As I've gotten older (I'm now 31 and feel like Methuselah), and the world has largely stopped making sense to me, I have found myself retreating into nostalgia like many others. It's been fun revisiting things from my childhood, back when things were simple and we as a culture largely agreed on the vast majority of things, so there was a sense of security and social cohesion. One of the simple things that we agreed on was that the Pokémon anime was absolutely incredible. I've been wanting to rewatch the old Pokémon anime, as I've got a great deal of nostalgia for that show, and I have a real affinity for retro anime. But, I figured I'd wait to start the rewatch until I had children. Now I've got a couple of young children, both boys, and I'm trying to get my older son indoctrinated into all of my hobbies and interests. You best believe we got him on the Pokémon anime, and let me just tell you: he loves it.
Like father, like son. He's hooked on it, and loves talking about it all day and wants me to tell him Pokémon bedtime stories, which I'm happy to do. Shout-out to bedtime stories with your children! The giant roster of Pokémon provided many conversations to ask him about who his favorite Pokémon is. I figured he would be a big Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard fan with his rampant dinosaur obsession, but he surprised me by being more of a Bulbasaur guy, who I guess still has some dino energy. His overall favorite Pokemon so far though is Onix, which was a cool, niche pick. I appreciated his choice for a lesser-known 'mon. Unfortunately, there's very little official Onix merch or toys, even from the 90s. Memories flooded back to me of my various obsessions with this or that Pokémon. Sandslash was my first favorite Pokémon. I also was (and still am) obsessed with Pinsir and Scyther. Who wouldn't love these giant, radical looking bug boys? Every young boy in the 90s was into Pinsir and Scyther. Blastoise is my overall favorite Pokémon though. What a beast. Alas, let's actually dive into the show. I could ramble about my history and love of Pokémon for hours.
The Pokémon anime started in Japan in 1997, came overseas to the US in 1998 and proved to be immensely successful and contributed to the brand's immediate explosion of popularity, as well as being an entire generation's first taste of Japanese animation. The original season of the show is named the Indigo League, after the Indigo Plateau - the site of the fabled Kanto Pokémon League and the battleground of the region's strongest trainers: the Elite Four. Ash's journey, from his first step out of Pallet Town, is set to culminate with an eventual showdown against the Elite Four. While the promise of that ending sounds thrilling, the entire adventure, with all of its twists and turns, was more entertaining to me than Ash's final challenge.
This first season of the Pokémon anime covers the beginning of Ash Ketchum's journey, as he makes his way through the Kanto region. He is joined by Misty and Brock, two Gym Leaders who have their own goals and dreams, but tag along with Ash. The friendship between these three characters, and their respective Pokémon, forms the heart of the show. Ash's relationship with both Brock and Misty begins with a somewhat rocky, competitive nature, but through their trials and tribulations and countless life-threatening encounters, it blossoms into a close-knit bond. If this friendship serves as the figurative heart of the show, Ash's relationship with Pikachu serves as the soul.
The dynamic between him and his Pikachu is the very lifeblood of the show, and the sole reason that Pikachu is the face of the franchise. Pikachu doesn't like Ash at the beginning of their journey, but Ash's sheer dedication to being a great trainer and his kind heart prove to Pikachu that he's in it for the long haul and genuinely cares about his partner Pokémon. This mutual trust and understanding between the two of them lead to many of the show's most heartwarming and pulse-pounding moments. Though I have to say, the show's insistence on keeping Pikachu front and center results in many bizarre matches that Ash could've whipped if he cared about Pokémon typing advantage. Pikachu was thrust into many fights that it had no business being in, just because of the marketing and Ash's bond with the Pokémon.
I think the most fun I had with the show across this rewatch were some of the creative, unique episodes that just felt different and added a sense of mystery and wonder to the Pokémon universe. One of the earliest episodes had Ash battling and then teaming up with a young boy who dresses like a samurai and has a Pinsir, as they ran from a giant swarm of Beedrill. Playing the games, you'd expect Beedrill, being like a bee or a wasp, to live in a hive or to travel in swarms, so to see them behave that way felt authentic and added some flavor to the universe. A later episode featured a giant race in the Safari Zone where Ash became a "horse girl" briefly with a Ponyta who he shared a connection with. The episode featured tons of different Pokémon being ridden on a cross-country race, which was really neat and showed that sometimes Pokémon served as mounts for people in this universe.
There's also a sense of supernaturalism in the show that was really fun. Anyone who's ever played a Japanese game from the 90s or seen any old anime, you know that the would often put their country's folklore, legends and yokai (Japanese spirits) into their stories, and it adds this wonderful sense of spookiness that can randomly pop up at any time. For instance, one of Ash's Gym battles was against the disturbed, psychic teenager, Sabrina. This was a wild story arc. Sabrina turns Ash and his team into dolls for her to play with in a miniature town. There was a macabre, but fun element of genuine danger hanging over that entire battle. There was also an awesome "filler" episode where the gang finds a traditional Japanese-styled town, and the ghost of a long deceased woman with a tragic past haunts the villagers. These sorts of episodes served an essential purpose: to flesh out this world beyond what the limited Game Boy games were able to do at the time.
Another thing that the show was able to add was a sense of scale to the world that Ash and his friends are trekking across. Pewter City in the game was a handful of buildings, you got a small town feel from it, but the show reiterated that it was in fact a "city," with tall buildings, cars, roads, etc. It was really neat seeing Kanto in such detail and it retroactively adds a sense of depth when you return to the early Pokémon games and you can imagine that you're just seeing a miniaturized in-game realization of a town or city, but there is actually much more happening in these various locales.
The Pokémon anime does get a good degree of criticism, and a lot of it is properly due, I think. The infamous "power of friendship" does come into play all too often, along with a healthy dose of "plot armor," netting Ash a win here and there where it wasn't deserved. Often that would come in the form of Pikachu overcoming absurd odds to one-shot a Pokémon that should've stomped our favorite yellow rat into a puddy. A fight against Rhydon comes to mind where Pikachu did a Thundershock and it hit Rhydon's horn like a lightning rod and knocked out the Pokémon immediately; where in reality, the type difference should've resulted in Pikachu getting pink misted before Ash's eyes. Ash also won several badges through assisting the Gym Leader with a problem, like Team Rocket, or proving that he's a good guy with a pure heart. This became an eyeroll-deserving offense after the first couple of instances. Maybe the writers were trying to make Ash a good role model for children, which is respectable and nice, but his competitive spirit often comes in a distant second to being a generally good kid, which was disappointing.
This was a stark contrast to Red, the protagonist of the first generation of Pokemon games, who must overcome every challenge through sheer force of will and strategy. Also, as the show went on they began to rely on the intended comic relief of Misty's Psyduck and Jigglypuff getting involved with the plot and bringing their disruptive tendencies. This got old immediately, as it felt like the same joke being rehashed several times.
All in all, revisiting this show for the first time since my youth was a heartwarming, genuinely enjoyable experience. The English dub is excellent, providing hilarious localization and great lines for many of the characters. The story, with all of its twists and turns was charming and entertaining throughout. I was glad to see that the show did hold up, and being able to watch it through my toddler's eyes was a wonderful experience. Many of my complaints were checked by watching his enjoyment, and reminding myself that the show was indeed aimed at children, as is the entire Pokémon brand, no matter what the strange, sad, adult Pokémon fanbase would tell you. I plan to roll straight into Season 2, Adventures in the Orange Islands, and will review that as well.
VERDICT: Recommended
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