Pokemon Black and White Episodes 40 to 84(Final)
Around this time last year, I reviewed the first half of Pokemon Black and White’s TV adapation, and praised it highly for doing what the games had done and re-invented the franchise, giving a mixture of flashy battles, heartwarming episodes and episodes which are nothing short of brilliance. If you’re interested, you can find it here. I’d highly recommend reading that before reading this, as this review is merely going to be going off what’s already been said there.
It’s kinda funny. This segment started with a comedy episode based around a new character, Luke, and it ended with a comedy based episode based around Luke, giving hints several times as to where it’s going next, with Meloetta making an appearance and Team Rocket hunting them down. If anything, you can take Melotta’s appearance to mean that there isn’t going to be any further filler-episodes, which is both good and bad.
Because, you see, nothing’s really changed from the first half here. The characters are always a delight to watch, slowly progressing in a manner that only a long-running show like Pokemon can pull off, and the Pokemon are pretty much the same. So that basically means that it comes down to the idea behind the episodes themselves, and you have the amazing ideas (The photography one about Sawsbuck, the ones about the genie trio, the movie episodes, and the Team Rocket episodes are my favourite ones). Like almost every episodic show, the series is filled with the amazing, the average and the dull, and Pokemon’s been no exception. When it got it right, it was a great show to watch, and when it got it wrong, it was actually rather boring to watch. That’s actually the only idea I havn’t scored this as a masterpiece, because for a show to bring back something like Pokemon, that’s already had god knows how many seasons, and revitalize it in a manner that gives the show a new breath of life, that show knows what it’s doing.
If you grew up with Pokemon, or wanted to love Pokemon but never managed to, then this show is perfect for you. The themes and the atmosphere that the show creates are top-notch for the majority of your experience, and it serves to bring the fantasy world of the games to life…which is what i’d expect the aim of the show is. In that case, it’s a mission complete :L
Yet like I said above, I love the show to bits when it gets things right, but when it messes up, it feels all awkward and icky to plough through. As such, i’ve lowered the score to an 8.5, but if you’re used to episodic series being very hit and miss, then you might as well look at it as a ten. And on that note, from writing this review, it’s become pretty clear that I dropped the show at the wrong point, so you can expect to see me covering Best Wishes: Season 2 sometime in the not-so-distant future.
Alex’s Score: 8.5 Meeps out of 10 (Very Good)
