@ Behshort: He is in the Japanese epeisodes because they're ahead of us, but yeah he's coming back and he's gonna give Dragonite a tail smacking to show who's the Alpha in the team.
@ Chis: A lot of people have said that regarding the series itself but the Pokémon League in that series was probably one of the best ones yet, except for the part where Tobias shows up like the biggest ******* ever and is all like "Hey guys I can use a team of legendaries right?" I mean they ended it mostly well but that part with Tobias was a HUGE middle finger to the fanbase who hoped to see Ash actually improve and finally win another League. Which is why I've mostly given up on the anime although I'll come back to see Cynthia and Charizard do their thing but to me the anime is mostly dead.
I definitely like the manga more though, Red is such an awesome character and loved him (although Blue made me smile and feel bad about it a lot), I found Diamond and Pearl to be hilarious and inspiring (Manzai might be hard for foreigners to get until you really start to get your head around the idea), I'm loving Black so far and he seems like the only person other than Green who can give Red an actual challenge if he had as much experience as Red, and I don't really know about the others but I'm sure they're not bad considering how good they other ones are. (Sorry if I went on about this a little I really like the manga and I've been getting back into it a lot.)
Oh and to answer Ex's question, I don't really know since I haven't been in the meta long but I've heard that Pikachu with the light ball is good, I'll just copy paste one of the POTW builds below
- Volt Tackle
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Brick Break
- Substitute / Encore / Volt Switch
Item Attached: Light Ball
Ability: Lightningrod
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Hasty Nature (+Spd, -Def)
"Specially offensive Pikachu is outclassed by most other electric types as they are generally faster, tougher and hit about as hard while holding Life Orb. Even Pikachu's evolution Raichu is probably better at Nasty Plotting. What Pikachu can do that basically no other electric type can do is strong physical electric moves. Pika's Volt Tackle is so powerful that it has about the same destructive capabilities as Zekrom's Bolt Strike. There is so much power here that few Pokemon will survive a neutral hit from it. Hidden Power Ice covers Dragon, Ground and some Electric types that Volt Tackle can't remove. Brick Break massacres the few things that survive your other attacks. Things like Bastiodon and Probopass. The last slot is sort of up to you. Substitute can reduce Pika's need to predict switch ins and protects against status. Encore is for those who live on the edge, locking your opponent into a setup, recovery or utility move. Volt Switch is cool to wear down your counters while doing acceptable damage off Pikachu's 274 base Special Attack. EVs are maxed in Speed and Attack to capitalize on the rat's ability to outrun a good portion of Pokemon and hit them as hard as possible. If you want to run Volt Switch consider running 176 Attack / 80 Special Attack / 252 Speed so Volt Switch has some more power behind it."
I just wanted to put a second one in here as well, while breeding movesets I found out that Poliwrath is RU? What? I don't know about you guys, but MY Poliwrath has tanked 2 outrages at the same level as Alder's Druddigon and lived to Ice Punch it in the face to death. I honestly don't why something that can be so tanky is so low in the meta. (Plus I'm biased slightly because Poliwrath is on my main team)