Thread: Which is better: DP or BW?

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

That's not it at all. I liked the Hoenn group's interactions a lot and that had Brock in it.

The DP trio definitely had something missing when comparing it with the original trio, Hoenn group, or BW trio. The other 3 at least have a dynamic and character chemistry, the DP trio on the other hand felt forced and artificial.

I was actually talking about why many people prefer the BW trio over the DP trio, so I apologize for making you think that I was specifically targeting you with my comment. I don't think that DP trio's chemistry was forced or artificial. It could have been better, especially with the Dawn/Brock interactions, but it did make me think that they were good friends, which is still more than I can say about the BW trio. I don't know how well chemistry can work if only two people out of a three person group feel like friends over fifty episodes into the series. I can understand why people would say that it's dull, but saying that the trio's chemistry felt forced and artificial feels like a bit much to me. It still feels like the hate on the DP trio is exaggerated, or at least I don't think that it was nearly as bad as other people here did.

Iris finds Satoshi annoying at times his behavior with battling type disadvantages and isn't very charmed by Dento's annoying antics but, you can really tell they care for each other, Dento and Iris are meant to be polar opposites.

I think the main problem lies with Dento, his attitude at times, personality, and goal are all so derailed and bland overall. Whenever he does his attention hog, boring mess it just throws off the whole dynamic of the group. Whenever there are chances for them to work together as a group, Dento usually does his own things and saves the day and has shown to be great at everything pretty much which doesn't really make him engaging or fun to watch for the most part since Iris and Satoshi are all still learning. Example, in the Zorua episode they went to the trouble of giving Satoshi stage fright just to have Dento jump in and save the day and show how awesome and great he is once again since he's also a "Film Sommelier", this would have been a good chance for Iris, Luke, and Dento to work together to support there friend and show how they mold together and support each other, but it was just another shot to glorify Dento. When there fishing Dento does his own thing while Bel, Iris, and Satoshi stick by close together. He goes off as does his expert stuff. Dento also doesn't bring anything new to the table personality wise since he has a rather bland and tired demeanor most time, unlike with Iris's snarky-friend attitude, or Satoshi's true best friend helpful, hard worker caring attitude, or Bel's screw ball crazy off the wall attitude, even Stephan brings something fun to the table, nothing "very different" but, that's something at least, he trains hard and interacts with Satoshi and Iris, and has a rivalry-friend rivalry with Satoshi and Iris and respects both of them.

Satoshi and Iris have great interactions and screen time together. Take the Subway episode for example. Throughout this episode you can really tell Satoshi and Iris are friends and care for each other. Like when they both are at Musical, Satoshi goes on stage and dances around. Iris roots for him, and cheers hard for him and is really finding him to be entertaining and fun. When they both play Tennis in the sports dome, when the match is over they both shake hands smiling at each other and showing great sportsmanship. When the Don battle ends, Don George grabs both there hands and holds them in the air with them both looking up nonchalantly and happy like there both the winners. Not only that but, Iris is interested in Satoshi cause of Zekrom, she also respects his style and told him one of her goals is to meet Zekrom. You can really tell they care for each other. When they find Erina's Kibago-Chan they both work together hard to find Erina and have a cute amount of comedic moments together, even both apologizing for Emonga's behavior together, they both love vine swining and tree climbing, they both eat a lot and eat wild. They have fantastic duo interactions, the main problem is Dento just doesn't mold very well with them being a classy pretty boy in a group of Satoshi and Iris wild people who do off the wall crazy stuff and really do stuff together and mold together. If Dento could drop his classy stuck up demeanor for once and cut loose then maybe the chemistry could be better, Iris/Satoshi have entertaining fun interctions Dento/Satoshi on the other hand have this generic and bland interactions where everything they say feels so makeshift and predictable thus making them feel like there two people who are just there, bland interactions that just aren't enjoyable and feel typical.

I still wonder why he's in the group, he came to learn from Satoshi. But, has won every battle using his "Dento Pretty Boy IT'S TASTING TIME!" battle style. He hasn't taken a thing from Satoshi, or learned or grown as a character thus far in BW, which makes him seem to generic and froced, in to the group.

Lol, I love this forum.

Anyway, as said...after the first 50+ episodes of each said series...DP wins by a landslide. This series in general just lacks anything compelling, seems to give a big "fuck you" to continuity, and just screams a lack of effort on the writers part for the terrible writing, and development. I want to hope that it improves, but really after almost 60 episodes....things just seem largely unchanged. What the hell happened writers...what happened?

The group dynamics got better, but other aspects all got worse.

I prefer:

- DP's battles
- DP's Gym battles
- So far, Ash's Sinnoh team was more enjoyable than his BW team
- Ash as a character was handled much better
- The continuity not only within DP itself, but with past sagas. DP had so many references to AG and the original series and respected the old stuff.
- Rivalries were MUCH better especially for Ash.
- Pokehunter J and Team Galactic were the best villains the show ever had


BW on the other hand has better:

- Group dynamics. Ash/Iris/Cilan work as both characters and a group. Not forced staleness like the DP trio, where two characters are very important and Brock is just there.
- Better pacing. If Unova ends at a little over 100 episodes, that's much better than taking 191 for a single region.
- No Team Rocket constantly showing up in each episode. TR had finally run their course in DP
- Axew isn't anywhere as forced or somewhat annoying like Piplup was

Stuff I am indifferent about:

- I liked the Contests in DP, but there was no doubt they were getting stale in concept. I don't mind that they're gone, but I do sometimes miss watching the female character have her own storyline.

- No old characters. Granted Gary barely appeared in DP, but it was nice to see him...I suppose?

Thing is, the writers didn't really change...so why is the writing so bad? Looking at the first 56 episodes of D/P there were so many things done better. It's really like the writers aren't even trying anymore. Each series improved over the last, but in BW...we have a massive step backwards, in just about everything.

My guess is the writers thought the Ash + female coordinator + Brock formula was stale, and didn't want to repeat it a third time.

I also assume when the writers gave Ash a Gible in late DP, they realized, "Ash getting more than 6 pokemon isn't so bad," and decided to experiment with it, but unfortunately it seems to have backfired. He got all the starters again because Iris and Cilan aren't competing in anything and they didn't want to repeat the mistake of Mudkip going to Brock.

That doesn't explain why the battles have gotten worse though, which is confusing. At least they're not ONE-HIT KO's like most of Kanto's however.

I don't think changing up the group is a valid excuse to regress Ash's character though. They could have still kept him mature, and competent. His handling, and writing in this saga is just awful so far.

Originally Posted by Zidane

I don't think changing up the group is a valid excuse to regress Ash's character though. They could have still kept him mature, and competent. His handling, and writing in this saga is just awful so far.

Its been 14 years since the start of the anime, my guess is the writers probably would have gotten rid of Ash at the end of DP, but through some mandate had to keep him.

The funny thing is you still see Piplup on advertisements for Pokemon stuff in Japan even though its no longer in the anime. If they ever get rid of Ash its not like Pikachu would stop being promoted.

To be quite honest, Unova probably should have been handled similarly to how Hoenn was, and the things that Hoenn brought into the anime.

- No rival for Ash
- Ash not getting every starter
- Giving the female her own storyline (I know Iris has the dragon master thing, but she is suffering because lack of Dragons imo)

To explain, Ash/Trip have no rivalry. Its just not there, and Ash would have been better off without a rival. It didn't deter him and his growth one bit in Hoenn, and Ash appeared very mature in that season. If he needed an antagonist, theres always N and Team Plasma.

Ash has too many Pokemon, yes too many. 10 or more years ago people would likely try to burn me saying such a thing (Gotta catch em all!) but those times are long gone. Its been tried and proven true that a few well developed Pokemon on Ash's team goes a long way.

Iris needs a separate thing like what the last two girls had. Iris does go periods without screen time and development and then she gets development but its a bit much because I feel the writers try to make up for the lack of development before. May/Dawn on the other hand had to struggle and grow tremendously in a similar manner to Ash, and Ash was actually a mentor in that regard.

As or the writers, we all have times where we basically just... well throw up our hands and say... well you know. Its just sad in this case because Unova had alot of fantastic material and potential that remains unused.

Agreed. It was probably seriously discussed, on whether or not Ash should stay around, and they came up with the new Ash in BW as a sort of compromise between the two arguments.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

My guess is the writers thought the Ash + female coordinator + Brock formula was stale, and didn't want to repeat it a third time.

I doubt that was the reason why they didn't have Brock and a third coordinator in the group for BW, especially when they don't seem to mind going through a new cycle of Gyms with each region and they actually did more with Dawn's Contest arc than they did with May. Even though I prefer May overall, Dawn did benefit from how the writers were already familiar with how Contests work and made them a more significant part to the DP series. Since Unova is so far away from the other regions, they probably wanted Ash and Pikachu to be the only non-Unova characters in the main group. Besides that, Contests aren't even present in the Black and White games, which I've mentioned quite a few times when you've made the claim that the writers thought that Contests were stale. There wouldn't be much of a point to keep them for Unova if they aren't in the games. I still would have loved seeing another Contest arc, especially since it would have been better than whatever they're doing with Iris, and they did offer something different instead of Ash battling his rivals and Gym matches all of the time. If they had brought in a new coordinator who was more interesting than I thought Dawn was, personality-wise, I would have been all for another Contest arc.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

I also assume when the writers gave Ash a Gible in late DP, they realized, "Ash getting more than 6 pokemon isn't so bad," and decided to experiment with it, but unfortunately it seems to have backfired. He got all the starters again because Iris and Cilan aren't competing in anything and they didn't want to repeat the mistake of Mudkip going to Brock.

I actually don't mind that ash got all of the starters again. Oshawott and Tepig are overused, but I really couldn't see them going to Iris or Cilan. Although, I remember wanting Iris to get Tepig instead, but considering how she's been handled, I'm not sure if I want her to capture any more Pokemon at this point. Though, I do agree that the experiment of Ash capturing more than his usual five Pokemon per region backfired, but not because of the starters. As others have mentioned, he just caught far too many for this early in the region. Maybe if they fixed the pacing for the first three Gyms so that his Pokemon would get decent development/screentime and the captures were spaced out more so that even the extra Pokemon he caught would have a chance of doing something significant, then it might have worked. As it is right now, it just feels like Ash is too capture happy instead of focused on training what he already has, outside of Oshawott and maybe Tepig, which is really weird to see after he put a lot of time and energy in training his Pokemon teams in AG and especially in DP. Most of his Pokemon either have little screentime or little to no personality and the faster pace of the series certainly doesn't do them any favor. When I forget that Ash has a Swadloon or that I still find Tranquil's evolution pointless, then I think that there's a significant problem with the how they're handling his Pokemon.

I would've picked BW immediately if the writers already brought in Team Plasma and N, but there's nothing about them yet. The best thing I liked about BW was the episodes in Nimbasa City, including the Subway Masters, Elesa, and Bianca.


I like DP better because the writers seemed to have been more interested in keeping the game plots. Especially the characters. Like, how they included Roark in Byron's episode, and Riley's two-timer with Team Galactic was cool. Volkner could've been done better, but I guess he was okay. Marley was awesome with Shaymin LOLZ. Besides, they also included the Rangers from the side-games - how epic is that?

Well people wanted to see a return to the Kanto formula, which is what BW was trying to do. I guess now that we have it, people didn't exactly get their wish, did it?

There's a reason the show had to change when Johto came to an end, and it worked. New ideas and new characters as well as Ash maturing were the reasons to continue watching, otherwise it would have felt pointless.

What BW does is essentially undoes all the advancements made with the series over the last 9 years, and aside from using new characters, is essentially a new version of Kanto just repackaged.

Iris is Misty
Cilan is Brock
Trip is Gary
And Ash was regressed to almost Kanto or Johto Ash

With a new coat of paint and slightly altered so the writers could pass them off as new characters.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Well people wanted to see a return to the Kanto formula, which is what BW was trying to do. I guess now that we have it, people didn't exactly get their wish, did it?

No offense, but who exactly wanted to see a return to the Kanto formula? I certainly didn't want that. I liked how the anime continued to move forward with each new series and I didn't want them to regress back to how they used to handle the characters, both human and Pokemon, the stories and the battles.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

What BW does is essentially undoes all the advancements made with the series over the last 9 years, and aside from using new characters, is essentially a new version of Kanto just repackaged.

Iris is Misty
Cilan is Brock
Trip is Gary
And Ash was regressed to almost Kanto or Johto Ash

With a new coat of paint and slightly altered so the writers could pass them off as new characters.

I don't see that much of a connection between Iris and Misty. They have some similarities and are basically in the same role, but they're handling Iris' personality and development different from Misty, for better or worse. As much as I like Brock, I have to admit that Cilan isn't that similar to Brock. Other than both of them being the wise older mentor of the group, I don't see much of a connection between the two of them. Cilan has a pretty different personality and he doesn't fade into the background anywhere nearly as much Brock did. For me, Trip is really a poor man's Gary, which is pretty pathetic in my opinion. I also don't think that Ash has regressed anywhere near to how he was in Kanto. I could kind of understand the claim that he's regressed back to how he was in Johto, but he isn't close to how he was in Kanto. While the battles and training, or lack there of, aren't as great as they were in the past couple of series, I would say that they're still better than what we saw in Kanto.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Iris is Misty
Cilan is Brock
Trip is Gary
And Ash was regressed to almost Kanto or Johto Ash

With a new coat of paint and slightly altered so the writers could pass them off as new characters.

I don't think Iris is like Misty. Sure, they both kind of make fun of(?) Ash but they both have different personalities. As for Cilan and Brock, I really have no idea where you're getting that one. No offense or anything, but Cilan is, well to put it, flamboyant, which Brock certainly is not. Cilan is more showy and not a womanizer like Brock. So, obvious differences there. Now for Trip, I don't think he's like Gary at all. He doesn't make fun of Ash like Gary. He only makes fun of his being from Kanto and nothing else. And it's not like he goes out of his way to show Ash how many badges he's got to make him jealous of it or anything. If anything, Trip is more like Paul, but even there, they have differences.