Least Favorite Saga

[Maya the Cat]

N/A, will decide when the current series is over

 

[XYZ Nexus]

By far it's Johto. See one thing that is always bad about it and OS in general was the fact that Misty did NOTHING to pursue her goal as a Water Type Trainer. Sure she had a few episodes here and there for character development but they screwed her over in terms of being a trainer. Then you add in the repetitive fillers, so terrible they could only be topped in terribleness by DP fillers and XY Year 1 fillers. Dub-wise, it is amazing but taking that factor out, it is a mess.

 

[Boshi234]

I never watched the Best Wishes saga but I choose Sinnoh because I generally did not like the episodes. While I totally loved exploring the region in Platinum, the anime adaptation didn't seem good comparatively.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

By far it's Johto. See one thing that is always bad about it and OS in general was the fact that Misty did NOTHING to pursue her goal as a Water Type Trainer. Sure she had a few episodes here and there for character development but they screwed her over in terms of being a trainer. Then you add in the repetitive fillers, so terrible they could only be topped in terribleness by DP fillers and XY Year 1 fillers. Dub-wise, it is amazing but taking that factor out, it is a mess.

Admittedly there were some episodes of no consequence in Johto such as "Pokespoke Person", "Dunsparce Deception" or "Carrying On" for example which were awful in my opinion as well. To this day some of this episodes astonish me in how lazy written, predictable and uniform can be.

But looking it as whole there are many which i have fond memories of such as "Unbearable" and sly Teddiursa, "Some like it Hot", "Forest Grumps" enjoying how TR got split and paired with Misty, Ash and Brock. Having to cooperate together to find their way out of forest. "Tyroque Full of Trouble" where human battled pokemon with its bare hands, which doesnt happen often if ever in pokemon.
It served as nice nod back to P1 tournament from Kanto where Ash left Primeape.

Imo many of them contained lot of humor, fresh and untrie storylines and provided tidbits about some details and interests we didnt know about characters before. Giving sense of world building.

About Misty to be fair lack of focus on her water master quest bothered me too, but i suppose how in OS writers were trying to find their right tune for anime and in what direction they wish to go. Formula of pokemon, especially during Takeshi Shudo reign was hardly much about battling and characters training, actively pursuing dreams.

Even with Ash it can be noticed how rarely he trained or his career was brought up. Majority of episodes focused on development of friendship, sense of adventure in three buddies exploring world, unfolding out human personalities, fears and various quirks they had. Along with exploring on mysteries of poke world.

Which worked both for and against OS.

In light of this things Misty mainly developed in emotional sense maturing, becoming more reasonable and selfcritic of her flaws, build strong attachment to Ash/Brock, and developed greater sense of independence. Developing as person alot, but her growth as trainer not following up that change as much as i would've liked. Still i liked several moments dealing with her expertize as water enthusiast, swimming skills, knowledge of sea currents and pokemon habitat, battling trainers and trying out all kind of activities through crazy, fun role in many arcs, episodes. Despite not that many addressing on her dreams directly.


Looking back Sinnoh definitely goes down as one of least liked and interesting series to me pokemon ever had. I finished rewatching Sinnoh saga last week as part of my pokemon rewatching series marathon and i just realized how many things in DP bothered me never being especially pleased and content with way things played out there.

Sure it had best handled rivals, best handled villain arc in form of Team Galactic and Hunter J. We got female co-star which in return resulted in Brock ending shafted beyond belief.

But Sinnoh saga lacked heart, soul and emotion put into it.
-group chemistry was abysmall. There was no feeling of Ash, Dawn and Brock appearing as close friends which went through many things together developing mutual level of understanding, interchanabgeable varied interaction and play of between each of their personalities. Moments of clash and drama coming to accept each other flaws learning to like themselves for who they are.

Dawn ad Brock felt like two random trainers traveling together barring few notable moments such as Brock teaching her first aid or helping sew outfits for Hearthome conteat.

Even Ash and Dawn friendship everyone mention all the time while fine and dandy in both encouraging themselves and helping each other to grow; lacked that comedy, conflict, sense of urgency and lively dynamic which would make it all that more realistic. Like we had chance to witness through Misty and May. Showing how friends can argue, show rivalry and disagreement having to find compromise.

Not saying there werent such moments with Dawn, but chemistry with Ash felt at times too cheesy and sappy for my taste lacking variety and substance to that dynamic sometime taking away from realism.

-Lot of Sinnoh episodes were just rehashed ideas coated with slightly different modifications to prevent it from looking like complete rerun of what we watched in previous seasons. Such as whole Pikachu andf Piplup refusing to evolve dilemma. Dawn challenging gym leader Maylene which we saw already with first girl.

Chimchar trauma being abused by its previous trainer and mistreated, dealing with albeit abit different but more or less same principle with Charmander and Da,mian. Whose lies and deceive also left emotional scars on pokemon.

Episodes dealing with turmoils going between Jessie, James and Meowth threatening to leave each other going their separate ways., At least twice i saw same scenarion in Hoenn, like in "The Ole, Berate and Switch" or in tag battle.

-whole idea of contests while enriched on whole aspect through ribbons, dressing ups, ball capsules etc paying more attention to organization point system and evaluation from judges left opposite effect on me. Turning them in glorified fest of sparkles and flashy effects not being fan of DP coordinator competitions at all. If anything battle rounds and contests from Hoenn in general suited my taste better overall resembling actual, trainer like battles. Which can be crude, straightforward and brutal.Dealing with pokemon physical strength, resistance and careful utilize of strategy where in big number of cases battle was finished with other pokemon ending fainted. Rather than winning through points taking away from suspense and excitement. Just my preference.

Contemporary Dawn did developed ALOT as coordinator coming closer toward achievement of her dreams than any other travel companion(except maybe Tracey who technically accomplished dream of becoming propf. Oak assistant).
However Dawn in terms of personality change and emotional growth stayed almost completely same since her debut. Cheerful, optimistic and girly, only slightly more humble and down to earth.

Taking away from her depth in characterization and significance of development in contrast to Misty and May who matured, grew and developed greatly as far as their personalities and emotions go. Going in line with all struggles, bad times and encounters with various pokemon, people and situations they found themselves in.

-last but not any less important;
Sinnoh to this day bored me the most with big number of episodes which while in highly strict technical sense of that word werent fillers because of writers shoehorning in last 2 minutes or so things, still felt like such following same, monotone formula over and over again.

In fact whole gap between Snowpoint and Sunnyshore was probably most dreadful and stale era of DP as whole for me greatly lowering enjoyment and excitement to the point of almost completely losing interest for Grand Festival and league by time we finally got there. Such as "Teaching the Student Teacher" where at very end Dawn receives new outfit from Johanna to enter contest, "Piplup up and Away" where in last 5 minutes or so Dawn Piplup all of sudden learned hydropump just to prevent episode from coming of as completely pointess, "Double time Battle Training" where in last few minutes,even seconds Paul or Zoey get randomly brought up to reveal they have made progress on journey regardless of 90% of episode being just Dawn or Ash perfecting some move time after time with little to none excitement. I was never fan of massive amount of episodes dealing with pokemon perfecting or learning ndew moves watching anime for excitement, development of human characters and dive into their own problems and expectations, adventures, action and various challenges, attractions which Ash and his friends discover learning something from it.

Hence why this segments DP was known for took down fair amount of points for me.

Now dont get me werong, Sinnoh had several great things, But in retrospective it still comes of as one of weaker generations pokemon had not being among my favorites. Far from it.

 

[pokepal_123]

*Unpopular opinion incoming*
Now that the XY arc is coming to close in a few episodes, it is for me definitely the worst saga yet:
1.Too many Fillers, most of which are extremely mundane and rehashed.
2.Little to no plot(I mean seriously aside from the gym quest and the somewhat boring Tripokalon quest there is nothing going on).
3.TR at their absolute worst and no purpose whatsoever.
4.The group is so lifeless collectively, I mean even their Pokémon interact more with each other and are somewhat lively.

Those are basically the top reasons why XY is the worst saga/arc for me.

 

[Blazing Charmander]

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.

These posts perfectly articulate my choice for least favourite saga so far, and cover every point that I made against it on these forums during its run. The only thing i'd like to add is that the Charizard episode was its one saving grace. Honestly, if you only watched that episode of BW you're not getting an accurate feel for what the rest of that saga was like. The way that Ash recounts his old adventures with Charizard to Iris's complete awe is at odds with the portrayal of the characters throughout the rest of BW, almost as though the episode was a parody of every aspect of the saga before and after it.

I'll admit that Best Wishes did have its upsides, mainly in that the writers seemed to be trying their best to experiment outside of the old, tired formulas especially with the first dozen or so episodes. I couldn't stand Ash's regression as a character combined with Iris and Trip's holier than thou attitudes, yet looking past that there were some things to admire early on even if some of it felt like a retread of the Indigo saga for the sake of nostalgia. I never bought into Team Rocket's sudden competent ways either, and I think that in XY their characters are still suffering from the chronic hangover that this caused.

I'm glad that most of the above has been rectified with XY which feels a lot more cohesive despite a few drawbacks in my view. Other than Johto and large parts of the Battle Frontier, which also had their share of awesome traits but ultimately caused pure tedium (DP is much the same but I adored the running plotlines in it - Paul and Chimchar, Hunter J, Team Galactic to name just a few), Best Wishes really takes the cake for being such a mess that can easily be sectioned off as a filler saga (making the Decolore Arc a filler saga within a filler saga, I guess) in the context of Ash's quest.

 

[R!ck]

Wow, looking back at this thread... the poll is very clear, BW has more votes than all previous sagas COMBINED! totally deserved. I want to forget it ever existed and like Blazing Charmander said the only good thing about it was that Charizard returned for good.

PD: mmm Johto didn't deserve that many votes :/ maybe it's my OS nostalgia kicking in but the Johto saga has a place in my heart and my childhood. XD

 

[SammyW27]

*Unpopular opinion incoming*
Now that the XY arc is coming to close in a few episodes

Now hold on. The Kalos Saga isn't coming to a close. It's just being renamed. They maybe adding "& Z" to the title, but the major storylines are still ongoing.
It's not truly over until after the League and they've changed the setting & premise. (though how long that takes is another matter...)

And while it was indeed fairly slow, it was still enjoyable. At least to me.

PD: mmm Johto didn't deserve that many votes :/ maybe it's my OS nostalgia kicking in but the Johto saga has a place in my heart and my childhood. XD

No, you're right.

A lot of people give Johto crap for having a dull, fairly uneventful middle part after the GS Herring derailed the original plans it, but there's still a good bit to like.
Particular, it's last year (heck, maybe year and a half) was filled with good, really good, and even some great moments

 

[pokemon fan 132]

No, you're right.

A lot of people give Johto crap for having a dull, fairly uneventful middle part after the GS Herring derailed the original plans it, but there's still a good bit to like.
Particular, it's last year (heck, maybe year and a half) was filled with good, really good, and even some great moments

Same here. With all flaws Johto had it at least had more consistent development, actual continuity and better main cast chemistry than i could say for BW series. Most of Johto issues came from disorganization between writing staff and arguing in what direction to take anime at that time(mr. Shudo himself brought in blogs how there existed lot of conflict between him and director, other members of staff reflecting on writig itself).

But Johto still had all those great arcs like Lugia, Red Gyarados, Whirl islands which exuded with mystery or Larvitar.
Many fun competitions like grass and fire tournament, Seaking contests, underwater battling at Coastline bay, Extreme pokemon race, contest in dozing fire with pokemon.
Misty receiving more focus and development with whole Whirl Islands side trip being mainly centered around her(alongside several episodes where she shined growing emotionally becoming closer with her friends).
Return of various familiar faces like Koga sister Aya, Duplica, Ritchie or Todd making pokemon journey feel more connected.
Johto league and conclusion to rivalry with Gary being downright amazing imo.

Accompanied with all those funny episodes with original trio having close and meaningful chemistry filled with understanding, carealways being there for each other whenever someone suffered or got in danger. Lot of sarcasm and smartass commernts, rivalry laced with tension between Ash and Misty, healthy dose of clash, misunderstanding and lively energy.
Adding to entertainment value and humor(it would be cool to see them go on one more adventure together). Something Unova series tried to replicate, but had for me pretty poor results due to interactions between main girl and Ash feeling one sided and character itself not having adequate pool of emotions and personality traits to invoke such kind of dynamic.

Not to mention amount of wasted potential(such as rivalries with TRip, Bianca, Langley, Cabernet), World Cup being mauled and reduced to mere local event called Junior Cup, Team Rocket arc. Lot of things which had promising and original premises behind themselves delivered much more disappointment for me. Than Johto ever did managing to at least handle lot of things right, even great in its second half.

 

[Rockapheller]

Hoenn.
Lord knows I tried to watch, I realy did. But I just couldn't. I hate everything about Hoenn so much; Pokémon, region, Gym leaders etc. Hoenn is just not my thing.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

The whole Unova saga. Ash got a bit too much pokemon and not one of his starters fully evolved. Even worst, Charizard return and took any spotlight that could been for his Unova pokemon. Ash losing to Cameron and land in top 8 and not top 4 was awful. Then we had to deal with Iris and the annoying "you such/what a kid!" phrase throughout the whole region. Unova was definitely not my favorite.

 

[SammyW27]

and not one of his starters evolved.

Uh...Tepig/Pignite would have a word with you.

Also, I wouldn't say Charizard really stole the spotlight because he really didn't do much, let alone anything truly impressive to imply much spotlight stealing...

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

Uh...Tepig/Pignite would have a word with you.

Also, I wouldn't say Charizard really stole the spotlight because he really didn't do much, let alone anything truly impressive to imply much spotlight stealing...

I meant fully evolved Unova starter. Charizard didn't really had a reason to comeback and served no purpose in the Unova saga.

 

[Litten]

BW because it started off promising imo but then became a train wreck in terms of pacing and plot, not to mention how Ash was handled.

 

[onegreen4000]

Best Wishes is definitely the worst. Ash's pokemon were not handled properly. Everyone except Ash had really strong pokemon. All the episodes which were made to just show Ash losing a battle was horrible. The first battle vs Trip and the league battle vs Cameron are the worst.
Best Wishes had the best potential among all the others.This could've been the best.

 

[Shoutmon]

Remove BW and nothing would change.

 

[Shadowlarvitar]

The DA arc of Best Wishes...... absolutely nothing happened aside from Alexa being introduced and Oak getting a Rotom which we see when Ash calls him.
A main character should have gotten something. There was even a stone episode that Pansage could have evolved in but noooooo........ or Ash could have caught Dunsparce.

I actually liked Best Wishes on Team Rocket's end though.