex by catching Mewtwo thanks to his starter mega evolving. It has a somewhat serviceable art style, even the soundtrack is somewhat interesting at times, that's it though. It doesn't make everything else salvageable.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Pokemon: The Origin Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Yuzukko - Oct 2, 2013	176 replies	by PrOxAnto »» Dec 28, 2023 11:32 AM
	Poll: Pokemon: The Origin Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) HiyuuT - Oct 2, 2013	131 replies	by PrOxAnto »» Dec 28, 2023 10:17 AM
	Poll: Pokemon: The Origin Episode 3 Discussion Jialyn - Oct 2, 2013	49 replies	by Nerdason »» Nov 1, 2023 5:42 PM
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	End Theme jawsome274 - Apr 18, 2020	0 replies	by jawsome274 »» Apr 18, 2020 6:13 PM