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Which era of the anime do you prefer?

Which era is better?

  • Classic Era (Gens 1-4)

    Votes: 53 96.4%

  • Modern Era (Gens 5-present)

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Total voters
    55
Classic. Ash actually had a pretty consistent and fun personality. He had alot of his core traits, but he isn't the overtly positive/sacharrine guy. He was prideful, petty, arrogant, rude, snarky, hilarious. He felt like an actual kid that had flaws. You can see his mostly linear character growth

I can't give with modern era Ash. He is an idiot in BW, huge role model and paragon in XY, childish (not necessarily in a bad way) and flanderized in SM, and then pretty much flat as hell in JN. They genuinely cant decide what they want him to be in every series. And he is pretty boring as he doesn't have those past flaws that round him out a bit.

The girl treatment I prefer. Ever since BW, we haven't had a competitive battling girl. And no, Lana doesn't count. It seems the female girls are only relegated to having cute/pretty mons where they can constantly hd in their hands 24/7, while the boys get all the action
 
Hidden Mew said:
I am a bit surprised with just how much more votes the classic era has, partly because both XY and to a lesser degree SM seemed to be pretty well received here. I can still see why for a few reasons, but I guess I wasn't expecting the results to be this lopsided.
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It's the eras part I think has most voting classic
As era means all and not just heavily leaning on one or two series

As even if you're someone that has XY #1
A lot of people have BW at the bottom(#7),
So it's the “best” and the “worst” put together as a 10/10 and a 5/10 is 15/20 which is 75% making it average


Plus SM responses are split between really high or really low, and JN is kinda still ongoing but it also had mixed responses

And as someone who does like SM and JN and have them pretty high there is less consitency between XY and SM that makes it look weirder as an “era” which makes it look worse as a group
I think it would be different if it was OS vs AG+DP vs BW+XY vs SM+JN as they are more grouped together if I had to guess
 
Hidden Mew said:
I am a bit surprised with just how much more votes the classic era has, partly because both XY and to a lesser degree SM seemed to be pretty well received here. I can still see why for a few reasons, but I guess I wasn't expecting the results to be this lopsided.
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That's probably because of the series in the modern era, XY is the only near-universally truly loved series in it. BW and JN are regarded as some of the weakest anipoke series by many people (including me) and SM is very polarizing due to making several changes that many fans didn't exactly like. Granted, people did warm up SM over time, however, it still remains the anime's most divisive series.
 
flowerfun said:
That's probably because of the series in the modern era, XY is the only near-universally truly loved series in it. BW and JN are regarded as some of the weakest anipoke series by many people (including me) and SM is very polarizing due to making several changes that many fans didn't exactly like. Granted, people did warm up SM over time, however, it still remains the anime's most divisive series.
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I think that Journeys would probably be considered more divisive and polarizing than SM at this point. While it wasn't hugely popular here, I think that the reception towards SM warmed up considerably after its second year. It wasn't as popular as XY was, but it wasn't nearly as hated as BW was either. Even before the Alola League happened, it was pretty easy to find people who enjoyed SM or thought that it had improved over time. Journeys is more recent and I think that it being Ash's sendoff series paints it in a different light for some people, or at least for me it does, so maybe that colors my perception here, but despite the backlash here, there are plenty of people who like the series as well.
 
Poll's definition of "Modern Era" is doomed from the start since XY fans and SM fans are mortal enemies and rather prefer older seasons to each other.
 
Maybe it varies by the place; I saw some mutual hostility between XY and Su/Mo fans on twitter, but that is twitter.

But in general I think the modern era stood little chance in this poll because all those series' are controversial except maybe XY, and I'm not sure so sure about it. The series' just vary so much between them, even compared to how much OS changed after Kanto as Shudo's cynicism was toned down.
 
Hidden Mew said:
I'm a fan of both series too. While I prefer XY over SM, I think SM is still a pretty good series. I think a lot of the backlash towards SM was rather excessive and was due at least in part to coming after XY. Both series are in my top five favorite Pokemon series too.
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I feel as time went on, people have seen SM as highly rated out of all of the AniPoke series. To think when the first visual was shown in August 2016, there was a bunch of backlash, especially with the change in animation style. But I feel that animation style change actually gave a new feel of atmosphere for AniPoke, especially having the advantage of making the characters more expressive. And of course SM was the show that took more emphasis on Ash feeling as if the region he is in feels like a second home for him rather than just traveling around and going to gym battles
 
Hidden Mew said:
I'm a fan of both series too. While I prefer XY over SM, I think SM is still a pretty good series. I think a lot of the backlash towards SM was rather excessive and was due at least in part to coming after XY. Both series are in my top five favorite Pokemon series too.
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There are certain things I really liked about SM, such as the backgrounds, Ash's Pokemon team, and others. However, I just hated Ash's design and other things (like the gags,) too much for me to like it that much. :cautious: Certainly not even in the same ball park as XY, my favorite series of all. :giggle:
 
Pokemon Anime Fan Forever said:
There are certain things I really liked about SM, such as the backgrounds, Ash's Pokemon team, and others. However, I just hated Ash's design and other things (like the gags,) too much for me to like it that much. :cautious: Certainly not even in the same ball park as XY, my favorite series of all. :giggle:
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To be honest I can understand why people were shocked of Ash’s SM design, especially when first shown in 2016. You go from the more ‘shonen’ looking style of XY to the more ‘wacky’ style of SM, but to me his design and the style grew to me eventually
 
Daren said:
Maybe it varies by the place; I saw some mutual hostility between XY and Su/Mo fans on twitter, but that is twitter.

But in general I think the modern era stood little chance in this poll because all those series' are controversial except maybe XY, and I'm not sure so sure about it. The series' just vary so much between them, even compared to how much OS changed after Kanto as Shudo's cynicism was toned down.
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XY had the infamous Kalos League finale. I think that Greninja's focus during the last stretch of the series and its release could also maybe be considered controversial, but that's probably more minimal compared to the other series in the modern era. Despite all of the backlash from Ash losing to Alain, it cooled down considerably after the Team Flare arc started and the reception to XY here and elsewhere from what I've seen at least have been largely positive even after all these years.
 
Hidden Mew said:
XY had the infamous Kalos League finale. I think that Greninja's focus during the last stretch of the series and its release could also maybe be considered controversial, but that's probably more minimal compared to the other series in the modern era. Despite all of the backlash from Ash losing to Alain, it cooled down considerably after the Team Flare arc started and the reception to XY here and elsewhere from what I've seen at least have been largely positive even after all these years.
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I feel by the time XYZ came, that’s when XY anime went ‘down’ than up. Of course the Kalos league felt rushed, but then you also have Serena’s showcases also feeling rushed. And then the controversial results of Alain vs Ash. Personally, it did sucked for Ash to lose, especially when it was hinted Greninja would finally defeat Charizard, but losing to Alain was a ‘respectful loss’ than let’s saying losing to borken character made at the last minute to prevent him from winning like Tobias.
 
Soublades192 said:
I feel by the time XYZ came, that’s when XY anime went ‘down’ than up. Of course the Kalos league felt rushed, but then you also have Serena’s showcases also feeling rushed. And then the controversial results of Alain vs Ash. Personally, it did sucked for Ash to lose, especially when it was hinted Greninja would finally defeat Charizard, but losing to Alain was a ‘respectful loss’ than let’s saying losing to borken character made at the last minute to prevent him from winning like Tobias.
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Serena's Showcases had little to no substance to them, so I think two episodes was more than enough to wrap up her goal. By that point, Alain already felt like a broken character. His Charizard was ridiculously overpowered, he got eight Gym badges in an incredibly short amount of times and got to the finals by only using two Pokemon. Aside from being more of an established character and not using Legendary Pokemon, he isn't really that different from Tobias at least in regards to strength.

Tobias was a more blatant roadblock preventing Ash from winning a League by comparison, but I was much more fine with the Sinnoh League than the Kalos League. If Ash had to lose after finally defeating Paul, going down against Legendary Pokemon was better than losing to a regular trainer with regular Pokemon. Greninja losing to Charizard was more frustrating by comparison, especially Ash had already lost to Alain twice before.
 
Hidden Mew said:
By that point, Alain already felt like a broken character. His Charizard was ridiculously overpowered, he got eight Gym badges in an incredibly short amount of times and got to the finals by only using two Pokemon. Aside from being more of an established character and not using Legendary Pokemon, he isn't really that different from Tobias at least in regards to strength.

Tobias was a more blatant roadblock preventing Ash from winning a League by comparison, but I was much more fine with the Sinnoh League than the Kalos League. If Ash had to lose after finally defeating Paul, going down against Legendary Pokemon was better than losing to a regular trainer with regular Pokemon. Greninja losing to Charizard was more frustrating by comparison, especially Ash had already lost to Alain twice before.
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And to think Alain was HEAVILY nerfed in Journeys and looked like a completely different character strength wise… To go from a borderline broken character in XYZ to looking like an amateur against Leon, someone that Ash would eventually defeat. Especially considering Alain’s Charizard was the same one that went up against legendaries and defeating many mega evolution based trainers , only to end up defeated by a vanilla Charizard (even though you can argue if Leon’s Charizard was just as overpowered for what it was)

And because of that, it makes the loss in the Kalos league even more jarring.
 
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Classic is better overall. It’s much more cohesive and consistent in its quality. Ash and Pikachu develop greatly from disliking each other to being able to bring down a Latios together. Each saga built on top of the last and kept progressing him. In OS he was a rookie and ended up being a decent trainer. In AG he starts putting more thought into training and develops his battle strategies. He even takes down the battle frontier by using old and new pokemon alike. Lastly in DP he’s pushed to his limit both in battle and philosophy by Paul, finally coming out on top. It’s pretty satisfying to watch it play out. The companions also got steadily better imo, May had more focus than Misty, Dawn was even better and actually got to meet May, wheras Brock stayed on the main cast and eventually got his goal at the end. It helps the art style was similar across all 3

While I love XY/SM and journeys had its high points it’s inconsistent af. They feel pretty disconnected from each other. BW is just not good, whilst JN was pretty mixed despite being enjoyable for me. Series like XY certainly look better, the animation has improved and we’ve gotten some peak battles, but as a whole these sagas don’t feel as well thought out. Just feels like they’re experimenting for the sake of it, and that we could’ve had new protags go through them instead
 
Gonna be honest, I have such a hard time viewing AG and DP as "classic" lmao. Like obviously I know that they're both pretty old at this point, but I guess my brain is still stuck in that 2007-2009 era when AG and DP were both new (or new-ish in AG's case, I guess) and OS was old. I'll probably always see it as OS = old and AG and everything after = new :p

To answer the question, though...it's a tough one. I lean more towards the classic era, because OS is still my favorite overall and AG and DP were both really good - they both had pockets of episodes where I was bored out of my mind but when they were good, they were GOOD. I do love the modern era too, though - I'm a VERY unapologetic BW and SM stan; I enjoyed them both so much (SM more than BW, but still) and will always defend them. My distaste for XY and JN unfortunately drags it down a bit, but I love BW and SM enough to say I also really enjoy the modern era.
 
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