Pokemon: Indigo League (Season 1-2)(Apr 1, 1997 – Jan 28, 1999),
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama, Masamitsu Hidaka Written by: Takeshi Shudo Music: Shinji Miyazaki, Hirokazu Tanaka
Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Shounen,
Key Words: Monsters, Trading Card Games, 
Studio: OLM, Inc., Team Ota Licensed American Publisher: 4Kids Entertainment

Episodes: 80 (USA) 82 (Japan)

My Thoughts: So… This is an anime that has been going on for a very long time. It has become loved and hated by many for its sweet childlike story and the card and video games.

I love how the anime actually starts out with a small clip from a video game. It brings the people who have played the game into the show, though that’s where the show pulls away. Instead of using Red and Blue like the manga or game, they use Ash and Gary. Not sure why the name change, and why they make their personality the way they do but it feels really off. Gary is pretty much the high end of the snobby jerk style rival and Ash is on the high end make friends and have fun style. I compare it to Yugioh where Yugi always trusts the heart of the cards, the Ash of Yugioh, and Seto is stuck up like Gary.

I have a little question, how come Meowth from Team Rocket the only Pokémon that can talk? There doesn’t seem to be anything special about him and yet he is able to talk really well. Also, why do they want Pikachu and no other? Are they just so stupid that they want only one Pokémon? I did enjoy some of their appearances but it got really repetitive and boring after a while. While I’m on the subject of repetitive stuff, everything in the story is repetitive. Ash and his friends are traveling, they end up getting attacked by Team Rocket and then beat them, ending in Ash sometimes getting to where he wants to go or getting what he wants. The only times I actually liked the show was when they broke from that repetition and had it go for a couple episodes or maybe only had Team Rocket for a couple seconds. Otherwise, it was a story by day thing and got old fast.

There has always been a problem with people thinking about the fight aspect of the show. The idea that ‘animals’ are fighting for human’s enjoyment has always been a touchy subject to say the least but I never really saw it as the same as dog fights in our life. Most Pokémon like Pikachu are actually smart and seem to know what they are doing. If a Pokémon didn’t really want to fight, then it could just run away. It was born in the wild so it knows it doesn’t really have to fight. 

The Banned episodes is the fun part of the show now that I’m older. The fact that they banned episodes completely or edited things out because it didn’t fit the normal in America is really funny to me. I have seen a couple of these though I have mostly only seen the dubbed version of the anime. I may not like how they did it but I understand why they did it.

The whose that Pokémon bit that happens just seems really easy at times, using a Pokémon mostly from the episode that the children are watching. There is also the cute little times where its only pokemon talking though its not really used very much. Even though you can’t understand exactly what they are saying, they still get the feeling across.

The animation is a bit old now, but still has the same feel of nostalgia that I felt when I was little. Attacks normally happen with speed lines and half assed affects that look like they skip a few seconds. Lighting seems to freeze up slightly when it happens especially in Pikachu’s attacks. The background is more like blotches of color mostly and don’t have much detail besides a couple lines for bumps in the dirt. The rest are watercolor looking. 

The voices are another matter. The dub kind of falls flat, children have raspy and annoying voices. I hate Gary’s voice the most and luckily we don’t hear it all the time. Ash is a bit easier to cope with since his voice is not normally that whinny and high strong. The music is pretty well known right now, and fits well with the type of story that’s being shown. The music fills you with hope and energy needed for the show although I could really go without the pokemon rap at the end. That felt more like a tack on rather then a actual piece from Japan.

No matter the good or bad things about it, it still is a beloved memory of my childhood. I’m looking forward to working on the reviews for the whole series up till now.

Rating:   

Link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon:_Indigo_League_episodes 

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