70%

Seasons one and two of pokemon were great, doing an amazing job of creatively introducing viewers to the world of pokemon, as well as introducing new characters and new friendships, both with humans and pokemon. Season two also gave us a good background on many of the characters.

Season three, however, seems a little forced. About 90% of the episodes in this season follow the same formula: Ash and his friends travelling on the road run into someone who uses their pokemon for their livelihood, but there is some kind of problem with the pokemon (hurt/sick/lazy/scared/lonely). Team Rocket tries to steal this pokemon of the day, and fails, usually due to the actions of the aforementioned pokemon with a problem. When you think about it, this is ridiculous, as most of those pokemon are incredibly weak…While Team Rocket is also weak, it’s stupid that their pokemon which have had way more experience should lose to someone who has never even battled before.

It gets old after a while, but to break up the monotony are some interesting episodes that give us good background information on our characters, as well as some that have Ash and Team Rocket forced to work together. There aren’t very many battles in this season, and none of them are as good as the ones we saw in the previous two.

Despite my complaints when comparing season three to the last two seasons, when looked at as a separate entity, this season is still very entertaining and some of the best anime I have seen. Had it been a little less formulaic, I would’ve liked it a lot more. I’d recommend viewers that are looking to watch this series from the beginning perhaps only watch every other episode of season 3. You’ll catch the gist after a few.

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