Way back in the distant year of 1998, my first grade class was celebrating a birthday. The birthday child in question was allowed to bring in a videotape for us to watch while we ate cupcakes and took a break from the existential nightmare that was education in a Catholic school. The video he chose was a three episode collection of Pokemon, specifically the episodes "Challenge of the Samurai", "Showdown in Pewter City", and "Clefairy and the Moon Stone". I had never heard of Pokemon before this day.
And it blew my mind.
Before Pokemon, I had no concept of serialized storytelling. While I had seen the occasional two-part episode in various superhero cartoons I saw every now and then, every other show or movie I had seen up to this point was an episodic, stand alone affair with little to no regard for continuity from episode to episode, or a stand alone movie with no sequel in sight (Disney movies, basically). But here, I was dropped into the middle (albeit very near the beginning) of an adventure that I didn't have any context for, with no narration to explain the premise or world at the beginning of the episode, where events flowed from one episode to the next. Hearing Ash and Misty talk about a long term goal of collecting badges and challenging a Pokemon League in one episode, only to see him collect one of those very badges in the very next episode was a narrative payoff the likes of which I never saw. And then, instead of leaving the characters they met behind, Brock joined them and stuck around in the next episode! And then he caught a Zubat in the next episode, implicitly preparing me to see another new character in the main group that I saw the origin of! And the art! My experience with animation up to this point was limited to Hannah-Barbera, Walt Disney, and Bruce Timm. And while each of those styles had their merits, none of them compared to the strange angular human characters with huge eyes and rough features, the familiar yet alien monster designs of the Pokemon themselves, and the battle animation that was slapstick and kid friendly, yet pushed the boundaries of violence that I was allowed to see compared to, say, Spider-man. Put simply, Pokemon opened my eyes to a whole new kind of storytelling that I didn't even know was possible beforehand.
While my Pokemon fandom is almost entirely about the games nowadays, I still try to keep up with the anime (no matter how woefully behind I am on Sun and Moon). And watching it for the last twenty years has given me the unique chance to see a franchise evolve and change, for better or worse, over such a long time. There are six different Pokemon series covering seven generations, not counting movies, spinoffs, and specials, and it takes up 24 slots on My Anime List (only Dragon Ball has a comparable number of entries). With the franchise broken up into six series, a simple question arises: which is the very best, like no one ever was? Let's find out!
Number 6: Pokemon Advanced Generation
Pokemon Advanced Generation covered Ash's adventures in the Hoenn region and the Kanto Battle Frontier. Running for four years and 192 episodes, the series branded itself as a soft reboot of the Pokemon franchise, with the first English theme song proudly declaring the intent to "start all over again". Instead of carrying over his Pokemon from one region to another like he did in the Orange Islands and Johto (more on that later), Ash left all of them at home except for Pikachu, and caught a brand new group of Pokemon for that region, setting a trend that every subsequent series followed. While the real world merchandising regions for such a move are obvious, the show never did a good job justifying this move in-universe, with Ash giving lip service to the idea of starting over after seeing his rival Gary do the same after losing to Ash. While Gary's move made sense, as he eventually went through an off-screen arc reinventing himself from a competitive battler to a Pokemon researcher, Ash never really developed in any significant way, and the whole thing just feels like a desperate attempt to stay fresh.
Speaking of trying to stay fresh, Ash's old party aren't the only ones left behind. Misty and Brock were given a send off at the end of Johto, and while Brock came back in the fourth episode to join the team for no reason other than he apparently had nothing better to do, Misty's absence stuck. The Misty shaped hole was filled by two new characters: rookie trainer May and her little brother Max.
May is...okay. She feels like a bit of a retread of early Ash for a while, but soon evolves into her own character when it is revealed that she was sort of pushed into the life of Pokemon battling by her gym leader father. Setting out on her own path to be a Pokemon Coordinator in contests helped to break up the main story without dragging out the plot with filler episodes, and her status as a rookie battler gave Ash a chance to develop as a character as he became a mentor figure to her. But the actual contests themselves were boring to watch, and when that unfortunate fact is combined with her annoying, bratty, and completely useless brother Max, any positive aspect of her character is lost and she leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Meanwhile, Ash's main plot is left a bit impotent and lifeless. Gary was written out of the series at this point and wouldn't reappear outside of side stories until the final episode of this arc. And with May getting all the rivals and development, Ash is just left to go through the motions, collecting Pokemon and badges with very little fanfare, leading up to the most forgettable Pokemon League of the entire series.
Number 5: Pokemon Best Wishes!
Running for 118 episodes, Best Wishes covers Ash's time in the Unova region and the Decolora Islands. Like Advanced Generation before it, Best Wishes was advertised as another soft reboot of the Pokemon anime, tying into the how Pokemon Black and White were being advertised as a soft reboot of the games. Only Ash, Pikachu, Jessie, James, and Meowth carry over to the new series, leaving the rest of the cast to be filled by entirely new characters. Ash is joined by the dragon tamer in training Iris and the "Pokemon conoisseur" Cilan.
Best Wishes acted as a sort of course correction to the Pokemon franchise as a whole, with writers bending over backward to try to acknowledge fan complaints. Filler was taking over the series, so the pacing was sped up and several recurring rivals were introduced for the main cast to bounce off of and create new scenarios between gyms that still developed the characters and felt like something important was happening even when nothing actually progressed. Brock had become a shadow of his former self and was just taking up space, so Cilan was given a bombastic personality and frequently had episodes dedicated to himself, though not as much to distract from Ash and Iris's more important storylines. Team Rocket had begun to feel stale and no longer presented a threat, so they were given a makeover as hyper-competent villains that had goals other than capturing Pikachu and actually sat out for a few episodes, giving the episodes where they did appear more impact.
However, I would argue that in its eagerness to please, Best Wishes went too far in the other direction. So many support characters did wonders to keep the plot fresh, but each new character took screen time away from the rest of the cast, creating a scenario where none of Ash's new friends and rivals felt as iconic and memorable as the ones that came before. Cilan starts to overstay his welcome and becomes annoying, especially in the original Japanese. And the course correction on Team Rocket became so severe that they didn't even resemble their former selves. Worst of all, though, the fast pacing left the overall good main plot of the Pokemon League and the battle against Team Plasma over before the new games were ready to release, forcing a stretch of 20 boring episodes with Ash and friends returning to Pallet Town in a new region of islands with absolutely nothing interesting happening the whole time, not even when they had Clair show up out of nowhere for an episode. Best Wishes is overall pretty good, but it's loaded down with problems and just doesn't have the staying power of the other arcs.
Number 4: Pokemon the Original Series
I might get some flack for putting this so low. Running for 276 episodes, the original series covers Ash's adventures in Kanto, the Orange Islands, and Johto. This is the version of Pokemon that everyone knows, so how can it be anything but number one. Simply put, the arcs that came after it just improved on the foundation that this series laid and are better for it. Ash's journey in Kanto is absolutely spectacular, but aside from him and Team Rocket, the characters in that journey are kind of flat and one note. Misty and Brock are fun, but there isn't really much to their personalities in the long run. And once the 80 episode Kanto arc is wrapped up, the series is forced to jog in place waiting for the next game for more material to work with, resulting in a forced and awkward pseudo-filler arc in an anime original region (much like in Orange Islands) and a plot in Johto that runs at a snail's pace.
That's not to say that the original series is bad, far from it. Episodes like "Charmander, the Stray Pokemon", "Bye Bye Butterfree", "Abra and the Psychic Showdown", "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden", "Charizard's Burning Ambitions", and "Gonna Catch You Later" were absolutely incredible. And as much as I dislike the Johto arc nowadays, the two part final battle against Gary in the Johto League made it all worth it.
Number 3: Pokemon Diamond and Pearl
This barely edged out the original series. Running for 191 episodes, Diamond and Pearl exclusively focuses on Ash's time in the Sinnoh region. Diamond and Pearl was essentially a do-over on the well intentioned but mishandled ideas presented in Advanced Generation. Dawn is our new rookie trainer, but she is exclusively focused on Pokemon contests. Her rivals are more fleshed out and there's more overall struggle for her to succeed compared to May's trip through the Hoenn contest circuit, making her story feel more down to earth and organic. Ash has an amazing new rival introduced in Paul, creating a philosophical debate about the ethics of Pokemon training that ran underneath the entire series as a whole and gave the series a new thematic weight that it desperately needed. And while the games were still ultimately nothing more than a loose inspiration, Diamond and Pearl took the adaptation a step further and had a whole story arc dedicated to the evil team for the first time in the anime's history. While it still had its problems (Brock was starting to feel superfluous, Team Rocket lost all sense of threat, and filler became a rather serious problem in this series), Diamond and Pearl was ultimately a return to form after the awful Advanced Generation that managed to edge out the original by virtue of the strength of Dawn, Paul, and Team Galactic.
Number 2: Pokemon Sun and Moon
Surprised that this is so high, especially since it hasn't wrapped up yet? Yeah, me too. With 88 episodes out at this time of writing, Sun and Moon is focusing on Ash's current time spent in the Alola region. After five whole series, the Pokemon series understandably started to become stale and painfully formulaic for those outside of the diehard fanbase and young children. So, controversially, Sun and Moon mixed things up by switching from an adventure series focusing on Ash's goals to a slice of life school comedy with a more ensemble focus. Instead of a group of three or four main human characters and their Pokemon, we have a class of six students and their two teachers, along with Pokemon, making up the main cast.
And yet, the whole thing works. Instead of using the supporting cast as a way to either develop Ash or break up the main story, the focus on Ash pulls back a bit and all the students are given near equal time in the spotlight. The new art style allows for very expressive characters and much more dynamic battle animation, and the tie in to the main games is more pronounced than ever, with Gladion, Team Skull, and the Aether Foundation making significant contributions to the plot. Ash himself really showed his evolution from the rash, somewhat bratty kid in the original series to the laid back and empathetic individual he has become now, taking a break from battling and learning more about life, and he's a better character for it. Honestly, at this point I have no major complaints with this series, and the only reason it's not number 1 is that the series it loses to is just that good.
Number 1: Pokemon X and Y
I LOVE POKEMON X AND Y! Running for 140 episodes, it covers Ash's adventures in the Kalos region. X and Y feel like the ultimate culmination of everything that came before it, and I truly believe that the genre change to slice of life storytelling in Sun and Moon came about because any attempt at an adventure narrative after X and Y would inevitably fall short by comparison.
For the first time in the entire series, Ash is depicted as the truly experienced trainer that he inevitably would be after competing in five different league tournaments. He is cool and collected in battle, while still having a youthful enthusiasm that makes him endearing to the audience. And his relationship with Serena is a truly evolved take on the mentor-student dynamic he had with May and Dawn before them. Serena's Pokemon showcases, while ultimately nothing more than a ripoff of Pokemon contests in a region that didn't have contests in the games, are more visually spectacular than the contests that came beforehand, and her status as a long lost childhood friend and potential love interest for Ash creates a truly unique dynamic even when she takes inspiration from those that came before her. Clemont also acts as a sort of student for Ash, as his journey in Kalos is less about reaching a specific goal and more about learning to respect himself as a person. Even still, he fills the role of exposition and comic relief that Brock and Cilan filled before him expertly, albeit in a more understated way. Hell, they even did Max better with Bonnie. Even though she also was a little kid tagging along with no actual contribution Pokemon wise, her energetic personality and desire to learn more about Pokemon was much more palatable than Max's obnoxious know-it-all status, and the times where she is rude is much more obviously from a place of innocent ignorance, mitigating a lot of annoyance potential.
Team Rocket also returned to form, fully hybridizing their ruthless competence in Best Wishes and their fun personalities from Diamond and Pearl, turning into the best incarnation of themselves since the original series. And speaking of villains, Team Flare is the best implementation of the evil team plot yet, using side stories to develop their story parallel to Ash's without interfering with his quest for badges. And the way they manipulated his new rival Alain into harnessing the power of Mega Evolution on their behalf helped to solidify Alain himself as a unique rival, being one of the surprisingly few characters to switch sides from good to evil in the anime's history. And while Alain's upset win against Ash in the Pokemon League finals was a bit frustrating for fans, it works as the culmination of his redemption arc and feels narratively satisfying. While it isn't perfect, X and Y stands alone as the definitively best incarnation of Pokemon yet.
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| Oh, and Psyduck is my favorite Pokemon, in case you were wondering. |
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