Arcane Reviews: Pokemon: The Origins

Pokemon: The Origins

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer here to bring you a brand spanking new review. Now I'm gonna level with you guys, I love pokemon. I know what a shock indeed but this is true I love pokemon so much so that I was super excited when I heard that they were making a brand new anime about the pokemon video games! The anime was not going to be related to the already exciting show which would be going into it's new season anyway so I was hyped. A anime that was set to follow the first original two pokemon games? Say it an't so, oh but it is so! But the question is, is it good? Let's find out.

Story:

Our story follows the young up and coming pokemon trainer, Red. Red is on a journey sent by the always awesome, Professor Oak to finish his pokedex. Seeing as how he's an actual scientist you'd think he'd already have the thing completed but I digress. But Red isn't the only one to be sent on this journey, his rival and the professor's nephew, Green (seriously what the fuck is up with these names?) is also sent on this journey. So now Red and Green are off to complete the pokedex, in a whole new world filled with strange pokemon they've yet to meet and evil that plans on doing horrible things to said pokemon! So yeah the plot is pretty much Pokemon: Red and Blue or Green if you're in Japan. The story is nice and simple and doesn't require much thinking. It's just a nice easy to follow story with a whole lot of fun to come along with it and I enjoyed it very much.

Animation:

Productions wise, this anime looks great. Everything is nice, smooth, and very clean to boot. Everything moves fluently and the animation never drops. The show also had a funny little gag in the beginning of every episode, in which the text boxes from the game would pop up and every episode began and ended with the save menu from the original games. It gave the show a nice little feel to it that was pretty funny to see each time.

Music:

The music in the show was pretty "meh" at points. Don't get me wrong the music wasn't bad but nothing in it really was rememberable. Most of the song from what I can tell were from original games. Now I haven't played the original game in like years so I can't really say. The only tune the was worth while was the Lavender Town song in episode two. But that's really only because it's the Lavender Town theme, any pokemon fan would get a kick out of that. So sadly music wasn't this shows strongest suit.

Characters: 

Character wise the show pretty much covers the basics when it comes to it's characters. Red is the strong headed main character that ends up learning about pokemon in the end. Green is the rival jackass that gets his come uppings in the end. And the rest of the cast is pretty much just characters from the games. Now to be fair, almost none of the characters get any real character development. And if any character does get any development, it's pretty damn rushed. That's really the shows downfall sadly, it's pacing it really quick. So you end up going from place A to place B really fast without any real time to get to know the characters in said places. But saying all of that I think it's time we disused that.

Nitpicks:

Now for as much as I like the show there is one little problem that hurts the show to the point of almost completely ruins the show and here it is. It's too damn short. The show is only four episodes long. The show crams all of the first two game's story into only four half hour episodes. This really hurts the show's story. The story is so rushed that you almost can't take it. They actually skip the Elite Four, yes you heard me right. They skip the Elite Four! The show just skims over them and jumps to the battle with Green......also the Green battle isn't even that long. The show is just too rushed for it's own good. while I enjoyed it very much I couldn't help but feel like I missed a lot of the journey because of the length of the anime.

Overall:

So in conclusion to my review, how do I feel about Pokemon: The Origins? Well while the show is a great time for fans of the games I can't really say it'll sit well for casual watchers of Pokemon. With all that I have said I can't really give Origins a high rating seeing as how it has some major flaws, but taking that fact that this show was made for fans of the games I will say this, If you love Pokemon then you must watch Pokemon: The Origins. It's a great treat for long time fans and you won't regret it, seriously it's a great show for you guys. But for anyone who doesn't care for Pokemon, I suggest that you look else where because this show is not for you.

Arcane Reviewer gives Pokemon: The Origins a 6.5 out of 10.