The Best Streaming Services To Watch 'Pokemon'

Steven Schneider, Tech Times 05 March 2016, 09:03 am

It's been two decades since the original Pokemon games made their grand debut - and, in the subsequent 20 years, Nintendo has turned a pair of GameBoy RPGs into a worldwide multimedia phenomenon.

Aside from the games themselves, the Pokemon anime is easily the most popular piece of the franchise. The series has been around for almost as long as the games - Pokemon XY & Z, the show's current season, is also its nineteenth. Pokemon already has roughly 900 episodes under its belt, and Nintendo doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon - though the real question isn't when will the series end, but where does someone go to watch all that?

For such an iconic series, it can be surprisingly difficult to watch anything Pokemon-related: between various streaming services and licensing deals, there's no one place to watch the entire series from start to finish. When it comes down to it, fans only have a few options - but, at the very least, they're options you're probably already familiar with:

Netflix

Available Seasons:
• Pokemon: Indigo League
• Pokemon: XY (Part 1)

Let's be honest: Netflix doesn't have much when it comes to Pokemon. At two seasons total, the streaming service's offerings only cover a fraction of the series, and die-hard fans could binge-watch it all over the course of a single weekend. However, Netflix has what many would consider to be the most important episodes in the show's entire history: namely, the entire first season.

If you spent your childhood waking up at 6:00 a.m. to catch a glimpse of Pokemon before school, you'll instantly recognize the episodes that Netflix has on offer. The first 52 episodes make for a great nostalgia trip, and there's a simple charm to the era before 700+ Pokemon...sadly, the first season only covers the first part of the Indigo League saga, meaning that fans will have to look elsewhere to continue the story.

Don't expect Pokemon XY to fill that gap, either: as the show's seventeenth season, it's about as far removed from the first episodes as you can get. It's great to see just how far the series has come over the years - but, as with the Indigo League episodes, the XY episodes on Netflix only tell the first part of a larger story. Newer fans, especially those of the most recent games in the series, will likely gravitate towards these episodes - but again, don't expect to see how the story ends.

Hulu Plus

Available seasons:
• Pokemon: Diamond & Pearl
• Pokemon: DP Battle Dimension
• Pokemon: DP Galactic Battles
• Pokemon: DP Sinnoh League Victors

In terms of sheer volume, Hulu is easily the best place to go to watch Pokemon. At 189 episodes total, there's quite a bit of content that Pokemon fans can sink their teeth into...though it is somewhat disappointing that the Japanese dub isn't available. Audio preferences aside, the episodes all look fantastic, and you'd be hard-pressed to find better quality versions anywhere else online.

The real selling point here is that, unlike any of its competitors, Hulu actually gives fans an entire story arc. To be fair, Diamond & Pearl aren't exactly the most popular episodes in the series long history, and they probably won't make anyone's list of favorite episodes...but the fact that you can actually see the entire storyline from start to finish without any sudden interruptions is more than any other streaming service can offer.

If there's any one downside, it's that a Hulu Plus subscription is basically required to watch most the episodes. Only the first five of Season 10 are available for free, and it feels like more of a sneak peek than anything else. Pokemon may not be the reason to sign up for one of Hulu's monthly packages, but anyone who's already a member should be more happy than with the site's current roster of episodes.

Pokemon.com

Available seasons:
• Select episodes only

You'd think that, as the hub for all things Pokemon, the official website would be a great place to go to watch a few episodes...but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Pokemon.com only offers a handful of different episodes from a few select seasons: for example, the site does allow fans to watch episodes from the fifth season, but only episodes 38 through 47. Everything else is summed up with something akin to a Wikipedia entry, and it's about as disappointing as you'd expect.

As if that wasn't enough, the video quality adds insult to injury - episodes on Pokemon.com look like they were uploaded back in 2001. If you're desperate to watch Pokemon, the official site should have enough episodes to keep you entertained...otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle.