IS THAT HULK FUCKING HOGAN?!?

Dude, Hogan is a mad poke-fan. He's a true bro.

people seriously still watch the show and are over 18? what?

I watch the anime (sorta) and USED to collect the cards.

I played Magic well before the Pokemon craze hit initially. I picked up the cards, somewhat because I was/still am a fan of Pokemon, and because I'm a fan of Wizards of the Coast.

I stopped buying the Pokemon cards part way through Gen III. But stayed on as a Magic player. Several years after that, I quit Magic after Scourge and moved on to Dungeons and Dragons.

Recently, I've picked Magic back up What the fuck happened to my mana burn? and have really enjoyed New Phyrexia.

I still don't feel the need to play the Pokemon card game ever again.

I play the Pokemon video games a lot though.

Im a grown man that grew up when I was 12 watching that cartoon.
I watched it more and more thinking that surely my years of loyalty will pay off. That Ash will someday catch something useful or man the fuck up and beat the Elite 4. Jesse and James will eventually learn there is more to life and run away together. That the show would develop or go somewhere eventually.
I told the show to fuck off after 2 seasons and no sign that anything was going to go anywhere and Ash was playing Minigames on some fucking islands to win fucking badges instead.

Years later, I saw the show was still on. Figured maybe I missed something. Perhaps I was being a dick and I can find something grand once again and rekindle the love I originally had. I sat down and watched a few episodes of the new Pokemon.

I then turned it off and cried to myself after watching Ash and Pikachu nearly eye fuck eachother while they spoke in enthusatic voices the whole time with their mouths wide open and smiling. Hearing all the pokemon constantly repeat their names over and over, as if I had to have the branding burned into the back of my souls skull. And to find nothing ever developed. EVER!

Im okay with the game tho

>>7690524
Shiiit, people out there still play Magic?
I should get back into that, get myself a new deck, or rip out my old ones, and hit the comic book stores.

>>7690538

New stuff's not half bad. I'm one away from all the precon decks for New Phyrexia, and I'm digging the "Machinations" deck in the Duels of the Planeswalkers game. I've been putting thought into buying the cards needed to make it.

I'll feel like an ass for missing out on Core Set 2012 since Innistrad is a few months away, but I think I'll be able to deal.

My friends hate the Infect deck I bought

You know what makes me mad in the anime? Not the shitty battles, not the same repeated crap, not brock and misty getting rid off and reclaced by a faggot and a monkey.

What really grinds my nuts is that pokemon cant scream like lions or dinosaurs, they need to say their names with a retarded voice all the fucking time. If only i had a chance to go to 4kid's place and see one of the voicers doing it i think i'd probably spit fire from my eyes. I even feel uncomfortable when watching the show and someone comes in. I quickly try to pretend im browsing channels or something.

>>7690575

You'll want to go to The Pokemon Company. 4Kids don't handle shit anymore since they tanked.

>>7690536

I felt the same way but never had the balls to give it another try.
I'm glad I didn't after what you said, man that just sounds like a miserable waste of time.

>>7690575
This exactly. You know how in the game they just have those growls and odd noises? Shit just make a variation of that, or make them talk in gibberish like The Sims or something, anything but "pika pika pi pi ka ka chu chu ka pi PIKA KAH KAH!"

I would love to play the TCG, but nobody plays it or even understands. It's a shame too, the TCG is probably the most balanced card game out there and has the best looking cards to me.

>>7690575

Agreed, this is annoying as fuck and is the main reason I don't watch it. Heck, even when I was like 6 I thought it was retarded and annoying.

I'm 19 and I think the anime is adorable so I watch it. Get over yourself. Also, anime is terrible, in general.

>>7690615

I feel so bad about this nowadays, I cringe thinking about it but...:

>Freshman year highschool, Pokemon TCG is all the rage with my friends and I.
>No money to buy that many cards, have a decent deck though.
>1st Grader in my schoolbus fell asleep holding a huge stack of TCG.
>Wait for bus to stop, grab his deck and bolt to school.
>Kid cries the next two bus rides looking for his cards.

>pic related.
He had some really good ones I ended up using in my own deck, and a Mewtwo card which I thought was super rare at the time.
Friends all jealous of my cards, never told a soul to this day.

>>7690680

See if you can find the kid today. If you're lucky, box them up, and leave them anonymously. Or man up and give them to him face to face.

Clean your karma.

Well op, I went out on top. The last time I watched the anime was the end of the orange islands where pikachu defeated dragonite and ash won that trophy and then went home. I'm glad it was because I hear nothing except the anime is complete shit now. Although it was never really that good to begin with.

The last time I played the card games is when I was in middle school when base set 2 came out. It was pretty baller, me an about 10 or so of my friends went to a card shop every saturday. Kids from all surrounding towns went to this place and battled and traded. It was fucking fun but now the card shop has been leveled lol.

Actually op the last pokemon game I played was fire red and I could only name about 20 of the total pokemon past gen 2, and thats just from coming here. Although there are a bunch of underage here so you can't really knock them for watching a kids anime because they, well...are kids.

>>7690680
this kid ended up dead on the streets. Hope you feel nice

I'm watching the current season, Best Wishes. I used to watch the shows when I was a child, but sttoped after Jotho.
It's kinda nostalgic.
I'm 19, btw.

>>7690613
Make the cute ones have "pokéspeak" and the big badass ones roar and shit.

I stopped giving a shit about the anime years ago, never really got into PLAYING the card game but I have a shitload of old cards.

The games are still awesome though.

FUCK YEAH HOGAN

Like i give a fuck.
I don't watch the anime for the plot or the characters.
I watch it because Pokèmon fights are often awesome to watch.
Look up Sceptile VS Blaziken, Charizard VS Blastoise and Infernape VS Electivire or hell, Pikachu VS Excadrill looks awesome too.
I don't care about Pokèmon cries. At least it gives them uniqueness.
GROAR
What's that? A Charizard? A Druddigon? An Hydreigon? Who the fuck knows.

It's possible to enjoy stuff geared at children. Not everyone can swallow common tropes in kids stuff, but if you can, there's plenty of simple enjoyment to be had. I like to watch kid's shows beyond the face value myself, deciding on if they talk down to the audience or not, if the character are good role models or written well, if the plots are coherent, etc. Stuff for kids CAN be well made and well thought out, but it's rarer.

But I'm digressing. To answer your question: Some people don't give a shit about the pokemon name-repetition or the neverending plot or whatever and just have fun watching the characters and their favorite pokemon. Some things that annoy people I find kind of baffling, really!

>>7693655
I agree with all of those except Pikachu vs Excadrill.
Pikachu vs Excadrill was ridiculous, stop being such a kid, ash.
Some good battles in that tournament were Snivy vs Pawniard and Golett vs Axew. Emolga vs Sawk and Dewbble vs Gurdurr were okay too.

I'm watching every episode again.

The anime has a god-tier OST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez3vZu0dBPQ

When I have time on my hands I watch the anime
Though half of the time I find myself getting occupied with something else(like coming here)
TCG? No. But I do have a handful of really old cards stashed somewhere. If you count the Pokémon say tap? game then I guess it turns into a yes. Though I have trouble with moonrune kana and the assbackwards engrish sentence structure

>>7693696
Actually Pikachu VS Excadrill is my least favorite but i thought that mentioning Emolga was worse. That is my favorite, though.

Also not to mention how the movies are the best thing the anime has to offer.
Seriously, movie 13 isn't even a Pokèmon movie, it's a torture movie with Pokèmon.

>>7693713
I knew what song that was gonna be before I clicked it. My favorite.

I watch the anime more than I play the games.

It seems most of us agree the anime sucks in some way or another.

But what I want to know is, where did it go wrong? What caused the shittiness?

>>7693850
Pretty sure having Ash stay a retarded beginner throughout every season is why it went to shit. It was great in the very beginning, where he was supposed to be an absolute novice and fit the role perfectly.

>>7693731
You're probably the only person here that has Tap, and I want to try it (I don't own any Apple products though).

About the TCG... I used to have cards when I was a kid, though I didn't know how to play using them. I stopped around the time Johto Pokémon came out. It's not that I didn't like it. I just never got into it. I'd be interested in playing the online TCG on the Pokémon website, and maybe getting that new TCG DS game that came out in Japan (it's a short tutorial game, so don't get excited). I'd also like the Kaiyodo figures that came with some TCG sets, like Arceus. They make some DAMN good figures (and I don't even like figures).

About the anime... It's definitely not on par with normal anime. The original series was good up until Johto, where they created billions of filler episodes and episodic plots and gags. AG was sort of a reboot, but it sucked too. Same plot devices. DP was... what AG should have been. It was WATCHABLE, but barely. It got good around the time of the League episodes and stayed that way. In fact, the League episodes are usually the only good episodes. Best Wishes said "Fuck it" and decided to be awesome (in comparison to Johto, AG, and DP). They switched the plot up for the first time in years, made Team Rocket badass, gave it speedier pacing and hardly any filler episodes or episodic gags. Ash's character is more like how he was in Kanto, instead of the boring faggot from AG and DP. Ash catches MORE than 6 Pokémon in the entire series, and they're unexpected ones too. It's what the Pokémon anime should have been after the original series. Actually, it might be because it's such a breath of fresh air that people like it. It's not gonna win any anime awards, but it's amazing in comparison to the other series.

>>7693859

Everyone is aware of that being a problem. I want to know why the writers thought it was a good idea in the first place.

I mean, the games started replacing protagonists in each gen. Why didn't the anime do so as well back then? Were they too attached to Ash or what?