- Joined
- Jun 17, 2006
- Messages
- 14,522
- Reaction score
- 21,175
- Staff
- #41
As much as I prefer DP, it is a shame that AG doesn't really get much attention. Granted, I think stuff like May's Contests and the Battle Frontier haven't really aged well, but it was still quite enjoyable. Ash's battles were pretty solid and the Hoenn League was pretty good. Starting off with a brand new team and new characters really made it stood out as like Ash really was starting all over again. At this point, that's pretty much standard, so there's no real surprise factor in doing that, but it's hard to describe how refreshing it was when they did it for the first time in AG.I think it's the other way around. AG is forgotten because it was immediately followed by DP, which to be frank was a superior version of the same story. It somehow became the most inoffensive season of the show nobody really talks about anymore.
I still think it might have been a stronger series if they had been able to extend Hoenn for four years instead of three. It's weird to say that I think the series would have been better without the Battle Frontier since I still say that it is Ash's best accomplishment to date, but they could have used that time to expand on Hoenn, maybe give May some more Pokemon, give her a couple of more defeats and pace out some of the Gym battles a bit better. The Battle Frontier arc is also just way too rushed. They kind of had to do that when they had a short amount of time to cover the Battle Frontier Challenge, the Kanto Contests and the Kanto Grand Festival. The arc is one of the reasons why I think the Pokemon anime works better when it has a slower pace instead of cramming in so much at once.
People definitely didn't like Max, but since he didn't get that much attention and was mainly on the sidelines, it was pretty easy to ignore him. I remember Ash definitely arguing with his friends over what they wanted to do instead of going straight to the Gym at least a couple of times. He would even argue with May about going to her Contest, despite how there would be more of a time limit for her to get to a Contest while he could get a badge anytime. I always noticed that they didn't really do this in either DP or XY. Whenever they had to go somewhere for Dawn's Contests or Serena's Showcase, he wouldn't really argue that they have to go to his Gym battle first.Yeah, I don't see too many complaints about it or a centralizing complaint. However, I think Max was annoying and Ash was pretty selfish/jerkish regarding his Gym Battles; do you know how many episodes started off with the gang wanting to do something and him basically saying "No! My Gym Battle first! Deal with it!"