Pokémon (Black & White: Rival Destinies) Season 15
…………………………………………………
Pokémon Season 15 Review
The 15th season of Pokémon is Black & White: Rival Destinies. It is a flawed, but overall serviceable, solid and mostly quite fun season.
………………………………………………….
“We have to save the boss“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
This season is naturally not as good as its predecessor, but still it’s pretty solid for a second season. Let’s first state the negatives. One is the once again over-reliance on old Pokémon and old characters continually appearing. Even though I liked that episode with Dawn, I would prefer to see my favorite Pokémon gal Misty make an appearance, but unfortunately that is not happening here.
The season has way too many detours and those typical standalone adventures which are just fillers and not interesting or fun in any way. And here I come to one major issue and that is the lack of Team Rocket. That annoys me tremendously!
Now admittedly, the Black & White arc is thus much more serious and some episodes feature pretty high stakes, but still these three are my favorite characters from the entire show and they enliven the whole affair significantly and thus this season is more boring than usual.
I liked the last episode and finally their boss had a more major role there. I also admire how they finally became more competent as villains, but sill they appear way too scarcely to leave a proper mark on this season.
Cilan continues to be forgettable and Iris unfortunately begins to settle into that typical girl from this show which is the girl obsessed with winning and wanting to improve herself and her Pokémon. That is starting to become dull and overused by now and I wish that for once they focused more on Ash. His Pikachu got some great episodes here, but Ash himself continues to be stale and pointless as his growth is almost non-existent.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The Pokémon from the Fifth Generation continue to be mostly not too memorable or imposing, but definitely most are very cute and endearing. And I liked the emphasis on the cute as we haven’t really gotten that in the previous two generations. I also liked this season’s fights quite a bit and I wanted more of them.
Overall, this season of Pokémon is pretty solid. It has way too much emphasis on Iris and not enough on Ash or Team Rocket, but it is more serious than usual and with a very polished look to it thanks to much improved animation.
Worst Episodes: Ash Versus the Champion, Battling the Bully, Expedition to Onix Island, The Mystery of the Missing Cubchoo and Iris and the Rogue Dragonite.
Best Episodes: Dazzling the Nimbasa Gym, The Four Seasons of Sawsbuck, Stopping the Rage of Legends Part 1, Meloetta and the Undersea Temple and Unova’s Survival Crisis.
