Happy holidays, everyone. Pokemon Koko just got released in Japan and it's trending. Apparently there's also a scene where...
Can't wait!
Ash talks about his dad to sympathize with Koko.
Can't wait!
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SPOILERS! General Pokémon Anime Discussion
- Thread starter Jellicent
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after 3000 years, more dad lore....incredible....
While Koko is being aired, we have next previews of anipoke.
Highlight include:
Highlight include:
The knight guy from Kalos E4 I think named Wikstrom in EN, PINK (Opal), Suikun, Inteleon debuting and Sobble squeeing, Galar Pony and Koharu (looks like she's regular cast now), and of course the Galar fossil "researcher".
Just look at it
Just look at it
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Most importantly, Aegislash's upcoming appearance means that of the 4 trainers who have used it in the series/movies, only half of them have used the former spectral manipulator of kings & queens as a mere footstool*!
(*Well, it remains to be seen if Wikstrom will also use it as a footstool, but at least it will get to battle...)
(*Well, it remains to be seen if Wikstrom will also use it as a footstool, but at least it will get to battle...)
Neat to see Wikstrom show up. Always feels like the series is never sure what to do with the E4. The gen 1 E4 showed up across like 3 series (& Lance treated as the champion, Will & Karen never show up, only Drake ever appeared for gen 3, gen 4 treated all of them to their own episodes, gen 5 only had Caitlin, 6 only had Malva in a recurring role and I bet that's only because of the Flare connection, 7 had them on technicality (Kahili is the only one they wouldn't meet otherwise)
Oh & Siebold at least showed up in the mega evolution specials.
Oh & Siebold at least showed up in the mega evolution specials.
I don't get why Gen 4 is the only time they did it correctly. Just give them each a throwaway episode so you can check off you showed them. It's an easy filler episode & would please the fans (even if it's not a favorite character of anyone it's something from the games we recognize at least, heck since the E4 barely get any development in the games the anime would be a good chance to give them more characteristics and personality which may make someone go "hey, I like this character"; You know, like you did with the Sinnoh E4)!
I guess the writers never felt the need to showcase the Elite 4 is because if Ash was going to lose every league and never battle them officially they saw no point. DP was able to do it just to set up Cynthia's importance and the champion league.
Also with DP being as long as it was, 4 years, they had to cover something. Especially since the whole Johto/Sinnoh Frontier Brains were all ignored in the anime too, and then HGSS release kinda derailed the last year of DP a bit. I still remember back in 2009-2010 when the DP anime was in its last year how impatient people were on forums at the time for it to end already. Kinda ironic to look back on now since every saga since despite shorter have their share of problems too, but the old set-up of Brock, TR in every episode, and one token female had kinda run its course by then. I think people have forgotten over the years (now that it's an entire decade later), how the old formula of the show was getting really stale by then, especially for those of us watching since Kanto. As good as DP was, I'm glad they changed things up since.
Also with DP being as long as it was, 4 years, they had to cover something. Especially since the whole Johto/Sinnoh Frontier Brains were all ignored in the anime too, and then HGSS release kinda derailed the last year of DP a bit. I still remember back in 2009-2010 when the DP anime was in its last year how impatient people were on forums at the time for it to end already. Kinda ironic to look back on now since every saga since despite shorter have their share of problems too, but the old set-up of Brock, TR in every episode, and one token female had kinda run its course by then. I think people have forgotten over the years (now that it's an entire decade later), how the old formula of the show was getting really stale by then, especially for those of us watching since Kanto. As good as DP was, I'm glad they changed things up since.
Even in the "shorter" saga there's more than enough filler they could have insert an e4 member just fine. It's only 4 episodes per series (well Flint got more but he was more important to begin with), there's plenty of episodes where they could slot in an e4 member for a more flavorful filler. Like secret agent bertha was inexplicable but fun.
Its not a big deal or anything (as I outlined it's basically just usual filler but hey that's a character I recognize) but, just a little odd I think. Like Decorla arc sure had a lot of nonsese as-is why not have i dunno a Marshal episode.
On that last bit, though, I agree it's nice that since DP they've tried out different things. Best Wishes was...well, there was a lot going on there but I respect their experimentation (everyone has a rival! frequent tournaments! no contests this time! more arcs! No Brock! Team Rocket pulled way back, more serious!) even it ahhhhhhh didn't land very well. And XY went for a more shonen-y focus and tried a slightly different tweak to the girl's arc, tried the 4-man dynamic again. Then SM & Journeys went in totally different directions.
Eh, I don't think that was necessarily the problem (though that looks to be the "problem" the anime team settled on to move away from the usual formula). As precita said, the Sinnoh arc had a lot of filler between important events & some setting up things that never happened (Sinnoh Battle Frontier, infact even if they didn't have any more filler than the usual the fact there was pointless filler when we could have at least had a short Battle Frontier arc probably made fans feel more bitter). And it's not like Sinnoh is a location lacking content, but as typical the animation team wants to do their own zany ideas instead of referencing interesting locals of characters in the games WHICH THE ANIME IS SUPPOSED TO BE ADVERTISING; POKEMON COMPANY TAKE THE ANIME AWAY FROM THESE HACKS... Sorry about that, I'm calm now.
But with that said, despite all the filler, I do think in general DP Ash is probably the best Ash has ever been. He had a team of fully evolved Pokemon, I think only Gible wasn't but they sort of gave it special treatment being a base form of a pseudo, Paul was an excellent rival that pushed Ash to his limit (and had a powerful storyline with Infernape which resulted in an awesome final battle at the League), and we actually saw some neat & out-of-the-box strategies which makes Ash a special character (notably the development of the counter-shield technique). Not to mention Dawn's participation in Pokemon Contests felt a bit more believable than May's; where May just stumbled onto Contests and a natural at them, Dawn (despite being a daughter of a Top Coordinator) struggled a bit during the beginning and even had her question her interest in Contests at one point. Brock wasn't left out of things either, his development with Croagunk eventually leads him to a villainous rivalry with Saturn & his Toxicroak, Brock also got chosen by Uxie like Ash & Dawn got chosen by Azelf & Mesprit, and to expand on his personal goals he was given a Happiny that evolved into a Chansey which eventually made him realize he would make for a good Pokemon doctor. Team Rocket I don't recall anything major happening with them though Yanmega and Carnivine were fun Pokemon to have them use (and given some funny moments like the time Jessie learned Yanmega was female and of course Carnivine continuing the tradition of James' Grass-types hurting/trying to eat him). Aside from the fillers I think the only other thing that soured people's opinions on Sinnoh was how the League ended with Ash losing to Tobias who brought a Darkrai & Latios. Yeah, felt cheap the animators felt like in order to make Ash lose they had to bring in Legendaries... but on the other hand I think speaks of Ash's development the only way he was losing was against Legendaries. And it was an excellent battle, Ash being the ONLY trainer to knock out Darkrai and Pikachu took down Latios with it (would have been neat if Pikachu barely held on and forced Tobias to probably bring out a third Legendary, but still it would have meant Ash knocked out two of Tobias Pokemon and forced out a third). Surely in the next League, if Ash is knocked out, it'll be against a trainer of even greater strength! *I say gritting my teeth*
But, enough about Sinnoh, how about some quick thoughts on how I think they handled the other series:
So all that great character development Ash went through in Sinnoh? IN THE TRASH! Ash is suddenly making rookie mistakes for no reason (aside giving Iris an excuse to call him a kid because THAT didn't get old fast), losing to trainers he shouldn't be losing too (even if Zekrom depowered Pikachu he should have been able to defeat Snivy), and Trip is a MAJOR downgrade from Paul (fun fact, we never see Paul using a full team of Pokemon, and he was knocked out by Ash in the preliminary rounds of the Unova League in a 1-on-1 match of Serperior against Pikachu). Iris could be really annoying at times with her over-teasing and took a bit too long to get into the nitty-gritty of her backstory & goals. Cilan was fun, not too many complaints about him though he did kind of fall in the background like Brock did, only being there to assure Ash & Iris don't get lost & die of starvation; also like Brock his goal of "S-rank Connoisseur" was kind of obtuse. I did like the more serious Team Rocket and that they ddin't have them in every episode, was a nice change of pace which made their appearances more impactful (especially the series of episodes where Meowth pretended to join Ash & co. only for it to be a long con). And to quickly mention Iris and Cilan's rivals, Georgia and Burgundy, they were fun to have around especially two-thirds in when they started having them hangout in the competitions and be sourpusses together. Actually, that's another quick thing I'll also give credit to Unova, it had quite a bit of competitions (even introducing another clone family: the Don Georges) giving us plenty of battles (plus if you payed attention to the participants you'd see there's quite a few repeating ones and a few who do compete in the Unova League, a neat idea to show that no everything revolved around Ash & co.). Stephan was a bit of a meh secondary rival for Ash, though neat to have Bianca play a major role (though Cheren oddly kept out until his appearance as a Gym Leader after the League, and missed opportunity to not have both Cheren and Bianca meet-up).
With that said I think this would be a good time to go back into the negatives, starting with how I HATED some of the portrayal of Gym Leaders or how they handled their battle: Skyla was done dirty by making her an irresponsible ditz and Ash's behavior in the Nimbasa Gym should have had Elesa disqualify him. And they really dropped the ball with Team Plasma, completely missed the point of them that the games outlined for them to follow and was just going to have them be another generic villain team. And when those plans fell through due to real life tsunami and earthquakes it forced them to completely discard what they planned for Plasma and pushed everything in a post League storyline that felt unfulfilling (yes, they had to make the changes due to the tsunami & earthquake... though they wouldn't have if they wrote a story reflecting how Team Plasma was like in the games). And, ugh, then there was the disaster that was the Unova League, of course notably Ash losing to Cameron who then lost to the much more interesting Virgil so writers why didn't you HAVE ASH BEAT CAMERON THEN LOSE TO VIRGIL?!... CAMERON IS SUCH A STUPID CHARACTER CONCEPT AND WON BECAUSE WRITERS DECIDED LUCARIO=GOD MODE! UGH!
I don't know what happened with the Best Wishes series. Part of me now wonders if maybe originally they were thinking of having a new character instead of Ash since Gen V's whole deal was the Pokemon games going international and having a region not based in Japan, but a higher-up put a kibosh on that yet they already wrote the scripts so had to hurriedly change them to star Ash instead. Though even then that wouldn't explain the later episodes quality, like was the anime team was unsure they could do a region that wasn't based in Japan? Well if that was a worry then PLAY THE F***ING GAMES AND BASE THE SEASONS ON THAT! Gen V actually tried giving the Pokemon games a deeper story, somewhat achieving it, and instead the anime team treated it like every other region which clearly did not work as that's not how the games were like... UGH! Moving to Kalos as I'm just ranting at this point.
With that said I think this would be a good time to go back into the negatives, starting with how I HATED some of the portrayal of Gym Leaders or how they handled their battle: Skyla was done dirty by making her an irresponsible ditz and Ash's behavior in the Nimbasa Gym should have had Elesa disqualify him. And they really dropped the ball with Team Plasma, completely missed the point of them that the games outlined for them to follow and was just going to have them be another generic villain team. And when those plans fell through due to real life tsunami and earthquakes it forced them to completely discard what they planned for Plasma and pushed everything in a post League storyline that felt unfulfilling (yes, they had to make the changes due to the tsunami & earthquake... though they wouldn't have if they wrote a story reflecting how Team Plasma was like in the games). And, ugh, then there was the disaster that was the Unova League, of course notably Ash losing to Cameron who then lost to the much more interesting Virgil so writers why didn't you HAVE ASH BEAT CAMERON THEN LOSE TO VIRGIL?!... CAMERON IS SUCH A STUPID CHARACTER CONCEPT AND WON BECAUSE WRITERS DECIDED LUCARIO=GOD MODE! UGH!
I don't know what happened with the Best Wishes series. Part of me now wonders if maybe originally they were thinking of having a new character instead of Ash since Gen V's whole deal was the Pokemon games going international and having a region not based in Japan, but a higher-up put a kibosh on that yet they already wrote the scripts so had to hurriedly change them to star Ash instead. Though even then that wouldn't explain the later episodes quality, like was the anime team was unsure they could do a region that wasn't based in Japan? Well if that was a worry then PLAY THE F***ING GAMES AND BASE THE SEASONS ON THAT! Gen V actually tried giving the Pokemon games a deeper story, somewhat achieving it, and instead the anime team treated it like every other region which clearly did not work as that's not how the games were like... UGH! Moving to Kalos as I'm just ranting at this point.
I say that as if I won't complain about Kalos. Kalos was a step-up from Unova, I'll give it that much. Honestly my main problems with Kalos was more the drastic group dynamic change, especially with Ash's personality. Before & after Kalos, Ash was & is a goofball. Yet in Kalos they tried to make him cool-anime-guy ONLY because they decided they wanted Serena have a more obvious crush on Ash and we couldn't make Ash look ridiculous in front of her because I guess she wouldn't like him then? Also the entire group was TOO friendly with each other, they never argued which made the group feel too saccharine (the mirror world counterparts they met in one episode were WAY more interesting cause they had some personality conflicts).
Actually Serena was also a center of another problem I had with this arc, the Showcases. Replacements for the Pokemon Contests, except not because while the Contests were about showing off the Pokemon (imagine that, a competition in the Pokemon world about the Pokemon!) the Showcases were idol pageants showing off the trainers who more use their Pokemon as adornments. Like, wow, they knew Serena was going to be a waifu character so pandered HARD to that crowd by making her the thing on show instead of the Pokemon. I don't care what Serena can do, I'm more interested in seeing her given challenges where she has to use her Pokemon in unique ways to solve tasks or give a good show. Heck, if that was their goal maybe have made Serena a Rhyhorn Rider and made her only Pokemon a Rhyhorn (or if she has other Pokemon reveal the tracks in future races have obstacles they can use their other Pokemon to help clear). Oh, but if they did that then they couldn't put her in pretty dresses, silly me!
And then there's the whole thing with Ash-Greninja. Gen VI's biggest thing was Mega Evos, Ash has a bunch of Pokemon that could Mega Evolve (not to mention Charizard which was brought back for no good reason during BW), Team Flare are using Mega Pokemon including would-be rival Alain, so in order to keep up you'd think Ash would need to master Mega Evolution too, right? NOPE! This is a Shonen anime now and so Ash gets a special transformation for his Pokemon, but not for any of the Pokemon he had with him for years, no, one of his new Pokemon who just suddenly gets a super form cause Greninja goes blubblub! Oh, well I say it helps him keep up, Ash-Greninja is still defeated by a Mega Pokemon at the end of the League. *Leaves room where you can hear a loud yell muffled behind the walls*
Actually Serena was also a center of another problem I had with this arc, the Showcases. Replacements for the Pokemon Contests, except not because while the Contests were about showing off the Pokemon (imagine that, a competition in the Pokemon world about the Pokemon!) the Showcases were idol pageants showing off the trainers who more use their Pokemon as adornments. Like, wow, they knew Serena was going to be a waifu character so pandered HARD to that crowd by making her the thing on show instead of the Pokemon. I don't care what Serena can do, I'm more interested in seeing her given challenges where she has to use her Pokemon in unique ways to solve tasks or give a good show. Heck, if that was their goal maybe have made Serena a Rhyhorn Rider and made her only Pokemon a Rhyhorn (or if she has other Pokemon reveal the tracks in future races have obstacles they can use their other Pokemon to help clear). Oh, but if they did that then they couldn't put her in pretty dresses, silly me!
And then there's the whole thing with Ash-Greninja. Gen VI's biggest thing was Mega Evos, Ash has a bunch of Pokemon that could Mega Evolve (not to mention Charizard which was brought back for no good reason during BW), Team Flare are using Mega Pokemon including would-be rival Alain, so in order to keep up you'd think Ash would need to master Mega Evolution too, right? NOPE! This is a Shonen anime now and so Ash gets a special transformation for his Pokemon, but not for any of the Pokemon he had with him for years, no, one of his new Pokemon who just suddenly gets a super form cause Greninja goes blubblub! Oh, well I say it helps him keep up, Ash-Greninja is still defeated by a Mega Pokemon at the end of the League. *Leaves room where you can hear a loud yell muffled behind the walls*
And now this is where they've completely given up on making a story and just are making Pokemon whatever they want it to be. Not because they have interesting ideas for Pokemon, but because the anime team wants to do other shows but know their ideas are generic and wouldn't get them much attention so instead just slap whatever idea they have onto Pokemon cause it'll make them money. Make Pokemon into a slice of life! Make Pokemon into a Sentai series! Oh, wait, there's this "game" we're supposed to be advertising *heavy irritated sigh* Fine, throw in some story stuff here and there so appease the fans before we go back doing whatever we want. Huh, the fans didn't like we made Pokemon into something else that isn't Pokemon? Um, oh, I know, let's make Ash win the suddenly made Alolan League! Oh, we didn't write his character to be building up to that? Well let's just have the Alolan League make little sense and him him win in some silly ways, that'll fix things!
What's that? The next games are HEAVILY based on battling competition?... Nah, don't want to do that. Let's just have Ash go on a world tour where we'll generally connect it to this worldwide battle competition plot in the background. Huh? No, just because Ash is the Champion of Alola doesn't mean he needs to stay in Alola. Infact in this season let's make him a field research assistant which should put him in all sorts of strange situations! Oh, yeah, I guess we could also use this as an excuse to visit locations & characters we skipped over in past generations and bring back characters Ash had encountered... once in a while... if we can't think of anything else...
What's that? The next games are HEAVILY based on battling competition?... Nah, don't want to do that. Let's just have Ash go on a world tour where we'll generally connect it to this worldwide battle competition plot in the background. Huh? No, just because Ash is the Champion of Alola doesn't mean he needs to stay in Alola. Infact in this season let's make him a field research assistant which should put him in all sorts of strange situations! Oh, yeah, I guess we could also use this as an excuse to visit locations & characters we skipped over in past generations and bring back characters Ash had encountered... once in a while... if we can't think of anything else...
Gible and Buizel (and Pikachu) weren't evolved in Sinnoh ;)
I feel that the Best Wishes' series issues imo can be summed up in that it took the soft reboot concept of the Gen 5 games too far. I feel like they were clearly trying to imitate the vibe that the original Kanto series had, but doing it with keeping Ash of all people as the protagonist wasn't the right way to do it. While it did drop Brock, Cilan is clearly a thinly veiled imitation of Brock and was there to fulfill the "First Gym Leader who joins Ash and is the older brother figure+cook of the group" role that Brock filled originally, and with Iris they were clearly going for something akin to Misty with a type specialist who is also condescending to Ash and fill the Misty role, and is aiming to become a master of their specialist type (also both have phobias of a certain type, another imitation they were going for).
Making Ash as incompetent as he was in BW was probably an attempt to invoke his behavior from the original series to once again try to sell Gen 5's little concept of soft reboot and try to invoke and imitate the vibes that Gen 1 had. While trying to imitate the soft reboot wasn't necessarily a bad idea for the anime to do, as I said, doing it by keeping Ash as the protagonist wasn't the right way. It would've been fine if they used someone else entirely as the protag but no, it was Ash, forcing them to essentially "undo" Ash's development from AG and DP without justification. There are also many things in the BW series that are clearly meant to imitate stuff that happened in the OG series, such as Ash finishing 8th in the Unova League, the Decolore Islands mini-arc clearly being an homage to Orange Islands, and how some episodes were structured.
It's like how the games themselves were essentially a "soft reboot", or a modernized reimagining of Gen 1's vibe even with the BW games having a better and more compelling story, namely with the Pokemon, considering despite the fact that it exclusively made you use Gen 5 Pokemon, many of them are less-than-subtle homages to Gen 1 Pokemon, namely Timburr and Roggenrola who are clearly mimicking the evolutionary structure and in-game roles of Machop and Geodude, for example, despite being good designs in their own right, plus a lot of other Gen 5 Pokemon who "mimic" the in-game roles of RBY Pokemon and in many ways they returned to a Gen 1-era design with many of those mons.
The BW anime itself focused mainly on trying to mimic the original Kanto series vibe, to sort of mimic the games' little Gen 1 reimagining vibe it had going for it, but it did go too far in that and to be frank, I think it wouldn't be as disliked as it is if Ash wasn't the protagonist. The concepts they were going for weren't terrible concepts per se, but when you use a long-time protagonist who has a ton of experience under his belt for it, it's incredibly jarring especially coming off of his character in DP. Again, I assert that if you took Ash out and replaced him with a newer protagonist, the vibe the BW series was aiming for would work just fine and I don't think people would be as upset about a newer protag doing the silly things Ash did in BW, but no, it was freaking Ash lol.
Making Ash as incompetent as he was in BW was probably an attempt to invoke his behavior from the original series to once again try to sell Gen 5's little concept of soft reboot and try to invoke and imitate the vibes that Gen 1 had. While trying to imitate the soft reboot wasn't necessarily a bad idea for the anime to do, as I said, doing it by keeping Ash as the protagonist wasn't the right way. It would've been fine if they used someone else entirely as the protag but no, it was Ash, forcing them to essentially "undo" Ash's development from AG and DP without justification. There are also many things in the BW series that are clearly meant to imitate stuff that happened in the OG series, such as Ash finishing 8th in the Unova League, the Decolore Islands mini-arc clearly being an homage to Orange Islands, and how some episodes were structured.
It's like how the games themselves were essentially a "soft reboot", or a modernized reimagining of Gen 1's vibe even with the BW games having a better and more compelling story, namely with the Pokemon, considering despite the fact that it exclusively made you use Gen 5 Pokemon, many of them are less-than-subtle homages to Gen 1 Pokemon, namely Timburr and Roggenrola who are clearly mimicking the evolutionary structure and in-game roles of Machop and Geodude, for example, despite being good designs in their own right, plus a lot of other Gen 5 Pokemon who "mimic" the in-game roles of RBY Pokemon and in many ways they returned to a Gen 1-era design with many of those mons.
The BW anime itself focused mainly on trying to mimic the original Kanto series vibe, to sort of mimic the games' little Gen 1 reimagining vibe it had going for it, but it did go too far in that and to be frank, I think it wouldn't be as disliked as it is if Ash wasn't the protagonist. The concepts they were going for weren't terrible concepts per se, but when you use a long-time protagonist who has a ton of experience under his belt for it, it's incredibly jarring especially coming off of his character in DP. Again, I assert that if you took Ash out and replaced him with a newer protagonist, the vibe the BW series was aiming for would work just fine and I don't think people would be as upset about a newer protag doing the silly things Ash did in BW, but no, it was freaking Ash lol.
Without Ash, it'd be seen as a thinly-veiled bootleg OG series. Much like how a lot of the criticism of BW on release was that it was a remix of RBY.
I really loved BW until the Elite 4 !
Lots of interesting rivals, a lot of capture, less fillers than others seasons but the league is bad (except Ash vs Stephan) and the Pikachu loss against Snivy :(
Lots of interesting rivals, a lot of capture, less fillers than others seasons but the league is bad (except Ash vs Stephan) and the Pikachu loss against Snivy :(
Georgia as well. Pop Quiz: What was Georgia's and Burgundy's last appearance and what were they doing? Answer: BW093, the end of the final mini-tournament before the Pokemon League (it was also the episode Ash & co. first meet Cameron). All they did was tell their respective rivals that next time they'll be stronger than them, left, and that was that. Aside quick cameo appearances/flashbacks they fell off the face of the Earth just before the Pokemon League having shown little character growth and boasting they'll be coming back stronger.
She deserved better
You'd think maybe they'd have an episode each in the Decolora Island arc where they have a more final encounter & match with their rival, but instead Cilan faced off against this random one off lady with a Abomasnow and Iris hung out with Clair (which isn't so bad, they could keep that episode, instead they could toss out the pointless of episode where Ash & Iris get into an argument that makes Iris temporary split before they both realize they were being hot-headed, thanks for wasting our time!).
Yeah it is insane to me how they just fumbled both of them so hard but I feel especially bad for Burgandy because like...she kind of should have been in the main group over cilan....
She doesn't show up often and she rarely gets a leg up on Cilan and then gets no real resolution to her arc. Georgia felt like she got to do more against Iris, that they were generally more evenly matched.
She doesn't show up often and she rarely gets a leg up on Cilan and then gets no real resolution to her arc. Georgia felt like she got to do more against Iris, that they were generally more evenly matched.
I think the issue with Burgundy isn't that they gave her a raw deal but rather she played exactly the role she was supposed to play to showoff what being a Connoisseur is (or, rather in Burgundy's case, what a bad Connoisseur is).
Iris and Georgia's relation was easy to do, it's battle-base and in order for Iris to develop from her rivalry with Georgia they needed Georgia to be a strong trainer, even specifically making her a "Dragon Buster" which would force Iris to rely on strategies that isn't just having her Dragon-type (or, rather, Dragonite) just overpower its foes. Kind of why I hoped the "Iris return" episode in Kalos to take place around Laverre City to not only force Iris to confront Fairy-types but maybe even bring back Georgia who would no doubt go all-in on Fairy-types (though as it turns out they didn't even bother giving Iris a return episode cause Iris would break Serena's vision of Ash being perfect).
However, a Connoisseur isn't a battle-based profession. It's one where the Connoisseur is sort of like an empath detective, trying to figure out the strength of a trainer's bond with their Pokemon using visual and behavioral clues. Sure, they could have made Burgundy just as good as a Connoisseur as Cilan is... but that wouldn't really give Cilan a challenge. You see, by Burgundy being bad at being a Connoisseur, it puts Cilan in either two situations: either she makes a rash conclusion and now Cilan has to convince everyone why he's right once he comes to the correct conclusion or it's so obvious she's bad that Cilan has to now step up to show the merits of being a Connoisseur. So that's what Burgundy's purpose was as there would have been no point for her to just be as good as a Connoisseur as he is. Though, thinking about it, maybe that more described a problem with Cilan than Burgundy.
Cilan's goal is to become a S-Rank but he's already an A-Rank, while his goal of travelling with Ash was to help expand his skills at the same time he'd probably would eventually achieve S-Rank on his own eventually (infact that's what he's assumingly doing now as he's still an A-Rank). Had they made Cilan a B-Rank I think it would have raised the bar a bit, like Cilan is already good yet he's B-Rank so what does it take to be A- and S-Rank (and maybe at the end of the series have him achieve becoming an A-Rank)? It would also made Burgundy seem more of an issue as she's C-Rank and now would be just one rank behind Cilan putting their skills in eyes of other people on possibly comparable levels (maybe even have her also achieve becoming B-Rank at some point, maybe with Cilan's help, to show how her rash-style Connoisseuring could reflect poorly on other of or near her Rank such as Cilan). But by making Cilan an A-Rank you get rid of all that; of course Cilan is better than a C-Rank; S-Rank should easily be in Cilan's grasp instead of a surmountable challenge where Cilan would need to go on a world journey to hone his skills.
Nailed it.
BW's issue was they took the surface of Indigo (newbie hero, female tag along, and Gym Leader cook) without realizing what made the relationships work.
They nerfed Ash's skills but they neglected to bring back his overwhelming delusions of grandeur that paired nicely with his genuine love of Pokémon. Sure, Kanto Ash had little clue of what he was doing and was a supreme braggart but you couldn't help but root for the guy. Instead BW Ash was this unskilled trainer with a generic nice guy persona. So poor battler and dull personality. No thanks. So when Iris teased him and he didn't fight back, it came off as bullying. When Ash and Misty clashed both of them gave as good as they got and both had good points to make with their criticism. XY Ash was a battle bot but in return for a less active personality, we received some of the best battles in the series. BW Ash was just there and even worse than Kanto Ash in many regards. For all his cockiness, Kanto Ash never would have done what BW Ash did at Elesa's gym.
Plus, rebooting Ash was stupid in the first place. Pretending all of that hard fought experience just vanished was an insult to the character and the viewer.
I'm watching the whole anime series again from the beginning, Japanese voice and subtitles though.
Here you have the whole Pokemon watching order. It includes the anime series, anime movies, and all the animated specials. It has about 50,000 words in it, and it is really the ultimate one.
That's a good guide, I plan on watching everything in production order.
Though, Pokemon's not one that really needs a guide. Outside of a small handful of episodes, mostly in the first season, the west has gotten every episode and aired them in order and I imagine any trackers hosting subs would also just...do them in order. And there's not a lot of (or...any, really) weird plot things that would want you to watch this okay now this now do this now go back to this one
First Movie is still fun, even dubbed. I dont like the 3D remake, though.
Third Movie is a big keeper, love it a lot.
Lucario movie is kind of a cliche to mention at this point but also it still owns so...
Rise of Darkrai is rad, probably my favorite of its trilogy in particular.
That said, the Shaymin/Giratina movie has some cool moments to it and Shaymin is by far & away the best of the "cute legendary companion" characters because they decided to make it a little shit.
I have a big soft spot for the Zoroark movie
I Choose You is surprisingly great and also really weird. Watch for the weirdness if nothing else
Power of Us is, by far, my favorite Pokemon movie. Notably the highest rated Pokemon movie!
The Celebi, Latios, Deoxys, Genesect movies are totally fine but didnt really stick with me in the same way.
Keldeo's movie is...okay, but kinda just felt like an extended episode of the show.
Victini's movie(s) just sorta exist to me. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it but at the same time I wouldn't put it in the "they're totally fine" category
I didn't like the Jirachi, Manaphy or Diancie movies at all (in that order).
Diancie kind of killed my interest in the movies for a while, if that says anything to you. I avoided the Hoopa movie and Volcanion movies and I passed on ICY & POU until earlier this year.
I.....actually hear nothing about the Volcanion movie, thinking on it. The Hoopa movie the only things i hear are people not liking it or the Regigigas clip because of its crazy noises; it didnt' seem very favorable to anyone and kind of a lame cash grab. But the Volcanion movie?? No clue.