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Pokemon Anime to begin airing on Netflix from 1st March

Doctor Oak

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
netflix-logo.jpg
For the first time, the Pokemon Anime is to be available across all Netflix regions from this Saturday, 1st March.

The first season of the Black and White series along with the first Black and White movie/s (the woeful Victini one/s, unfortunately) will be available for all regions supported by Netflix, whilst the very first season, featuring the Indigo League, will be available for those in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland.

This follows the deal with Hulu in America to stream an even greater selection of the anime and movies, and demonstrates a growing understanding of the value of these on-demand streaming services by The Pokemon Company International. Hopefully, since those of us outside of the US can't benefit from the Hulu deal, it will just mark the beginning of what's available on Netflix.
 
Teapot

Teapot

Virtual Duck Enthusiast
Staff member
Administrator
This is a really good precedent, really - Netflix is on a mission to stream all the things anyway, so TPCi having the good judgement to not throw all their eggs into one Hulu-shaped basket is something we'll all benefit from, not just those of us who can't access Hulu. (I freely admit that I've been signed up to Netflix since it came out in the UK, and I'm a big fan, so I'm always pleased to see new content anyway. :p)

My issue is that it's unlikely they'll have more episodes than this - at least, not at the same time. I'll bet they'll do what they did with Classic Doctor Who and various other shows, rotating sets of episodes in and out, rather than letting us watch them all. They still want to sell box sets, after all.
 
Doctor Oak

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
The box sets argument may hold (a little) water in the US, where such things actually exist, but it's clearly not holding them back from letting Hulu stream a much larger range of the back catalogue. Outside of the US, however, there have never been such releases (and, in fact, even in Japan, the Hulu deal there is the first time such a volume of Pokemon episodes available to consume as there have never been traditional box set releases there, either), and in the UK especially, there aren't any competing licensing issues to prevent a greater simultaneous library.

Though I would also probably consider it more likely that they'll simply rotate the series similar to the classic Who serials. Especially the older seasons and movies where the rights are a little messier and presumably have a number of extra fingers in the licensing pie to pay.
 
Linkachu

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
This is definitely some nice news. Like the teapot, I've been a Netflix subscriber since it first came to Canada and I've very much enjoyed the service (especially with the ability to stream it through so many different platforms). Having some Pokemon on there too will simply be the cherry on top.

I hope that they do expand on the available content at some point, whether that be via additional episodes or seasonal rotating. Haven't properly watched the Johto saga in aaaaaages...
 
P

precita

I doubt I'll watch it on netflix as I've seen Kanto hundreds of times, but its nice for people.

Linkachu said:
I hope that they do expand on the available content at some point, whether that be via additional episodes or seasonal rotating. Haven't properly watched the Johto saga in aaaaaages...
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Heh, the only good season of Johto was the "Master Quest" season which is pretty much the only one worth revisiting.

All early/mid Johto did was pretty much drown the show in 2 years of repetitive filler while dropping important plots (like the GS ball), have Ash dump his awesome Charizard and Squirtle (No!), completely flanderize Misty's character into a bland shell of her former self, and Ash's Johto Pokemon other than Chikorita/Bayleef just weren't that interesting.

I still remember how as a kid Johto is where most people originally dropped the anime. After Ash let Charizard go in the valley that was basically the deatnell for the Johto saga and it didn't recover till the tail-end of Master Quest.
 
Linkachu

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
FulgoreX said:
Heh, the only good season of Johto was the "Master Quest" season which is pretty much the only one worth revisiting.
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No denying that! The Johto saga is, and hopefully always will be, my least favourite saga. xp

But I've always wanted to rewatch it regardless, both to revisit it myself and to introduce Johto Journeys and Johto League Champions to my younger sisters. I've owned the Master Quest boxsets for ages and we've watched them countless times, so it'd be nice for my sissys to actually see how Ash caught his Johto Pokemon. :)
 
Secad MS

Secad MS

I'm definitely going to have to snag my boyfriend's Netflix account for this every now and then. I don't watch enough Pokemon.
 
Demelza

Demelza

Eevee Tamer
Staff member
Moderator
Definitely an interesting deal and a very nice one for the UK considering the seasons have never been released in any form for many years beside the few VHS tapes many years ago.

Be interesting to see how far they take it in the UK in terms of movies and the rest of the seasons. Definitely looking forward to revisiting some of the first episodes though, likely pass on Black & White and anything they add beyond the first season of it after seeing it recently on Citv.

Revisiting Johto and Sinnoh would be nice, so hopefully they add them at some point in the future. ^^
 
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