Which is better: DP or BW?

[Sith Droideka]

As we know, in the "What Do You Think About BW One Year In" thread, there was some debate over whether DP or BW was the better saga. Now, this is not a general "which saga was best" thread, because I assume there already is one. This thread, on the other hand, lets some of those people debating in the wrong thread come to the right thread to debate over whether the animé handled DP better or BW.

Discuss.

 

[Pokemonada]

I liked 3rd generation the best. 4th was too long. 5th is too diffrent for me. I can't wait till Best wishes is done.

 

[MizuTaipu]

I like both of them. DP had awesome emotional energy and some great plot arcs, while the overall feeling of BW (characters, music, artwork) is probably the best in the entire series so far.

 

[FinalArcadia]

Hmm, good question. I miss Paul, Barry, and intelligent Ash in DP. And the epic battles. But on the other hand, I really like Cilan, the improved animation, and Oshawott from BW. So it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges.

I hate to be so indecisive, but I think it's a tie right now.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I hate BW Iris is mean, Ash is stupid, the rival lack luster. The battles are lame.
DP has Paul and development and tension. DP wins 17 ways to Sunday

 

[Winterdaze]

Let me get back to you in a couple of years when BW is actually over...

 

[CommanderPigg]

Let me get back to you in a couple of years when BW is actually over...

You know, as much as I want to scream "DP IS A TRILLION TIMES BETTER THAN ANY POKEMON SERIES EVAAAAH!" you bring up a very good point. Some of DP's best episodes (for me at least) did not appear until the very end. So, who know? Maybe the lackluster premise of BW is setting itself up for a grand finale. Here's hoping.

 

[Hassel]

I enjoy BW more than DP. And before you judge me, well I probably don't take this anime as seriously as most people here do.

 

[Shinneth]

The pessimist in me voted DP because even though BW isn't over yet (by what margin we don't know because PACING), I found myself enjoying the first year of DP much more than the first year of BW. I think that's due to the fact that DP had a coherent story and rivals that actually served a goddamn purpose, some more interesting than others, but at least the stakes were cleared and Ash was still quite a bundle of episodes away from a full team by the end of the first year and by then most of his Pokemon had their time to shine because Ash wasn't catching everything under the goddamn sun so the Pokemon he had could be allowed adequate screentime, personalities, and development. Ash actually felt like a culmination of everything he went through in past seasons and it was awesome. The trio chemistry may not have been anything to write home about, but it served its function and frankly it's kinda nice not having to listen to little kids bitch/snark at each other over stupid shit on every leg of the journey.

The pessimist in me says BW is not going to get any more coherent in its later years and will continue to piss me off in every way possible. They'll do cute things like making Meowth a temporary group member, but then turn around and go straight back to the bullshit. Really, the writers have already gotten themselves into a corner where it'll be very hard to evenly divide screentime/personality/development to his enormous team (evident when about only 1/3 of said team even has a personality to speak of as of now), somehow make Ash remember the shit he mysteriously forgot in DP and AG, and make him worth taking seriously. On top of that, why are we supposed to care about Iris? Her subplots get dropped for convenience or solved with plot magic, so why not evolve her Axew and get it the fuck over with, because apparently Iris has NOTHING ELSE to learn about being a Dragon Master while she's traveling with this group and she serves no real other purpose, so what. Why is she here. I honestly did not feel anything close to this sentiment towards Dawn, as it was pretty obvious why she needed to be with a group. Plus she wasn't annoying and hypocritical as all fuck.

To put it simply, I think BW has fucked itself up so badly in its first year alone that a recovery into becoming a credible series even remotely on par with DP is nigh on impossible. Again, that's my pessimism talking. BW has killed my hope.

You know what, no Pokemon series other than Johto has killed my hope before.

The death of my hope has spoken.

 

[MuddyMudkip]

I disliked both DP and BW, but if I had to choose between the two, I prefer DP. My favorite would have to be either RBY or RSE... I didn't like the anime that much - especially Dawn and the Piplup.. But, comparing that to BW.. Man, practically everyone's characters were annoying. Cilan just can't replace Brock, Ash is much too stupid and childish again, Iris is well - I don't like her that much (she's kinda mean, though Misty was, too, but I really do prefer Misty), and the rival is lacking. Battles are pretty lame/a bit predictable in both series, but I still like DP more. Perhaps the only decent people in BW were Team Rocket (at least they aren't so helpless now) and even Pikachu was better.

But, I'll get back to you after BW is over. After all, who knows, maybe it'll get better after a while.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

For me, lack of comedy is the only bad part of DP.

 

[Cybersai]

For me, lack of comedy is the only bad part of DP.

This and the lack of chemistry of the DP trio. Aside from that everything else DP did was better.

But man, DP failed in the humor department. Its when the show stopped being funny and lost its adventure aspect.

 

[Blue1225]

In my opinion, BW is the worst saga in the show's history. However, as others have pointed out, with these kinds of things it really is best to wait till it's over to decide. In a few years and looking back on it, I very well might have a different opinion. Animation, Trio Chemistry, Ash, Rivals, I think DP excelled in all of these except possibly the chemistry between Ash, Dawn and Brock. I'm a big believer in the "start like you wanna finish" idea. The series started off pretty damn awful so I don't see it recovering and if it does I doubt it'll ever be as great as DP.

 

[Shinneth]

Honestly, I don't get the whole "DP had BARELY ANY HUMOR" thing. This is the series that had Barry. This is the series that had Conway. Hell, fucking BYRON practically became a meme to a degree because of his hilarity. For me, there was an abundance of characters being retardedly hilarious on many occasions, as well as Pokemon, and Team Rocket had their shining moments as well.

I suspect Paul and his large role in the series might lead one to think DP lacks humor, but Paul himself was pretty much used for comic relief in A Maze-ing Race! and that was wonderful. Plus the time when the Gliscor he was pursuing knocked his Weavile and Electabuzz right into Paul... which was brief, but hilarious. In a way his jerkass ways were humorous to me, such as him just leaving the city after capturing the Gliscor and effectively dooming that poor city being wrecked by wayward Gligar infestations. There were even scenes with him standing on top of buildings for no apparent reason. That's just silly, in a good way.

There were full arcs of silly things happening in DP, so I honestly don't see how DP is actually lacking in humor compared to other series. God forbid it has a coherent and structured story that takes itself seriously on a consistent basis. I thought DP had a really good balance of the humor and seriousness.

Can't really say that's the case in BW; seriousness just seems nonexistent in that series at least 90% of the time. Even when they try to do serious things, such as Iris and Excadrill, they still portray the flashbacks in a humorous way and when you get down to the core facts, it wasn't so much as tragic as it was just really stilted and forced in the execution of the resolution. When Iris being driven to tears fails to move me (the fact that a simple "I'm sorry" pretty much resolved the whole thing didn't help either), then this series is failing at being serious when it needs to be. They're pretty spot-on with their humor, though that too can fail at times and BW has a horrendous trend of running their jokes into the ground so badly that you grow to hate them rather than be entertained by them and you never want to see them again. Really, the writers should know better than that. I honestly can't think of a running gag in DP that was overused to the point of it becoming a humorless annoyance and time-waster. DP had plenty of them, but as far as I recall they were pretty well executed and nothing got "old", per se. Team Rocket notwithstanding, I guess, but that area is full of mixed feelings in general.

Gotta say, though, I'll take a needlessly nonsensical DP Team Rocket over the stone cold BW Team Rocket that pretends to be competent and only rarely shows signs of personality. And really, because of this Plasma thing, I feel like they're just fucked in this series. It was nice that they did something with Meowth, but naturally they weren't going to give that a satisfactory conclusion (aside from Ash and Meowth at the end).

So, yeah. Even if it is technically unfair to judge BW against DP, I can say with certainty that no series except Johto has pissed me off this early in its run. Kanto, OI, AG, DP, I was fully into the swing of the set-up by the end of year 1 (wait, did OI even last a full year?). BW in its first year infuriates me on several degrees, and I think it's reasonable to believe that there isn't really any sort of light at the end of the tunnel if this is how the writers want to proceed with the series. I think we all get a good idea of how a series is gonna be like from there on out by the first year, at least.

 

[HumanDawn]

Both of them are very good. I watch the show mainly for the filler episodes, so when one comes up I get really excited and BW's fillers are the ones I found to be the most fun to watch. My favorite ones are the Darmitan episode, the Ducklett episode, the Gothitelle episode, the Litwick mansion episode, all the Meowth episodes, the Elgyem episode, the Cottonee episode, the Archeops episode and the missing Audino episode. That's more than half of the fillers. All thanks to their humour, emotion and diversity. The DP episodes all ended with Team Rocket blasting off. My favorite fillers from DP are the Feebas and Magikarp episode, the Rotom episode, the Phione episode, the Combee and Vespiquen episode and another 5 episodes. DP's fillers felt lackluster but nobody cares about them or uses them as an example why DP wasn't very enchanting because they're filler episodes.

 

[Miar]

Only comparing up to the first 50 or so episodes of each (DP Tag Battle/Nimbasa gym battle)
Black and White, by a mile.

Cilan and new Team Rocket are way better than Brock and DP TR.
The writing's a lot better, food puns aside (cause those were in the Japanese version too)
And the personalities on the Pokémon are a bit more solid (Emolga and Snivy are my favorites)

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

Considering DP is my all time favorite saga...

BW has its moments, but the writers have seriously screwed themselves over with many aspects of it. I've gone over this more than once, so I won't bore anyone by outlining the cons it has again. Just browse my posts if you want to know details.

Even when comparing only the first 52 episodes of each series, I still much prefer DP.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm going to go with DP as well. While it might be unfair to compare the two series, especially when BW has only been going for about a year, I still prefer DP. The battles were battle, the rivals were much better and the pacing was pretty much great for me. Despite the negative reactions to the DP trio as a whole, I thought that they were fine. I can see why people thought that the chemistry was boring, but it was never bad enough for me. It could have been better, but it was generally fine for me. While I do enjoy some parts of BW, I agree that the writers have made a lot of mistakes with the pacing, Ash capturing far too many Pokemon than he honestly should at this point of the series, Iris' character in general is ruined possibly beyond repairs, the rivalry with Trip is boring and the Gym battles leave a lot to be desired. I could see it improving later on and hopefully bringing in Team Plasma and N at some point will help with that, but at the moment, I don't think that BW will top the DP series.

 

[Cybersai]

I prefer DP, and its odd because I have no bias toward Dawn, Brock or Iris and Cilan. I like the BW trio better than the DP trio, so it has nothing to do with the characters.

DP was simply written better. The plotlines were outlined better and there was a LOT going on in DP's first 52 or so episodes. Out of those initial 52 episodes only about 10 of the were filler, and the other 42 set up what would come for the rest of the arc.

 

[Cinderfella]

I found myself enjoying the first year of DP much more than the first year of BW. I think that's due to the fact that DP had a coherent story and rivals that actually served a goddamn purpose, some more interesting than others, but at least the stakes were cleared and Ash was still quite a bundle of episodes away from a full team by the end of the first year and by then most of his Pokemon had their time to shine because Ash wasn't catching everything under the goddamn sun so the Pokemon he had could be allowed adequate screentime, personalities, and development. Ash actually felt like a culmination of everything he went through in past seasons and it was awesome. The trio chemistry may not have been anything to write home about, but it served its function and frankly it's kinda nice not having to listen to little kids bitch/snark at each other over stupid shit on every leg of the journey.

Thank You! Dp had an actual STORY! It wasn't all over the place in such a bad way like BW is. It's actually sad how we have BW right after DP, shouldn't it be the other way around really? I often find myself rewatching DP just to medicate from the sickness that BW is bringing.

Paul, Ursula, Jessalina, Conway, and Barry were the best parts rival wise that beats out BW. Infernape alone beats out every Pokemon that Ash has on his current team. Yes, while the monkey got extremely tiresome at times, it wasn't grating enough to make me hate it, and I like Gliscor and Gible too. Like, hello, Ash's first dragon ever.

There were some funny parts in DP. I actually found Jessalina to be very funny, as well as Paul just being Paul, because we NEVER had anyone like him on the show.

Also, some of the contest battles and gym battles were very nicely written. Can't say all, but I will say most. Seeing some of Ash's old Pokemon, Pikachu having an epic moment with Latios was nice, and also seeing May and the Wallace Cup arc.

I mean, BW has yet to really give me a full list, but DP's is timeless and classic! I won't give up on BW though, I want to see how this shitastrophe at least plays out.