**Episode 1 was on today, they flat out call him 10yrs old in Pkmn B/W, i've been corrected**
*and the intros these days DO suck... i think*
Being right there when Pokemon hit North America (I was 5), I can't deny my nostalgia bias. I also stopped paying attention to the anime from the ending of Johto to sometime in the Diamond/Pearl series. Regardless, I think Pokemon has evolved from that time when we didn't notice a show's merits, we only saw: "Ahhhhh coulourful monsters...OoOOoOoo i want a Larvitar... i wanna BE a Scyther!!!" (just me?)
Sure Ash looks the same after 5 province-spanning adventures, and Team Rocket's blast-off count is awfully close to the # of episodes (too many). The show has its stale bits for sure, but has also taken noticeable strides forward. Well, it took 4 seasons for Team Rocket to evolve from "lovable goofs" to "actually criminal" and I saw it mentioned so I won't elaborate, but it's certainly refreshing. I find Ash's voice has become more tolerable since the original ULTRA high-pitched one of the 1st couple series. In D/P and B/W, he still sounds raspy, but more adult and I don't find it grating, not like when re-watching old ones. I see comments that he is still 10 after all these years, i didn't pick that up from the show. So they havn't drawn him looking much different, the voice and actual events in the show (assuming an on-foot pkmn adventure taking i dunno... 6 months...with 6 months off so him Mom doesn't die of loneliness) it wouldn't make him any older than 15-16 now, making his appearance reasonable. Lastly, if Ash kept his team after each Journey, the show would lose any sort of pacing. It'd have gotten older a lot quicker if Ash had just beefed up his original team, challenging all these new gyms designed for aspiring trainers with his lvl 100 Charizard and Pikachu combo (THAT would be a double battle!!). The show lives on because of the reboots, and all his pokemon we've seen get to go live on a farm with his mom and Prof. Oak after their time in the spotlight. (Sooooo much better than's the game perception of them all stored in a tiny PC box, stuck in Pokeball limbo *shudders* -_-)
No more paragraphs like that ._." (Still reading?)
The plot will always retain the same formula, but i believe they've done a commendable job given the same template to work from every season. No longer is it guaranteed that the protagonist always wins, or that there's even a purely happy ending. From time to time Ash will lose to a novice trainer or important gym fight and i rarely expect it (you usually expect some awesome comeback). It's more interesting than if he won all the time, it leaves time to reflect and grow. Dawn loses her final contest (after all that) to a friend and Ash loses in the Semifinals to some dick with a full legendary team (realistic... can anybody else relate?) Both endings were far more effective that victories, i felt. I was most pumped to see Ash fell 2 legendaries and lose in that whole series. His major victories being personal ones (like beating Paul and FRIENDSHIP.. yay). Personally i'm eager to see how he fairs in B/W league.
The point i'm trying to form is that show doesn't suck if you give it a chance. Focusing on all the plot holes of a children's TV show is gonna leave you with quite a list, no doubt, but you could do the same to so many others. But you focused on mine, and got my attention, good show. T'was fun to express my thoughts on something i care about. I'm not much of a forum guy, but thanks for reading.
