Zerpha's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ash finds a Pinsir!]

It was pretty obvious what was going to happen when he said he has no pokemon.
But although I waited in vain for a punchline, this was an entertaining short animation.
I can see now why Professor Oak did not let Red enter the tall grass without any Pokémon :D

Was it intentional to use the Route 1 theme to indicate that Ash is at the very beginning of his journey?
Or did this even occur before he got his Pikachu?
Or did you simply take it because most people recognize it? (Then again, that's true for pretty much any soundtrack from generation 1.)

Everybody knows Pikachu is Ash's always present sidekick, so - unless my above theory is correct :P - it was weird to not have him around.
For that reason i would probably have replaced him for another trainer in your animation - even though there's basically no Pokémon trainer out there without Pokémon in the first place.
Or maybe you could have chosen a character that's not a trainer (that for some reason still felt like catching a Pinsir)?
This probably would have resulted in a less mainstream-appealing title, though...

Now let's put the story and its interpretations aside and get to the movie quality:
Both voice acting and animation were really good, and the sound effects (using both known ones from the movie and the games) were nice, too!

So overall, good job!

hbrunav responds:

Thanks dude, just saying, your third poing is right. Ash is a global figure and thats why I used him, I feel must related to him because I started the whole pokemon thing with the first seasons, I never continued with more than 151 pokemons btw. Thanks!

[Decision]

Pretty good for the first try

The animation was really ok, one could make out everything. I guess my first animation wouldn't look that smooth.
I don't like shading with hachures that much, but that's just my personal opinion and does not mean that it's necessarily worse that just using darker colors on accordant areas. In fact, it gives the whole a drearier impression.

I don't know how you made the music, but it's pretty good and suits nice, respect for that :)

As for the actual content and message of the flash:
It tries to say the right thing, but it's kind of unrealistic.

I'm non-smoker too and don't like it, and i also think that one shouldn't let oneself get persuaded to do it, cause it's not.
But smoking is not that kind of drug that actually allows oneself to escape reality, nor does it affect the personal career in any way. In fact, most stereotypical wealthy businessmen are seen smoking either a cigar or a cigarette.
Another thing that is rather unrealistic is the fact that the boy gets offered the cigarette yet does not smoke it in presence of the other guy. I can't remember anyone ever having offered cigarettes to a (so far) non-smoker without smoking it with him/her. Normally you have to make the decision while around the others. Therfore you will normally have to reject the cigarette right away, by the time you take it this normally also means that you're going to smoke it.

As for the alcohol, it's of course something different - in that point i agree with you. Yet it was strangely put on a level with cigarettes. You can see an empty bottle at the beginning of the movie under his bed, but aside from that the protagonist does not show any connection to alcohol, yet is afraid of becoming a dosser because of the cigarette.

But overall i liked it nonetheless.

flamereaver responds:

Thanks for the review and I'll admit that the message is not very realistic :), but Didn't have time to make a new flash so I had to finish this old one and you may notice that the character becomes better drawn near the end, that's because I merely made an ending scene and new backgrounds to the flash. I would have liked to make it more alcohol related, but i didn't have time :(.

P.S. Thanks for the in-depth review and i appreciate the positive feedback.