Thoughts on BW

[Almonds]

Episode N was the best thing about Best Wishes and it still could have been better.

 

[Bulbabrain]

You know, the whole regressing statement is actually pissing me off. Because as I said at other times, Ash really wasn’t that dumb. He had a rough start, but he never came off as dumber than normal, with very few exceptions. I’ll admit that the Unova rivals didn’t get enough moments, but they did have a step in the right direction. Iris could have maybe been handled better, but at a certain point I’m starting to wonder if people remember she has a personality outside of that one catchphrase. Something I think that really needs to come back, and arguably did, is the don george battle facilities. We get some of that with the big Ash battling Korrina and Bea thing, but not enough for my taste. Also, Cameron was only in a handful of episodes, you guys need to chill on him

 

[Antiyonder]

You know, the whole regressing statement is actually pissing me off. Because as I said at other times, Ash really wasn’t that dumb. He had a rough start, but he never came off as dumber than normal, with very few exceptions.

True but as they say quality usually matters more than quantity. For one Kanto Ash was clueless to matters of the heart, but he still knew what certain dating/relationship terms meant.

Him not knowing what a couple means is akin to Goku thinking that marriage was food.

And Dazzling the Nimbasa Gym, yeah even if he took the chance of using an untrained Krabby in the Indigo League he still had three Pokémon ready for battle.

Plus with exception he tends to be an idiot with ethics. You know following the rules. Pretty sure that having only one Pokémon in that Gym Match falls into rule breaking territory morally speaking.

 

[Dogasu]

This might be the best (and maybe the only good thing?) about BW Trio: their appearances were more ''dosed'', cuz let's be frank, in Gym Battle episodes or some VERY important eps for Ash and his companions, they just don't add anything, at least imo. They cram way too much time in eps like that, even though they aren't necessary for the plot to move forwad, just there to clog away time.

And yet that's exactly what a good chunk of their BW appearances were. The stuff leading up to the skipped Meteonite two-parter, for example, was just painful. This week's Rocket trio scene is of them ordering food at a cafe. Next week, they pick up a brief case. The next week, they look up directions on Google Maps. They used these mundane scenes to keep shoehorning them into a bunch of episodes, even though the show not doing that was supposed to be one of the pros to making them lifeless robots.

 

[Antiyonder]

And to specify my earlier post they defeat Ash in a Pokémon battle in SM episode 12 despite being the goofier and inferior version.

One episode sure, but BW's version despite being more serious still didn't get a win over the lead characters.

 

[Islander Princess]

I don't dislike BW as much as many other Pokémon fans do. It's not even my least favorite series. It definitely has its flaws, and is one of the weaker entries over the course of the anime for sure, but there are still quite a few things I did enjoy about BW.

Most of the negatives that I agree with have already been said. The top three worst for me:

-The handling of Ash's team was a hot mess (loved that he made more than 5 captures, hated how poorly they were switched in and out, and don't even get me started on the complete waste of Charizard's spot.)

-The handling of Team Rocket was a hot mess (I get that the scrapping of the real Plasma arc was out of their control, but either way, "serious" Team Rocket really never worked for me anyway because it literally stripped the characters of all the things that make them unique.)

-Introducing quite literally the worst rival in the entire anime (if Cameron were to ever show up again I would legitimately not watch that episode. He's gotta be my most hated anime character and it's not even close.)

I don't really agree with the common argument that Ash "regressed" in BW. I think it was more of the fact that they were trying to go for humor in the form of Ash making dumb mistakes but it never really came across as funny, particularly after everything he had already accomplished. It's unrealistic to expect people to believe that Ash would only bring one Pokémon to a gym battle after the sheer number of gym battles he's already participated in. It's not regression: it's literally just a massively missed attempt of trying to force a "funny" moment.

Honestly, it's the exact same way with Cameron. Guy shows up at the tail end of the series and is an insufferable, bumbling idiot the whole way through. It was clearly meant to be funny. Maybe for kids it was. I found it unbelievably annoying, and the fact that he beat Ash in the league (again, after NOT BRINGING AN ENTIRE TEAM...why this was actually a recurring trope for them in this series I have no idea) really just sealed the deal for how awful of a "rival" he really was. And I'm not sure if he was like this originally because I had stopped watching the BW subs by this point but the constant screaming he did in the dub was so heinous. Literally everything about Cameron was just so off putting.

Oh, and the ending felt horribly rushed and disjointed. Quite literally the most pathetic sendoff for any of Ash's friends. I'm one of the few who quite liked Iris and Cilan, and rewatching their sendoff a few months ago really had my blood boiling. It was just...so bad.

 

[Everclear]

Black and White came after DP so there were huge expectations and BW barely met them. The rivals were either boring like Trip and Stephan or weird and mistreated like Burgundy and Bianca. Then there was that awful Unova League, missed evolution opportunities for Snivy and Oshawott and Ash's team rotation. That last one was so awful I can't even begin to rant about how badly the writers mishandled it.

 

[Sheep]

I'm in the minority that doesn't, honestly. About the only thing I disliked was Ash becoming so much more dense, especially coming right after DP which made the contrast that much more jarring - regardless of if they were going for the comedy factor or not. Cilan was one of my favorite traveling companions and I liked Iris + her jp VA. I was even fine with BW!TR too, and liked many of the Pokémon the main co had on their team (especially Snivy and Emolga). Eventually I'll finish watching the episodes I missed, but it's definitely not a saga I dislike at all. Certainly cared for it more than XY haha, and that seems to be a hugely unpopular opinion.

 

[Antiyonder]

And yet that's exactly what a good chunk of their BW appearances were. The stuff leading up to the skipped Meteonite two-parter, for example, was just painful. This week's Rocket trio scene is of them ordering food at a cafe. Next week, they pick up a brief case. The next week, they look up directions on Google Maps. They used these mundane scenes to keep shoehorning them into a bunch of episodes, even though the show not doing that was supposed to be one of the pros to making them lifeless robots.

Agreed and I'm curious where you stand on another matter regarding them in BW. Namely how the trio tend to be the least evil and more sympathetic of the Rocket Organization. Besides being unentertaining for BW you didn't get much or I think any episodes that really play up their more humane and non-villainous nature.

I don't really agree with the common argument that Ash "regressed" in BW. I think it was more of the fact that they were trying to go for humor in the form of Ash making dumb mistakes but it never really came across as funny, particularly after everything he had already accomplished. It's unrealistic to expect people to believe that Ash would only bring one Pokémon to a gym battle after the sheer number of gym battles he's already participated in. It's not regression: it's literally just a massively missed attempt of trying to force a "funny" moment.

It's arguably worse than that. He didn't even pull that in the OS and again while doing something like using an untrained Pokémon is stupid it's not necessarily unethical.

But again bring one Mon to a 3 on 3 match is. And even worse is that even if one can make wiggle room for Ash being that stupid, the referee comes off worse for not ending the match and telling him to get his act together if he wants to challenge the Gym Leader again.

The fact that she didn't disqualify him is factual bad writing.

Honestly, it's the exact same way with Cameron. Guy shows up at the tail end of the series and is an insufferable, bumbling idiot the whole way through. It was clearly meant to be funny. Maybe for kids it was. I found it unbelievably annoying, and the fact that he beat Ash in the league (again, after NOT BRINGING AN ENTIRE TEAM...why this was actually a recurring trope for them in this series I have no idea) really just sealed the deal for how awful of a "rival" he really was. And I'm not sure if he was like this originally because I had stopped watching the BW subs by this point but the constant screaming he did in the dub was so heinous. Literally everything about Cameron was just so off putting.

Thing is like many adult fans I long expected that many annoying decisions are just business and not some attempt to spite those outside the target demograph, even the Kalos League finale or clickbait titles some have mentioned regarding Journey.

Lazy writing. Ash and Cameron's stupidity, The Rocket Trio being joyless and Georgia, Burgundy, Cilan & Iris not getting a decent departure. If there was any case where a product was made bad on purpose, BW is a contender for that award.

As for the bit in your post I underlined? Another exception to the rule I dare say. Rants from the older fans have gone on for a long time without the show being altered in response. Yeah I think it's safe to say that the planets aligned and the younger audience must have responded poorly to the decisions made in BW as XY was basically an opposite for the most part (again Kalos League finale notwithstanding).

So yeah for once even the "well kids like it" doesn't hold quite so true for BW.

 

[DynamicFusion]

It had a lot of potential BW, at the beginning but it became obviously clear that they just gave up at the end (with the league, rushed Episode N, horrible Declora Filler). Ash this series was horrible, forgetting how to catch Pokemon, acting like an idiot and not mature as he was at the end of Sinnoh after the Paul Rivalry, the Elesa & Cameron Shitshow and of course his rivalry with Trip was undoubtedly written badly. Not only that, the overwhelming use of Stock Footage (colored backgrounds) during Battles made it awful. They were clearly going for something different in this series and wanted to "Restart" but failed miserably at it. And let's not even talk about I**s & C***n. I really wonder what they are going to do with the former when she reappears in Journeys.

 

[Islander Princess]

As for the bit in your post I underlined? Another exception to the rule I dare say. Rants from the older fans have gone on for a long time without the show being altered in response. Yeah I think it's safe to say that the planets aligned and the younger audience must have responded poorly to the decisions made in BW as XY was basically an opposite for the most part (again Kalos League finale notwithstanding).

So yeah for once even the "well kids like it" doesn't hold quite so true for BW.

I'm not so sure if this is true though. Some kids do find stuff like that funny. I don't really think the changes made in XY were a reflection on how BW was received. And again, just to drive home the matter of different opinions, I liked XY even less than BW. As in it's my least favorite series of the show. I'm well aware I'm in the minority on that, but it's my own opinion. Not everyone is going to agree.

It feels like the writers took one approach with BW (attempting to be very funny to the point of goofiness, for example) and for the series right after, decided to go in the total opposite direction (almost no lightheartedness at all, IMO) as a writing choice, not to satisfy the fans' reception. I mean, look at SM, which came right after XY; basically the total opposite tone again. In that respect, I'd say that is more likely something that they took cues from in terms of how BW was received, as tonally they are both a little lighter and SM wasn't being worked on while BW was still in production the way I assume XY was.

 

[Antiyonder]

I don't know. SM may be different from XY, but still not in the same way BW was.

Even with his reduced ambition and skill, the anime tries at least to still make him a decent trainer, the Rocket Trio are entertaining and have many humanizing moments (and even some wins) and the Alola casts departure has effort.

May not care for Iris, Georgia, Burgundy and Trip, but I don't care for gatekeeping or shaming people for example who do like them. And I think their fans deserved them having a good departure. Not just goodbye and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

SM for what you can critique doesn't feel like it comes from pure hate at least.

 

[Bulbabrain]

It had a lot of potential BW, at the beginning but it became obviously clear that they just gave up at the end (with the league, rushed Episode N, horrible Declora Filler). Ash this series was horrible, forgetting how to catch Pokemon, acting like an idiot and not mature as he was at the end of Sinnoh after the Paul Rivalry, the Elesa & Cameron Shitshow and of course his rivalry with Trip was undoubtedly written badly. Not only that, the overwhelming use of Stock Footage (colored backgrounds) during Battles made it awful. They were clearly going for something different in this series and wanted to "Restart" but failed miserably at it. And let's not even talk about I**s & C***n. I really wonder what they are going to do with the former when she reappears in Journeys.

About Ash forgetting how to catch Pokémon, it wasn’t necessarily like that, it’s more that he gets excited in the heat of the moment. We see this in Sinnoh and hoenn as well. I’ve never really felt trip was that bad of a rival, he could have used a bit more love, but not that bad.
Per Cameron, guys he was in like five episodes. Calm down. He actually had some solid moments, what with his samurott managing to reflect electric attacks a couple times. Also, unnecessarily censoring his companions names? Really? Why the fuck do people do that? He

 

[KyseL]

I recently watched a couple of BW episodes. And honestly, it wasn't half bad. The only thing that really grinds my gears about the series (at least within the few episodes I have fresh in my memory) is Cilan/Dento spewing out nonsense in a very pompous tone for way too long without really saying anything at all, which is something that happens way too frequently to just be ignored.

 

[Bulbabrain]

I recently watched a couple of BW episodes. And honestly, it wasn't half bad. The only thing that really grinds my gears about the series (at least within the few episodes I have fresh in my memory) is Cilan/Dento spewing out nonsense in a very pompous tone for way too long without really saying anything at all, which is something that happens way too frequently to just be ignored.

Huh, I always liked evaluation time. His enthusiasm is charming, but I can see how it might be too much.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

I hate the way they protrated Satoshi his power and his team. And after Sinnoh, it just hurts.
I dont hate Iris like I used to do
Cilan is neutral in my opinion.

 

[Galactic_V]

Going against the thread's main topic for a sec, something I do like about BW are its soundtracks. The Gothiruselle episode from early BW comes to mind, for example. I remember some very good pieces of music out of this one.

 

[Hidden Mew]

While people complaining about Ash's regressing in skills is a pretty common complaint about BW, I don't think that's quite accurate. I thought the same thing during the series' initial run, but after rewatching it, I don't think Ash's skills were really that bad. To be fair, I can definitely understand why that still comes up whenever BW comes up. Having Ash lose to a untrained Snivy right from the start is a pretty terrible first impression, especially right after DP were his skills were arguably at their peak. Bringing only one Pokemon to a Gym battle was also so extremely out of character for Ash to where it was rage inducing. But after going through the series, I think that the problem was less on Ash's skills and more on his team. His BW team felt so inconsistent. He caught a lot more Pokemon than he usually does, but a large portion of them barely did anything during the series to stand out, so most of them feel bland and forgettable.

The concept of Ash rotating his team sounded cool in theory, but they handled it so poorly since Ash still mainly relied on his Unova starters and Krookodile the most. With the lack of on-screen training, most of his BW team not really standing out and a good chuck of evolutions that felt unearned, his BW team felt too inconsistent and lacked the strength that most of his other teams had. If Ash had a more typical team without rotating other Pokemon in and out, they might have been a stronger team and the battles could have been improved as a result. As a side note, I do kind of hope that Journeys tries the rotating team members concept again. I would say it's more of a necessity there than it was in BW given that he already has a full team and since he leaves some of his Pokemon at the park lab anyway, it would possibly feel more natural for him to rotate different Pokemon out. Not to mention I can't see Ash not catching more Pokemon for the rest of the series when it is still relatively early in its run.

My biggest problem with BW was definitely Iris. I just found her to be really annoying and unlikable. People keep bringing up her catchphrase as if that was the only issue people had with her. It probably didn't help, but if she had a more engaging well written storyline, the catchphrase wouldn't be an issue. They went from having her be a complete rookie to a super special gifted Dragon Master in training who won nearly one hundred battles in a row before being a trainer extremely fast. It was so jarring when her skills were really nothing to write home about. Axew had a similar problem in that they couldn't decide on if they wanted it to be the cute useless baby Pokemon or the strong secondary mascot Pokemon, so they just went with both. The whole subplot with Dragonite felt virtually pointless. She didn't learn anything from Excadrill and how it was resolved with Iris protecting Dragonite wasn't any different from what she did to make Dragonite want to go with her in the first place. Not to mention they just handed her an overpowered Dragonite to make up for the fact that they weren't going to let Axew evolve.

Trip was a terrible rival. He was clearly an attempt to make another Paul, but it didn't work. Making him an overpowered rookie trainer just so that Ash could be the underdog again felt so force. There wasn't really much to the rivalry other than Ash wanted to battle Trip too. Despite all of that, I think anime Bianca was the rival that frustrated me the most in this series. She was just so annoying and unlikable. They did a terrible job adapting her storyline from the games, especially with her father. Maybe it would have been kind of difficult to cover her storyline when they couldn't use Team Plasma for the longest time, but even without that, she was still handled terrible. Bianca was basically a less competent female version of Barry, which is just not how she is in the games. It just frustrated me so much when she is still one of my favorite rivals in the games, so having her be annoying comedy relief was just disappointing.

Giving Iris and Cilan their own rivals sounded like a neat idea too, but their rivalries never really went anywhere. The Club Battle tournaments were another neat idea to get everyone to battle, but I think only the second one was good. The first and third ones were full of bad or boring battles and undeserved victories for Iris in particular.

The Unova League wasn't really that good. I don't think that the quality of the battles were as bad as I remembered them to be, but the way Ash lost was still quite bad, especially when Cameron was so annoyingly stupid.

Like a lot of people, I didn't care for serious Team Rocket. It was different and I can understand why people may have thought it was refreshing initially, but they were so boring. They had no personality. They were just typical Team Rocket grunts and aside from Meowth, barely showed any of their original personalities. They didn't really accomplish much as this serious Team Rocket either.

The biggest problem that BW had was definitely being too fast paced. Part of it could be the result of not being able to incorporate Team Plasma until Episode N, but I also think that going back to just having Ash's Gym battles instead of being able to balance it out with Contests after eight years were a factor as well. They went through Gym battles so fast and combined with Ash's inconsistent BW team, it felt like the series was moving too fast for its own good. The fact that the series didn't end on a League, but instead a series of trips getting back to Kanto really made me think that it could have been paced better. I don't think all of the Decolre Island trips were filler, but given how other series have ended with a bigger climax and aftermath, it just really made it clear that they went through Unova itself way too fast.

 

[Bulbabrain]

Maybe it’s been a while, but I don’t remember Iris being that much of a rookie. She did get excited over cute Pokémon, but that’s the closest thing I remember to her being one. It has been a while since I watched the series though.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Maybe it’s been a while, but I don’t remember Iris being that much of a rookie. She did get excited over cute Pokémon, but that’s the closest thing I remember to her being one. It has been a while since I watched the series though.

I don't really see how getting excited over cute Pokemon is akin to being a rookie. That doesn't really seem like those two things would connect with each other. Plenty of experienced trainers in the main cast have gotten excited over cute Pokemon. The fact that she couldn't get Axew to master Dragon Rage, the weakest Dragon type move, definitely gave off the impression that she was a rookie at the start of the series, even though she technically caught Excradill much earlier than when she was given Axew. At the very least, I don't think a trainer who had won nearly one hundred battles before starting their journey would have had as much trouble with teaching another Pokemon a pretty weak move. Once they introduced the Dragon Master goal, they doubled down on Iris being this Dragon type expert and a gifted trainer super hard and fast.