Favorite Ash-Free Animation

[SammyW27]

They can be a breath of fresh air and a nice break from the Never Ending Adventures of Ash, Pikachu, and Friends

Me, I'm going with Generations. Yes, they're short and not perfect, but anything that gives us an alternate on the Villain Teams AND let's people out of Never Animated Jail is aces in my book! (also, the Isshu episodes were better than half of BW)

 

[Beatsy Ray]

I've always had a soft spot for
Legend of Thunder. The Japanese OP is ace and Marina is an underrated Poke-girl.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Legend of Thunder is pretty good... subbed because otherwise it's dub counterpart is a legendary trainwreck to behold in just how spectacularly cringy and dreadful the dialogue and acting gets. And oh gee wilikers, I cannot forget about them randomly changing Hun to a female because they couldn't be arsed to check that he's a male...
or them having randomly forgotten about Jackson thus giving him a new name...
or just how horrifyingly awful Marina sounds...
or the fact that they cut the entire ending off which is just unexcusable...
or...

hmmm, excuse me folks, it seems I dozed off into a terrible rant there... errm... anyways...

While I don't hold Origins in a huge regard, it's still an enjoyable mini-series and the dub for that was pretty good with Jamieson Price owning it as Giovanni.

Not much to say about the promo shots other than that they're short promos and they do their job well.
"However.... I disagree!"

Twilight Wings has been doing wonders for some of Galar's cast of characters and while the dub got off to a pretty shaky start with the first episode (as far as the kids sounded), it's been a lot better with the other episodes. Keith Silverstein was such a great choice for Rose too.

The side specials are always fun to watch to see how Ash's companions have been doing, the Mystery Dungeon stuff were decent and I loved the Mega Evolution specials a lot.

 

[ii kanji]

The only valid answer is the original version of the Origins of Love and Youth Hoso. Sorry I don’t make the rules!

 

[Nicolas721]

Chronicles, some episodes may feel formulaic but the idea of giving life to recurring characters and companions is really nice as we see things from their perspective, as well as some of them meeting each other in later series.

Generations would be second, it's cool to see some events from the game being reinterpreted as some kind of shonen anime.

Third place would go for Mega Evolution specials. It has great battles and a cool story, however it's disappointing that its story continues in the anime which shows an Alain with a sightly different personality.

 

[Fan of Jarrus]

Chronicles, some episodes may feel formulaic but the idea of giving life to recurring characters and companions is really nice as we see things from their perspective, as well as some of them meeting each other in later series.

Generations would be second, it's cool to see some events from the game being reinterpreted as some kind of shonen anime.

Third place would go for Mega Evolution specials. It has great battles and a cool story, however it's disappointing that its story continues in the anime which shows an Alain with a sightly different personality.

Alain' s personality changed?

 

[Nicolas721]

Alain' s personality changed?

The 4th special hinted at him "turning to the dark side" and being very frustrated with himself, but when his anime debut came he was just a friendly robot which kept that personality until the league ended.

 

[Emmy]

Twilight Wings.

Even with only four episodes so far, I've still found it to be far superior to every other spin-off.

 

[Johtohfiller]

This one just dropped and it's already a high ranker for me. I badly want to see Team Rocket animated in this style.

 

[SammyW27]

Someone's been playing Cuphead

Though is that official or fanmade?

 

[Shadao]

This one just dropped and it's already a high ranker for me. I badly want to see Team Rocket animated in this style.

Interesting. Based on the colors, character models, music, and slapstick, I'm willingly to bet that this is based on the Fleischer Cartoons. Thank goodness the History of Animation lessons I've learned can finally pay off.

1) The color scheme is muted with Red and Green being the primary colors dominating the screen. This is something you don't see in Disney cartoons (because they used Technicolor which gives them access to three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue). But is something you would see in a Fleischer cartoon because they could only use a two color process known as Cinecolor (as Disney held exclusive rights to Technicolor).

2) It's very rubbery. Almost every animated object and character feels like it was made of rubber. Now Pokémon is one thing but the train, truck and baggage do not have solid weight to them and they all bounce around in the rhythm of the music. A Fleischer cartoon is known for its extensive use of rubber hose aesthetic (unless it's Superman) and the animation always in motion, sync to the beats of the music like their old "follow the bouncing ball" sing-along shorts, and rarely ever stops.

3) The music, with the drums, trumpets, bass, and piano, is very reminiscent of Jazz. Disney, being based in Los Angeles, used classical music for their cartoons. The Fleischer brothers, being based in New York, used the local jazz musicians to score their cartoons.

4) Finally, the extensive use of slapstick. While many studios used slapstick gags all the time, including Disney, it's the Fleischer cartoons that really defined it as their style, at least in this manner (Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons have a different kind of slapstick). Dave Fleischer believed "that every scene should have a gag" and "nobody should animate a scene without a gag."

Here's one Fleischer Cartoon as an example

Someone's been playing Cuphead

Though is that official or fanmade?

It's official since it's on the official JP Pokémon Kids TV Channel.

Also, it's no coincidence that Cuphead was heavily inspired by the Fleischer Cartoons.

 

[SammyW27]

Now the question is if it's a one-shot, or the first in a (short) series.

Also, was a that a different animation studio???

 

[Beatsy Ray]

Interesting. Based on the colors, character models, music, and slapstick, I'm willingly to bet that this is based on the Fleischer Cartoons. Thank goodness the History of Animation lessons I've learned can finally pay off.

1) The color scheme is muted with Red and Green being the primary colors dominating the screen. This is something you don't see in Disney cartoons (because they used Technicolor which gives them access to three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue). But is something you would see in a Fleischer cartoon because they could only use a two color process known as Cinecolor (as Disney held exclusive rights to Technicolor).

2) It's very rubbery. Almost every animated object and character feels like it was made of rubber. Now Pokémon is one thing but the train, truck and baggage do not have solid weight to them and they all bounce around in the rhythm of the music. A Fleischer cartoon is known for its extensive use of rubber hose aesthetic (unless it's Superman) and the animation always in motion, sync to the beats of the music like their old "follow the bouncing ball" sing-along shorts, and rarely ever stops.

3) The music, with the drums, trumpets, bass, and piano, is very reminiscent of Jazz. Disney, being based in Los Angeles, used classical music for their cartoons. The Fleischer brothers, being based in New York, used the local jazz musicians to score their cartoons.

4) Finally, the extensive use of slapstick. While many studios used slapstick gags all the time, including Disney, it's the Fleischer cartoons that really defined it as their style, at least in this manner (Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons have a different kind of slapstick). Dave Fleischer believed "that every scene should have a gag" and "nobody should animate a scene without a gag."

Here's one Fleischer Cartoon as an example





It's official since it's on the official JP Pokémon Kids TV Channel.

Also, it's no coincidence that Cuphead was heavily inspired by the Fleischer Cartoons.

Thanks for lesson...and Oh my God that's horrifying.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Oh my God that's horrifying

I had a few Betty Boop and Superman DVD's when I was a kid (all of which were public domain shorts and the Superman DVD's were released by some crappy company called 23rd Century) and let's just say that Fleischer's stuff really was out there for it's time.

 

[RK9]

Twilight Wings is goated.

Best Pokémon anime content we've gotten in years.

 

[SammyW27]

Bumping in honor of Twilight Wings' finale

 

[Sheep]

Chronicles has a really special place in my heart, as well as The Legend of Thunder. Must have watched those tens of times over. The stories were so engaging and I was incredibly happy to have focus on other characters, especially in such deep and serious events I didn't often see in regular episodes. My favorite was episode 18 with Richie and Moltres! It's been so long since I watched.. going to have to add this to my list again ;_;

Twilight Wings and Origins are close seconds though

 

[Islander Princess]

Chronicles for me! I just love the human characters in the Pokemon world and absolutely loved that that series gave us a look at what they're up to without Ash being around. It was also a great way to continue to incorporate them without having to shoehorn them into the main series (even though I'm, selfishly, not against that). With so many new characters having been added since it first aired, it would be awesome to bring something like Chronicles back.

Also going to give honorable mention to Twilight Wings. As someone who really wasn't big on Origins or Generations, I was pleasantly surprised with just how much I loved Twilight Wings. You could tell a lot of love was put into it, and I think it did such an amazing job of showing off Galar and its characters.

 

[Gengarzilla]

Generations, pretty much because it was the only part of Pokémon's 20th anniversary year that gave spotlight to the entire main series instead of drooling over Gen I like a slobbering dog. Last I checked, anniversaries were about commemorating the whole thing and not just its roots.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Twilight Wings easily gets my vote. They told good and satisfying stories within their relatively short time frame, showed off a good amount of the Galar cast and giving some focus to some people living within the Galar region, particularly those two kids from the hospital, gave the region some more life. Nearly every episode stood out to me and it was always a treat to see new episodes every month. I especially loved the highlights of Leon vs. Raihan during the last episode too. It was such a good mini-series. It would have been nice to see some more of the Galar rivals, especially Hop, but since this seemingly was set prior to the events of the games, it made sense that they wouldn't get more attention. I really hope that we can get more mini-series like this in the future.

I haven't seen Chronicles in ages, but I think I like the idea behind it more than anything else. I like Ash and I don't mind that he's still the main character, but there are so many likable and memorable main/supporting characters in every series now that it would be nice to see what they're doing after their respective runs in the cast are over. I think that they dropped this concept far too soon As great as it was to see what Misty was doing as she was becoming a Gym Leader and those solid Team Rocket episodes, I would have absolutely loved it if they had also shown some of May and Dawn's Contests in other regions and Paul's battle against Brandon. They did have some specials featuring main characters, but these were more inconsistent compared to Chronicles and the dub skips them over now unfortunately too. If Chronicles had a better dub, it might have stood out a bit better beyond its concept for me.

I might have voted for Origins if it had a few more episodes. They basically just covered some of the highlights of Red's journey and threw in some Mega Charizard X promotion into the mix. I don't mind the latter since it was a pretty awesome reveal and it was still cool to see a bit more faithful adaptation of the original games' storyline, but I think it was harder to pull that off effectively within just four episodes. Most of the characters don't really stand out and aside from Charizard, none of Red's Pokemon stand out either. It was fun to watch, but I think fans put it on a high pedestal, or at least they did when it first came out.

I really didn't like Generations. Much like Chronicles, the idea behind it was cool, but the execution felt so lacking to me. There were just so many shorts that just felt pointless to me. Granted, these were shorts, so I wasn't expecting any huge storyline, but so many of them didn't really have a conclusion or covered the events from the games in a particularly interesting manner. There were some that I did like, such as the ones about the Legendary Beasts, Silver and N, but for the most part, the vast majority of these shorts left little to no impression on me.