The Pokemon Downfall

[Asmotherion]

In my opinion it all began by the time the Diamond and Pearl saga started

I mean, save from some episodes where team galactic was involved, the whole show took a slight childish tone. Diamond and Pearl however still had some... well diamonds and pearls, namely the episodes were Riley and his Lucario apeared, it's movies, and the episodes were the legendaries were involved. In the league, ash keeps using underevolved pokemon (with one or 2 exceptions), and ofcource eventually looses in the semi finals (At least this time it was from a guy with a Darkrai and Latios, so no surprise there. He also eventualy became champion). Overall the show is still good, but the tone becomes slightly lighter.

Then, we have the Unova region thing. Again, few epic exceptions, but the tone is more and more childish. We have Ash doing even worse than his last performance.

In Kalos, things are looking good. The anime takes a more shonen tone, and looks it could be back to what it was back in Indigo Platau till Hoen. But then, and against all expectations of what would have been an epic Charizard X vs Charizard Y battle in the finals, Ash instead uses Pikachu. My disapointment was soooo big that I actually felt happy Alain won (Well, as I do every time someone using an actual serious pokemon against pikatchu wins). Ash did make it to second place though, I have to give him this, but then we come to the future region...

...With an even more childish-looking Ash, who aparently follows the anime rule that time never passes, the ever-recycling plot of not getting his (higher level) pokemon with him, instead of taking only pikatchu, and rumors of the new region not even having a league or gym battles at all. At this rate, pokemon will be soon reduced to a show similar to Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues... nice for todlers, but nothing for us, the generation who grew up watching Pokemon.


As a life-long Pokemon fun, what I want to watch is an anime like Pokemon Origins, something with a protagonist like Red, Riley, Alain, Tobias or at least Jimmy. Someone who uses fully evolved pokemon.

Kanto and Johto were this way. Team Rocket did "Blast Away" every episode, but at least the were using genue vilain plans, and wile being a comic relieve, they also had some dignity as vilains. They did not go into petty or silly plans to "steal that pokemon because it can be used to cool Giovani on hot days". They wanted to steal Ash's Pikatchu because they recognised it as a special powerfull breed, stronger than a regular Pikatchu. Ash also had to face actually dangerous situations, such as almost dying in a shipwreck, Being haunted by a hundreds year old ghastly that took the apearance of an old lady, had to deal with a disobediant pokemon who was also his strongest pokemon, almost got killed by an ancient aerodactil found in some ruins, was easten alive by some mysterious anciant giant Alakazam and Gengar, almost got permanently turned to a doll by a psychic gym leader with daddy issues... Overall the pokemon show featured two main values that made it awesome: Danger and Mystery... Values that gradually degraded by Hoen and by the time of the Diamon and Pearl saga, were completelly vanished.

What I need as a pokemon fun, is a pokemon show with those values again.

[Hiro Protagonest]

You make sweeping statements, your facts are wrong, and you talk about "good old values." Also you cited Origins as an example of what you want.

I'm guessing there's a lot of nostalgia and not a lot of experience with the Pokemon franchise.

[Scowling Dragon]

Pokemon was destined to devolve. Nothing that goes on forever in such an episodic manner lives high quality.

A way better show might be something like Generations, which could focus on individual peoples lives, and how Pokemon work with them.

[Asmotherion]

You make sweeping statements, your facts are wrong, and you talk about "good old values." Also you cited Origins as an example of what you want.

I'm guessing there's a lot of nostalgia and not a lot of experience with the Pokemon franchise.

There is a lot of nostalgia, you got that part right. However witch facts are wrong in your opinion, please, enlightend me.

[Gastronomie]

I advise you to read the manga, Pocket Monster Special.

I really advise you to read it.

[Razade]

I don't get the hate for Origins, all the fight scenes I've seen from it are well done and that's what Pokemon is.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't get the hate for Origins, all the fight scenes I've seen from it are well done and that's what Pokemon is.

Yeah, for the three seconds those fight scenes lasted. And then after four short episodes that barely tell a story, one realizes that DBZ had a point when they dragged out their fight scenes for drama. I don't remember how any of Origins battles even went, because they happened so fast that they don't have time to imprint into my memory. The Main anime's fights are better because they take time to show all the back and forth, all the tactical twists and turns between the trainers and the pokemon. Which actually makes for an interesting fight with flow and opportunities for something unconventional to be used to win.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I don't get the hate for Origins, all the fight scenes I've seen from it are well done and that's what Pokemon is.

That's exactly why Origins isn't what I want.

I never said I hated it. I just said it's not the direction Pokemon should take. Because it's basically retreading old ground. It's not inspired or original, it's just the plot of the most minimalist games of the series. Perhaps a full series in that fashion, that actually fleshes out every event from the original games, could work, but that leads to what my point actually is: better Pokemon media can and does exist. Kusaka Hidenori's work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Adventures) is brilliant (mostly) and has been going on for decades.

"That's what I expect from it" is basically saying you didn't expect anything actually great from it, settling for par. The franchise is hardly locked to such a thing.

[Razade]

That's exactly why Origins isn't what I want.

I never said I hated it. I just said it's not the direction Pokemon should take. Because it's basically retreading old ground. It's not inspired or original, it's just the plot of the most minimalist games of the series. Perhaps a full series in that fashion, that actually fleshes out every event from the original games, could work, but that leads to what my point actually is: better Pokemon media can and does exist. Kusaka Hidenori's work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Adventures) is brilliant (mostly) and has been going on for decades.

In your opinion. All of that is of course just your opinion. And I've been reading Pokemon Adventures for years, longer than this forum has been around in fact.


"That's what I expect from it" is basically saying you didn't expect anything actually great from it, settling for par. The franchise is hardly locked to such a thing.

No that's actually not what I'm basically saying. But kudos for trying to tell me what I'm saying. A+ work.

[Lord Raziere]

"That's what I expect from it" is basically saying you didn't expect anything actually great from it, settling for par. The franchise is hardly locked to such a thing.

Agreed, pokemon can be MANY things when you start thinking outside the Eight Gym Leaders Box.

You want pokemon as an epic yet light-hearted medieval heroic fantasy story? Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

You want pokemon as a wild west tale where the protagonist has a criminal background and potentially isn't actually a good guy fighting even worse people either to save a wasteland region or to just be the strongest in the region so he can rule it himself? Pokemon Colosseum.

You want pokemon as a war story? Just rewind 1000 years to the time of Sir Aaron.

World War Pokemon? Cyberpunk Pokemon? Space Opera Pokemon? all possible. we just don't have those yet. not in full, but we do have certain select pokemon that can easily come from such genres and fit right in with their abilities.

like imagine a pokemon game set in space where you go around exploring and meeting all those extra-terrestrial pokemon in their natural environments, and discovering more pokemon on different planets. THAT would be pretty dang interesting.

like even a minor twist like a region's government being evil for once so that the gym leaders are instead pokemon warlords who oppress the towns around them and your a heroic trainer beating every single one, until you go up to the Emperor and beat him to save the region, with your allies being called something like Team Freedom? THAT is perfectly possible and would be really cool.

or how about Pokemon Ranger? that was certainly anything but standard pokemon.

and there are a lot of fan fics that do darker interpretations of pokemon. I may not like them, but they are there.

[Gastronomie]

better Pokemon media can and does exist. Kusaka Hidenori's work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Adventures) is brilliant (mostly) and has been going on for decades.So Pocket Monster Special is called Pokemon Adventurers in English. I see.

Anyhow, the topic creator should read this because it seems like everything he wants to see.

[khadgar567]

Agreed, pokemon can be MANY things when you start thinking outside the Eight Gym Leaders Box.

You want pokemon as an epic yet light-hearted medieval heroic fantasy story? Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

You want pokemon as a wild west tale where the protagonist has a criminal background and potentially isn't actually a good guy fighting even worse people either to save a wasteland region or to just be the strongest in the region so he can rule it himself? Pokemon Colosseum.

You want pokemon as a war story? Just rewind 1000 years to the time of Sir Aaron.

World War Pokemon? Cyberpunk Pokemon? Space Opera Pokemon? all possible. we just don't have those yet. not in full, but we do have certain select pokemon that can easily come from such genres and fit right in with their abilities.

like imagine a pokemon game set in space where you go around exploring and meeting all those extra-terrestrial pokemon in their natural environments, and discovering more pokemon on different planets. THAT would be pretty dang interesting.

like even a minor twist like a region's government being evil for once so that the gym leaders are instead pokemon warlords who oppress the towns around them and your a heroic trainer beating every single one, until you go up to the Emperor and beat him to save the region, with your allies being called something like Team Freedom? THAT is perfectly possible and would be really cool.

or how about Pokemon Ranger? that was certainly anything but standard pokemon.

and there are a lot of fan fics that do darker interpretations of pokemon. I may not like them, but they are there.
You know they are all good ideas worth actual season pokemon in space (aka time to give ash alien girlfriend ) may even worth 6 or 7 seasons as ash and co end up traveling god knows were( a crack fic idea pokemon dragon ball fusion were pikachu reveals to be a saiyan blooded) new planets, new areas and new unique evolutions like burst evolution from manga

[Aotrs Commander]

Having just watched Diamond and Pearl for the first time, it is definitely the best arc of the entire series so far. It handled the characters much better - all of the protagonists had an arc, the rivals (and recurrning characters) were far and away the best, it had a much lower number of filler episodes and what they were of much higher quality - and it had the darkest tone of any of the Pokémon series so far.

(So quite why the OP can say it was more childish, I don't know. Diamond and Pearl has been the only series to straight up kill the antagonists (and, in Hunter J's case, her crew and possibly her Pokémon) after having those antagonists straight-up try and murder Ash in cold blood. Several times.)

Unova (which I have also just watched) was... a mixed bag. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. The highlights of the series were very good, but the median was much lower and the lows (e. Trip, Cameron) were pretty bad. It desparately need something like contests to leaven the endless stream of one-on-one tournaments.

Johto's problem was that it was endless filler, because it stretched out the "plot" (gym battles) way too thinly; Indigo+Orange had effectively thirteen gym battles (8+4+1 (Drake)) over 117 epiodes; Johto did eight over 157. And by the time I'd gotten far enough into Jotho, I was on the DVDs (since they basicall moved it onto a channel I didn't get), it really felt tedious, until Master Quest, which was a much better season.

Hoenn was better, starting out with a new plan and with contests to ix it up. But watching Battle Frontier (since I stopped watching basically after they changed the voice cast the first time around) just after DP, the contests didn't sparkle quite so much as they did in DP, where they'd refined it. I'm hesittant to say much more on it than that, since I have only watched Hoenn the once and Battle Frontier aside, not recently.



Origins has never appealed to me, either the last series or this current one. For one, Red in general (games/anime/whatever - but can't say on he manga, because I have never read it) as a character does nothing for me at all, especially when they play-up the mute angle. It takes a great deal of good writing to be able to make that work for a character without them coming across as flat... And Pokémon generally isn't up to that. (Ash is a character, though - and in my opinion, a rather good one when they don't keep throwing him under a bus.) I was NEVER Red when I played the games. I also am not very struck by its attempts to be more "real" and have the Pokémon more animal-like. (The current run of mini-episode is a joke; it's too short, too disjointed and I feel absolutely no connection to any of the events going on other than "yes, those are indeed things that happened in the game.") The animation quality doesn't impress me very much either, for that matter. the utterly mystifyingly bizzare poses of the Rocket Grunts stands particularly as being ridiculous.

I always held that what we wanted was the anime to get animated like the trailer for B2W2, which was awesome... And XY basically appears to have done that. XY is great, but while it handles Ash very well, it's a little light on the inter-protagonist drama (but I'm only 75% of the way through the first season). However, at least - like Best Wishes - it does at least save Team Rocket from having appearing every episode (even when there is literally no reason for them to have a scene), which I found got tiresome round about season one and doubly-so during the Filler Wastes of Johto.



Team Rocket did "Blast Away" every episode, but at least the were using genue vilain plans, and wile being a comic relieve, they also had some dignity as vilains.

(I should perhaps note that my impressions might be coloured on account of I have no childhood nostaglia to Pokémon, since I was at university when I first started watching it.)

I have never understood why people talked up Team Rocket as serious villains (the whole entirely impossible Ash-is-in-a-coma creepy pasta, for one, an idea entirely based around nostaliga and incorrect remembering, since it complietely missed the point that Ash didn't meet Team Rocket until after he got hit by the lightning bolt at the start of the first episode...). Team Rocket has NEVER had any dignity as villains. They got beaten by a caterpie in the second episode they ever appeared in, for frag's sake. When they were being serious and competant in Unova, they were tedious and dull, and when they are themselves they are idiotic bumblers. I have never found them very entertaining. Until I actually saw the anime try at making them "serious" villains in BW, I was actually looking forward to it, on the assumption that it couldn't be worse that than their usual selves. WOW, was I wrong. I'd never thought I'd say I prefer them being their usual selves, but I honestly do. Better the devil you know and all that. Whcih really just goes to show Team Rocket are only really any cop at all as pure comic relief, and only sometimes then.

Team Rocket the organisation has something resembling street cred (and, unlike most of the other Teams, sanity), but the cell we see most does... Really does not. In fact, I honestly think they are at their best when being used to help the protagonists beat some other bad guy. As supporting characters, not series villains.

As villains, they are on the same level as Miles Mayhem from MASK. (And having re-watched that as an adult, stands out as the definite worst of its contempoaries, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors only scoring about it because it occasionally implied something serious and had glimpses of potential that might have been refined, but that's a rant for another time.)



All that said - Alola looks really bad. Like, seriously a dreadful idea from start to finish. I guess all we can do is wait and see, but my hopes are bottomed out.

[Hiro Protagonest]

In your opinion. All of that is of course just your opinion. And I've been reading Pokemon Adventures for years, longer than this forum has been around in fact.



No that's actually not what I'm basically saying. But kudos for trying to tell me what I'm saying. A+ work.
I guess I'm getting rather heated about "the Pokemon downfall" when the XY series just happened and the OP's claim that it began with the start of D/P.

(So quite why the OP can say it was more childish, I don't know.

Because they're getting older. The show didn't get more childish, they have more experience with the world. They want a Pokemon experience that fits them better. The anime won't deliver on that, it's not supposed to. That's why Adventures/PokeSpe is recommended.

[Aotrs Commander]

Because they're getting older. The show didn't get more childish, they have more experience with the world. They want a Pokemon experience that fits them better. The anime won't deliver on that, it's not supposed to. That's why Adventures/PokeSpe is recommended.

Perhaps this is where I have an advantage, since I started when I was already Old, so me being Older hasn't appreciably altered my perceptions of the show at start.

Certainly, I have very much enjoyed binge-catching up on everything from Battle Frontier onwards (and have only stopped since I thought XY looked so good - youtube clips of that were what started me off again - I'm getting it on DVD).

[cobaltstarfire]

Generations is interesting, but what they've had so far is pretty hit and miss. But I feel like the problem for it (and Origins which takes a similar approach) sits more in the extremely restricted amount of time they have, and that as mentioned it's retreading ground. I don't think the battles or story would be so weak/nonexistant if they had seasons to work with rather than 4 minute blocks or a handful of episodes. And I don't think an anime in the style of Generations or Origins would be bad, it depends on what kind of story they try to tell.

I wasn't able to catch most of Origins, but the Mewtwo vs Charizard battle at the end was pretty good...and probably expensive to animate...


Special has some pretty horrid arcs in it too, I heard the B/W series was especially bad. I haven't read it though, I stopped reading around the end of Hoenn.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Special has some pretty horrid arcs in it too, I heard the B/W series was especially bad. I haven't read it though, I stopped reading around the end of Hoenn.

It has one horrid arc, Emerald. That's it. Everything else is at least good, it's one of the best long-running manga. B/W overtook Ruby/Sapphire as my absolute favorite arc, the only flaw I can think of at the moment is that Black starts as more of a one-note character than even Gold, but it quickly picks up steam and he becomes a fully fleshed-out lead.

[cobaltstarfire]

Well, opinions will differ of course.

[khadgar567]

B/W problem is iris herself i like dent but she simply a b*tch that no one wants to be friend with okay she has similarities with ash but she has to much misty in her blood to be effective character