Sun and Moon: Episode 3 and 4 Review

(Shockingly enough, Meowth's animated alright.)

Episode 3; and thus the animation slowly becomes more and more disgusting... Except this Meowth scene. This Meowth scene is actually good. I mean this:

(He basically does this for no reason. -.-)

But there are some (?) positives in this episode. First of all, Team Rocket has returned, which is a massive mixed bag. Jessie and James look hideous and seem to make bizarre gestures. Meowth, however, is apparently getting more of a character focus. I was actually pretty surprised, but Meowth's focus was definitely more obvious than Jessie or James.

I have a theory that this may be because of the Alolan Meowth. It may be possible that a character arc about Meowth may be planned, but it's much too early to tell. We also get to meet Mimikyu; an adorable ghost that the show seems to believe is creepy. He also hates Pikachu, which I originally thought was a mistranslation but seems to be the case.

I don't know whether it's a good or bad thing that Mimikyu it prepared to mop the floor with Pikachu, because I don't know what level it is at. Regardless, it is a relief to see Team Rocket get a competent Pokémon. Then there's Bewear... The pedo bear that isn't exactly interesting and eventually totes Jessie and James away.

Oh wow, that's a metaphor for Sun and Moon as a whole. The whole show would be better with just the Pokémon and not the humans. Meowth, Mimikyu, Wobuffet, and maybe Pikachu. They don't need any of these lame trainers holding them back.

(James and Jessie look really off... And poorly drawn. Again, notice Meowth looks animated better.)

And guess what? Ash just keeps getting worse. He's getting more stupid every minute, forgetting things that he should either know or basically understand, and he's pulling out even uglier faces with each passing minute. He is a train that has already derailed and now is skidding down a mountain, straight towards a fifty foot cliff. Pikachu is the imp that dislodged the train off the tracks.

All of Ash's classmates, or friends, are even more cumbersome than before. All of them were in this episode and none of them did anything. Only some had lines, none offered to help fight off Team Rocket (even considering the fight with Team Skull), and were wastes of animation. Each was shocked in unison, each smiled in unison. They were completely unneeded.

(My exact reaction during most of this.)

As interesting as the Rotom Dex concept is, and as inoffensive as the Dex is, they spend way too much time introducing it, introducing it to others, and explaining it to the audience. Just because Ash can't understand basic logic doesn't mean we can't. It's not like a whole new batch of viewers are watching this; it's the same people who watched X and Y. Also, there's a scene where Rotom is electrocuted and-... Isn't Rotom an electric type? I thought he'd be pretty fine with it. Inconsistent.

The more I think about it, the more that the thirty minutes felt like a lot of wasted fluff. Nothing happened, except Mimikyu, and we only came out with Team Rocket catching a Pokémon... Sort of.

(One last picture to show, again, Meowth's better animation.)

Episode 4 begins in the same fashion. Pikachu loses a battle to a much weaker Pokémon (he get hit-like-once), Lillie has another unfunny 'scared of Pokemon' scene, Team Rocket does some stuff, and so far I am absolutely not impressed. I expected another pathetic episode.

However, halfway through episode 4 actually irons out some of its problems and pulls around. The actual premise of the episode is that a Rowlet, who lives with the Toucanno that raised it and its family of Pikipeks and a Trumbeak, ends up weary and hungry and in the arms of Ash. Ash takes care of it, feeds it in an adorable scene, and it eventually takes a watermelon and leaves.

(Rowlet eating a banana is better animated than most facial expressions so far.)

Ash and Mallow, only one of his friends-thank goodness, head into the forest to find it. They realize that it's bringing back food to the others. However, they are all soon attacked by Team Rocket... Who are then carried off by Bewear. If Team Rocket's going to blast off by being carried away by a bear then this is pitiful. It's still blasting off predictably, just... Now with this boring bear.

The bear isn't threatening. The bear isn't even interesting. It's just another downfall of this thing.

(Wait, so... Did they just get away with stealing the berries?... Huh...)

However, back to the original story. Contrary to usual Pokémon stories where the odd Pokémon out would realize they were being taken advantage of and leave with Ash, Toucannon nudges Rowlet out of the nest and gives his blessing to him going with Ash. As such, Rowlet cuddles with Ash before being caught officially and joining the group.

Again, this shows how much better the Pokémon are to the humans, and how the animation on the Pokémon is better too. However, episode four does a lot more than the previous three in other ways. Firstly, they eventually do cut down the amount of people who are pointlessly running around with Ash, though Mallow being there is pointless, and manage to somewhat suppress Ash's stupidity towards the end.

(Literally the first time Ash actually made a good expression; this is a cute scene.)

The moments between the Pokémon and Rowlet's backstory are particularly well done. The Pokémon scenes themselves are particularly well done. The human stuff is garbage. (Wow, feels like I'm talking about Silver Eyes again.) Team Rocket had an okay moment, but I see them getting really boring really quickly if they don't shape up.

Lillie's got to go. After playing the game, I realize how much of a bas- of a misconstruction of the character this is. Lillie's character arc in the game, her strength and ability to grow, is not present here. Instead, Lillie is just whatever was leftover from Misty. They gave her a fear of Pokémon, that's it. I don't even know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

Also, I must insist that the show treating it viewers like they've never seen Pokémon before, even having Rotom explain to Ash how to catch a Pokémon, is unbelievably awful. If you were going to make this Pokémon for people who've A: Never seen Pokémon, B: Never played Pokémon, and C: Don't understand the basic rules of Pokémon, then you should make a Pokémon alternative for people who aren't two years old. Even at three, when I started watching Pokémon, I grasped these general concepts. Pokémon wasn't talking down to me.

And I don't count those five minute long Pokémon skits on YouTube as anything more than advertising. They don't last long enough to be satisfying and a few of them seem to fail in getting their story across. Yet they seem leagues ahead of this show.

(I was right; this did get annoying fast. Doesn't she have any other character?)

So episode four was the best episode so far, but even it was fraught with failures. Even at its best, Sun and Moon pales in comparison to not only past Pokémon episodes, but to many cartoons out on the market. At this point, if it wasn't Pokémon I suspect that people wouldn't be watching it.

Also might I just say that, for a cartoon claiming to dumb down because it's supposed to be funny, there's few jokes. Like, nothing funny happens in it. I don't mean my view of funny either; they barely do anything except talk and throw big expressions. It's not funny. It's a lazy excuse.

So... Well, four episodes in and am a little more confident. Even with three's flaws, both three and four improve dramatically over the first two episodes. At this point we just have to wait and see if it continues to improve before episode ten. I actually want this to succeed; it's not like I hate Sun and Moon and want it to crash and burn. I want to have a better viewer experience.

I'm a little more hopeful, but only slightly. If these two episodes could show anything, it was that the Pokémon are really the only positive of the show. Rowlet, Mimikyu, and even Meowth have brought in more life to a boring cast of cookie cut characters... And Ash, but we try to pretend he's not there.

I'll be back to review 5 and 6, or maybe just 5 if 6 isn't posted with it, when next week rolls around. Until then... Well, I'll be watching something better. *Looks at current line up of cartoons.* Okay, never mind. Apparently I won't.