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BW or SM?

Which do you like better?

  • Best Wishes!

    Votes: 14 25.5%
  • Sun and Moon!

    Votes: 41 74.5%

  • Total voters
    55

SammyW27

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This recently hit me.

Both have a lot of personality, humor, great animation, and even bought back old friends...and both also have a lot of issues that make then fairly unpopular among fans (though for different reasons). So it's an interesting situation and contrast and I got very curious about how people feel when comparing the two.

Though I implore everyone to please keep it civil. If you like one while disliking the other, that's fine. No need to be confrontational about it.

Me, I'll have to get back to you. I have very mixed feelings about it and am not sure where to rank them compared each other... o_O
 
SM on the basis that it was able to have complete story arcs (for both protagonists and antagonists) and actually have Ash win a Pokémon League. BW, when you get closer and closer to the end, you start to get the feeling that something's missing or rushed. Team Plasma, Iris's arc, and the Decolore Island cruise that ends with an abrupt goodbye between the BW cast. And considering that BW has a League regression (instead of at least maintaining Top 4) whereas Sun & Moon advances Ash were XY left him off in the League ranks, yeah I don't see much contest for me.
 
SM managed to get me back into the anime full force after XY almost did the same 3 years before. At least personally this is a no brainer. I still appreciate BW for trying to break the mold in more than just one way.

I could spend an entire day listing all the things that have made me like SM so much, but to name a few: the animation and art design that feels alive in almost every episode; the comedy actually managing to make me laugh instead of it always being the exact same one liner over and over and over again, and having the gags that were still there themselves play in completely different ways each time they were used (which was scarcely in comparison to past series); Ash having some semblance of a personality without being dumbed down for the sake of it; etc.

Are there issues in SM? Absolutely! Major issues? Definitely!

But here's the thing, absolutely NO series of Pokémon is free of sin. I've watched a few episodes from past series every now and then over the past year and sometimes it's impressive how ridiculous and outlandish some of those plot lines can be, if not to say they are outright stupid. This doesn't mean I or anyone else can't enjoy them. I still like me some cheesy Pokémon episodes, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
 
Easily Sun and Moon. Nothing could make me choose the series that made me suffer through the demon trash known as Iris. SuMo maybe have been boring af, but at least Lana and Lillie made it a slightly more enjoyable experience.
 
I think Sun and Moon is a great series. 90% of the hate it gets is because it's different, whereas Black and White gets criticized because it's objectively worse. Sure it can be inconsistent, but that goes for every Pokemon series. But when Sun and Moon is good, it's GOOD. Many of my favorite episodes in the whole series are from sun and Moon, like the Stoutland episode and the TR Ula Ula Island episode. I get the feeling that SM was originally going to be just like BW, because just like DP there was nowhere to go after XY&Z. But someone on the staff put there foot down and decided it had to go in a completely new direction in order to prevent history repeating itself.
 
BW no question.
BW was only good when charizard returned. Afterward what,nothing happened.Whereas SM has good story on his own.Just think ash lost to a trainer who not even know that full battle is consists of six pokemon.And ash was even dumbed, he was like when he was in first episode of pokemon.Catching pokemon without fainting it.Whereas SM is not like that.I agree that ash has worst design in SM but it story is far better than BW.It story is better than AG and BW.Charizard should be return in XY or SM instead of BW.


No offence!
 
I know I'm in the minority on this (I guess I'm getting really old, I honestly can't comprehend liking SM more than BW, but I am increasingly very different than the general consensus), but BW by such an enormous margin I can't express it in words. I think BW is pretty underrated by fans here, maybe that isn't the exact word, maybe more "misremembered". People talk over and over again about the same several things they didn't like, and then people forget the highlights. The same may very well happen to SM and in 6 years maybe people will only talk about the negative from that too (as many people have recently started to shred XY - and basically only remember XYZ), but the really bad stuff in BW was a lot less frequent than people seem to recall. I can say from my own experience that I even misremembered it (I think mostly because of repeatedly reading the negative stuff on here), even dreading having to watch it early last year when it popped up while I was re-watching everything, then I remembered that I actually like the majority of it quite a bit.

SM on the other hand, for me personally it literally couldn't be worse. This is my opinion, (unlike some others, I don't pretend to say it is worse by definition since all of what we say on here is opinion), it just literally couldn't mesh with my personality and tastes in a more negative fashion. I find the series is just so darn obnoxious, I don't find anything humorous (and I found literally every other series was filled with humor), the removal of traveling and adventure has been extremely painful, I think the art style is an absolute atrocity, I don't think the cast has developed interesting relationships (to me it feels superficial and I feel the group camaraderie is at an all time low), I really am not invested in any characters, I don't really like very many characters, and don't have an interest in anyone's "goals". I used to feel so many emotions when watching old series, with SM I mainly only feel annoyed, embarrassed, or disappointed. Also, I want to note that I have literally seen every dubbed episode in the series (and also the banned one as a sub - and seen a couple others as sub), so I'm not saying this as someone who has only seen a few.

BW, for what its worth, was my least favorite series prior to SM, but I still liked it and I can't even come close to saying the same for SM. I actually really enjoyed the group in BW, I really like Iris and Cilan a lot. I also think Iris teasing her friends is not a bad thing, and I really think everyone overreacts to it, they are clearly friends, many people the world over tease their close friends. I wish Iris would have had more screen time and more successes, but I did really enjoy what she brought to the table, I found her sarcasm very funny, I enjoyed her love of the outdoors a lot, etc. Cilan's gags were generally funny to me, his obsessing over various things was fresh, and really quite humorous, and I didn't think it got stale during the series, with Iris teasing him helping it to stay from becoming stale. BW had some good battles, there are a few that everyone complains about repeatedly (Trip the first time, Nimbasa, Trip in league, Cameron), but again we're talking a few episodes, then a couple bad rivals, but really it wasn't enough to ruin the entire series (on the contrary, if a few battles were bad in SM that would be almost all the battles, because there were hardly any). I felt Ash was much more tolerable in BW, where he made a couple mistakes that didn't make sense (but actually still retained more skills than most people give credit for), but at least he didn't annoy the crap out of me with constant obnoxious, loud yelling. Forgetting battle strategy isn't as bad to me as losing all sense of coordination and being turned into a pincushion gag.

Other BW stuff I really enjoyed; Meloetta, who was more interesting than all forced Alola mythicals combined, Decolore Islands ( I know, people don't like this either), which had some really fun episodes and interesting locations, Pokemon's personalities (Snivy, Emolga, Zorua especially), interesting ways to introduce new Pokemon in fillers. BW also had the ability to go for more than just humor, there were some interesting suspense episodes, action episodes, emotional episodes, etc, very much unlike SM, which literally tries for humor 99% time (and fails every time), even shoehorning it in during episodes that may otherwise be tolerable (I know everyone will argue the Tapu Fini episode, just like Ash losing to Cameron, that is literally 1 episode and it doesn't change everything else about the series around it). In contrast, my list of things I like about SM, I think if I try really hard I can think of 4 or 5 episodes I thought would qualify as below average for other series, but were at least tolerable and the best episodes of SM. SM on the whole for me personally is the most disappointing media of any kind I have experienced, and I really thought the region and characters had great potential for the anime.

Also a note on the poll, it should probably go without saying, but since we are still in the era of SM, it appears to me that many people who couldn't stand the SM series don't frequent this part of the site (or even the site at all anymore), and it would also stand to reason that new people joining during the era of SM are probably ones in support of it (which seems obvious by the opinions of those such people), which does have the effect of skewing the poll in a way.
 
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Even though they both have their fair share of flaws, SM has been far more enjoyable for me than BW ever was. I like Ash's upbeat personality and the group chemistry with the main cast is pretty good, despite how some of the characters are dull individually to me. The family dynamic between Ash, Professor Kukui and Burnet is quite sweet and refreshing. It can be pretty funny without over relying on the same gags. While the character focus episodes aren't even by any means, most of the cast has gotten at least a few solid moments to shine throughout the series. I really liked the Ultra Necrozma arc too. The slice of life format just kind of fits with the general tone of the series. I don't think that SM would rank that high on my list of favorite series, although that could change after I watch the rest of the series, but it's pretty enjoyable.

BW's flaws were much more apparent or at least made it much harder for me to enjoy the series. Iris alone brings down BW significantly for me. There were other problems like the pacing, the poor rivals, Ash's BW team, Team Rocket and the lackluster Decolore Islands arc, but Iris is by far the worst aspect of the series for me. To give BW some credit, if I didn't dislike Iris nearly as much as I do, this might have been a tougher call to make. BW would probably still be my least favorite series even if Iris didn't bother me, but it was fun rewatching the series awhile ago. There actually were some good battles. I think that the bad matches stood out far too much. While Ash's team was pretty lackluster, I actually don't think he regressed nearly as much as fans think that he did in that series. I can definitely see why fans get that impression. Starting off the series by losing to a brand new trainer definitely didn't help matters, but Ash did had some good moments throughout BW to where I frequently thought that I was much too hard on him during the series' run.

The problems in BW stand out far too much, but there are some good episodes and aspects to the series. Admittedly, part of this could also be just from the excitement of rewatching a Pokemon series I hadn't seen in ages. Plus, it did make me miss the traveling aspect of the series. I could see why people could like it more than I could as a whole after rewatching it. BW is still my least favorite series, but I felt it was more enjoyable to rewatch it with some distance from the immense negativity surrounding it during its run. SM still seems to have a much more mixed reception more than anything else, but I still see plenty of love for the series elsewhere and that happened well before Ash won the Alola League too.
 
My vote goes for Sun and Moon. Best Wishes isn't a bad series by any means, it had its moments, but it didn't really felt like it had its own identity. It tried new concepts but dropped them a few episodes later, it tried also very hard to copy the formula of the OS and then, in the end, it had this really long gab where you just had to deal with unimportant filler episodes.
 
BW was only good when charizard returned. Afterward what,nothing happened.Whereas SM has good story on his own.Just think ash lost to a trainer who not even know that full battle is consists of six pokemon.And ash was even dumbed, he was like when he was in first episode of pokemon.Catching pokemon without fainting it.Whereas SM is not like that.I agree that ash has worst design in SM but it story is far better than BW.It story is better than AG and BW.Charizard should be return in XY or SM instead of BW.
Eh, the league is not everything. BW still had the worst league ever, yet, in my opinion, most of BW episodes are much more watchable than the most of SM episodes.
 
BW was only good when charizard returned. Afterward what,nothing happened.Whereas SM has good story on his own.Just think ash lost to a trainer who not even know that full battle is consists of six pokemon.And ash was even dumbed, he was like when he was in first episode of pokemon.Catching pokemon without fainting it.Whereas SM is not like that.I agree that ash has worst design in SM but it story is far better than BW.It story is better than AG and BW.Charizard should be return in XY or SM instead of BW.


No offence!

You make it sound like SuMo!Ash is the pinnacle of intelligence even though he's done plenty of dumb things and is overall much more abrasive in this saga imo. He might be a slightly more consistent battler in SuMo, but his personality isn't that much better compared to how he acted in BW.
 
Tuff choice to pick I stopped watching after Kalos was over and seeing the promo poster for SM it just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't like how Ash turned totally goofy looking and never cared much for the art style at all. It did have a couple of characters I did like Lillie and Moon (she's from the games though.)

BW I don't know where to begin I hated how Ash did a total 180 with his personality. Iris, Iris, Iris, don't get me started on her I'll just say I can't stand her and hate her with a passion. It had a rather lackluster league with Cameron being a stupider version of Ash. Yet it had a couple of highlights I did enjoy the tournament battles, I liked Langley and I really enjoyed Dawn and Cynthia's reappearance.

Overall I'd have to pick SM.
 
I think I prefer SM because there was still a few things that impressed me like Lillie and the discussion of grief/death. Team Rocket was also kind of cute in this season.

I think the reason both BW and SM ranks so low is because the more intense storylines from the games gave many fans high expectations that were quickly shot down.

BW feels worse to me since they actually tried to appeal to fans of the games and those who were tired of Team Rocket's humor in the beginning but then abruptly ended those plots. In SM my expectations were already so low that I was pleasantly suprised when they unexpectedly tried to tackle mature topics with Lillie, Litten, Minior and Mallow.
 
You make it sound like SuMo!Ash is the pinnacle of intelligence even though he's done plenty of dumb things and is overall much more abrasive in this saga imo. He might be a slightly more consistent battler in SuMo, but his personality isn't that much better compared to how he acted in BW.
i think ash personality is depend on his art style. Compare XY ash with BW and SM.

Eh, the league is not everything. BW still had the worst league ever, yet, in my opinion, most of BW episodes are much more watchable than the most of SM episodes.
But what BW has given, a loss to dumbest trainer(Cameron). He doesn't deserve to keep a lucario. Whereas in XY ash pikachu defeated a mega lucario.
 
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