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Review JN001: Pikachu is Born!

Whoever thought it was a good idea to replace Shinji Miyakazi must have some serious egg on their face right now. Nothing against this new composer, however, Pokemon does not feel right without Miyazaki. Moreover, some of the musical direction felt like DUB music to me. It was that bad. Overall, I thought the episode was cute. But the thought of losing Miyazaki's entire catalogue has ruined this series for me

2/10
 
"One hour special" is such a disgusting bait-and-switch (...again). It was half hour of a pre-episode live show and the remaining half hour for an episode of normal length. So annoyed about that.

On to the episode itself. It was a really decent episode, but I feel like there was a bit too much focus on Gou & Koharu that kind of pulled away from what the episode was supposed to be about. I expected it to be the Pokemon Summer Camp, but I guess this is a different event considering it was closer in line to a Field Trip/Expedition (that would have taken place before the Summer Camp).

I'm surprised that they never showed the reasons behind Pikachu's disobedience, reluctance to enter his Pokeball and why he doesn't want to evolve (the latter especially given how happy he was upon evolving). Kind of wasted potential.
 
Tbh I was annoyed by Gou and the new girl bickering. Mew is playful as always. Idk why Satoshi was in thqt episode, wasnt really necessary and rather pointless. 6.5/10
 
A disappointing start to the series. I was teary eyed when pikachu decided to leave kangaskhan, apart from that the episode had nothing good. Wasted potential. Overall rating 4\10
 
If anything I find it funny that Jessie/James got a Garchomp before Ash, assuming the Garchomp we saw fighting alongside Corviknight is also theirs.
 
Hopefully this shortcoming is an isolated event and the series will still be a good one; I, too, am disappointed they didn't explore Pikachu's backstory as substantially as they could. I am glad we got to see him evolve from his Pichu stage though! (Which will be the only time you'll ever see Ash's Pikachu evolve in any capacity)
 
It's funny. I should be upset that it doesn't concentrate on Pikachu's backstory all that much... but I'm not. In fact, the reason for this episode existing now makes sense. It does an effective job at showing why Go is so obsessed with capturing Mew. I also like that Koharu was there as well since that means she won't be all "Are you sure you saw a Mew? I think you either made it up or only thought you saw one." in the present day.

Finally, I love when our favorite mascot was looking at himself after evolving and going "I'm a Pikachu? I'm a Pikachu!"
 
I enjoyed the scene where Pichu decided to leave the Kangaskan, but the rest of the Pichu scenes weren't particularly exciting. Cute, but nothing more. The fact that we didn't see anything that should have been the first boxes on a checklist for a Pikachu Backstory irritated me more than it should have, but not nearly as much as having to sit through a pointless liveshow that revealed nothing we didn't already know and the idols didn't even sing anything despite having been brought on the show for whatever reason. I still think the liveshows were because they ran out of money during SM and couldn't afford to make the usual animated between-series specials. I liked Gou and Koharu enough and I'm happy that the OP animation promises to give her more relevance than the pre-series advertising indicated, but as first episodes go it really didn't grip me as well as it should have. I'm not going to write the series off yet since it was just one episode and it's entirely possible that future episodes will be better, but as it was it really wasn't great aside from a few things. The music is very Camp Pikachu-esque, but not nearly as good as MIyazaki's score.
 
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