When Satoshi and his mother accompany Professor Ookido to the distant Isshu region, Satoshi discovers Pokémon that he’s never seen before… and that he can’t wait to catch! He may have Pikachu at his side together with new friends Iris and Dent, but he’ll still need plenty of new Pokémon on his team if he wants to challenge Isshu's expert Gym Leaders. His quest to become a Pokémon Master just got even tougher!
(Source: Official site)
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Comentários
abhinaVADAR42
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
lambishwolf
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.
User-Name
There was some time, long ago, when I watched Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, it was in 2012, and then after a long break I wanted to go back watching Pokemon, but didn't want to rewatch but complete the series I have started watching from my childhood and completed DP later, so I started off completing the Pokemon anime with Pokemon BW - Best Wishes in Japan, Black & White in the International Dub, it was in 2018, long time after finishing DP, and when I watched Black and White I totally enjoyed, I mean, Ash maybe went back to learn basics, but as I rememberedPokemon with lots of useless episodes and stupid stories for most of the times, Black and White came to me with lots of Pokemon catches, lots of battles and importantly the series didn't took much time from Gym to Gym. I was completely enjoyed from Black and White, that was until I decided I do want to rewatch Pokemon from the start, and when I did rewatched Pokemon and reached for the Advance and the DP which took Ash to more mature places from each series I felt that my first impression of BW were cheated by my the mere long time it took to me to watch the BW series after DP.
First of all, the DP series concentrated much more on Ash and Paul than beating Gyms and Contests, more on character development than story, and when reaching the league we all kinda felt cheated by that troll character who invited to prevent Ash going to the Champion League, so Ash forced to return to Pallet Town, and for what? to visit a new region while vacation, not because he needs to be a Pokemon Master, but to purely enjoy himself, it's not taking much time for Ash after Legendary Pokemon attack to be convinced to stay in the new region for another Pokemon journey, and then he meets the fake Paul under the name of Trip, which is trying so hard to be Paul, but before of that, did we mentioned that Ash forgot how to damn-how-can-you-forget-obvious-things-you-learned-in-4-different-regions - how to catch, types matches and important of all good battle tactics you so invested on the DP series, the writers didn't just lowered Ash level to stupidity, they lowered him down to the start of the series, yeah the same Ashy boy that doesn't know what to do in battles and sometimes just having luck due to his Pokemon loving, the only thing is that he knows he traveled in far away regions. great example for that is the scene that is shown in DP where Ash is thinking about strategy, there in DP he concludes he will believe in his Pokemon and that's it, and that was very fitting for Ash in DP as he combined his believing in Pokemon in his strategy, but when scenes like this appear in BW he says clumsily "It will work out somehow, like always!" I believe that there's no need to add much... As a joke I told myself this - between Kanto and Johto Ash didn't had time to relax at home but went away immediately, same with Hoen and Sinnoh, but then he stopped running away from home and stayed, so Pallet returned his stupidity.
Now that I finished with the Ash stupidity, we will go to the more burning issue - seems the writers had been replaced, and knew that DP story was great, so why not rewrite it in Unova? let's create the same model only with some addition, and so Ash has another *hem*fake*hem* rival named Trip, and he's so much alike Paul that Ash is encountering now and then, making their rivalry like Paul and Ash in DP, the problem is that Trip is not Paul, while Paul has some kind of training ideology, Trip doesn't have, he's more like Gary in look-like Paul, the writers so tried to make a "rivalry" like Paul and Ash that they forgot that, what made Paul and Ash rivalry was their argued ideology, Trip on the other hand is only thinking that Ash style is lame and he has better (mainly since ash got a restart from the writers so Ash really feels lame compared to Trip). their rivalry is maybe better than Ash and Gary, but it's nothing compare to Ash and Paul rivalry. the problem is as I said - the writers just went with it and made their stupid rivalry for the entire BW league arc, some of their encounters are very good, but the feeling of forcing their rivalry is devastating, and again Trip is not that interesting and should had got Gary treatment to show once in a while instead we get a rivalry theme for the series which is not catchy or serious. so yeah their "rewrite" had ultimately failed.
What's more bad about BW characters is the replacement for Brock which survived 2 regions, Brock though to lose his "role" in the first series over the seasons, still felt necessary for the series for two simple of reasons - one which Brock who was a gym leader has a lot of information about Pokemon and battles which contributed a lot for Ash's benefit, secondly is that Ash and the second teammate doesn't know much about surviving in the nature which is the most of the journey, especially in the food category, so his appearance seems essential even though to have some chicks problems. but then he's been replaced by Cilan in BW, in the start Brock's replacement seems rational to hold the above commitments - he himself is a Gym leader from the first gym and the gym itself is kind of a restaurant which makes him immediately the new cook for the gang, he declares when joining Ash and Iris (which I will write about her in the "good" section) that he's aiming to be a better Pokemon Connoisseur, which his job his to evaluate Pokemon abilities, he's aiming to be class A, which are actually better ambitions than Brock's breeder ambition which seems he have gained it long time ago. but that's only for the start. Cilan quickly shows a different problem which Brock had, if Brock had problems seeing-girls-without-starting-with-her, Cilan is quickly claims he is Connoisseur for everything that moving, and it's annoying, very annoying which I will not even start to explain why but only to say that guy doesn't have much of a life if he can't find one thing to concentrate in and every couple of days saying "IT'S CONNOISSEUR TIME" for stupid things like trains or "IT"S EVALUATION TIME", which is very annoying hearing it very each episode, even Team Rocket motto is much more bearable. my only thought of "why did they do this?" has come with simple answer - Piplup with his annoying "pip-lap pip-lap" cry had been out, they wanted another one.
After so many bad things, there's some good things, though not to "save" the BW series from being the worse, they makes the series more bearable.
First of them is Iris, which is the Misty-May-Dawn replacement, the first good thing about Iris is that she's written much more tomboy than May and Dawn and reminds a lot of Misty whom liked a lot to tell Ash he's a kid not-literally, Iris doing the same only literally, and I mean she literally calls Ash "you're such a kid", no wonder though she's calling him that way after the restart the writers gave him. And that's not only in the beginning, the more the story continues the more we learn about her and her love for Water-sorry, Dragon Pokemon, and her ambitions are to be... yeah that's right, a Dragon Pokemon Master, Misty anyone? I won't deny for Misty to be one of the best characters, but Iris just has to offer much more than Misty - there's really a lovely story between her and her Axew which develops along the story, and her mature attitude on Pokemon (unlike Ash in this series) really makes you grow on her, so if there's really great pearl in BW is Iris.
Another great change that everyone loves, is the change of Team Rocket, and no, they haven't became less annoying or less "let's catch Pikachu", but they finally seem more fitting to their mature age, doing secret missions for their Boss Geovany. this great "change" making them first of all less annoying by the fact they are not appearing in every episode anymore, and secondly to make "Team Rocket" how they should have been done in the first place in the anime like in the games - the Player is encountering the evil team in the region doing their schemes and sabotage their scheme but not enough to catch them, and finally it's done in BW with Ash and Team Rocket. Their BW special appearance is continuing 'till the lousy Decolora arc, and might be their best appearance in the series, their characteristic may not have changed much though their mature work, but that's how we like them, only in much better performance.
Another thing which is good in the series, is the fact that though Ash is acting like he never battled a Pokemon battle in his life, he's catching much more Pokemon in BW than the rest of Pokemon seasons, BW will be remembered by me as the first series when Ash caught more than 8 Pokemon per series and actually request to change his 6 Pokemon team much more often, which can make you be surprised from battle to battle, he is also not afraid much to evolve them, though some evolution treatment reminds me the Johto evolution treatment he still has a variety of Pokemon in BW. Also, though the complains about Ash's stupidly restart, seems he hasn't forgot to treat his Pokemon with good training from time to time, one of the best moment in the series is when Ash actually goes to Pokemon fitting gym to train them, or rather training their new moves so Ash is not completely lost cause about Pokemon training though he is clueless about everything else (which is a really big contradiction for his training attitude, but I will not go further this since BW is bad enough). add to that the fact that like the Advance and DP series the gym leaders development before the actual battle is kept which makes things better.
Something more that makes the BW story bearable, is the fact that the battle tournaments are much more often instead getting fillers episode style "the gang meets a trainer with his Pokemon bla bla bla", in some way it's making BW much better because after all Pokemon is about Pokemon battling, and we have that a lot here, making Ash battle more than only Gym battles, but it also has the other way around - though to be more interesting it feels like the writers didn't know how to stretch the story anymore, and because there aren't contests anymore they are filling the holes with more Pokemon tournaments, maybe to once again make BW resemble the way of DP that did this kind of tournaments but it just seems forced.
Before we end this long "Story & Characters" section, I will talk shortly about two rather supportive characters that feel like "Paul" fakes but not for Ash but for Cilan and iris, one of is Burgundly who is rival with Cilan and Georgia who is rival with Iris as she calls herself "Dragon Buster", the two make good interesting points in the series, but they get similar "Paul" treatment like Trip for Iris and Cilan which is in another word a pain in the butt. there's also Bianca which is a replacement for Barry from DP to adapt the character chibi from the game, but has annoying style though to still add some story to the anime.
Story: 6/10
Characters: 7/10
Thing that may making the BW a little better from DP is the thing with Art and Animation, finally the moves don't look stretched and old but more like the attacks from the game, don't get it wrong, there is still used frames, but they are now looking much more refreshed and new than DP reused frames.
The art getting serious update as well, some may complain about Ash's anime style eyes and looking as a child with those, but the general idea of the animation is completely fresh making huge step from DP.
The OST as well making some changes, first of all, to use many of the games sounds is a great idea that used well especially since the BW game sounds are much more cleaner than the old GBA sounds, and secondly those are used more smartly.
All these great upgrades in the OST and animation really made me wondering loudly while writing - why they couldn't invest their brains in the story like they invested it on the OST and the animation? though that treatment came in the next franchise series XY it's still making the OST and animation pale in comparison to the DP's story quality which I'm preferring more on rather good OST and animation as BW.
Sound: 8
Art: 8
Despite that the BW is maybe the worst series in the Pokemon franchise, precisely from the story and characters problems mentioned, it still has the more filler clean story than the other Pokemon series which must be brought to point together with the other good points, but it still disappointing to see BW right away after the good DP, so those points only make the series to be bearable, and not that fun to watch.
There's a good potential in BW and I will admit it, like Iris, some Characters and the Gym leaders development, and especially with Team Rocket that too bad they didn't continued to be like in BW for the rest of the franchise, the problems are those bad points, the too much trying to resemble the rivalry of Trip and Ash to Paul and Ash and above all the stupid restart of Ash after great development in DP, all that together making BW worse as Johto arc. too bad OLM didn't used the good potential, especially since the game is one of the best in the franchise for me.
Enjoyment: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
abandonedCat
I think this is one of the best pokemon seasons. Many people don't like it because it is a soft reboot. I think their nostalgia is blinding them. I watched it in 2010 then rewatched it again in 2021 with all of the other seasons. The first pokemon season is the worst in my opinion because they are trying so hard to appeal to the western audience. The world is still a lot like the real world. But the game world is a lot alien. They were afraid that an alien world might weird out the audience and that's why the first season is so bad. Buthere they are just presenting the real world of pokemon. They not trying to please the western audience. It is alien and different. That's why people don't like it.
Writing has gotten better with each season of pokemon. It shines very well in this season. Episodes are funny for me. I love Oshawott and Emolga. I like the new art style.
Ash's brain is reset and it might displease some but I don't care. Every new game gives us a mute protagonist and the entire game mechanism is introduced again. They did the same thing in the anime. I like the changes made to the team rocket. Because of these changes we got two season finales. One here and next one in the next season. These season finales feel great because of the entire build-up. Most of the previous seasons just ended anywhere. Team Rocket was the most annoying part of season 1. They did the same thing in each episode and dumb people enjoyed it for some reason. Now they are part of the story seriously and people are complaining. This season has a better structure than any of the previous ones.
Each episode is well written and something new happens. Each character and pokemon have so much more personality. I just love the cottonee episode.
Attack animations are changed. I saw some people complaining. This has been done first time in the anime but in the games, each new console has different attack animation.
Music from games is used more than in previous seasons and I like that.
The episodes where Meowth joins our crew are so fun. Iris even tries to capture Meowth.
In the Purrloin episode, Meowth and Oshawott fall in love with the Purrloin but it turns out to be a guy. So there are subtle jokes here and there in this season and I like them.
There is a lack of fillers. All eight badges are acquired in just 84 episodes. The travels between each town are small. Instead, more focus is given to battle competitions that happen in each town.
Many people dismiss this series because they changed many things that people loved over the years. I don't like to watch the same stuff again and again. That's why I like this. They did something new this time. Give this season a try. Yes, the next seasons of Black and White suck but this one is very good.
DarkRaven804
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.
RogerSm52
Here's my approach to kid's anime - choose a flavor and enjoy it. Sure, there's some truly fantastic series being made sometimes, but a lot of things are just average. There's nothing wrong with average. Depending on your point of view, Average can be Above Average, or Below Average, or really awesome, or total crap. When it comes to Pokemon, you don't want to watch all of it. It's been on for 15 years, it's never going to stop. So pick your favorite Generation, and watch that. I picked "Best Wishes" because I loved the Black/White games. Plus, this series is modern, it uses digitalink, and is available in widescreen.
Story: One refreshing aspect of this season was the change for Team Rocket, they used to appear in every episode, but this season they're only used half the time. Jesse and James also get serious, they spend most of the beginning of the season succeeding in their schemes. Something else I noticed, every 12 episodes, we get a two-parter, a cool change of pace to show us that thing are not easy enough to resolve using one episode.
Sadly, Team Plasma do not appear until the end of this generation.
Characters: Ash's traveling companions, this time it's Iris and Cilan. I can predict that we will never see someone stick around like Brock did for Four Generations. I'm guessing the writers got tired of making the same gag over and over again, so now every traveling companion will be limited to each region, with only cameos every now and then.
Cilan takes Brock's role as "older brother" to Ash, and playing the man in the apron. Cilan's tick of comparing everything to food can get pretty grating sometimes. They also do a bit more with the fact that he is a gym leader and an expert on pokemon. They even add a rival for him named Burgundy, it's refreshing to see a character actually completely outclass their rival for once.
Iris is Ash's second companion, a Dragon Trainer, and a different take on the Tsundere Girl. Iris spent a lot of time by herself in the mountains, so it made her more bold, blunt, and energetic than an ordinary girl. While she sometimes berates Ash for not knowing things, there are times when she doesn't know things either. They add an Ice Type trainer named Georgia who is my favorite of all the rivals.
Ash gets a rival named Trip, who is just a watered down version of Paul.
Overall: I liked Pokemon Best Wishes. There are times when you just want to sit back and let the TV play. I wanted a super long simple show, and that's what Pokemon is. I give it a 7/10.
FrankTobar
Good evenning everyone, I dont know if its here i can say it or to where i should write but the number of episodes of this anime in this site is 84. This number is incorrect and can cause mistakes like mine. The last two episodes of the season are the batle with the 8th gym and if you continue to the next season you see the mistake right away. In reallity, this series has 86 episodes and after episode 86 it begins the new series, Pokemon Best Whishes S2. Thanks for your time FrankTobar
Duckielover151
(As a little side note: I'm writing this review after the episode where Ash wins his eighth badge for this region. The episode list on Wikipedia doesn't match up with the number of episodes on this site. In the past keeping track was easy. Even if I lost track on my episode count, the series ended when Ash moved on to the next region. Best Wishes ends a little past mid-Unova, it seems. But, reading the synopsis for the next season, it looks like I've reached the end of the series as far as MAL counts it. Now that that's out of the way...) So,Pokémon quickly went from reaching its highest point to hitting its lowest point, but this wasn't immediately apparent. At the start of episode one, I was really optimistic. Best Wishes starts out with Ash accompanying his mother and Prof. Oak on a vacation to a region so far away, there are no Pokémon from any of the regions he's traveled through so far. In a very quintessential Ash move, he becomes enthralled with the few new Pokémon he does see and decides he's going to start over again in Unova and collect eight badges to enter their Pokémon League. And at this point, I thought Best Wishes was gearing up to be something really good. This felt like a really original start and was in keeping with Ash as a character.
And then things started to go downhill...
Much has been said about the introduction of Ash's new rival and their first battle. And I've seen quite a few excuses for why things went down the way they did-- their encounter with one of this region's legendaries left Pikachu temporarily unable to use any electric-type moves-- but I still say Ash's loss to Trip was bullshit. I don't care if Pikachu was limited to only a few moves. Trip met his Snivy literally five minutes earlier. The difference in experience alone should have more than made up for any handicap Pikachu was suffering from. But I soon realized that this first fight was indicative of a much bigger problem this series had.
It feels like the writers tried to hit the reset button without explicitly saying it and with no real good reason to. I understand that the start of each new season is a chance to bring a whole new generation of kids into the fanbase, but setting Ash back like this really does a disservice to the older fans who've been watching from the beginning. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is, it felt like they were following a formula that just doesn't suit Ash anymore. Case in point with Trip: Ash does not always have to be the underdog. Maybe they were trying to ride the coattails of Ash's rivalry with Paul in the last season, which was the best yet. But recreating Paul just doesn't work with Trip. What reason does Trip have to be so arrogant? Paul had experience-- arguably just as much as Ash as it is stated that he had also journeyed through other regions-- Trip is just starting out. And I find it ironic, all the little remarks he makes about Kanto being such an off the map, backwater little place considering Unova is the region that's established to be so disconnected from everywhere else. But its not Trip himself that I dislike. At this point, I'm reserving judgment for Trip. I feel like he still has room to grow. In their last encounter, he doesn't seem to have changed much, but I was really optimistic about the one before that. Trip's backstory so far is that he met this region's champion, Alder, when he was very young and, being ambitious even back then, swore to one day defeat him. When he asked for advice, he was basically told to do whatever he had to in order to become as strong as possible. Except... our heroes meet Alder and he's nothing like Trip remembered. Skilled and powerful but also laid-back and goofy. And most importantly, he doesn't remember giving Trip the advice that shaped his entire life, nor does he seem to agree with that line of thinking now. It was a really interesting episode, and Trip seemed really shaken by this, but I'm still waiting to see how that's resolved.
So in short, it's not Trip himself, but the way Trip is written that I have a problem with. (Like in their most recent encounter, Trip seeming to fall back into the way he was before they met Alder.) But any problems with Trip's writing doesn't hold a candle to Ash. I've really liked seeing Ash continue to grow as we continue to move from one series to the next. He started out as an enthusiastic but really dumb little kid. Then we got to see him be the experienced one for a change in Advanced, where May learned a lot from him. And even Dawn, who was more experienced to start with, did a lot of learning alongside him. And don't get me wrong, Ash has always had his moments, but it's held true that he's gotten a little better each season. So there is no excuse for him suddenly seeming to have no recollection of things like strategy or type advantages upon reaching Unova. And it was even more baffling for him to suddenly forget basic Pokémon world lore, like the fact that all the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys are identical. (And yes, those two both got a design change this season, but he had no trouble recognizing who they were.) Like I said, it felt like the writers tried to hit the reset button and there was no reason for it. I mean, Ash has always been very formulaic as to what he's going to do in each region, but if the writers are totally lost trying to do something new... Well, that's the biggest problem so far.
Which leaves us with the new characters. Well, to start with Ash's Pokémon, who are always a little hit or miss when it comes to personality, it's been another longrunning complaint from fans that Ash doesn't catch enough Pokémon in each region. But l've never minded him only having just enough to fill up his team with a few substitutions. Most of them barely have any character as it is, which is really showcased in this season where Ash does catch quite a few more Pokémon than usual... and most of them are really forgettable. The bird in this region in particular seems really bland, and it's really implied that Ash only caught Pidove for the convenience of having a flying type whenever someone is lost. (Seriously, there's an episode where every other one of his Pokémon is sleeping outside of their Pokeballs with the kids, but when they realize a few of them have run off, Ash has to get his bird out of its Pokeball to go look for them. I think what's not explicitly stated in that scene says a lot...) And his other Pokémon are just kind of... there. I mean, I guess Oshawott is cute, as far as Piplup knockoffs go, but none of his other Pokémon really stand out in this season.
In general, this is the season people like to cite when they talk about Pokémon running out of ideas. This was the season where they made the Pokémon based off of an ice cream cone... and the Pokémon based off of a refrigerator and a coffin. But personally, I only reached my breaking point when I reached the episode with the buffalo-themed Pokémon that would leave our heroes alone... just as long as they were wearing afro wigs.
And then we have his new companions. I just cannot seem to grow attached to Iris for some reason. She's just really annoying... (Though I think what's more irritating than her constantly telling Ash that he's acting like a little kid is that he's usually earned it.) I'm pretty sure Axew was supposed to be cute. Yeah, he never grew on me either. But I think the main problem is that Iris's goal of being a dragon master really doesn't mean anything. She doesn't seem to really know herself how to go about dong that, so really she's just another companion. I think her only saving grace is that she practically grew up in the wild and has great survival skills.
And then we come across the gym-leader-turned-companion who constantly compares Pokémon and strategy to food. Why, hello, replacement Brock. Actually, you know what, Cilan? I take back any sass. You ended up being the most likable one in the group.
And then we reach the minor characters. As with Diamond and Pearl, there are an abundance of minor characters, but I'm a little on the fence about them. Well, Bianca sums up herself pretty well: "Dodging is for cowards!" As for the other three... Well, it is kind of cool that all three of our heroes have their own rivals. (For Ash, it was more like a less serious rival.) But, though we see quite a lot of each of them, none of them grow past their initial gimmick. No one pronounces Stefan's name correctly. Georgia hates dragon types. Burgundy lost to Cilan's gym and aims to humiliate him the same way she felt humiliated. And that's really all there is to any of them.
Past that, it's Pokémon. A million mini adventures with a few gym battles or other mini tournaments thrown in between. Which doesn't mean it was unenjoyable. A lot of those episodes were fun, even if there was no real consequence to a lot of those plots. But if there was one thing I really liked about this season, it was that they tried to make Team Rocket threatening again. For the first time since their introduction in Kanto. And, while their master plan hasn't been fully explained yet, I like that they're no longer simply the comic relief villains. They feel like actual villains. Which means this region's final conflict with them, whatever that's going to be, has the potential to be really good.
Jettskii
The more I grow and get older, the more I realise how much I've 'outgrown' Pokémon. This doesn't mean that Pokémon can't be enjoyed by older audiences, in fact, Pokémon has always been a show that is incredibly easy to watch and enjoy - and the new series actually have some really great art, sound and story direction. However, even when I saw the Black and White anime when it first aired, I knew something wasn't right. Within the first episode, despite all Ash (Satoshi) had learnt, he loses to a lvl 5 Snivy, owned by a trainer who is clearly a knock-off Gary Oak. Iremember being so confused why Ash always needed constant reminders about Pokémon type matchups, what specific moves did and how they worked, how many Pokémon he was allowed to carry - when at this point, Ash had already visited 5 separate regions, and learnt all the basics a million times. I understood that this was simply to guide new audience members into the world of Pokémon, and explain the basics; but for some reason the writers made Ash seem like a total moron. In the Sinnoh series, Ash had an amazingly strong team, and even had a really well written and fleshed-out rival, in the likes of, Paul. This was all thrown out of the window when this series rolled around.
I've been back to watch this series since, and even compared to the original Pokémon series, Ash appears to be a mindless trainer who hardly puts any strategy into the fights, and is even surprised when one of Pikachu's electric attacks has no effect against a ground type Pokémon. Although the series EVENTUALLY picked up its pace, this is definitely the worst iteration of Ash.
Damnits
I watched this as a kid when it aired, so some parts are cloudy in my memory. Skimmed through two episodes as a refresher. Story is okay, typical Ash stuff like "oh i gotta do all of these and then ill be a pokemon master!" Art was good, although it doesn't look as good as I remember. 2010, so I can't really hate on it. The sound was to an extent good quality. Not the best, as it was aired on Cartoon Network in the early 2010s, lol. Characters are a six because they aren't as well written as other anime of the time, probably translation errors as wellbut I'm not sure.
I enjoyed it at a mediocre level, as even though kids have short attention spans, it caught mine.
Akeitho
So we're now at the 5th gen Pokemon anime and so far, Ash has successfully gone through 4 Regional leagues, also won several cups on his way and built himself quite a decent experience as a Pokemon trainer. As usual, he starts in this new region with only Pikachu and let all of his powerful and trained pokemons at Pr Oak's. Nothing surprising so far, but: - Why the hell is he 10 again and acting like a boring child and total beginner trainer who even doesn't know how to properly catch a pokemon?! - Even with his little electric issue, how in the world can his OP Pikachulose to some pokemon starter freshly removed out from its pokeball?!
This is too much, I feel like I'm watching a bad remake of the first animes while I was expecting its sequel 5 years later. I'm out.
If you never saw any other Pokemon series before, you'll probably enjoy it though.
Elyshion
Pokemon Best Wishes is repetitive storytelling, adhering rigidly to formulaic progression without meaningful evolution. Plot beats feel predictable, and inconsistencies weaken continuity, such as a recurring electric companion inexplicably losing prior battle prowess or the protagonist’s failure to reference past allies, creating narrative dissonance. While the cycle retains charm through its vibrant cast and upgraded visuals, its lack of innovation and emotional depth renders it less memorable compared to predecessors. The cyclical plot and missed opportunities for character growth highlight a disconnect between ambition and execution, leaving it a nostalgic yet flawed entry in the broader saga. Maybe it's time for a refresh!
