Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Do You Have Pokémon Nostalgia?
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1237 |
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I remember when the Pokémon anime started airing on the now defunct Argentine cable channel Magic Kids in mid-1999, I must've been 5 or 6 years old back then. The show didn't last long on that channel, it quickly moved to Cartoon Network and it became one of the most important shows there, there commercials promoting it non-stop. I think I saw some other anime before Pokémon, like Dragon Ball, Ranma ½ and reruns of Speed Racer, but Pokémon was a the anime that I followed more closely, every afternoon after I finished my homework I watched an episode, I bought magazines, the sticker album, toys and my dad even bought me The FIrst Movie on VHS (it was bad quality, pirated VHS, but I still loved it), but strangely enough I never played the original Pokémon Red/Blue game until much later, I knew about it, I knew the seres was based on a videogame, but the games were really expensive and back then games were only in English (though Nintendo did import the Spanish version from Spain to the Latin American market due to its popularity, but the copies were hard to come by and still very expensive)
Pokémon was also perhaps the first major anime, apart from Robotech, which its dub was made using the U.S. English version as a base for the International dubs, and even as a kid I always felt Pokémon sounded different from other dubs. I think Pokémon's Neutral Spanish dub was one of the more influential, at first it was just a straight dub from the 4Kids version, but the voice actors who voiced Team Rocket began ad-libbing many jokes and regional references that weren't in 4Kids version, that gave the characters even more personality, though when The Pokémon Company took control of the dub they asked them to tone them down. I'm also very impressed that that dub managed to keep almost all of the cast intact for all these years, the only major excepctions being Ash himself, since his original actor had to move from Mexico to Argentina and even whern he came back he couldn't reprise his role, and sadly Jessie's original VA, Diana Peréz, passed away a few years ago. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 4022 |
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I started watching Pokemon in 1998 at age 9. I loved it. I'm gonna be 35 this year. I still love it.
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KlarkKentThe3rd
Posts: 108 |
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Yes and no. The early seasons and movies are a sea of good with occasional islands of great, but...... then the anime kept going..... and going...... with no one in charge and a vision to speak of. My boy Shudo was done dirty.
Overall, the manga deserves to be remembered and preserved maybe even more than early OG Pokémon show. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4640 |
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I still remember a question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire about Pokemon back when both things were starting out. I hadn't interacted with anything Pokemon myself, and even then I knew the answer because of how big it was in general. I think it mostly got pegged as the Christmas gift fad of that year, but obviously, it didn't drop off like other stuff did.
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5513 |
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I started watching Pokemon back in 99, continued to watch the show until 03 when I just stopped, though i did catch some anniversary special a few years later on TV. Around 12-14 years ago I was at a friends and he put it on, but I lost interest within half an episode and asked to do something else.
Even though the Anime is vastly different from what it was in the 90s, the fact that it is still going makes it hard to be nostalgic. As I said, I stopped watching it, it didn't end and leave me with some defining memory. For me it was just some random episode, there had been over a hundred of them and there was nothing to be invested in any more. Best leave it for someone 5+ years younger than me to enjoy. |
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Nyapan
 Posts: 40 |
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I watched Pokémon a lot as a kid with the Diamond and Pearl era. But then I moved on even though I was still playing the games.
Then when I really got into anime I gave it a try again with the X&Y anime subbed since I enjoyed getting into Digimon. I watched around 20 episodes or so (I don't remember the exact number) but I didn't continue because it was always the same thing without a main plot. I was also tired of Ash still being the same character. I like anime aimed towards a younger audience like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon or Inazuma Eleven but the biggest difference between those and Pokémon is that they actually try new ideas and know to mix things up by changing casts and story. It's good that Pokémon has finally moved on from Ash but I probably won't watch Horizons since I don't even play the games anymore (except if they made a new Mystery Dungeon game but that's a different story). |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2537 |
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I didn't think I did, but Dark Gathering has awakened something in me, and the last thing I was expecting it to be was Pokemon...
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Eternal Dragon Of ChaOZ
 Posts: 84 Location: Australia |
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I was completely sick of Ash & Pikachu by the end of it. 25 is more than enough.
The final tournament arc did absolutely nothing for me. Having another Pikachu as a main character is the reason I am not going to watch the new series. What's the point of having a brand new series if you are just going to use the same characters over and over again? |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14889 |
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Back then, it was surreal seeing an anime on broadcast TV during hours people are awake
Ash's current English dub VA Sarah Natochenny already gave a teary goodbye 
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Cho_Desu
 Posts: 240 |
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I remember back in the late 90s when it was Pokemon Pokemon Pokemon everywhere you looked, 24/7, nonstop hype year in and year out. I didn't get what everyone loved so much about it, and figured it would only last another year or two. (Same with Spongebob, for an American cartoon example.) People had to get tired of it eventually, right? In the 80s to mid-90s it felt like most popular cartoons/kids' shows were only big for 2-3 years. Some things just remain incredibly beloved forever nowadays, I guess? I'm not sure why pop culture trends in general seem a lot slower to change these past couple decades.
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Romuska
 Subscriber Posts: 812 |
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I still have the original promo tape from my childhood that Nintendo Power sent out to promote the franchise just before it was relelased in the US. I remember thinking it looked cool and I knew what Japanese animation was so I checked it out. It's been one of my favorite anime and my absolute favorite game series ever since! It was very bitter sweet watching the Japanese version of the finale a few months back. I also remember thinking "is this what it's gonna feel like when Luffy finds the One Piece?"
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Floriane
 Posts: 43 |
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Yes! I just can't watch Pokémon without Satoshi. It's not the same for me.
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Juno016
 Posts: 2428 |
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I watched the entire series and I definitely think the writers here would've had a better grasp of the series' evolution for this discussion had they followed it more closely. The final season actually went back to the old formula, rather than continue something it's never changed. Personally, while the old series had a charm to it, the writing of the more recent series (especially XY and Sun & Moonーthe former hit it out of the park in terms of keeping me invested week to week and the latter had more basic filler, but the characters were some of the best-written in the franchise) had been stellar. The only caveat is that if you're watching the English dub, much of the BGM soundtrack has been replaced and feels... off. Not just speaking out of bias, since a lot of English-dub-onlies I talk to agree it feels subdued and kinda boring or confusing a lot.
As for the new series, I highly recommend people at least watch the first two episodes. We're 21 episodes in here in Japan and it's still one of my favorite anime of the last two seasons somehow for its writing and care. No one feels like a rehash of the old cast. Also, the music... It might be my favorite soundtrack in an anime in ages, and they don't rely much on game music arrangements. I sincerely hope English-dub-onlies don't lose this soundtrack. Look some of it up on youtube, especially the quieter tracks. It sounds like it belongs in a John Williams film score. |
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russ869
Posts: 435 |
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That tape was also my first exposure to Pokemon. And I remember kid me thinking it looked like the dumbest thing I'd ever seen (I hadn't really watched any anime at that point besides maybe a few Dragon Ball episodes). Then later I saw another kid playing the GameBoy game and realized I had to have it! I probably hadn't played any other JRPG at that point. It took some serious saving up to afford even a used GameBoy. |
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mgree0032
Posts: 293 |
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The first 5 seasons and movies of Pokemon are popular and memorable because of Shudo’s vision for the franchise.
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