Rewatched some of the original episodes as an adult and it feels like the writers were using the TR trio as a cheat code.>Episode has some kind of tension between the characters?>Just have TR show up with some giant gizmo robot, get blasted away by Pikachu>Everyone is happy now because courage and friendship and gay shit blah blah
>>59611092to be honest, they had to juggle between having to use the team rocket trio because they were required to introduce them in every episode and needing to wrap the current episode's storyline, and since they have to focus on the former, it makes the episodes weaker overall because they have a limited amount of time per episode to wrap everything up nicely
>>59611092yes anon, it's a very formulaic monster-of-the-week kid's show. even as a kid I realized this. don't think anyone has ever really held up the Pokemon anime as anything particularly great. it's entertaining, don't get me wrong, I loved it as a kid. but yeah.
>>59611116>because they were required to introduce them in every episodeGenuinely why lol? I can understand using them in non conflict episodes to generate some action and stakes. But otherwise they're just there to stall the storyline. The payoff would have been worth it if they had been building up to Ash facing off against Giovanni like in the games, but they remained anime Wil E Coyote for the entire run
>>59611131i think it was some contract thing where they had to make jessie and james do shit in every episode if they were to be recurring antagonists?
>>59611092Oh 100%. They're a better version of >Swiper, no swiping!but they're still a Swiper. That being said, I've been doing a rewatch of the series, and in the OG anime, they're quite good. Johto, on the other hand, is such a slog. You know how people complain that Family Guy really likes to waste time out of writing laziness as opposing to writing a good, coherent plot? Team Rocket became the Pokemon version of that. Hell, you even notice times when they use Team Rocket TWICE in the same episode, as in they have to "blast off again" multiple times. I think the OG series is fucking amazing in that it has an amazing run from like the Electric Gym -> The Prehistoric Pokemon episodes, which is like 30 or 40 eps. Basically every episode in between is top notch. After that, you get to where something like very other episode has a mid vibe to it. As in the Family Guy analogy, writers had to resort to wasting time; this happens within the episodes and for the series itself. It was around this time that I think the 1st movie was coming out or being made. Instead of ending the OG series in a golden way, they chose to continue it into Johto, so a lot of filler was really needed until the 8th gym and the Pokemon League. As I said before, some of it was good, and Team Rocket was a big tool in filling up this required time.The Johto writing really makes you dislike Team Rocket whereas they're absolutely beloved in Kanto. Even though TR is just a tool to advance the plot many of the times, >THEY WERE STUPIDLY FUN, and creatively written. I am forever in the belief, however, that the funniest episode is in Johto, and the main reason is because of Team Rocket. I will spread this gospel whenever I can>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2wJCfy211c
>>59611092>Anon complaining about the established MotW formula of 90's kids anime.
It's a weekly kids animeIt's gonna be repetitive
>>59611092Yeah, I watched the Japanese dub for the first time and it was a boring slog. Nothing of value in the ashnime, the only people who defend it are nostalgiatards.
>>59611092Never watched Time Bokan/Yatterman?
>>59611092It's a glorified commercial, of course it has lazy writing.
>>59611092Buddy just discovered Japan's version of Saturday morning cartoons for the first time.
>>59611092OP would die watching Doraemon
>>59612323of course he didn't, zoomers don't try to search for the sources the anime they watch get inspired from
>>59612406I grew up watching Doaraemon. The thing is Doraemon doesn't have an overarching storyline. Nobita deals with typical slice of life schoolkid stuff and the series pretty much doesn't have any continuity. Other than filler stuff, that doesn't apply to Ash.
>>59611092team rocket is the reason why the anime was goodthey are funny and likeablethey were too repetitive during gen 3 anime, but got a major glowup in gen 4 anime, and then it was a complete downgrade in gen 5haven't watched gen 5 anime after a few early episodes yet, so i don't know if it gets betteri'm trying to watch gen 6 anime now, and it sucks just as much as gen 5 anime
>>59611092>dbzfag watches pokemon>learns about the concept of fun
>>59611116My conclusion as well. You're watching an episode, wondering how a story will play out, and then the camera zooms out to their binocular viewport or cuts to the Meowth balloon and you go "oh...". You can be the most consistently entertaining thing about the show and banally overused at the same time. There's a reason they were either cut from a lot of the later movies or used to ham-fistedly create the problem for about 90 seconds and then blast off.
