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Thoughts on BW

It does make me wonder if trip was debuted later on people would be less cross. He does have an interesting story, how he turned from an enthusiastic kid to a grump who only cares about the basics and alder. We never really got much of his backstory, which is a darn shame. It honestly feels like they’ve tripped (pardon the pun) and fell a lot when it came to the writing for a lot of characters, which is kinda why I get heated when people provide a flat it sucks or people say it was deliberately bad.
There’s a lot of potential there. It just seems like the earthquake took a lot out.
 
It was nice to see Team Rocket be serious and be an actual threat for a change, but it was also weird seeing them not act like their goofy selves. The original plans for Team Rocket were scrapped, but they still were good in this series. Seeing Ash finally face off against Giovanni was awesome. Team Rocket’s Pokémon weren’t that memorable as they didn’t really do much. It was nice not to see them in every single episode, a trend which continues to this day. I think a serious Team Rocket was a nice change of pace. No Wobbuffet makes me sad however.

Okay I think there's room to "agree to disagree" on whether the Trio should be more serious or say humane and comical.

But it would be nice if those approving of their BW portrayal could explain why they're easy to take serious.

The subplot leading up to the lost two parter had them succeeding and some heist yes, but the more basic episodes still had them losing, badly.

Especially the subway two parter where their loss is due to Meowth being an idiot rather than Ash and company just being better.


Like I don't know maybe have a 5 episode arc where they successfully steal some of Ash and companies Pokémon and getting them back requires more effort than usual.

I guess that's why the defense for them being serious is hard to get behind. It's basically bells and whistles. The illusion of them being credible threats VS a much, much higher success rate.

Again basically summed up best here why they arguably weren't so much being serious, but just humorless: Japanese Episode BW 048

Heck to take a page from Linkara, barring the defeat of the Green Ranger, the more serious and parent disapproved Lord Zedd really fell into the same redundant trap Rita did in MMPR.

Despite the marriage making him more comical, the two had a much higher success rate. Basically:

- Destroying the Thunderzords.

- Capturing Ninjor, The Falconzord and stealing the Pink Ranger power coin.

- Destroying the Ninja coins.

- Destroying the command center.

And this is from a country which at times is more hand holding compared to Pokémon.

But yeah I think the problem is that BW is the season that was just a bit more concerned with humor and thus having even a temp victory for the Rocket trio would go against the writers' wish to be more on the comedic side.

And as cheap as it is Sun and Moon episode 12 allowed them to beat Ash in a Pokémon match.

As for Ash finally facing Giovanni? Yeah would have had more impact if he was still more like the Ash from Kanto to Sinnoh rather than the rookie Ash they were going for.
 
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Although I'm not a fan of the BW TRio (so far) I can honestly say that I'm less frustrated at them in BW than their portrayal in DP (outside of contests and the occasional episode where they were not really the antagonists). They're terribly bland, but at least their brain isn't completely mush. I'm not sure I'll ever see them as well executed as SM, but between BW and DP, at least, I'd rather take their BW version.
 
They introduced Virgil as a strong league rival with a fan-favorite Eeveelution team, and somehow made it so Ash never battled him at the league.
I've said it time and time again: Ash should've lost to Virgil, not Cameron. Virgil was a promising character whose potential was completely and utterly wasted.
 
DP and BW were the first full series I watched (minus season 10) . I remember that I enjoyed it for the most part on TV, even though I missed Brock and Dawn a bit and didn't like the fact that at the beginning there weren't pokémon from other regions. My memories of it are a bit vague, so I'm going to rewatch it soon. After Season 16 ended I stopped following the Anime for years, until SM started, so I've never watched the XY series when it aired, and I still don't know why. Maybe I found the Decolora islands boring so I was tired of it, but I can't tell for sure.
 
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