Pokemon: The Origin

Alt title: Pokemon Origins

TV Special (4 eps)
2013
4.012 out of 5 from 8,248 votes
Rank #941

The world of Pokemon is vast and all trainers, including the ever-eager Red, have their beginnings. Tasked by Pokemon Researcher Professor Oak with compiling an encyclopedia of all 149 known monsters, Red travels across the land, searching far and wide for more creatures to complete his mission. Along the way he'll face plenty of challenges, such as battling Gym Leaders, tackling the Pokemon league and even halting the plans of an evil organization. One thing's for sure, being the best isn't just about strength, it's about heart as well. 

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Reviews

TheRevas
8

Pokemon: The Origin bring all Pokemon fan what they need, a good Pokemon anime.  Don't get me wrong I enjoy most of the Pokemon anime, but Pokemon: The Origin bring a special nostalgic feeling, whoever play old school Pokemon game like Pokemon Red or Pokemon Blue.  Pokemon: The Origin is a 4-episode tv anime special, that bring nostagia to the old school fan of the series. Story: If you play the game, you basically know the story like the back of your hand.  Red challenge gym leader then beat the elite four and the Pokemon Champion you rival, whatever you name him back in the day, and along the the process Red foil Team Rocket or Rocket Gang plans.  But they add little story to it, Red didn't want to challenge gym at first he want to catch all the pokemon for Professor Oak pokedex, then he catch all the Pokemon in the Kanto region.  But one of the flaw is they did a montage of the gym battle and his journey, and that make me sad. Animation: The animation was amazing, but personally I think the Black and White 2 trailer is better.  The Pokebattle are badass, and better than the anime.  At the beginning of the episode, it feel so nostalgic, when old school fan of the Pokemon game see that screen you see when you turn on the game, it hit you in the chest. Sound: The voice actor of Red is Junko Takeuchi or the voice of Naruto.  Whenever I hear Red voice, I almost thought that he is going shout Rasengan.  The voice actor did there part well, no complaint from me. Character: Red is like Red in the game, but with a voice, he catch all the pokemon in the game, and always do the right thing.  As well for Green well...he an ass just like Gary Oak. Overall: Pokemon fan will enjoy this 4-episode anime.  Non-Pokefan will think it will be alright.

BigDumbOhFace
9

I came across this because I'm an avid Pokemon fan.  As soon as they announced this, I became really excited for this.  Although I didn't play the original Red and Blue, since I was a little too young, I played Fire Red and it's almost the same. Story If you played the original Red and Blue/Green versions of the game then it follows the same story line.  Young Red sets out on his journey to become the greatest Pokemon trainer of all time.  Beside him, is his dastardly rival, Blue.  The show pretty much assumes that the viewers already knows about Pokemon and has played the games.  That way, they made tons of shortcuts which is why this is only 4 episodes long.  I wished that they elaborated on the story a bit.  That way, they can get a newer audiences.  I did like the fact that they had the perfect transition that led up to Pokemon X and Y. Animation It was definitely a huge boost from what the show has been doing with the other shows.  The art style knew that it was made for the older audiences.  It just felt more mature.  There were no huge eyes and the color palette was somewhat toned down. One touch that I absolutely love are the beginnings and endings of the show.  At the very beginning you see the main menu from the games with the "New Game Option" screen.  At the you get the "Save" menu.  They're minor details but great ones that really set the atmosphere. Sound The majority of the music is basically the soundtrack from the games.  However they modernized them.  Great idea.  I also loved the voice acting.  The voices matched perfectly matched their character's personalities.  One a side note, Red's voice is done by the same women that does Naruto's voice.  It sounded familiar to me and I checked it out and found out it was her.  Voice is practically the same since, I feel, the characters are practically the same. Character By playing the game with a protagonist that never talked, it somewhat feels that Red was just a blank slate.  It was the player that decides who Red was.  However, he was given a personality here.  As I said earlier he and Naruto share similarities.  You get the classic anime hero: young, full of spirit, and just waiting to do something with his young self.  It's nothing revolutionary or new but it works with what the show's about.  With Green you get exactly what you got from the game: a total douche.  Everyone else didn't really get any other developed because, again, the show is only 4 episodes. Overall This show is pretty much only aimed at those who've already played the original games.  It had an ulterior service of hyping up the next games.  As I was saying, this show was only 4 episodes long.  This show was made specifically for the older generation.  If they wanted to hype up the game, they should've also made it for people new to the Pokemon world.  I would've thought it was kind of a cop out that it wasn't longer.  At the end it was the fact that it was somewhat nostalgic and really entertaining made me love it.

CaseyJewels
9

These four short episodes gave us a taste of what a Pokemon anime could really be like. The animation was great, the characters learned and grew, and the music was fantastic. This show played a lot on the nostalga factor, with how the anime was set up with many of the game mechanics, such as saving and the showing of HP and whatnot. I actually loved that Gym battles had a board showing the health of the Pokemon. That was a neat touch, and it made the Gym battles feel more epic. I also loved the redesigns of many of the characters we've seen in both the games and the anime with Ash's journey. They still looked like themselves, but the designs fit with the higher quality of animation. I especially loved what they did with Brock's character--both with his design and his personality. I don't want to say too much about certain other characters, but I love how Team Rocket was handled. I do kind of wish Green had been a little more of a jerk, but that could be just because I'm so used to Gary (especially because I played Yellow, and not Red or Blue). I did really like his character arc as well. My only real issue with the anime was how much was skipped over. I realize this show had a lot of ground to cover and only four episodes to do it in, but I was disappointed by some of the things they skipped over. I especially feel like they could have cut a little bit of the Lavendor arc in favor of other things, but for what we got, it was really good. Also, it does a great job in describing how Gym battles work, when it comes to how Gym Leaders fight those who gain badges in a different order than the Pallet route. If you haven't seen it, I highly reccomend it. It was a ton of fun and I feel like it deepened the world of Pokemon and helped advance some of the characters that felt a little stale in Ash's world.

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