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Old 02-16-2015, 07:50 AM   #1
Talon87
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Pokémon BW: Best Wishes


"The Best Wishes series (Japanese: ポケットモンスターベストウイッシュ Pocket Monsters Best Wishes!) is the fourth series of the Pokémon anime, following after the Diamond & Pearl series, and based on the events of the Generation V games. It ran from September 23, 2010 to September 26, 2013 in Japan and from February 12, 2011 to December 7, 2013 in the United States." - Bulbapedia

I don't think this requires further explanation. Feel free to discuss BW here. (And please quit derailing the XY thread! :p)
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Old 02-16-2015, 07:50 AM   #2
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Old 02-16-2015, 07:51 AM   #3
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Old 02-16-2015, 08:27 AM   #4
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Ah the BW anime, I remember how hyped I was back in 2011 for this. I was expecting Ash to become this god-like trainer after Sinnoh and I even bought the BW games on launch just to express my excitement. Then the Trip battle happened, I didn't drop BW because of that, I knew every series had some sort of flaw (OS's poor battles in Kanto, Johto's fillers, Hoenn's sometimes really poor animation, Sinnoh's fillers.). And so I kept watching until my cable stopped working...for the rest of 2012. I think I watched up to Mistralton City, BWS2 , or something. I did watch as many episodes I could online though, despite some minor annoyances along the way like Cilan (Who I did end up liking.), Iris (See Cilan.), etc. Then Cameron got introduced...I don't understand how could he have even gone to the Top 4 in the League, not even Kanto Ash and his luck battling got him higher than Top 16. At least Charizard's return made things interesting during Episode N, that was a great arc. Decolora Adventures wasn't very exciting, for one, a PWT mini-series like Battle Frontier or the OI would've been much better, and it felt like stalling for XY. That was my initial watchthrough of BW. I'll add in my thoughts on it in the present when I feel like to.

Edit: So for some reason, I hated BW for a bit after it was over, likely because I was still angry about the Trip battles, Trip himself, Cameron, along with those other annoying factors I mentioned. But upon watching it again, I realized how much better it was than I remember. Ash did show some battling skills in the series like against Brycen, Cilan was much better than DP Brock for not being as annoying, Iris's Dragon Master goal could've gone better with her catching more Dragons, but she was also fine as well. Rivals were all cool save for Bianca's lame gags and Cameron.

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Old 02-16-2015, 09:37 AM   #5
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Wow, its run was really too short...
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Old 02-16-2015, 11:10 AM   #6
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As said earlier, it's a bit of a surprise that I'm seeing split audiences with BW. Very strong affirmation that it sucks when I've read what Talon said before, that it was genuinely entertaining and refreshing (although not to the Japanese cast) until the Tohoku Earthquake.
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Old 02-16-2015, 01:35 PM   #7
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As said earlier, it's a bit of a surprise that I'm seeing split audiences with BW. Very strong affirmation that it sucks when I've read what Talon said before, that it was genuinely entertaining and refreshing (although not to the Japanese cast) until the Tohoku Earthquake.
The earthquake happened only around episode 25 or so. The first 20 episodes were refreshing because of serious TR, Cilan replacing Brock, but after the Team Rocket/Plasma arc was canceled it went into a rut.

Best Wishes isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but it seemed to be a saga where the writers had no clue what to do with it after a while.
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Old 08-21-2016, 04:37 PM   #8
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Who we need to identify are individuals who saw Best Wishes as their first anime. The rolling theory is that only old fans disliked BW, being that their preference was simply

XY spoilers

Spoiler: show

"an XY where Ash wins".


So, if a new fan saw BW as their first region and loved it, it definitely suggests that most of the hate is from nostalgia bingers on the earlier series.
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Old 08-21-2016, 04:54 PM   #9
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BW has plenty to recommend it but seeing as how I hated Oshawank I am inherently stuck.
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Old 08-21-2016, 05:20 PM   #10
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In my experience, there aren't really any clear-cut criteria for who will dislike Best Wishes. To give only one example, age: while it's true that there's an observed bias towards younger viewers disliking it (I'd say 70% of the haters are 18 or below), that still leaves 30% of the haters being adults. And Pokémon's not exactly a series where we'd describe 30% adult viewership as being "fewer adults than we'd expect," so it's not like we can pursue it through that angle either.

General tendencies I have seen though, just listing them off:
  • younger viewers
  • viewers who hadn't dropped the show since picking it up (however long ago that was) and were suffering from burnout
  • people who enjoyed the formula which so many bemoaned in 2010 (e.g. they were unhappy to see Brock go, they were unhappy to see Comic Relief Team Rocket written out of the show)
  • people who hated the new art style and couldn't or wouldn't get over it
  • people who already disliked Unova as a region and brought those biases into their Best Wishes viewing experience
Typically, people who were demanding Team Rocket's departure plus who had picked the anime back up with DP or BW after a hiatus plus people who were older and had maturer tastes and expectations out of their storytelling ... people like me, in a nutshell , they don't seem to dislike Unova all that much. Kush offers that he can't stand Oshawott but afaik he also didn't drop the anime until BW, which disqualifies him from being my roommate because I had dropped the show, hard, in the midst of Johto and didn't pick it back up until the tail end of Sinnoh. dirkac iirc has previously gone on record stating that BW was awful but at the same time dirkac is, what? 20 years old right now? Would've been only 17 when XY started. Would've been only 14 when Best Wishes started, a pretty perfect age for abandoning a childhood pastime, not to mention a rather inexperienced age for literary analysis. Whenever someone speaks up saying BW sucks, there's always an explanation for their wrong opinion. ;P

Long story short, I think that:
  1. yes, if you did a double blind study with large sample sizes then you would probably observe that BW fares better with newcomers and hiatus-ending returners than it fares with continuers.
  2. no, you would not find that it's like 90% popular with the newcomer group. I still think you'd have a fair number of people who dislike it, for any number of reasons. (Age, personal taste, "I liked idiot Team Rocket! ", whatever.)
At the end of the day, people's preferences for Pokémon seasons is one of those things that's politest left alone. No one likes to be told "hurr durr you only hated it because you were a babby and babbies are dumb, stupid babby ". No one likes to be told, "Well go fuck yourself" just because they say that one of my favorite Pokémon in the series' history is a barrier to entry for them. And I don't like to hear the reverse in kind either. Nothing's gained from putting people down, on either side of the fence. (If you got this far, gratz: you understand I meant nothing by the dirkac or Kush examples. And fuck it, I'm too lazy to even look up how old dirkac really is, because it really doesn't matter.)

It would be nice, though, if we could come at it more objectively, more ... "these are the hard cold facts which explain why you are right/wrong to hold the opinion you hold." Alas.
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Old 08-21-2016, 05:55 PM   #11
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I'm not used to anime having a litany of reasons for likes/dislikes. I've watched a ton of shows over the years, and most of them fall into very predictable patterns with very identifiable pivots.

Whether you like/dislike Sakura overwhelmingly colours your opinion of Heaven's Feel. Whether you felt Taiga was supposed to be a bro or a romance interest influences your attitude toward ToraDora. Whether you considered Lelouch good or bad impacts your outlook on how Code Geass ended.

It's all very easy, like fantasy basketball. Perhaps it's because of the high number of young, irrational viewers who can be outraged at one small detail that I don't get the BW feedback. If there's any bias in anime I watch, it's that it's predominantly dominated by highly educated, mature viewers, i.e. the people who graduated from Pokemon-like shows years and years ago.

Yet, YGO is still pretty infantile and has followed the same predictable patterns. So what do I have to watch to see divisiveness like this in another anime.

Naruto? Bleach? oh wait they're over lolz
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Old 08-21-2016, 06:12 PM   #12
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I started watching the Pokemon anime around Battle Frontier, dropped it around the end of Sinnoh, then picked it back up around halfway through BW's overall run. I binge-watched the first few episodes and got caught up, and I ended up really liking it. I actually preferred most of BW to XY because, despite a few interesting things in XY (i.e., Ash's competence, Serena's crush), it still felt like it was playing it too safe. BW tried stuff that I thought worked, for the most part. I guess it also helps that Unova is my favorite region. Although I do have to say I enjoyed Ash's smaller team in XY. That was fun.
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Old 03-20-2019, 03:49 AM   #13
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So I've picked this up! A year bereft of quality anime and the upcoming ending of SM have left me longing for more, so I've turned to the Unova region to give me my Pokemon jollies. (paraphrase of a famous post).

Immediately off the bat, I can confirm what Talon pointed out as "butthurt". The battle against Shootie that people trumpet as an example of the anime's poor writing was, in fact, a smear campaign.

Let's begin.



This triggered so many people in the day, I bought into the lies that Pikachu lost to a Level 5 Snivy. But almost all of this is fabricated. The episode itself contradicts the memes.

The first issue to address: Pikachu's strength. Pikachu's preceding battle was to tie against Latios in the Sinnoh League Semi-Finals. Did Pokemon completely ignore this continuity going in to Unova?



Nope. Here is Team Rocket outright stating, once and for all time, that Pikachu is the most powerful Pikachu in the world. Meowth even hams it up by saying its power goes beyond levels, i.e. stronger than Level 100.

It's important to note that TR was mistaken when they first started pursuing Ash and Pikachu - there was nothing in Indigo proper to show Pikachu as some kind of one in a million Pokemon, and all that was special was his personality quirks. But Pikachu eventually became the monster TR believed he was. It's impossible to conclude otherwise after the Latios battle.

Pikachu is strength sapped by Zekrom, and ends up fighting Shootie's Snivy.



Shootie claims this, but he doesn't know it for certain. Snivy's battle history with Juniper is a mystery. It's technically his first battle since he only just became a trainer, but from how he conducted himself he doesn't seem unfamiliar with Pokemon battling. For comparison, he proved himself more capable than a bonafide prodigy like Shota in XY.

Now on to the battle itself...



Pikachu is exhausted attempting Volt Tackle. Not using it. Attempting. Which goes to show that not only did Pikachu lose the ability to fire off electric attacks, his stamina was also diminished to the point that charging and dodging winded him.



When I played BW, I certainly didn't have a Leaf Tornado on my starter, also a male Snivy. I had to look up this move since I don't remember it much.



Snivy doesn't learn Leaf Tornado until Level 16, one level before it evolves into Servine. I think this pretty much murders any accusations that it's a Level 5 Snivy. Quite the opposite, it's almost ready to evolve. And levels exist in the anime still, because Meowth literally mentioned them earlier when lionizing Pikachu's power.

So, what have we learned here?

1. Pikachu is considered by Team Rocket to be the strongest Pikachu in the world.
2. Pikachu is heavily weakened by Zekrom.
3. Shootie's powerful Snivy defeats Pikachu, with Pikachu suffering from multiple handicaps such as no electric (special) moves and low stamina
4. Shootie demonstrating that he is a talented, promising trainer, if not already versed in the ways of Pokemon battling.

I can only conclude that fans were butthurt and distorted the facts of this battle to make the writers seem like malicious morons. They're doing the same thing to SM, but I was still not expecting something this dramatically different from the online portrayal.
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Old 03-22-2019, 06:07 AM   #14
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Pikachu losing to Simipour was much more frustrating than losing to the Snivy. Pikachu was totally thrashed by a Pokemon it shouldn't really have had trouble with. Simipour dodges Quick Attack and Volt Tackle, the former a move that even Zeraora had to speed up to beat, while stupid Tepig tanks all those hits and doesn't lose at all.

I get the meta reason behind it but it's still insanely silly. Pikachu has no reason to losing to a Pokemon like that fairly.

Also, Dent is a major downgrade from just Ash + Iris. It's not that he replaces Brock, it's more like he doesn't have much reason to exist here since Iris knows about Unova as well. I guess Sinnoh Brock was a shell of who he was in OS anyway, but Dent takes up too much screentime to me that should be focused on Ash and Iris, who are much more nuanced characters.
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Old 03-27-2019, 06:12 AM   #15
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Yo, that Snivy evolved before the first Gym. There's barely anything to fight between Nueva Town and Striaton City. More evidence that Snivy was close to evolve when it first battled, not that it was weak.
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Old 03-29-2019, 12:47 AM   #16
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Best Wishes - 034

I'm starting to see now why people dislike this title. The show's definitely slowing down and was outright crippled by the loss of the Team Rocket/Team Plasma two-parter. The filler has been hit or miss but has mostly been skippable (like the Cottonee episode).

But the main issue I think where people call Ash "stupid" or whatever, is because his team is perpetually underpowered.

Snivy is currently his most powerful Unova Pokemon - at around Level 40 when he caught it - since it knows Leaf Storm already. But it's unevolved and hasn't learned any new moves. Pokemon like Oshawott struggle with basic moves like Aqua Jet, which is less excusable than with Axew and Dragon Rage since Axew is a newborn.

I thought Shootie was a jerk at first (making him a good rival, someone to motivate Ash and the audience) but his comments sting now because they're painfully true. And it's not like Ash isn't trying. He avoids using Pikachu to cheese matches but his Unova team is just weak weak weak.
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Old 03-29-2019, 10:28 PM   #17
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Best Wishes - 44

At the end of the Don George competition, I love the secondary cast in this show! While the battles haven't been great (not tactical or anything) the pace, tournament structure and focus on these characters has definitely made them shine.

They're not complex or anything - most of them (bar Kenyan, my favourite) are some flavour of arrogant. Like I can't really describe Lagley or Cabernet's personality beyond their inferiority complexes. But how they bounce off one another is very fun and spontaneous.

I like Shootie as a rival even if I don't find his personality tasteful because his racism (or xenophobia?) is definitely a good quality for an antagonist. He also shows some positive qualities that portray him as merely misguided and not evil.

If I were to compare this to Sun & Moon, I think there's a much bigger focus on the characters than in the SM anime. While the SM characters have much more personality and backstory than these BW secondaries, I never seen them bounce off one another like in this anime.

Special mention goes to Kenyan who I've only ever seen as "Stephan" and is usually mocked in YouTube videos. He speaks with a thick Kansai accent which makes me think he's from rural Hoenn, and his personality is closest to Ash. His voice tells us a lot about him without needing the benefit of backstory, and his behaviour so far - passion, humility - make him one of my favourites of the 'friendly rivals' so far. At least, he's far more likeable than Tierno and Trova.
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Old 05-31-2019, 02:55 PM   #18
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Do the writers think we're stupid?



Survey says Bisharp is...



This was probably the worst matchup for Langley possible. Way to diss your rival, Iris!
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Old 05-31-2019, 03:50 PM   #19
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Pokemon anime being consistent with the games? Bahahahahaha. I'm relatively sure they say Water is weak to Fire at one point in gen 6.
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Old 05-31-2019, 04:04 PM   #20
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It's been pretty consistent so far! That line was so out of place that's why it stood out. It's like the writers knew the fight was going to be an anti-climax but tried to hype it up anyway.

Best Wishes 75!



Dull filler aside, the tournaments in this anime have been really fun. The "Donamite" battle here was excellent and exciting, and very fast paced. All the personalities bounce off one another really well and the losses don't sting very much.

BW is a fun anime when it tries, filled with colourful personalities and engaging battles. There isn't a lot of character development, but it definitely harkens back to the golden age of OS when battles were not so serious. This didn't carry over to XY or even SM.

Onward!
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Old 06-17-2019, 08:42 PM   #21
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BW definitely has its moments, and some fun eps, even if the overall arc is kinda lackluster and the series seriously falls apart as it progresses. It's problem is its sandwiched between the super popular DP and XY anime, both series which portrayed Ash at his strongest, his strongest/evolved pokemon teams, with the most serious rivals, a female companion who either had a major role (Dawn), or a shipping love interest (Serena), and was just more action and battle oriented...hence the dislike toward BW or indifference to SM from a lot of people.

At the very least it proved how the writers can finally get rid of Brock after he had been there for so long. I actually like Cilan, Clemont/Bonnie and Kiawe all almost equally, and it puts into perspective how they should have done away with Brock a lot earlier than they did.

Of course BW is now nearly a decade old so most don't even think about it much anymore, but it's not entirely bad. Some aspects of it are better than Johto and some of AG, but not as good or stands out as unique as SM, or DP or XY. It's pretty much just there.
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