Pokemon

Pokemon! We've all heard of the show, and most of us have watched and (probably) loved it as kids. So this means it's great, no? I mean, why else would kids all over the world love it? Well... kids often preceive things differently than the older demographic, and they find great what others think of as garbage. So... what about Pokemon? Is this the same? Let's see...

It starts out with a tiny step, like most other journeys. Our hero, Ash Ketchum, has high dreams of becoming the ultimate Pokemon trainer (I'll refrain from explaining that to you), and he starts out by sleeping in too ... late! before logn however, he's gotten his first (reluctant) Pokemon, everyone's favorite mouse Pikachu, and they're off on their epic journey!

The shows brings out an epic adventure of friendship, harsh battles and whatnot; everything you'd expect from a shonen that's aimed at the younger kids. It isn't that great however, as it gets very repetitive after a while; a Pokemon/person of the day formula with some kind of problem that always ends well. And that's what most of the episodes contain, with a small bit of getting further on their journey every now and then.

Animation-wise, the show doesn't feature anything boastable, with flat character designs, okay backgrounds and no spectacular special effects at all. Was it because of budget restrictions (it is a pretty long anime, after all), or was it because the producers knew the kids they were aiming the show at didn't care anyway? Well, whatever it was, the animation isn't anything to brag about.

The soundtrack is what you'd expect of such a show; adventurous opening themes, background music that's supposed to get you into the fighting/comedic mood, and a variety of sound effects to use for all the moves and whatnot you'll see. The voice acting is decent, but honestly - my unability to cope with dubs in anime pretty much wins over my nostalgia here, and that is the main reason I stopped watching the show some time ago.

The characters are, well, what you'd expect from a shonen. The rash, headstrong main character and his oh-so-arrogant rival, and the people he travels with; the older, more reasonable (mostly) fellow, and of course, the tomboyish girl with whome he argues a lot. Yup, that's shonen for ya. The main comedic relief of the series, the Team Rocket trio, is actually a pretty entertaining one. Despite constantly neglecting to look over their mistakes and realise that every one of their contraptions fail against Ash and company, they keep on trying, knowing thinking that their boss will reward them greatly of they bring him the Pikachu. I like their stupid enthusiasm a lot, and their scenes are often among amogn the better ones in the series.

So... Pokemon is basically a cliche-ridden shonen with no real thing to make it stand out. Wait... that can't be right? What about all the kids that love it? And what of all the others that love it? One of the things, I believe, is the adventurous feel of the series; who wouldn't want to experience such an epic adventure for themselves? (I know I want to, at least!) Not to mention, the great values of friendship, loyalty and trust which are presented to the viewers. That is one thing that makes Pokemon so great, and I'd try to get any kid into the show becasue of that reason alone. And that's what there is to say about Pokemon, actually.

Here's the deal with Pokemon. Its a kids show that was created based on the lovable gameboy games, which have continued on into the Nintendo DS ages. This show has actually lasted as long as those devices had. That being said, I can no longer watch this show.

At first, you almost instantly fall in love with the show, mainly because of its overall premise, Pokemon, and the need to catch 'em all. Its that feeling of nostalgia, or for the sake of all the kids who are playing the games now, the feeling of being able to watch what you're doing while you also play ... your game. I had that same feeling too, all the way up to the episode where Sabrina, the Saffron City Psychic Pokemon gym leader, decided to turn Brock and Misty into dolls. After that I skipped through a couple of episodes because I felt boredom creep up.

The first episode has Ash Ketchum scrambling to wake up to get his new Pokemon and start out becoming a Pokemon trainer, but little do we know that the further this show goes on, the further we realize he is an extreme dumbass. Granted, he may be 10 years old and a newbie, but can, and I quote from an episode, "can this kid really be that dense?" But I digress, throughout the series he does gain an incredible amount of experience ad he does grow up to the point where he's not a complete idiot. But that still doesn't help out the entire series as a whole.

The story is simple: Catch Pokemon and train them. To further elaborate: Make sure to have an adventure in between and fight off two imbeciles who want to steal your Pokemon. That's it in a nutshell. And I know, this is a kids show, but honestly, I was hoping for a bit more considering that both the manga version and the actual videogames seem to have a better story. Its like every episode, there's always one person who needs help with something, and its usually an easy task, or if its a gym leader problem, he needs outside help to beat them. Either way, it became too repetitive for me. I will say though, one episode made me want to punch the computer screen because it was different, but it was designed to make little kids cry: Ash's loss of Butterfree.

The characters are usually one-dimensional. I wish that they would expand on these one-shot characters to have me actually care for them. Like Samurai. He's just there to further the plot and says he wants to battle Ash again after his failed attempt at battling him with a Metapod. Characters like these show up often, and it gets annoying. I hear that later episodes past season 2 they change, but I didn't feel like watching anymore to find out.

Since I watched the American Dub, and growing up with it, I like the music. Most of the background stuff remained the same as it was from the games, just not 8-bit sounding. And the 4kids songs, well....as I said, I grew up with them, so they still have a soft spot with me.

Now, as angry as I am about the show, its not to say it isn't enjoyable. There are times when you can crack a smile because of either how cute or how awesome it was to watch Ash actually do something without having a treat handed to him or being offered assistance, it can be fun. I liked the Sabrina episode til about halfway, because it became too predictable, Haunter was just funny. So, I give this show a solid 6. It could have been better, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. At least it wasn't as bad, in my personal opinion, as Sailor Moon.

Pokémon was a cornerstone of my childhood and even my early adolescence. I've watched almost all of the movies (prior to Gen V, that is) and I've completed every TV series up to and including Diamond & Pearl. On top of that, I've played all of the games and have been playing "competitively" since 2006. I think it's safe to say that I have a rather biased perception of Pokémon as a whole. Whilst most people I know either lampoon this series at every chance they get or overrate it to high heaven because of either old shame or nostalgia respectively, I have an opinion ... that's somewhere in the middle.

As far as my opinions on Pokémon go, well... I personally don't consider it to be anything more than shallow entertainment meant to entertain sugar-high children on Saturday mornings and it works just fine for that. I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that, especially given how Pokémon actually was broadcast in the USA as a show meant to entertain sugar-high children on Saturday mornings alongside programmes like Jackie Chan Adventures, Xiaolin Showdown, ¡Mucha Lucha!, and the 2003 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (all of which, I still do happen to like and enjoy to this day).

Don't get me wrong: I definitely understand where the vitriol toward Pokémon comes from. The world-building is absolutely atrocious, the story is repetitive, Ash/Satoshi is an incompetent fool who relies on Pikachu to do practically everything for him, the production values are fucking awful, etc. Had this show been played completely straight, odds are that I too would probably hate it. So why then do I still like and wholeheartedly enjoy the first four instalments of the anime? One simple reason: the dub (yep, you read that right).

Whilst I've certainly got a great deal of vitriol built up toward 4Kids as a whole, it's not like they didn't have any successes. Their dub of Pokémon is hands-down, their best dub to date. I'm sure that the blokes at 4Kids realised how stupid this show is in hindsight, so they just decided to make the entire thing self-aware to an extremely hilarious degree. This is especially notable whenever Team Rocket is actually in the frame. It's almost like 4Kids had a time machine, realised that Funimation would make a gag dub for Crayon Shin-chan and then they decided to beat them to the punch by making a gag dub of a kid's show but without all of the vulgarity that the former had.

Yeah, Pokémon definitely has problems and it's definitely not something I'd turn to if I want something of actual quality. At the same time though, the nostalgia draws me in and the dub keeps me around. I'm an overgrown man child, so letting go of things from my youth is pretty hard to do sometimes. Thankfully, shows like Pokémon have aged gracefully and give me something new to appreciate about them. Here's to hoping that some kids of today's age have access to Netflix so that they can watch the original series of Pokémon and realise what they've been missing out on. Anyway, that's all for now. Feedback's always welcome and with that, I'm out. Peace :]

***

How could I have forgotten the iconic 4Kids intro? The Japanese dub ain't got SHIT on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcfdoSuC6MI

Pokemon was born out of Satoshi Tajiri’s love for catching bugs with a net, and has since become a massive world-wide phenomenon that reached every corner of the globe. It spread like a contagious disease making young kids (and even adults alike) cry out brilliant lines at their GameBoy screens like: “Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!” or memorizing very useful data like the Strength of a level 13 Bulbasaur. This fad was seemingly here to stay. Unfortunately, those happy times are long over, and those same kids who knew the evolution of a Psyduck, when they couldn’t even remember all 50 states of their own country, left ... Pokemon in the dust. However, the impact that it once had can still be felt on the still ongoing anime series that has more than 600 episodes.

With a surprisingly simplistic plot, this show captured the attention of kids all ages, which left many people scratching their heads. How can such a depth-less show such as Pokemon have so many fans with a superficial plot like that? Addiction? Loyalty to the games? Affinity to furry creatures? Perhaps, but the Pokemon anime had one thing going for it – enjoyable humor. With hilarious three-dimensional villains, a likeable cast of main heroes, a plot that was simple, but fun, exciting battles and a large ensemble of cute mascots and even a reference to Revolutionary Girl Utena in episode 28 named ‘Pokemon Fashion Flash’, this show seemed like a winner.

What went wrong then?

Its popularity, of course. Other anime have been ruined by it like Inuyasha, and Dragon Ball Z, but the complete destruction of an anime thanks to its fans was even more evident here. What used to be a fun kid’s show that didn’t underestimate the intelligence of its viewers, became boring drivel of pure yawn-inducing morals only fit for little children under five; its flawed, yet amiable characters, transformed into these bland cardboard cut-outs whose only purpose was to smile dully at the camera and shout needlessly at Team Rocket every time they saw them (in other words, every episode); the dumb, but funny jokes got even lamer, and the prominence of new Pokemon took the spotlight from the human characters, and turned this show into an utter slop. Game after game – season after season, Pokemon became an endless cycle of irrelevant side-plots that constituted of Ash, Misty and Brock helping vapid trainers who had the ‘Pokemon-of-the-day’.

Pokemon tried to bring all its former glory with the Advanced Season, where everything was fresh and new and included the addition of two new characters – May and Max to the main group. But after viewers endured hundreds of fillers, this was not the kind welcome its producers expected.

There are many character archetypes here: You have the reckless, but determined hero (Ash), the tomboyish, but sensitive girl (Misty), the perverted mentor (Brock), and the cute, stock mascot (Pikachu). You've seen them all in countless series, and are nothing special. But, for those who grew up watching this series, Pokemon's characters still hold a special place in one's heart because of their likeability.

The 'villains' here have more personality than the above (especially James - he's shamelessly flamboyant, loves art and dance, and has a great fashion sense), but they're not ground-breaking or entirely original. However, they breathe life into the show. There are many other characters in this show, but they're so unremarkable that they don't even deserve a mention.

I won't spare any words - Pokemon's animation is nothing short of terrible. It has reused backgrounds, repeated footage, unrefined character designs, and more still shots that you can choke at. The animation score is 'high' as it is (5) because the designs of the original 150 Pokemon are brimming with creativity, and they're still undeniable icons that even people who don't know about the show still recognize to this day.

While the dub is nothing outstanding (except for James' voice - he's hilarious), it's still bearable. As for the Japanese version, Ash - or Satoshi, if you will - has a female voice actress, Matsumoto Rika, who does an exceptional job. Though Misty's (Kasumi's) voice is shrill and annoying, and Team Rocket are nothing amazing, the original voices are quite good.

While you may not like the English openings (though you cannot deny that the first opening can stick to your mind for days on end), the Japanese ones are excellent: 'Mesaze Pokemon Master', 'Ok!' and 'Ready Go!' are all great.

For critics and fans of the show I have one thing to say - accept Pokemon for what it is. It's a childish, cheesy, and silly show full of exaggeratedly haughty morals with no concrete plot, and yet, a good anime for kids. It's also a classic - it was the first anime to launch the whole monster-capturing concept.

Just ignore the obvious money-making aim that the whole show has, instead of being solely an innocent children’s show.

You’ll like Pokemon more that way.

Oh, Pokemon.

So for some god-forsaken reason I decided to go and watch the entire Pokemon anime last year. All 20 years of it. I took breaks every now and then, obviously, but at this point one of my greatest life achievements is that I managed to watch almost 1000 episodes in under a year. I hate myself for this as well don't you worry.

I didn't watch this as a child. It was always on at 3:00 in the afternoon and I only got home from school right as it was ending. Also, I was born three years into it so I was late to the ... party anyway. I can't even use childhood memories as an excuse for watching it all the way through again.

Even without nostalgia driving me forwards, I was addicted. I love the entire Pokemon franchise, which is probably why, and epic battles like during the Leagues made it almost worth it. The filler episodes I found dull but I watched them all anyway. The development of characters such as Ash and his Pokemon was great, and the music was always good, but the art wasn't brilliant and to be honest while I'm writing this I'm regretting many of my life decisions.

Probably the main reason I don't find this to be a good anime is because I am not the target audience. Pokemon was made with children in mind, who don't make critical judgement about the sound quality and animation, or take major plot holes into consideration because they just don't care. Even with all of this, I still enjoyed it. I've memorised most of the information the show has thrown my way just by watching it, and somehow I don't cry at night about the amount of brain space I've wasted on this.

Unless you're under ten years old or have lots of time and brain space to spare and are basically addicted to the rest of the Pokemon franchise, I don't recommend this anime. But hey, who am I to judge? This isn't the worst anime out there by a long shot. Have at it.

Pokemon is good but for kids. Let me tell you it is always the same! Ash always gets the badges, Team rocket always beaten and pikacu ALWAYS saves the day. But you know, there is morality so kids can learn from it. I liked it too, it isn't half bad.

(( Indigo League Arc))
So… This is an anime that has been going on for a very long time. It has become loved and hated by many for its sweet childlike story and the card and video games.

I love how the anime actually starts out with a small clip from a video game. It brings the people who have played the game into the show, though that’s where the show pulls away. Instead of using Red and Blue like the manga or game, they use Ash and Gary. Not sure why the name change, and why they make their personality the way they do but it ... feels really off. Gary is pretty much the high end of the snobby jerk style rival and Ash is on the high end make friends and have fun style. I compare it to Yugioh where Yugi always trusts the heart of the cards, the Ash of Yugioh, and Seto is stuck up like Gary.

I have a little question, how come Meowth from Team Rocket the only Pokémon that can talk? There doesn’t seem to be anything special about him and yet he is able to talk really well. Also, why do they want Pikachu and no other? Are they just so stupid that they want only one Pokémon? I did enjoy some of their appearances but it got really repetitive and boring after a while. While I’m on the subject of repetitive stuff, everything in the story is repetitive. Ash and his friends are traveling, they end up getting attacked by Team Rocket and then beat them, ending in Ash sometimes getting to where he wants to go or getting what he wants. The only times I actually liked the show was when they broke from that repetition and had it go for a couple episodes or maybe only had Team Rocket for a couple seconds. Otherwise, it was a story by day thing and got old fast.

There has always been a problem with people thinking about the fight aspect of the show. The idea that ‘animals’ are fighting for human’s enjoyment has always been a touchy subject to say the least but I never really saw it as the same as dog fights in our life. Most Pokémon like Pikachu are actually smart and seem to know what they are doing. If a Pokémon didn’t really want to fight, then it could just run away. It was born in the wild so it knows it doesn’t really have to fight.

The Banned episodes is the fun part of the show now that I’m older. The fact that they banned episodes completely or edited things out because it didn’t fit the normal in America is really funny to me. I have seen a couple of these though I have mostly only seen the dubbed version of the anime. I may not like how they did it but I understand why they did it.

The whose that Pokémon bit that happens just seems really easy at times, using a Pokémon mostly from the episode that the children are watching. There is also the cute little times where its only pokemon talking though its not really used very much. Even though you can’t understand exactly what they are saying, they still get the feeling across.

The animation is a bit old now, but still has the same feel of nostalgia that I felt when I was little. Attacks normally happen with speed lines and half assed affects that look like they skip a few seconds. Lighting seems to freeze up slightly when it happens especially in Pikachu’s attacks. The background is more like blotches of color mostly and don’t have much detail besides a couple lines for bumps in the dirt. The rest are watercolor looking.

The voices are another matter. The dub kind of falls flat, children have raspy and annoying voices. I hate Gary’s voice the most and luckily we don’t hear it all the time. Ash is a bit easier to cope with since his voice is not normally that whinny and high strong. The music is pretty well known right now, and fits well with the type of story that’s being shown. The music fills you with hope and energy needed for the show although I could really go without the pokemon rap at the end. That felt more like a tack on rather then a actual piece from Japan.

No matter the good or bad things about it, it still is a beloved memory of my childhood. I’m looking forward to working on the reviews for the whole series up till now.

((Orange Islands Arc))
Ash is almost too lucky. The show starts out with him winning a trip on a blimp for all three of them. Almost everything happens perfectly for them no matter what is going on. There is a bunch of stuff that also carries over from the first season which I like. Things like Jigglypuff showing up, Brock’s problem with thinking with his pants whenever a cute girl is around, and Team Rocket’s blunders. It never fails that whenever they have a hand in something, they end up messing it up in the end. I know people say Team Rocket trying to steal Pikachu is pretty old but somehow, some of the things they do in this season feel a little fresh.

After losing Brock, it actually didn’t seem to make much difference since they added Tracey Sketchit. He seemed exactly like Brock in a lot of ways. I didn’t miss Brock at all.

The first episode feels a little stupid. They use Bulbasar’s vinewhip to hold Misty’s balance though they could have just used it to grab Togepi. Also, they use the same joke as Team Rocket where the blimp is going back and forward to balance the waight and it happens a little too long. There were also some things that happen in the others like that but it just bugs me slightly.

Again, the Whose that Pokemon thing is a bit stupid, having a lot of the same pokemon over and over again. With 150 pokemon, you would think they would have at least one new pokemon in each episode.

The art style is pretty much the same, and yet the beginning is rather bad. I don’t see why they had to change the opening to have the rather bad 3D pieces when the rest is more images from the show. Most of the characters they show in the opening is from season one. They should have spent a little more time on it. The rest has speed lines and yet the background has a little more detail work to it for most things. The animation is bright and actually a bit more colorful, probably because they were on a tropical island. They did a really big cop out where Nurse Joy and Police Officer Jeny look exactly the same as the ones on the main land. I get a little pissed off at this. They could have at least tried to come up with a better design.

The music is a little catchier for the opening though the animation for the beginning is a bit odd. I think they should have done something a little different. The voices are the same, and the background music is alright. I don’t like the Pikachu Jukebox thing. It just seems like the same music over and over again, and I just don’t care for hearing the music at the end like that. I ended up skipping it.

((Johto Journeys Arc))

Disclaimer: if you aren't interesting in Pokemon (e.g. game, cards, manga etc.) then you're wasting your time here.

It has indeed been a long, captivating journey for myself as well as our Poke-master wannabe Ash. Note that my review is based on the Dubbed version. (The only anime on my list that i think works Better as a dub)

I know that in terms of technical anime critique, Pokemon should really only scrape a 3 or 4 from me - and those points are basically covered by the anime's sheer scale. Although i pride myself on being quite "professional" when it comes to reviewing; like many others, ... i'm finding it very frustrating to pass judgement on the original Pokemon show, as i know in technical terms that it's not nearly up to par with all of the other anime I've seen - and yet... i like it, i really like it!

Pokemon fans in particular will know what i'm talking about here when i say nostalgia... Pokemon boasts an incredibly unique premise, a completely out-of-this-world idea that shows how it was all derived from a set of blockbuster games. This is all the anime has to defend itself really, and here's why...

As a kid growing up with Pokemon cards and what not, i guess you could say that Pokemon successfully captured my imagination early on; it didn't take long until i felt the true scale and began to understand more about those hundreds of pocket-able monsters that feature throughout Pokemon culture. Surprisingly, i never watched the anime, or played the games until recent years, where a group of Pokemon-playing friends brought about a resurgence in my interest for the fandom.

So... Why? Why did i start watching?
Well it should be quite obvious that you NEED an interest in the brand name before you can watch Pokemon, and like everyone else here, i watched it out of a mixture of curiosity, nostalgia and interest.

Having completed Pokemon, i don't regret it at all, as a whole, the show has taught me infinitely - even if it's fantasy logic. And although i can't really pinpoint a specific episode and say, "i loved it when...", by watching Pokemon, it's really just become a way of life - like Ash on his journey.

ONTO THE ACTUAL CRITIQUE

The story is thin and can be accurately summarized in one sentence, the art and sound is mediocre, and the characters are relatively devoid of depth - but this isn't what people consider when watching. Millions of people (myself included) have a respect for Pokemon, and so despite how it preforms in terms of statistics, it doesn't take much in this show for it to seem incredibly sentimental and/or relevant. In some ways i guess you could say that Pokemon is almost scary in terms of brand power, in that it always seems to have its way of reserving a place for itself in people's minds.

Enjoyment...
Of course, i really enjoyed this original series - and not only for its charming and familiar premise... Pokemon is s very cartoon and slapstick styled show in terms of its presentation, and so it seldom takes itself too seriously - remember this is a show aimed for young-ens (not that this is an excuse for it being so shallow). The whole run of this anime carries with it an uplifting and at the same time, escapist and relaxing feel; as regardless of its presentation limitations, it's an anime that can't help being so immersive.
It's not exactly a surprise when you come to consider how far fetched and unique it is on almost all fronts - as i mentioned before, it captures the imagination like nothing else I've ever seen.

Pokemon is a show that, pretty soon on; will have you immersed to the point where you want to become the next Pokemon master... The show treats its viewers to an audiovisual, escapist feast - and that is perhaps the best aspect of the anime: its ability to allow oneself to sweep aside their real life issues and for just 22 minutes, be carefree and reunite with their child self. Perhaps this renders the whole show as more of a therapeutic kick than a "must watch".

If you haven't already gathered the gist of why Pokemon is unalike pretty much every anime - it's that it relies on previous consumer attraction for it to work at all, and if you've been bitten by the Pokemon bug, there is quite simply nothing quite so wonderfully captivating - as its cartoon-esq nature and premise will provide you with an indescribable concoction of escapist realities.

All in all it's extremely circumstantial...
Are you a Pokemon fan?
No? Then you'll hate it and won't appreciate it at all (with good reason in all honesty) Yes? Then perhaps this show will allow you to escape as you did many a year ago - as its nostalgic nature has the ability to make you curious like a kid again.

So do with Pokemon what you must Pokefans... The story is extremely repetitive, and so the whole anime maintains almost the exact same undertones throughout - meaning that you will either find an unbeatable warmth in its storytelling, or nothing at all.

I feel like this review requires a disclaimer of sorts... It's pretty much taken for granted that Pokémon is just where every anime fan who was a child in the late 90s and onward started, and that's not really the case for me. Make no mistake, I logged countless hours on the games, I saw quite a lot of the anime, and I had a sizeable card collection at one point, but Pokémon was not the first great love of my anime life. Digimon and Beyblade were the shows that really sucked me in and made me fall in love with the story and characters. ... Pokémon was kind of just there. And while there were certain aspects I enjoyed, I have never claimed to be the biggest Poke-fan out there. I'm sure that greatly colored this experience-- when I decided to watch it all the way through as an adult and judge it as I would any other anime. What I mean to say is... the prescription in my nostalgia glasses isn't nearly as strong as it could have been.

Although the characters can be a little bland or one-note too, it has always been the plot that I've held up as Pokémon's weakest point. Each season it's more or less the same (unreasonably drawn out) trek to win enough badges to enter (and not come out on top in) that region's Pokémon League. New faces and places maybe, but there's really not much to the story. I'm sure the whacky in-between adventures the gang had along the way weren't supposed to be viewed as filler, but that was often how it felt to me.

I don't mean for it to come across like this experience was all awful. Some of their filler adventures were better than others. I was particularly fond of the episodes that focused on the Pokémon themselves, showing off their individual personalities. And I think Gary Oak is a fascinating character who grows a lot over the course of the series, and who I wish had gotten a little more focus. But it was the gym battles and tournament arcs that really interested me, so my attitude towards the multitude of in-between stories featuring characters and plots who would never be important past their one little showcase episode tended to swing between 'Well that was cute and fun' and 'For the love of all that is holy, can they just get to the next town already?!' Seriously. By the time I started keeping track of that sort of thing, we were talking 20-30 episodes between gym battles.

And on that note... I can't leave any review on a wholly critical note. Let's be honest here. 276 is a massive number of episodes to be encompassed in a single review. And I have to admit, by the time our heroes reached Johto, the writers had already taken measures to assuage a lot of my main complaints. A lot of minor characters made reappearances. There were quite a few strings of episodes that were directly connected to the episodes before it. Ash's Johto team, overall, definitely had a lot more personality-- and spent more time out of their balls-- than his Kanto one.

And lastly, it is worth noting that Kanto and Johto weren't really my generations. I played a little of those games on other people's files, but I didn't play a Pokémon game all the way through on my own until Sapphire. So there was no added thrill here to see familiar Pokémon or gym leaders animated. That might add a lot to my enjoyment of the next few seasons, as I am quite familiar with the game version of Hoenn. But I guess we'll see.

Maybe it's not fair to judge a kid's show by adult standards. And in its very essence, Pokémon does have the feel of a show specifically for kids. Not just in the sense that their dark moments are few and far between, but because it feels like the perfect show to just throw on to entertain your kids for a few hours. It doesn't require a lot of attention to keep up with the story, and I personally don't think it says much for a show to say you can skip dozens of episodes at a time without the main plot suffering much. I'm interested to see how the familiarity will affect my enjoyment for the next few seasons, but as for the beginning of Pokémon... I think it's safe to say it's one of the few shows I've officially grown out of.

LOL Nostalgia does funny things to our head... sometimes its for the good and most of the time its for the bad it usually effects how we view certain things and often just distracts us from a fair review.


Story: 3/10

This was my first anime.... THE FIRST ANIME..and yet i look back at it at utter disappointment that this has a story which makes tom&jerry's premise seem any meaningful or less repetitive.

It basically just loops over and over and it has been successfully looping over 700+ Episodes

This is your typical Pokemon story:-
...
Ash goes to a town > meets bunch of dull uninteresting people > helps them > goes to a gym > Team rocket arrives > team rocket/problem defeated

Rinse&repeat and you have over 700+ episodes it seemed to progress in season 1 but it started getting stagnated as the plot was heading nowhere but looping in circles.

Animation: 7/10

IT has a decent animation quality which improves upon every season sadly its the only thing which improves.

Sound: 7/10

The theme song is incredibly catchy(Season one) the pokemons usually just repeat their names over and over and it can get annoying for some pokemons.

Characters:1/10

Ash: The main character who had a lot of potential from Season 1 he has gone through a lot of character development from being a naive boy to a brave pokemon trainer but all of that is put to a halt as the season 1 ended he goes back to Level 0 in every season and starts like a rookie.

Misty/Dawn/May/"insert random girl sidekick here" yeah that's the best description i can come up with for them... and that's all there is to their characters.

Brock: a distinctively funny pervert... yet another anime cliche but he kinda made the show entertaining by just being there.

Gary-Stu- HA I wanted to make a pun ! he's the rival of ash who clearly made the whole "Rat&mouse" case with ash as he gave ash a solid goal to work on defeating him.

All the characters are just 2d.. they just are pathetically lacking of any writing that even predates any kind of fiction know to man.

Overall: 6/10

Its a guilty pleasure of mine but i wouldn't even recommend it to parents it just sets a bad example for kids as in bad example of a kids anime.

The show needs a reboot now its been 700+ episodes and i think for the sake of human dignity they should just do that.

We all watched this anime as a kid and likely enjoyed it. However, watching it now just isn't enjoyable. The story is basic and very repetitive. Every single episode has the same plot. To be fair, it is an anime primarily made for kids, but there are other shows like it that do a way better job at making an interesting story. For example, Beyblade is another anime that is made primarily for kids. The difference between it and Pokemon is it actually has a good story with compelling characters. Beyblade shows that an anime made for kids can still be enjoyed by everyone. Pokemon ... isn't like that though. If you aren't a kid, you are going to have a really hard time enjoying this show. The only reason this is getting a 5 from me is because I do have a little bit of nostalgia. Without nostalgia this show is really a 3. If you really want to see Team Rocket blast off again and again, then be my guest and watch this show. In all seriousness though, this show is a huge waste of time. There are way better things you could be watching.

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 and the fact that you’re reading this, I assume you are somewhat older than the intended age group of Pokemon.

Being the first Pokemon series, this one doesn’t really prove to excel in any category.

The main idea of this series is pretty simple and that is introducing us to the Pokemon World. I find this fairly logical and exactly what was needed but certainly it lacked the punch. This series pretty ... much focuses on Pokemon and not the battles or the trainers. As a result we’ve got this bratty Satoshi who is very immature and is looked after by two gym leaders to guide him to the pokemon battles and how to be a trainer. Since it wanted to focus on the pokemons, the gym battles aren’t even a battle sometimes and the party of Satoshi’s pokemons frequently changes. The battle rules are also questionable in the series sometimes but were later updated to a better version in the next series.

The problem with this series is clearly the pacing. The Kanto region lasted just for the first 80-90 episodes which went pretty fast and well but with orange islands following it, which was boring as hell and we got the remaining episodes on Johto region which made it even worse. Almost all the episodes are a one episode stories without much of a connection throughout the journey, which aren’t really exciting as well. It really stays loyal to the original game for better or for worse.

I also have problems with characters like Shigeru who is once introduced as a rival but Satoshi clearly isn’t even on his standards. This might be an unpopular opinion but Charizard was annoying as hell in the entirety of the first half. I personally think it was beacause Satoshi wasn’t a fully grown trainer but he never became even at the end of the whole series. He wasn’t given the time to grow as a trainer himself.

As a whole, this series is pretty monotonous which made it kinda mid without anything much to talk about it.

Whilst this show was great when I watched it at 10 looking back its flawed as its repetitive has a lot of filler and not much charecter development and somehow has over 900 episodes

it is still fun to watch at times and introduced me to anime also the humour could actually be funny(99.9% of that was brock the best charecter of the show)


Whilst its not great its fun to go back to and rewatch some of the genually good fights and moments also the soundtrack is memorable although super 90s

Its an ok show but memerable and worth watching at times

Pokemon is not a masterpiece.

The very first series of Pokemon is nothing close to the recent and more flashy and improved anime at our current period-- not a bit. Let's admit that the animation and sound designing is mediocre, and its plotline follows the episodical nature, still it is incompetent. Nonetheless, this anime still remains iconic and legendary. Why is it?

Let's backtrack in time when you woke up in a rainy day when you were a kid, and you rushed to prepare your breakfast then you opened the television as you sat on the couch and covered yourself under the blanket. There goes the Pokemon ... opening and you hum to its melody, as you have almost memorized it everyday that you have seen the anime. Afterwhich, the original trio Ash, Misty, and Brock go quarrelling again with some childish and comedic arguments about who will catch Totodile, and you laughed your arse off as Togepi defeated Pikachu effortlessly. Oh! That one episode, when Ash tearfully released Butterfree because he knows his home is somewhere not in him. We cried to it which has perpetually scarred our hearts. Or you remember that time when you are amusedly mouth-opened when the legendary trio, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres fought against each other, like your eyes are so glued on the screen. The animation is not as good, but as a kid we are caught on the fierce battle, and it is good for its own era.

The Pokemon series is a part of our good childhood memories. These series that have forgotten by most today, reside in a special place in our heart because they have been our company and friend as we grow older. The perfect chemistry of Ash, Misty, and Brock, perhaps, is irreplaceable because our firsts are those that are hard to forget. When we were kids, we were not as critique as how the sound design should be arranged, is the animation competent in comparison to the other anime in the league, does the storyline follow a certain direction, etc-- No. It is simply, our favorite characters offer their hands while we were watching and ask us to join their venturing of becoming the best Pokemon trainers, and we enthusiastically tagged along, and we genuinely enjoyed the every hurdles, battles, new acquaintance that we encountered in this long and remarkable adventure.

If you are still catching up to the new series of Pokemon until this day, I guess, you really loved the series growing up. You now knew, that all of us are Pokemon Trainers on our own. Catching, not Pokemons, our dreams to become the very best like no one ever was.

Sure, Pokemon is incompetent to those animes today. I would even give it the lowest stars if I would be absolute objective. However, the series is the memory of my yesterday and I will be forever fan of this series. I don't usually recommend this original series if my friends want to catch up to the series because they will surely be bored. It is best to watch it if you have already strong attachment to Pokemon, so might as well start with Pokemon XY or Sun and Moon.

Pokemon may not be a masterpiece, but it is a piece of you-- of us all-- that we will forever treasure.

Pokemon was my very first anime. I was obsessed with the games, so naturally I began watching the anime early on too. I have to admit the games were more to my liking, the anime seems a bit bland and every episode is pretty much the same.

Although Ash is a character who starts growing on you, he can be pretty annoying sometimes... I like that they introduce new side characters in every new 'season', as well as new pokemon but especially nowadays pokemon seems to be more and more for kids...

Not that much of a build up to a big ending imo, but still very ... nostalgic to me :) Definitely a big part of my childhood!

Pokemon! Something most children watched as children. To me, it was the first official anime that I had watched in my life. I found that seeing a teenager with such passion in catching pokemon was very enjoyable to watch. When I was a kid I told my mom I wanted to have a pokemon of my own. But when she told me that I couldn't, I was very very upset.

StoryLine:

A 9-year-old, now 10-year-old named Ash Ketchum is now ready to start his pokemon journey. He spent his night watching pokemon battles over and over causing him to sleep past his alarm. His mother ... finally wakes him up to get ready to go to Professor Oaks' lab. When he gets there he sees Gary walking away with his newly picked: Squirtle!

Ash becomes even more exciting and rushes into the lab. He sees 3 pokeballs on a table and decides to pick one of the three pokemon. He picks his first, nothings inside. Second, nothing there. Third, nope still nothing. He starts to complain to Professor Oak about how he waited so long for this moment. Professor Oak has one more Pokeball that he had. It contained a Pikachu that had attitude problems....

This is the start to the anime. He goes on a quest to become the greatest pokemon trainer there is! He meets a lot of friends along the way (not going to spoil anything else for people that are going to watch it). This is an anime for people of any age that are trying to start off watching.

Rating: 6/10

So this isn't the iteration of pokemon I grew up with and I'm just now getting to it and even though i still prefer modern pokemon, this was quite enjoyable and charming to watch. The character development can be basic, but it's pokemon, it's not supposed to be super deep.

Point is if you enjoy pokemon and can get past the dated aspects of this anime it serves as an entertaining show that's perfect for just one a day slow burn through the show. 6/10 from a critical point of view but it's an easy 8/10 from a entertainment point of view. Oh and the ... movie tie ins are actually pretty good.

Pokémon is a great series for kids, I remember loving it when I was 10 but then I watched it again after so many years ,I just find out that it is a normal series with nothing more than a simple story comprehensible by kids. Though it is not total bad but an average. Though in my childhood there was only this anime which everyone knows about .It does not have deep plot, Good character art, story line, theme etc. Its just about a kid winning Pokémon .