Pokémon

***Pokémon*** is a Japanese anime series that started in 1997 in Japan on April 1st (April Fools Day) of that year, and still airs to this day. It is based on the video game franchise of the same name.

## Summary

Ash Ketchum (Satoshi in the original Japanese version), a boy from Pallet Town, dreams of becoming the greatest Pokémon Master, and with the help of Misty, Brock, and Pikachu, he can succeed further to his dreams.

## Why It Rocks

1. It's a very good adaptation of its source material.
2. Very solid and detailed animation that constantly improves over the years, along with some very good art styles.
	* Out of all the art styles, the art style in *Pokémon Journeys* looks **massively amazing!**
3. The designs of the Pokémon are highly imaginative and colorful.
4. Lots of funny moments and jokes.
5. Wonderful stories and direction.
6. The Character of the Day episodes give other characters a time to shine as the series went on.
7. A lot of the episodes are pretty memorable, no matter what era the anime is in:
	* "Pokémon: I Choose You!"
	* "Get the Show on the Road"
	* "Pikachu's Goodbye"
	* "Ditto's Mysterious Mansion"
	* "Air Time"
	* "Six Pack Attack"
	* "Lights, Camerupt, Action!"
	* "Lights! Camera! Pika!"
	* "Betrayed, Bothered, and Beleaguered"
	* "One Journey Ends, Another Begins"
	* "Enter Pikachu"
	* "Alola, Kanto!"/"When Regions Collide"
	* "Alola to New Adventure"
	* "The Ties That Bind"
	* "Electric Shock Showdown"
	* "Charizard Chills"
	* "Poetry Commotion"
	* "Kalos, Where Dreams and Adventures Begin"
	* "Gotta Catch Ya Later"
	* "Bulbasaur the Ambassador"
	* "Enter the Dragonite"
	* "The Chikorita Rescue"
	* "Win, Lose, or Drew"
	* "Bye Bye Butterfree"
	* "All in a Day's Wurmple"
	* "Go West, Young Meowth"
	* "Friends to the End"
	* "Meowth Rules"
	* "The Princess and the Togepi"/"A Togepi Mirage"
	* "I Feel Skitty"
	* "Can't Beat the Heat"
	* "Lapras of Luxury"
	* "Extreme Pokémon"
	* "Will the Real Oak Please Stand Up?"
	* "Unlocking Some Respect"
	* "Defending the Homeland"
	* The Lugia Trilogy Arc from Pokémon: Master Quest.
8. An incredible music score by Shinji Miyazaki, especially the first Japanese and US themes of the show.
9. The Kalos era (S17-19) is widely considered to be the best era of the show, despite having the lowest amount of episodes.
	* Of course, the anime's success wouldn't be complete without the Kanto season gaining such high ratings.
10. Pikachu is solely often times the best part, and he is very cute. He would never make the Pokémon franchise great without him.
	* Many other Pokémon are also very cute, in fact so many of them are absolutely adorable creatures that it would take ages to count them all.
	* On the other end, pretty much any Dragon (or Dragon-like) Pokemon is just **awesome**.
11. Amazing dub by 4Kids Entertainment that kept the show's writing very well faithful.
12. Ash had great and funny companions, such as Serena, Goh, Brock, Misty, Clemont, May, Max, Bonnie, Kiawe, Sophocles, Lillie, Mallow, Lana and Dawn.
	* He also has his best Pokémon yet such as his Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Lucario, Donphan, Charizard (though was stubborn at first after it evolved from a friendly Charmander to a Charmeleon and a Charizard, until Ash gained his respects for saving his life), Rotom, Squirtle, Lapras, Bayleef, Snorlax, Meowth (until after Black and White since it was Team Rocket's Meowth at the time when he decided to be his traveling companion), Tauros, etc.
13. A very wide range of likable characters, the most memorable characters being Ash, Misty, and Brock, with latter two of which originating from the Indigo League.
	* Ash Ketchum himself is a very likable and well-developed character, who gets more mature as the series goes on and learns many things on his journey, and has grown more down to earth later on.
	* May from the Advanced Generation era is also likable, whom of course went from a girl who doesn't like Pokémon to growing to like Pokémon later on, and has also grown into interest with being a Pokémon Coordinator.
	* Serena is widely considered the Ash's best travelling companion because of her personality, her outfit, and especially her relationship with Ash. Her performance in showcases are very well done. Many people wanted her to return in the Journeys era but it's unknown when she will return.
	* Bonnie, just like Serena is one of the likeable characters in the anime, her look is cute (especially her clothes, and her hair, skin, and eye colour in which they are the same as Clemont's), her personalities are funny (Bonnie often does is proposes girls for Clemont), and her relationship with Squishy.
	* Goh from the recent Journeys era is also likable, his will to try and capture Mew shows how optimistic he is, and he has a lot of interesting character depth just like Ash.
	* In fact, it would be easier to count the *"loathsome"* characters compared to all the quirky and lovable ones!
14. The trainers sometimes use clever Pokémon battling strategies that also work in the game if fans want to try them.
15. Very epic and iconic Pokémon battle scenes that get more intense as the series goes on. One of the most epic battles is Charizard vs Greninja in the Kalos League for example.
16. Earned a countless collection of great and decent movies, most notably the second movie.
17. Awesome voice acting in both Japanese and English, though a big highlight is that the 4Kids dub is splendid since all the actors are very well cast, and do put in a pretty great performance.
18. The Team Rocket trio is very hilarious and enjoyable.
19. Amazing running gags, such as Butch saying "It's Butch." after some of the characters saying Butch's name wrong.
20. The PokéRap that played at the end of some episodes in the first season is memorable and catchy.
	* Even the Pikachu's Jukebox Songs, the Pokémon Karaokémon and Team Rocket's Song from The Song of Jigglypuff are memorable and catchy as well.
21. The *Who's That Pokémon?* segments are very iconic.
22. The pacing is decent in the majority of the episodes, especially in the earlier seasons.

## Bad Qualities

1. Some of the seasons have their hiccups and flaws, as seen by fans:
	* The Unova era (S14-16) is considered the show's weakest era by fans due to the slow pacing, too many filler (or flat out bad) episodes, and most of the rivals, along with Ash, being extremely unlikable at times. Team Rocket was also flanderized to be dark, boring, competent villains who usually escape after their plans fail, as if they were this written to make kids root against.
	* The Sinnoh era (S10-13), while a pretty good series compared to Unova, was also long and had lots of filler.
	* The Johto era (Seasons 3-5), while also another good series, is also guilty of having a poor reputation of doing this for the same problem as Diamond and Pearl and Black and White, though it's said to have improved over time, and a lot of the episodes are very good ("Extreme Pokémon" as an example), the characters are well written (including Ash, Misty, Pikachu, Brock, and loads of others), and the humor has made for some funny jokes.
2. The "Electric Soldier Porygon" incident that caused approximately 700 Japanese people to have epileptic seizures.
	* Because of this, Porygon and its evolutions have never made appearances in any other anime adaptation (excluding a few cameos).
3. Some very cringeworthy or unfunny moments, especially in the original Japanese version, such as the infamous scene including James cross-dressing in a bikini with fake inflatable breasts in the episode "Holiday In Aopulco "("Beauty and the Beach" in the English dub), which the English dub thankfully removed. This sadly meant said episode had to be cut down in America when it was aired on Kids' WB, but after that it was still banned anyway.
4. The GS ball side-story was never resolved after Season 3, making it just a pointless side-plot.
5. Beginning with the "Pokemon: The Mastermind of Mirage PokemonTTSW" special in 2006 during the Battle Frontier arc, 4Kids would no longer handle the English dubs, and as a result, the entire voice cast was changed, and the voices in the special, particularly Ash's, were very grating at first for some fans, much to the dismay of many fans. Ash got another voice actor for the following reason, and the other voices were more refined. Some of the 4Kids voice actors either maintained for dubbing episodes Pokemon USA like Maddie Blaustein until her death in 2008, or did manage to return in later seasons, most notably the narrator (Rodger Parsons) and Team Rocket boss Giovanni's voice actor, Ted Lewis, though Ash and the other main characters retain their post-4Kids voices. The newer voices, though not quite the same, are at least tolerable now.
6. Pokémon Chronicles never got a North American DVD release outside of Europe or Australia. Instead it only aired on television through Cartoon Network, this could be due to 4Kids losing the license to Pokémon or Viz Media not having enough money to produce all of its episodes to the DVD format in Region 1.
7. Some of the designs for the human characters in *Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon* (especially Ash's) did not age well (mainly due to the art style). Thankfully, they changed Ash's face design in *Journeys,* and it looks much better than in *Sun & Moon.*
8. The anime has numerous errors in it:
	* An example how bad these errors can be is with this infamous Trainer's choice segment that incorrectly says Arbok evolves into Seviper, which is one of the worst errors they could have done.
	* Another example is that in some episodes, Ash's gloves are missing in some scenes of an episode, such as in one shot of an episode from the first season when he is looking at a sign to Cerulean City with Brock, his green glove is gone.
	* Ash's Pikachu's strength at times can be very inconsistent such as defeating a Regice, and getting tied with a Latios, yet has lost to a Snivy that has had no battling experiences.
	* This can all be somewhat excused as it's not easy to keep up with **24 years** of games which constantly add new Pokemon, new evolutions and (since Generation VI) new mechanics.
9. There were a few bad episodes and some unlikable characters here and there like Cameron, Damian, Burgundy, Georgia and Trip, but nowhere near as much as in the Unova Generation era of the anime.
	* The pacing isn't that good in some episodes like "Challenge of the Samurai", "Two Hits and a Miss", "One for the Goomy", "Curtain Up, Unova League”, “Now You See Them, Now You Don't", "A Legendary Photo Op", "The Dex Can't Help It", "Snivy Plays Hard to Catch", "A Venipede Stampede", "A Bite to Remember", "Beauty and the Beach", "Our Cup Runneth Over", and most infamously, Pokémon Ranger: Heatran Rescue, even if the episode is considered to be good or bad.