Jan
5th
2016
Trying to watch Pokemon Black & White...and remembering why I didn't watch it the first time around. · 11:13pm Jan 5th, 2016
Pokemon Black & White (which clocks in at just under 140 episodes) is expiring on Netflix on 2/2.
Back when it first aired, I watched maybe two episodes before dropping it. With it expiring on Netflix, I decided, as a Pokemon fan, it's worth another shot.
I'm on the third episode, and I'm about ready to delete it from my queue.
I remember exactly why I hate this season.
Would anyone like to guess?
Here's a hint: It starts with an I, ends with an S, and has the most annoying catchphrase in Pokemon history.
I watched Black and White before. I use to be a fan until I realized that it's just cheap dialogue, same story over and over again, and only there for marketing.
I haven't watched the show since the original series. Been too busy with the games.
What's the big deal with Iris?
Silly Moth. That's not how you spell "Alomomola". Does it even appear in the series?
3666767
3666774 It does get tiresome and repetitive. I haven't actually watched an entire series of it since the Indigo League. Actually, I'm not entirely sure I even saw every episode of Indigo.
3666777 Iris is the most obnoxious, annoying, and pointless of all Ash's companions, has a terrible attitude, and at least ten times an episode she says "You're such a kid!" to Ash.
She's younger than him.
And a lot more childish.
3666778 Bulbapedia says yes. Two major appearances, several minor.
3666787 To be fair to Iris, Ash sort of mentally resets every season.
Such a shame that Pokemon is like that. I remember when I was younger and how funny the old ones were.
What happened to the series?
3666780 Well, originally they were going to have a whole "Team Rocket v.s. Team Plasma" story taking place by the third gym. And it was going to be really dark. But then the March 2011 earthquake and tusnami hit, and they were forced to drop the idea before the episodes could air.
3666787 I actually watched through to the Unova League, but gave up after that. Ash's Pikachu loses to a Lucario that just evolved. I'm not making that up. Pikachu should've easily won!
Ahhh, Black and White...skipped out on both the shows and the games since I was at 'that point' in my life when I decided I was to old for Pokémon...How naieve I was at that point.
In any case, Iris is annoying, yes. But trust me, the food puns...Dear LORD the food puns are the worst of it.
3666791
fair enough, but isn't that worth criticizing? Especially when
A) other kids shows have consistent character development in their writing.
and B) he advanced to the point where it took two legendaries to stop him in the last season. And seriously, how in the HAY did Tobias catch TWO legendaries!?
I never really liked the Black and White episodes of Pokemon, though I do find some of the series' Pokemon interesting. Aside from that, it stinks that Netflix doesn't have Pokemon movies that are NOT from the Black and White series. Netflix also owes Pokemon fans like us an opportunity to watch Johto Journeys, Johto League Champions, Master Quest, Advanced Generation and finally, the Diamond and Pearl series.
3666791 Not..really? He's a little excitable when he first enters a new region, yes, but he doesn't forget what he's learned. Remember that he's supposed to be the POV character for all new kids getting their first exposure to Pokemon. Even so, he's less "reset boy" and more "just excited to be seeing new people, places, and Pokemon" boy.
3666795 Endless repetition.
"You're such a kid!"
I'm currently following the new episodes of XY&Z, even though I couldn't care less about the XY season. Why? Because Alan is going to show up. Like, seriously. In four episodes, he already has more character development than Ash will ever get, AND he's actually competent as a Pokémon trainer.
I mean, Black and White is okay, but doesn't do much for me when compared to what came before it. It's nice to watch once in a while, but I don't watch too much of it, or feel the need to rewatch any episode. I've seen every episode in Indigo League and rewatch them from time to time. I've seen a lot of Johto Journeys/Master Quest as well.
I am fine with Iris, but it's not much to my liking that she always looks down on Ash. They're both around the same age, from what I have seen.
Rotten shame she got so awful in the anime.
Truly there must be good things you like.
3666971 There are lots of good things I like. Pokemon Black & White isn't a good thing.
3666787
Younger, less experienced. and a far worse trainer than Ash. I bought Pokemon White specifically so I could put the smackdown on her in game.
3666791 Black and White isn't a personality reset. Black and White is a damn lobotomy.
After the Diamond and Pearl series, in which he was actually a competent trainer, and was the only one to be able to face off against the team of six legendaries in the Pokemon League, seeing Pikachu get taken out by a Snivy (a fucking SNIVY), it's a little bit disappointing, to say the least.
3667328
Agreed, but it was still oh so sweet when my team blew her off the map anyway.
According to the comments, the game version of Iris is much less annoying. Never played Black/White so I don't know what she's like.
But yeah. Anime Iris is so irritating.
3667379 Uhh...that had nothing to do with Ash or any "lobotomy" and everything to do with Zekrom messing up Pikachu's ability to use Electric attacks. Ash and Pikachu got their asses handed to them by the starter Snivy because they were BOTH confused and Pikachu was in distress. If Pikachu had been in peak form, one Thunderbolt would have ended that battle.
3 guesses, pal:
IRIS, IRIS, IRIS!!!
3666781 I saw the complete original series, from Indigo League to Master Quest.
Don't know if anyone said this already, but ever since I found the sub version, I just stuck with that. More bearable.
*sigh*
Okay. So it's no secret I love Pokemon. It's just about my most favourite thing on the planet. It takes a lot to make me say I dislike something Pokemon related.
Black and White, that series goes so far past dislike, I need FTL travel to catch up. The writing is sloppy, the characters are not only holding the Idiot Ball, they goddamn fused with it. They tried to make Team Rocket all dark and edgy, failed spectacularly. Due to ONE episode being banned because it might upset someone's delicate sensitivities, the story they had going was changed and they just never seemed to get the train back on the tracks.
I'm not even going to start on how annoying Iris is, or what a shameless Brock clone Cilan is. We'll be here all damned night.
This is a series I have watched once. I'll not forget it, but I'll not watch it again.
Bear in mind, I watched the Jap dub, not the English one as Australia was so far behind it wasn't even funny. I watched the BW movies in English... Sweet Arceus Above... I am so glad I didn't watch a whole series like that...
Yeah, I watched Seasons 1-6 as a kid (3-6 are my favourite), I thought Advanced was pretty good. I started to lose interest around the middle of Diamond & Pearl, but I stopped watching Black & White. But now I started watching XY&Z.
BUT I have to give credit to how Black & White treated Team Rocket. They weren't just some goons trying to catch Pikachu. They had a mission and it was very interesting to see.
I'm a fan of Pokemon too and yeah the Black and White season is really the weakest.
Iris is pretty full of herself thinking she more mature than Ash and Cilan's multiple connoisseur antics were annoying as hell to the point when he stars his rants I would go "Shut up !"
Another fact that annoyed me is how they regress Ash. One episode in particular that I remember is during his match against Gym Leader Elesa. He was acting so much like a dumbass that, like Pikachu, I was raging all over the place.
Also not to mention the Unova league. I get it he will always fail so he can continue is journey, but usually he always do better, there he done worst and he hasn't even call one of his older experience Pokemon.
In fact the major flaw with Ash is the authors wants to keep him the main protagonist, but they keeping him being 10 although he should be what 18 at least.
To be fair, there is a part of the Black and White season I did enjoy. It's the ark with Meloetta, with the return of Dawn and Cynthia and the feud against Giovanni.
Honestly, I really liked Black and White. It has it's weaknesses, not the least of which being the weaknesses of the whole anime, but I found it to be an enjoyable ride. Heck, it's the first time I watched Pokemon regularly in heaven knows how long. Mind you, Iris is rather annoying during the early episodes, but she becomes more likable as the series progresses.
Also, Cilan. I love Cilan. He was just a joy and a pleasure.
3667712
Goes a little deeper than that. There had kind of just been this massive tsunami that caused severe devastation and loss of human life, left a legacy of destruction that took months to recover from...maybe you remember that? The entire storyline of Best Wishes was changed up because of that. It's similar to how back in September 2001, a lot of planned episodes of various TV shows were cancelled, scrapped, or changed. Massive disasters that kill lots of people tend to result in that, and rightfully so.
I agree with most of the rest of what you said, though.
3667780 I noticed that by the time Movie 3 came along, it has been a year since Ash and Pikachu first met. By noting that, I knew for a fact that Ash had just turned 11 at the same time. Then I went through the movies and thought that by the third of the next three movies following Movie 3, another year has passed since Ash and Pikachu became a team. In conclusion, I was able to look through the movies again, focus on that same chronological pattern I've mentioned, and completely monitor Ash's age growth using that technique. With that being said, I am happy to say that as of right now (since Hoopa and the Clash of Ages) came into the picture, Ash is now 16 years old, and that he has been with Pikachu for 6 years.
3666902 Netflix isn't dub only there's an option to switch languages
I hated Iris too. The way that she pretty much treated Ash like a little kid, even though it's quite possible that Iris has never left her village, while Ash has been all over the world. There's also the issue of her Dragonite. She catches a frelling Dragonite less than a week before a tournament and proceeds to have it blitz through almost all the competition, even while it is disobeying her. I'd love to see a fic where she ends up in Kalos and has her mono-dragon team beaten down by a twee little flower fairy. That or a Mega Gardevoir and Moonblast
There's also Skyler/Skyla. She's a gym leader who doesn't do battles. She instead decides who gets badges and who doesn't by mentally running the battle. Gym leaders are supposed to be akin to government assessors, complete with multiple parties of pokemon of different power levels in case someone decides to tackle the gyms out of order. So, what is Skyla doing that is so important, she's bludging her duties? Flying. Not flying a doctor around to remote areas. Not waterbombing bushfires from the air. Recreational flying. I get the feeling that had Brock and/or Misty been travelling with Ash, one of them would have contacted the Unova Pokemon Trainers Administration so fast, Skyla wouldn't have known what hit her. Cilan failed to do anything about Skyla apart from ineffectively battle her.
The only good thing to come out of Black/White was Jessie and James becoming credible threats again and becoming LESS frequent in their appearances. Also, what the writers did with N was wonderful.
Move onto X and Y if you have not already. Serena ( Ash's new female companion) seems to have enough romantic notions towards Ash to make up for Iris. Clemont is fairly level-headed (Although that goes out the window when he shouts "THE FUTURE IS NOW THANKS TO SCIENCE!") and his little sister seems to want to match Clemont up with girls they meet along the way in the same way that Brock used to profess his love to anything that looked female and legal. Also, there's a trainer who pops up in two episodes with a Frogadier that whenever he's battling, I keep hearing Naruto music.
3669150 actually from what I've seen it's a direct pull from the translations for example "just because you are correct does not mean you are right" that was a translation of a line in fate stay night unlimited Blade works that was in the subtitles
EVALUATION TIME
That was enough for me to skip an episode. Sorry, I couldn't stand Cilan
3666802
The anime sucked, but in my opinion black/white 2 were of the best games in the series
3695569
Never said the games were bad, simply said by that point I wasn't paying attention to Pokémon anymore, other games came out around the time that demanded more of my attention. Sorry if I wasn't clear.