Pokemon X/Y - New Pokemon Series (Discussions)

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Episode #2

Back...to the Past!

I like how the Serena wasn't rushed into the group. A dual-story structuring is something the Satoshi shows have never really toyed with, so I'm glad to see four episodes were spent on allowing the dynamics to slowly build up. I think it would be interesting if this was brought back by having Satoshi separated from the other three for a few episodes down the line. When was the last time we ever saw Satoshi have to be interesting on his own for an extended period of time?

I also like the small hints toward the build up of Mega Evolution. The mysteries of Mega Evolution and the return of older Pocket Monsters to obtain these new forms is a perfect chance for a storyline as the series gets closer to the one year mark. I hope the Flare Gang make use of Mega Evolution to help spice up the battles.

 

[Arrow]

I really enjoyed the last episode, it's right up there with the two Gym Battle episodes as one of my favorites in XY. Sanpei was one of the more interesting characters to come out of these last few episodes, and the training was pretty fun. I liked how Froakie also learned Double Team, as I was kind of skeptical of spending an entire episode just for it to learn Quick Attack. I still haven't seen anything on whether or not Sanpei's a rival, but it'd be nice to see him again regardless.

I think it would be interesting if this was brought back by having Satoshi separated from the other three for a few episodes down the line. When was the last time we ever saw Satoshi have to be interesting on his own for an extended period of time?

For the most part, I tend to enjoy the episodes where Ash and his Pokemon are on their own. Not only are they a nice change of pace from the usual, but it's also nice to be reminded that Ash isn't completely helpless when separated from his friends.

That's something that I've never really understood about the show: why do Ash and his friends have to be joined at the hip all the time, especially in episodes that are clearly only meant to focus on one of them? A good example would be the latest one. Ash, Sanpei, Froakie, Frogadier, and Team Rocket were enough to hold it up on their own. Remove Clemont and Serena, and you'd have the same thing - excepting Clemont's usual bit. I get why the whole show can't be just one main human character all the time, but it'd be nice to see the characters on their own a little more.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Episode #17

OLM's never-ending quest to make Eureka cute continues this week. How do you top sleepy Eureka? With Kunoichi Eureka!

Iwane's smoke effect drawings were really interesting this week. Some of the layouts were also good, but I can't help but feel the CG is really killing the impact of his timing.

I hope Sanpei returns. Building up the League rivals ahead of time would be a nice way to kill time.

 

[CyberCubed]

Clemont was so funny in this episode.

Why the writers wasted our time with Brock for so many years I'll never understand. Characters like Cilan and Clemont prove he should have been axed at the end of Johto when Misty was, or at least at the end of AG at the latest.

Brock was so god awful in the DP series.

 

[zoombie]

Episode 17

Ninja Eureka that was adorable, her and Pikachu just adorable. I don't know why Team Rocket had to be int he episode, they contribute nothing to the episode, they showed up late in the episode, they were defeated in record time and never a threat, so why bother using them at all?

 

[Light Lucario]

Clemont was so funny in this episode.

Why the writers wasted our time with Brock for so many years I'll never understand. Characters like Cilan and Clemont prove he should have been axed at the end of Johto when Misty was, or at least at the end of AG at the latest.

Brock was so god awful in the DP series.

I didn't think that Brock was that bad in DP, but I'm also one of the few people who didn't mind that he stayed around as long as he did. He did get some good focus episodes in both AG and DP and he played a key role in the Team Galactic climax. He certainly could have used some more, especially with his goal, but I was fine that he stayed as long as he did. I'm not sure if they would have replaced him along with Misty. That might have been too much change all at once and I don't think that there was a third generation character, or one in the fourth generation games for that matter, that could have fit Brock's role.

While I do like Cilan, I'm not sure if he's a significant upgrade from Brock at least writing wise. He had a more vibrant personality that made him fun and he didn't fade into the background as much, but his development was non-existent and like Brock, they didn't seem to know what to do with Cilan's goal. Being a Pokemon Connoisseur was barely used as anything besides a gag for how everyone was annoyed with his evaluations, being a Connoisseur on various other hobbies also became a running gag and they couldn't even bother to tie in his reason for leaving the group back to being a Pokemon Connoisseur. Apparently, going to Hoenn for a random fishing contest is more important than becoming an S-ranked Connoisseur. I like Cilan and I could see why people like him more than Brock due to his personality helping him to stand out, but he isn't really an interesting character. Clemont does at least have something interesting going on with his connection to the Lumiose City Gym, from what I've heard about it anyway, and does have solid chemistry with Ash. I am glad that they didn't try to keep Cilan around longer like they did with Brock. They were barely doing anything with Cilan and it was best to provide a new cast for Ash to travel around with for XY anyway.

 

[Megumi]

Another dull episode of Pokemon. Nothing stand out about it. At least Iwane made this episode more interesting to look at. And Froakie learned Double Team. Not that I care much.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Episode #18

Eureka has finally found a woman to take her elder brother! Too bad Princess Ally is so high-maintenance! I wouldn't mind Ally returning, especially as a grooming rival to Serena. It's too bad so much time was spent on the Kabigon plot, I think it would have been interesting to build up a rivalry between Serena and Ally. Ah well...

Tamagawa Akihiro provided key animation this week, probably during the battle with Ally. Some of the smoke effects looked up there with Iwane Masa'aki.

 

[zoombie]

Episode 18

When this princess gets older she is going to be into snm, that is obvious. LOL I wonder if she will be a semi recurring character chasing after Clemont trying to capture. I love to see Clemont have a crazy stocker.

 

[Megumi]

There's nothing to say about the Snorlax episode. It had some funny bits in it, but there wasn't anything to really write home about.

I def would've taken the gold, though. Could've bought a better Pikachu.

 

[CyberCubed]

Kinda disappointed with the way they're handling Serena. It really feels like she has no purpose other than to be eye candy and shipping fodder. She's essentially just a blonde Dawn without the contest episodes.

Given how much dislike Iris got it feels like the writers only think they have to make the girl "pretty" and "pleasant" among the main cast to have her be accepted by fans.

If she stays like this for the entire saga she'll be just as much as background character as Johto Misty was...only with eye candy.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

If Serena was just eye-candy she'd have a Hell of a lot more screen time and better key animators drawing close-ups of her. We know Serena has a focus episode coming up. Serena is not blonde, either. This TV series is going to run at least two or three years, that is plenty of time for Tomioka Atsuhiro to plan out a story arc for Serena, especially considering that the female secondary's story arc has always taken place in-between the later gym battles. Satoshi isn't even scheduled for his second gym battle yet Serena is still getting a focus episode before it.

Let's entertain the idea that Serena does absolutely nothing for the entire TV series. So what? Eureka doesn't do a damned thing and you don't see anyone complaining regarding her. Tomioka and friends have delivered on the vastly entertaining Citron and Eureka and even given Satoshi an entertaining battle or two so far.

 

[Light Lucario]

Kinda disappointed with the way they're handling Serena. It really feels like she has no purpose other than to be eye candy and shipping fodder. She's essentially just a blonde Dawn without the contest episodes.

Given how much dislike Iris got it feels like the writers only think they have to make the girl "pretty" and "pleasant" among the main cast to have her be accepted by fans.

If she stays like this for the entire saga she'll be just as much as background character as Johto Misty was...only with eye candy.

I still don't really understand saying that she's a blonde Dawn without Contests. She doesn't look like Dawn at all and Dawn wasn't really used for shipping fodder either. Not to mention that Contests played a key role for her character, so saying Serena is like Dawn without Contests doesn't make much sense to me. I don't know if their decisions on how to handle Serena had anything to do with Iris. While I know that there was a lot of dislike towards her character and I still think that she is the worst character in the entire franchise, that was from primarily Pokemon forums. The writers aren't going to care about how people on message boards care about the characters and writing since people like us are well outside the target demographic. It's entirely possible that Iris wasn't received well by the target demographic in Japan, but I have no way of finding that out for sure. I wouldn't be too surprised if that was the case considering how unlikable she was.

There weren't a lot of options for female characters from this generation joining the cast. The only other choices that they could have made would have been Shauna and Korrina. Shauna came off as a much less interesting version of Bianca, so I don't think she could have gotten more to do at this point, especially when she just travels around to make memories. Korrina might have been an interesting choice due to her connection to Mega Evolution in the games and that could have given them something to go with, but after how they handled Iris and to a slightly lesser extent Misty so poorly, I wouldn't have wanted them to go for a third female Gym Leader character. Serena is more marketable due to being based on a playable trainer and perhaps they wanted to go back to that after how successful May and Dawn were in their respective series.

I would hope that they have something planned with her character and considering that she's getting a focused episode in a couple of weeks, that could help with giving her a goal, or exploring different goals to search for one. The series has only aired eighteen episodes thus far. I don't think that's enough time to worry about Serena staying like this for the whole saga, especially when the series is going to last well over a hundred episodes. There's plenty of time to give her a goal and a storyline.

If Serena was just eye-candy she'd have a Hell of a lot more screen time and better key animators drawing close-ups of her. We know Serena has a focus episode coming up. Serena is not blonde, either. This TV series is going to run at least two or three years, that is plenty of time for Tomioka Atsuhiro to plan out a story arc for Serena, especially considering that the female secondary's story arc has always taken place in-between the later gym battles. Satoshi isn't even scheduled for his second gym battle yet Serena is still getting a focus episode before it.

Let's entertain the idea that Serena does absolutely nothing for the entire TV series. So what? Eureka doesn't do a damned thing and you don't see anyone complaining regarding her. Tomioka and friends have delivered on the vastly entertaining Citron and Eureka and even given Satoshi an entertaining battle or two so far.

Considering the long stretch between the first and second Gyms in the game, it would be kind of cool if the anime reflected that with it taking awhile for Ash to get his second Gym battle. That's also a really good point about Bonnie. There might be more expectation for Serena to do something being based on a playable female trainer from the games, but I'd settle for her being likable at this point. She does come off as a pretty nice character and she fits in with the group chemistry pretty well too, so as long as Serena keeps being likable, I wouldn't necessarily mind it if it took awhile for her to get a goal.

 

[CyberCubed]

If Serena was just eye-candy she'd have a Hell of a lot more screen time and better key animators drawing close-ups of her. We know Serena has a focus episode coming up. Serena is not blonde, either. This TV series is going to run at least two or three years, that is plenty of time for Tomioka Atsuhiro to plan out a story arc for Serena, especially considering that the female secondary's story arc has always taken place in-between the later gym battles. Satoshi isn't even scheduled for his second gym battle yet Serena is still getting a focus episode before it.

Whenever the female companion had a quest we knew early on. May discovered Contests around the 13th episode of AG and we knew that would become her storyline. Dawn wanted to be a coordinator from her first episode. Even Iris regularly competed in tournaments.

With Serena we're almost 20 episodes in and she has no goal, but she also hasn't had any real battle yet. We haven't seen her do any battling against another trainer. Its weird. As for your mention on Bonnie, she's a supporting sidekick character. And she's oddly getting more to do in the episodes so far than Serena.

I honestly think the roles for female companions in this show have peaked. I'm not so sure what they could do with Serena for 3 years.

 

[Light Lucario]

Whenever the female companion had a quest we knew early on. May discovered Contests around the 13th episode of AG and we knew that would become her storyline. Dawn wanted to be a coordinator from her first episode. Even Iris regularly competed in tournaments.

With Serena we're almost 20 episodes in and she has no goal, but she also hasn't had any real battle yet. We haven't seen her do any battling against another trainer. Its weird. As for your mention on Bonnie, she's a supporting sidekick character. And she's oddly getting more to do in the episodes so far than Serena.

I honestly think the roles for female companions in this show have peaked. I'm not so sure what they could do with Serena for 3 years.

Iris' goal wasn't really revealed until about thirty episodes into BW. Sure, there was the whole evolving Axew goal, but that was quickly tossed aside and rarely brought up it was initially mentioned. I think that the only time it was brought up after she explained her backstory was when she said that it hadn't evolved yet. They made it clear that she was training to become a Dragon Master and that wasn't really early on in the series. Iris competing in those tournaments wasn't even a part of her goal. It was just doing it because everyone else was doing it and didn't lead to any believable development for her character or for her Pokemon. Not to mention those tournaments didn't happen that often and the first one didn't happen until about forty episodes into BW.

Perhaps they're just trying something different with Serena. They have a character who isn't sure what goal she wants to pursue, but unlike in the third generation, there aren't any sidequests for them to adapt in the anime. Maybe they wanted to explore that angle and keep the audience guessing as to why she could be into. Most kids who have played X/Y know that there isn't much to do besides the badge collecting journey, so main character without a goal could make them more interested in watching the show to see what she eventually decides to do. Besides that, she's going to have an episode focused on her in the near future and that could give her a goal. Considering that the series is still in its relatively early stages, I think that you're jumping to conclusions by making that claim. Just because you're not sure what they could do with Serena for three years doesn't mean that they can't.

 

[KYO'NYUU IMOUTO]

Yajima Tetsuo is the series director of Pocket Monster XY. It's possible he simply doesn't care for having female secondary leads, but that's a bit farfetched. For a franchise property like this I doubt he has that much control, especially considering Tomioka Atsuhiro gave us the females from Diamond & Pearl and Best Wishes.

Considering the long stretch between the first and second Gyms in the game, it would be kind of cool if the anime reflected that with it taking awhile for Ash to get his second Gym battle.

That's what I'm hoping, too. I'd rather have a long stretch of episodes like this without gym battles so we can have the rest of the gym battles closer together later on. It'd help if Tomioka knew when the Hell the next generation of games were coming out, though.

I suspect episode #17 was to set up Keromatsu's necessary training to battle Zakuro. Zakuro's team are some really awesome Pokemon, so I'm hoping he receives a big story arc of his own. We know Zakuro is showing up in episode #20, but I'm hoping this is just an early appearance. Saving the second gym battle for the late thirties or forties would be interesting since it would make for a cour-ending story arc.

 

[Light Lucario]

That's what I'm hoping, too. I'd rather have a long stretch of episodes like this without gym battles so we can have the rest of the gym battles closer together later on. It'd help if Tomioka knew when the Hell the next generation of games were coming out, though.

I suspect episode #17 was to set up Keromatsu's necessary training to battle Zakuro. Zakuro's team are some really awesome Pokemon, so I'm hoping he receives a big story arc of his own. We know Zakuro is showing up in episode #20, but I'm hoping this is just an early appearance. Saving the second gym battle for the late thirties or forties would be interesting since it would make for a cour-ending story arc.

Knowing when the next main series games are going to come out would be a big help in planning out the Gym battles and the gaps between them in advance. Although, if the pacing in BW is any indication, especially the series' later half, the anime staff most likely isn't aware of the release dates for the games until the last minute. I agree that Grant has some really great Pokemon with some interesting type combination, especially Tyrunt being a part Dragon type. I could see the Gym battle happening somewhere around the thirties after Ash trains some more and possibly catch another Pokemon. I could maybe see him getting a Skiddo for his Grass type Pokemon. It would be cool to see him catch a Fairy type, but there aren't any that could really fit with him.

 

[Radical]

Episodes 17 and 18 were pretty sweet,

The highlights:

Sanpei was a cool likable minor character.
Ninja Eureka/Bonnie and Ninja Pikachu were SO CUTE together.
Sanpei training Ash/Froakie was pretty great.
Sanpei's Frogadier was a great smug jerk rival for Froakie, hehehe.
Froakie getting stronger using Double Team was awesome, go Froakie.
Cool to see Snorlax who reminds me of Garfield, hahahahahaha.
I love Princess Ally who's an epic funny spoiled bratty princess character who looks like a Kid Jessie, hahahahahaha.I hope she returns and bees a crazy stalker for Clemont agreeing with zoombie, hahahahahaha.Most cartoons do love the spoiled bratty princesses do they, hahahahahaha, which I find it sweet.
Eureka/Bonnie finally finding a girl to take care of poor Clemont was great/funny.

I can't wait see Shauna, Trevor, and Tierno show up soon to meet Ash, Serena, and Clemont/Bonnie.

 

[Light Lucario]

I can't wait see Shauna, Trevor, and Tierno show up soon to meet Ash, Serena, and Clemont/Bonnie.

If they do show up, I hope that the anime makes them more interesting than they were in the games. All three of them were pretty bland, had one-note personalities and Tierno was practically unnecessary. It was a significant step backwards after the rivals in the previous generation of games were so good. Hopefully, the anime can give them a bit more personality or more interesting with the way they interact with the main cast.

 

[TheGunheart]

I'm just..kinda disappointed that this means Fennekin doesn't really get to do anything. It was bad enough back when Brock got a Vulpix that was never used...I think Eevee was the only favorite of mine that got any significant screentime, but of course that would be after I stopped following the series...