This series had some pretty good ideas, but lacked the time to properly develop them. Because the decision was made to have a four episode ministries rather than a longer one,
- characterizations ended up either bare bones (Red, who comes off as a standard shounen idiot hero) or inconsistent (Blue, who seems to shift from "friendly rival to "utter jerk" and back on a dime)
- lots of telling, rather than showing (each episode starts with a couple minutes of "I did this, and this happened" type recap)
- a lack of struggle for the protagonist. We never really get to see Red work for his goals, which really cheapens any feeling of success. This is made worse by the decision to use the forth episode on capturing Mewtwo, rather than becoming champion.
In spite of the pacing issues, Origins still has some good points. The animation is gorgeous, Blue and Giovanni both showed some potential to be interesting, the Cubone episode hits all the right notes once you get through the "here's all trhe things we won't show you recap, the line about the move not being effective makes me laugh, and it gives some explanation for the escalation in gym leader ability. All in all, this could have been a good product if it had about 5-10 more episodes.
A decent idea, without enough time to grow
This series had some pretty good ideas, but lacked the time to properly develop them. Because the decision was made to have a four episode ministries rather than a longer one,
- characterizations ended up either bare bones (Red, who comes off as a standard shounen idiot hero) or inconsistent (Blue, who seems to shift from "friendly rival to "utter jerk" and back on a dime)
- lots of telling, rather than showing (each episode starts with a couple minutes of "I did this, and this happened" type recap)
- a lack of struggle for the protagonist. We never really get to see Red work for his goals, which really cheapens any feeling of success. This is made worse by the decision to use the forth episode on capturing Mewtwo, rather than becoming champion.
In spite of the pacing issues, Origins still has some good points. The animation is gorgeous, Blue and Giovanni both showed some potential to be interesting, the Cubone episode hits all the right notes once you get through the "here's all trhe things we won't show you recap, the line about the move not being effective makes me laugh, and it gives some explanation for the escalation in gym leader ability. All in all, this could have been a good product if it had about 5-10 more episodes.