The Giovanni ep was pretty boring, I was hoping he would do something.
Giovanni doesn't really do much in the games either. You fight him three times, and he disappears every time you beat him. It isn't as if he sets a plot in motion or gives any grand speeches to the masses. I actually find it really cool to let him be this elusive person, because that's exactly what he becomes after you beat him in Viridian. It's a good set-up for the GenII-shorts.
Seems like a promising series. The first episode was good with Pikachu and Red (or simply us, the player (that's what he was meant to represent) travelling throughout the generations, Pikachu fighting Volcarona was a good scene (kinda wished Pikachu used its anime squeak). Episode 2 was interesting, a bit late there Looker but a interesting story anyways.
Hopefully next episode is Blue vs E4 because that's what I really want to see
I thought the Pikachu vs. Random-scenes were.. well, a bit too random at times? Don't get me wrong, I loved both shorts.
Short 1:
- The transition from game to animé, capture of Pikachu and subsequent battle vs. Caterpie. Brilliant, I loved this approach. I lol'd when Zapdos suddenly flew over, I was like "WUT".
- The Ecruteak-scene. Short and simple. I guess they didn't want to show anything meaty (Burned Tower/Lake of Rage/Radio Tower), so they just showed Ecruteak - though I rather would've seen some town like Cianwood, but I guess it's not recognizable enough. I liked that we immediately got remembered that Electricity does jack against Wooper.. Again, I lol'd when Lugia just happened to cruise through the city like that. Totally took me offguard.
- I loved the scene in Hoenn. Somebody really thought about writing an intense actionscene that involved a game location. At this point, I was put off by Latios and Latias just floating there..
- I loved the Snowpoint Temple-scene. We get a bit of a power creep with Pikachu now facing a Probopass, which is made to look awesome here. Again somebody has thoroughly thought out it's battling style with the Mini-noses attacking independently. Regigigas was awesome swatting Probopass out of the air like that.
- The Relic Castle portion makes me want to pick up my Black Version again. That says enough I think. The powercreep continues! Though Pikachu standing on that tile that was just scorched seems a bit unrealistic. And what the heck did Landorus have to appear there? Because it's a Ground-type? >.>
- The Terminus Cave battle vs. Noivern was my least liked part. It just seemed to drag, though I think I appreciate the set-up of Red fighting while in a cart. But yeah, in the bottom two with Johto.
In summary, I really liked however thought to use the environments in these battles, especially the bridge in Hoenn and the tile in Unova and the action from Sinnoh. Somebody did their homework and made a dull looking pokémon awesome.
Short 2:
- It's awesome that we got Looker's perspective on Team Rocket. It's something that I deduced before it aired, but it was nice to be right.
- Having an investigator's perspective allowed this short to dish almost everything TR did in RBY in a briefing: "We took care of their front, the Celadon Game Corner, they tried to take on Silph, but were met with opposition. We've found him at Viridian Gym". They're only missing Mt.Moon, Nugget Bridge, the Dig-bandit and the Pokémon Tower. Outside of Mt.Moon those weren't big affairs anyway and this allowed the writers of this short to summarize the Rocket-plot and still give us a good bit of action and show us how pokémon can be used outside of being used by trainers. Of course they failed, but that doesn't matter, it was suspenseful as heck!
- A bit of trivia, but there's a theory that Looker is the International Policeman on the SS.Anne in Red/Blue/Yellow, which sinks and Looker washes up on the Battle Resort (in Or/As, which takes place after RBY). Having him here in the Red/Blue-storyline just gives extra credit to that theory. Or not, because the events that we see would play out after the SS.Anne would've left port. It could just be that Looker got off the SS.Anne at one port and then got back on at another and the ship sank on that trip.
I'm guessing Short 3 will follow Blue's perspective, battling through the E4 and it will end with Red walking in the Champion's Room with that quote from Blue that we got in the preview being the ending of the GenI-portion.
If that's the case, then I think that in terms of important missing bits are at least Mt.Moon, Pokémon Tower, the gymleaders outside of Giovanni and the Safari Zone.
That being said, I hope that the Johto shorts will follow the perspectives of
Eugene (Burned Tower-story),
Silver (Neo-TR) and
Lance (Neo-TR, Dragon's Den/Blackthorn and Champion Battle vs. Gold).
Well the entire idea of this series is to show things that happened in the background of the games that we never saw (like Blue fighting Lance or Lance facing the Red Gyarados). It makes sense that he didn't do anything here because during this operation Red had just defeated him and he was running away.
Also I hope the episode with AZ takes place 3000 years in the past, that would be sick.
That would be awesome. XY-Short 1 would feature the introduction to the XY-storyline. XY-Short 2 would jump back in time with AZ and the war 3000 years ago. The third XY-short would then show AZ in Lysandre's prisoncell before showing the good guys pummeling him.
Also I'm now headcanoning that there are Lookers all over just like there are Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys and it's not just one guy, although I do like the thought of there being one Looker who's so good he's involved in everything.
Well, there's that theory that:
- Looker was on board the SS.Anne, which then sank at some point (Looker got back on after this raid?)
- Looker washes up on the Battle Resort in Or/As, he has no idea who he is.
- Looker appears as a confused, but dedicated Internation Policeman in Sinnoh.
- Looker appears in Unova and Kalos as a fullfledged Internation Policeman who knows what's up.
I honestly didn't even notice it. Will probably be fixed in future episodes.
Yeah, don't care about that kind of thing at all..
