I'm n genwunner, don't get me wrong, but what happened to this?
The original classic pokemon had a sharp grungy sense of adventure that the entire series was enriched from.

Look at that art, look at that fucking art. You can feel the wonder coming off the page, the adventure. Even if you didn't follow the series you could read clearly that these are characters with history and shits going to go down.

Ash was this scrappy no-nonsense kid scruffing about with his two pals on the greatest camping trip known to man.

Misty was a classic bickering everygirl, a classic 90s trope that enchanted plenty of old movie plots.

Pokemon episodes used to mean something, they used to play these episodes at schools. Now everything is some overcomplicated emulation of modern anime

When I drive by the playgrounds I used to run around in, I get a similar feeling that I did watching the older pokemon episodes

I can rewatch that clip where Ash releases Buterfree over and over, it's just got beautiful direction and writing.


The pokemon anime wasn't just one of the greater animes, it was a staple of animation as well as children's mystery and exploration series.
That classic, crisp, golden formula of Ash, Brock, and Misty were up there with the likes of the Sandlot and the Goonies. They were a believable group of young friends

They honestly should have let the series end, skipped ahead to Ash being an adult or something, I was genuinely interested in this character's life at one point. He's like an old friend

"Hey hows that guy Ash doing?" I could picture people asking

I'd like to imagine the original trio coming back together and reigniting their friendship over a beer and laughing over childish mishaps that they're all the wiser to now.

Really the series would absolutely benefit from forgetting everything after the Johto season and bringing back Brock and Misty to pall around with their old buddy.

It was a golden formula