Dec11
Some rambling thoughts on the early seasons of the anime
I'm currently binging the Johto part of the anime after binging the Sinnoh, Kanto, and Orange Islands parts, just gonna share some meandering thoughts.
If you're wondering why I listed Sinnoh first, that's because I binged it first (kinda). I initally started looking into the Sinnoh part while doing research for a couple of Bulbapedia articles on a couple of the anime novelizations of that arc. I sought out the specific episodes those books were adapting, then after watching them I decided it would be fun to watch the whole Sinnoh arc. The "kinda" before was because I actually watched the first part of the Kanto arc a few months ago on Netflix (I think, don't feel like checking) with my nephew. After I finished with Sinnoh, I decided to pick up where I left off in Kanto, and now I'm planning on binging pretty much the entire anime, except maybe the movies.
On a tangetial note to that, I've been considering ranking the openings of each season. I feel like it's a bit premature to start it now while I'm still binging the whole series, and that feels like an endeavor best suited to, like, a retrospective look at the anime as a whole, one that I'd want to actually analyze in decent depth. But I guess I can give a quick and dirty ranking of what I think so far. I think the opening of Season 10 (Diamond and Pearl, "Diamond and Pearl") is my least favorite. I don't dislike it, but it was definitely one of the ones I skipped the most while I was binging. The other opening I skipped a whole lot was S2 (Adventures in the Orange Islands, "Pokémon World"). It's fine, but it's nothing to write home about. I think next is S11 (DP Battle Dimension, "We Will Be Heroes"). It's nice, but again, nothing to write home about. I skipped that one a good bit as well. After that it's a bit of a tossup between S4 (Johto League Champions, "Born to Be a Winner"), S12 (DP Galactic Battles, "Battle Cry - (Stand Up!)"), and S13 (DP Sinnoh League Victors, "We Will Carry On"). I didn't like the S4 intro at first, but it's started to grow on me. I do still have a couple gripes about it, though. "Battle Cry" is kinda funny to me because if you removed the very end of it you could easily pass it off as something by a Christian band. I don't like how the first version of the S12 intro has some of Ash's Pokémon chime in at the very end, so for that I would probably put that first version as the lowest of this little cluster, maybe even below S11. I don't really have a lot to say about the S13 intro right now. It's cool that so many Legendaries show up I guess? I think the current second place is S3 (The Johto Journeys, "Pokémon Johto"). It just hits the dopamine button for me. This, of course, leaves the classic S1 opening (Indigo League, "Pokémon Theme") in first. I think in a vacuum I might like the S3 intro better, but given that I also watched S1 a good bit as a kid on DVD, I also have a lot of nostalgia for that opening. Plus, it's a classic for a reason.
I just got to the episode where they finally reach Ecruteak City after 20 episodes. I'd heard about that infamously long trek, but watching it is something else. I mean, seriously. Ash and co. leave Goldenrod at the end of "Air Time!" (S4E3), then by the beginning of the next episode, "The Bug Stops Here", they are at the National Park. In the games, the National Park isn't that much more distant from Ecruteak as it is from Goldenrod; I'd estimate that the distance to Ecruteak is about 1.5x longer if you follow the routes. So going off of that, you might expect there to be one or two episodes of the trip from the National Park to Ecruteak. But no. They don't reach Ecruteak City until S4E24 ("A Ghost of a Chance").
The episodes in between are pretty solid episodes, but good grief, why are they all condensed in this one gigantic block? Hearing the narrator say they're on the way to Ecruteak City for the umpteenth time is tiring. If they'd just rearranged those episodes so that there were one or two before the National Park, then two or three after the National Park, then had the others interspersed as they were traveling back and forth between Ecruteak, Olivine, and Mahogany (I'd add Cianwood, but considering that the stretch between it and Olivine is ocean, most of those episodes wouldn't make much sense there), that would probably make the pacing of the show as a whole a lot better. At the very least, then the obnoxiously slow part of the anime would line up with the obnoxiously slow part of the games. Apparently Chikorita evolves into Bayleef at some point after arriving in Ecruteak (I went to the Bulbapedia page for S4 to look up the episode numbers and glimpsed it there but I don't want to spoil myself further), but a lot of the episodes in question wouldn't change that much with Bayleef instead of Chikorita.
One of the episodes that was part of that long trek was "The Apple Corp!" (S4E22), and it felt familiar to me when I was watching it. Then I remembered that we have an old little compilation thing of like, two or three episodes, one of which is "The Apple Corp!" (And by "old," I mean "I'm like 70% sure that compilation is on a VHS tape.")
Lastly, this isn't related to anything before, but whenever Pikachu calls out for Togepi, he says "Pipipi," and I think that's adorable.
If you're wondering why I listed Sinnoh first, that's because I binged it first (kinda). I initally started looking into the Sinnoh part while doing research for a couple of Bulbapedia articles on a couple of the anime novelizations of that arc. I sought out the specific episodes those books were adapting, then after watching them I decided it would be fun to watch the whole Sinnoh arc. The "kinda" before was because I actually watched the first part of the Kanto arc a few months ago on Netflix (I think, don't feel like checking) with my nephew. After I finished with Sinnoh, I decided to pick up where I left off in Kanto, and now I'm planning on binging pretty much the entire anime, except maybe the movies.
On a tangetial note to that, I've been considering ranking the openings of each season. I feel like it's a bit premature to start it now while I'm still binging the whole series, and that feels like an endeavor best suited to, like, a retrospective look at the anime as a whole, one that I'd want to actually analyze in decent depth. But I guess I can give a quick and dirty ranking of what I think so far. I think the opening of Season 10 (Diamond and Pearl, "Diamond and Pearl") is my least favorite. I don't dislike it, but it was definitely one of the ones I skipped the most while I was binging. The other opening I skipped a whole lot was S2 (Adventures in the Orange Islands, "Pokémon World"). It's fine, but it's nothing to write home about. I think next is S11 (DP Battle Dimension, "We Will Be Heroes"). It's nice, but again, nothing to write home about. I skipped that one a good bit as well. After that it's a bit of a tossup between S4 (Johto League Champions, "Born to Be a Winner"), S12 (DP Galactic Battles, "Battle Cry - (Stand Up!)"), and S13 (DP Sinnoh League Victors, "We Will Carry On"). I didn't like the S4 intro at first, but it's started to grow on me. I do still have a couple gripes about it, though. "Battle Cry" is kinda funny to me because if you removed the very end of it you could easily pass it off as something by a Christian band. I don't like how the first version of the S12 intro has some of Ash's Pokémon chime in at the very end, so for that I would probably put that first version as the lowest of this little cluster, maybe even below S11. I don't really have a lot to say about the S13 intro right now. It's cool that so many Legendaries show up I guess? I think the current second place is S3 (The Johto Journeys, "Pokémon Johto"). It just hits the dopamine button for me. This, of course, leaves the classic S1 opening (Indigo League, "Pokémon Theme") in first. I think in a vacuum I might like the S3 intro better, but given that I also watched S1 a good bit as a kid on DVD, I also have a lot of nostalgia for that opening. Plus, it's a classic for a reason.
I just got to the episode where they finally reach Ecruteak City after 20 episodes. I'd heard about that infamously long trek, but watching it is something else. I mean, seriously. Ash and co. leave Goldenrod at the end of "Air Time!" (S4E3), then by the beginning of the next episode, "The Bug Stops Here", they are at the National Park. In the games, the National Park isn't that much more distant from Ecruteak as it is from Goldenrod; I'd estimate that the distance to Ecruteak is about 1.5x longer if you follow the routes. So going off of that, you might expect there to be one or two episodes of the trip from the National Park to Ecruteak. But no. They don't reach Ecruteak City until S4E24 ("A Ghost of a Chance").
The episodes in between are pretty solid episodes, but good grief, why are they all condensed in this one gigantic block? Hearing the narrator say they're on the way to Ecruteak City for the umpteenth time is tiring. If they'd just rearranged those episodes so that there were one or two before the National Park, then two or three after the National Park, then had the others interspersed as they were traveling back and forth between Ecruteak, Olivine, and Mahogany (I'd add Cianwood, but considering that the stretch between it and Olivine is ocean, most of those episodes wouldn't make much sense there), that would probably make the pacing of the show as a whole a lot better. At the very least, then the obnoxiously slow part of the anime would line up with the obnoxiously slow part of the games. Apparently Chikorita evolves into Bayleef at some point after arriving in Ecruteak (I went to the Bulbapedia page for S4 to look up the episode numbers and glimpsed it there but I don't want to spoil myself further), but a lot of the episodes in question wouldn't change that much with Bayleef instead of Chikorita.
One of the episodes that was part of that long trek was "The Apple Corp!" (S4E22), and it felt familiar to me when I was watching it. Then I remembered that we have an old little compilation thing of like, two or three episodes, one of which is "The Apple Corp!" (And by "old," I mean "I'm like 70% sure that compilation is on a VHS tape.")
Lastly, this isn't related to anything before, but whenever Pikachu calls out for Togepi, he says "Pipipi," and I think that's adorable.
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