Opinion of the Pokemon anime

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I thought it was really lame. My brother watched it obsessively growing up, and I couldn't stand the stupidity of much of the plot. For example Team Rocket were the most bumbling and incompetent villains on any show ever, yet they STILL managed to fool Ash and his friends more often than not, even with their "disguises"*. The episodes would mostly be them being fooled, then some deus ex machina, a Pokemon battle, Team Rocket are defeated and flee and Ash and his friends move on. I think most people only watched it for the cute Pokemon and how they only said their names, which I'll admit, I found funny.

*On a side note, this is part of why even as a kid I couldn't stand Inspector Gadget. Inspector Gadget never did anything to defeat the villain of the episode and his gadgets were effectively useless, all that would happen is he would mistake the villain as an ally, go along with him, and then his niece and the dog would somehow save the day. I believe someone made a YouTube series cutting him out of it and realized the episodes are actually much better if you remove Inspector Gadget from them, much like how it was discovered Garfield comics are better without Garfield.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And actually, the show is when you think about it quite dark. Think about all of this:

-The primary form of entertainment and driver of the economy in this world, is capturing animals and having them engage in battles much like illegal dogfights in the real world.
-This is done by having 10-year olds roam the world unsupervised finding such creatures and training them. It's just one step above child soldiers. I'll note that they are frequently in danger as evidenced by Team Rocket.
-As has been pointed out by many, how many adult males exist in the Pokemon world? Few, and almost all are criminals or military or law enforcement of some type. Hence the Pokemon War theory.
-While we're at it, what type of government exists in the Pokemon world? There's no mention of a monarch or elected President or anything. Each town seems to be self-governing like post-apocalyptic hamlets. Kind of makes you wonder who runs the Pokemon centers and law enforcement, but police in the Pokemon world have more common with uniformed vigilantes than actual law enforcement.
-It is kind of interesting how there's more Pokemon centers than hospitals and it seems more is spent on healthcare for Pokemon than humans.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also it's kind of ridiculous how much time Team Rocket spent trying to kidnap Pikachu. If they had spent half as much time  just hunting and training Pokemon as normal instead of hatching zany schemes to kidnap Pikachu, they'd have far stronger ones.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Fun fact: Since the English opening theme is in ballad measure, it's very possible to sing it to the tune of 'Amazing Grace' (and vice versa).

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