Pokémon

Whenever I think of Pokemon my heart sinks, but in a good way! It reminds me of my younger life (this is like four years ago by the way :P) This was easily my first and most-loved animes because it outlines my childhood from 10 - 14 when everyone liked it, not that everyone carried on liking it like I did. The original series of Pokemon is by far the best, and I really enjoyed the Johto saga, however recently Pokemon has gone down hill.

The story lines are repetitive and so similar to the original series, and the newest one (Diamond and Pearl) looks to make things worse. I saw the first episode of it (in Japanese) and I loved it until the last 5-10 mins where I thought "Yey! No Ash or Team Rocket!" I should have kept my mouth shut. They crammed Ash AND Team Rocket trying to steal Pikachu.

But afterall, it really is a children's epic story :) I just feel so bad that they've changed the voice actors after 10 years. It's really ruined it for me and I'm sure many other fans of the programme.

Is there really any of us who doesn't suddenly feel nostalgic, with countless memories invoked, at the slight muttering of the words, "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was"? For those who lived in a cave, those are the first two lines of the theme song to the awesome anime, Pokemon. Most of us just remember the original Kanto Pokemon (Charmander, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Pikachu...), as the franchise's popularity embarked on a steady decline come the Jhoto Pokemon. Although still relatively popular today, let's face it-- Pokemon was, essentially, a fad.

If you were like me, your life was pretty much based on Pokemon at the height of it's popularity. On the bus ride to school, you'd talk to friends about how you were able to catch Missingno. the following night and how your Charizard leveled up to 58. You'd hide your Gameboy in your bookbag during SSR (sustained, silent reading) or free time and play those games. At recess time, It was a rare occurrence you'd hear plain English speak on the playground... it sounded more of a zoo of "pika-pika!" and "meowth!" that we all just seemed to comprehend. While at home, you'd avidly tear open endless packs of Pokemon cards, then smuggle them to school, as they were illegal, and trade them on the blacktop, drug-dealer style. On the bus ride home from school, you'd secretly do a few more last-minute trades before racing home to catch the Pokemon anime series on the now-defunct Kid's WB. Glued your eyes would be to the television screen, even though you've seen the same episode numerous times and even had it on videotape. You'd eat Pokemon cereal, wear a Pokemon bathing suit, and you jumped for joy upon release of Pokemon: The First Movie. You obviously raced to the theater to watch it, and, of course, loved every second of it.

Somewhere after that movie; however, your love disintegrated.

Mentality drifted from "you're a freak if you don't like Pokemon," to "you're a freak if you do like Pokemon". Pokemon cards were handed down to younger siblings, thrown away, or sold; videos were ripped out and used as streamers; plushies were gifted to the family dog; and the games slowly lost their battery life sitting in your drawer. In many people's eyes, Pokemon were a thing of the past. Others stayed loyal to the franchise.

This show/franchise totally needs a comeback. I don't know what's wrong with it now, but a reinvigoration of the craze would be awesome and totally interesting. Ash, Brock, and Misty need to ditch whatever lame friends they have now and just stick together, and Jessie and James need to become again a force to be reckoned with, not just the comic relief characters they are currently. I want to see Pokemon card booster packs being way over priced (I'm talking' 7.99, people!) and impossible to find due to popularity, not lack thereof. No matter how cool you think you are, you know you're at least somewhat interested in this craze making a comeback.

The games are great, merchandise is readily available, and there's not much to improve about the cards-- I wonder if the problem lies in the show?

Pokemon is the best executed cartoons of all time. It's just so cool to watch. The humor is wacked and funny and the Pokemon are so cute. I just love that Pikachu, it's just so cute to watch at. Not to mention the fact that the Game Boy game is also an awesome thing. It's an awesome show, if you go buy your Pokemon game, also go buy a video of Pokemon too. You'll be surprised.

NOTE: So I was here to make my daily visit to do another reviews when I noticed to my surprise that the XY series seems to not have got a lot of good reviews with people saying the new characters are annoying, nothing has changed, to even one person hating the show just because it's not got any creatures from Diamond & Pearl. Bloody hell guys, what did you expect? It's goddamn Pokémon for crying out loud, either bugger off and stop wasting our loyal time or stop watching the show.

Sorry about that anyways, I'm more or less here to quickly say that XY to me is possibly the best Pokémon series of all time. Honestly we loyal Poke fans needed a more refreshing series after the disastrous and not very fun at all trainwreck that was Black & White and this series delivered on every level.

The characters are charming, Serena one of the finest Poke girls to come since I don't know, Dawn from D&P, Bonnie quite a funny characters that made me laugh my socks off and Clemont a really interesting character.

Not to mention Ash being the most confident he's ever been in the franchise.

Other characters are great with Professor Sycamore being my favourite Professor of all time and Alain one of my all time favourites and most of Ash's rivals were good too. (Did feel sorry for Trevor though, got knocked out of the league pretty early.) Team Flare are HANDS DOWN (and I do mean that) better here than in the games. Little old me felt their plan, their motivations were more developed and done better than in the games. Lysandre truly was a mastermind and he was pretty damn menacing to say the least.

The animation is truly brilliant with episodes like the battle against Olympia, Kalos League battle against Sawyer and the finale of the Team Flare arc some of the highlights.

And voice-acting from both English and Japanese sides were great (do have to admit, not too much of a fan of the dub's music though).

So overall, XY is probably hands down the best Pokémon series of all time.

There, I said it. Just don't throw tomatoes or broken TV's at me though because it's not gonna change my opinion.

This show is one of the best on the air! It is also the best Game Boy game ever made! It remains partially true to (the game.) It tells the adventures of Ash, Misty, and Brock as they search for all 150 Pokemon. There is only one word to describe this show: Great!