Pokémon anime

The Pokémon , often referred to as just "the anime" by Pokémon fans, is a collective term referring to currently 0 main series episodes, movies, and a number of side-story episodes, all focusing on Pokémon. The great majority of these focus on Ash Ketchum, a Pokémon Trainer from Pallet Town, and his journey toward his ultimate goal of being a Pokémon Master,, and most especially , whom he considers his partners and friends.

Though the anime is ultimately based upon the and draws heavily from them, many concepts which are only touched on the games are spun in a unique way, and expanded on.

The anime is airing in 98 , many times being dubbed into other languages for different locales. It is available on Netflix in 217 countries with different dubs and subtitles, and all countries except Japan have at least English audio. The Pokémon Company International usually refers to the anime as the "Pokémon animated series" or "Pokémon television series", while some event Pokémon based on Pokémon from the anime have their location set as "the Pokémon cartoon" in the English version of the games. It is also referred to formally as Pokémon the Series (Japanese: テレビアニメ「ポケットモンスター」シリーズ TV Anime "Pocket Monsters" Series).

Overview
From the very first episode, Ash has been the central character, making his goal of becoming a Pokémon Master known to all he meets. Though initially, he only became a Pokémon Trainer with the goal of beating his rival, Gary Oak, the many Pokémon Ash has met over his have shown him what being a Pokémon Master really is. Unlike most Trainers from Pallet, and indeed, unlike players of and, Ash did not start his journey with , , or , as he arrived late to 's lab to receive his starter Pokémon. Instead, Ash was given the only Pokémon Oak had left to give, a that did not enjoy being inside his Poké Ball, and from there Ash learned to treat his Pokémon as partners, earning Pikachu's trust by keeping him safe from a flock of  he angered.

Since then, Ash has journeyed across all seven of the regions that appear in the core series Pokémon games, as well as the Orange Archipelago, a region he visited before beginning his journey in Johto until it was closer in time to the real world release of. In each, he battles against the local Gym Leaders for their Badges, as do Trainers in the core series games, to compete in the regional Pokémon League, a championship tournament, rather than five battles straight against the Elite Four and. While his initial strategy was to continue using the same party over the course of his, letting some Pokémon go when they were required to do something or wanted to train, he has, since his journey in Hoenn, changed strategy, and now uses only those Pokémon which he has caught in the region, alongside Pikachu, to battle against Gym Leaders, with his explanation to Dawn being that he wants to prove to the young, unevolved Pokémon he meets in each new region that they can win if they try.

Over the course of the series, Ash has had several who travel with him, typically across one region, who assist him in his journey as much as he assists in theirs. , the Gym Leader from Cerulean City in the games, joins him in the original series, as does, Pewter City's Gym Leader, in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. Tracey Sketchit, an amateur Pokémon watcher, joins Ash during his Orange Archipelago journey, but leaves him on Ash's return to Pallet to become an assistant to Professor Oak, his hero. and, rookie s, join Ash for the duration of the and , respectively; in these he mentors them much as Brock and Misty did him, while Max, May's brother, who is too young to own Pokémon, looks up to Ash for the duration of the Advanced Generation series. and travel with Ash in the. , his sister and Ash's childhood friend  travel with Ash in the. Like Max, Bonnie is too young to own Pokémon, but cares for her brother's. In the, Ash attends the Pokémon School instead of traveling around the Alola region. As such, his new friends—,, , , and —are not traveling companions but classmates.

The anime is produced in Japan and airs on TV Tokyo nearly every week. Until the Porygon incident, the show aired every Tuesday at 7 PM. The show returned afterwards at the same time on Thursdays. From April 7, 2016 to September 13, 2018, it instead began five minutes earlier at 6:55 PM on Thursdays. Beginning on October 7, 2018, it will air each Sunday at 6 PM. Many fans consider the dialogue and events mentioned in the Japanese version to be the "true canon", while the various dubs are regarded to be overridden if something stated in them differs from something said in a Japanese episode.

In Japan, the anime is divided into six series: Pocket Monsters, Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation, Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl, Pocket Monsters Best Wishes, Pocket Monsters XY, and Pocket Monsters Sun & Moon. Outside of it, it has been divided into seven series: Pokémon the Series: The Beginning, Pokémon the Series: Gold & Silver, Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire, Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, Pokémon the Series: Black and White, Pokémon the Series: XY, and Pokémon the Series: Sun and Moon. The episodes are also further divided into seasons spanning roughly 52 episodes, and currently. This concept of a television season was first embraced by the Japanese source with the inclusion of an explicitly second season to Best Wishes.

The show is mainly aimed at children, and as such, mature topics such as death are not often brought up, though sometimes they appear in some episodes, and most notably in movies. Many Pokémon that are implied to be violent or sinister in the games are also made to be less aggressive, where none are considered truly evil. There are generally some references meant for adults, though these are kept to a minimum especially outside of Japan.

Movies
Since 1998 in Japan, and since 1999 in the US, a Pokémon movie has been released annually, most often focusing on a or Mythical Pokémon. These movies are almost always a large success in Japan, and remain at least somewhat successful in and other countries, having been aired on Cartoon Network as a special since the ninth movie, and having theatrical releases during the first five seasons.

The movies are not considered by all people to be canon to the show, with some preferring to think of them occurring in an alternate timeline. This theory comes from the fact that and  do not seem to be profoundly affected in the show by the events of the movies, which tend to have a lot of peril and drama. Others, however, see the movies as being akin to filler episodes, as none of their parties change, and no Gym Leaders are defeated nor Pokémon Contests won. This is presumably the correct interpretation, as not only have most of the events of the movies been referenced at least peripherally in the show, but also, several of the events of even major episodes have been forgotten by the writers of later episodes.

Variety shows
These are Pokémon variety shows that air on Japanese television.

Trivia

 * Animator Masāki Iwane 岩根正明 once stated that the series was originally slated for a 1½-year run, which corresponds approximately to the length of the Kanto region saga (had it not been delayed due to the Porygon incident). Due to its popularity during the run, however, the show was extended and continues to be one of the longest running video game-based anime series.
 * During the early episodes of the, Japanese text was seen quite frequently on signs and buildings as well as objects. This usually resulted in the English dubbed version (and thus, foreign dubs based on it) painting out the text or converting it to English.
 * During the Johto saga, the animators acknowledged the practice of painting out the Japanese text in the English dub, so they used made-up symbols slightly similar to the Latin script instead of Japanese text, so it would be universal to all languages and would not have to be edited for the English localization.
 * During the and, the animators used a new style of symbols that appear to be blocky letters without a resemblance to any alphabet. However, most of these were still edited out for the English dub until Pokémon: Battle Frontier.
 * From the and onward, a full writing system was specifically created for the anime. This language consists of three different fonts: a font used for titles, big signboards, etc.; other font used as less remarkable text accompanying the title font; and other font used only occasionally as a minor text filler. Each font has 26 unique symbols, and each one of those symbols represents a letter from the modern Latin script.
 * This text usually has meanings, as the symbols converted from the Latin script are written as romanized Japanese; sometimes its meanings are related to the context in which it is used, but sometimes the text contains hidden messages, like mentioning Wobbuffet in a magazine seen in BW001.
 * This writing system would start being used occasionally in the as part of the scenario, starting from Pokémon Sun and Moon.
 * Fingernails are not consistently drawn on characters, with the exception of the . Some characters have fingernails in the.

Related articles

 * Staff of the Pokémon anime
 * Timeline of events in the anime
 * Differences between the games and anime
 * List of anime episodes
 * List of anime specials
 * Pikachu short
 * Pokémon Origins
 * Pokémon Generations
 * Pichu Bros. in Party Panic, a special episode only available in the video game Pokémon Channel

On Bulbagarden forums

 * Pokémon anime discussion forum

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