AEGIS: Pokemon D/P

With Pokemon Diamond and Pearl ending it's 4 year year run in Japan recently I thought it would be a good time to look back reflect on Ash's latest adventure and find some things I didn't like about it.

   When I first saw D/P I was blown away. The anime looked really good and I was excited and ready for something new. While I think D/P is one of the better Pokemon anime series I did have a few of problems with it. Remember these are just my personal opinions and I'm sure many of you will disagree with me.

Contests

Behold the giant stadium of filler!

     When the Advanced Generation started I was all for contests I thought they were really good...for a while. After a few of them was downright bored with them to point where I just wouldn't care when the next contest episode aired.
D/P continued this trend with Dawn. While I don't hate Dawn herself I just don't like contests at all.
Maybe it's becuase I grew up with battles and Gym fights but contests in the anime bore me.I don't care about Beauty and "appeals", I just want adrenaline filled, over the top battles. Not to mention all of those of the logic defying combination, such as the one where Pachirisu or Cyndaquil is encased in a ball of ice (Yes even logic defying by Pokemon standards).
Although in D/P the battles themselves certainty defied allot of logic themselves. Example: Grotle swallowing his own Energy Ball and gaining power from it. Even in the Pokemon universe it should have hurt him but hey I'm no Pokemon doctor so what the hell do I know? Someone call Brock!

The Animation
     I just wanna say that I fucking love the art style. It's colorful and bright and really stands out. However my main hate lies with the way older attacks were redrawn. Much like In the Advance series where Corphish's Bubblebeam went from Blue to Red (and as of D/P back to Blue), some older attacks were changed to fit the old animation style.
Examples include a lot of moves glowing. Why do attacks need to glow, do we need to keep kids attention by making Staraptor's wings glow? Or by having Craogunk's fingers glow purple poison when it uses Poison Jab? Or when Gible uses Rock Smash? Not really, no. But hey Pokemon has done weirder things. New animation, new animation changes. Not that big of a deal really. Again it adds into that color thing I mentioned above.

Takuto

Yes I put a character up here, surprised?

   I don't like him, at all. Mostly because he embodies everything I hate about a Pokemon Trainer. Specifically his use of Legendary or "Uber" Pokemon. While I myself don't hate Legendary Pokemon (I've been to the Nintendo Events and collected my fair share of them) I don't like entire teams made up of them. I find it a cheap way to play against other players. On the other hand my inner fan boy is amazed that the writers gave him a Darkrai and Latios. My inner fan boy is also amazed that they let Ash be thoroughly destroyed by only two of Takuto's Pokemon.
    My inner fan boy also liked the throwback to the old series with Ash flipping his hat back when he sent out Pikachu (The first time he's done that in any battle for the D/P series).

Just like old times

    So after all the bitching I've done what have I gained? Nothing. Pokemon is still one of favorite anime and game series and will be for a long time. In fact if I'm 25 and still here bitching about whatever Best Wishes did to piss me off than I'd be OK with that.
All in all Pokemon has made allot of changes but I don't mind it. Every change has at least a decent excuse to it and with a show that's run as long as Pokemon has, changes are to be expected. Even thinking back to that distant day in 1998 when the Anime first hit the States there were things we never liked (as much as we hate to admit it). At the end of the day however I still like Pokemon and I always will. Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Here's to the future!

Oh and what would a Pokemon topic be without Misty?

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