Thread: Is Unova the New Kanto?

Ash's character regression/loss of experience. Iris' Misty-like taunting. The emphasis on Pikachu and Ash catching lots of Pokémon. Gary-act-alike Trip. Is this a sign of Unova being the "New Kanto"?

Or is this an overexaggeration since Cilan isn't really Brock or Misty, or because of the non-Trip rivals?

Discuss.

I don't know if it's really al that much like Kanto. Sure, Ash is catching a lot of Pokemon, but his attitude is very different. Ash is kind of annoying now... Just me.

Iris, however, is not THAT much like Misty. I think she's a bit better, in how she isn't ALWAYS downing Ash. Iris does make a lot of sarcastic put-downs, but she doesn't do it as much as Misty.

There really is no emphasis on Pikachu. I honestly forget that Pikachu is even there. Which is pretty bad.

Trip isn't anything like Gary, in my opinion.... Gary is all cocky and smiling making, again, sarcastic put-downs to Ash. Trip just stands around acting like, "Oh, I think I'm hot stuff, so I won't waste my time battling this basic trainer."... I think Gary would actually WANT to battle Ash and say, "Ha, what a loser. I'll battle you and make you see that!".

So, yeah.... I don't really think Unova is anything like Kanto. Especially when N comes(Yeah, I know. This is getting sad.)!!!! THAT'LL BE AWESOME!!!

While I can't deny that Unova seems to pay homage to a lot of episodes and features of the Kanto saga, I don't think it is the "New Kanto." Kanto was faster paced, Brock was always less prominent than Cilan is now, and though Ash does seem to have regressed to his old "noob" self, he doesn't have the same mentality (the purposeful bad type match-ups is getting a bit ridiculous, honestly).

Cilan and Iris are more like actual characters than Brock and Misty, since those two didn't really have rivals, they had only vaguely defined goals (even more vague than that of Cilan and Iris, which is saying a lot)...

Whether you like BW or not, I just don't think of it as a "New Kanto."

Um... I don't think there's a lot of emphasis on Pikachu in Unova. In fact, it's almost like it vanishes and appears to just say "pika" sometimes.

Pikachu was used in the 1st Gym, 3rd Gym, 4th Gym, and Don battle tournament. That means it was used in every major battle so far but the 2nd Gym.

There is more emphasis on Pikachu again, for some reason. I don't think Unova is entirely like Kanto but its doing similar things.

Not completely, but the writers are clearly making parallels between the two.

Unova is almost nothing like Kanto was with only real similarity being that Ash is traveling with 2 gym leaders again.Style of writing is completely different and while Ash,Cilan and Iris are having good dynamic they arent having that amount of chemistry and bond first trio had in my opinion.

Not to mention Best Wishes doesnt have original series vibe to it with Kanto being faster paced,having more comedy and slapstick humor,gym leaders werent just battling machines having unique stories following them(anyone remember Sabrina?).There were also several wacky plots and completely different styčl of writing compared to other regions.

Granted i wont deny how Iris and Cilan are having some similarities with Misty and Brock.Cilan is older caretaker and wise face of group,while Iris tends to tease and nitpick on Ash but as far as similarity goes thats really it.Misty was more tempered,spunky,sarcastic and passionate about several things(like romance,battling,fishing etc),while Iris comes across as more experienced trainer being hyper and wild within her attitude.She also tends to be intrusive at times.

While with Brock he was more calm and collected being obsessed about girls,while Cilan tends to be more flamboyant and vivid having several hobbies going for his character.

Their goals,backstories and past are also largely different.

Compared to Kanto,BW is also improved version in some aspects.Battles are better,Cilan and Iris have better defined goals receiving fairly solid amount of focus for supporting characters,rivalries are treated better and there is more attention being given on development of pokemon.

Not saying how Kanto or Unova are better than another,but they hardly can be compared between themselves with new series not having Kanto vibe,dynamic and writing at all.

Which is good thing because each saga should be different from another having its own things which define it.People dont want to sit through rehash of previous series.

Originally Posted by FinalArcadia

Cilan and Iris are more like actual characters than Brock and Misty, since those two didn't really have rivals, they had only vaguely defined goals (even more vague than that of Cilan and Iris, which is saying a lot)...

Whether you like BW or not, I just don't think of it as a "New Kanto."

Just because they have rivals and better defined goals doesnt make Iris and Cilan more"realistic"as characters,Misty and Brock had their own personalities and girls which defined them,they offered us insight into their past and struggles(albeit more in Misty case)receiving some good development.
Arguably they had more apparent flaws going through personal questioning and problems(lik complex of inferiority caused by older siblings,having to take care of big family wanting to run away from that kind of life,being insecure etc) feeling more realistic and complex in that aspect(in my opinion anyway).

Not to mention they had their own story and goals too.While less defined we knew some basic things like Misty wanting to become best water trainer,and Brock wanting to become one of best breeders learning how to raise and keep in optimal shape pokemon.

Iris and Cilan are great characters,but Misty and Brock were just as good.Some things werent handled well because writing wasnt on same level,but same goes for current ones in some aspects not falling in quality behind.

I wouldn't say BW in its entirety is the new Kanto, but it sure does emulate a lot of what the original series did whenever the hell the writers feel like doing so. The first two episodes alone were filled with many direct parallels to the beginning of Kanto, right down to Delia doting over Ash right before his journey began.

Cilan and Iris have bigger roles than Brock and Misty despite still being sidekicks, but there are some analogies you can make between the two pairs. Iris and Misty both gave Ash flak frequently; difference being that Misty was usually justified in doing so while Iris was just being a hypocritical jerk. They're also both considered to be tomboys (really lame ones, imo) and want to be a <Insert Type Here> Master. Plus both had really stupid reasons to follow Ash (I still maintain that Iris has no official reason because the Zekrom thing is retarded). Cilan and Brock don't have the same personality, but both fill the same role of "older mentor-like figure" in addition to being the Mobile Mom in the cooking department. Cilan and Brock were also recruited in a similar way, being the first Gym Leaders Ash faced in each season and deciding to ditch their gyms for their own personal reasons to follow Ash.

Ash himself hasn't regressed back to his idiotic, abraisive Kanto persona, but he's getting there at times. More accurately he's like his Johto self, which isn't really much better aside from the fact that he's notable experienced... and the same applies to BW Ash. 90% of the time he acts as if he never traveled through four and half regions and completed a Battle Frontier before, but then there are brief, fleeting moments of Ash showing some actual maturity along the lines of how he should be acting all the time. It's tricky, but once those moments end Ash is back to being a bumbling dumbass getting his ass kicked by a kid who's got a lot less experience than him and isn't shown to be smarter than him at all, really.

Pretty obvious parallel recently was the "Gary always being one step ahead of Ash" being put on Trip even though that makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Arguably you might make a vague parallel to Team Rocket's "transformation", as in the very beginning of Kanto they were made out to be pretty serious foes before settling into a comedic style about ten-ish episodes in. In BW, TR's doing the reversal, only that was an abrupt and immediate change rather than a gradual thing.

Pidgeotto wasn't much more than a balloon-popper in its heyday as far as I recall. Tranquill doesn't even get that much; its existence is almost questionable by now. Naturally, there's also the Ash catching all three starters again which he hasn't done since Johto, Tepig having the abused past only nothing's really being done with it (the other Fire-type starters also fall into this shtick, but Tepig's capture is the one most similar to Charmander's), Ash going on a motherfucking catching frenzy, and him ignoring type logic is akin to him refusing to evolve his goddamn Pokemon.

Arguably you can say the animators have settled back into their lazy animating ways from the day of old, since they can't be bothered to animate any attacks from any angle but one for some reason. Also, pacing. BW zoom-zoom motherfuckered through the first three gyms like lightning, much how Kanto did for its first few gyms. And naturally, because of the lack of planning in pacing, we got a huge-ass gap of fillers and there's generally no rhyme or reason to the pacing of the anime.

It's a stretch, but lots of controversey in both Kanto and BW. Kanto naturally had the Porygon incident which banned that episode from ever being aired again, while BW got its shit wrecked by the earthquake disaster which postponed 3 episodes with two still shelved, seemingly indefinitely. Though it wasn't addressed in Kanto, you might parallel the controversey with Lenora and Jynx. Nah, that's too much of a stretch. But it's worth noting that both Kanto and BW had the writers giving the middle finger in terms of staying loyal to their roots, i.e. the games in terms of characters and storyline parallels. I guess you could say the same of AG, given how they treated their villains, Steven Stone, and completely ommitted Wally, but in most general aspects they seemed more similar to RSE, especially with the Gym Leaders.

Alright, I rambled enough. Uhhh... tl;dr: BW isn't full-on New Kanto, per se, but it certainly feels like it's trying to be Kanto at times. But usually BW falls flat on its face whenever it does these homages and we've long grown past those days, so the last thing we need from this series is regression. And BW? It is a huge assload of regression and fail.

Originally Posted by Blue1225

Not completely, but the writers are clearly making parallels between the two.

I agree. Ash is the one main token-collecting quest character, and he has Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott. His two companions traveling with him are a guy and girl who are both gym leaders in the games. Wobbuffett (think I spelled it wrong) isn't around. And most of the old Pokemon are nowhere to be seen.

But they're taking the show in different directions from Kanto. They took elements that started from Kanto and took things in a new direction. So I do believe Unova's the new Kanto. They're not 100% identical though.

EDIT: It parallels to what the Black and White games are doing with pretty much only new Pokemon available this generation (with exceptions, but that's another story). And things like the new Geodude line-up (Roggenrola) and the new Voltorb (which is Foongus).

EDIT 2: What am I saying? Of course it's not completely the same. We're talking about calling it a NEW Kanto.

Do I feel like Unova is the New Kanto?? In certain fields, yes but not completely...Ash is the primary main focus of this series as he was in OS, but the spotlight and screentime is shifted over to Iris and Cilan more than Misty and Brock. Because of that, the focus on their goals/activity in the series is much more prevalent...I also feel like the group dynamics of the BW trio is somewhat of an homage to the Kanto trio, in addition to the pokemon of the unova region as well.

However! The differences shouldn't be too difficult to see, right? So far, the quality of the gym battles in Unova are better than the ones in Kanto because Ash has to fight for his badges, actually EARN them, rather than receiving them as gifts for doing something heroic. Also, Ash's attitude towards training is slightly above his level in Kanto. Remember, Ash wasn't really an advocate of pokemon training back then. Although he was and still is a trainer that acts primarily out of instinct, Ash in Kanto believed that friendship with pokemon was the most important thing to do in order to be a great trainer. "All you have to do is be the best of friends with your pokemon, and believe in them and that will lead you to victory!!"

Watching Ash in BW, we should be able to see that he's not so dismissive of training his pokemon. In terms of his ability as a trainer, he may have been set back to a Johto or Early AG level. It would be nice to see him train his pokemon just a bit more though.

With Cilan, he shares similarities with Brock being the first gym leader of their respective regions...As others have said, they are like the older male care takers of the groups, as well as being the mobile mother figures having the needs of the group on hand. But it seems as if Cilan is given more opportunities to shine in different ways giving him more noticeability in the plot of certain episodes while Brock was left to depend on his running gag to sustain his existence and/or prescence in the episode.

As far as Misty and Iris are concerned...I can see a few similarities between the two...Both wanting to master a certain type of pokemon, though I must say that Iris' goal seems to have been explained a bit more eloquently than Misty's was, and it looks like her goal may possibly get better handling (but that's still up in the air A.T.M.). But as far as their personalities go, they definitely don't seem the same to me. When it comes to arguments with Ash, he at least showed signs of being affected more by things Misty said, and that's proven and supported with Ash participating in arguments with Misty. At least Misty's criticisms towards Ash were justified for the most part. Initially Misty was traveling on her own, and then Ash comes and steals her bike to take Pikachu to a Pokemon Center, and wrecks the bike in the process. Misty wanted to be re-imbersed for her bike that was destroyed, so she had valid reason to travel with Ash.

As far as Iris goes, I have to admit I can't really say that she's justified at ALL in her criticisms on Ash...Matter of fact, I can't really think of one good reason as to why Iris criticizes Ash the way she does...Perhaps it's because she's believes that even as a visitor of the Unova region that Ash should've done his homework before or on arrival in the region...Perhaps she feels like things in Unova should be common knowledge to all people and that Ash is unreasonalby oblivious to such things...In spite of that, I can't really say that those are good reasons to support her behavior of poking fun at Ash as such actions are indicative of Iris' immaturity IMO...

So I'd say it's slightly similar to Kanto, but's it's not the same because the writers are definitely taking a different spin on things...

Like others have said, not completely but close. Its basically a remixed version of it with Unovan themes.

It would be accurate to say that the writers have modeled the B/W anime and direction after the Kanto anime and direction. While homages are nice and all, they really shouldn't have done that imo.

I thought that Hoen was, because it was the first after kanto to have all knew pokemon and not relations to the others, Brand new.

Hoenn had Azurill and Wynaut. Not to mention, in the anime there were older wild Pokemon that weren't available in Hoenn in the games but were available in the show.

Another thing that mimics Kanto is the reserves evolving out of nowhere, like Krabby/Kingler in the league, and we're seeing that in BW now with Ash's reserves.

I don't think it is the new Kanto as much as there are times when the episodes are paying homeage to Kanto. ('Flight 151' in BW001?)

Remember when the episodes were first airing and many people were saying it's "Kanto done right"?

There will always be parallels and similarities between all of the series', it's what anyone makes of it, intentionally done or not. The first few episodes did feel very reminiscent of Kanto, especially at the pace he caught the starters. Even the way he acquired Pokabu was pretty much the same as Hitokage. But with Kanto, when there was filler, it didn't have the "this has already been done" feeling because it was fresh and new, of course redone plots are going to feel that way in Best Wishes after being the fifth series.

As far as the characters....there are times when I see Dento stepping in to Takeshi's role as a mentor, but I don't see the two as similar more than that, and the gym leader thing.. Oh, and the cooking, I guess :-P But they have completely different goals and personalities, as well as their reasons for wanting to travel with Satoshi, and would hardly compare the two in general.

Iris and Kasumi, eh. Again, the only similarity I see is that they like to poke fun at Satoshi, and they want to train a certain type of Pokemon. Thank goodness they got rid of that mallet gag. In the way that Iris does it, it's more condescending than Kasumi did. There are times when it feels like Iris is doing it simply to feel better about herself. Kasumi spent more time working toward her goal, concentrating more on water pokemon than Iris seems to on catching dragons, but again, I don't see the two as comparable.

Overall, this gen feels like one that's going to be built on in future gens, like Kanto. What I mean by that is, in future gens, they'll develop new evolutions for Gen 5 pokemon instead of working backwards, etc.