Pokemon Best Wishes!

Just like my Citrus review this is a comedic take on my actual opinions so some jokes will be thrown in.

OH BOY WHO REMEMBERS WHEN GEN 5 CAME OUT. I was only 8 when Pokemon Black and White launched in Japan back in 2010. A year later we got the games here and it was a blast. I fondly remember that In mid 2010 I like annoyed my parents so much with Pokemon that I wasn't allowed to consume any Pokemon media until Black and White came out. I ATE ALL THE BW SHIT UP LIKE THOSE 10 YEAR OLDS ON XBOXLIVE EAT UR MOMS ASS. Why am i saying all this memory bullcrap. Its because I can go back on the games again, in fact Generation 5 is my favorite Pokemon games. But the anime I can't go back to at all.

So this season of Pokemon was something I got up to watch every Saturday morning on CARTOON NETWORK to watch. I was only 9 and due to finally getting to see the new weird Chinese looking cartoon (i was 9 i didn't know much about anime and Japan and used to think they were synonyms for each other, I was a stupid kid) and I loved it. But now going back as a more grown and developed human being, it was as Danny Devito puts it best T R A S H

So the art is your generic pre gen 7 Pokemon style except ther are some weird quirks, Satoshi/ Ash has darker skin than in the past 4 generations, just like later Gen 3 and Gen 4 there are weird symbols replacing Japanese characters, and there is some questionable CG in some rare scenes. Thats it.Notthin Special

Sound is good, the music is still the amazing remixes of the game OST with some trash generic music thrown in. The voice acting is tolerable in the Japanese version. It isn't like as good as GEN 1-3 but thats kind of because they had crap scripts. THE DUB WAS ASS. OMFG EVERY SINGLE PERSON WONT SHUT THE FUCK UP AND IS SUPER FUCKING ANNOYING. I HAVE ALWAYS HAD A PROBLEM WITH ANNOYING DUB VOICES BUT GEN 5 HAD IT WORSE THAN WHEN FRICKEN 4KIDS HAD POKEMON. JUST WOW DON'T WATCH IT DUBBED.

The characters suck. I will use the dub names for the main characters besides Satoshi as i haven't played the games in Japanese yet and dont give one single care to remember their names from the anime since every single person sucks. Satoshi/ Ash Ketchum/Ass Ketchup is still fucking ten and as annoying and stupid as ever. He releases Pokemon and doesn't catch the OBVIOUSLY GOOD POKEMON LIKE THE LEGENDARY POKEMON HE BEFRIENDS IN THE MOVIES HMMMMMMM. He also keeps all his Pokemon at home which is stupid but hey gotta show the new pokeymanz. Pikachu is Pikachu. AMAZING NO CHANGES NEEDED EXCEPT MORE KETCHUP. Iris is an annoying dragon girl who just fucking argues with Ass Ketchup so much its not funny. A good style of argument would be that of Satoshi and Kasumi/Misty. It was more played for laughs, and Kasumi was actually likeable so yeah. Iris also has Axew her Pokemon and its a good choice. Haxorus is amazing. Then we got the trashiest of the trash tier Cilan. THIS FUCKIN FUCKBOI IS SO ANNOYING SAYS HE IS AMAZING AT LIKE FUCKEN EVERYTHING AND HE USES A SHIT POKEMON. Pansage is trash. Cool design, horrible in battle. Musashii/Jessie Kojiro/James and Meowth all return which is amazing as always. But now they have to listen to this DR. I DONT REMEMBER HIS NAME guy and its just not very good. Why did they do this to some of the funniest yet stupid and incompetent characters.

You know the story. Asshat GottaCatchémAll leaves all his pokemon but Pikachu with Okido, leaves to the next region, and some fucken electric accident causes Pikachu to become weaker than when I Eat Ass first got the little mouse. Then he catches like 5 pokemon over the course of the show releasing some and evolving some, fighting gyms, and losing the Pokemon league again. And the filler hell is just as bad as the other seasons if not worse since it isn't enjoyable at all unlike earlier generations filler.(Gen 1 had some of the funniest filler scenes such as VENUSTOISE, what do we get here in Gen 5, Fake Nimbassa City). At least in the shitty filler season with the Decalore Island it smoothly transitions to the XY show which was fuckin amazing. But still that season was filler shit so just skip on Gen 5. Maybe just read up on the important events on Bulbapedia otherwise skip it.


ALSO WTF THEY GOT RID OF TAKESHI/ BROCK.

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It's been years since this show aired and I still love returning to it! (Note: this review is based on the English-subtitled, Japanese anime. I strongly recommend watching this series in Japanese to better appreciate the characters for reasons I will explain in later in this review.)

A very fun, easy-to-watch show, with exciting moments, updated character designs [while still maintaining the charm of the 90's style, the new eye designs show the brown of Ash's eyes in more than close-ups and tearful moments], and better animation quality than its predecessors, although it hasn't reached XY's peaks of beauty or Sun & Moon's lively fluidity yet, it still has well-animated battles and very expressive characters.

The soft reboot-esque beginning of the series makes it easier for newcomers and children to start watching without prior knowledge of the series, but it also rewards viewers of the earlier stories by including references to the past, reanimated flashbacks, and returns of some familiar faces (human and Pokemon!) in its second season. This review will focus on the first season.

Despite its flaws (a weak league and a strangely one-sided rivalry where Shootie, while framed as the main rival, isn't really written as such and his story arc mainly concerns the Champion Adeku/Alder, a frequently misunderstood-by-fans scene in the first episode [a sick Pikachu with Electric type moves temporarily sealed after an encounter with a Legendary loses to a stronger-than-usual starter Pokemon given to a trainer]), it has a lot to enjoy if you liked the humour, friendship stories, sense of adventure of the original series, as well as some very unique/quirky main characters!

I absolutely love Satoshi/Ash's dynamic with Iris and Dent/Cilan, theirs is a very genuine friendship, each have their own unique inter-group dynamics, and no one is just pushed to the background or ignored until they get a focus episode.

The friendship is very genuine, balanced, and natural, with friendly teasing (the dub didn't convey this very well, so Iris' teasing still sounded mean later on for a lot of people) and their own in-jokes (Dragon Sneeze, etc.).

Ash is the same character from the first series, although he originally came here on vacation, before getting so excited, he decided to take on the Pokemon gym challenge and aim for the Unova league!

Iris is a Dragon empath with empathy issues due to her past and much of her story arc is about learning to open up to and empathize with others' problems!

Dent/Cilan, a Pokemon Sommelier (a sommelier is an expert in food/wine marriages; a Pokemon Sommelier judges the marriage of human trainers and their Pokemon... using wine terminology, do you see why the dub had to change his dialogue and character so much?) starts out very arrogant and self-absorbed (running a PG-rated host club that double functions as a Pokemon Gym with screaming fangirls does that to a guy), but learns to see a new point of view and becomes kinder, but still hilariously self-absorbed and dramatic.
He's played by MamoMiya (like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club) which makes him very funny to watch in Japanese due to his theatrics and gratuitous use of English.

And these are just the main characters!! The rivals (Iris and Dent/Cilan also have rivals, not just Satoshi/Ash!) are also very funny and quirky, with their own motivations, goals, hobbies, and personalities that play off in amusing ways in the many, many tournament arcs of Best Wishes! which make use of this large cast of rivals.

As for Satoshi/Ash's "main rival," I found Shootie/Trip a very unique character, even if he wasn't invested as a rival for most of it (Kenyan/Stephan, Virgil, and even Bell/Bianca stepped up to that plate more), but he was a unique character and it was interesting seeing him clash with Satoshi/Ash on issues of morality (BW! 22), his cynical world view is quite unique, and seeing them become friends was cute (even if I do wish we had more time spent on that!).

The rivals are so colourful and varied in this series, EVERYONE gets a rival or two, and they're all so funny and different, there's a rival to fit everyone's tastes (Burgundy and Cameron are largely comedic, Georgia can be very funny too but also touching in how she develops and directly AND indirectly furthers Iris' growth, Bell/Bianca is a naive and spoiled-but-sweet character you'd love to cheer on, Shootie/Trip is one of those morally dubious rivals but he's kinder to his Pokemon and less sure of himself, with a surprising motivation that puts him in a different light from Shinji/Paul).

In short, any time I go back to this series, I find it very watchable and fun!!!

I wish the postponed two-parter would air (even if parts of it were repurposed for the Meloetta arc's finale, even XYZ's Flare finale), just to satisfy curiosity for how the first major Rocket mission ended in this series (the earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi disaster unfortunately occurred, preventing the episodes from airing [likely due to earthquake imagery and a possible nuclear power metaphor with the Meteonite which the Rockets seeked to weaponize... it would've been in very poor taste to air after that]).

Its exclusion leads to some episodes being reordered and a bit of a lull after episode 22 (which was supposed to lead up to the two-parter), but the series picks up again after a few episodes. Understandable. The original series also had similar issues after the banned episode.

The first season is more strongly liked and has wider appeal than the second (which takes different directions every few arcs and changes of the title the series to match).

A lot of characters aren't what they seem at first and should be given time to properly judge them; the Champion Adeku/Alder, for instance, is disappointing due to his character flaws compared to the idealized image another character has of him. That's the point. Keep watching to see him actually display his good qualities too, like his wisdom and strength.

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I actually can't believe that anyone would give this a rating above 5.
I actually wanted to watch it after playing my Pokemon Black, however to say that I was disappointed would be a major understatement.

With that said let me get down to the review part.

Story : 5

The usual fail-safe Pokemon story, so can't really complaint about anything here.
However, I just couldn't understand one thing, HOW CAN ASH's PIKACHU LOSE TO A LEVEL 5 SNIVY ?!?

Art : 4

The art was let down. It broke the tradition and did not seem right.

Character : 2.5

I was not against getting new characters in the series but the characters must be of some quality. The new characters were just pathetic. To be honest the only characters I did like were some of the new Pokemon (that too only because of the game)

Enjoyment : 1

This was a series that made me drop Pokemon temporarily, I completed the first Unova season but I did not even bother with the rest.

Overall : 3

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Pokemon is one of my favorite video game series of all time. I also a huge fan of the movies,anime,etc. I love anything pokemon. Pokemon Best Wishes! is a very boring series. In my opinion, it ruined pokemon. Like a Ice Cream Cone pokemon? Thats stupid. I can't stand it. I wish pokemon will be like what it used to be.

Storyline3/10-Ash Ketchum, a 10 year old kid now going to the Unova region to catch em' all. I wouldn't hate the storyline to much if it wasn't so dumb. I don't hate the pokemon storyline. From Indigo Leauge, to Dimaond and Pearl, it was amazing. Black and White ruined it. Its so boring now. It got less interning because of the fillers. Like one fill about Ash helping some little kids with some thing. I really don't care because its boring. Pokemon used to have good fillers like Meowth's backstory. The fillers here suck. Also, the storyline gets less enjoyable. The only good thing is that pokemon still has its charm with the storyline. But the charm here is very little.

Characters3/10-This is the worst part. Iris is worst then Dawn. All she says is "Your such a little kid"! I can't stand that. Ash seems more childish now too. It seems like he just got less mature. Ash was always a idiot, but not like this. I mean, no trainer uses a water type pokemon against a grass type pokemon. It just doesn't work. Ash should know that by now if he's been a trainer for almost 20 years now. Cilian is the new character that replaced Brock. Even if he's strange, no character can replace Brock. Team Rocket isn't funny no more. WHY?! Team Rocket was so funny. There aren't many good characters, only Snivy(the grass starter pokemon).,and that otter pokemon that Ash caught are the characters are good.

Soundtrack5/10-Pokemon always had great music. The wild pokemon battle theme and the trainer theme are the best. Sadly, Best Wishes! fails with the soundtrack. Its okay, its not the worst, not the best. Its in between. The Black and White video game had this really sad music that was beautiful. However, the anime didn't have the music. Why does the soundtrack have to be worst then the other soundtracks from the anime? Its not even close to being horrible, but that doesn't mean its great. I never really thought of the OST because its unmemorable. (the opening theme songs are good,but the OST is still decent).

Art4/10-Best Wishes! has new art, but its not good. The new looks for the characters are just plain bad. Ash has a very bad look now. He used to have black hair and black eyes. Now he has blueish hair with big brown eyes. The new look just isn't that good. The characters looks just feels sloppy. The pokemon attacks has bright colors, and the opening theme songs has a lot of bright colors, but it just not as good as the other art.


Enjoyment4/10-There where times when I did enjoy this anime, in a way,but the overall anime is a let down. It is bad. Nothing will change that. Pokemon used to be great,now its bad. There isnt a lot of enjoyment,so it gets a 4.

Overall4/10-Pokemon Best Wishes! is still boring, and is one of the pokemon series so far. I barely enjoyed it. The pokemon looks, candles, ice cream, steel ants, what is this? DO NOT WATCH THIS ITS POORLY MADE.

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