How could the Pokemon anime have been improved?

[Drathnoxis]

As a kid, the Pokemon anime was my absolute favourite show. However, after re-watching the show as an adult, I've noticed a couple aspects that have room for improvement. I've really only seen the Indigo league, so I don't know if later seasons improved or not, but judging by the Orange Islands they get worse.

Cut down on Team Rocket! - This is one of the bigger problems with the show, I think. Now, I like Team Rocket. They are funny, charming, and actually can be pretty cool at times, but there is just way too much of them. They are in Every. Single. Episode. This makes it so that the plot of nearly every episode is "Team Rocket tries to steal " and nothing else. No matter what is happening in the plot Team Rocket inevitably comes in, steals the spotlight, and generally wastes time for a bit before blasting off. I think even if they were only in every other episode it would be a vast improvement. That would allow the show to explore plots other than Team Rocket and give us a little time to miss them before they reappear. Also, the things they try to steal can get pretty stupid. There is an episode where they go all out trying to kidnap two Nidoran! Like, what the heck?!

Make Ash earn his gym badges - Ash earns 3/8 gym badges. As in he only wins 3 of the matches against gym leaders, and the rest were inconclusive at best. This really hurts Ash's image as a credible Pokemon trainer, and seriously, Ash can't afford to look less competent. This one is probably related to the Team Rocket problem above as a good number his badges were earned by simply dealing with Team Rocket's interference (3 of them).

Have more recurring characters - I can't count how many times Ash and Co. said something along the lines of "I hope we meet again real soon!" only for the character to then turn around and drop off the face of the planet. Now not every character needs to come back, but it would be nice to have a couple characters that meet up with the main group from time to time and maybe stick around for a couple episodes. Like Snap or Ritchie, only more frequently than once every 200 episodes. Also they completely wasted their opportunity with Snap, he could have been developed into an interesting character, but they gave him barely anything to do for the couple episodes that he hung around. And really, what happened to AJ? Did he ever make it to the Pokemon League? For such a serious trainer it's hard to believe that he didn't.

Anyway, those are my main gripes with the show. I think if those points had been implemented the show would have been vastly improved. There are probably quite a few other problems with the show, but that's enough for an OP.

So what do you think? What would you have changed about the Pokemon Anime?

 

[madwarper]

I would have limited it to one season per region, and each with its own protagonist.

1 episode for character introduction, 8 episodes for the gyms, 2 episodes for training, and 4 episodes for the elite four.
If you have to involve some "Team ___" subplot, do it in a special.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I think the biggest thing plaguing Pokemon: the Anime is because it's a never ending quest show with a quest that gets solved every arc. It's made to be perpetually in production as an advertisement, and doesn't get the writing staff a show like that really needs. Plus, you can't remove Ash or Pikachu, so you can't even try and pull a Transformers, and you can't drastically alter their characters or abilities, so actual character growth is off the table too.

EDIT: In short, you need to have actual plot with actual characters. A better writing staff.

 

[JoJo]

I agree with the overexposure to Team Rocket. I tried watching some of the original anime last year when it came up on Netflix, I didn't get very far though primarily because the episodes began to feel very repetitive, very quickly. Team Rocket were a big part of this, it would have been more interesting to have a variety of recurring enemies, some of whom could even have been slightly more competent and threatening.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Improved? More like reboot! The goal of Ash becoming the Pokemon champion is meaningless (it's more like being a champion of a region the way I saw more the seasons) now. Even if he does become champion would be the day it will be cancelled!

Anyway I'm not here to bash it. I actually thought it was very refreshing when they did an episode entirely on the Gold protagonist Ethan from the Pokemon Chronicle spin off. His goal wasn't to become the champion, it was apparently somehow teach the kid about Pokemon or something like that if I remember correctly.

So yeah I say they should focus their attention to Ethan or a new character competely and he or she better not be a clone like Ash!

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I've noticed a couple aspects that have room for improvement.

There's a hell of a lot more than "a couple" aspects that would need improvement. Like

- The animation being shit.
- The story being nonexistent.
- The characters being completely one-note and never developing.
- The episodes being incredibly repetitive in the long run. I remember there being some genuinely nifty ideas in the first season, like Ash saying goodbye to Butterfree, or the mini-arc of them getting on the ship, then getting stranded on an island with an episode (as I remember at least) consisting entirely of the pokemon's adventures, with subtitles even! But there's a reason why those are practically the only pokemon episodes I can remember even to this day, and I loved that show as a kid.
- The world forced to exist effectively in stasis. It's like sitting in a room with a few pieces of furniture, but never being able to get new ones or leave the room.

I was as much a pokemon maniac as a kid as the next guy, but I didn't even get to my teens before realizing the series was rubbish.

 

[Zontar]

Improved? More like reboot!

Pretty much this. The original idea was to have each season or few seasons covering a region have only one group of characters for that region. While they'd come up for a bit in each region later, the characters would only be doing that, showing up, while the new cast would be involved in that region's adventures. This would allow for time to continue going by while still keeping the show perpetually following a 10 year old. Imagine how things would be? By now Ash would be in his late 20s, and probably a ranger given what happened in the first two movies (the second of which would have made a perfect end to his arc).

I wish they'd stuck to the creators original intentions for the show. It would have been great to see them actually grow up.

 

[Elfgore]

Make it more like Pokemon: Origins. AKA, aim it for an older audience and not ten year old kids. I attempted to re=watch Pokemon a few months back and just couldn't do it. The animation was shit, the plot was completely uninteresting, and the characters boring. Origins fixed all of this and I almost broke down into tears when I learned it was only a six episode special. A full fifty episodes of that would have been amazing.

Edit: Oh and get Ash as far away as possible from it. He's annoying as all hell.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Have Ash actually grow up and win some damn competitions for one. Or at least have some new protagonists. And much better writing. But I doubt that will ever happen...

 

[Hero in a half shell]

For the audience it's intended for it's absolutely fine. As a kid I never got bothered by the lack of progression, awful dialogue, constant fillers and repeating of scenes (like the 2 minute long Team Rocket intro.) Seeing animated Pokemon and battles was enough to cement it as vital viewing every day after school.

I also tried to watch the originals several years after I had first enjoyed them, and got bored very quickly. The problem is you are searching for adult level entertainment in child orientated works, and that's not a concern of the animators or writers.

That said, let me ignore it all now by stating how I would have liked Pokemon to have been improved:

Personally I would delve further into the Pokemon trainers and people that Ash et al. meet along the way. Show more of the people of the world, and how they use Pokemon for everyday tasks, so we see the protagonists learning and growing in knowledge of the world as they see how human miners use their ground Pokemon to dig rocks and minerals, human farmers using grass Pokemon to help grow crops, human engineers using electric pokemon in power plants, etc. Maybe include an implication that the gym challenge is used to teach the children how bond and connect with their Pokemon to the level that they could safely partner up in future jobs that could be dangerous if they are using Pokemon they aren't familiar with - Or maybe that would be too much of an injection of personal head-canon for creating a mainstream show out of, but this is a vanity comment anyway so I'm gonna say that.

More focus on world building, on exploring how a civilization that can harness the power of magical elemental creatures would actually develop. It can still be light hearted and optimistic, but just replacing the filler repetitiveness with an overarching story of kids discovering how the world works, with a view of finding out how they actually want to integrate into that world when they are older and know their Pokemon better.

 

[09philj]

Make Brock not a pervert, but keep his terrible sense of humour.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I'd say cut out Ash altogether and just make each season have a new main character. I thought this a while back when my little sister was watching Pokemon Black and White on Netflix. The whole time I was thinking "Why isn't Iris the main character?" Ash does and adds nothing, she learns the same lessons and goes through the same things he's gone through, and she even has her own little pokemon that follows her around outside its pokeball.

It would've been neat to see each generation and region have it's own protagonist and its own villains, instead of it always being Ash, which in all honesty does more harm to his character (what little there was) than good.

 

[PsychicTaco115]

I think this series suffers from the times

Think about it; the only times you would be able to watch it was on television. As a kid, that's not exactly an easy task

So what do they do? Make things less complicated so that kids won't get lost or anything in the "plot" but still enjoy the show

Just another thing that online access has ruined again :^)

 

[CaitSeith]

Something that it thought the anime needed was, let the Team Rocket capture Pikachu and get away with it at least once. Then make Ash have an epic Pokemon battle to rescue Pikachu in the next episode or two.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I would have limited it to one season per region, and each with its own protagonist.

1 episode for character introduction, 8 episodes for the gyms, 2 episodes for training, and 4 episodes for the elite four.
If you have to involve some "Team ___" subplot, do it in a special.

15 episodes per story? That requires some tight writing! I kind of doubt any pokemon writer could pull that off.

Make it more like Pokemon: Origins. AKA, aim it for an older audience and not ten year old kids. I attempted to re=watch Pokemon a few months back and just couldn't do it. The animation was shit, the plot was completely uninteresting, and the characters boring. Origins fixed all of this and I almost broke down into tears when I learned it was only a six episode special. A full fifty episodes of that would have been amazing.

Oh man, Origins was great! It is a definitely a crime that they never made a full series out of it.

One little detail I really liked from Origins is that gym leaders seemed to pick their pokemon based on how many badges the challenger had. This is a really good idea, as it allows the gym leaders to be defeated without necessarily making them pathetically weak. It also makes a lot of sense for how it would work if a newbie trainer started out on, say, Cinnabar island instead of near Pewter City.

Personally I would delve further into the Pokemon trainers and people that Ash et al. meet along the way. Show more of the people of the world, and how they use Pokemon for everyday tasks, so we see the protagonists learning and growing in knowledge of the world as they see how human miners use their ground Pokemon to dig rocks and minerals, human farmers using grass Pokemon to help grow crops, human engineers using electric pokemon in power plants, etc. Maybe include an implication that the gym challenge is used to teach the children how bond and connect with their Pokemon to the level that they could safely partner up in future jobs that could be dangerous if they are using Pokemon they aren't familiar with - Or maybe that would be too much of an injection of personal head-canon for creating a mainstream show out of, but this is a vanity comment anyway so I'm gonna say that.

More focus on world building, on exploring how a civilization that can harness the power of magical elemental creatures would actually develop. It can still be light hearted and optimistic, but just replacing the filler repetitiveness with an overarching story of kids discovering how the world works, with a view of finding out how they actually want to integrate into that world when they are older and know their Pokemon better.

That actually sounds really interesting. A greater focus on world building is certainly something the show could use.

 

[RJ 17]

One way it could be improved is to make it more like the game.

I don't recall Ash ever having to fight his way through an army of Bug Catcher Billies and Cool Dude Arins in order to get from one town to the next. Also they tend to skip the customary part of each battle where the winner sucker-punches the loser and steals their wallet.

That's what the Pokemon anime needs more of. :3

 

[Fox12]

Well, it's part of the formula for kids shows to have recurring events in ever episode. Look at phineas and ferb. Every episode is the same thing. It's easier for very young kids to process what's happening, and they tend to like it more. It's not that Pokemon was bad, you just got older.

I would say that adding more of a real arc would help. Make the characters grow as people over time. Instead everything grows stagnant, and the audience stops caring.

 

[Fijiman]

I've got a few things that could help the show short of a hard reboot like some of the others here are suggesting. One of the main ones is stop giving Ash amnesia at the end of every season. Seriously, he keeps forgetting basic information about battling and the Pokemon around him. Even worse is when he gets told off by his current sidekick for not knowing whatever it is he forgot even though they're supposed to be far less experienced than he is in most cases. Another would be to retire the current Team Rocket and bring in someone new. The members of Team Rocket have had dozens of chances to leave their life of crime behind and have a good life only to throw it away so that they can continue to get blasted into orbit by some kid and an electrified rat. I'm sure there are more little things but those are the biggest ones I can think of.

 

[rosac]

I'm going to go with Ash actually achieving something. Seriously, how can you claim to be a fantastic trainer when you haven't ever gotten more than 4/8 badges and never faced the elite 4 or champion of a region?

Also, he suffers from being one of the most boring characters there. Almost everyone else has an arc from what I remember, even Charizard has a cracking arc and James with his characterisation of being super nice to his own pokemon (and the bit where James and Jessie throw rocks at their pokemon to get them to flee and live, I cried seeing that as a kid.)

Hell, even Gary became a pokemon researcher, and he's a dick.

Origins was fantastic but short, and I think it needs more time to world build and show each of the gym leaders/elite 4 in their own right, as well as show more of team rockets workings and motivations. Not all of the characters were on the same page I believe.

EDIT- OH GOD I JUST SAW THE PART WHERE JAMES GIVES UP CACNEA so many emotions.

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