JX Valentine
Your aquatic overlord
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- 21
- Years
- Harassing Bill
- Seen Aug 19, 2020
Burnout is part of the writing process, which is what Johto was, so why not acknowledge that and move on?
Partly because it's my personal opinion as to whether or not the most recent season is half as good as the first season? =/ While I acknowledge the fact that Johto was a burnout (and it really can't be described any other way), I really don't think that has much to do with whether the latest season is of better quality than the first season. Comparatively speaking, yes, Hoenn and beyond are better than Johto, but whether or not they're better than the first season is a different question. While it's all fine and dandy that the anime is taking increasingly after the game, it's my personal opinion that that just doesn't make the show any better than it had been back in the first season. Some people might enjoy that element, but I'm more after plot and the goofiness (without repetition) that the show used to have. Back in the first season, while Brock's perversion was used as a running gag, for example, it wasn't in every other episode, and the viewer wasn't beaten over the head with the concept. In the meantime, nowadays, it seems like Brock can't go through one episode without being Poison Jabbed. It was funny the first time, but the reliance on that element for comic relief still takes away from the feel of the episode. That's just one example, too. The Rockets used to come up with various interesting plans involving occasionally mechas, but they were also prone to using fishing nets, flying stadiums, holes, et cetera. Now, it seems to be primarily mechas, and the entire thing with fantasizing about what Giovanni would do with a certain prize isn't really helping matters. And I'll have to disagree with Dogasu's opinion that the first season was on the same level as of repetition as Johto and beyond are. While in the broadest sense, one might make connections, it's not as blatant. Besides, if one saw everything in the broadest sense, the argument could possibly apply to every other anime out there. Sailormoon? Destruction of the youma of the day. Neon Genesis Evangelion? Shinji angst paired with Angel versus Eva fights. What I'm looking at is the narrower sense, whether or not I see the same elements used over and over again.
I'm not looking for perfection, either. I know that the anime won't ever be perfect. However, I don't see it as anything particularly exciting, the way I saw -- and still see -- the first season. I don't mind watching episodes from the first season over and over again. The latest season, however, I can watch an episode about once, flag it as something similar to what I've seen before, and not bother with the episode again, especially since I've come to realize that a lot of the latest season reminds me of the Hoenn arc. There might be an episode somewhere down the line that would make me want to watch it over again, but otherwise, not really.
When you get right down to it, it's just personal opinion. I have no hesitation in saying that it's purism, but I genuinely believe that the anime hasn't recovered fully from Johto and fell into a reliance of repetition that just didn't exist in the first season. It's a bit like saying the entire series is crap, but after watching the most recent season so far, I just don't feel that something that the first season had. Quite possibly nothing will change that opinion, either, unless the series breaks out with something extraordinary that doesn't make me point back to a previous season, tilt my head, and say, "Didn't they already kinda do that?"