Pokémon Season 20 Review

The 20th season of Pokémon is XY & Z. It has a weaker first half, but the second half is so good that it led to one pretty stupendous season overall.

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“I promise I’ll never leave Squishy“

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First and foremost, that first half is very problematic. It basically consists of filler, but this time the filler is even more boring than usual for the show which honestly says a lot. Again we get too many of the older Pokémon, too many annoying, childish adventures and too sparse are the battles in this part of the season.

However, the second half of the season fixed all of that very successfully. Greninja is not a terribly appealing Pokémon visually, but he surely got one pretty strong storyline and Ash’s relationship with him and their quest for more power are fantastic, very emotional and so well developed. It’s overall a pretty satisfactory arc.

Team Flare is pretty competent and sinister and although Team Rocket is weaker and less utilized here, at least this team got their moment to shine. The overall prophecy about Kalos is interesting and those final couple of episodes are action-packed, visually and conceptually very dark and overall a refreshing, welcome change in pace for the show.

I also really liked Bonnie, I have to say. At first she annoyed me tremendously as she was just such a forgettable, typical kid, but eventually she progressed and became quite a well developed, likable kid whose relationship with Squishy and that overall story is so well told and emotionally rewarding.

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Pokémon Season 20 Review

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I also liked the tournament quite a bit, though it was way too short for me personally. As for Serena, we say goodbye to her here. She, Bonnie and especially Clemont composed easily the best companion team for Ash since Brock and Misty all the way back in the first seasons. But even though I liked the goodbye episode and that almost kiss, I found the reluctance to really start a relationship between the two problematic and a big cop-out.

Overall, I really liked this season of Pokémon. It has a pretty bad first half of episodes, but the second half fixed that with a couple of really good arcs and great character moments and fights. This is the end of Kalos and overall it was pretty good and satisfactory for me. Let’s see if Alola turns out better.

Worst Episodes: From A to Z, Love Strikes, Eevee Yikes, A Dancing Debut and A Cellular Collection.

Best Episodes: Championing a Research Battle, Coming Apart at the Dreams, The Right Hero for the Right Job and Till We Compete Again.