My Two Cents
This is my full opinion of the episode and many of its aspects.
Well, overall it did seem a little overly cute, but perhaps that was because it mostly included the pre-evolved and small pokemon. I liked it and I hope that they continue it into at least a mini-series, but the plot of the pilot episode was a little like a commercial, since a lot of it matched that of the game.
The introduction left a lot to be desired. It could have at least started with us seeing through the eyes of the main character as a human right before he falls asleep. Also, we could have probably done without the words at the bottom of the screen, as most of that data could have been gleaned out of the story itself or obtained from the Mysterious Dungeon Games.
I agree with what people say, those Kecleon brothers were Homosexuals, but that makes me wonder...why are there homosexual pokemon? I mean, homosexuality is a mental disease that goes against one of the most primary natural instincts and since pokemon are more down to nature than humans, I didn't think it was possible to have homosexual pokemon. Oh well, some questions are probably left unanswered...
That calling the Ekans an Arbok thing was really stupid, I have to say. I mean, where the heck could that mistake possibly have been made? Maybe the script dub writers got the japanese names for arbok and ekans mixed up. But the only way they could do that is if they weren't looking at the video takes of the special when doing the script, and that's completely nuts. And even if they were, it then seems even more pathetic and stupid because even a cave man could tell ekans, arbok, and serviper apart: "Ekans pink. Arbok have hood. Serviper have fangs and pointy tail." I mean come on, even if the writers were stupid enough to make that mistake, wouldn't the script doctors have caught. Though they're probably only slightly smarter than the microsoft office word spellcheck program...oh well, at least that's only one mistake out of the few made throughout the entire pokemon series, so they still have a pretty good track record, but why'd they have to pick the MD special to make one of their mistakes in?!
The Oran berries effects weren't overly exaggerated because in the game they are able to restore 100 HP, that is at least a fourth of even the most powerful pokemon's total HP.
Team Meanies? Are you kidding me! Team Lamies is more like it! They seriously weren't trying to hard when they came up with these team names. Neither have what I like in team names, but the name of the rescue team that exist in my mind sure does: Team Mystery Club.
The mention of leveling up was sort of confusing. I mean, of course Squirtle would know about it, because he used to be a human. If he was from the quote unquote "real world", then he'd at least have played some of the RPG games. And if he was from the same world that Ash & Co. were from, we know that they're aware of number specific levels from EP#9 "The School of Hard Knocks". Also, the way they were talking about levels, it sounded like just another way of describing getting stronger and learning new attacks. I mean, when you see a pokemon like Tyranitar using hyperbeam, the default thing would be to say that that pokemon is at a high level. It have been more appropriate for them to say something like "getting stronger" or "gaining more experience", but they said "leveling up" instead, so we'll just have to deal with it.
The Shroomish only said their names. I don't think this was because the writers intended them to be stupid, because in the game, even the stupidest pokemon can somewhat properly communicate. I think it was more like what someone else said about it being weird if they said something like "Get them! Get them!" over and over again.
Seeing pokemon talking wasn't creepy to me in the slightest because I'm already really used to seeing creatures/monsters talk from watching lots of Digimon episodes way back in the day. The voices were okay. Most of them seemed to fit the characters pretty well, especially Mr. Zoppi doing the voice of Gengar. Desperate Milotic was right, Skarmory's evil voice did sound like that of an english teacher, which made me start thinking about it saying something like: "You split your infinitive! You must be punished!" LOL
I thought it was pretty annoying that pikachu and pichu couldn't just bite through or squeeze out of that rope they were bound up by. I mean, they could of at least shocked Skarmony, she was well within range and it would have been a double advantage, since Skarmory is a metal and flying type. But hey, that would have ruined the rest of the plot and made no sense--I mean, the hostages defeating their captor, how often does that occur in plot lines?
Those corsola sticks were really pathetic. I mean, why would Squirtle's actually have an effect on Skarmory if the other two didn't. My brother says it was all about velocity, trajectory, and range, but I don't think any of those things really mattered unless a much stronger pokemon were throwing them.
LOL, the quick seed was sort of like a time bomb, with the way it lit up like that when pikachu kicked it.
The pokemon calling out their attacks before doing them did bring up some memories of digimon, but all in all it did seem pretty pointless. I can think of only two reasons that the writers decided to do this:
1)They wanted to name the attacks so we'd know what they're called--this is pretty pointless, as most of the people who were watching this have already seem at least some of the main series and can already indentify most of the pokemon attacks. And if not, it shouldn't really matter what the attacks are called as long as you can tell what effect they're having on the other pokemon or the user--hell, you could call the Flamethrower attack Phoenix Flame Jutsu, but it wouldn't change its effect on the opponent pokemon, so who really cares?
2)They were trying to ease the radical transition from what we're all used with trainers calling out attacks and the battling pokemon then executing them to just pokemon battling by themselves--this seems like a good idea for some people, but not really necessary for the majority of the audience. We don't really need someone there to call out the attack in order for it to be executed. This is probably the same excuse for having Gengar call out "Go [Ekans]!" (I'm not quoting it word for word) before Ekans executed the command and devowered the berries. It was just a way of easing the transition for some people, but still pretty pointless.
"A bump on the head." Wow, that's a pretty stupid theory from a pretty stupid little kid--a kid who forgot that Squirtles can breathe underwater and who thinks his bubble attack is "really pretty". Honestly, this show did seem like it was geared more toward the younger tykes, but still, a better theory would have been that an unknown outside force was controlling Skarmory, with the eye color and voice and all.
Most of the other people are right...if a person buys the supply store out and steals all your berries, you don't feed them and sympathize with them, YOU KILL THEM! But heh, they were obviously trying to push some sort of "brotherly love" or "can't we all get along?" message for the little kids in that moment--*GAGS*. Even though this special was geared towards little kids, most other Japanese animes are more violent and less "share and care" and I still dream of the day that a pokemon series will be aired on Toonami or Adult Swim in which the pokemon shead a little less tears and a little more blood. I mean, come on, that one episode was banned b/c it involved the use of a firearm towards other people! What I'd like to see a more adult version of MD which mostly stars 2nd and 3rd level pokemon and has a lot more violence and maybe even some blood. This may sound evil to a lot of the younger people who are viewing this post, but hey, I'm 18 and the pokemon shows are starting to lose some of their taste. I'm in it mostly for the battles, because they're awesome. But still, a pokemon series with about as much violence as Naruto would please me greatly. *Imagines a charizard doing a siesmic toss like the primary lotus technique.* *Sighs*
Well, that's my two cents on this special and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.
-Steven, PMC Elite
PMC Elite Field Researcher. 9 years pokemon experience.
The PMC Motto:
____________________
The PMC Maxim:
"If it's wild, capture it. If it's owned, study it on the spot."
The Finest manufacturer of "some assembly required" technology.
More to be added later on...
Fog Trainer
Originally Posted by Bulba the Great!
First pokemon after obtaining the national dex: Eevee
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
