Topic: Switching Back to Pokémode

[King Bowser Koopa]

It's in black and white: the show's still great.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/33366

During my recent trip to Sydney for the Symphony of the Goddesses tour Down Under, I was victim to an onslaught of many intense downpours of rain broken up between scorching, humid summer heat. It is thus no wonder that shortly after returning home I've come down with pneumonia, and I'm stuck at home while I recuperate. 

How nice it was, then, that the guys at Beyond have sent me the latest Australian Pokémon DVD collection from the Black and White series - just the thing to take my mind off the constant coughing fits and cold sweat. Watching through these episodes has rekindled my intermittent love for the Pokémon anime.

Sure, the Pokémania trend is long over and the new episodes don't quite hold up to the appeal of the original series, but there's still plenty of charm to be discovered.
If you haven't seen any of the Black and White series yet, at the beginning of the Unova saga (set, of course, in the latest region from the game series), the show received a major overhaul in both style and substance. The art style still retains the direction of Ken Sugimori's iconic character designs from the games, but is much more detailed and pronounced than ever before, with emphasized lighting and shadow techniques. The CGI battle effects, first introduced in the Diamond and Pearl series, is still prevalent but thankfully integrated into the 2D animation with much more thought than previously attempted, so it blends together quite nicely.

Story-wise, Ash has once again left his entire Poké-platoon back with Professor Oak and journeyed to a whole new region with only his Pikachu in tow. Not even series mainstay Brock has come along for the ride this time, having decided on his true calling at the end of the previous saga and settled down to study as a Pokémon doctor. Instead we have an all new supporting cast of Cilan and Iris, characters I'm sure are very familiar to fans who have played Black or White, or their sequels. The new cast's personalities and differing mannerisms change the way the new group interacts, and it's refreshing and welcome - even Ash seems to be much less of a whimsically bumbling Poké-newbie this time around, and the whole thing makes for a slightly more mature stance on the Pokémon world.

Probably the biggest change to the aging formula of the show, however, is that Team Rocket, my personal favorite characters, have undergone a major career change. Taking the credit for various deeds (that had little to do with them) in the last saga, the trio of Jessie, James and Meowth scored big promotions, and for a time, snazzy new black uniforms! The success has gone to their heads, and as such they're no longer the incompetent Pikachu stalkers they once were, now spearheading large-scale operations for their boss such as city takeovers and legendary Pokémon poaching. Sadly this new seriousness detracts from their once lovable personalities, but seeing them with their cool new high-tech equipment and threatening presence in battle is a decent tradeoff. 

The latest DVD set to be released in Australia contains the first 25 episodes of BW Rival Destinies, which is the second season since the Black and White saga began. I'm pleased with the decision Beyond have made to present these episodes in 16:9 as they were intended to be seen - one of the biggest downfalls of their previous Sinnoh releases was that the widescreen episodes were cropped to fit standard television sets. On the other hand, the lack of special features is nothing new to this line of Pokémon DVDs, and as with previous releases they continue to present only the English dub of the episodes. When 4Kids Entertainment lost the Pokémon rights and the new dubbing cast took over back in the Battle Frontier series, I found the change to be quite grating and my interest in the English version of the show diminished considerably. Fortunately if you stick with the show you can hear the actors settle into their respective roles and by the time the BW series rolls around you'd hardly notice that the show's license had changed hands.

I'm hoping for the eventual news of a Unova Pokédex Collection like the series' previous boxed sets, but seeing how this saga is still ongoing even in Japan, that could be some ways away.
In the meantime, thanks Beyond, and thanks to the TV Tokyo animation studio for helping keep the franchise alive. It's certainly not the best anime in history but it's still a lot of fun, light entertainment that doesn't require too much concentration to keep up with.

[joshnickerson]

Afraid I'll have to disagree with you... I thought Diamond & Pearl was a great series (I'm actually rewatching the DVDs as I work out in the mornings), I went into Black & White with high hopes... only to have them dashed. Ash actually seems kind of dumbed down to me, as if they regressed him back into a little kid, not the trainer who had previously competed in four different leagues. Iris grated on my nerves pretty quickly, and I found the green haired kid (I don't remember his name and I don't really care to look it up) to be rather bland. And the new rival was forgettable too, nowhere near the caliber of Gary, Paul or Barry. Of course, I might be able to put up with all that if not for the absolutely dreadful way the stripped Team Rocket of their personalities, to the point where I didn't even recognize them. Even that I may have been able to overlook, except they switch over to "serious mode" for NO REASON.

And let me ask a perfectly legitimate question... if they were just going to strip the personalities away from Ash and Team Rocket, why not just have completely new characters in the first place? Seriously, if they did it right, it could have been done. Have Ash win the Sinnoh League, give Team Rocket their own moment in the sun (I dunno, they always seem to do well selling food... maybe they start their own restaurant?) and start the Black/White series fresh with new characters. Hell, you could even have an older Ash appear futher in the series as a potential mentor/rival for the new main characters.

But no. Just run the damn series into the ground instead of doing something fresh (which ironically is how I feel about the video game series lately). I gave the series a fair shot... I watched about ten episodes before giving up on it. But I can't be too upset about it I guess... I got 500+ episodes I can go back and rewatch... and half of those are actually good ones! 

[King Bowser Koopa]

You make some interesting and valid points.
I'm a little tired of Pikachu getting knocked back to almost a rookie level at the start of each new saga, wherein by game standards he should have reached L100 long ago.
The reason I say Ash has matured is that he's not making blatant mistakes as he once did - such as attempting to use electric attacks on just about everything regardless of type match ups, or boasting like a bratty kid over every gym battle before he even reaches the town, or, for particular example, confusing cheerleaders for Pokémon. One new episode I watched on this DVD set - "Battling the Bully", features a little kid being pressured into Pokémon battles by a local bully, despite them both being too young to own a Pokémon yet. When the kid begs Ash to let him use Pikachu, Ash takes on the role of mentor and teaches him some fundamental rules of battling and a surprisingly gallant stance on sportsmanship and fairness - something Ash from, say, Johto wouldn't even consider - "Now, use Seismic Toss while it's dizzy!", "Pikachu, run along the surface of that Hydro Pump!", you get the idea.
My comments about Team Rocket refer to the point where instead of just appearing every episode to steal the Pokémon of the day, get attacked and blast off, they now work towards a major mission that takes several episodes to reveal itself, and when they finally appear to challenge the main cast it's that much more of a challenge to overcome. There was one story arc where Meowth pretended he got fired from the team so he could tag along with the kids and keep tabs on their movements. This actually continued for several episodes, his story and performance were so legitimately believable that several wiki sites changed Meowth's profile to "ex-member of Team Rocket", until the time came to spring the trap and reveal that he expertly trolled the cast and the audience alike.
That said, all of this is a defunct point, as Team Rocket have now gone back to their original Kanto motto, and have returned to their regular Pikachu-stealing plans, albeit with some of their confidence boost and upgraded tech intact. They even get another Meowth balloon, this one has rocket propulsion and an onboard navigation/tracking system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw5dpE1VD3w
Cilan and his flamboyant flavor talk doesn't quite hold up to Brock's girl-chasing shenanigans, but Iris is fine. She's cute, she has interesting Pokémon and she's not contest-obsessed. That's new enough for me!