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

[Jez]

I'll be honest, I hated Best Wishes because the change of behavior of the team rocket trio was too radical and without explanation. As a fan I was really not at all prepared for this emotionally: No more tearful separation with their pokemon, no more friendly interactions between Jessie, James and Meowth.

In the first part of the saga: their camouflage outfits, their balloon, their mecha suddenly became dull. All about them was only dark: they never laughed, not joking, no longer seem really happy.

Everything that seemed important to them was their job and the "sake of Sakaki-Sama" they seem to have lost all their values and their freedom.

They might well have become competents without losing ther lovely-charming side and individuality and their friendly interactions. But here, they was looking like some grunts among many others without all the unique touches of originality and fantasy that made them unique and different.

The majority of their appearances seem to be pieces of a cut episode, thrown here when they had nothing to do with the rest of the story of the day. :/

It seemed clear that they had no more their place in the adventures of Ash and they were going to leave. Their serious missions were just an excuse to find them a new occupation other than the "Pikachu" goal.

We have never even had a concrete explanation of why they had been a supposed promotion. Or why "*they suddenly changed their uniforms from black to white" (*it was probably a tribute to the death of shudo)

But the motto animations were always great and beautiful.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

BW Team Rocket were far better than the other versions of them in the show. I don't need to see them trying to catch a regular Pikachu every single episode. A competent evil team aims a lot higher than that such as a legendary.

 

[Dogasu]

I still, to this day, have no idea why people act like the Rocket trio got this huge competence boost in BW. They were just as shitty at their jobs as they had always been.

 

[Daren]

I still, to this day, have no idea why people act like the Rocket trio got this huge competence boost in BW. They were just as shitty at their jobs as they had always been.

Keeping in mind I haven't watched BW, it's probably because they (apparently) didn't blast off as much and acted more seriously.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I still, to this day, have no idea why people act like the Rocket trio got this huge competence boost in BW. They were just as shitty at their jobs as they had always been.

I think it was because of how they weren't presented as the comedy relief villains for most of BW. They were more serious/competent. They still failed almost all the time, as I think their only real accomplishment was stealing a meteorite, but I think people overlook that because they didn't blast off anymore, had cool jetpacks and basically made them out more like traditional villains than they were before. I think it was the way they were presented that gave off the idea that they were so much more competent than what they were actually doing. If the Team Rocket trio acts more serious/competent, then it doesn't matter if they still fail at their jobs, accomplish virtually nothing as a result of losing their personalities and revert back to their original roles because the writers realized what a huge mistake they made with them.

I'm more amazed that people still think that Team Rocket went after Pikachu in every single episode before BW. That obviously is their role in the show and they do that countless times throughout the series, but there are also plenty of episodes where they aren't trying to get Pikachu like when they're focused on a Pokemon of the day, most of their focused episodes don't involve capturing Pikachu and then there are the majority of Jessie's Contests and later Showcase episodes. I could go through a list of episodes from just the original series alone to where Team Rocket wasn't just focused on getting Pikachu, even though I think there are more examples in the other series.

I don't mind the idea of serious Team Rocket, but it was sudden, jarring and had really poor execution. Even the voice actors didn't like the direction the trio were heading towards if I recall correctly. I remember reading some comment on Dogasu's site where Meowth's Japanese voice actor wasn't happy with the decision at least, which might explain why Meowth was in character more often than Jessie and James during the series. I wouldn't be against more serious/competent Team Rocket trio if they didn't became grunts as a result.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

The show never sold me on the idea of any of the characters being strong. It genuinely felt like Ash lost battles he should of won and the fights he did win were by luck and the skin of his teeth. It genuinely felt like Tyson and Paul could show up to Unova and conquer it and see no resistance outside the elite 4. Because of a lack of experieced trainers, dynamic battles, any battles between outside of gym leaders that were not one v one were few and far between, the constant bs of the type chart, the stock footage etc.

 

[Pokefan19]

If BW happened directly after Kanto, maybe even Johto, I don't think anyone would have so much as batted an eye... but seeing as this happened after the prestigious Sinnoh region, the conversion of Ash to top class trainer to noobish idiot with the occasional glimpse of a half decent battler was pretty bad for both character development (in this case regression) and felt like a big kick in the face to the people who were watching the show. Now had they warned us this season was gonna be more like a homage to the original series (Iris the occasional bully/tomboy and Cilan the wise and multi-talented best friend) I'm sure people probably might have been a more accepting, but they baited us with thinking Ash would remain competent only to lose out in almost every important battle bar the Gyms. Was Iris terrible, meh she was pretty boring for a so called know it all, but I think she gets more flack then she deserves. Cilan was a pretty cool guy, but the fact his goal seemed even more vague then Iris's and Ash's was weird, not to mention he was pretty much perfect at whatever he was interested in, why wasn't he an S rank already? Never cared for Team Rocket that much to begin with so it really didn't bother me one way or the other if they stayed serious or not. I think what I personally hated was the fact they played up Ash rotating Pokemon only for it to never have any rhyme or reason for his switches and more often then not it became apparent he was doing a poor job at it and he seemingly began to only carry Pikachu, the starters, Krokorok/Krookodile, and switched between everyone else not named Palpitoad.

 

[Matleo]

maybe becuse he dint got a fully evolved starter?
that the battles were a little weak especially league?
They have shown Lucario to often but maybe people wanted it with Ash?
the animation is also importnt look on generation III , IV and VI , that kind of animation makes us want more.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Pretty much everyone else summed up my feelings about BW, but I'll go ahead and list my gripes about it (as brief as possible, otherwise I'll be here all night).

1) Ash being hit big time by the Idiot Ray and becoming Dum-Dum Ash, which was a huge slap in the face after his epic showdown with Paul in Sinnoh, especially since he was so competent during DP. I mean, unless it was a Quick Ball, who in their right mind chucks a Poke Ball at a Pokemon that's at full health? Considering how talented Ash was during DP, coming up with tactics like Counter Shield (which, sadly, has gone the way of the dodo), how could he become such a no-brained noob? And I fear that Sun/Moon Ash will repeat that, but that's another topic.
2) Iris. Just everything about her got under my skin. "You're such a kid!", catching Dragonite, being a hypocrite about everything, Axew pulling out two ultra-powerful moves (Outrage and Giga Impact) out of nowhere when it struggled to learn Dragon Rage (and those moves were never seen again, mind you), lots of cheap wins, and just outright being a bully to Ash. ...I better stop now before I open up my old wounds and REALLY go at it...
3) Poorly handled rivals. Seriously, they were pretty much jokes. Trip was an unsuccessful clone (or should I say clown) of Paul, Burgundy and Georgia being the butt of most jokes (the latter of which I was particularly upset with, as I liked Georgia, since she regularly pointed out Iris' flaws and ironic moments, much to my delight, plus she's an Ice-type lover, like me), and Virgil's Eevee patrol. Bianca and Stephen at least got a little (keyword: little) better treatment, but in the end they were just as wasted as every other rival.
4) Underdeveloped Pokemon: I think out of all of Ash's Pokemon, Pignite got the most attention, yet repeating the pattern of abandoned Fire Starters, though Krookodile got some decent screentime and development, and perhaps Snivy, though they did miss a big opportunity with her. Most of Ash's Pokemon were poorly handled and remained unevolved, yet they had so much potential. I didn't mind the idea of a rotation tactic, but it was badly executed, which resulted in a weak arsenal of Pokemon with lacking/flawed personalities.
5) Cameron. Need I say more?
6) Serious TRio. I'm one of the apparent minority who liked comical TRio, especially since they acted as a counterbalance to Ash's almost epic form in DP. While XY did find a pretty decent balance between comical and competent, they lost all their original charm and personalities during BW. Even after "regaining" their original mentality after the failed Kami Trio operation, they were still way too serious. Plus the loss of Wobbuffet was a heavy blow. As I said before, XY managed to find at least a decent balance between comical and competent, which I accept warmly, even though I preferred them as they were in the AG and DP eras, but BW TRio were just the pits.
7) Failed Team Plasma plots. Team Plasma had the potential to be pretty powerful villains due to their influence in the games. But sadly, thanks to the earthquake problem (which I will say was a terrible ordeal, as such devastation should not happen), Team Plasma got pretty much scrapped until the tail end of the series. I would've loved to see Ash (well... non-idiot Ash anyway) match his belief in Pokemon battles, Poke Balls, and the general relationship of Pokemon and humans against Team Plasma's liberation goals. N was also wasted as an end result, which would've been a pretty sweet setup between him and Ash.
8) Weak league. Seriously, that league was an absolute circus, just chock full of clowns. After how utterly epic the Sinnoh League, the Unova League was just a huge insult. Not to mention Ash only getting in the Top 8 after his previous Top 4 position was a nice slap in the face.

Okay, this is about as brief as I could do on my gripes with BW. Yeah, quite the extensive list, I know, but I haven't avoided a Pokemon series like the plague that bad ever. Right up there with the OS, nether of which you could pay me to watch nowadays. Now I better stop before my gears grind even worse.

 

[UxieLover1994]

These are the reasons why I think Best Wishes was a disgrace.

Shilling:

For 80+ episodes, we have not seen any pre-Unova Pokémon in the anime apart from Pikachu, Meowth, and Persian. This is actually quite a mixed reaction; showing off only Unova Pokémon for a good period of time allows viewers to get acquitted with them, but the anime failed at that by still giving Ash's Pikachu and Meowth of Team Rocket 67% of screen time, almost to Creator's Pet territory, and leading some to fear these two Pokémon are the only ones the writers even care about; the other 750+ being just walking background. Thank Arecus for Mega Evolution and the Alolan Forms; I never want this to happen again.

The Victini films are also guilty of shilling for giving 75% of its focus to humans, especially Damon and Ash. It is suppose to be a Pokémon movie, and there are hardly any battles after the 30-minute mark. The climax was basically the climax of Frozen, where the main character almost freezes to death because of some male who turned out to be a villain, though at least Damon had a Heel-Face Turn in the end. I've not seen many of the pre-DP films (just M01, M04, and M09), but even then, most if not all of them had far more battles than this one, even in the climax. But back to shilling, giving Ash and Damon most of the action, and leaving Victini, the titular character as nothing more than a power booster and a Distressed Dude, is shameful and a waste of time.

Long-termed planning:

A good writer for a long-termed series should have a few backup plans (with a few blanks so that they can fit anywhere) in the event something goes seriously wrong, especially in Japan, where earthquakes are prone to strike when you least suspect it. For a franchise like Pokémon, you should stay in contact with the game producers to know what they have planned next, and make sure your plans are smooth.

In this case, better foreknowledge of what happens in ''Black-2 and White-2'' could've resulted in a better plot, and maybe have Team Plasma appear sometime before the League with the original plot.

Of course, it does depend on the money that is allowed, since having to retool episodes can be costly.

Missed or wasted opportunities:

1: Ash keeping his DP personality and becomes a sort of mentor to younger trainers, and even teaches them how to catch a Pokémon with Deerling.

2: Ash should've had both Cheren and Bianca as rivals.

3: Ash defeats Trip in their first battle, showing he is not to be taken for granted, even with Pikachu crippled by Zekrom, and proving to Iris that he is more than "just a kid", causing her to drop the act and treat him with respect.

4: To make sure Team Plasma is still going to be important, N should've appeared in random locations throughout Unova early on.

5: Don't catch too many Pokémon; focus on the ones you got. That, and having too much shilling on Pikachu, is the reason why Ash didn't enter the Unova League with all-powerful Serperior, Emboar, and/or Samurott, and a Scrafty as bonus.

6: Give rivals actual character development, and don't add in too many rivals. (Shared with DP)

7: If you have to postpone important episodes due to natural disasters, make sure the plot that was set up is given actual conclusion instead of abandoning them and pretending they never happened. (Shared with the GS Ball arc)

8: Lampshade a few tropes related to any rival dumber than a hamster, and give them more realistic results of their options.

9: Virgil's Eevee evolving into Sylveon as one way to promote X & Y should've been a reality.

10: Fillers are required at times, but having nothing to do during a filler arc that would really interest fans is poor writing.

 

[Muur]

Iris was really annoying - you're such a kid! - and Ash reverted to being a beginning trainer. Pokedexing Pokemon he was already aware of was the biggest annoyance for me. Especially ones he already owned!!!!

 

[danh19]

the series was badly handled feeling like their was a real lack of thought behind it from ash's regression to iris's catchphrase which just rubbed salt into the wound of the mess they made with ash to team rocket completely losing their personality
the lack of growth for ash's Pokémon which came from having him catch to many Pokémon

 

[SinnohEevee]

you do notice a lot of people like team rocket and almost not many people mind them right

But the writers have no problem erasing people more popular than Team Rocket.


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[ii kanji]

But the writers have no problem erasing people more popular than Team Rocket.

There are people more popular than the TRio? I don't believe it!

 

[SinnohEevee]

There are people more popular than the TRio? I don't believe it!

Why would anyone like Jessie?

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EDIT: Some of my issues with BW

* Iris was a poor attempt at rewriting Misty and Trip was a poor attempt at rewriting Paul. This was some lazy writing. If they wanted Misty and Paul, how about bringing them back?

* Ash getting reset because only new fans matter.

* So we get Snivy abandoned her Trainer, but why?

* Did Cilan actually insult Burgundy's Pokémon or not?

* Trip being only Top 128 and Bianca being only Top 64. What the Hell?

* Ash/Satoshi losing to an idiot who though Full Battles were 5-on-5 and that the Unova Conference was in Johto? Who's genius idea was this?

* Ash ending up Top 8 after ending Top 4 in Sinnoh (and that was only because the writers were hell-bent on him losing so they wrote a character with at least a Legendary (Latios) and a Mythical (Darkrai). Ash even defeated the former with Pikachu and the latter with Sceptile.

* Dawn should have stayed longer.

* The TRio became machines.

 

[kantoskies]

I really didn't mind Best Wishes but I could see how some would be disappointed with it. After having great story structure in Diamond and Pearl and one of the best game stories in Black and White, we got a much more lighthearted and episodic series. And while it didn't take it to the levels XY did, the majority of the series ignored everything that happened beforehand. In particular the unofficial ban of older music really stuck out to me. Then there's Team Rocket who, while I loved the idea behind making them more threatening and giving them their own story arc, the execution fell absolutely flat. They were usually boring as hell to watch and still made dumb mistakes all of the time. They didn't retain their personalities or backstories at all. There was no in-universe reason for their sudden switch to being serious all of the time and subsequent reversal back to being comedy relief. No feelings of doubt or worry that they weren't living up to their promotions, no sense of relief when they switched back to the white uniforms and had the freedom to be themselves again, no reason why in one episode they were goofy but the next super-serious, etc.

Also I just really hated the way they drew the clouds in that series.

 

[ii kanji]

Why would anyone like Jessie?

I don't want to comment directly on Jessie, but why wouldn't someone like Musashi - a three dimensional woman who can fierce, bitchy, naive, funny, selfish, selfless, vain, insecure, ambitious, tenacious, loving and, above all else, voiced by Megumi Hayashibara?!

 

[Hidden Mew]

* Iris was a poor attempt at rewriting Misty and Trip was a poor attempt at rewriting Paul. This was some lazy writing. If they wanted Misty and Paul, how about bringing them back?

Because it wouldn't make sense to bring either of them back. Misty wouldn't fit as a means to promote the fifth generation and they had just finished Paul's rivalry with Ash. While I'd agree that they were trying to capture the same kind of effect with Trip as they did with Paul, the solution wouldn't be to bring these characters back. It would be giving these new character better writing.

* Ash getting reset because only new fans matter.

Which is not new in the slightest. Even with Ash's steadily progressing during the first three series and having more callbacks to past events, the anime has always been written with appealing to children and new fans. People are acting like this just started with BW, but that's not true. It's honestly pretty typical for people to lose interest in the anime and the writers know this as well. It's why they make it pretty easy for anyone unfamiliar with the anime to jump on board. You didn't need to watch the original series to fully understand everything in AG or in DP.

* Did Cilan actually insult Burgundy's Pokémon or not?

Definitely not. Cilan would never insult someone's Pokemon. At most, he might have been firm with his evaluation and she could have taken it as an insult, but that's about it. Burgundy is not a reliable narrator here. Besides that, she was a comedy relief rival and I think that flashback was just supposed to emphasize that.

* Trip being only Top 128 and Bianca being only Top 64. What the Hell?

* Ash/Satoshi losing to an idiot who though Full Battles were 5-on-5 and that the Unova Conference was in Johto? Who's genius idea was this?

* Ash ending up Top 8 after ending Top 4 in Sinnoh (and that was only because the writers were hell-bent on him losing so they wrote a character with at least a Legendary (Latios) and a Mythical (Darkrai). Ash even defeated the former with Pikachu and the latter with Sceptile.

I actually liked that Trip got eliminated in the first round. He was so boring and his rivalry with Ash was so nonexistent that I don't think he really deserved anything more than that. Plus, it got him out of the tournament right away. Although, Bianca getting so far was really strange. She was basically a more incompetent female version of Barry. I usually don't focus too much on the changes between the anime and games, but BW taking one of the most interesting and well developed character in the franchise and devolving her into a complete joke still upsets me so much.

I was also pretty fine with Ash ending up in the Top 8. Sure, it was pretty bad after he got to the Top 4 before, especially when he was battling against Legendary Pokemon, but given how Ash was during BW, anything higher than that would have been unbelievable. He was struggling against Roxie's three Pokemon during his last Gym battle and he was able to use his entire team against her. The vast majority of battles in BW were just not good and were full of cheap wins/last minute evolutions to save the day. I honestly would have been okay with Ash getting into the Top 16 again given his skills. It was a really terrible decision to have him lose to Cameron though. Not only because he was an idiot, but he lost to a team full of Eeveelutions right afterwards, which just added more salt in the wound. But in regards to Ash's placement in the Unova League, I was perfectly fine with that.

* Dawn should have stayed longer.

I don't think that would have helped. Her reasoning for being there was pretty forced in, along with her instant friendship with Iris, her battling style wasn't particularly good and her presence didn't really add more to her story or help with any of the other characters' storylines.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Because it wouldn't make sense to bring either of them back. Misty wouldn't fit as a means to promote the fifth generation and they had just finished Paul's rivalry with Ash. While I'd agree that they were trying to capture the same kind of effect with Trip as they did with Paul, the solution wouldn't be to bring these characters back. It would be giving these new character better writing.



Which is not new in the slightest. Even with Ash's steadily progressing during the first three series and having more callbacks to past events, the anime has always been written with appealing to children and new fans. People are acting like this just started with BW, but that's not true. It's honestly pretty typical for people to lose interest in the anime and the writers know this as well. It's why they make it pretty easy for anyone unfamiliar with the anime to jump on board. You didn't need to watch the original series to fully understand everything in AG or in DP.



Definitely not. Cilan would never insult someone's Pokemon. At most, he might have been firm with his evaluation and she could have taken it as an insult, but that's about it. Burgundy is not a reliable narrator here. Besides that, she was a comedy relief rival and I think that flashback was just supposed to emphasize that.



I actually liked that Trip got eliminated in the first round. He was so boring and his rivalry with Ash was so nonexistent that I don't think he really deserved anything more than that. Plus, it got him out of the tournament right away. Although, Bianca getting so far was really strange. She was basically a more incompetent female version of Barry. I usually don't focus too much on the changes between the anime and games, but BW taking one of the most interesting and well developed character in the franchise and devolving her into a complete joke still upsets me so much.

I was also pretty fine with Ash ending up in the Top 8. Sure, it was pretty bad after he got to the Top 4 before, especially when he was battling against Legendary Pokemon, but given how Ash was during BW, anything higher than that would have been unbelievable. He was struggling against Roxie's three Pokemon during his last Gym battle and he was able to use his entire team against her. The vast majority of battles in BW were just not good and were full of cheap wins/last minute evolutions to save the day. I honestly would have been okay with Ash getting into the Top 16 again given his skills. It was a really terrible decision to have him lose to Cameron though. Not only because he was an idiot, but he lost to a team full of Eeveelutions right afterwards, which just added more salt in the wound. But in regards to Ash's placement in the Unova League, I was perfectly fine with that.



I don't think that would have helped. Her reasoning for being there was pretty forced in, along with her instant friendship with Iris, her battling style wasn't particularly good and her presence didn't really add more to her story or help with any of the other characters' storylines.

I think Iris and Trip were victims of lazy writing. They didn't write enough into them, just tried to recopy previous characters.

I think there would have been less hate for BW if it was written before DP.

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[Hidden Mew]

I think Iris and Trip were victims of lazy writing. They didn't write enough into them, just tried to recopy previous characters.

I think there would have been less hate for BW if it was written before DP.

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I think that there was at least more to Iris than just Misty 2.0 though. Aside from arguing/insulting Ash and being interested in one type, they weren't that similar and even in those similarities, there were differences. Ash and Misty argued frequently, while it was just one sided with Iris. Trip on the other hand was a more blatant attempt at making another Paul without understanding what made Paul work. They both still suffered from poor lazy writing, but I think they at least tried to do more with Iris to make her more distinct from Misty. Granted, what they tried basically made her far worse to me, but I wouldn't just say she's a carbon copy of Misty either.

Coming right after DP definitely factored into the hate for BW. I don't think that the hate would have been less so if BW came after the original series or after AG. Even if you don't compare BW with DP, it still has a lot of problems that would still bother quite a few people.