The good the bad and the poke of DP

[Cybersai]

I don't see why they can't mix DP's story structure with BW's character interaction and humor.

There's no reason the show can't have both at the same time.

 

[Froakie]

I mean solely watches it for the character interactions. Pokemon has never been very good at character relationships, if you want that go watch something else. Which is why I don't really care about any of that 'conflicting group views' stuff, because I watch it for what it's supposed to be watched for - the pokemon and characters. (which both suck now )

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

There's no reason the show can't have both at the same time.

There's a reason: Lazyness...

Which is why I don't really care about any of that 'conflicting group views' stuff, because I watch it for what it's supposed to be watched for - the pokemon and characters.

Agreed.

 

[CrackFox]

I was bored with contests and still reeling from losing Harley and Drew so Dawn's journey was completely lackluster to me. I don't hate her. She just didn't appeal to me. I thought she was pretty dull for the most part.
Piplup was by far the biggest annoyance for me in DP. I liked it at first but as time went on and I realized that Dawn had no intention of ever putting the thing back into its Pokeball, I knew its presence would start grating on me sooner or later.

Ash's attitude was very basic and quite bland. I suppose you could put that down to maturity but it lead to him being much less humorous and quirky than previous gens.
The things I appreciated about the DP saga were mostly the Pokemon that I did like. For example, Ash's Chimchar. I thought it's back story was very interesting and pretty touching for a cartoon. I also loved Ash's Gliscor. My favorite Pokemon of the entire DP saga was Brock's Croagunk. My favorite of Dawn's Pokemon was Pachirisu, but the rest of her team, I didn't really care for. The plot itself was handled well but because talk of taking over the world and resurrecting legendaries doesn't really excite me, it was just a lot of boring as hell episodes to sit through.

The characters that totally annoyed me in DP were, Zoe, Angie, Cynthia Hunter Jay and Ursula. (Eurgh, and Dawn's mum)

Characters I liked included, Conway, Barry, Paul, Gardenia and Fantina.

I can definitely say that this is so far (BW included) my least favorite Gen, but by no means would I say it was awful.

 

[CommanderPigg]

I mean solely watches it for the character interactions. Pokemon has never been very good at character relationships, if you want that go watch something else. Which is why I don't really care about any of that 'conflicting group views' stuff, because I watch it for what it's supposed to be watched for - the pokemon and characters. (which both suck now )

Well, if you're watching for characters, shouldn't character interaction also be somewhat important?

I gained a new appreciation for group dynamics after I saw BW (maybe because I felt as if I've been deprived of it all through DP). It's really fun when the main characters are part of your central focus for once, instead of the secondary characters (Like the rivals, or TR, which were usually my focus) since they're prevalent in every episode.

I think that as individual characters, DP did a pretty good job of solidifying them. But...it's hard for me to concoct amusing situations for the main group because they just didn't blend as well as I would have liked.

Just my opinion of course. I can see why some people would prefer the more structure and plot based aspects of DP.

 

[Ashfangirl22]

I have to admit, D/P did have its pros and cons

-Trio didn't have much chemistry
-Team Rocket wasn't as funny as they used to be
-Contests got boring after AG
-Dawns rivals were horrible
-How they delt with Ash/Barry's rivalry at the end

Pros

-Ash/Paul's rivalry was the best part of the series
-Ash being really mature was intresting to watch
-Ash/Dawn's friendship was fun and I really liked PearlshippingXD
-Cool little tournaments and fun new characters like Angie/Conway

 

[Ambipom666]

Personally Diamond and Pearl is my favorite series. I liked a lot of things about it, but I guess it had flaws too.

The Good:
- Ash and Paul's final battle is my favorite in the series.
- Dawn and Pearlshipping *shot*
- A lot more, I can't list it all!

The Bad:
- It ended.
- Having a Cosmic Deadline due to being dependent on the games...
- I can't be the only person who wanted a Johto Battle Frontier Arc.
- Togekiss being acquired so late into the series. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind it replacing Cyndaquil entirely.
But no doubt the best way to advertise a pair of remakes is a starter Pokémon on the main cast. Maybe Brock should have gotten Cyndaquil instead...
- Ursula and Barry's late introductions.
- Kenny getting the shaft. He does get one last win against Ash... right in-between the last gym and the League (two very important Ash-centric events)
- Ash's Torterra suffering from the Worf Effect.

The Poké:
- There were Pokeymans. Does that count?

 

[Sheep]

If there was no Shinji or Jun in D/P (and perhaps even Shirona), I'd not have watched a single episode. I really did think that saga was the worst with late Johto episodes right up there with it (early Johto, up until badge four or so, was great); that's my personal opinion, though. Takeshi didn't do crap and Hikari was the generic adorable little girl with zero things to make her interesting (no offense to fans). I found the D/P trio so boring. Hoenn was the best saga right next to B/W to me.

I really can't think of any good qualities of D/P other than:

1) Shinji.
2) Jun.
3) Some of my favorite gen IV Pokemon were on the main cast (granted Ettebosu was let go).
4) Great movies.

And... yeah.

 

[Cybersai]

DP had the best developed Gym leaders of the series. They appeared in multiple eps and felt more like real people.

The arcs were great. Tag battle, summer school, Galactic/J, Lyra, etc.

The Pokemon on the group were all memorable and had tons of great moments.

DP also had really great fillers like the Evil Togepi, Spiritomb, and those Pokemon get lost eps.

DP didn't do so good with humor and some new characters were duds, but DP had some amazing character arcs.

 

[Sheep]

DP had the best developed Gym leaders of the series. They appeared in multiple eps and felt more like real people.

The arcs were great. Tag battle, summer school, Galactic/J, Lyra, etc.

The Pokemon on the group were all memorable and had tons of great moments.

DP also had really great fillers like the Evil Togepi, Spiritomb, and those Pokemon get lost eps.

DP didn't do so good with humor and some new characters were duds, but DP had some amazing character arcs.

I somewhat agree with this, but I'm the type of person who can't enjoy amazing arcs unless the trainers I'm looking at almost all the time are interesting or actively partaking in said events. Hikari was too cute and boring, Takeshi didn't do much, and Satoshi we've seen do similar things way too many times already... bleh. Thank goodness for the Pokemon; at least they provided me with some form of entertainment at times, albeit minuscule.

 

[Karamazov]

I did enjoy the arcs, but the whole saga ran too long, and the Sinnoh League seemed rushed. (It probably was, too.)

The HG/SS arc wasn't so bad. I really didn't like Lyra, with all her shippy-ness. It seemed out of place for this series. (It just makes it even more uncomfortable if you relate her to the yandere/humanoid abomination people characterize in-game Lyra with.) That arc wasn't the best, but the battle between Ash and Dawn against Khoury and Lyra was amazing.

The Poke? There were Pokemon in DP? Must have missed that part.

 

[Lilac]

I think DP was the best saga of the show. The show was getting better until they brought out Best Wishes(Black & White) which ruined the spirit of Pokemon.

Black & White EPS are so much like the kanto ones
And Ash Is A Noob Now

 

[Froakie]

Black & White EPS are so much like the kanto ones
And Ash Is A Noob Now

I've never praised Kanto for having good episodes, because it didn't. I just feel like how the writers have made Ash 'reset' as such, and this whole new physical comedy etc. with all new characters has ruined what was originally getting better.

Pokemon is notable for a few things. Talk to anybody who doesn't watch it now, but most likely did as a child. The world knows Pokemon for characters like Ash, Meowth, Pikachu, Brock etc. etc. I'm no predominantly nostalgic fan, but show these people Iris or Cilan and they won't know who they are. I don't understand why the writers took away a lot of good, well known aspects from the show and only kept the basics.

I know they're trying to target their demographic - 6-14 year olds, but really ruining a massive franchise's TV show for the sake of trying to add something 'new' and 'fresh' seems pointless.

 

[Cybersai]

DP's pacing was also a problem. While there was obviously a lot of important content in there, they could have still condensed it to about 150 episodes.

There were still some crap eps we could have done without, (cake making Pikachu, that Mukrrow/Misdreavous filler, some of the excessive Piplup fillers, the Chatot episode, etc), that wasted time.

I think people got bored in the second half of DP not because the eps were bad, but because at that point people just wanted Sinnoh to end and Ash to get to the league already.

Lastly the 50 eps otherwise could have been converted to a short arc on the Battle Zone portion of Sinnoh where Ash got to challenge the Elite 4, Dawn got to enter the Ribbon Society, and Brock would get more foreshadowing of being a doctor.

This is probably why BW is faster paced, stretching out one saga over nearly 200 eps wasn't the best of ideas.

 

[BxSalamence55]

The DP season had it's ups and downs...1st no May and many of the episodes lacked humor but the show introduced us to newer and better rivals and the animation was in my opinion top notch. I also liked how many older characters made reapperances.

 

[Masurao]

DP was entirely too long IMO. It had it's good episodes, but it really just felt like another Pokemon season. Nothing really stood outside of Paul.

I'm glad Best Wishes is going faster. It took 68 episodes for Ash to get to his 3rd Gym battle in DP. Whereas he has three badges by episode 26 in B/W.

 

[Hestia]

As a whole I enjoyed DP, although I admit it took me a while to properly get into it. Like some other people who've commented here, I found the main group interactions a little dull and lacking in comedy, but enjoyed the characters and their development/storylines individually. Also, while the main group interactions weren't particularly great, interactions with characters such as Paul, Barry, Conway and Ursula made up for it to a certain degree.

I think DP was definitely a step-up in terms of general storylines, continuity, and character development of both human characters and of the Pokémon, but could've done with more humour and better dialogue. Although I'm not sure I'd call it my favourite saga (I don't think I really have a favourite, tbh), I did enjoy it as a whole. One thing I didn't fully appreciate until watching BW is how good the gym battles were in DP though, and so far I've found BW pretty disappointing for that.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

DP was the best saga of pokemon anime. We will see how BW will end up...

 

[Tyson]

DP was pretty good. I mostly liked the episodes with team galactic. I really disliked all the contest episodes though.

 

[Yamato-san]

DP's pacing was also a problem. While there was obviously a lot of important content in there, they could have still condensed it to about 150 episodes.

There were still some crap eps we could have done without, (cake making Pikachu, that Mukrrow/Misdreavous filler, some of the excessive Piplup fillers, the Chatot episode, etc), that wasted time.

I think people got bored in the second half of DP not because the eps were bad, but because at that point people just wanted Sinnoh to end and Ash to get to the league already.

Lastly the 50 eps otherwise could have been converted to a short arc on the Battle Zone portion of Sinnoh where Ash got to challenge the Elite 4, Dawn got to enter the Ribbon Society, and Brock would get more foreshadowing of being a doctor.

This is probably why BW is faster paced, stretching out one saga over nearly 200 eps wasn't the best of ideas.

but it is, nonetheless, pretty obvious that they've learned a lot since their first attempt at extending a game adaption with Jouto, which of course was just disastrous. Still, it would've been nice to have crap like that Muma & Yamikarasu filler removed in favor of, oh I dunno, maybe extending that fight between Satoshi's Kabigon and a nameless Trainer's Buupig (this is to say nothing of his newly-evolved Magmarashi, which got shafted to high hell). In the end, it wasn't perfect, but this is probably the high-point of the anime's writing team, though one can hope Best Wishes will manage to top it (even if they've had a rough start so far, with the Rockets barely doing anything and Satoshi's new poorly-conceived rivalry; the pacing shows promise, but it's probably to be expected since the 5th generation games actually placed the league IN THE MIDDLE of all the explorable routes, which, along with other twists in Black/White, really leaves me wondering how this will turn out as an adaption).