Pokemon

Ok, so for the sake of creating the ultimate database for MAL on anime reviews, I have decided to create a review on an anime show that almost everyone in this community is familiar with - Pokemon. Have YOU caught them all?

As many people probably already know, Pokemon is the story of our young hero Ash (Satoshi) Ketchum and his dream of one day becoming a Pokemon Master. Of course, if that is your dream, one must defeat gym leaders, participate in the regional Pokemon tournaments and of course, must catch them all, as per the famous catch-phrase of the show. On ... Ash's journey, he meets up with many different friends who all have different dreams as well, but coincide with Ash's dream of being a Pokemon Master. While the story nowadays seems pretty cliche and straightforward, keep in mind that this show debuted in 1997, so let's give it that much.

The animation for Pokemon is something that gets better as the show goes on. In the first many episodes, the animation is not the greatest thing in the world, and many of the frames are repeated several times throughout the entire anime. But because of the huge improvement, I will give credit to the animators in keeping up with the times.

The one thing I really like about this show when I first watched it was the music. I totally fell in love with many of the scores used whenever Ash participated in a big battle against gym leaders or tough rivals. Many of these scores can be seen in the many games that have been created for it as well. Besides that however, a lot of the other music heard sounds kind of boring, which ironically, fits well with the pace of the story, which I'm sure we all are familiar with.

I feel that the characters in Pokemon are simply too perfect. I suppose that since this show was geared towards the younger age group, that may be the reason why, but each main characters we are presented with have either one or two obvious faults that the show always seems to dwell upon whenever there is a problem. Whether it be Ash's rash and stubborn nature or Brock's obvious love of Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, it just becomes waaay too repetitive for it to be enjoyable anymore. Team Rocket anyone?

Which leads to the category of enjoyment. If Pokemon simply aired the important episodes (i.e. gym battles, Ash catching Pokemon, etc.), the show would be scores more enjoyable than what we are presented it. The insane amount of pointless episodes are so utterly boring, that calling them fillers would be an insult to the word "fillers." Whenever I turn on the television and find Pokemon airing, I would stay on that channel for however long it took me to deduce whether or not a gym battle was occurring. If not, the channel was flipped instantly.

Pokemon has tried to keep things fresh with introducing a whole new set of pocket monsters, but at this point, there are so many that its hard to keep track of them all.

Pokemon is the anime show which introduced many of us to the world of japanese animation. I believe that a lot of us grew up watching this show at some point in our lives and will always hold it in a special place in our hearts. However, now that we have become older and can compare this to other anime out there, we can see how Pokemon horribly fails as being an enjoyable show to watch. The fact that Ash almost never wins a regional tournament and relinquishes all of his Pokemon that he has worked so hard to evolve and train (cough* Pidgeot* cough) also gets on the nerves of many people as well. For argument's sake, I rated it a 4 (decent) because of the "used-to be" interesting gym battles. Even now, whenever I see Ash competing at the Orange Island final battle, its something I'll gladly stay tuned and watch again.

Today I look at an anime I have been putting off reviewing for some time. Pokemon! Although I had seen bits of anime before Pokemon, this was one of the first long running anime series I actually started following back in 1997. I don't pretend to be a great "pokemon master" since I haven't played one of the games since Crystal and I stopped watching the show around 2001. This is a review of the first 2 seasons: Kanto and the Orange Island League

The Pokemon games on gameboy revolutionized handheld RPGs and were brilliant, fun, addicting, and absolute masterpieces when they hit the US in ... 1996. I spent over 200 hours playing Silver and another 100 for crystal in order to get all 251. I also spent a LOT of time playing Yellow, while my brother had Pokemon Blue. However, Pokemon has never really been about plot and characters. It is about game mechanics and innovative game play. That is one reason the anime despite the nostalgia...really isn't that good.

The plot or lack thereof is about Ash Ketchum, a 10 year old wandering vagabond who captures animals and forces them to fight in contests. He has no source of income and seems to just walk the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu. Ash manages to win Pokemon badges by cheating and deus ex machina bullshit rather than actual talent or effort. Of the 8 badges in season 1, he only wins 3 by actually defeating the Gym leader. He wins one because the fire alarm went off, 2 because team Rocket showed up and he beat them, and he even "won" a badge because a wild pokemon that Ash didn't even capture made the Gym Leader laugh. Seriously! This fucking happens! The show is supposed to be about friendship and teamwork, but that message is difficult to sell when your show involves battling animals for sport. Cock fighting is NOT about friendship and teamwork! It is about bloodlust and money! The characters are bland, the episodes are formulaic to an extreme, and only in rare instances does something actually interesting happen.

You are probably now accusing me of being a grump and ruining childhoods. I will admit that there was 1 arc of Pokemon that wasn't actually that bad...relatively speaking. My favorite story arc in Pokemon was actually the Saffron City Gym Arc. The Gym Leader Sabrina is a telekinetic sociopath that uses a creepy doll to talk for her like something you would see in a Saw movie. Sabrina threatens to turn Ash and friends into dolls if Ash loses and actually follows up on that threat. She shrinks them down and puts them in a doll house as seen in an old Twilight Zone episode! I'm aware that there were a few fairly dark episodes in season 1 including one where the Safari dude had a gun, but those didn't make the US edit. The creepiest and darkest episode we got to see in the US was BY FAR the Saffron Arc. What I liked was that it didn't follow the formula used in nearly every other episode, Team Rocket doesn't freaking show up, it actually dares to be bold and challenge its young viewers, and it felt much more creative overall.

Art: 4/10

The art and animation is what you would expect from a 90s anime with 300 episodes. It sucks. At least this was before the advent of CG, so there isn't a plethora of cheap Cg effects to make things even worse!

Sound: 7/10

Although the soundtrack reused the same songs OVER and OVER again, it actually wasn't that bad. In fact, the soundtrack is probably the strongest element of the original Pokemon anime. The theme song was amazing and really sucked the viewers in, the battle themes were tense, and the emotional themes struck a chord with 10 year olds at the time. It is actually a well done soundtrack overall!

Overall: 4/10

Pokemon is a very nostalgic anime for me, so I can't actually bring myself to hate it. Having said that, it isn't a very good anime. The writing and plot isn't good, the characters are awful, the animation is bad, it is INSANELY repetitive, and the themes of friendship and determination kind of go out the window when you realize the plot is about capturing wild animals and forcing them to fight for your own amusement. Yes the Pokemon only "faint" and don't actually die, but still pretty bad. Amusingly, in the original Pokemon manga based off the games, the Pokemon really DO battle to the death! Of course the shitty Pokemon manga is a review for another day.

Pokemon: Gotta Catch Em' All

Preface:

Let's take a quick poll. Raise your hand if you were born in the 90s. Put your hand down if you did none of the following:
1) played the Pokemon games
2) collected/traded Pokemon cards
3) watched the anime

Nobody? Alright, well, lets talk about what's probably the largest media phenomenon to come out of Japan in the 20th century, that TV show all the kids couldn't get enough of, and their parents have shelled out ~$50,180,000,000 dollars for since 1998. (stats via Famitsu from Pokemon Company data *link at the end).
...
Pokemon was an enormous part of my childhood (I have an original Mew from my Pokemon Yellow, suckaz.). I played endless hours of the collection of Pokemon games (owned RBY, GSC, RSE, and Pearl), watched from the beginning up through the end of the Johto series anime, and have several notebooks full of cards.

---------------Note-----------------
I don't hate Pokemon, nothing but love for it. However, as an adult, and a reviewer, I have to look at it not from a nostalgic standpoint, but that of a critical one.


Overview:

Enter Dash O. Ketchup, delinquent teenager in search of his father, who's been imprisoned by the fabulously evil duo Jackie and Jimbob and their pet flounder Erwin.
*whispers*
Wait, what? you mean this story isn't about Dash O. Ketchup? News to me.
*ahem*

Enter Ash Ketchum, newly minted 10 year old who's about to set out on an adventure to become the Pokemon Master, except that he's late. Ya boy shows up to the laboratory of the notoriously lazy and probably-not-actually-a-scientist Professor Oak, who immediately tasks Ash and his grandson Gary, our hero's arrogant, stuffy rival, with using his new invention, the Pokedex to gather info about Pokemon... since he hasn't been studying them for the last 50 years?

Ash is promptly booted from his home, becomes a vagrant, befriends a 30-something pervert, Brock, and meets up with a 10 year old young lass, Misty, who form The Crew (tm) for our adventures.

The World of Pokemon Awaits


Story: 3

If you're unfamiliar with how Pokemon works, i'ma break it down for you. It's just like middle school algebra- simple, formulaic, and easy. Episodic to the extreme.

Step 1: Ash and friends reach new town/forest/landmark/gym

Step 2: Ash and friends meet new person in need

Step 3: Ash catches a new Pokemon every other 5th episode (who's sure to abandon him/not participate later)
OR battles Trainer Of The Day

Step 4: Prepare for trouble, and make it double. Team Rocket, intent on stealing Ash and Friend's Pokemon with hairbrained schemes and finger guns show up to wreck the party. CONFLICT!

Step 5: WHO'S THAT POKEMON?!?
Step 6: IT'S PIKACHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Step 7: It's Jigglypuff! *DAMMIT*

Step 8: Pikachu uses Thunderbolt, Team Rocket is blasting off again!

Step 9: Ash and friends return whatever Pokemon were stolen for 5 minutes of screen time/make things right with people

Step 10: Ash and friends go off into the sunset, facing a new day, and a new adventure.

Step 11: Pokemon Rap.

Bonus Round: Gym Battles.

Okay, here's where the show actually gets good. These are typically 3 episode arcs, Ash gets his butt handed to him against the Gym leader, then goes out in search of their weakness, comes back, and typically defeats them with some strange turn of events, or they just decide to give it to him for no reason other than his determination. Much more interesting.

Bonus Round 2: Pokemon League.

So the end of each region's journey, after Ash has had all the Gym badges handed to him out of pity, is the Pokemon League. Our wily hero can't be the VERY BEST LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS if he isn't the Pokemon Champion right?
Well, out of however many seasons of Pokemon there are, for every MLGxxxx420YoLoSk0pxxBl4z3Dxxx contests Ash enters... He loses all of them, every time. What a colossal failure. Well, there _is_ that one time, but it doesn't really count.

One episode that stands out to me 15 years removed is the Sabrina arc. It was creepy then, in a Chucky/Uncanny Valley way, and it's still creepy now. Also, Sabrina makes more than idle threats. She says she'll turn Ash, Brock, and Misty into dolls if Ash loses.. and when he inevitably does, she follows through.


Characters: 4

Ash, 10 year old Pokemon dunderhead. Snot nosed little brat, but through will, determination, heart of the cards, and a lot of charity/dumb luck, he prevails.

Pikachu: yellow mouse with electric powers. Incredibly OP and weaksauce at the same time.. the utter antithesis of MORE POWER!!

Brock: First gym leader, rock type expert, that Ash encounters, who later joins him. They tell me he's actually 15... but, still a wannabe Harem King MC with an infatuation for the endless twins of Officer Jenny, Nurse Joy, and basically every female who appears onscreen except Jessie.

Misty: Second Gym leader, water expert, and loli. Typically the voice of reason between the antics of dumb and perv.

Jessie/James/Meowth: Antagonists... and apparently about 3/7ths of the members of the nefarious crime syndicate Team Rocket. Utterly incapable of the most basic of criminal tasks, these guys are pure comedic relief in the form of getting blasted off, again. (And they ain't drinkin)


Art:2

Animation has come a long way since the 90s. 90's animation was obviously inferior compared to how it is now, but it was at least hand drawn. Pokemon is no example of the awesomeness animation can be, even for the time. It looks like crap. Lots of static/stillframe, rough around the edges, poorly animated garbage-visuals. The frog-face and other overreactions by the characters are often backgrounded by (literally) neon colored squiggles drawn in crayon, like what you'd see in the children's ward of a horribly outdated hospital from the 80s.


Sound: 6

Okay, who, under the age of 25, doesn't immediately start jamming when the first two beats of the Pokemon Theme hit? I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST! LIKE NO ONE EVER WAAAS!

If Pokemon is getting nostalgia points, it's here. The songs that went along with it were so saccharine and so cheesy, but so, so catchy. I still remember the words to them and can rap along with the ending to this day, about 15 years removed from my watching days. Scored with cheeseball 80s dramatic music, it fits the childishness going onscreen.

Voice acting is rough to my adult ears, but as a kid, it was just fine. Super overdone, Shatnerian voice acting- I'm willing to overlook it.


Enjoyment: 7

Nostalgia points showing up again. I watched this show faithfully every day after school for several years. If i factor in the enjoyment from the games, it'd be a perfect 10.

A couple of episodes of Pokemon got banned, mostly due to 4Kids Entertainment censoring them, but one for a very good reason.

Beauty and the Beach: EP18
James finally gives up the cross dressing and actually gets breasts, with which he wins a bikini contest. I'll leave that there.

Legend of Dratini: EP35
FINGER GUNS!!!
This episode contained firearms, and those are a no-no. bland. Also shows Ash catching his 29 Taurus, which is important later.

Electric Soldier Porygon: EP38
A literally seizure inducing episode that affected hundreds of children in Japan. The kids were sent to the hospital and treated, the episode was never aired anywhere else. (I watched part of it, and MYYY EEEEEEYYYYEEEEESSSSSSS... No clue why they did that.)

I'd encourage older (20s) readers to seek these out.. they're good for a nostalgia kick of something you remember fondly but never actually saw.



Overall: 4.4 = 4 (by MAL, "decent")

It was fun at the time, but my time for Pokemon has passed. It's onto the next generation, and hopefully they can have as much fun with it as I did, many moons ago. Pokemon is such an incredible phenomenon, and so instantly recognizable.. the brand will persist, and along with it, new generations of fans may have fun with it, but they'll never get to be the group that experienced it for the first time, in original form.





http://www.famitsu.com/news/201306/11034770.html

Hm.. how should I say this?... If you are 12+ I highly recommend not watching this series. It will clash with our society's laws, moral beliefs, and sometimes the laws of physics. I watched this anime when I was in 5th grade and enjoyed it for a while(I was young and innocent and didn't know how evil pokemon was). Now I looked back at it all I see are..

1.) A world in need of animal rights. E.g. trainers throwing balls, knocking pokemon out and imprisoning them. Though some of them doesn't seem quite right in the head, they willingly gave in to capturing, probably got ... hit too many times in the head by pokeballs.
2.) Owners using their pets in fights for personal gains <-- much like a dog/cock fight. Also the trainers use their own pokemon to beat the crap out of wild pokemon to "train" their own, tell me that's not abuse.
3.) No black people? What kind of world are they living in?
4.) Advanced technology are used for pokemon fights while our "heroes" has to walk around on foot, why can't they just use a car?
5.) Apparently no one bleeds in the anime. The pokemons after taking attacks such as Razor Leaf, Slash Attack, and Cut they don't get wounded! I don't know what kind of epidermis these animals have but I sure as hell would bleed from those kind of attacks.

The writing of this show is terrible. Dialogues are redundant and boring. Only few Brock's dialogues seem to be humourous, for example, "She can violate my rights". I think the writers have never played the games because they keep calling vine whip a special attack but it is a physical attack. There were many instances of characters saying dumb things. Each episode is the same, a new pokemon is introduced then team rocket tries to steal it then Ash saves it. The entire show feels like a filler to me. Many people consider the anime canon but to me, it is nothing compared to the ... games.

Animation and battles get better as the show progresses. But the initial battles are painfully boring. Many important battles are interrupted by the Team Rocket and their presence started to annoy me after a few episodes. Ash won most of his Indigo League badges without any good battle, brock and misty just handed him the badge without any fight. Brock and Misty are well known difficult gym leaders and ash won the badge without even fighting, that's some bad writing. The battles in Johto league were the best. They were some really solid fights and my favourite one is Bulbasaur vs. Meganium.

I think the best part of the show is the opening song from the Indigo League Arc.

People hate video game adaptation these days and they loved pokemon but pokemon is just like any other bad video game adaption which is not faithful to its source material.
They could've easily explored the lore and history of the pokemon universe but instead, they tried to capture every moment from the games and wrote small stories. None of these small stories ties together cohesively to make one good story. It worked in the game because that is how RPGs work.

Story: 2/10
Well...the story...one could argue that the anime contains no story whatsoever; just a bunch of episodes which barely connect to one another, if at all. It's not -ALL- bad, but almost every episode seems like a filler until the next gym battle, or until the next Pokemon is caught, or...whatever...the point is that I personally didn't like the episodes which had no effect on future episodes, which were numerous. Also, I hated the Team Rocket story repetition; you know that they're going to be disguised, NOT GET RECOGNIZED EVEN IF THE DISGUISES ARE TERRIBLE, try to catch some Pokemon, and get blasted off. ... So what's the point in watching? (Also, their annoying rhyming introduction...)

Art: 9/10
The art however is the best thing about Pokemon. It is drawn magnificently and the Pokemon's designs are great. What I can't get past are the completely dumb Pokemon designs (Looking at you Muk).

Sound: 8/10
The sound is quite good, the theme song was probably every person's favorite song when they were young.

Characters: 1/10
Well, besides the fact that there's no character development, the characters are just so annoying and painful to watch...

Enjoyment: 2/10
I won't give this series a flat 1 in this category because the FEW episodes that included gym battles or cup battles were actually not that bad.

Overall: 3/10
The anime is only so popular because of the amazing Pokemon games, which the series never lived up to.


End note: Okay, I know that this is an anime for kids and shouldn't be reviewed like this. But even as a kid, these facts annoyed me and I would watch every episode, eagerly hoping that the next gym battle would take place, and I was left disappointed most of the times. So I just wanted to get this off my chest, and hopefully find someone who agrees with me: The Pokemon anime is over-rated.

Pokemon used to be my childhood favorite anime. In fact, the Pokemon anime is an adaptation of the Nintendo gameboy in 1995. The video games are great. However, as time goes by, I realized that when I watch it as an adult. I finally realized why Pokemon becomes a shell of its former self.

STORY (3):
The story starts off with Ash Ketchum. The word "Ketchum" means Gotta Catch 'Em All. His goal is to become a Pokemon Master. A Pokemon Master is a person who trains pokemon well and the rest was never explained.

Pokemon are just creatures that can be absorbed into a pokeball. There ... is no logic or reason behind it.

The story is just a mindless adventure with repetitive plots.

ART (5):
At that time, the animation is decent.

SOUND (5):
I did like the opening song and the song "Mezase Pokemon Master".

CHARACTER (3):
The only decent character are Misty, Pikachu & Brock. However, their character development are squandered in the remaining episodes.

Misty sometimes she can be aggressive.

Brock was smart however he is interested in the ladies. Of course, a kids show wasn't complete with at least one person who is obsessed in the ladies. Normally, Brock's face turned red when he sees attractive women.

Ash was a bland character.

Even like Nurse Joyce has a lot of cousins. Not to mention so many clones of Jenny the police officer.

Team Rocket are one of the worst villains I have ever witnessed. The problem is every episode Team Rocket do their signature intro and hatch up an evil plan and finally get their asses handed over. Rinse and repeat. A villain is normally required to build tension or excitement in any show. However, if a villain is easily defeated, then it kills the tension or excitement. What's more annoying is that Team Rocket appears in every episode. Team Rocket is a trio group Jesse, James and a talking cat Meowth.

CONCLUSION (4):
Pokemon once an entertaining series, now becomes a shell of its former self due to the reasons I have mentioned above. A terrible show has repetitive elements and no tension which Pokemon has suffered from.

If you want to relieve your nostalgic moments, go ahead and watch it.

If you want something more entertaining, I would say skip it.

If you enjoyed this show a lot, good for you.

The Pokemon anime is a series that got the entirety of its success based off of it being a tie in to a highly successful video game franchise. If the video game did not exist, this anime would just be another forgotten 90s cartoon that largely nobody would remember. The anime doesn't even do a good job of tying in to the video games as it regularly contradicts the games, especially in the first season which is the most widely viewed and remembered.

It is hard to deem what is and isn't filler in this series, as it goes on for a ridiculous amount of time ... with little to no continuity from episode to episode. Characters almost never develop in any way, and it is incredibly rare for anyone outside of the regulars to recur. The only real events that happen are that the main characters gain and/or release new Pokemon, which provides much needed variety to the series' lackluster fight scenes.

The standard format for 90% of the episodes is that the main characters will stumble upon an episodic character or Pokemon. This character will be about as flat as a random NPC in a video game, and the main characters will grind their Pokemon journey to a screeching halt to help them in some way. The cause of conflict that plagues the episodic character will usually be Team Rocket, and if they aren't they will still arbitrarily show up at the end of the episode to provide a generic action sequence.

Team Rocket are nothing but comic relief villains and are the most universal characters on the show besides Ash, and while they sometimes get some actual development once in a blue moon, they mostly provide juvenile unfunny gags and completely fail in their role as antagonists. Oftentimes, the only action in an entire episode will come from Team Rocket, whom provide absolutely no tension whatsoever when they are defeated in almost every single episode of this ludicrously long series with over 900 episodes as of this writing. For their role as comic relief, it doesn't help that most of their gags are reused in dozens if not hundreds of episodes, so anything that a viewer may potentially find funny will be beaten into the ground.

The main character of Ash is incredibly stupid and incompetent, and doesn't remotely line up with how players would actually play the game. Anybody who plays the game can pretty easily figure out what's what, while Ash remains an idiot through almost the entire series. In the first couple of seasons, Ash constantly releases his Pokemon much to the protest of the fans. While he doesn't release them as often now, he will still put his Pokemon into storage at the end of every season in order to go catch the newly released ones from the most recent video game. While this makes no sense whatsoever from an in-universe perspective as Ash erases all of his progress and renders the previous season irrelevant, it makes plenty of sense as a blatant advertisement for the newest generation of Pokemon. The video games themselves are corporate enough with the "gotta catch em all" slogan, the anime isn't even trying to hide it.

There are only a handful of characters that really provide any sense of seriousness or there being anything at stake in this series. Ash's Rivals of Gary and Paul are actual competent characters who rightfully insult Ash for his failures and easily defeat him in battle, making it questionable why they aren't the main characters. Paul in particular actually behaves like everybody who actually plays the games and only uses strong Pokemon instead of trying to be friends with every last Magikarp he sees.

Giovanni is the technical main antagonist of the first season, though he only makes a handful of appearances where he rightfully berates Team Rocket as incompetent. Much like with Ash and his rivals, it's a wonder why he doesn't simply replace them as the main antagonist, as he's far more qualified for the role. As if it wasn't direct enough, Gary is the only one who even gets to fight Giovanni, whereas Ash instead fights Team Rocket for the millionth time for his Earth Badge. What's more insulting is that after Giovanni's character has been phased out after the first season, Meowth regularly has fantasies that mock Giovanni and turn him into just as much of a comic relief character as the rest of the group.

Hunter J is an acceptable replacement for Giovanni as a competent antagonist figure in the fourth generation of the anime, and isn't retroactively turned into a joke. The first and fourth generations of Pokemon are the only ones that have remotely antagonistic figures at all, whereas the rest of the many seasons are stuck with the usual "episodic video game NPC" formula all the time. Even with these characters, the first season should only be watched for nostalgia reasons, as the fight scenes are terrible.

The fourth generation anime is the only section with any amount of effort put into it, as it has better fight scenes and follows the video games closer. If you're in this to watch your favorite Pokemon fight each other in reasonably well animated battles, that's the season to watch - god help you if you're in it for actual characters or plot.

The many movies and television specials have Ash meet every single "legendary" Pokemon ever produced by Gamefreak. Meeting them is such a regular occurrence for Ash that either legendary Pokemon aren't very legendary, or Ash is simply the center of the universe. In Pokemon 2000, Ash is literally given the title of "the chosen one" who will arbitrarily fulfill prophecy. This is in spite of Ash's complete and utter incompetence throughout the entirety of the series, and he will generally play little to no role in getting the plot to resolve itself. The movies entirely exist to advertise the legendary Pokemon in question, and are just larger scale versions of the episodes that advertise the random episodic Pokemon of the day.

Pokemon. Yeah, who doesn't know pokemon? The series where you catch pokemon, battling trainers, and beating gym leaders & champion to be the very best. Yeah, it's so popular. I liked it when I was child, on sunday morning TV show, I got addicted until I had to watch it every week. Now I'm 18 and I began to looked down on it

Story: 3/10
Satoshi (I call him Satoshit) is a typical shounen character who WANNA BE THE VERY BEST. Seriously, what's the reason of it anyway? Why do you want to be the best by doing cockfight and catching animals also make them fight each ... other for no apparent reason? You meet the girl, Kasumi and broke her bicycle. Making her follow you until you repair her bicycle. What the heck? I don't know for what reason the company follow Satoshit on his journey. This anime has no plot at all, almost every episode you only meet SO MANY random people who doesn't have anything with it, you only interfere in their problem, which made this anime stalling, and complete boring, TOO MANY FILLERS, TOO MANY ANNOYING MINOR CHARACTERS. There were some sad moments, honestly, and those were quite decent, though. After beating the 16 gym leader, Satoshit lose in the end and goes to another region. For what? I still don't know about it. Then there's annoying Team Rocket who usually blast off in alomost every episodes, struggling only to catch pikachu. Srlsly, isn't there any pikachu around? You can search them anyway, also pikachu wasn't that strong. The villain we got here is just team rocket who wanna conquer the world and pokemon for no apparent reason. Meh, cliche...

Characters: 2/10
Satoshit is just a clumsy 10 years old typical shounen who didn't grow up AT ALL, still being silly until last episode, even the next generations. He's also still 10 years old!! It's sillier than others. Also I found Kasumi just being an annoying girl with water pokemon, no apparent character development anw. Also the rock gym leader, Takeshi, is also annoying. Flirting girl everytime he meet, just meh. Anw, they had made quite good comedy, though.

Sound: 6/10
I watched the original Japanese version. Mezase Pokemon Master was quite decent, I have no problem at all, not good and not bad also. Sountrack were ok enough

Art: 6/10
Being in 1997, the art was ok. 'Nuff said...

Overall: 3/10
The anime was utterly shit, even though with quite good comedy. They wasted 276 episode just to watch the main character lose without any character development, and begin to the other region to do the same thing. Why ppl give this anime such a good score? Maybe they're just Pokemon fanatics, you better read the manga or watch the movies. Digimon anime & movies and pokemon movies are WAY better for me, no offense.

We've all seen an episode of Pokémon when we were kids, or at least heard about the adventures of Ash and his Pikachu. That's why it hurts to give such a rating to this anime, but in all objectivity, it doesn't deserve more.

Since this review is in English, I'll use the English names of the series, as depending on where you grew up, you may not have known the characters or Pokémon by the same name. For example, in Japan, the heroes are called Satoshi, Takeshi, and Kasumi, while in France, my home country, they are named Sacha, Pierre, and Ondine. However, I will use ... the English names, namely Ash, Brock, and Misty!

Firstly, let's establish some basics. Pokémon is an anime aimed at a fairly young audience. Moreover, the anime was released during a complicated period in terms of censorship, especially in Europe, which restricts many things. Furthermore, the anime is intended to be a generic one, a TV show that children can watch out of order without feeling lost in a story. These are logical considerations given all these factors, but unfortunately, they diminish the experience of the work because the anime minimizes the connections between episodes. For someone wanting to watch all the episodes in order like me, it quickly becomes tiresome because there is no overarching storyline. The episodes generally follow the same format: Ash must win badges to qualify for a championship, so he has to face different gym leaders to earn their respective badges. The anime operates almost exclusively in this manner across its 276 episodes:

Ash arrives at a gym to face the gym leader and win a badge.
He wins the badge.
He continues the journey towards the next gym.
During the journey to the next gym, we get many generic episodes where Ash and his friends encounter a person or Pokémon with a problem, usually involving an intervention by Team Rocket, until they reach the next gym. This pattern repeats for 276 EPISODES!

It's a shame because Pokémon had a lot of potential to create fabulous stories, as evidenced by the movies! During the 276 episodes, five films were released, and you can see them in this chronology:

Movie 1: Between episodes 69 and 70
Movie 2: Between episodes 107 and 108
Movie 3: Between episodes 157 and 158
Movie 4: Between episodes 207 and 208
Movie 5: Between episodes 256 and 257
The movies contain what should have been in the series for it to be a masterpiece – incredible stories based on legendary Pokémon. Even if these Pokémon were not legendary, I would have loved to see stories spanning multiple episodes, as deep as those in the movies. The content of the movies across multiple episodes would have been incredible, and they could have explored certain points they didn't have time for in the films!

Pokémon doesn't delve into any theme, all due to its generic episode system. For example, in the early episodes, we are introduced to the Pokémon Eevee, being told it has only three evolutions: Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon (1st generation). However, several hundred episodes later, we discover that Umbreon and Espeon (2nd generation) also exist, but no explanation is given. They are introduced as if nothing happened, and it's a shame. I expected to learn more, to understand why they hadn't been discovered until now, especially when it's as simple as exposing them to moon/sun radiation, and they evolve if they are ready.

I would also like to mention the uselessness of the trainers in the work. They are there because without them, the anime couldn't exist, but they almost exclusively state the attacks for their Pokémon, even though logically, a Pokémon knows its attacks and doesn't need its trainer to tell it. It would act more quickly following its instinct. Despite this, the trainer can have an impact, such as asking their water-type Pokémon falling to use its Water Gun attack on the ground to slow its fall. This is an example that proves trainers can have strategic ideas that a Pokémon wouldn't normally have. However, the anime almost never uses this aspect and mostly just has trainers say the names of the attacks. I also find the training aspect nearly nonexistent. I would have liked to see several episodes focused on the training of a particular Pokémon, how they go about it, and new skills appearing during their training. But no, evolutions almost always occur during battles against other Pokémon, and we have almost no training moments outside of combat.

Since the episodes are generic, they also have at least one appearance of the "villains" of the series, Team Rocket. I must say that I was worried at the beginning of the series, seeing how many episodes there were. I was afraid their attempts to capture Pikachu would all end up looking the same, but their interventions renew themselves well, even if some episodes are similar. Their interventions never bothered me!

I also appreciated the humor around Jigglypuff! The musicality is not bad at all, even if the openings were translated according to your listening language!

In summary, the Pokémon series had tremendous potential, an exceptional universe easily exploitable, but conditions forced it to become what we know now. If the series were to be released today as a seasonal anime, using the same type of content as in its movies but targeting a slightly older audience, this anime could be a true masterpiece. Unfortunately, this is very unlikely to happen.

(Togepi is the cutest Pokémon of all, I don't want to hear otherwise!)