While many criticize the Best Wishes season to be recycling Kanto and destroying Team Rocket’s personality, I think they miss a lot of the improvements the animé has made. Namely, the fact that the Pokémon are starting to have characters.

Axew and Scraggy, the babies of the team. These two have formed a fast friendship that’s warmed me up to both species as a whole (I dislike the Scraggy line’s design), and I love watching their interactions. Sure, they don’t have much outside of their friendship, but it’s a start and I only look forward to what adventures these kids will have later in the series.

Emonga is a great character. I just love how she flirts her way through all her problems, leaving the humans none the wiser. Hell, even the other Pokémon are too infatuated with her looks to notice… except for Snivy, of course. The two instantly formed a bitter rivalry where neither takes the other’s crap and it’s awesome. Oh yeah, Snivy, it’s terrible when Emonga uses attract to get her way, but you have no qualms with doing the exact same thing yourself, do you?

Oshawott is, as many suspected, reminiscent of Piplup. He’s a showoff who won’t take no for an answer, often popping out of his Pokéball and stealing the show. The only difference is that he’s rather endearing when he does this and is acting more out of naïveté than anything. Meanwhile, Tepig, a Pokémon with a similar backstory to every other fire type starter, is always trying his best to battle well. He’s sweet and softspoken, enjoying the journey for the fun it brings. Naturally, Oshawott finds him an easy target to pick on. Not being one to take abuse like that any more, Tepig fights back, and on more than one occasion Ash has had to return them to their Pokéballs. Nonetheless, they’re still pretty good friends, and both of them get along with the other team members without incident.