Pokemon season one a case of nostalgia goggles?

This show is all about the battles, training, and adventure.




Not quite. Previously Satoshi was feeding the troll by reacting insecurely to Shigeru's lack of class. With Shinji Satoshi is furiously arguing against a philosophy. There's a different dynamic, as this time it's Satoshi who is on the offensive.



At least the Itachi reveal (as many miles away I saw it coming) made sense.



Shinji is hardly 'dominant' and the series would hardly be any better for dropping his development in favor of Team Galaxy when there is still an abundant amount of 'filler' remaining. Shinji's stronger prescence is more a sign of the writing staff finally taking the role of a rival for Satoshi seriously, as opposed to the Magikarp flailing around out of water that Shigeru was and the lightly covered two rivals from Hoenn.
 
Yeah, I do think the first season was the better one. I think the show just had a more loose feel to it, before it became such a mega-hit, and that the "adventure" feeling was more dominant. I thought the characters were more interesting despite - no, actually, because of their flaws. Ash's incompetence for example, I felt made him more relatable. The voice-acting, at least in the dub, was also better in the first seasons. Also... I'm not...sure...but I think the first season got away with more.

I was going to make a longer post, but man... I'm not sure I want into this argument.
 
Seeing as I was watching Pokemon while ending my High School, I'm a bit less "nostalgia glasses" as some others.

Basically current Pokemon erabraces it's formulaic-ness and decided to focus on what worked and improve it. Season 1 had that "adventure" and new-ness that really helped it in spades. I remeraber always waiting for the "real" Team Rocket to be revealed as the big bad and some major stuff was going to go down (the St. Anne stuff especially helped this feeling) Alas, it never came to be.

Sure we got the 1st movie which , but it never really seemed to have ramifications to the continuing story.

yes, Ash also came across as incompetant to me fairly often, the major one would be when he's whip out that pokedex for pokemon he's not only encountered before, but OWNED.

I like the concept of an older Ash showing up and making life a newer trainer. Didn't that kind of happen in Gold/Silver?

Also, did they ever say what was in the GS ball?
 
I never liked Naruto as a character, really, mostly because like Ash, he doesn't really have much going for him to oRABet the stupidity.

Goku and Luffy have their powers to make up for it, as well as some awesome moments over the course of their series, but Ash never quite manages to balance out. Even when he wins through competence, he never quite manages to be a "fun" character to me.
 
It was rumored to contain Celebi, but that got dropped when they decided to promote Crystal through Movies 3 and 4.

The GS Ball fiasco is why the writers don't do season-long arcs (outside of the current gen's evil Team) anymore. They don't want another plot device to fall by the wayside when they have to advertise the newest game, even though that's exactly what happened at the end of Hoenn.
 
I'm not arguing that it isn't now. I'm just saying that it probably shouldn't be, Satoshi Tajiri himself has stated that he didn't want battles to be the focus of the franchise. And personally, I feel that the "adventure" should be, you know, fun? Instead of boring and repetitive and filled with useless characters and locations that we'll never see again?

I re-iterate, to think that battling and training is the main point of Pokemon is missing the point, period.



Guess I worded it wrong; I wasn't saying the Ash/Paul rivalry interactions are the same as his ones with Gary. I was saying it's just as repetitive as Gary and even more boring. Ash and Paul have clashed with each other for episodes on end and neither has yet to even consider the other's point in the argument. Are you basically saying that it's not good for Gary to always insult Ash and Ash to be on the defensive, yet it IS good for Ash to always insult Paul's philosophy and Paul to blow it off? It's just as boring.

And you're giving off mixed messages here. Beforehand, you claimed to hate the Pokemon anime, and yet now you're defending writing decisions as if you actually gave a damn. What's your real stance on the matter anyway?



If giving him a stereotypical stoic "badass" rival is taking things more seriously, then I guess you could say that. Personally, I still feel Gary did far better at driving Ash forward even IF all he did was insult him. Paul doesn't do the same, and Ash certainly doesn't drive Paul forward, as Paul doesn't seem to consider him worth the time of day.



Nah, don't be scared, Radical Raven! You seem to share my views, so you can make my points better than me!



That's because for one thing, it's a debate. And another, I take issue with people overlooking the many, and very glaring, flaws that the pokemon anime currently has, especially when compared to the games, the manga, and the anime's first season, and trying to somehow insist that "it's improved" when none of the arguments they're making are working. There's nothing wrong with you enjoying the show now, but I look at it as what it is; a marketing-based, formulamatic, long-running show that jumped the shark way back in Johto and never recovered and never will.

And it just doesn't pay to be nice in arguments. Only agressive people rule the world!!!
 
It was something like that. Red, the trainer Ash is based on, did show up at the end of those games so that the new trainer could battle him. An older version of Ash doing something like that would be interesting, but I don't think that they'll do that anytime soon.



Nope. As Duke mentioned, it was believed that Celebi was in the GS Ball and according to an interview, they were going to have an event in the series that involved having the GS Ball being opened, but they dropped that in favor of the Celebi movie.
 
Quick question Raven. Ever played the games? Watching Ash sturable over every single basic tactic any trainer would know was almost painful to watch.



I know the 4kiRAB VAs aren't exactly well-known for their performances...but honestly, the first season voice work was very rough and scratchy. They certainly improved by the time the Indigo League took place but to say it was their peak feels very wrong.



Yeah pretty much. This was before the international success took place and forced the crew to make the show more accessible to a large audience.

I kinda miss that actually, but sometimes some innuendo sneaks in.
 
Yeah, I think that is why there were so many filler episodic content in Johto. Season long arcs aside from the basic Gym battling and league challenge along with an encounter with the bad team that isn't the Team Rocket 3, don't work so well in Pokemon. They are trying to do it with Team Galactic and the keys and orbs and whatever, but I think it won't work, since only episodic content is used to promote that side story. Was there ever a season arc unlike what I mentioned, that wasn't like the games (staring at Archie summoning Kyogre).
 
I think you're confusing incompetent with Naive. At least in the case of Goku and Luffy.



In what sense? To be fair, while Ash has had plenty of allies and frienRAB to help him through his development, Naruto had no one to rely on through his childhood and was feared and hated by the villagers he lived with. Of course he's going to come out completely messed up if his world view is incredibly warped like that.

Though, yeah, he neeRAB to give the Sasuke thing a rest since its not doing him any favors.
 
I think that was the point. It was mentioned several times that Gary and the other unnamed Pallet trainers were all doing just fine as opposed to Ash. It was part of Ash's character; he was a big Pokemon fanboy who, when push came to shove, wasn't as skilled as he thought he'd be. Which just made it all the more interesting to watch him grow through experience. I for one prefer that to the Marty Stu, one-note pure-hearted heroic, so-called-brillaint strategist Ash we have now. To paraphrase something MartianInvader once said; "This was an Ash you could actually root for, as opposed to the fruitcake he'd eventually become."



Well, Ash's voice was at least at it's peak through most of the season. At the start it was bad, but then it was at it's best. Come Orange IslanRAB and through Johto it was painfully high, and in Hoenn it was lower but still annoyingly feminine (yes, I know a woman does his voice, but she did a good job at a boy's voice in season one, so I don't see why she had to stop.)
 
Naive? Goku though he was 14 at one time when he was actually 12.

To beat Luffy, it's been proven you need to use your brain and not your brawn-Don't forget about Django.

They're incompetant. It's a standard anime archetype for heroes. Ash was created the exact same way.
 
Okay, here’s why I think the AG, BF, and DP seasons are better.

Character Development: Ash is more mature as both a trainer and a person. In season one he had a grudge against Gary and every time he saw him all he would do was get flustered at his insults and how far ahead of him he was. With his current rival Paul he actually tries to befriend him. Despite their completely opposite views on raising Pokemon and Paul’s constant insults Ash still says hello to Paul with a smile each encounter and he is always eager to find out how he’s doing. He never stops trying to be nice to Paul and tries not to let his cold attitude bother him too much. Examples: when Paul loses a battle to a Champion Ash tells the kiRAB laughing at Paul to shut it, he then goes over and says Paul battled well. In a tag tournament Ash is eager to have Paul as a partner despite Paul’s obvious hatred toward him.

Additionally, Ash seems more easygoing. Ash and Misty would constantly bicker with Brock having to cut in and get them to stop. Ash and Dawn have the occasional argument but on two occasions Ash actually apologized and they both made up. Also, he actually let Dawn have the first shot at capturing Pokemon he wanted (Buizel and Buneary) whereas in past seasons he battled with Misty over ownership of Togepi and Totodile.

Furthermore, Ash keeping memento's of his frienRAB with him along on his journeys shows how much he treasures his frienRABhips. He has one for Gary, May, and Misty.

Ash works harder. Not only did we rarely see him training in past seasons but in the two months before the Indigo League he was called out on not training enough by Brock and Misty. We even got a bunch of episodes where Ash was doing anything but training. Ash supercharging Pikachu to defeat Brock was also a quick and easy way out training.

Ash’s Pokemon aren’t overpowered anymore. Pikachu’s power still occasionally fluctuates to this day but at least it doesn’t defeat ground types anymore. His current Pokemon have a more balanced win/lose ratio. He also trains them to learn new techniques and become stronger whereas in Kanto his Pokemon not only overcame type disadvantages but also seemed knew a whole lot of attacks without any trainig.

Current Ash is better because he’s still a caring, gung-ho, and foolish but because the writers take him more seriously he’s a better trainer. His training methoRAB and strategy skills are considerably better and his victories feel more legit. He also loses just as much as he wins. He’s still a flawed character but he the writers don’t go overboard like they use to.

Dawn and May also got more going for them than Tracey and Misty ever did. Not only do they receive almost as much screen time as Ash, but their Pokemon are far more interesting, and they grow as coordinators with each contest. The May centric episodes also had a lot of drama so her episodes rarely felt boring and they were actually quite unique since contest episodes were a new concept back then. Brock is pretty much the same as season one except that his Pokemon are better and he flirts a lot more.

The villains also get a tad more focus. Between the two Team Agua and Magma characters appeared in about ten episodes and actually received a conclusion. Team Galactic have about the same amount of screen time as well. Aside from small cameos by Giovani the non Jessie and James Team Rocket merabers were barely in season one. They appear a lot more in the movies, specials, and post season one episodes.

The rivals and gym leaders nowadays are also given more screen time. Paul and Barry are both unique and fresh characters in regarRAB to the anime. Drew and Harley were great rivals for May. Zoey and Kenny aren’t all that interesting but at least they actually do stuff. Gary and Ritchie weren’t focused on enough as they should have been. The gym leaders also feel like a greater challenge than the Kanto gym leaders. Aside from Brock the focus on the Kanto gym leaders was minimal.

There’s even more personality given to the supporting characters Pokemon. Not only did they rarely appear but Onyx, Geodude, Vulpix, Horsea, Staryu, Starmie, Zubat, Goldeen, Poliwag had no defining personality traits. Dawn, May and Brock now posses Pokemon that cant be called interchangeable. There also more screentime in general given to the main characters Pokemon. Whether it be training, battling, eating, or merely relaxing, the writers play up the all-inclusive family aspect a lot.

So, yeah. There may be a lot more filler and a lot less originality now, but at least there's more attention paid to each aspect of the show. It just feels like the writers are going for whole package with the newer episodes. They even rehash some concepts from season one with a slightly different spin such as Bulbasuars debut episode and the Pikachu vs Raichu gym battle.



Thank you. In essence Pokemon is a fighting anime. The only difference is that the humans don’t throws the punches. Ash’s goal is to be the greatest Pokemon trainer and the only way to accomplish that goal is to train and battle until he reaches the top. The first two seasons had a lot of adventure but zero training and most of the time the battles felt like afterthoughts. The current seasons go all the way, not 1/3 like past seasons.

Season one and two spent so much time on being original and comedic that they didn’t spend nearly as much time on anything else. The same cant be said about the current seasons. Their a lot better balanced. The villains, rivals, Pokemon, action, comedy, adventure, training, drama, supporting characters, and character development all get decent exposure. Say all you want about the current seasons being repetitive and slow paced but at least they get a ton more stuff done.
 
...Right before Baywatch died, they did the exact same thing. And hearing that is happening to Pokemon is terrible. If you feel that's good, okay, but when stuff like that happens, things are likely taking a turn for the worse.

Pokemon shouldn't have to be a Catch 22. Character development up, originality down. That's terrible writing.
 
Eh, I don't really care about how unique and fresh something is as long as I'm entertained. And since this show has been going on for over 12 years Japanese viewers don't seem to mind all that much either.

I think the standarRAB people have set for this show are a little too high. It's not top notch writing and it never will be. Call me simple-minded and easy to please but I like the show exactly the way it is, unoriginality and all.
 
It's too bad we can't get the best of both worlRAB. Fun entertainment and awesome writing. I mean, it can be done. The writers just won't let it.
 
Yeah, that's too bad. I wish this was one of those shows that everybody could appreciate but its not.

And I truly mean that because I'm still a big fan of it.
 
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