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I'm curious. Why do so many people dislike Best Wishes?

The battles was sort of troll.
First gym battle pikachu lost against a simipour and osahwot won against a pansage. I thought the monkeys are suppose to have about the same level .
Second gym battle was sorta just boring and tepig somehow beated herdeir when last time it couldn't even stand a chance against lilipup
Third gym battle somehow a new caught sweddle was able to wreck
Fourth gym battle Ash was just being an idiot for some reason
Fifth gym battle makes no sense that boldore beated excadrill, since excadrill is prob a lot more powerful.
Sixth gym battle Skyla is bring hela annoying
Seventh is actually good, but i mean, beartic still should have won against krookedile. And the last move makes no sense.
Eighth gym badge how does Ash barely wins with 6v3 .-.
 
13 episodes wasn't short since all the other villain arcs had taken 13 episodes as well. (when I last summed up the average total appearances of the major teams, they ranged from 11 to 15

Actually, here's a run down of the villain team episode count:

Aqua-Magma: 7 Episodes
Galactic: 11 episodes
Plasma: 8 episodes (which isn't counting episodes of just N)
Flare: 15 (19 if you count the Mega-Evolution Specials) (though it's kinda murky since some of those were just a-minute-or-so cameos just to tell us know they were up to something)
 
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you do notice a lot of people like team rocket and almost not many people mind them right

Originally, there was a mandate to include Team Rocket in every single episode of Pokémon after their debut on the grounds of providing humor that adults would enjoy. They had the longest streak of appearance aside from Ash and Pikachu, only one episode short away from main protagonist until Best Wishes came along. That's when they start being completely absent from a good amount of episodes, breaking the mandate and trend for the first time. Even though they try to remedy and reverse this change by the end of BW towards XY, the damage has been done.

XY was the second series that didn't feature Team Rocket in some form in all of its episodes. That might change in the future for Sun & Moon, but Best Wishes really did offer people who dislike Team Rocket a taste of a Pokémon anime without the classical trio.
 
Best Wishes really did offer people who dislike Team Rocket a taste of a Pokémon anime without the classical trio.

Heck, it even works in their defense...please note that the worst parts of BW happened when the TRio wasn't even around...:cautious:
(We FINALLY get a League without them...and look. What. Happened :()
 
At first I was liking BW a lot (aside from those major flaws like Pikachu losing to a starter and Satoshi being portrayed as a rookie) as it was presented as a very different season comparing to its antecessors (no Takeshi ever since he rejoined the main group in Jouto, no previous regions Pokemon at all, Sakaki appearing way more than ever before, Satoshi capturing more than 6 Pokemon and having to store some (which didn't happen since Kanto!, etc...)

However in my view BW's downpoint started after the Plasma-Dan two-parter was skipped... Trio then started having meaningless and boring appearances, Sakaki vanished, Iris got even more annoying with her weakling Kibago that never got strong, starters hogging all screentime and not even evolving until much later (Pokabu only), BS Gym Battles (Aloe's one was already a great BS, but I could tolerate it at the time), etc...

These's what I see lots of people complaining about, not mentioning a rushed saga, BS league, boring Plasma arc, lack of development, etc... etc...
 
I'm probably one of the few people who actually like BW considerably. In fact, it's my favorite season. I can't lie, BW has its faults and I too wouldn't have minded seeing this enacted. Ash was dumbed down considerably and Team Rocket's transformation from silly to serious was a little too surreal. However, there are things people tend to overlook.

Ash always has, and always will be, 10. This isn't BW's fault. In fact, this has been an issue since the Pikachu short featuring the Pichu brothers where Ash celebrates his one year anniversary with Pikachu. It doesn't make sense from a dedicated fan's standpoint, but when you look at it from a marketing standpoint, it isn't that far fetched. The key demographic is around the nice age of 10. Aging Ash up through the seasons runs the risk of losing that demographic. A good majority of shows geared towards children tend to feature actual young children as the leading protagonists. Sure, there may be exceptions but it's still a very common practice. And after roughly 15 years of the anime, this shouldn't have been that big of a deal when BW premiered. But I digress.

I liked how the rivals were handled in BW. I'll admit right away though, Trip was no Paul and could have used more development. But what I liked was seeing Iris and Cilan getting rivals to develop against as well. It helped them seem less like background characters which I honestly feel Brock suffered from by the end of DP. They bounced off each other well and made for enjoyable battles.

One final thing that I really liked about BW was the training scenes. I often recall Ash training against Iris or even by himself, which I don't recall being as often of a thing previously. Ash's win ratio in BW was roughly 80% from a recent picture I saw on this forum. His win ratio in DP, for comparison, was roughly 40%. So while he may have regressed in some ways, he definitely improved in battling. And with those scenes of training, I can believe that high ratio.

I definitely agree with people that there was much room for improvement. I definitely would have liked to have seen more of Ash's starters evolve and Cilan definitely could have used more development. That Team Plasma two-parter should have been re-tooled immediately for a quick fix rather than axing it entirely and that Unova League battle against Cameron was god awful. However, I honestly didn't mind Iris' snide remarks or having episodes without Team Rocket. I really liked the battles as well as the animation we saw from BW. BW will always be my favorite, and while I see and accept there are flaws, I also see great things from it that make it my favorite.
 
I loved serious Team Rocket. Shame the two-parter episodes was taken out of continuity, would've loved seeing Plasma vs. Rocket
 
One thing BW got right is that they made Team Rocket more serious and gave them better plots such as the Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus episodes.
 
I don't recall them doing anything with the Forces of Nature other than getting them to fight. Was there anything else?
Team Rocket did a lot better in Unova than all the other regions. We should got their serious side in Kanto and Johto. Then have them depart so we can see Team Magma and Aqua as the new villains for Hoenn, Team Galactic in Sinnoh, Team Plasma in Unova and Team Flare in Kalos with much better focus.
 
That didn't answer my question, though. What did the TRio do with the Forces of Nature besides get them to fight?
First time they summoned them to fight and to try to control them and the second time Giovanni came along, kidnapped a Meloetta that was following Ash and the gang, used Meloetta to get the Reveal Glass and summoned the Forces of Nature to conquer and then destroy the Unova region, Ash and the gang beat Team Rocket, they leave Unova, the Forces of Nature leave and Meloetta returns to it's home, no legendary catch for Ash
 
Serious Team Rocket was another issue people generally had with BW. There were some people who liked the idea before and after the Team Plasma two parter was supposed to air, but I don't think it was that well received. Many fans did complain about how Team Rocket was boring and basically lost all of their personalities during this series. Sure, they weren't going after Pikachu all the time and it was something different, but if they're basically no different from Team Rocket grunts, then what was really the appeal behind seeing them being more serious? There were plenty of moments throughout the other series where Team Rocket was focused on stuff beside capturing Pikachu, so it wasn't like that was necessary to drastically change their characterizations to make them do something different. It was an interesting idea that suffered from poor execution and BW had a ton of those in my opinion.
 
Like that Subway plan where they attempted to use the subway to steal a lot of Pokemon, including Ash and the gang's Pokemon, or the one where they were going to use the Forces of Nature to take over the Unova Region? Yeah they were good, but not good enough and that 2 part Team Rocket VS Team Plasma would have done something amazing, had it actually aired
 
I've always kind of wondered this myself, to be honest. I completely acknowledge its faults and mistakes. I truly wish Ash would've not made it to the end of the series with two completely unevolved starters who couldn't really compete with end game Pokemon. I even agree when people say it had the worst league, but I've seen so much genuine anger towards the saga, which is what confuses me. I've never been seriously angry at this show, myself.

To be honest, it's actually my favorite series to watch. Not for ash's immense skills or even the plot, I just love the aesthetic, music, character designs, region and of course, the Pokemon. B/W is my favorite gen and my favorite Pokemon come for it, so I realize I'm biased, but I guess after watching every episode I don't need my eternally 10 year old protagonist to be a brilliant tactician to enjoy it.

(Please don't take this as an attack or me saying other's opinions are wrong, because it's not. Just wanted to throw my hat in the ring of people who love best wishes.)
 
I liked how the rivals were handled in BW. I'll admit right away though, Trip was no Paul and could have used more development. But what I liked was seeing Iris and Cilan getting rivals to develop against as well. It helped them seem less like background characters which I honestly feel Brock suffered from by the end of DP. They bounced off each other well and made for enjoyable battles.

The problem is that the "rivalry" between Dento and Cabernet went absolutely nowhere. I had high hopes for it at the beginning of Best Wishes, but the two never even battled again after Cabernet's debut episode, and instead she was stuck being first-round fodder for everyone else whenever a tournament rolled around. As for Dento, his sommelier thing wasn't even treated as a serious pursuit, rather the punchline in a running gag about how many weird and random hobbies he could have. The second he revealed himself to be a "Metro Sommelier", I could feel whatever hopes I still had for the Dento-Cabernet rivalry gurgling noisily down the drain.

Iris at least got to battle Langley twice, but their second battle, which resulted in Dragonite beating Langley's Beartic through entirely its own initiative, felt like a weirdly hollow way to conclude their rivalry.

It's a testament to how messy and mismanaged Best Wishes was that Cabernet and Langley didn't even receive closure in the series proper, and instead they had to stick their "closure" in the end credits.
 
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In my opinion the sidekicks having rivals was an interesting and new idea, however the way Cabernet and Langley was treated was disappointing, especially the latter. It was way one-sided and she was there to provide mostly comic relief, never having any development at all. I feel Cabernet could be any COTD and we'd notice any difference...
 
Why I hated BW, as many people above have stated, is:
-Ash got a reboot after the DP which he was quite strong as a character which made him look like a beginner trainer which he shouldn't have been
-I really hated Iris because of her overused saying "you're such a kid" to Ash
-The league was ok until the battle between Ash and Cameron. Cameron was such a terrible character, he had 5 pokemon instead of 6, Ash had him beat and then Cameron's Riolu evolves into Lucario and beats Ash which I believe was the worst league Ash lost
 
Iris and Cilan having rivals was another good idea with terrible execution. It could have been a nice way to give them both something to do, but neither of the rivals really went anywhere. Burgundy was always behind Cilan and Cilan never really reacted much to her, which made the rival feel too one sided. She also kept losing in the first rounds of the mini tournaments, despite showing some skills in those battles and deserving better treatment than that. It also really didn't help that even the writers didn't take Cilan's goal seriously. Whenever he started to evaluating a Pokemon and their connection to their trainer, it was always treated like a joke or like he was so weird for doing that bit. Even Dawn reacted like that when she battled him. Not to mention even his reason for leaving the group at the end of the series had nothing to do with his goal, so that wouldn't make a rivalry with a primarily comedic rival too engaging.

There was a bit more conflict between Iris and Georgia and Georgia was treated a bit more seriously than Burgundy was, but that also didn't really go anywhere. She would point out Iris's flaws, like how she wasn't using a Dragon Pokemon in I think the second tournament despite being a Dragon Master in training and how she lost to Dragonite rather than Iris herself in their last battle, but the rivalry didn't have much of an impact on Iris. The most it did was lead up to Excadrill listening to Iris again, but I thought that was poorly handled in general anyway. Both Burgundy and Georgia were entertaining as characters and I think the writers realized that when they had them together during some of the tournaments, but as rivals, they were pretty awful. It also doesn't help that the closure they got was a montage during an ending theme, which I'm not sure if that really counts as closure in the first place.
 
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