Least Favorite Saga

[Sakuraa]

BW

Everything just went downhill and I feel that it was the only series that was significantly worse than the preceding one.

Ash became a idiot again-Forgetting how to catch Pokémon, terrible battles with little to no strategy, etc.
A LOT of the battles were terrible-Almost every gym battle, many tournament battle, the league, etc.
I hated Iris and Cilan-Iris was an annoying, hypocritical pain in the ass and Cilan was annoying and boring as hell and did absolutely nothing of interest for the entire series.
Horrible, boring fillers.
Lame/Terrible rivals-Trip was overpowered for most of the series and had no real rivalry with Ash. Bianca was annoying as hell and her rivalry with Ash didn't really exist. Stephan was an okay rival, but still pretty boring. Georgia was a b*tch and her rivalry with Iris went nowhere. Burgundy was a complete joke who lost every battle. Virgil and Cameron just showed up at the last minute right before the league.
Ash's team was too big and screentime was horribly divided.

I could say a lot more, but basically, I hated almost everything about this series. In fact this was so far the only series where I just stopped caring about it. After episode N, I was done, eagerly awaiting XY. My interest was just depleted, which was a huge letdown for me after DP, my current favorite saga. Thankfully, I'm really liking XY and am once again happily and eagerly awaiting new episodes.

 

[Pikafanboy]

Before BW, I would have gone with Johto. Too many boring fillers and his Johto Pokemon got totally overshadowed by his Kanto ones he brought along. The only thing I really like is how he started actually earning badges properly instead of Kanto's pity badges and we got a full battle with Gary at the league. But BW blows it out of the water, instead of being just boring to watch like Johto, it's actively annoying. Ash and Team Rocket got mutilated, turning into a moron and a bunch of serious business drones respectively. I hate Iris, she's the only one of Ash's friends I actively wanted to go away throughout the whole saga. She was annoying, complained about everything Ash and Cilan did, and constantly had characters praising her when she hasn't done a thing to deserve it. Trip was a terrible rival, I would have preferred taking the Hoenn approach and having no main rival at all if it's going to be as pointless as him. The League was by far the worst in the show, the only decent battle was against Stephan, all of the others where abysmal. Team Plamsa was non-existent till they got a few episodes at the end, they make Team Aqua's and Team Magma's portrayal in AG look great in comparison. I could go on but I totally hate this saga more than anything else the show has done before. I'd rather watch one of those boring Johto fillers than sit through this ever again.

 

[Johtohfiller]

I'd rather watch one of those boring Johto fillers than sit through this ever again.

My thoughts exactly.

If you haven't seen it yet, the very last episode of BW completes the murdering of Ash's character in a spectacular fashion (I watched it subbed a few days ago but I'm waiting for the official thread to post my full thoughts). It's so bad I can't help but suspect active trolling.

Orange Islands was my previous least favorite - I thought Ash's characterization seemed slightly "off" in that saga, though since it's been a good while since I've seen it I couldn't tell you exactly how. But whatever it was, it was *nothing* compared to the farce that is BW. Best Wishes? More like Bad Writing!

 

[1rkhachatryan]

BW for sure, no question. Seriously after the 7th gym, it just became unbearable.

 

[SammyW27]

BW for sure, no question. Seriously after the 7th gym, it just became unbearable.

You just hit the nail on the head! :cheers:

 

[MetroLSD]

I may be in the minority for saying this but i found the Kanto badge quest to be worse saga of the original series, Say what you want about Johto and OI but i enjoyed them more than i did Kanto.

 

[Team Gaara]

I've said it many times, but BW. Just to keep it short, simple, and as rant-free as possible:

-Ash was regressed into a noob, forgetting even the basics of how to catch a Pokemon.
-His "journey" in Unova felt like a vacation; he didn't seem serious about wanting to beat this region's league whatsoever.
-His Gym battle with Elesa; very, very painful to watch.
-His team was pretty bad; too big, not enough time for any to get any real focus and evolve, some members I forgot about entirely.
-Oshawott's comic relief got old VERY quickly.
-Iris was a complete asshole and hypocrite. I've seen female characters have their arguments with Ash, but Iris was completely over the top and her constant rudeness was unneccesary and irritating.
-Axew screwing up everything and Iris never bothering to give enough of a damn to do anything about it. Scratch that; never caring enough to do anything positive about it. What she did do was baby that thing!
-Too many rivals, none were able to get enough attention or development.
-While I originally didn't like contests too much, as I felt they took away time from Ash's Gym battles, Iris and Cilan doing absolutely nothing is far worse. Especially when Ash has lost all the skills he's had for years. If he'd been good, it may not have been so bad. It was almost as if no one was doing anything.
-TOO MANY TERRIBLE, REPETITIVE Axew fillers.

 

[Lillie]

Best Wishes was the worst series imo. The writing was horrible and everything felt too rushed and the battles sucked. DA also should have never existed. Johto and the Orange Islands would be 2nd worst to me because Johto had too many fillers and Misty became boring and had no personality and Brock had it worse imo. Orange Islands was bad because I didn't like the gyms there, they felt pointless tbh because there was no gym battles, just races and other stuff.

DP=BF>Kanto=Hoenn>Orange Islands>Johto>BW1>BW 2: EP N>BW: 2>BW 2: DA!

 

[pokemon fan 132]

Looking back even though i didn't find Unovs to be that "bad", when comparing it with other sagas i have to say it was my least favorite for several reasons.

Back than when Bw was just announced and started to air i was excited about new ideas and experiments like Don George battle clubs, fresh type of quest for female to follow doing coverage on one of most popular types out there(Dragons) being glad how after 8 years of contests finally something else was brought on table. I welcomed idea of Ash rotating pokemon, all companions having rivals and TR being more organized and competent.

However it all went downhill for me in first part when 12 years of development and achievements main protagonist went through went down ther gutter with past and previous adventures, companions being treated like nonexistant which never happened.
Giving out impression how its pointless to follow someone journey anymore if there is no progression injected into it.

Accompanied with lack of proper focus, inconsistent and shallow treatment of new features which backfired negatively on character and story development frustrating me even more. Such as terrible league which had one of most rushed and anticlimactic plannings ever, rivalries going nowhere, lack of development for characters like Cilan or lack of believable growth in certain aspects like it was with Iris accompanied with there being not out any clear cut direction in which plot should go with lot of material BW firstly introduced ending as wasted potential.

In short I welcome experimenting and new ides by all means, but i don't appreciate if staff drop ball with them doing bad job from it. With issues arising probably from multiple factors like lack of being prepared and experienced enough in dealing with new concepts, possible disputes going between writers but natural disasters which no one could predict to happen like massive earthquake,. Which influenced Team Plasma story and way in which it would be executed.

Also as it wasn't bad enough after league and N arc which was one of rare BW series highlights, whole adventure through Dekolora islands felt like giant waste of time not containing any substantial storyline or reason to be there(i thought Battle Frontier was worst out of allk sidearcs but Decolora took first place for me). Such as some sort of quest Ash would need to accomplish which usually side sagas include making his journey in this series more meaningful feeling like he at least accomplished something after fiasco which happened with other tournaments and league. Involving much needed development of characters like Cilan, their rivals or Iris whose growth feels inconsistent and contrived.

Worst of all is how BW2 games gave them lot of material to work with like World Cup. Which could have been used as story which would fill up time before new games come out and provide Dekolora with actual substance Such as spreading chain of tournaments across the region all being part of world championship for Ash to enter and rank up as trainer. As well return older gym leaders and popular ex main familiar faces like Brock and Misty whose story could had benefit from battling strong trainers from all parts of world competing in high level tournaments. Which would only help better promote new games and bring more excitement.

Instead they wasted perfectly fine potential turning big deal from games into joke which was called Junior Cup spending rest of sagas on episodes of no consequence or much plot to begin with. With exception of few, far between episodes.

Ill be fair though because there are things i liked such as Don George tournaments, group chemistry which felt to be full of energy and many fun episodes containing lighthearted humor and good dialogue.
And we got N arc which was imo highlight of whole Bw series executing it in decent manner.

But overall messed up storyline, butchered plots and poorly done development Best Wishes offered prevailed in Unova ending as my least favorite saga so far.

Granted Johto got on my nerves too at times with wasted potential, abandoned plots and sheer amount of episodes of no consequence starting following repetitious line of helping COTD, but looking back im giving it some of a free pass.
At least it had better following with Ash and co going somewhere maturing and developing closer bond instead of resetting, there was sense of continuity present and group interacting was more endearing imo .Enjoying in Ash cheeky overconfidence, Brock assertive,flirty nature and Misty rebellious, full of brash determination attitude mixed with tender sides maintaining their charm.(making me question when i hear how this cast had "no personality?").

Saving it from being on bottom of my list as far as pokemon sagas go and which one ended delivered as most underwhelming filled with disappointment for me.

 

[R!ck]

Best Wishes for sure, almost made me quit the anime after watching it for more than a decade, that's how bad it was. :/ Thanks XY for redeeming the show!

 

[LavenderTownGhost]

For me it was D/P because that was when I stopped watching the anime. I haven't seen any of the D/P saga, so it goes as my least favorite.

Out of the ones I have seen, Best Wishes by a long shot.

 

[weeaboo_girl84]

Best Wishes for me, followed by Johto. Nothing different here.

Thanks XY for redeeming the show!

XY is also quite lacklustre atm.

 

[szmty]

Best Wishes for sure, almost made me quit the anime after watching it for more than a decade, that's how bad it was. :/ Thanks XY for redeeming the show!

This. Best Wishes was actually one of the reasons why I stopped being interested in Pokémon... until B2/W2 trailer managed to recover my faith in the franchise ;D

Why do I dislike Best Wishes?
First, I couldn't stand Ash's reset back into the 10 years old brat he was when he began his adventure in Kanto. The pure statement that declared that Ash was still 10 years old was the first nail in BWs coffin for me. The next nail would be that, not only his age was possibly regressed, but also his ability as a Pokémon Trainer. DP was Ash's best series in my opinion. He had become a smart, prepared and mature trainer, with a good amount of experience, who battled strategically rather than with brute force. Then comes Iris. She became a big bossy boots over Ash, scolding Ash for his renovated stupidity. I never liked her background about being a Dragon trainer, yadda yadda yadda... By the end of BW, she only had 3 Dragon-type Pokémon. Only one of them, Dragonite, was fully evolved. And that's because she caught it when it was already fully evolved. And finally, here comes Cilan, who was essentially an unlikeable Brock clone... the less I talk about him, the better.

XY seems to be trying to fix what BW broke down. It's not as good as DP, but at least it's trying to do restore Ash's personality back to where it was when DP ended.

This is what I think about the anime:
DP>AG>OS=XY>>>BW

If anyone plans to do an anime marathon, my advice is that you can skip all of BW. That way you won't feel uneasy when you realize how drastic were the changes.

 

[R!ck]

Best Wishes for sure, almost made me quit the anime after watching it for more than a decade, that's how bad it was. :/ Thanks XY for redeeming the show!

If anyone plans to do an anime marathon, my advice is that you can skip all of BW. That way you won't feel uneasy when you realize how drastic where the changes.

+1000 I have all of the Pokémon episodes from OS episode 1 to DP191 and from XY001 to XY018 so far, I refuse to download any of the episodes from BW, I look at it as a spin off from the anime, basically non existent for me.

 

[Max1996]

Best Wishes, because Iris (Iris: "How dare you say that?! What a little kid")

 

[Osprey]

B/W. I saw only a few episodes, but all of them were terrible. It probably didn't help that I had pretty high expectations, since Pokemon Black version is one of my favorites in the series. Plus they completely screwed over Team Plasma. You know it's bad when even N can't make it better. They ruined everything!

 

[Horsebite]

I had to vote Best Wishes. Iris was annoying most of the time, and I just found Cilan too weird. Trip wasn't handled well at all, and didn't seem like a real rival. My favourite series is probably Diamond and Pearl or the Original Series, because all the characters were great, and we actually had character developement. In Best Wishes, Ash was a stupid, and was nothing like what he was in DP. I also found Team Rocket to be a bit too smart, and I also hated their uniforms.

 

[xEryChan]

I really hated best Wishes so much and for obvious reasons. The episodes were boring, Ash's regression pissed me off to no end, and while I did like Iris, she did get on my nerves with her catchphrase, "such a child" got on my nerves so much.

 

[Lillie]

Johto, BW Season 2, particularly DA, and the 1st year of XY are probably my least favorite series as of right now. There was hardly anything happening in those arcs and they focused mostly on Ash and Team Rocket and really no one else, though at least in DA Iris got some focus iirc.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Diamond and Pearl *ducks thrown brick*. I managed to watch it through, but whenever I try and rewatch an episode I end up turning it off after about five minutes. My biggest gripe are, to wit:

- So damn noisy. The background music, voice acting and sound effects are constantly competing with one another, especially during the Contest rounds. The main cast have the gravest difficulty in speaking below a holler. There are some quiet moments, but often they're not quite quiet enough and seem to always end on Dahn catchphrasing

- Melodrama. People keep saying that DP was more mature. No it wasn't. The villains were just as cartoonish as ever, just the plots desperately tried to raise the stakes higher. Hunter J plays out like a fanfic character written by an eight year old, nearly every Galactic episode ends with the admins saying "Well, we lost today, but it doesn't matter!" (So what was the point of the day's plans in the first place). Oh, and -

- Paul as a blatant creator's pet. It wasn't just his cruelty towards his pokémon, though it got hand-waved away as "tough love". He was just a cruel person, and his occasional bowing at the Champion doesn't change that. I could put up with a cruel character not getting his comeuppance, which could be a mature theme, were it not for the show steadily trying to excuse it. Being a bully isn't a virtue

- Flaws that had existed for a while got exacerbated here. Little annoyances like exaggerated accents (Fantina, who also got on my nerves by being a Gym Leader when she felt like it. Oh, and Ash's smoker's voice), Brock's instant crushing gags, constantly repeated phrases ("Speecial Traaaining!" which appears to be the same as "Training." "Myamoswine!" "Oh man I am so psyched!"), vague character growth (In particular Dahn. A lot is made over her repeatedly losing Contests, but it's never spelled out exactly what she's doing wrong, which is a shame because the idea was a good one)