Pokémon anime

I think what he's saying is that, rather judge each "regional season" for their best moments, I think he's focusing on them as a whole. And I agree, while there are a lot of great moments, they're more like diamonds in a rough than consistent quality all around.

Johto was boring as fuck until the Silver Conference and I couldn't be bothered to care. Hoenn was ok, but no ongoing rivalries for Ash until the league itself kinda took the wind out of it, although May picked up the slack in that regard, Sinnoh was arguably the best the series has ever been, but like Johto, the amounts of filler was infuriating and caused me to once again stop caring.

Kalos has way more pros than cons, and even its cons aren't even terrible. The worst I could probably say about Kalos is that yea, the lack of a Deuteragonist is pretty disappointing after May and Dawn and Serena is largely a Satellite Love Interest for Ash. But you know what, Tropes Are Tools and I don't think it makes her any worse than the aforementioned.

Team Rocket are still overstaying their welcome in my eyes, but at the very least they're not in every episode and do actually have the occasional moment of competence without removing their quirks.

Ash and Alain don't have the build up that Ash and Paul had, but I feel he still works as a Foil for Ash since he's quite literally a Hero of Another Story and his Ash's journey's will reach a head at the finals. Actually, if you wanna split hairs, Alain has kind of taken the Deuteragonist role for this arc if you look at everything.

man, the anime trope page has so much garbage and outdated/false info, as well as with its subpages (especially the YMMV)

honestly I'm surprised no one made a move to divide the anime into each "saga" for their own pages

...and man oh man the YMMV page, feels like it's one guy's rant

edited 8th Aug '16 8:48:53 PM by Ookamikun

Black Yakuza: The only part where I would disagree with you is that Team Rocket's "moments of competence" in Kalos are not "occasional". To me, they've found their balance. They've definitely overstayed being full-time villains, but this iteration of Team Rocket I would gladly welcome into a Rogues Gallery.

And I would agree that, at least at present, Serena is a Satellite Love Interest by the definition of the term; that is that she's a Love Interest and the culmination of her character arc is directly connected to the character arc of the person she's an LI for. However, said culmination is disconnected from her station as LI. That is, if she didn't go through her performance arc, and suffer the trials that she did, then what would have been the pebble that would've triggered the avalanche that is even now bearing down upon Alain? Or would there have been a "pebble" at all?

Precita: Regarding Late Saga quality:

• I always thought that, while the Slateport Festival was handled well, the Hoenn League and subsequent reunion with Misty were severely rushed, reducing the quality of those episodes. And, while the pace of Battle Frontier was good, May's quest seemed to hit an abrupt point around the midpoint, almost as if it was around that time that the writers learned about Diamond & Pearl. They paced the Frontier Brains well; it just seemed that they barely had room for the Contests there.
• And I recall seeing the DP story quality suffer, or at least be radically altered, after the resolution of the Galactic plot. Dawn's quest was not only resolved early,^note much like Serena's seemed to be, but the resolution focused on her newer rivals at the expense of her earlier ones. And then there was Paul's Character Derailment leading to him being a (further) Karma Houdini: we're told that he's accepted Ash's arguments but aren't Shown either any proof of that or his struggles to accept it. Therefore, I've counted Season 13 as part of the Unovan Dork Age, even though it's part of Sinnoh.

Dividing the series into separate pages would imply that there are significant differences between the sagas, which has largely not been the case; at least not prior to Kalos, and this seems like the culmination of Ash's Myth Arc, rather than a separate story. EDIT: Perhaps the main series page should be restricted to the Tropes appearing in multiple generations with Tropes only occurring in a particular sub-series relocated to that sub-series' Recap Section (which could be split due to how the Japanese view series.)

This does raise an interesting question: Should the 5 sagas of the Anime be seen as separate "books" of a long-running Literature series? Heck, if that were the case, I'd separate it by "campaign" insofar as there is always a seeming act-break between 1 league conference/final challenge and the start of the next. (Hence, 8 campaigns, 9 if you want to include "Episode N and the Decolora Islands".)

MOAR Evidence that Pikachu will still be standing at the hour of victoly!

edited 8th Aug '16 9:31:54 PM by DonaldthePotholer

I recall there was an attempt to clean it up, but it ended falling wayside because people constantly edit the YMMV to no end. Some of these edits have distinct style that is clearly done by one person (the same person did a lot of aggressive edits on Smash Bros YMMV. And I think I might found a Google Doc done by him.

It's quite amusing considering how far off he is on Greninja's popularity source. First he thinks Smash Bros was finally moving from the anime and being directly based on the games due to Greninja apparently not doing Pokémon Speak. He believes it was due to fan popularity even though Greninja was likely already in long development considering the date of release and Ash conveniently only has Froakie this time around. When it's revealed that it does Pokémon Speak, he thinks Ninja Riot's Greninja was deliberately made to be a Breakout Character of the movie and that's what the Smash Bros Greninja was based on (like Lucario being based on the movie Lucario). Even though that Greninja occupies even less space than Ash's Froakie at the time.

Suffice to say, I'm going to watch Game Xplain's video on the anime (along with Chuggaconroy) as this is something every Pokémon fan and those who make fun of Ash Ketchum should be paying attention. August 18th will be an eventful day. It'll be Ikue Otani's 51st birthday.

edited 8th Aug '16 9:48:47 PM by Shadao

What video?

Team Rocket's 'competence' is definitely 'occasional' in XYZ however, if largely because Ash has completely surpassed them, meaning even when they are clever he can usually just swat them away like a bug (the only region I think this didn't happen is BW, where they still remained challenging outside the Epic Fail finale). They do get their redeemers more often by looking good in legitimate competitions and still being kinda scary against non-twerp opponents, compared to say AG and the OS where they ended up nearly everyone's punching bag.

Their personalty is definitely the most balanced however.

edited 8th Aug '16 10:39:42 PM by Psi001

This video:

I look forward to hearing The J Wittz and others when August 18th comes.

XY&Z42 and 43 will air as a one-hour special on September 15th, might be the conclusion of the Team Flare arc.

The best parts of older sagas being "over" is that you can now go back and rewatch the best bits of each saga if you don't want to sit through all the filler. I enjoy quite a bit of filler in each arc as long as either a) The filler is funny b) The filler has a good battle in it.

Sinnoh was the only saga to spend 4 years in a single region (Johto, Hoenn and Kalos were only 3-year regions), so it was the longest for one arc but it made up for it by a lot of stuff going. There was a lot of hype when DP was airing because despite its length people were interested in how all the subplots played out.

On another note these new S/M Pokemon are amusing.

Well, if Team Rocket leaves this time, they'll have a silly team in Team Skull with an Alolan Meowth for Sun and Moon.

Pffft, as if they're ever gonna leave.

I can't wait to see the looks on their faces if the 18th does come, but Ash still loses.

"... At least it wasn't Cameron... riiiight?"

edited 9th Aug '16 6:02:22 AM by Psyga315

hype mode activate

THAT ONE HOUR SPECIAL HOLY SHIT

YOU GOT TWO ZYGARDE (ONE REAL AND ONE THE CORRUPTED) AND THEY'RE FIGHTING ON THE RUINS OF LUMIOSE LIKE SOME DAIKAIJUU SHOW. AND THEN ZYGARDE GOES COMPLETE LIKE SOME SORT OF PACIFIC RIM ENCOUNTER

FINALLY YOU GOT A ONE HOUR SPECIAL FOR THAT FUUUUUUUUUUCK

HYYYYYYYPE

As someone involved in that clean-up attempt, I can say that's exactly why I lost interest in helping.

Perhaps we'll get a kooky Team Skull duo with a dark Meowth as rivals for our TR trio.

I wonder if there's going to be a lot of shipping in the Flare finale. As we're getting to XY's conclusion the writers will probably want to ramp it up as much as they can.

Psi: I base my ratings for Team Rocket on effort and planning, not results. Otherwise, it would be rightly asked of them "Why do you even bother? You're always losing to a Memetic Loser. What does that make you?" Hopefully, we're 9 days out from getting rid of that status, even if only for a week.

Precita: Even with the possibility of Serena being part of the Rescue team, I only really see 1 opportunity for major shipping during the Battle: Ash and Serena's 2nd ever fight being an argument over who's More Hero than Thou. (Serena would want to impersonate Ash in his cell so that Ash can strike at Lysandre directly, but Ash doesn't want to put her in danger by herself.)

edited 9th Aug '16 3:45:23 PM by DonaldthePotholer

See, Ash may be a Memetic Loser, but he's also in the top 10% of every trainer on the planet, and they're trying to catch a Pikachu that has taken down two Legendaries and a Mega Evolution.

edited 9th Aug '16 3:43:07 PM by Ssj3Gojira

True, but I prefer the trio to at least be something of a challenge.

I think the fact that they put a lot of wit and planning into things at times while the heroes can just handily use one or two attacks to take them out is also one of those things that sometimes leads to Ash's team being less rootable than them. Early XY had a decent balance because while Team Rocket were back to being pitiable, they were at least on a level to make Ash work and be clever for a victory (or at least make sure his team didn't get too smug against them) thus keeping his side sympathetic as well. We know they'll always lose but let's at least make sure we don't hate the twerps for winning.

I think the start of XY was pretty much a middle finger to the whole Memetic Loser status, due to how dumbfounding Kalos thought the Ash vs Team Rocket battles were initially. And lets face it, Pikachu has done more than enough to earn the trio's obsession, he's saved the planet about ten times more times than any Pokemon.

edited 9th Aug '16 4:31:47 PM by Psi001

You know its too bad Looker isn't in Kalos. In the Galactic finale Team Rocket joined with Looker and helped behind the scenes.

They did in Unova against Team Plasma as well, did they not?

He is in X and Y I suppose.

edited 9th Aug '16 4:49:28 PM by Psi001

Psi: Well, that's on the writers for having Team Rocket only getting a single evolution since the battle of the Marshlands... heck, since the first Malamar episode! The problem is that it's felt so keenly because Team Rocket has to be in practically every episode! If you can't make Ash's Arch-Enemy a legit threat, give him a Rogues Gallery that includes some legit threats! Especially if Ash is supposed to be growing in power.

A question re: Looker: Would he be too recognizable as a member of the International Police, or could he conceivably disguised himself as a Flare admin waiting for the right moment to strike? Again, it's on the writers for not letting him do anything in what the games consider to be his Home Region.

And I think Giovanni is engaged in misdirection by letting them chase Pikachu all over the planet. He doesn't care about Pikachu, but nobody realizes that the neurotic, ineffectual thieves are collecting vital intelligence for Team Rocket.

Its kinda hard to feel sorry for Team Rocket when most, if not all, of their misfortune is entirely their own fault. Yea, mock Ash for being a bland loser all you want, but a lot of people seem to forget that Team Rocket like to be dicks and revel in it. Makes them more interesting to watch sure, but by no means do I feel sorry for them whenever they're sent packing.

Well not really feel sorry for them as in the Unintentionally Unsympathetic manner, but more the fact they're the underdog, and that after a while it's easy to grow apathetic to a hero that never ever has to put any effort into winning, especially in a show that's supposed to be action focused. They're bigger jerks than Ash for sure, but they have more qualities to them that elicit pity.

edited 9th Aug '16 10:40:18 PM by Psi001