Bare Bones for Sinnoh... 1-6,8+9,11-13,18-20,26+27,34,36+37,40,45,49-55,64,66-69,71+72,75-79,83-85,95-97,100-102,108,114,126-133,143, 150-152,157,161-163,165+166,171,174-177,179+180,182-191 (end) (char. development, Sinnoh's whole deal, gets choppy so that's bad/ but its not as slow paced which is good)
day 1276 ash lands in sinnoh, reunites with brock, catches starly, meets dawn and paul {dp1-3}
The good comes first. Animation gets a boost in quality though not as drastic as the transition at the end of johto was. The motif of Sinnoh is firmly established; by that I mean it sets out to be the anti-Johto. Whereas Johto has lots of nothing happening broken up by chunks of plot that happen too fast, sinnoh has lots of plot happen, but it moves way too damn slow. On the upside better side-character development, on the downside you can't hardly skip anything even if it seems nothing important is happening. Case in point, dp starts off with a 3-part introductory episode.
1 is interesting if only for the fact that Ash isn't in this ep at all. Nope, Dawn gets a whole half hour to herself, before the main man arrives, May got like what 6 minutes? Speaking of, once again I don't find myself hating the new bitch on the block. Dawn takes me back you see, to old Kanto... allow me to explain. See, for those fans who did like May during ag, history repeated itself and they got all up in arms when she was replaced with what they saw as not an exact opposite, as is the erroneous comparison between May and Misty, but an inferior copy. Which simply doesn't hold up, beyond a shared career choice, they act very differently. If Dawn's character is copied from anyone it's not May, but OG Ash. For more info see her bio.
On a lighter note, much like her direct predecessor, I cannot reconcile with the fact that Dawn is supposed to be 10. Now I like Dawn's character well enough, but I have to point something out about her design, she might not have any stacks up top like May, but Dawn dresses like a ho. No seriously, her skirt, makes other miniskirts seem knee length by comparison. On top of that her ensemble is the conservative alternative approved by her mother... her first choice was a strapless little black dress. Thus for my own peace of mind, Dawn also starts off late at 13 like May, because Dawn's mom seems like the type to cling to and prep her daughter as much as possible... then live vicariously through them, yep in my personal head canon Dawn's a pageant kid. Lastly, Dawn's piplup gets some tentative cool points for standing up to a whole pack of ariados all by himself even before she becomes his trainer.
That whole mess was only the first episode? This is gonna take a lot of ink. 2nd ep finally, James gets his old carnivine back, good back-story implementation, also what is it with grass types that show him affection through pain, that makes 3 out of 3 times. Pikachu finally gets scanned in a Pokédex, Ash breaks out his ninja skills to rescue his battery powered friend from his personal stalkers for the umpteenth time and Meowth breaks the 4th wall to Dawn about TR chasing Pika since b4 she was born.
Dawn then gets a bit of hero worship crush on Ash after seeing him tackle a giant mech to save his buddy, she also just straight up asks to travel with and learn from him rather than bring up Pikachu destroying her bike, and since he wasn't around at the time Ash doesn't even now about that happening, so that's a nice subversion.
Of course any extracurricular activities Dawn may or may not have in mind dressed like she is are immediately derailed by Brock, who as I pointed out in Battle Frontier has been worn down to the point of uselessness. He only sticks around for the purposes of making obligatory crushing/perving on girls gags which are old and trite, providing Ash with a food source like a living prop, and following in the footsteps of Tracey and Max by curtailing almost all potential shipping fodder; aka cock blocking Ash.
DP 3, Ash gets his obligatory new bird, who being in its first form still is uninteresting and provides no talking points yet. So then all that's left in this trio of eps to talk about is Ash's newest rival for the whole of the Diamond and Pearl series. His name is simply Paul. The simplest description for Paul that I can use is simply the worst swear word in the rudest vernacular possible, Paul is quite honestly with all offense and insult fully meant and expressed, is a cunt. I write these words after finishing dp, but even from the outset Paul just really pissed me off. In his introduction, his establishing moment is to deride Ash for catching a weak Starly, obtain 3 in quick succession, then release the two that aren't as good.
Now that action taken by itself is perfectly OK, he checked their stats and kept the one that was best, letting the others return home to the wild no harm no foul. However, he then challenges Ash to a battle, which ultimately ends in a tie though that's not important at the moment, solely to prove his starly is stronger than Ash's which he does and again that's OK guy just has a superiority complex right? Wrong. After his bird wins, he gets aggravated and releases it for getting hit at all and not winning fast enough.
What? Dude, Pokémon have feelings in your universe, as a trainer you should treat them with some damn empathy. TR, Gary, and Harley all had/have various levels of antagonism going on with the heroes, but they weren't stone cold pricks to innocent bystanders, and they had some kind of congenial aspect/humorist bent. Spoiler warning... it's all downhill from here folks. Sure a person might not find that to be too objectionable, but Paul's gonna get a whole lot worse.
(2013) To be perfectly transparent, I noticed a trend looking back. The angrier I became the more verbose this document became. So the larger and (remotely possible) more thought out commentairies center around Paul and Best Wishes as I may or may not have already mentioned.
day 1281 ash catches turtwig {dp5}
I didn't place it in the timeline, but dp4(among other eps that aren't listed for this series) isn't filler at all. Dp4 gives us Nando, a quasi-rival for both Ash and Dawn, as he is apparently the only guy in the whole country if not the world smart enough and cool enough to realize you can do Pokémon Contests and challenge the Gym-Circuit/League at the same time. Who would of thunk it? Also of note, he's the first bishounen in the anime, unless you squint a bit and count James.
As for dp5... whoa, deja vu did Ash catch bulbasaur all over again? Nope, its turtwig whom if Bulbaur is Spock in my mind, would then be cast as Mc Coy.<ahem> dp6 has Paul show up again, capture a rage-happy ursaring and beat Ash for the 1st time. Here we get Ash's main draw from the plot. Of course he's going to be going through the League, that's inevitable at this point, but his character arc is all new.
The original series was obviously his journey, to learn about his place in the world and realize his dreams, and by Advanced Generation he had matured at least enough so as to pass on his knowledge and expertize to a newbie as I've said, but conflict is the soul of drama and Frontier aside; ag was really May's journey with copious amounts of Ketchum screen-time, so to reinvest the protagonist's weight on the show, his ideological rival was created. Not so much someone to surpass as Gary was; instead Paul does everything backwards from Ash's perspective... and it makes him pissed! Ash is still hotblooded after all, duh
day 1292 brock catches croagunk {dp8} day 1293 dawn catches buneary {dp9}
dp7 has Dawn's piplup learn how to control his power and moves better for Contests. Again I really wish those things were half as cool as the anime made them out to be. From dp8 comes the only reason I can tolerate Brock's presence in Sinnoh, his croagunk is hilarious. Also at this point for the new show TR gets another new motto, it's both better and worse in certain respects when compared to the old new motto but I can't muster up any new rage, I just want the original one back.
Public Announcement time, Dawn's buneary has a crush on Pikachu, it's so fucking adorable... I wonder if there's something off about me that I find nothing weird about shipping 2 characters whose language I don't even understand? 10 has the gang finally arrive in Jubilife for Dawn's 1st contest, she gets a GPS, but considering whom she is traveling with, will not help in the slightest, and J,J+M reuse Butch+Cassidy's OI hypnotism plan... later on Sinnoh actually has a good number of call backs to earlier eps.
Next time... First gym, first contest, first evolutions... Sinnoh Style! Eps 11-18
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