Pokemon XY: New Year Special

Pokemon games have come a long way since their arrival in the Game Boy days, a lot of new systems have integrated into the overall experience and almost all for the betterment of enjoyment. But that is sadly not the case for Pokemon anime, in fact Pokemon anime has declined in quality quite a lot and is currently stuck at mediocrity for a long time. But for fans like me who were introduced to the game from the anime still has a soft spot for the series and from time to time do check it out specially after the release of a new game with ... the hopes of getting that same nostalgic level of enjoyment out of the show as was the case in the early years. So how does Pokemon XY fare in this regard?

Pokemon XY: New Year Special is the recap of the first 10 or so episodes of Pokemon XY anime, which as a matter of fact is a nice gesture in itself as it enables occasional viewers as me for getting a concise form of the story so far. I think they should do more episodes like this every 8-10 episodes or so.

The story is kind of like the same every season with Satoshi beginning his journey again at a new region Kalos, he goes on his journey with aiming at the first gym batch head first like always. On this journey he meets lots of new Pokemons (which is like always the best aspect of the show with some really nice designs this time from gamefreak) and befriends them. He also befriends some humans which are once again generic like the characters each time around. The only one remotely interesting is Eureka who is kind of a new kind of young as she is not yet old enough to raise a Pokemon and gets his brother in awkward position with her gimmicks.

The art this time is particularly strong with new and cool pokemon designs as well as very smooth battle animations. The overall action is very eye catching and amusing and will most likely keep any Pokemon fan glued to the screen for the duration of the battles. The music on the other hand is even worse than the last few seasons as it now completely lacks any of the flares and enjoyable criteria’s that kept us coming back for more in the early days of Pokemon.

As a matter of fact I wasn't really hopeful of enjoying the show based on the last few seasons, but at the end of the day I did enjoy it due to the cool new pokemon designs and smooth and refreshing animation rather than anything else. I just hope that there will more of these recap episodes in the future so that occasional viewers like me can follow the story more easily.

Overall score - 6.5 out of 10.