YMMV / Pokémon the Series: Black & White

• Accidental Innuendo: In the second episode ("Enter Iris and Axew"), there's the line "You can't find anything this jiggly in Unova!" that reads like an advertisement about the bounciness of Unova's women. This was also a TPCi English dub dialogue change.
• Angst? What Angst?: Though calling it "angst" might be a bit of a stretch, it can come across as rather jarring that the trio's farewell in "Best Wishes Until We Meet Again!" didn't seem to invoke any sadness in any of them, with Ash being the only one who seemed even slightly disappointed at leaving behind his companions. Particularly notable are the lack of reactions from Axew and Scraggy, whose friendship with each other was a big recurring element throughout the series, yet neither seemed to care when it was time to go their separate ways.
• Audience-Alienating Era: While it started off promising, Black & White is widely regarded as the point where the series takes a noticeable downturn as the anime's franchise original sin starts to catch up with it, though some factors were out of its control.
  • Ever since the series settled in Comic-Book Time format, Ash has been in an awkward place where he is not allowed to progress as a trainer beyond a certain level, though the previous two series at least softened this by having Ash maintain a general air of skill and experience. Black & White, however, threw out any subtlety to hit the Reset Button; Ash takes a level in dumbass and is back to being a rookie trainer who can't even remember how to properly catch a Pokémon. This was such a reviled decision that the next series, XY, re-established Ash as an experienced trainer who seeks to become the very best.
  • In a rather surprising move, the Team Rocket Trio takes a level in badass, as they become a bigger threat to Ash and do not exit through A Twinkle in the Sky. This is also the first time ever in the anime series where Ash meets and fights Giovanni in person. However, this causes the trio to lose most of their humor and Hidden Depths, while fan-favorite Wobbuffet is absent for the entire run, much to many fans' chagrin. Tellingly, this also didn't last, with the trio slowly reverting back to their original personalities after the Operation Tempest arc and Wobbuffet rejoining the team right in time for XY.
  • The supporting cast had trouble winning over the crowd, as they're looked down on as a rehash of the ones that came before with mixed results.
    • Trip is seen as too similar to Paul, sharing his stoic jerkass personality, but without the skill, experience, or psychological warfare that made Paul a successful rival. Trip's wins against Ash are often criticized for being forced upon a flanderized version of the character, causing Ash to look overly weak for constantly losing to a rookie.
    • Cilan had to live up to the legacy of Brock, a consistently popular character who, unlike Ash's other companions, had been around since the original series before his departure. A common complaint with Cilan is that he fills the exact same role as Brock without actually fixing any of the latter's writing issues, as both spend the majority of their runs as underdeveloped comic relief characters.
    • Iris, besides sharing Misty's divisive traits like her constant bickering with Ash, had a character arc to be a Dragon Master. While this gave her a distinct personality from May's and Dawn's Pokémon Contest arc (and led to some interesting moments like her struggles with her Dragonite), the way it's handled was criticized for often lacking her visible character development, as it tends to overlap with Ash's own quest; by the finale, she isn't much different from where she was in the beginning — most notably via her Axew never evolving at all, despite him clearly wanting to. She would later get an Arc Welding in the other series, first in her own special episode during the XY series and again in her reunion in Journeys that show how she's grown up as a Dragon Master, something that detractors felt should've been done in this series.
  • The overarching plot and resolution of the series is widely considered one of the weakest ones, with the Unova League being especially lambasted for its many infamous battles and bizarre writing fumbles (writing off the main rival Trip in a frustrating and anticlimactic 1v1, dedicating an entire episode to Axew filler shenanigans, having Ash lose to an Idiot Houdini who brought five Pokémon to a six-on-six, forcing Ash to regress from his previous league placement). Team Plasma is also considered to be a disappointment as they get the shaft for most of the series, and are only dealt with in a 14-episode arc in the final season (admittedly, this is a case where many are more lenient due to the knowledge of why this happened.)
• Base-Breaking Character: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Broken Base: See here.
• Critical Backlash: While the series remains one of, if not the least favored by fans, there has been an increase in support over time from those who don't find it to be that bad and give credit to its positives, sometimes even improvements over the previous ones. These include a decrease in the formula used for filler episodes, Team Rocket not appearing in every episode, Team Rocket being more competent, well-received story arcs such as the Meloetta arc and the Don George Tournament Arcs, and a large, colorful cast of rivals for the main trio. It helps that several of these trends were carried over and used to even greater effect in later series. Defenders will often claim that it is still mostly enjoyable as a standalone Pokémon series — while it largely falls apart when directly comparing it to the previous ones, there's good to be found when judging it solely on its own merits.
• Common Knowledge: Many people say Cynthia appears in this series having come to Unova for a vacation from her Champion duties and claim that this random vacation foreshadows her later desire to retire in Pokémon Journeys: The Series. However, she actually did come to Unova for Champion business, to let the opening of the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup be someone from Unova showing off their skills against a Champion from a different region.
• Ending Fatigue: The brisk pace of the Unova arc, combined with Executive Meddling during the development of Black 2 and White 2, results in the final season having severe pacing issues. The third season has the League tournament Ash has been working towards take seven episodes total and end only ten episodes into the season. This is followed by an arc about Team Plasma with minimal build-up that lasts twice as long as the League did. The second half of the season is thus dedicated to a series of random adventures in the anime-exclusive Decalore Islands because of a lack of content left in Unova for Ash to experience and the Kalos games still being half a year away from release at the time of the arc's airing. Although a Sequel Hook for the Kalos arc is present in the form of the journalist Alexa, she doesn't show up to grant the Decalore arc some semblance of narrative purpose until over halfway through.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "Dreams by the Yard Full," it's shown that Iris's Axew dreams of becoming a powerful Haxorus. Years later, in Pokémon Journeys, it's shown his dream has come true.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Dragon-typing, due to the next generation introducing Fairy-types, where Dragon-Type attacks won't hurt Fairies and Fairy-Types will defeat Dragons. Georgia, a character that was characterized as a "Dragon Buster," places so much emphasis on this; needless to say, she did not own any Fairy-type Pokémon. Iris, who would freak out when an Ice Pokémon is present, did not freak out about Fairies like Cottonee, Audino, and Togekiss.
  • "BW 083, "An Epic Defense Force!" involves making a movie using a giant robot Tyranitar. Come Pokémon Scarlet and Violet we have Iron Thorns, a robot Tyranitar.
• Magnificent Bastard: Colress is a perky scientist working for Team Plasma who seeks to discover how to bring out strength in Pokémon. Colress invents a machine to control Pokémon as well as up their power. As the machines get destroyed, Colress records more data and upgrades to new machines. When Team Rocket attempts to persuade Colress to join them, Colress responds by successfully controlling Meowth, in spite of his resistance, and using him against Jessie and James. Arriving at the White Ruins, Colress forces N to give the Light Stone to Team Plasma by controlling Pikachu and using him against Ash. With Reshiram revived, Colress controls it, all while marveling at the Legendary's power. Even upon arrest, Colress is still ambitious, as he plans on finding a way to communicate with Pokémon directly.
• Memetic Psychopath: Cilan is often depicted as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who murders and eats his Pokémon, due to his catch phrases, "It's tasting time!" and "I caught a/n [X POKÉMON] with good taste!" Episode 19 introduced his rival, who claimed that Cilan was a monster when she battled him, complete with Slasher Smile. Naturally, this got more notice from the fandom: when he's not portrayed as her rapist, he's thought of as a psychological torturer.
• Mis-blamed:
  • The 2011 Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster catches the blame for pushing Team Plasma into an arc after the badge quest, as well as for some fans, dramatically changing (for the worse) a saga that started off strong, or at least decent. In reality, while the aforementioned natural disaster did play a small role, the production of sequel games instead of the usual third version is ultimately what caused the Plasma arc to be temporarily aborted and the series to change so dramatically. This also made the aforementioned two-parter a Morton's Fork, in that, if it did air, the fans would be on the writers for giving Team Plasma as short of shrift as they gave Teams Magma and Aqua. That said, it certainly didn't help matters.
  • The announcement of a sequel Black 2 and White 2 caused many inconsistencies with the anime's flow. In previous generations, the "third game" would still be the same story with a few differences and additions. Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 were actual sequels to the Pokémon Black and White games, creating conflicts with what the anime can deliver. An example would be Badges, where the badge case displayed the first game's slots. However, for the final slots, Ash received the Toxic Badge as the eighth badge and Cameron received the Wave Badge, thus skipping the Legend Badge from the original.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Shamus, the former trainer of Ash's Tepig (and a Damian Expy), already had a huge Kick the Dog to his name when he abandoned Tepig in Accumula Town by tying it to a post but went over the Moral Event Horizon when we learn that when he did so, he actually acted remorseful for having to do it and told Tepig that it was for the best, making Tepig think that he still loved him...except that when he was far enough away, he smirked and laughed about being free of his useless Pokémon! He gloats about this to Tepig during his and Ash's battle, painfully shattering Tepig's view of him. Karma caught up to him when Tepig evolved into Pignite, took out both of Shamus' fighters, and roasted Shamus' face at the end. What really makes the guy worse is that he was showing that he enjoyed Tepig's anguish at being abandoned and later fighting him. While Paul wasn't much better in training methods, at least he doesn't take sociopathic glee in torturing Pokémon long after they were abandoned like Shamus does.
  • If Team Plasma's Lord Ghetsis wasn't already on the other side of this after raising N, Anthea, and Concordia just to suit his selfish ambitions and lying to them about Team Plasma's true purpose for most of their lives, then he certainly crossed the line when he ordered the mind controlled Reshiram to attack and possibly incinerate everyone at the White Ruins with Fusion Flare attacks, including his own minions! Team Rocket even makes note of this, seeing that this Bad Boss makes Giovanni look much better in comparison.
• Never Live It Down:
  • The first thing usually mentioned when this series comes up is Ash's reset as a trainer to be closer to how he was back in the original Kanto arc. While he actually had more successes than failures, especially when compared to Kanto, the fact that it happened at all is seldom forgotten or forgiven by fans.
  • Perhaps the biggest black mark on Ash and Pikachu's entire career is their loss against Trip's Snivy, fresh out of the lab. There were some mitigating circumstances (Pikachu was unable to use electricity due to a previous incident with a Zekrom, and by the time Ash realized of it, Snivy won the battle), but it did little to dissuade the fans from considering it the electric rodent's worst showing in the entire anime.
  • Ash's Gym battle with Elesa is similarly damaging, with Ash's Idiot Hero traits flanderized so badly even his Kanto season self seems like a master trainer in comparison^note Ash benches his entire roster sans Palpitoad believing he could sweep Elesa with it alone, has to run all the way back to the Pokémon Center to retrieve a second Pokémon, and forgets about the gender and typing of multiple Pokémon at once. Although he never battles nearly this poorly ever again, many fans years later continue to take this as the number one example of Ash's skill level in this series.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Black and White was initially met with much fan excitement in large part due to building up to Team Plasma, whose popularity in Pokémon Black and White was a driving force behind the franchise's Popularity Polynomial at the time. But the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster caused it to be canned right before they were intended to appear, after which its other praised parts petered out and weakness became more prominent. Meanwhile, the sequels Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 being released, instead of the third version as expected, meant Team Plasma's appearance was based entirely on their sequel appearance, lacking what made them well received in the first game, instead coming off as generic villains. This underwhelming payoff for a series-long wait and decline was followed up and ended on a filler arc due to its brisk pacing causing them to run out of material until the next games, irreparably tarnishing things. In short, Black & White is best remembered for starting strong only for 2011 Fukushima disaster to derail and cause it to rot, regardless of its strengths or missteps long after what can be fairly attributed to the 2011 disaster.
• Pandering to the Base: The series has been accused of doing this for much of Best Wishes: Season 2, releasing a significant amount of fanservice and ratings traps in a short period of time that often had little connection to the series' current plot. Between Dawn and Cynthia returning for an extended arc, Team Rocket's Operation Tempest climax and eventual comeback (complete with their original motto, role, and personalities), Charizard returning full-time to Ash's party, and the heavy marketing of Episode N in Japan, it can be hard not to see all this as an attempt to pander to fan requests, especially knowing the numerous controversies with the series beforehand. How successful this actually was is just as debatable, with many of these stunts criticized as shallow and pointless (Charizard is especially infamous for contributing almost nothing, despite teasing from the intro that it would battle against Reshiram).
• Seasonal Rot: Despite its status as an Audience-Alienating Era, Black & White is often considered to have at least started fairly promising, particularly with the accumulating showdown between Team Rocket and Team Plasma. Unfortunately, after the original story was canceled, the series progressively lost more and more steam before completely crashing down by the end; between the widely-reviled Unova League, the mildly-at-best received Episode N arc, and the largely aimless Decolore Islands arc, the final year seemingly burned what little remaining goodwill the series had for most fans. In short, even many of the fans who enjoy the series seldom go to bat for the season entitled "Adventures in Unova".^note ("Adventures in Unova and Beyond" once the Decolore Islands arc started.)
• Signature Series Arc: The Meloetta arc, for being a retooling of the Celebi arc that never was back in Johto, having the show transition to being Best Wishes Season 2 in Japan, bringing back Dawn and Cynthia from the previous series, the resolution of Trip's arc with Alder, its epic two-part finale where Ash and his friends faced off against Giovanni (and the anime's marketing team tested the waters for potentially dropping Team Rocket from the series altogether), and starting the trend of story arcs where a cute but special Pokémon temporarily tags along with the heroes that would later be repeated in the following series with Zygarde, Cosmog and Poipole, and Latias.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: See here.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: See here.

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