POCKET MONSTERS XY

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionPokémon The Movie XY: Hakai no Mayu to Diancie
SPECIAL ActionPocket Monsters XY: MEGA EVOLUTION
MOVIE ActionPokémon The Movie XY: Ring no Chou Majin Hoopa
ANIME ActionPocket Monsters XY&Z
MUSICDonaiyanen Yadon
SPECIAL ComedyHoopa no Odemashi Daisakusen!!
SPECIAL ActionOdemashi Komajin Hoopa
SPECIAL FantasyKoukoku no Princess Diancie
ONA ActionPokémon Generations
SPECIAL ActionPocket Monsters Best Wishes! Season 2: Decolora Adventure Specials
MANGA AdventurePokémon Card Game XY Yarouze!

REVIEWS

• 

  Coolfizz

  80/100
  The Old Pokemon Formula at its absolute Best

  Generations 1-6 of the Pokemon anime all follow a pretty similar structure, to varying levels of success. The original anime can be rough around the edges sometimes, whether due to budget or writing or something else. Generation 3 saw a stark improvement in just about every area. The same can be said about Generation 4 for the most part. Generation 5, however, is where things fell apart. The characters were annoying, the writing and characterization of Satoshi/Ash made no sense, a slight change in art style that just looks weird, etc etc. It is considered one of, if not the worst season of the Pokemon anime by a long shot depending on who you're asking.

  Generation 6 gave the team at OLM a chance to make up for Generation 5's misgivings, however. And boy, did they redeem themselves. XY takes everything the Pokemon anime had done up to that point and utterly refines it. It is not perfect, but this is old Pokemon at its absolute best.

  1. The Story

  Or maybe lack thereof. I say XY is the best of what the old Pokemon formula has to offer, and while that may be true, story is something the Pokemon anime has never really shined in. It follows the same formula as the first 5 generations. Satoshi goes around a given region with a few friends and collects 8 gym badges, forming bonds with his friends, rivals, and Pokemon along the way, all the while stopping Team Rocket from stealing his Pokemon every 5 seconds.That's about all there is to it, honestly. In Episodes 92 and 93 it shows real promise in terms of things yet to come. But that's 93 episodes in. Before that, there is nothing inherently engaging about the story.

  2. The Characters
  This is where things get interesting. Satoshi is the same kid he's always been, except not quite. In this series the team at OLM decided to make him a bit more mature. This is shonen Satoshi, for all intents and purposes. He's still a dumbass every now and then, but he acts more mature and more action-heroey in this series than he ever has. And honestly I love this take on Satoshi. It's refreshing to have the main character grow up in some sense. He's still 10 years old but he feels like he's a teenager. It is honestly a bit upsetting that they never decided to age Satoshi up even a little bit to make this feel more believable.

  Next we have Serena, Satoshi's apparent childhood friend from a summer camp he attended when he was a kid. Err, when he was even younger than he is now. She embarks on her journey when she sees Satoshi on TV. It's pretty obvious from the get-go that Serena has a crush on Satoshi. And at first that makes for a pretty interesting dynamic, and one that we've never really seen done in the Pokemon anime before. However, it gets to a certain point, where you're 40 episodes into a TV show and you start to wonder, "What is the point of this character?" Serena has no real purpose for the first 40 episodes or so. She purely tags along with Satoshi and friends because she has a crush on him. Which yes, makes sense I suppose, and is cute at first, but in the back of my mind watching this show I couldn't stop thinking about why she was really there. We finally find out about 40 episodes in, when she discovers her love for Pokemon performing. And there is when Serena truly becomes an interesting character. We see her shine, we see her struggle, we see her overcome fears and grow with her friends and Pokemon. Watching Pokemon Performances in XY is not the boring slog I thought Contests were in Generations 3 and 4. Pokemon Performances are genuinely interesting and oftentimes have fantastic animation. By the end, Serena becomes probably the most fleshed-out and dynamic character the Pokemon anime has seen....ever.

  Next we have Citron and Eureka, the final two main characters. Citron is a gym leader and Eureka is his kid sister. Citron is by far the more interesting and well-developed of the two, though I enjoy them both. Throughout the show we see Citron come to terms with who he is, and how his friends inspire him to do better and become stronger, which is a theme that's pretty frequently used in XY, but I think Citron pulls it off the best, which results in the amazing gym battle between Satoshi and Citron, which is maybe one of the best battles in the entire Pokemon anime. Eureka doesn't really get her time to shine until the next season, XYZ, so I'll get to her more in that review, but she's a pretty straightforward character. She looks up to Serena, she's always looking after her big brother, and she looks after a Dedenne Citron caught for her early on in the series. She's a nice addition to the cast and balances things out well.

  Next up, Team Rocket. Not much to say here honestly. They're the same as they've always been. Though I do enjoy their dynamics with their partner Pokemon Maiika and Bakkecha (later Pumpjin). They're still enjoyable to watch, though I do think they pop up a bit too often in XY for my taste.Team Rocket won't get their true time to shine until Sun & Moon anyways.

  Finally, the side characters. I'm gonna be brief about these. Tierno, Trova, and Sana are a pretty good trio and serve as good foils for the main cast (minus Eureka). Professor Platane is one of the best professors we've had in the anime thus far, having a far more active role than any past professors, even Okido. Shota is one of Satoshi's best rivals. I love their dynamic. Shota is a boy from Hoenn who obsessively takes notes and studies to further his battling skills. At first he was the character I loved to see lose. He was too inexperienced to ever logically root for. But as the series went on you saw him grow more and more, becoming a fully developed character. He grows purely to surpass Satoshi. Their rivalry becomes even stronger in XYZ.

  3. The Art Style
  Not much to say here. They fixed whatever made Generation 5 look so unappealing to me. The character designs look great and none of the characters look out of place. However, because of the refinement of the art style, and how crisp everything looks, characters cannot be as expressive as they could. This would later be remedied in Sun & Moon with a new art style allowing for more expression and fluid animation in scenes outside of battles.

  4. The Animation
  Yes, there is a difference between art style and animation, Sun & Moon haters. Learn it. This is Pokemon at its absolute coolest in terms of animation. That is in no small part thanks to the addition of the 3D camera. Gone are the days (at least for now :( ) of static backgrounds when a Pokemon is performing a move or a character is running. Now we have a fully 3D dynamic camera and 3D backgrounds in scenes like battles. The 3D camera allows for movement and animation we've never seen in Pokemon before, and it's stunning. The battle in Episode 93 is drop-dead gorgeous. I love the battles in this series, and it only gets better from here. Aside from that, overall the animation in this show is great. It really shines in battles. And because of the art style change like I mentioned earlier, some character expressions aren't as good as they could be. And that applies to the animation as well. Sometimes movements can look a little stiff, and it's pretty noticeable. It's not deal-breaking, but I thought I should point it out.

  5. The Music
  Shinji Miyazaki KILLS it, man. His score is just great, and fits the Kalos region perfectly. Literally zero complaints here. I love this man. Aside from Miyazaki's brilliant score, the Opening themes in this show are AB. SO. LUTE. BANGERS. Do yourself a favor and watch XY in japanese. If you're familiar with the dub, I implore you to make the switch. The dub, ever since XY, has been consistently replacing a lot of Miyazaki's score with generic orchestral music done by Ed Goldfarb, who is unfortunately still working on the Pokemon anime to this day. The only reason this is done is because the Pokemon Company does not want to pay for the music to be used in other broadcast versions of the show. Meaning they hire someone cheaper to compose a new, insanely generic score for the dub. They do keep some songs, like battle themes, but not much else. At first you might think "Oh I don't care about the music, I'll just watch the dub". Please don't think like this. This is my second time watching XY. I watched the dub as it aired because I did not know any better. Starting with Sun & Moon I switched to sub because I had learned that the music was better in the sub towards the end of XYZ's airing. And it's true. The dub replaces many great songs by Miyazaki with the most milquetoast boring ass songs I've ever heard. Sometimes in the sub they use the opening songs as inserts to bring up the hype, and by god is it beautiful. In the dub they use some boring ass flute and triangle songs, and it absolutely kills the mood in some of the coolest action scenes I've ever seen in Pokemon. You have to trust me on this. WATCH. THE. SUB.

  7. The Formula
  I briefly touched on this earlier but I want to go more in-depth with it. The Pokemon anime usually follows the formula of:

  Gym Battle
  20 episodes of filler where next to nothing important happens
  Gym Battle
  20 episodes of filler where next to nothing important happens
  etc etc.

  Thankfully, XY strips this component down a lot. XY feels a lot shorter than previous Pokemon seasons because of how they've refined the formula. Yes, there are a few episodes where nothing really happens to further the plot, but for the most part I found almost every episode enjoyable in some capacity. Whether someone catches a new Pokemon, or a Pokemon evolves, or something else. The environment the characters are in changes practically every episode so it never feels like the old days of Johto where Satoshi, Kasumi, and Takeshi wander around a forest that doesn't exist in the video games for 20 episodes before they reach the 8th gym. Being a Pokemon fan my whole life allows me to have a deeper appreciation of this show, and while I was watching XY, it really felt like they were in the same Kalos region I explored in the games. No gym badge is just handed to Satoshi like in the original series, so no episode feels like a waste. It would absolutely suck if Satoshi spent 10 episodes travelling with Corni and Lucario, then showed up at her gym later and she just handed him the badge because the sprinklers went off during the battle. If that had happened, then what were all those episodes with Corni for? Just to add another character to the cast for a bit? Thankfully, XY does not fall into any of those traps and does not waste the viewer's time like Pokemon used to.

  8. Final Thoughts
  I love XY. It has genuinely interesting characters and dynamics, it has a killer soundtrack and score (Watch the sub), it has fantastic battles and great animation, there's really nothing to hate about this series. If you're a Pokemon fan and you want to get into the anime, THIS is where to start. Ignore Generations 1-5 because XY is where things get legitimately good. And it only gets better from here.

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• 

  tbhdrinkwater

  70/100
  The Safest but also most Refined Pokémon has Ever Been

  Wanting to finally satisfy my curiosity after skipping it while it was airing, I started the first part of the XY anime two weeks ago now to learn just what made this part of the series so beloved by many fans. So ninety three episodes later plus the Mega Specials, and wow this entire first season is just a build up to XYZ huh. Far from a bad thing, I'm mostly just caught by surprise by it.

  Though after finishing this part, I one hundred percent agree with the other reviews title in that this is the most refined the typical Pokémon formula has ever been. There's no big changes like future generations, but XY is the original Pokémon formula basically perfected.

  The new group are all a joy to watch, Bonnie surprisingly being my favorite throughout the whole run. She doesn't really provide anything to the little story their is here, but she was hilarious from the start and only grew on me more whenever an episode focused on her. And her trying to find woman for her brother to marry is a fun spin on Brocks gag.

  

  She also has a great dynamic with Serena sometimes acting like her older sister. Despite how little she provides, I wouldn't like XY as much without Bonnie. Clemont is a very close second though, and despite his gag never once making me laugh. I found him to be pretty enjoyable, I might get some looks for this but I kinda just view him as a better Brock. I don't know why exactly I prefer him over Brock to be honest, maybe it's the Luxray.

  Serena was the one I was most looking forward to learning about going into XY, she's by far the most popular female companion Ash has ever had. And while theirs hints of as to why early on, Serena doesn't really have anything going for her until halfway through the series where she learns of contest. Now usually I'd say this as a negative but I think it works in Serena's favor here going off of how Pokémon anime works. She started off leaving home to met her childhood crush, to then simply tagging alongside him and the others. She had no goal in mind and for a while it was fine, she tried out things outside of gym battles like with PokeVisions and then discovered contests.

  My point here is that with all the non and filler episodes it helps out in making the episodes where Serena starts doing something hit more. I don't mind how much it took her to start moving because it's probably how most people would be in position, and even us in the real world. It takes a lot of time to decide on something and I think the show conveyed that well, but to Serena's determent too as she only has three contest she partook in while Ash got to get seven gym badges. While I personally don't mind how long Serena took to start, it wouldn't of hurt to also start her character arc earlier for the sake of this season specifically. Though I don't doubt that XYZ will treat her better there.

  

  I can't say much on Ash since I stopped caring for his character years ago, he's a finished character who isn't allowed to change much and even with how much more shounen like they made him this season. No amount of jumping off buildings or into an active volcano will make me care even a little for him, I always watch the anime for literally everything but him. I'm also writing this coming from a Pokémon Horizons era and I love that series way more so that also probably has something to do with it. To clarify I don't say this as a negative, I understand with a series going on for this long you just can't avoid something like this. And Ash this season is fine, If you loved him before, you'll love him here. I love seeing the unique tactics he comes up with to best the gym leaders and its done very well here.

  Most of the gym battles were entertaining my favorite still being Ash vs Clemont. Getting to finally see more characters from the XY gym leaders was great since all I really knew of them was their dialogue in game, and you only see I believe three outside of the gym so most of the leaders felt bland to me. I don't even recall how many of them were shown in the adventures manga honestly. I knew going into this Korrina had the most focus outside of Clemont, and she definitely did. Korrina and her Lucario really just feel like a more fun Ash, I enjoyed the time she spent with the group. I unfortunately cannot say the same about the gym battle which I'll get to later.

  It was nice to finally watch a contest again after over ten years, though to be fully honest I can see why I barely remember the ones from back then. That or the contest here just never fully hit that mark, I enjoyed Serena's character but even then the contest here still felt dull. Maybe I'm just way past the demographic for contest in general, but I don't recall feeling this way when I was younger. But again, that was over 10 years ago so I've probably just forgotten. On a smaller note too, a lot of the background characters in contest have amazing designs. I wish we got a better look at them.

  

  The filler episodes were pretty good overall, eighty four specifically being my favorite. I complained a lot about Pokémon Journeys not representing much of Galar and thankfully I didn't find that to be an issue here. All of the filler episodes showed off a healthy amount of Kalos Pokémon, I wish more got some spotlight but I'm pretty sure we got majority of the Kalos dex with just this season alone so I can't complain much there. I also appreciate how some of them gave some extra lore to the region of Kalos such as the reason why Wigglytuff are the PokéCenter assistances, it doesn't happen much I think about twice but its still nice touches.

  The groups teams were all very fun. Chespin and all of Goomy tying for first they got the most laughs out of me. For some bite sized comments. The OST and remixes here we're all pretty damn good, I also love the third opening that one is very catchy. This season had a lot of CGI usage for the camera movements and I thought it looked great. It's not the smoothest but it definitely enhanced the battles it was in. Serena's romance moments were very fun to watch, I hope we get more of them in XYZ outside of the big one. I wish we got a couple more megas but it probably would've been a little hard squish them all into this one season so its fine. The XY rivals are fine, though I'm just happy they're aren't as insufferable as they are in game. I'm excited to see Sawyers progression in XYZ, he has a good dynamic going on with Ash right now. Serena's other two rivals are kinda meh honestly, they only show up two to three times and they feel as if they're just their to fill in for Shauna.

  Now for my issues with this season and honestly, there's not much to say here. I thought majority of this season was very solid. Not much to really complain about, battles were engaging and unpredictable, no character felt boring and unfinished (Journeys), I prefer how the anime looks after XYZ but the animation is very good here. My main issue is Team Rocket, big surprise I know. To give more context from earlier, I watched majority of the gen four and five anime as a kid but I skipped all of XY and XYZ and hopped back on the anime with Sun & Moon when that first started airing and I've been watching ever since.

  

  So I was a bit surprised to I guess remember how often they show up, and it quickly just became a drag to go through their sequences in episodes because it always plays out the same pretty much every time. I even started skipping their intro because I just didn't care to sit through it, I wasn't enjoying myself whenever they were on screen doing their usual stuff. The episodes dedicated to them are an exception because those are always a good time. But every time I found myself enjoying one of the filler episodes they'd pop up just to make me roll my eyes and remind me that they're going to make it more dull and repetitive then needed. And from what friends told me, this is the least they've shown up in the first six generations of the anime and I still don't know what to make of that information.

  But eventually I did somewhat adjust, I still dislike how much they appear and especially how repetitive it all is but I got used to it. What I can't get over is how they interrupted a gym battle for literally less then five minutes probably even three. That was a giant waste of time and left sour taste in my mouth even after the battle resumed. That to me just is horrible writing no matter how you look at it, thankfully it was just one time but it was on one of the more important gym battles which honestly just makes them being their worse.

  Outside of that my only other complaint would be how they handled Ash's Goodra. But being fully honest, I only dislike him releasing it only cause Goodra is one of my favorite Pokémon so it just hurts seeing it leave. Writing wise it all makes sense besides that stupid ranger guy whatever he is. And thats about it, any other issue I'd have would just be a nitpick and even then I can't think of any. Considering how much I complained in my Journeys review, yeah this season alone definitely does not have as much things holding it back as previous and future seasons do.

  Their is a very big lack of anything story related here, but the Mega Specials while not completely filling the role does its job well of showing more story then the main series in just four episodes. Both do hint towards the big event that takes place in XYZ and honestly just make me wish I watched XY while it was airing to be apart of discussions and hype when it finally did get to those big moments. Overall while playing it very safe the XY anime manages to be a great time. It's got everything fans loved from previous seasons and refines them to its absolute best here. Definitely a must watch for any Pokémon fan of the anime. Very excited to see what XYZ has to offer.

  

  I'm still not used to Bonnie's new VA, I cannot unhear and unsee Satoko

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