Do you enjoy the direction Pokemon Sun and Moon anime is moving in?

[Redstar45]

From what I've seen... Yeah animation enthusiasts did indeed like XY at the time of its airing. It was the best the show has ever looked... Then Sun & Moon came out and blew it out of the water in all the ways said animation enthusiasts tend to care about, and emphasizing all the things that previous Pokémon series didn't do too well, in turn also making it significantly harder to go back. It's kind of akin to how I wouldn't criticize XY the game for lacking the DexNav feature, but having that thing in ORAS only to revert to a far less convenient system in Sun & Moon was very annoying.

Harder ? maybe..... impossible? No.

 

[MidnightMelody]

I'll be the one to say it SM does look fluid but not in a good way. If the art takes a hit I really don't see it as a good thing. It is not as the animation prior was even bad. Everything is so floppy when moving now and I get it works for a comedy driven series but if pokemon goes back to the more DP & XY style I really don't see it working at all. As for the OP's question if SM can keep up the darker style episodes as with Zeraora and do more SoL episodes with an actual plot like the LGPE episodes seem to be hinting at I would be ok with it. Biggest issue since this new season began is so much has been filler but we are now in the canon and hopefully we stay in it for a bit since they still have a lot of stuff to do. I'm for them doing everything canon from here on out and once they have finished drop non stop filler till Gen 8.

 

[Slapstick-Olivia]

Absolutely! This has to be the most freshest take on of the anime they had since AG. DP is still my second favorite series after the OS, but it was kinda like AG, only better handled. BW was sadly a disaster. I enjoyed Iris as a character and the animation was pretty fine but that's sadly all good things I can say about BW. This series tried way to hard to be like the OS and besides Iris there was nothing memorable about it. And XY was... for my taste just way to boring of a series. I'm not really a fan of soup operas and that is was XY felt for me.

SM is in my eyes a great series that tries to experiment a bit more with the characters and locations. It is so far the most diversified anime when it comes to episodes and ideas. Every episode gives you something new, every character is distinguishable from each other and has a different role in the story and the show is filled with surprises. Pokémon for a long time was a very predicable show. SM is no masterpiece by any means, but I have to say this is actually the right direction where the anime should go in the future.

Just try to be as lively, light hearted and full of surprises like SM. But the next anime should not just copy the same formula like SM, otherwise SM will no longer feel special anymore.

 

[Xenon Blue]

I like that the anime is trying to innovate and be different, but I can't find myself liking the current state. Lack of battles, poorly defined goals with little to no progression, and a lack of overall direction is what turns me away from the anime. I can see why some people would love it, but personally this is not what I want from this anime.

 

[Kintaro]

I think when SM ends it'll be remembered as an interesting experiment. Gen 8 is probably going to take the show back to a traditional saga (although this is a guess, it may not), so those who like SM will remember it fondly as a silly side season, while a lot of other people will get used to the anime going back to what it was about.

 

[Ariki]

So after a long time of not returning to this thread...I decided to write some of my thoughts as to how I feel about the Pokemon XY series as opposed to Pokemon Sun and Moon.

TBH I found the first two series of Pokemon XY a real slog to get through with it only improving about 2/3 of the way through the second season of Pokemon XY. I'm now into Pokemon XYZ and what a pick up it has been right from the get-go. The action has been non-stop and the quality of the animation style has picked up dramatically - to the point where I understand why fans were disappointed with Sun and Moon when it initially debuted. I'm now at the tail end of Pokemon XYZ (I'm up to episode 32 - where Ash starts his Kalos league campaign) and while I did not enjoy the first year and a half of Pokemon XY, I do feel like I've grown a greater appreciation of the maincast in XYZ and I feel like I am going to miss them by the end of the series.

In saying that, I'm looking forward to continuing watching the second series of Pokemon Sun and Moon - I've watched a few of the episodes already and I'm ready to pick it up again now that I've nearly watched all of Pokemon XY.

 

[Kintaro]

So after a long time of not returning to this thread...I decided to write some of my thoughts as to how I feel about the Pokemon XY series as opposed to Pokemon Sun and Moon.

TBH I found the first two series of Pokemon XY a real slog to get through with it only improving about 2/3 of the way through the second season of Pokemon XY. I'm now into Pokemon XYZ and what a pick up it has been right from the get-go. The action has been non-stop and the quality of the animation style has picked up dramatically - to the point where I understand why fans were disappointed with Sun and Moon when it initially debuted. I'm now at the tail end of Pokemon XYZ (I'm up to episode 32 - where Ash starts his Kalos league campaign) and while I did not enjoy the first year and a half of Pokemon XY, I do feel like I've grown a greater appreciation of the maincast in XYZ and I feel like I am going to miss them by the end of the series.

In saying that, I'm looking forward to continuing watching the second series of Pokemon Sun and Moon - I've watched a few of the episodes already and I'm ready to pick it up again now that I've nearly watched all of Pokemon XY.

To be fair XY is also better in the sub, the dub drains the energy out of the series. XY does have a slow start but they did manage to focus on the main cast well although Serena takes awhile to get going.

 

[Ariki]

To be fair XY is also better in the sub, the dub drains the energy out of the series. XY does have a slow start but they did manage to focus on the main cast well although Serena takes awhile to get going.

I doubt my opinion would change because of the music or voice acting. I’m lookig at this purely from a story telling point of view. Looking at the first two seasons of XY the progression of the journey feels like it limps along and doesn’t find it’s full swing until the third series, which is ironic considering it takes 20+ episodes for Ash to get his final badge.

I also think the third season of XY is much better when it comes to battles and action sequences. I can really tell they put a lot of effort into it. It certainly has given me reason to understand the disappointment in Sun and Moon and how jarring it is to go from XYZ to Sun and Moon because it’s a complete genre change and while I like the art style of Sun and Moon I can tell for XY the animation quality dramatically increased between seasons 2 and 3.

One of the positives I can say about XY in the first two seasons is that there is less reliance on CoTD as a plot excuse to drive the episodes. I was worried because at the start of the first XY season there CoTDs but thankfully they start to thin out.

 

[Jeal]

I doubt my opinion would change because of the music or voice acting. I’m lookig at this purely from a story telling point of view. Looking at the first two seasons of XY the progression of the journey feels like it limps along and doesn’t find it’s full swing until the third series, which is ironic considering it takes 20+ episodes for Ash to get his final badge.

What do you mean? It was slow for you or something?

It's funny, It's the opposite to me. I was impressed with XY from the first episodes, but XYZ was worse for me. Too much fillers.

XY's major problems were the lack of plot(Rivals appearing so rarely, no villain team) and Serena minor focus compared to May and Dawn.

 

[DatsRight]

I think it's that XY in its earlier points was at least trying a bit harder with its main formula (eg. more formidable/creative Team Rocket schemes, better use of Clemont, less derivative humour, more vibrant Pokemon interactions) while as time passed it more blatantly became padding for the big arcs. Nearly everything that made earlier XY interesting was the opposite of XYZ's appeal besides both having the superficial actionized format.

SM has kept a more diverse storytelling for the large part through its entire series so far, but at the cost of its arcs being kind of underwhelming.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

XYZ is only good if you absolutely don't try to question any nonsense it pulls off. Which...is hard.

Which is why Sun and Moon decided to give up and go off the rails.

 

[Ariki]

What do you mean? It was slow for you or something?

It's funny, It's the opposite to me. I was impressed with XY from the first episodes, but XYZ was worse for me. Too much fillers.

XY's major problems were the lack of plot(Rivals appearing so rarely, no villain team) and Serena minor focus compared to May and Dawn.

Yeah I found series 1 of XY incredibly taxing to watch because it just felt stale to me in comparson to SM. Series 2 was slightly better but XYZ I felt was even better again because there was a lot of great character development that took place where I now feel like I’m going to miss the gang that travelled with Ash around Kalos.

 

[DatsRight]

My general problem with XY (especially as it went on) is that it tried to insinuate having really in depth development and introspective, despite that nearly every time they had a scenario that could go deeper into a character or even just remotely put them out of their comfort zone, they chickened out and had some generic plot device interrupt so things can go back to idealistic and they can still feel like winners, winners, winners. It's maybe why I thought the first season, which just focused on the light hearted concepts it could better handle, was better balanced.

Cases like Florges and Alain's arcs could have been a developed case of what you are in the dark and a character betraying their moral fibres when in a desperate situation, but instead they scapegoat it all onto a more generic eviller bad guy "tricking them" (despite them clearly already knowing their actions have some grey qualities) and them getting a get out of jail free card. Even for the bad guys, they completely abolished the more sympathetic tone of Lysandre from the games, insisting any character that couldn't be redeemed had to be a big ball of hate. Same for AZ being completely adapted out, being a very complex character who similarly committed atrocious deeds under pressure but had to feel the consequences and remorse for years as punishment. The anime has never really been big on going into depth with highly flawed characters but I think XYZ that wanted to be a darker story, was ironically the most whitewashed and bland about it.

SM has definitely suffered from this as well, especially in regards to adapting from the games, but it has at least approached the 'baby steps' that even XY was completely unwilling to do. Comfort zones if anything have been a recurring theme with some of the main cast, even many that don't really develop out of them still have them treated as a foible.

 

[Jeal]

Even for the bad guys, they completely abolished the more sympathetic tone of Lysandre from the games, insisting any character that couldn't be redeemed had to be a big ball of hate.

''Sympathetic tone'' lol, yeah, Lysandre was very sympathetic trying to eliminate millions of people, saving only an elite of followers.

 

[DatsRight]

''Sympathetic tone'' lol, yeah, Lysandre was very sympathetic trying to eliminate millions of people, saving only an elite of followers.

Let me rephrase that, a "human" tone, in that one key plot point was that despite doing these atrocious things, he was not just a one dimensional evil bad guy and had remorse and even some degree of logic to his actions, just that didn't excuse the outright horrific nature of what he was doing. The same thing rings true with AZ. The story wanted the heroes to empathise with that while still not standing for it, to reason that humanity and flaws are something that are just part of this world and they have accept the good and the bad because that is what makes a real world.

The anime disposes of that by making things more clear cut black and white and trying to enable the greyer characters as 'pawns' who the heroes shrug off as being perfectly good people who got tricked so they can be turned fully good with no long term consequences, and the people who do horrible things are just horrible soulless people. A complete opposite of the games plot with their being only good and bad and it coming down to good kicking bad's ass and telling them they suck.

One of my recurring problems with the anime's universe is that it sometimes has this anti-septic cycle at times, that everything is almost dully perfect and idealistic until a bad guy turns up, and even then, since bad guys are usually beaten through plot armour and seldom have long term effect on the plot or remotely faze or affect the heroes in any way, they still usually fail to break that cycle. Nothing changes and whenever something risks breaking the comfort zone of things, it will just turn out to be a fake out. There's a real sense of futility to the plot in many places, especially concerning the protagonists' effectiveness and ability to reach their own goals, they only go as far as the formula lets them and often it feels like they're carried there. While SM doesn't COMPLETELY break from this issue (hell in some cases it doesn't even bother with the formalities of it), I do feel like it does make small steps and insinuations that the characters drive how things go along and things aren't always perfectly set out to keep them in the same role.

 

[p96822]

Maybe I'm being an old grump because of Sun and Moon, but I hate there liveliness compare to the other series. It make Pokemon look more childish then what other Pokemon series have been. I also think that the Pokemon are not being the stars of series like in previous series. They don't feel like there are important as characters then what there were in previous series.

Also nobody like Team Flare in the game and the anime does a better justice for them

 

[Jeal]

Let me rephrase that, a "human" tone, in that one key plot point was that despite doing these atrocious things, he was not just a one dimensional evil bad guy and had remorse and even some degree of logic to his actions, just that didn't excuse the outright horrific nature of what he was doing. The same thing rings true with AZ. The story wanted the heroes to empathise with that while still not standing for it, to reason that humanity and flaws are something that are just part of this world and they have accept the good and the bad because that is what makes a real world.

The anime disposes of that by making things more clear cut black and white and trying to enable the greyer characters as 'pawns' who the heroes shrug off as being perfectly good people who got tricked so they can be turned fully good with no long term consequences, and the people who do horrible things are just horrible soulless people. A complete opposite of the games plot with their being only good and bad and it coming down to good kicking bad's ass and telling them they suck.

Yeah, I get it, even the evilest person of the world can do something good sometimes, I already know this. But Lysandre wasn't like that in the games. First, Team Flare and Lysandre's motivations were completely confused, in the beginning they say they want a '' more beautiful world '', and seem to be talking about physical appearance, by the conversation between Lysandre and Diantha and the grunts talking about being stylish.

"You played a young girl so wonderfully in your debut on the silver screen. Wouldn't you rather remain young and beautiful forever and always play such roles?" "You were chosen to be a movie star, correct? Isn't it your duty to be ever beautiful? Everything beautiful should stay that way forever. I would make this world unchanging and eternal so all beauty will last forever.X/I would end the world in an instant so that beauty never fades.Y I can't stand the thought of the world becoming uglier."

Then they try to justify their actions by saying they are trying to make a better world. Lysandre says only the chosen ones will be saved. Chosen for him, obvious. He presents himself as a savior, deciding who deserves to live, knowing what's better to the world. He even says there are fools he could not save. What's funny is that the grunts are very stupid, so his judgment on who is worth living is not very good.

"Pokémon Trainers. I come to you by the Holo Caster to make an important announcement. Listen well. Team Flare will revive the ultimate weapon, eliminate everyone who isn't in our group, and return the world to a beautiful, natural state. Unproductive fools are consuming our future... If nothing changes, the world will become ugly and conflicts will raze the land from end to end. I repeat. We will use the ultimate weapon and wipe the slate clean. I'm sorry, those of you who are not members of Team Flare, but this is adieu to you all."
"This world will eventually reach the point of no return... Saving the lives of all is impossible. Only the chosen ones will obtain a ticket to tomorrow. Do you want to have a ticket? Or, do you want to stop me? Show me in battle."
"Wah ha ha! Your convictions, and those of your Pokémon, please me! You are here to stop me. But I ask you to wait. I tried to save people--and the world--with the profit from this lab. But my efforts had no effect... The world was just too vast...and too full of fools that I couldn't save through my hard work alone... That's why I decided the only way to save the world was to take it all for myself.''

The grunts mention having to pay a lot of money to be part of Team Flare. In other words, ''the chosen ones'' are the rich. Very elitist way of deciding who deserves to live. He was just a megalomaniac. Believing that he really was worried about the world and wanted to do it better is completely naive.

 

[Kintaro]

I doubt my opinion would change because of the music or voice acting. I’m lookig at this purely from a story telling point of view. Looking at the first two seasons of XY the progression of the journey feels like it limps along and doesn’t find it’s full swing until the third series, which is ironic considering it takes 20+ episodes for Ash to get his final badge.

The music changes completely change the tone and atmosphere of the series, all the big events like the Greninja battles or emotional moments are much worse in the dub. I mean we've known the dub has gone downhill for the last decade, but the XY dub was a travesty due to how the Japanese one is presented.

 

[SH65]

Well I gave up on SM after ep 99 so no I don't.

 

[AndrewVogler]

Yes, sometimes it is rather interesting to watch after them.