Should I watch the B&W Seasons or go straight to X&Y?

[Mittens95]

For the past few months, I've been watching the Pokemon Anime from Season one, and I am almost done with the Sinnoh episodes. The anime is pretty predictable, but the little things added in each gen keep it spiced up (Contests in Advanced, Ash's rival Paul in Sinnoh for example.) I have heard negative reviews in The B&W seasons though because of Ash being a noob again, and his new partners being annoying. Should I skip to X&Y or should I give B&W a chance?

 

[Aquacorde]

Honestly, BW is lacking in a lot of ways, especially compared to DP. However, I once went down the episode list and didn't find much that could be considered bad, really- just most of it wasn't exceptional. It's a very enjoyable series (especially if you watch in Japanese) and they tried a few pretty interesting things in it. I'd say watch it, but don't force yourself to. If you find yourself slogging through it, skip up to XY and return to it later. BW's not a must-see but it's a good watch. Its strong point is definitely the cast interaction, so watch for that if nothing else. :P

 

[Hiatus]

I personally found Black and White to be sort of repetitive, and compared to former series, it just wasn't filled with enough excitement. Though, it's only me--if this were the series I started off Pokémon with, I'm sure I wouldn't have felt this way. I definitely would've loved it. Should you skip this series? You could if you want; I sort of did. Only watched five episodes of it or so, and completely stopped after that. B&W does have its good parts, I'm sure, but wasn't able to catch them sadly, as I didn't watch enough. ^^"

 

[Wobbu]

Should you skip BW? It depends what you look forward to when watching Pokémon. If you like recurring characters, nice scenery, battle tournaments, and enjoyably lame humor, then I recommend watching BW. However, if you want character development, battle training, and contests, BW is not for you. You could skip BW and it wouldn't really have an effect on your XY experience but I would advise to at least watch the Decolore episodes starting with Alexa's first episode. That way you'll be familiarized with her when she appears in XY episodes.

 

[Lizardo]

I don't like Best Wishes at all. I find it to easily be the weakest of any of the Pocket Monsters shows, and in a more appropriate thread I could give you a long list of reasons why. I feel it completely deserves the hate it gets from its critics.

That being said, I'd still suggest giving BW a chance if you're a fan of the anime franchise. For better or worse, it bucks a lot of old trends and tries putting a fresh spin on things. None of the changes it introduced appealed to me - in fact, they made me appreciate some older conventions of the series in a way I never did before - but you might like them. And if the XY anime is any indication many of those changes seem to be gone for the foreseeable future, so you may as well check them out and see what all the fuss is/was about because you might not see anything like it again.

Give the opening episodes a try. If you see potential, watch more. If you don't like the direction things seem to be headed in, then don't watch the rest of the series. Just skip ahead to XY and see how that looks to you.

 

[Tsutarja]

Best Wishes really steered me away from watching the anime, almost to the point in which I thought I'd never watch an episode of the Pokémon anime ever again. Boy, was I totally wrong on that. XY is by far a better series than Best Wishes if you ask me. I'm not really saying you shouldn't watch BW, but I just personally wouldn't recommend watching it past the first few episodes, really. I only watched the first season of BW when that came out, and those were good, but the rest of the series just wasn't good.

 

[Aquacorde]

Hmm, y'all are saying don't watch past the first few, but by far the strongest episodes are 38-48 and 62-64. 85-97 contains the Meloetta arc and the return of Dawn- not all the episodes in the stretch are the greatest but it's nice to see Dawn back and understand Meloetta before the finale of that. I would actually say if you're just going to watch parts, watch the first six episodes to meet the characters and then hit up those episodes. Like, especially if you're getting bored, jump up to those. It's not too hard to get into (lbr, this is Pokémon) and they're worth watching even if you don't like BW much.

 

[CelticsPhan]

Maybe I listen to /vp/ too much, but most of the /vp/oreons don't like Best Wishes. Best Wishes made me think that I'm too old to enjoy and watch Pokemon at the same level I did as a kid.

I am most intrigued by the battles, which this series does a good job with. I wish they put a Hilda/Rosa equivalent in the anime instead of Iris. Oh well.

 

[BasedNate]

Definitely. In my opinion, Pokemon the Series: XY is 10000000x times better than B/W. (Although I like B/W's villains better). XY Series got everything from the previous series as evidenced in the episode.
Original Series: Writing & humor
Advanced Generations: This 4 people mechanic thing
Battle Frontier, Diamond & Pearl: Ash being a lot smarter in battles
Black & White: A more serious Team Rocket

All this evidenced in the episodes. I like Bonnie better than Max (Found him pretty annoying) and well... Brock is still my favorite companion of all time, although Clemont is pretty cool too with his technology stuff. Serena is already better than Dawn & May cause she's braver than the both of them. And Serena actually has a backstory with Ash so there's that. When Charizard came along in B/W, the show actually got a bit better. I couldn't really tolerate B/W due to Iris' annoying voice & Cilan's obsession with comparing life to food.

I'm sure skipping B/W will be a good idea & go for a much better series which is XY..

 

[Famon]

If you watch B&W series then you will lose any respect you had for Ash for 10 year !!!
Its much better to skip it !!!
Because its a series that was made for Ash-hater !
If you think One humiliation wasn't enough then Ash will face even greater humiliation before he even get to redeem himself.
Thats how B&W series is !!!
Its a ''Hell'' for those who actually like Ash !

 

[Piks]

Definitely. In my opinion, Pokemon the Series: XY is 10000000x times better than B/W. (Although I like B/W's villains better). XY Series got everything from the previous series as evidenced in the episode.
Original Series: Writing & humor
Advanced Generations: This 4 people mechanic thing
Battle Frontier, Diamond & Pearl: Ash being a lot smarter in battles
Black & White: A more serious Team Rocket

All this evidenced in the episodes. I like Bonnie better than Max (Found him pretty annoying) and well... Brock is still my favorite companion of all time, although Clemont is pretty cool too with his technology stuff. Serena is already better than Dawn & May cause she's braver than the both of them. And Serena actually has a backstory with Ash so there's that. When Charizard came along in B/W, the show actually got a bit better. I couldn't really tolerate B/W due to Iris' annoying voice & Cilan's obsession with comparing life to food.

I'm sure skipping B/W will be a good idea & go for a much better series which is XY..

Maybe I listen to /vp/ too much, but most of the /vp/oreons don't like Best Wishes. Best Wishes made me think that I'm too old to enjoy and watch Pokemon at the same level I did as a kid.

I am most intrigued by the battles, which this series does a good job with. I wish they put a Hilda/Rosa equivalent in the anime instead of Iris. Oh well.

Best Wishes really steered me away from watching the anime, almost to the point in which I thought I'd never watch an episode of the Pokémon anime ever again. Boy, was I totally wrong on that. XY is by far a better series than Best Wishes if you ask me. I'm not really saying you shouldn't watch BW, but I just personally wouldn't recommend watching it past the first few episodes, really. I only watched the first season of BW when that came out, and those were good, but the rest of the series just wasn't good.

I personally found Black and White to be sort of repetitive, and compared to former series, it just wasn't filled with enough excitement. Though, it's only me--if this were the series I started off Pokémon with, I'm sure I wouldn't have felt this way. I definitely would've loved it. Should you skip this series? You could if you want; I sort of did. Only watched five episodes of it or so, and completely stopped after that. B&W does have its good parts, I'm sure, but wasn't able to catch them sadly, as I didn't watch enough. ^^"

If you watch B&W series then you will lose any respect you had for Ash for 10 year !!!
Its much better to skip it !!!
Because its a series that was made for Ash-hater !
If you think One humiliation wasn't enough then Ash will face even greater humiliation before he even get to redeem himself.
Thats how B&W series is !!!
Its a ''Hell'' for those who actually like Ash !

You guys must be out of your minds because BW series was 10000 times much better then that DP crap of a series put together, both Best Wishes and XY are far more better series then the DP series which was a ♥♥♥♥ fest all the way through.

You should watch B&W series because it made Ash an interesting great badass character again unlke what he was throughout the DP series !!!

B&W series redeem Ash character a whole lot!!!

You should watch it for yourself and don't listen to Famons since he think everyone agrees with him on hating BW which they don't.

One thing to be glad about for this series is that i'm happy that they used Iris instead of Hilda/Rosa since Iris is a lot more interesting character then them.

 

[Lizardo]

I agree that anyone who's interested should just watch Best Wishes for themselves and come to their own conclusions on what happens without letting the negative opinions of those of people who didn't like it (myself included) stop them.

Personally, I think BW is incredibly flawed as a whole and only eighteen episodes in I've found XY to be an improvement in most comparable areas. But that series holds a pretty unique niche amongst the Pocket Monsters shows and a few episodes of it should be given a chance before one writes the entire saga off.

That being said, I fail to see how BW was better than Diamond & Pearl in any meaningful way (or, for that matter, how DP was a bad series - but that's best discussed elsewhere). And speaking as a big fan of Satoshi myself I honestly think it's insane to suggest that BW added anything to, or improved on, him as a character.

 

[Burakki Tsuki]

I will take note of all of you views on whether to skip B/W episodes or not. I personally would rather not miss anything but I guess I will find out for myself when I watch a few of them. I haven't watched the series in quite a long time but want to catch up.

 

[BasedNate]

You guys must be out of your minds because BW series was 10000 times much better then that DP crap of a series put together, both Best Wishes and XY are far more better series then the DP series which was a ♥♥♥♥ fest all the way through.

You should watch B&W series because it made Ash an interesting great badass character again unlke what he was throughout the DP series !!!

B&W series redeem Ash character a whole lot!!!

You should watch it for yourself and don't listen to Famons since he think everyone agrees with him on hating BW which they don't.

One thing to be glad about for this series is that i'm happy that they used Iris instead of Hilda/Rosa since Iris is a lot more interesting character then them.

Hey, ever heard of an opinion? Let me tell you why Diamond & Pearl was okay to me. First as I stated, Ash was pretty smart at battling in this series. The contests focused on a variety of ways for Ash to dominate his opponents, and the pretty light show wasn't so bad either. To me, Pokemon Contests shows more of a Pokemon potential to unleash some pretty awesome combos that way it can utilize their moveset more. When I watch the anime, I tend to forget all about the PKMN games & put myself in a Pokemon world. D&P shows more of what a Pokemon can do and I find it pretty interesting.

However, I give D&P some criticisms. To start, Team Rocket was extremely annoying in that series. For once, I would like a plot without them in it. They're not even funny to me anymore. It's like the writers are forcing them down our throats and only have a few episodes focused on them that are actually good. At this point, I wish Bootch (I mean Butch) & Cassidy could replace them. Imo, I find them much more entertaining than those two. The show would feel much more refreshing with those two around.

Second, some of the animation look pretty bad & some of the episodes feel pretty rushed; or they're mainly bad fillers, s that's the only criticism I can think of for the show. I like Dawn. Her voice is pretty adorbs, not to mention her look too. Probably the cutest Pokegirl in the show, but her mom looks like a talking Oran Berry tho'. Anyways, she helped Ash a lot on how to execute contest moves in order to gain the advantage when facing his opponents, which is why I said Ash was smart in his battles again in the first place. He's the only one to beat a freakin' Darkrai and almost fainted Latios. You gotta give him & Dawn's lessons for that.

OH. While I was writing, I just thought of a 3rd criticism - Piplup. Yup, that little penguin annoyed the living crap out of me. Anyways, I'ma stop from here since we're not talking about what the OP asked. Anyways, OP. If you wanna watch Best Wishes, go ahead. To me, the only good part about that show is the villains and Team Rocket being more serious. XY: The Series is a much better show though imo, so if you want my recommendation, I'd skip B&W and heads toward XY. There's a reason why so many people disliked Black & White and only a few defends it.

 

[DevinKy]

Well I did a pretty long rant on one of the threads that what I hate BW, but if you want to give it a chance, you should just watch the series until Castelia City. Then continue on if you like it. If you don't, skip to XY and just catch some good moments like Dawn's comeback (excluding the Junior Cup), the Kami trio episodes, Team Plasma's downfall and also the final 3 - 4 episodes. In fact, BW's ending was the thing that prevented me from hating it more.

 

[Piks]

I agree that anyone who's interested should just watch Best Wishes for themselves and come to their own conclusions on what happens without letting the negative opinions of those of people who didn't like it (myself included) stop them.

Personally, I think BW is incredibly flawed as a whole and only eighteen episodes in I've found XY to be an improvement in most comparable areas. But that series holds a pretty unique niche amongst the Pocket Monsters shows and a few episodes of it should be given a chance before one writes the entire saga off.

That being said, I fail to see how BW was better than Diamond & Pearl in any meaningful way (or, for that matter, how DP was a bad series - but that's best discussed elsewhere). And speaking as a big fan of Satoshi myself I honestly think it's insane to suggest that BW added anything to, or improved on, him as a character.

Hey, ever heard of an opinion? Let me tell you why Diamond & Pearl was okay to me. First as I stated, Ash was pretty smart at battling in this series. The contests focused on a variety of ways for Ash to dominate his opponents, and the pretty light show wasn't so bad either. To me, Pokemon Contests shows more of a Pokemon potential to unleash some pretty awesome combos that way it can utilize their moveset more. When I watch the anime, I tend to forget all about the PKMN games & put myself in a Pokemon world. D&P shows more of what a Pokemon can do and I find it pretty interesting.

However, I give D&P some criticisms. To start, Team Rocket was extremely annoying in that series. For once, I would like a plot without them in it. They're not even funny to me anymore. It's like the writers are forcing them down our throats and only have a few episodes focused on them that are actually good. At this point, I wish Bootch (I mean Butch) & Cassidy could replace them. Imo, I find them much more entertaining than those two. The show would feel much more refreshing with those two around.

Second, some of the animation look pretty bad & some of the episodes feel pretty rushed; or they're mainly bad fillers, s that's the only criticism I can think of for the show. I like Dawn. Her voice is pretty adorbs, not to mention her look too. Probably the cutest Pokegirl in the show, but her mom looks like a talking Oran Berry tho'. Anyways, she helped Ash a lot on how to execute contest moves in order to gain the advantage when facing his opponents, which is why I said Ash was smart in his battles again in the first place. He's the only one to beat a freakin' Darkrai and almost fainted Latios. You gotta give him & Dawn's lessons for that.

OH. While I was writing, I just thought of a 3rd criticism - Piplup. Yup, that little penguin annoyed the living crap out of me. Anyways, I'ma stop from here since we're not talking about what the OP asked. Anyways, OP. If you wanna watch Best Wishes, go ahead. To me, the only good part about that show is the villains and Team Rocket being more serious. XY: The Series is a much better show though imo, so if you want my recommendation, I'd skip B&W and heads toward XY. There's a reason why so many people disliked Black & White and only a few defends it.

You are entitle to your own opinions, but there are a lot of people that disliked Diamond & Pearl more so then Black & White, the only reason why XY is so good because it comes after BW and not after DP which suck so badly as a series.

Diamond & Pearl Ash wasn't all that smart if anything his character gotten really terrible during the Sinnoh saga, at least the Unova series made him more intereting as a character again and made him more smarter then before. D&P never really show what a Pokemon could really do and if anything it ruin what Pokemon could do, BW really show how great Pokemon can be and how they do well in battles.

You should watch BW series because it was a really great series and a really great improvement over DP, XY has been really good so far.

 

[Aquacorde]

Hi. I really should not have to step into these threads every time and ask you to keep on topic. Yes, Piks, I am singling you out, and that is because you do this with every single thread. However the rest of you should please focus on if one who is watching the series from start to finish should continue from DP onto BW, skip BW and go straight to XY, or do something else. Thank you.

 

[Piks]

I agree that anyone who's interested should just watch Best Wishes for themselves and come to their own conclusions on what happens without letting the negative opinions of those of people who didn't like it (myself included) stop them.

Personally, I think BW is incredibly flawed as a whole and only eighteen episodes in I've found XY to be an improvement in most comparable areas. But that series holds a pretty unique niche amongst the Pocket Monsters shows and a few episodes of it should be given a chance before one writes the entire saga off.

That being said, I fail to see how BW was better than Diamond & Pearl in any meaningful way (or, for that matter, how DP was a bad series - but that's best discussed elsewhere). And speaking as a big fan of Satoshi myself I honestly think it's insane to suggest that BW added anything to, or improved on, him as a character.

Hi. I really should not have to step into these threads every time and ask you to keep on topic. Yes, Piks, I am singling you out, and that is because you do this with every single thread. However the rest of you should please focus on if one who is watching the series from start to finish should continue from DP onto BW, skip BW and go straight to XY, or do something else. Thank you.

I do have a right to my own opinion Aquacorde and you should not be singling me out at all. You should skip DP and watch BW and then go on to watch XY. People should watch Best Wishes for themsevles and decide on it, then they can also watch XY next.

 

[Aquacorde]

Please understand that I am singling you out because pretty much the only thing I ever see you do is turn threads into DP vs BW arguments, whether that is the topic or not. While you are entitled to your opinion, my job is to keep threads on-topic. If your opinion is irrelevant to the topic at hand, I am within my duties as a mod to remind you that it is not the place for that discussion. If you would like to discuss this further, do feel free to VM me or PM rather than reply in a thread, as that would continue to be off-topic.

I would like to remind everyone that the topic is whether BW should be watched or skipped, and to proceed with that line of discussion.

 

[Piks]

Please understand that I am singling you out because pretty much the only thing I ever see you do is turn threads into DP vs BW arguments, whether that is the topic or not. While you are entitled to your opinion, my job is to keep threads on-topic. If your opinion is irrelevant to the topic at hand, I am within my duties as a mod to remind you that it is not the place for that discussion. If you would like to discuss this further, do feel free to VM me or PM rather than reply in a thread, as that would continue to be off-topic.

I would like to remind everyone that the topic is whether BW should be watched or skipped, and to proceed with that line of discussion.

I did went a little bit off-topic.

I will keep the DP vs BW topics out of this thread and stay on topic..