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Old 06-18-2014, 03:03 PM   #1
Talon87
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Pokémon XY


Ash arrives in the Kalos region where he meets Professor Sycamore and learns about a mysterious new evolution called Mega Evolution. As he adventures across Kalos challenging trainers, earning gym badges, and learning more about Mega Evolution, Ash is joined on his quest by the young inventor Clemont, his little sister Bonnie, and a girl named Serena who has had a crush on Ash since childhood.

Pokémon XY is an amalgam of different properties from past series. In the tradition of older series, Team Rocket have returned to their comic relief antics; but in keeping with the traditions of Best Wishes, the trio aren't always quite so silly and they don't show up in every single episode either. One huge departure from Best Wishes is Ash's team size: whereas in Best Wishes it grew as big as ten Pokémon by the end and had achieved a size of six within only the first ten or so episodes, thirty episodes into XY and Ash still only has three Pokémon on his team, of which one is his trusty partner Pikachu. Fillers are back (or rather have been since Decolora Adventure at the end of the BW saga) but are typically pretty good episodes in their own right. You'll have to watch it for yourself to see whether you like it more than or less than past series you've seen before.
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Old 06-18-2014, 03:04 PM   #2
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Click on the links below to read our posts on episodes not found in this thread. Note that posts are provided in chronological order per episode but are not in overall chronological order. (Example: Talon87's post about Episode 007 was written before Talon87's post about Episode 001.)

Episode 001: Doppleganger, Talon87

Episode 002: ---

Episode 003: ---

Episode 004: Char

Episode 005: Doppleganger, kaisap112, Talon87, Doppleganger, Talon87

Episode 006: Doppleganger, Talon87

Episode 007: Talon87, Char, Talon87, Doppleganger, big bad birtha

Episode 008: Doppleganger, big bad birtha

Episode 009: Doppleganger

Episode 010: Talon87, big bad birtha

Episode 011: big bad birtha

Episode 012: I'm not sure anybody wrote about it

Episode 013: Talon87, Talon87, Adamant, Talon87

Episode 014: Talon87, Talon87, big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 015: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 016: Talon87

Episode 017: big bad birtha, Talon87, Adamant, Talon87,

Episode 018: Talon87, Adamant, Talon87, Adamant, Talon87

Episode 019: Talon87, big bad birtha

Episode 020: Talon87, big bad birtha

Episode 021: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 022: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 023: big bad birtha

Episode 024: did not air

Episode 025: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 026: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 027: big bad birtha, Talon87

Episode 028: big bad birtha, Talon87, Doppleganger, Talon87

Episode 029: big bad birtha

Episode 030: big bad birtha

Last edited by Talon87; 06-30-2014 at 10:55 PM.
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Old 06-18-2014, 03:35 PM   #3
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I’m so done with the Pokémon anime and its repetitive, commercial, one-dimensional formula. With Ash no closer to becoming a Pokémon master now than he was in 1997 I just don’t see the point in investing my hopes - and more importantly - my time in it. It’s clear that Ash will never achieve is goal because the series will never come to an end. A fresh audience will be introduced to the anime at the start of each generation, so they don’t really have to worry that the same Pikachu that beat a Regice and drew with a Latios lost to the first gym leader’s Panpour. Older fans will notice and whine and complain but it’s clear that they’re not catering to that audience.

Don’t get me wrong, if you want a cartoon with a semi-engaging storyn but no progression (like Scooby Doo or the Flintstones) then the Pokémon anime is just for you. I just can’t handle the false pretence that Ash’s journey is actually going anywhere. It’s been around for the majority of my life and he still hasn’t defeated a single elite four member (they’re always implied to be leagues ahead of him) or even reached the top 2 in a Pokémon League. These feats are all easily achievable in the games, do they really think that it would ruin the show if he actually did win the Sinnoh league, beat the elite four and then lost to Cynthia? The executives are so adamant on making the show last forever that what they’re doing is detrimental to its quality. I wouldn’t pick this many flaws with any other kids show but I just don’t see how watching the anime should even be considered part of the package for an adult Pokémon fan. I also hate the fact that I (like many other people my age) invested a lot of time into Ash’s journey for no reward.
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Old 06-18-2014, 03:37 PM   #4
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Also Ash really hardcore sucks at Pokémon battling.
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Old 06-18-2014, 04:13 PM   #5
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Ash may actually be the worst pokémon trainer in existence.
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Old 06-18-2014, 05:01 PM   #6
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I don't think he's the worst, but a ten-year old with no access to the internet, Smogon nor any real sense of battling meta existing in the Pokemon universe is prodding around just like any child could be expected to.

That said, Ash consistently ignores the real bounty of the universe he lives in, the smoking hot females who want to ride him Rapidash style. Someone should make a Pokemon-style H game!
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Old 06-19-2014, 01:28 PM   #7
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I'm sure everyone has said this, but the Pokemon anime would be much better if they just let Satoshi grow, and start a new series with a different trainer. The main reason I didn't touch Pokemon for the longest was because of how silly his lack of growth seemed.

I started Best Wishes for a silly reason, but I ended up enjoying the hell out of it. The repetitive Team Rocket bullshit was gone, and there was just so much personality in the show. Most of the characters weren't one episode characters, and appeared fairly often. After getting into it, I just stuck with Pokemon to where it currently is, and admittedly am a bit disappointed. It's still entertaining enough for me to watch though. That said, thoughts on the latest two XY episodes:

31
Spoiler: show
Battle episode, eh? This one was okay. Nothing really memorable though. Actually I hardly remember what happened. Lucario fought Basharno...uhhhh...pictures. I'm drawing blanks!


32
Spoiler: show
Oh shit! LUCARIO IS EVIL AND GOOD LUCARIO MUST SAVE THE WORLD FROM RAMPAGING EVIL LUCARIO! That's not completely what happened, but that's what would have happened if this was a Godzilla movie or something. The episode was okay. A bunch of "YOU'RE NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR YOUR MEGA BRITCHES!" and pouty Corni shots. Actually pouty Corni was the best part of the episode. Honestly, they make her so much more powerful than Satoshi that I have a hard time believing he'll end up beating her. I'm sure they'll pull something dumb though.
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Old 06-19-2014, 01:44 PM   #8
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XY029:

Spoiler: show
I'm not a fan of Comic Relief Team Rocket, but like I told AK2 on the phone yesterday, this was pretty much an ideal CRTR episode. I really wish that we could see more episodes like this one out of the writers. While the Rocket Trio was still silly, they were also cunning. The two-layer plan was a welcome improvement over their usual one-layer travesties. And it wasn't just the fact that it had two layers either: each individual layer was pretty clever.

When I remarked to AK2, "Have we ever seen one of the main characters inadvertently working for Team Rocket as a sort of 'agent for hire' before?" he indicated that we had not. I'm not sure if he and I are correct in this conclusion or not, but it sure isn't a common occurrence, that's for sure. We've seen the heroes team up with the Rockets before, the whole "we may be enemies normally but right now we need to work together to defeat this greater enemy!" schtick. And we've seen Ash & Co. be duped by the Rockets before into playing into their hands. like disarming people of their Pokémon and placing the PokéBalls into a Rocket receptacle or some such. Stuff like that. But actually seeing one of the heroes work on a Rocket mecha before? I can't recall having seen this in any episode before. If it's true that this is the first time we've ever seen it, then it's pretty crazy that it took the writers this many episodes before thinking to do it. I told AK2 that this story would get boring quickly if it happened with regularity, which is a shame since it was so entertaining on the first pass through, but if the writers could come up with similarly novel story ideas like this one, it would go a long way towards making the bumbling Rocket Trio tolerable if not enjoyable.


I enjoyed the Giovanni cameo. I like that he seems to be much more positive towards the Rocket Trio now, much more supportive of their meager accomplishments. In past seasons, it would've been easy to imagine him slamming his fist on his armchair when they reported that they'd only managed to snag two Pokémon so far. But here, in Pokémon XY, he demonstrated appreciation of their achievements and encouraged them forward. I know that Pokémon is just a kid's show and that it doesn't care that badly about long-running plot arcs, but I like to think that what we're seeing is a canon reflection of Giovanni's gratitude for the Rocket Trio being there for him in Unova and even risking their lives to save his.






Possibly the funniest scene in the episode.


Though Jessie making ugly faces and deriding Serena while impersonating her was pretty funny too. Though I hadn't realized until this episode that Serena even had a catchphrase, much less that it was her "Jya JYAAAAN! " I actually like it when Serena says this, though I don't ever pay particular attention to it. She sounds cute while saying it. So like ... I guess what I'd have to conclude is, this is doing a catchphrase right, ShoPro. A, I didn't even notice it. It was unobtrusive, non-obnoxious. B, I happen to like it. That's what you want a catchphrase to be: something people enjoy and which isn't obtrusive or obnoxious. It fucking beats the [i]pants[/i[ off of "Kodome neeeeeeeee~! "

The new opening credits:

Spoiler: show

The forecast for Ash's team contains a mix of delights and disappointments. Going down the list one talking point at a time:

Hawlucha: Easily the most obvious change to the team is the addition of new team member Hawlucha. I'm split on this one. On the one hand, I'm disappointed that Hawlucha is "taking up a spot" on Ash's team since I'm not personally a big fan of the creature. Don't like the design, bummed out by the fact that it's already fully evolved, etc. On the other hand, I'm happy to see ShoPro adding a "shitmon" to Ash's main squad since that tends to be one of the surest fire ways to get the fandom to open up to a creature. Including me! So yeah. Make me love Hawlucha, ShoPro.

Fletchinder: the second most obvious change to Ash's team (although I think it might've actually been the first thing my own eyes noticed? ^^; ) is that his Fletchling has evolved into a Fletchinder. I think we all saw this coming -- that Fletchling would not remain a Fletchling forever -- and I very much welcome the news that we'll be getting Fletchinder some time before 2014 wraps up. I don't want them to rush it, but I can't wait for Ash to get Talonflame. Should be awesome -- especially if he carries it around on his arm like a falconer. (Though I imagine ShoPro would probably have it perch on his shoulder ... which also works!)

The team size: the next thing I noticed about Ash's team is that it still hasn't grown that much. Yes, he gains Hawlucha, but that's still only one new creature acquistion. :\ We're going to go another thirty or so episodes with such a small team? Really?

The thing is, the writers have to have learned from BW that bigger isn't always better: that while having Ash have a team of 10+ Pokémon can free you up to write whatever sorts of episodes you want to write with whichever creatures you want on hand for that particular script, it spreads the character writing too thin and all but guarantees that some of the team members are going to be hollow shells. That ended up being the case for Unfezant, Palpitoad, Boldore, and to a lesser extent Leavanny. And even Pignite wasn't that well written in the end. So like, I can totally see why the writers may have swung the other way with XY and decided to keep Ash's team small -- in order to ensure that everyone has a rich, fleshed-out personality.

The problem, though, is that this hasn't happened. It feels like we were promised character richness in exchange for a large team, and so we gave up the large team for a puny team of only three creatures ... and none of them feels all that developed. Pikachu continues to rest on the laurels of his character development in earlier series, Froakie still feels light years away from an Oshawott or a Chikorita, and Fletchling has been as without personality as Pidgeotto. That's sad. When there are only three creatures on the team to explore, that's really, really sad that none of them has gotten in thirty episodes anywhere near the development that Oshawott or Snivy got in the first thirty episodes of BW or that Emolga got in the first twenty episodes after her introduction.

So yeah. :\ I'm not entirely pessimistic about Ash having a team of only four creatures, but I'm not sold anymore on the notion that "small team means better written team " either. Which means that if we're going to have bland, uninteresting creatures anyway, then you might as well give us a large creature roster again.

This problem of small rosters gets worse when we see Serena's and Citron's teams. Neither trainer has gained any new additions nor evolutions according to the new opening credits. Given how much empty space surrounds Serena in her shot, I'm optimistic that it wasn't an artistic decision to show her in Nature with her Fennekin but rather a strategic decision to leave room for later creature additions. But I'm not holding my breath either. While Fennekin not evolving is predictable, Serena gaining no other new teammates is very disappointing.

Froakie: Last but not least, we have Froakie. Froakie, Froakie, Froakie. ^^; I remain optimistic that Ash's Froakie is going to evolve into a Frogadier and then a Greninja. I remain hopeful that the writers are already comfortable with Dedenne, Chespin, and Fennekin on hand that we don't need any for cutesy-wootsy never-ever-gonna-evolve fodder for the tots in the audience. But man. Man, this isn't a good sign. The new OP credits show Froakie several times looking really super badass, almost as if the writers are trying to sell us hard on the idea that Froakie doesn't have to evolve to be awesome. And it's like, we get it, ShoPro. We've seen you push that agenda so many times it makes me gag to even think about it again. Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Pikachu ... Buizel, Oshawott, Snivy ... We get it. We get it. You don't need to keep writing the whole "Haha, he's only a wittle baby but he still kicks the gwown-ups' butts " angle. It's gotten dull and it's ever the killjoy. For a franchise that focuses so heavily on creature evolution, how FUCKED UP is it that the anime team revels in keeping things unevolved? Like, seriously. How is that not the dumbest decision from a marketing POV? You're trying to sell kids on a video game and card game which glorifies evolution ... and you're doing it by delivering a cartoon in which you don't let the creatures evolve because other marketing studies show that the little babies in the audience prefer the cute, small Pokémon to the big, ferocious Pokémon.

Look. Froakie is not a cute Pokémon. Dare I say it, there is not a single baby in Japan who tunes into Pokémon and has picked out Froakie as their favorite. Dedenne, Pikachu, Fennekin, sure. Chespin, Bunnelby, maybe even Fletchling who you just went and evolved. But Froakie? No, not Froakie. Froakie's kinda ugly and his personality isn't written for the tots either. So why aren't you going to let him evolve? Why are you going to insist on writing the seventh fucking non-evolving Water Pokémon of Ash Ketchum's? Seriously:
  • Squirtle? Never evolved.
  • Lapras? Couldn't evolve. Wouldn't have even if we'd wanted it to though. (It did age later, which is the closest thing I guess we'll ever get to Lapras evolution.)
  • Totodile? Never evolved.
  • Corphish? Never evolved.
  • Buizel? Never evolved.
  • Oshawott? Never evolved.
Now we're on to Froakie. Seriously, guys: knock it off and fucking give Ash a Water Pokémon that evolves for once.


Couldn't help but to notice just what a heavy focus the new opening credits place on Diantha and Korrina. I would be pretty surprised if we don't see Diantha again in the next thirty episodes. And as for Korrina, it's much more than that: if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Korrina was about to join the team! O-o Thing is, the team is already maxed out at four. Adding a fifth regular member could be too much. I think that Korrina's presence would also take away a lot from one of Eureka's roles on the team as "the other girl for Serena to do girlie things with." If you add in same-age Korrina, there's no way that Serena is going to do things with little-girl Eureka anymore. But yeah. Wow. The new opening credits have got Korrina everywhere, it seems. O_o The fact that we didn't see a single hint of Ramos or other future plot points makes me wonder if this new opening is only going to stick around for thirteen or so episodes. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Also, I should point out that Gardevoir looks the best she's looked in a ShoPro appearance yet in that picture above. Thank God. -_-; She's still not quite as good as she is in most Game Freak official art or most fanart, but still. At least she doesn't look like a poorly-drawn cyclops.

(picture of the XY buddies here)

Not pictured (because I failed to take a picture and am too lazy to go and upload anything more right now! -.-; ) was one of the most exciting elements of the new opening credits: the presence of Tierno, Trevor, and Shauna. It'll be interesting to see how they factor into the anime. Will they be Serena's friends from her hometown? Will they be written in as other children who attended Professor Oak's summer camp all those years ago? What? What will they do, who will they be? Can't wait to find out.
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Old 06-19-2014, 03:45 PM   #9
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XY030:

Spoiler: show
Not too much to say about this episode. It was okay.


I appreciated that the writers had Pikachu battle Korrina's Lucario in a serious 1v1. It wasn't an official gym match, and Ash didn't even know at the time that Korrina was a gym leader, but nearly every fan watching would have known she was one -- and that's the point. By having Pikachu face off against Korrina's best Pokémon, the writers get Pikachu out of the way and don't have to worry about having him show up in the official gym match.

For people who want to see Pikachu in the official gym match: the writers are basically saying, "Well hey! We kinda gave you what you wanted anyway! I mean, sure, this wasn't official or anything ... but like, it was just as good!" Indeed, the way the two creatures fought was pretty much identical to what we would have expected from a gym match. Neither creature went down after only one blow. Both trainers got in quite a few orders before anyone fainted.

For people who don't want to see Pikachu hogging a gym battle slot: We've heard you. Don't worry, don't worry: we're going to give Ash's other Pokémon opportunities to shine from here on out. Pikachu will of course be in some future gym matches, but the next one at the very least will see Froakie, Fletchling/Fletchinder, Hawlucha ... anyone but Pikachu participating. We hope you enjoy it.

It's a well-executed compromise. Sure, they've still technically denied those who wanted Pikachu in the official match, but they couldn't have given them a nicer gift of apology if they'd tried.


I don't want to read into things too much, but I'll just go ahead and say it: I'm disappointed that the writers didn't do more to indicate a Korrina x Citron couple. If Korrina ends up joining the team (doubtful, but those new opening credits ... O_o), I feel like it'd make for a nice, neat little package if you had Ash x Serena and Citron x Korrina. She's the extroverted athlete, he's the introverted inventor. She admires him, he admires her. Could be a fun little relationship to explore.

And as if that weren't enough, the icing on the cake is that Eureka didn't do her usual "Will you marry my brother, s'il vous plaît?" schpiel either. Normally that's a death sentence for Citron being able to pair up with anyone. But the field's wide open for Korrina ... ;o

Anyway, now I'm starting to sound like some crazy fan shipper. So I'll calm down and say that I agree that there was next to nothing to work on in this episode and that I very much doubt that the writers will ever pair Citron with Korrina. Besides: Citron's already got the Parfum Palace princess.


Korrina, Korni, whatever you like to call her ... she's an okay character so far but I guess I'm not really feeling her too well. Like, I'm not as excited about her as I was about Viola or Diantha. I guess I'd say Korrina is more at a Grant-level of excitement for me right now. That could change, of course, as I press onward into these next few episodes. Yeah. I'm hoping to see more out of her that makes me really like her.


Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction: Diancie is too cute. I don't think I've seen any movies later than the ninth. This, the seventeenth, will be the first Pokémon movie I look forward to checking out in years. Pokémon movies tend to be pretty sappy-silly but Dianciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie.
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Old 06-19-2014, 04:56 PM   #10
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I've edited the second post in the thread to now include links to our discussion posts that I found by searching the Suggestion Box for instances of the word "Pokémon". If you wrote a post about an episode between XY011 and XY032, inclusive, that has been skipped over and you would like included in the list of linked posts, please contact me either via PM or via this thread. As for Episodes XY001 thru XY010, I'll try to get those included later tonight, tomorrow, whenever. It was a surprising amount of effort to get 011 thru 030 done, especially since -- much to my surprise -- I didn't have banner pics for many of the episodes. For those episodes, I went to Bulbapedia and lazily used their own choice image for the episode's article. (But man if Bulba's editors don't have poor taste for which pictures would be the best non-spoiler representations of the episodes. :\ They should take a page out of my book or PocketMonsters' book! :p)

Looking back at the older episodes, I was surprised by just how many of them were lower-quality fillers. Honestly, week by week XY hasn't felt like that poor of a series, but looking back at the first thirty episodes I can see how this would not be an anime that most of you would be interested in giving a second shot. However! Say you are somewhat curious about which episodes keep us talking each week. Say you want to watch just one or two of the best episodes XY has to offer so far. Well, while these opinions are only my own, the top three episodes I could find when going back through the Suggestion Box for our old posts were Episodes 014, 018, and 027. (You can find links to our posts about these episodes above, in the second post in this thread.) Tastes vary and you might feel like some of the other episodes are better than these, but these I think are my top three picks out of the latest twenty episodes that I've seen.

XY014 is a haunted house episode in which the children meet an Espurr. It's my personal favorite of the XY series, for reasons that I think adult viewers are especially likely to appreciate.

XY018 is the episode where the kids visit Parfum Palace. It's a comedic episode with a tsundere princess. Lots of laughs and lots of d'awws were had.

XY027 is an episode where Eureka must help a Flabébé get back to its rightful trainer even though she really wants to keep it for herself. Even though its message is intended for very young children, adults in the audience will be able to appreciate the presentation. Give this one a pass if you don't want to watch any episodes meant for children ages 3 to 8 but give it a look if you're curious to see one of the best episodes XY has to offer for that demographic.

That stated, some of the best moments XY has to offer are found in the opening coeur of the series, so if you really want my advice, I'd say to start off with XY001 and watch through XY005. (And be sure to watch the Pocket Monsters subs if you do decide to watch but need reading assistance! There was a rewrite-fansubber at the start of the series who released poor subs of the first five episodes; and because he was one of the first past the post, these poor subs of his are unfortunately in circulation. They got a lot of subtleties wrong that can impact how you perceive the characters. Not good!)
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Old 06-19-2014, 06:06 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Spoiler: show


Though Jessie making ugly faces and deriding Serena while impersonating her was pretty funny too. Though I hadn't realized until this episode that Serena even had a catchphrase, much less that it was her "Jya JYAAAAN! " I actually like it when Serena says this, though I don't ever pay particular attention to it. She sounds cute while saying it. So like ... I guess what I'd have to conclude is, this is doing a catchphrase right, ShoPro. A, I didn't even notice it. It was unobtrusive, non-obnoxious. B, I happen to like it. That's what you want a catchphrase to be: something people enjoy and which isn't obtrusive or obnoxious. It fucking beats the [i]pants[/i[ off of "Kodome neeeeeeeee~! "
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
The new opening credits:

Spoiler: show
[center]
Froakie: Last but not least, we have Froakie. Froakie, Froakie, Froakie. ^^; I remain optimistic that Ash's Froakie is going to evolve into a Frogadier and then a Greninja. I remain hopeful that the writers are already comfortable with Dedenne, Chespin, and Fennekin on hand that we don't need any for cutesy-wootsy never-ever-gonna-evolve fodder for the tots in the audience. But man. Man, this isn't a good sign. The new OP credits show Froakie several times looking really super badass, almost as if the writers are trying to sell us hard on the idea that Froakie doesn't have to evolve to be awesome.
To be fair Chimchar didn't evolve for a very long time and evolved again shortly after so :/
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Old 06-19-2014, 11:26 PM   #12
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I second Suigin's episode recommendations. In a series full of blanks, those three stood out most to me.

My biggest disappointment for XY would be how little Serena was explored. She had so much potential, but she had no development. Not only that, but her episodes have sucked.

Also, yes, anime Diancie is really cute.
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Old 06-20-2014, 12:14 AM   #13
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My biggest disappointment for XY would be how little Serena was explored. She had so much potential, but she had no development. Not only that, but her episodes have sucked.
The problem that I think the writers have encountered with Serena is that they created a character whose entire established history has to do with romantic feelings towards Ash ... yet they continue to want Ash to be a psychologically prepubescent boy, incapable of reciprocating Serena's feelings. Something's gotta give. Either the writers finally give Serena something else to do besides / in addition to pining over Ash ... or else they bite the bullet, brace for impact with all of the angry Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, Gary, Brock, Pikachu, Latias, etc. shippers, and have Ash start to discover that he has feelings for Serena. One or the other. 'Cause you can't have this beautiful barnacle attached to the hull for much longer, doing nothing but looking pretty and being adorable. Like, I love Serena, don't get me wrong, but aside from the fact that she's a girl in love and I have a soft spot for such characters there isn't really much for me to love about her.

From what I know of ShoPro, they're not going to have Ash fall in love. Much as I wish they would. Much as I would love for them to prove me wrong. And to be fair, they totally, totally have proven me wrong in equally large ways before! Let's not forget that Unova saw Ash and Giovanni finally meeting face to face. I mean, that was pretty huge. That ranks right on up there with "we meet Ash's dad," "Ash wins a league tournament," and "Pikachu evolves." So if the writers as recently as a year and a half ago were willing to give us that, then sure, maybe they'd also be willing to evolve Ash from prepubescent boy to pubescent young teenager. But I really, really doubt that they're going to do this. And sooooooooooooooo ...

That leaves us with only one question remaining: will the writers give Serena something else to do besides hoping to be the future Mrs. Ash Ketchum or won't they? I'm pretty sure that they will. In fact, I've enjoyed the refreshing exploration of career possibilities that Serena has represented. Far too often, characters in the Pokémon universe either already know what they want to be when they grow up or else they find out fairly quickly. On rare occasion, a character will take a single sharp detour in their life (e.g. Brock), but even then these detours are singular and purposeful. Let's list off some characters who knew what they wanted to be before we met them and who have yet to change their minds: Ash (Pokémon Master), Misty (Water Pokémon Master), Iris (Dragon Master), Dent (top-grade Sommelier), Cabernet (top-grade Sommelier), Langley (dragonslayer what was it she called herself? ) ... okay, that's good. What about characters who didn't know what they wanted to do at first but found out super quickly? May (Contest Coordinator) and Dawn (Contest Coordinator) come to mind immediately. How about ones who knew at first but then took that one-time detour? Gary (Pokémon Master --> Pokémon researcher) and Brock (Pokémon breeder --> medical doctor) come to mind. But how about characters who had no idea what they wanted to be when they grew up? Characters who didn't know when we first met them ... or ten episodes later ... or twenty ... or thirty ... Characters who tried out a dozen different things and they were decently good at each of them, even had the potential to be great, but they weren't really sure if any of them were the right fit? We've never had a character like that until now, but the thing is, it's a wonderful character to have in a children's story. Because many, many children will experience in life what Serena is experiencing. While their friends and peers will all seem to have a sense of purpose, a sense of direction in life, these children will feel lost at sea. "There's so much I can be ... but what do I want to be? " In that sense, I find Serena to be a breath of fresh air. She's not like May or Dawn who figures it out instantly and without any detours along the way. She's not like Ash or Iris who figured it out before we even met them. She's still figuring shit out. And she's trying everything along the way. Rhyhorn racing, trainer videos, PokéPuff baking, macaron making, this girl is trying it all. We've already seen that she could become a better Rhyhorn racer if she applied herself. But will she? We've already seen that she has the potential to take trainer videos seriously and compete with the world's best for No.1 most popular. But will she go down that path? We've already seen her discover a potential rival in Millefi. But will Serena pursue a career in baking Poffles or will she be content to remain an enthusiastic amateur? Who knows. Frankly, it's kinda neat and it's kinda exciting to see this girl with so much potential, with so many avenues she can go down, and not yet knowing which ones will remain one-time flings for her and which one is going to become her lifelong career.

Of course, Serena could envision herself being a humble housewife of the future Indigo League Champion ... but for the writers to justify Serena's career ambitions as professional housewife, they're going to half to open up to writing a love story between her and Ash. And I think that's so much less likely than them giving her a career goal that I think we'll see a career goal emerge at some point in the next twenty to fifty episodes. Until then, Serena will continue to be a beautiful barnacle.
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Old 06-20-2014, 12:39 AM   #14
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The problem with Serena is she's under a magic spell that reduced her to 10 years old from her real age of 16. Remove that, the hormones start to flow and she'll be far more aggressive toward Ash.

Man though, you had to remind me about Brock. What a cop-out. Changing his dream went hand-in-hand with the de-emphasis on Pokemon Breeding in the game.

Also, is it just me, or is the fact that the Kalos Champion's signature Pokemon being a female Gardevoir some type of fanservice?
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Old 06-20-2014, 01:12 AM   #15
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Woah, active thread on the current Pokemon anime. Yes
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Old 06-21-2014, 08:22 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
The new opening credits:

Spoiler: show
Couldn't help but to notice just what a heavy focus the new opening credits place on Diantha and Korrina. I would be pretty surprised if we don't see Diantha again in the next thirty episodes.
It should be mentioned that this one-hour special the opening debuted in was originally meant to consist of episode 28 and 29, not 29 and 30. Episode 24 being skipped meant things had to be shuffled around a bit.

These scenes in the opening tie into episode 28 a lot, so their presence makes more sense if you keep that in mind.
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Old 06-21-2014, 04:11 PM   #17
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Accroding to Bulapedia, episode 24 will still air, but just outside of Japan.
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Old 06-21-2014, 04:21 PM   #18
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Accroding to Bulapedia, episode 24 will still air, but just outside of Japan.
AK2 told me about this several weeks ago when Bulbapedia first reported it; but only a few days later he called again to say that Bulbapedia had retracted their previous claim and that new news had been brought forth which painted a different picture. Let's see what we can find ...

Quote:
This episode is unique among skipped and banned episodes as it has a known English dub title. The title leaked on a backdoor schedule from Cartoon Network, but was pulled by Turner Broadcasting the next day and replaced by Climbing the Walls!.
Source
Quote:
This episode, which was set to debut Skrelp and Dragalge, was postponed due to the sinking of the MV Sewol ferry in South Korea almost a week before the episode was scheduled to air in Japan.[1] Because of this, the dub version has yet to be shown anywhere around the world. Cartoon Network listed the dub title along with A PokéVision of Things to Come!, Going for the Gold!, and Coming Back into the Cold!. Later, however, it was removed from the list and was replaced with Climbing the Walls!. At the moment, it is unknown when, or if, the episode will air.
Source

So yeah, I don't think you can count on the episode airing any time soon (if ever). Historically the Japanese haven't been fond of letting us get to see episodes that they chose to ban because of Japan-only reasons. (The Whiscash episode and the originally-planned Unova two-part showdown between Team Rocket and Team Plasma are two good examples of this.) Western fans got excited about the Skrelp episode because they wanted to assume Cartoon Network's mentioning the episode's English title meant that they were planning to air it anyway ... but seeing as the network quickly retracted the title and replaced it with the title of the next episode in line, it seems like they just messed up and that someone quickly brought their error to their attention and they corrected it.
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Old 06-21-2014, 06:03 PM   #19
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That's good because I never want to see Dragalge again.
Spoiler: show


Also, didn't the new opening credits show Shauna, Tierno, and Trevor with Kanto starters. Because I was wondering where all the rivals went in this series :P
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Old 06-21-2014, 06:11 PM   #20
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I previously discussed this -- spoiler tagged, too, because I don't think the English language dub is this far in the series yet and I know that many viewers who prefer to watch with the dub take their "it already aired in Japan and so people are talking about it outside of spoiler tags like that's an okay thing to do"-spoilers seriously. I figure that once it's aired in America it's fair game given how low the interest is on UPN in the Pokémon anime, but until it airs there I tend to at least try to tag things. I might forget here or there but yeah. Already discussed up above. ^^;
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Old 06-21-2014, 07:13 PM   #21
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Ah, I must have missed it. Also yeah spoilers. Whoops
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Old 06-21-2014, 09:34 PM   #22
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AK2 told me about this several weeks ago when Bulbapedia first reported it; but only a few days later he called again to say that Bulbapedia had retracted their previous claim and that new news had been brought forth which painted a different picture. Let's see what we can find ...
Bulbapedia has an incredibly ability to jump the gun and report incorrect information without bothering to think things through first. It was an embarrassing error on their part that should never have happened.

Like every other fan wiki, the fact that anyone and everyone can edit the site obviously leads to a lot of inaccuracies and misinformation all over the place, but their biggest problem is that many of the people running the place just plain don't know what they're doing. That's how nonsense like this ends up getting reported as fact - there's no one filtering what their various writers report to prevent crap like this slipping through the cracks, and no one there appear to have the journalistic integrity to properly retract articles, or even look into the matter when it's pointed out what they report isn't correct.
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Old 06-21-2014, 09:51 PM   #23
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Your complaints with Bulbapedia give way to a large (albeit off-topic) discussion about the state of journalism in greater modern society. Without going too deep down the rabbit hole here, I'll just say something which your post above indicates you probably already know: modern journalism suffers for the felt need to be among the first ones out with the story. Speedy misreporting followed by later retractions as necessary trumps cautiously waiting to publish stories until they have been verified.* I'm not a journalist by trade or hobby, but if this is a topic you feel passionately about, please do feel encouraged to make a thread for it. I'm sure people would love to discuss it with you, though you'll likely find little more than a lot of agreement here.

EDIT: Just so there's no confusion, the line with the asterisk at the end of it isn't my personal opinion: it's an expansion upon the line which precedes it, and reflects what I believe the industry to believe. I myself have the opposite belief of the asterisked line.

Last edited by Talon87; 06-21-2014 at 10:58 PM.
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Old 06-22-2014, 09:19 AM   #24
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It's a topic I care about, but not one I really feel I have all that much to say about.. because honestly, what is there to say? When articles can be published the second they're done, Internet journalists need to write and publish fast if they want their hits, otherwise the audience will just flock to their faster competition. It's a terrible trend, but there's not much to discuss about it beyond just sitting in a circle and nodding in agreement.

(Though as I said, Bulbapedia's main issue is that it's a non-profit fansite with a gigantic staff mostly made up of people who offered to help rather than people those who run the ship bothered verifying were qualified to help)

But yeah, we're getting a bit off-topic here.
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Old 06-22-2014, 10:25 AM   #25
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If such a thread is created I will also be interested in complain in bitterly about how terrible journalism and 'pedias have gotten.

Back on topic, how are people finding the dynamic of having three supporting characters again?
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