Eva’s Impression:
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURTS- OKAY THAT’S A LIE EVERYTHING HURTS AND IM GONNA DROWN IN THE SEA OF FEELS.
Oh my goodness, talk about childhood feels. I am so blown away with how they done this special, it’s just… my goodness OH IT’S KIND OF FRUSTRATING BECAUSE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THEY COULD HAVE EASILY MADE THIS INTO A 12 EPISODES SHOW JUST BY DEVOTING 8 EPISODES FOR GYM BATTLES + TWO FOR TEAM ROCKET STUFF + AND TWO ELITE FOUR. TT______TT Surely they would have nailed it. The start and finish of the episode was just too perfect for words. The feels, the second i started watching this, the feels bomb exploded and my heart- OW MY HEART WAS JUST SO MANY EMOTIONS. “New Game” to “Do you want to Save?”. What I love most about this special is how they are loyally following the game’s procedures while still adding some original bits to the storyline. But lets be honest, that’s how a lot of us imagined while playing the game.
What I find absolutely amazing is how quickly I (and I’m sure many others) connected with Red. My first pokemon game was Red Version, and I always chose Charmander as my starter, so I was quickly able to relate to his struggles- not to mention the fact most of us had the exact same team when we first faced Brock and had the same problems such as lacking the knowledge about a pokemon’s strengths and weaknesses against certain types. There was also that bit where Red tried to catch another trainer’s pokemon – and I have to laugh because we all done that at some point or another so it was really funny.
Green is just as much as an ass as he is in the game. His confidence is going right through the roof and it shows with his Squirtle’s attitude as well. The battle between Green and Red this episode was actually extremely painful (not in a bad way) to watch. I was actually horrified of the scene when Squirtle used “BITE” on Charmander and they way he was crying in pain. It was brutal and really gave us that sense of realism of pain that a pokemon undergoes that we don’t typically see as much or at all for the matter in Ash’s Pokemon Series. Really the only time I can recall a pokemon in so much pain was during the first Pokemon move: Mewtwo (man don’t get me started that was some emotional shit going down, I cried like a baby as a kid but I still watched it over and over again), but never did they ever have that kind of cry Charmander had this episode.
The OST, without a doubt that is the root of the feels because once we hear it, we are all washed over by a wave of nostalgia. It’s a remix, but an epic remix that I have no problems with. Then there’s the animation. I loved it, it was pretty damn good. Initially when I saw the promo I wasn’t a huge fan of the character designs, but they quickly grew on me the minute I started watching this.
Unfortunately is a SPECIAL not a series, but at least it still has four episodes that are all 23 minutes long. It’s better than nothing right? Either way this adaption was LONG overdue.
