Companion Pokémon: Downfall?

[Kintaro]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lillie and Mallow go the rest of SM without a capture to be honest. We only have 40 SM eps left, and most of them will be about Ash with the last Kahuna and league. Then we might still get a Team Skull arc if we're lucky and some Ultra beast eps.

Lana's starter is 90% likely to evolve now due to toy merch of its middle form, so I guess that will be it for her as well. I guess the staff feel like Lillie won't be ready to be a full fledged trainer till SM ends, so that's why she's not getting any captures or team changes, unlike Lana getting a capture and evo, and Mallow at least getting Tsareena.

 

[Jeal]

So, Lana caught the Eevee in the latest episode. Her first-ever team change, and that fact we had to wait pretty much 100 episodes for it is very saddening. It was quite scary that she was almost staring down the barrel as the first companion to never get a team change, but I guess she was the only logical choice to catch that Eevee. She has now surpassed Serena as the female companion who had the longest gap before obtaining a second Pokemon.

And Lillie will surpasses her too.

Do you know what's funny? People complaining about XY focusing too much in Ash over the companions when SM is worse(and not even focusing too much on Ash is done right).

 

[Kintaro]

SM has given each classmate their focus episodes, the problem is since there's so many of them (5 characters), it seems less because the writers cycle on and off who gets focus. Even Sophocles has a number of focus eps in SM and he's the least popular character on the current cast.

 

[AznKei]

And Lillie will surpasses her too.

Do you know what's funny? People complaining about XY focusing too much in Ash over the companions when SM is worse(and not even focusing too much on Ash is done right).

In my case XY was my 1st full series, so obviously it got the most flak for me being shocked and unaware of the issues.

Then I made a fan project which is done between the end of XY and the beginning of SM, about Serena encountering the past Pokegirls, recurring rivals, new foes, and most companions, including the Alolan girls making cameos, which is what I really wanted.

Sure I'm disappointed about the SM classmates not getting much spotlights, but it doesn't surprised me anymore, although I'll be worried if the trend gets worse in the future series.

 

[DatsRight]

SM has given each classmate their focus episodes, the problem is since there's so many of them (5 characters), it seems less because the writers cycle on and off who gets focus. Even Sophocles has a number of focus eps in SM and he's the least popular character on the current cast.

I wouldn't even say that, they could have reasonably fleshed out some of the worst ones in all that time, it's just a lot of their limelight episodes are fluff and don't go into much detail into what they're about as characters and trainers. Mallow's arguably had the most episodes after Ash and Lillie, but within those she hasn't done much and we've barely had any introspective into her personality, her foibles, her occupation. It's just been mechanical things like stopping Team Rocket and her Pokemon getting boosts through plot armour, without any of these things really having benefit to her character agency as she's still usually in the background in other episodes.

I mean Kiawe and Kukui have only had about three episodes each and they go into more reasonable introspective into their character and background, along with more subtle development whenever they get supporting roles.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

Hmm i was certain i already posted reply in here, seems i didn’t. My apologies for such late answer.

Lol only an idiot can take TR battles seriously since they are usualy considered as fall guys in the anime.

Depends on context of battle itself. Even with TR you cannot generalize all of their battles vs Ash asnd co as same, because they’re not.

Also its irrelevant if they’re serious or not, fact is they are still battles. So when talking about someone’s battle activity in pokemon series TR battles count as well. And Misty had a lot of them.

And i compared totodile with ash's other pokemon who had much better feats than totodile, just because you lack brain doesn't mean you keep on rumbling about overhyping totodile when it has least amount of feats of all the ash's pokemon. As for kingdra it didn't had any major feats around that time. There are many cases where fully evolved pokemon are weak in the anime. Totodile is among the weakest of all the ash's pokemon whether you like it or not regardless its potential.

From start you know that’s unfair comparison. Because Totodile never even had chance to collect many feats to begin with. We do not know Totodile full power, we can only assume its Ash weakest pokemon. But assumptions and reality are two entirely different things.

Same applies to Kingdra, you cannot call it either weak or strong, because lack of available info don’t support any of this two thesis.

Spoiler: everything else

You are the one who is running in full circles, you can check all the fandom and the poll for favourite pokemon series and you will get DP and XY series as two best series. Both series had better storylines, better arcs, better characters, better developed pokemon, battles,etc. The only thing OS is better than DP/XY is it has humour. Ad how was OS similar to real life plots and storylines. Its simple you are a genwunner who considers OS to be only good part./QUOTE]


Due to you failing to provide new substantial proof to support your opinions its unavoidable for debate to continue repeating itself. Fact that your using polls in recent years as so called "proof" of general consensus being how DP and XY are most loved series shows unawareness from your part that:

A)most older fans who grew up with older sagas are not even around anymore

B)online polls from forums related to pokemon are reflection of small sample group who is not large enough to sufficiently represent entire population of pokemon fandom(counted in hundreds of thousands, millions to be fair).


So are DP and XY indeed most popular series? We cannot know that.

Something written in past can hold higher value and bigger quality to people than something taking place in present or future. Not everything is nostalgia with point being to respect peoples preferences.

If some fans find OS to be overall more engaging its their prerogative to like them more, and using derogatory terms in effort of trying to discredit anyone who prefers OS over XY or DP wont help you be any more right

IMO Original series still had strongest continuity from any other subsequent series, sense of progression made with characters like Ash, Misty and Brock feeling like they have been growing and learning new things on their journey. Changing in emotional aspect with gradual and notable changes in their personalities, strength of bond between them as friends which grow and breaking free from personal struggles, distrust and misconception made it feel like they gained something from their journey maturing greatly as individuals. Producing more endearing and organic type of dynamic.

There wasnt much progression on goals, exploration of pokemon personalities etc, but in advance there was put bigger accent of exploration of humans themselves, their thoughts, past and friendship. With main message being put on adventure, emotion and exploring all kind of mysteries in pokemon world with writers being bold enough to deviate from games and add their own touch into storyline. With mixed results, but still enjoyable nonetheless.


Hence why I have fond memories of those sagas.

I never said dawn was mostly involved in ash's journey, ash was himself responsible for his growth, just because misty criticized him for making mistakes doesn't mean she taught him that. nor did her telling him rock vs water type matchup, as for ash's laziness and not training for kanto league he didn't listen to her anyways and used to brush her off so she didn't teach him anything. As for other things here were many instances where ash didn't even notice her advice and won matches even with his own style.


As for dawn she definitely have a huge impact on ash as a battler more so than misty had, and her cheering for ash go on to much different level since she even became a cheerleader for him. Misty's only luck was that ash was an inexperienced battler back than who had no experience in the outer world. As for ash acknowledging he has acknowledged all his companions even iris that they all had helped him in his journey to become strong, so that is nothing new.

Except Misty actually through her critics, playing role of foil to vent out Ash frustration and ignorance helped him to become more agreeable and aware of his own limits. She taught him humility, respect toward others and how results only come with hard work.

You can try to find excuses all you want , but its clear as day how other girls played much much smaller role in Ash growth as person and trainer.
Misty cheered for Ash in all of his battles as well. She motivated Ash to win gym battles as well, such as vs Rudy or Blaine followed by actually earning him right to even challenge them.

But unlike those girls Misty also:

taught Ash much more about basics due to being rookie needing bigger help than he acquired in DP or XY saga.

-influenced his way of thinking in becoming less arrogant studying his opponents better

-got him out of rut after suffering bad loses such as in Kanto league or later vs Gary

-motivated him thanks to competitive spirit going between them to go forward not slacking around being actual coach and men tor in sense of being voice of reason keeping Ash ego under check.

Sorry but i cannot even take you seriously in here.

Lol only major thing she did in master quest was a whirl cup arc, mst of the her episodes were boring fillers which were totally forgettable, also its still not wrong that they still count around 10-12 episodes, so 10-12 episodes out of 160 episodes of johto series is way too underwhelming, other pokegirls like dawn, serena and may all have gotten 2025+ episodes to there focus. That's why everyone calls misty background character in johto series.

You do realize Misty had around 50 episodes(counting all sagas of OS) focused on her? Not even counting episodes where she shared focus with others like Brock, Tracey, Ash etc. Or episodes where she had small role, but still managed to come to expression feeling like she is doing something. How many Serena did in comparison even with performances?


Its no secret, we can list numbers for both girls, they do not lie.

As for Master Quest, try again. Aside from Whirl Cup let see what else important happened with Misty:
-she caught Corsola
-her Poliwhirl evolved
-she learned how to be less judgmental and respectful of opinions differing hers like with fire trainer Egan opening herself and sharing why she loves water pokemon so much(character development)
-got over complex of feeling less worthy compared to sisters developing strong friendship with later recurring character Sakura putting to light how much Ash and Brock mean to her, Identifying them as her family. Another example of development.
-showed how much she grew to accept and like her Psyduck risking her life to save it as well being first female protagonist to challenge gym leader to battle(Dorian and Coastline gym)
-tried to help stopping wild Sneasel who Harrison caught
-used her pokemon to battle TR in Lugia arc
-helping Clair and others to retrieve stolen dragon fang and doze fire caused by Dragonite
-came to realize how path she choose as water pokemon trainer to become master was right making resolve tp try her best to indeed fulfill that dream eventually

Etc, etc.

So once again how was Misty just entering Whirl Cup in Master Quest? You should seriously watch Johto saga again.

In 5th season most would agree Misty was handled fairly good starting to move in some direction, battling more often, getting character development and her dreams starting to gain more depth around them.

So no, what you say about Misty role in master Quest is ungrounded.

Hence why its incorrect to say Misty was handled bad in whole Johto, because that's not true. If anything she had more focus than Brock did there.

As for shudo's comments he may have many arguments with his anime staff, but it still wont deny the fact that she was considered most bland character by the end of OS series and hence was axed. Its no secret that the writers do not treat both brock and misty in a right way, even brock's pokemon were treated better in later series AG/DP than in OS. Besides his regret or not we are not talking about what he could do to her character, we are talking about what we got from misty in johto and that was a big downer. So ou can keep on babbling about what she could do but it still doesn't change the fact that she didn't do that./QUOTE]


So many false things. First it was never said she was "bland" being subjective and up to viewers interpretation., It was stated how she had weakest justification of existence according to mr. Shudo views, something we cannot know whether other members of writing staff agreed or did not. Considering how much of uproar and backlash Misty departure caused by end of Johto brings in question if audience indeed considered Misty bland and not worth the effort or promising full of potential and interesting character generally speaking.

Lol most of your role of her in the storylines are not true-

She had no role in red gyarados and lugia/TR arc,she was just standing there with brock doing nothing. It was ash and ritchie and even TR trio who did most of the work whereas in red gyarados arc it was ash who saved that gyarados and lance who saved the day.

Again she had no role in ash's phanpy, that episode was going ahead due to that officer jenny's theatrics.

There is no proof that the movie 2 is even canon, except for that line in 4kids dub.

She didn't helped ash prepare in any match in johto, in fact brock helped him ore registering his pokemon, even beofre his match with gary brock was the one who helped ash waking up all night while misty was asleep

Please get your facts straight. I understand Johto aired 17 years ago, but than go back and refresh memory instead of claiming incorrect statements. In Lugia arc Misty used her water pokemon for reconnaissance as well battling TR members and Butch and Cassidy powered up by mind control devices pokemon. Brock helped too.

In red Gyarados arc Misty used her water pokemon to try and free pokemon distracting TR agent.

In Phanphy episode who warned about scratches on doorknob? Who noticed inconsistencies with footprints coming to conclusion how burglars didn't break from outside but inside stealing egg playing role of detective. And helping Jenny? It was Misty.

Movie 2 is definitely canon, otherwise Ash wouldn't know about Lugia from before directly saying he already saw it referring to 2nd movie.

In fact unless proven otherwise almost all movies can be considered canon. Your grasping at straws in here.

So Misty insisting that Ash uses water pokemon helping him in preparing his match vs Macy counts as nothing? I see.

Ash and dawn had the best of chemistry among all the pokegirls, its not even a contest this is also most people will agree on. Simpl because both of them were involved in there journeys, not to mention there personalities were most similar of all the companions, not to mention both of them had there signature high five which signifies there bond, what did ash and misty had in comparison to that, most of the times they bicker which became annoying later on. As for farewell, even dawn was sad and nearly cried when she separated from ash and brock.

I cant speak for others, but in my opinion yes Ash relationship with Misty was more fluent, dimensional and interesting. Having their laughs, moments of disagreement, annoyance, coming up with witty jokes and sassy remarks over their differences. But also being there for each other caring, expressing loyalty and moral support when needed.

Reflecting genuine and realistic dynamic which exists among many humans in real life. Even more so with Misty enjoying best in dynamic which she and Ash produced.

With Dawn while mutual support was nice and all liking how they complimented themselves, I felt their interaction with time starting to feel one dimensional and too much lighthearted not containing those underlying expressions ands variety of emotions i registered from Misty and Ash whose chemistry how to describe this in best possible manner. Had more color to it, with departure to this day being probably best done display of how thard it can be for very close friends to go separate ways.

Imo of course.

As for shipping subplot, it was never even confirmed that misty ahd a confirmed cruch on ash since many of the hints were added in english dub like her farewell episode where dub only showed ash and misty in her flashback in contast to sub version where every character was present, episode 200 where she said they will be married one

day, or in movie 6 where it was mentioned that ash miss his friend all of these are few eamples of dub added garbage. As for delcatty episode misty never mentioned ash name nor she had any flashback of ash after she said that she liked someone else, which could mean that she could be talking about her dream of water pokemon. As for macy there rivalry also started to become more of fire type vs water type and not for ash. Shudo had mentioned in his blog that they were not supposed to be a romantic angle between them. Besides why weren't there any hints in her cameo during AG and SM. They even didn't interacted much. Mark it there would be no hints in her upcoming cameo in SM. Pokeshipping is dead and buried a long time ago.

Most hints happened in original Japanese version, so argument of this being mostly 4kids dub invention don't hold much merit.

In Delcatty episode based on history Misty had with Ash showing through Kanto, OI and Johto hints of romantic affection, accompanied with Psyduck popping out of pokeball teasing her about it. Knowing from statement" there is someone else"who she's referring to.

Educated guess would mean she was talking about Ash. Refusing to go on date because "her dream of becoming water master is that someone else she likes" makes no sense not holding any ground. Misty was clearly talking about human she loves, not some aspiration she was interested into.


In Macy case Misty was jealous because Macy flirted with Ash, and if her issue with her was solely rivalry between fire and water pokenmon. Misty wouldn't blush being completely flabbergasted and insecure when Macy asked her "If Ash is her boyfriend?"

With hints in chronicles and interactions in Ag in general sending signals how that shipping was at that time still in status of standby.

I can agree how its buried nowadays with writers not having interest in reviving it, but im talking about past tense in here and what was its stratus in OS and partially in AG obviously.
For record i could care less about pokeshipping, i was never shipper of any sort simply pointing out false statements within your argument.

Serena was a much better developed character than misty in all the department goal progression, character development, having well balanced even small pokemon team who had different traits and were better handled.


Yeah she was underwhelming in first 40 episodes but to say she did nothing just shows your ignorance, you are defending misty for being background character in johto but you are trashing serena, besides she did teach ash rhyhorn racing, tracking him down to give him his handkerchief, taking interests in pokemon grooming, entering pokepuffs competition and rivalry with miette, fangirling over diantha, introducing ash to battle chateui which led ash to meet up with gym leader grant, learning to fly in sky realy episode. These were things she did in first 40 episodes which were less but still compared to what misty did in johto. Its just that she had an active goal after 40 episodes which her more relevant.


As for her pokemon pancham may have got less development but it had its traits like love for performance, rivalry with chespin, bickering with braixien, same way with sylveon it had its own arc as an eevee where she loved to perform but was shy around everyone else except bunnelby, she also got dvelopment to be more strong pokemon to get over her shyness and perform freely in front of the people, not to mention the bonding it had with serena was also good. That was all better than misty's bland pokemon most of them didn't have any personality.


Shauna may be lacking as a rival when compared to drew, harley and zoey but she wasn't pointless at all. She was the one who introduced to performance in the first place, she also helped her in many ways like having a tag battle. Besides XY rivals were not handled properly even ash's rivals like sawyer and alain were poorl handled.


Your saying that serena's crush was central part of her character just shows your desperation. She left her home to avoid rhyhorn racing which has been mentioned many times, she also wanted to find her own dream, meeting with aria who inspired her to be much better performer and make people smile, all of these were central to her character. Besides she also helped ash like in first and third gym making ash remember his training and battling with his own style or in snowbelle gym where she tried to motivate ash while recalling her journey and help him out of his depression. Even ash had admitted it many times that she had helped him a lot. As for shipping subplot, who told you that it lead to nothing, they had a kiss something pokeshippers can only dream off. Besides even the anime staff can mentioned that they could be a couple in the future. That ship is by far most canon in this series. The desperation of you pokeshippers are totally lame.


Lol again it has been mentioned multiple times that she had not abandoned her goal, she still is an aspiring performer, but she had gone on to participate in contests to sharpen her skill as a performer since contests and performances have many things in common. Besides even misty's write off was lame, she became a gym leader with no proper authority nor knowledge.

Speaking of Serena im not hater of any kind, but im not gonna act like she was well written thoroughly and carefully constructed character either.

She was promising character which got too much engulfed in romance subplot which dictated pace of her development and how much is she gonna change.

For first 40 episodes Serena had basically nothing being least focused female companion in such a large number of episodes in history of pokemon show. Whole pokemon performance goal seemed like afterthought quickly patched together to make it seem like her journey and character are moving somewhere. Happened in rushed manner instead of being well spaced out.

Serena rivalries with characters like Shauna were joke because there was no real competition going on with Serena from start being portrayed as better and more skilled than anyone else. Killing suspension making rivalry fall flat on surface. were nonexistent being always one step ahead from every other competition. With little to no effort coming almost at sole top.

Her pokemon team was no matter what you say wasted for most part and poorly developed. While promising Pancham, eventually fell in background doing very little. Eevee later Sylveon came kinda late being pretty straightforward in personality and importance starting to be repetitive. Especially after evolution feeling it was better handled when it was still Eveee to be honest.

Leaving us with Braixen who was only real i could say well handled pokemon of Serena team.aside from Braixen was underdevelopded, especially Pancham and to some degree Sylveon.


Now that's not to say there did not exist positive highlights in her development. After all Serena did became more sure in herself learning how to stand up for herself and beliefs in deciding to confront mother not following family tradition. We saw her going through process of self searching trying to find her place in pokemon world. And for brief period she found that purpose in performance.


Accompanied by her character becoming more comfortable in group of Clemont, Bonnie and Ash.


But everything started about her could have been treated better. Crush subplot while did end with Serena gathering courage to kiss Ash and tried to indirectly let him know how she feels still went nowhere due to other side not even noticing, let alone responding back.


Career of pokemon performer lost its purpose since Serena changed her stance deciding to become pokemon coordinator kinda undermining previous development she received leaving impression of here character still searching herself. Continuing with experimentation to see what fits her the most.

At best Serena development was decent and to me personally more disappointing than not.

Being less active even with performances, barely battling , having very small pokemon team and developing less than Misty did. Who was much more active in taking initiative in resolving subplots, partaking in saving day, catching pokemon, be in action and influence journey.

This is not even debatable.

You are delusional to even think that dawn had less development than may and misty. Dawn had to her depression arc where she even thought of even giving up being a coordinator. She also wanted to come out of her mother's shadow who was top coordinator, and held her first ribbon as a motivation, not to mention the bond she had with her pokemon like piplup, or gaining the trust of mamoswine, keeping brock's advice and treating mamoswine just sows her maturity, her chemistry with ash which is still the best of all the companions which even made brock irrelevant in sinnoh. These are some of the examples of dawn's growth in her journey. She is by far the best developed pokegirl in the show, and was upgraded to co star of DP something misty and may could only dream off.

You still don't understand it seems.

In aspect of advancement toward your career and growth as coordinator Dawn had best treatment out of any other main female so far in show putting baton very high to reach. However she didn't changed as person enough to match her struggles, effort and improvement as coordinator which would mold and leave bigger impact on her characterization taking away some points in her performance for me.


With May we witnessed big change in character sense evolving in mature, sure in herself and assertive character realizing what she wants to become and how to get there. Learned how to love and cherish pokemon and realized that Ash hold her back. Misty also significantly changed in emotional aspect becoming more compassionate and independent balancing out hotheaded, tomboyish and more serene side overcoming complex of feeling worthless compared to older siblings or Gyarado trauma.

But Dawn changed much less in personality aspect being by end of journey just as girly, optimistic and interested in fashion or appearance like she was at start of journey. Not saying she was exactly same because she went from overconfident to confident and became abit more humble but compared to other girls when comparing each of them from start to end of region/cameos Dawn changed the least giving out impression how she stagnated in that sense. At least in my opinion it seemed that way.,

Even though she got most development as trainer, coordinator compared to everyone else in terms ofd personality evolution and growth in emotional sense it didn't followed same amount of development as it happened iwith her career with there existing discrepancy between this two aspects.

Misty and May changed far more as persons in characterization and relationship with others.

Well rounded doesn't mean good as long as it is not treatd properly, iris, serena, may and dawn have less pokemon but all of them were treated much better than them. Besides misty is a battler she has to catch more pokemon.

Thats nice and all but at the end of the day its your opinion. Not a fact.

May and Dawn were definitely treated better than Misty.

Iris and Serena? Debatable.

Croatian team in wc18 wasn't final worthy. Its no lie that against argentina croatia should have seen red card for stomping on argetinian defender, besides both england and argentina missed open chances in first half or else both teams could have finished off croatia there itlsef. Against spain also spain was clearly better team but again couldn't finish off there chances or else they would have won that match. France and spain 6-0 have proven that croatia doesn't stand anywhere near the top level teams.Also croatian players may play in big teams but they are at best fringe players, like modric who has substitute in this season or rakitic who is considered to be 6-7th most important player in barcelona. That's the reason why croatia has been relegated in the nations league. No secret that croatia only reached the finals in world cup with sheer luck and easy teams, any tough team and they would have smashed them.

Your pretending like Argentina or England didnt made any faul on Croatian players. How judges were "apparently bribed" giving them slack. How everything was nothing more than luck and pure coincidence.

They played fair, had odds against them, but with abit of luck, better play and strategy. As well stronger determination managed to almost win whole thing.

One hard loss vs Spain(on bad day and not in best shape), just to beat them in rematch is not reflection of Croatian team being weak. But more so reflection of their strength and unity to recover quickly from such loss beating them afterwards evening out score.

You can think whatever you want, but for small country like this who have poorly developed football infrastructure, who has much smaller pool of players to choose from due to being less populated not enjoying same prestige like one England, Spain etc would have. This is amazing success and message to everyone how in football, sport in general everything is possible if hard work and effort are invested into it.

Recent won of Davis Cup in Croatia favor only further showed how small country like this one has sportsman who should be respected rather than underestimated.

I dont care if you agree with me or not but you calling misty a well rounded character after what happened to her in johto just shows you are a delusional misty fanboy.

Debate the subject, not poster. No offense but resorting to insults only reveal lack of debating skills. Take this as friendly advice.

For record it wasn't my intention to start this debate in first place, but since you started attacking my opinions and challenging them to begin with, im obviously gonna defend them and elaborate on why i consider some of your points to be false nothing more nothing less.

I recommend to continue debating through pm’s rather than derailing this thread further.

I dunno, I remember a few early half way decent TR battles, but then when Misty caught Psyduck, that more than compensated for her lack of plot armour. It would come in, almost always without her decision, and since no opponent was smart enough to attack below its forehead, it was an automatic win, since Psyduck could never be dented when its Psychic was activated (this was the era Psychic Pokemon were OP after all). That certainly was a formula Misty never stood a chance of losing even through bumbling and it was spammed many times, even outside TR.

Misty was maybe more subtle in handling about it, as in she did lose or get forced into some effortful battles at least every now and then to give her SOME substance, but she still a bit too often relied on Psyduck's dumb luck or five second curbstomp battles against bad guys for her quota, especially since, unlike most modern Pokegirls, she was meant to be more battle focused in the first place. I guess why she gets more credit in Kanto is because that season was less formulaic and more character driven, and while Team Rocket were used a lot it wasn't always in the same cheap way to dumb down the plot whenever they risked having to do something rather developed with the twerps like later series were guilty of. Johto on the other hand started this trend (even if it maybe had more entertainment value since often TR were still more developed villain protagonists in many episodes, eg. The Fortune Hunters sadly didn't really do much with Misty in the last half besides the usual curbstomp battle, but it DID end up a REALLY amusing plot for James).

To be fair most of time Psyduck incidents were writers attempts of trying to add abit more of irony in context of battles themselves, Irony was one of main selling points for OS mostly in Kanto, but even Johto had its share of it.

In retrospective it may feel as cheap and jarring, but at that time it was considered and recognized as entertaining and humorous part of anime nature.

Misty herself often tried to use any pokemon but Psyduck, we could notice that by her thoughts and dialogue preparing to call for Starmie, Corsola or someone else. Just to end up unpleasantly surprised by Psyduck popping out getting on her nerves. Perhaps this was writers way of adjusting process for her as trainer. In growing to be less frustrated and more accepting of her pokemon in some weird ironic way.

But for what it was others mistakes in triggering Psyduck headache could be more justified due to this being still phenomenon with many not being aware of Psyduck powers and complexity hiding behind him.

And while later in Johto that excuse of not knowing wore thin, it still somewhat succeeded in producing desired result: laugh and approval from audience being probably one of main factors behind Psyduck popularity due to comedy it was capable in tandem with its trainer of producing.

That does not justify writers of course because they should have been more creative with Misty battles relying less on Psyduck deus ex machina wins, but still Misty mistakes , wrong pokemon choices and battles where Jessie or James managed to defeat her or put her back to wall with her confidence backfiring at her. At very least made her battles feel abit more realistic compared to some like Serena. With TR being less formulaic in their confrontations with Ash and twerps being their saving grace at that time.

Especially because putting Pikachu aside they at times battled for right reasons invoking within viewers empathy to cheer for "bad guys" for once. It was trial and error process with mixed results but in OS TR as threat still somewhat held weight behind it.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Hmm i was certain i already posted reply in here, seems i didn’t. My apologies for such late answer.



Depends on context of battle itself. Even with TR you cannot generalize all of their battles vs Ash asnd co as same, because they’re not.

Also its irrelevant if they’re serious or not, fact is they are still battles. So when talking about someone’s battle activity in pokemon series TR battles count as well. And Misty had a lot of them.




From start you know that’s unfair comparison. Because Totodile never even had chance to collect many feats to begin with. We do not know Totodile full power, we can only assume its Ash weakest pokemon. But assumptions and reality are two entirely different things.

Same applies to Kingdra, you cannot call it either weak or strong, because lack of available info don’t support any of this two thesis.

We are only going to compare the chance given to all the pokemon whether it is less or more, besides how did you know that was not totodile's full power, maybe he isin't just not strong compared to ash's other pokemon.

As for TR battle @DatsRight has pretty much explained why there matches are considered unimportant and poor.

Spoiler: I mean

How have i failed to provide proofs, you can go and ask any long time veteran to compare between DP/XY and OS they will all will vote for DP/XY over OS, the only thing OS had was humour and nostalgia around it since it was new.

As for your misty fanboying yes she was horribly written character whether you like it or not, and was written as best supporting character whose role was just to provide with support to the trio and nothing else, her individual growth was pretty much poor compared to other girls whether you like it or not.

As for serena even in first 40 episodes she pretty much still did some things which were compared to misty's role in master quest. After 40 episodes she just elevated herself to another level. You are the only moron who will say that her growth was decent just compare misty's focus episodes to serena's focussed episodes you will get the difference in the quality. Nor was her goal taken off, it was said that she is travelling to other regions to hone her skills, besides even misty was written off by becoming a gym leader in stupid fashion.

As for serena's pokemon team not only was braixien developed, sylveon as an eevee got its own arc and the early parts of XYZ and last episodes of XY series were mainly focussed on it, whereas pancham while may not have gotten same amount of focus as other two but still it had its own personality and had its friendly banter with chespin. All of serena's pokemon had there individual traits and were treated better than misty who have large number of pokemon who either were static ir had no character development.

By the way misty's role in both TR arc was next to negligible, she and brock were just standby's who were just standing there just few seconds of her pokemon's screentime is not gonna change that. As for serena vs misty, any day serena changed a lot in personality other than goal progression, s she was ahead of misty both in better character development and better developed pokemon team, misty's pokemon are some of the worst pokemon any pokegirl ever had. Serena may not have better competition from her rivals but she did learn from aria the true aethics of pokemon performers and that is a character growth. You keep on harping abi=out serena's first 40 episode but she still did few things in those times while you forgot how much stagnant misty had become in johto and lana and mallow in SM. Even in many forums as well as writers of the series had preety muh said that character serena is inspired from real world person who start there life without any goal and then work hard towards it.

As for serena's crush it was still the best written ship given the context and demographic of the show, ash treated her well and was most protective towards her more than anyone, besides she still gained courage to kiss him after even being shy to hold his hand just shows how much growth as a character she has achieved. As for the ash's reaction as per the interview with the staff people ash did gave a pleasant awe suggesting he might had liked it.

Pokeshipping is dead kid, besides the writers never confirmed misty's crush so i am gonna take there words more than a delusinal fanboy like you, not to say most of pokeshipping hints were dub only, even in delcatty episode she was mainly refering to her goal and not ash same with macy she was mad at her due to macy insulting water types.If there was shipping there would be hints in her cameo during AG and recently in SM but it was not there suggesting that this ship is dead.

Again this is your stupid opinion but again most of the people agree that ash and dawn had the best chemistry, besides ash and misty mostly bicker a lot which became annoying after some times and brock was used to break them up, that's why riginal trio is considered the best trio but dawn had personality similar to ash which made her chemistry with ash the best..

Lol how many grandslam champions croatia has produced or how many legends have come out of croatia. Your neighours serbia has one of the greatest in novak djokovic come back when croatia has half of player of that caliber. Same with football, They were lucky to face weak and average teams in world cup, luca modric just became the most overrated player of all time by winning ballond'or which he doesn't deserved. Fact is both argentina and england totally dominated croatia in the world cup but were unable to finish off there chances.

Here is a piece f advice to you, even though you are a genwunner don't be a blind fanboy because no one is gonna believe you then.

You are desperate to continue the discussin why not you PM me and we can contine.

 

[DatsRight]

To be fair most of time Psyduck incidents were writers attempts of trying to add abit more of irony in context of battles themselves, Irony was one of main selling points for OS mostly in Kanto, but even Johto had its share of it.

In retrospective it may feel as cheap and jarring, but at that time it was considered and recognized as entertaining and humorous part of anime nature.

Misty herself often tried to use any pokemon but Psyduck, we could notice that by her thoughts and dialogue preparing to call for Starmie, Corsola or someone else. Just to end up unpleasantly surprised by Psyduck popping out getting on her nerves. Perhaps this was writers way of adjusting process for her as trainer. In growing to be less frustrated and more accepting of her pokemon in some weird ironic way.

But for what it was others mistakes in triggering Psyduck headache could be more justified due to this being still phenomenon with many not being aware of Psyduck powers and complexity hiding behind him.

And while later in Johto that excuse of not knowing wore thin, it still somewhat succeeded in producing desired result: laugh and approval from audience being probably one of main factors behind Psyduck popularity due to comedy it was capable in tandem with its trainer of producing.

That does not justify writers of course because they should have been more creative with Misty battles relying less on Psyduck deus ex machina wins, but still Misty mistakes , wrong pokemon choices and battles where Jessie or James managed to defeat her or put her back to wall with her confidence backfiring at her. At very least made her battles feel abit more realistic compared to some like Serena. With TR being less formulaic in their confrontations with Ash and twerps being their saving grace at that time.

Especially because putting Pikachu aside they at times battled for right reasons invoking within viewers empathy to cheer for "bad guys" for once. It was trial and error process with mixed results but in OS TR as threat still somewhat held weight behind it.

Made a quote error there so almost missed your reply.

I think it's more the aforementioned fact they dug this running gag into the ground and Psyduck DEMing the situation took up nearly all of Misty's matches (at least the ones that weren't five second curb stomps or mostly offscreen/unfinished). Had Misty actually got in a few more developed battles in between all that to give her substance and Psyduck only butted in less important times, I think it would have been a more tolerable quirk. But done so many times it becomes no different from other plot devices like TR interrupting things, it's an excuse to keep things simple and repetitive and not have to write the character as an effective battler or protagonist, instances of which slowly became the exception rather than the rule when Psyduck and Togepi came along, and the writers essentially going 'take our word on it'.

 

[Kintaro]

Interesting in the SM cameo Misty has her Corsola again. Remember Corsola was the only pokemon she captured for the entire 156 episode span of Johto.

It's weird, Misty had a ton of captures in Kanto to the point where she had so many, then they literally slowed down and gave her 1 new pokemon out of an entire 156 episode Johto arc. And she didn't even get it till Johto was nearly over. Her team felt very mishandled.

 

[Nodame]

Interesting in the SM cameo Misty has her Corsola again. Remember Corsola was the only pokemon she captured for the entire 156 episode span of Johto.

It's weird, Misty had a ton of captures in Kanto to the point where she had so many, then they literally slowed down and gave her 1 new pokemon out of an entire 156 episode Johto arc. And she didn't even get it till Johto was nearly over. Her team felt very mishandled.

You make it seem like it's huge problem, when in reality, people will still love Misty regardless and that will never change.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

You make it seem like it's huge problem, when in reality, people will still love Misty regardless and that will never change.

You are not getting the point, people will love her because of nostalgia and the fact that she was the first companion and not because she was a well written character unlike dawn who people love because she was equal to ash throughout all of DP and is considered the best written character after ash..

 

[Nodame]

You are not getting the point, people will love her because of nostalgia and the fact that she was the first companion and not because she was a well written character unlike dawn who people love because she was equal to ash throughout all of DP and is considered the best written character after ash..

Mmm..No. It's called character charm, a trait that many companions failed to gain, regardless of how much focus they get. A character can get development but can lack charm and be generic personality wise, making them uninteresting to me. I like Dawn though.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Mmm..No. It's called character charm, a trait that many companions failed to gain, regardless of how much focus they get. A character can get development but can lack charm and be generic personality wise, making them uninteresting to me. I like Dawn though.

You do have a point, and she had a strong personality too which became weaker especially once she got togepi which mild her down, still say she is loved mostly by western fans mainly due to her being first of companions, nostalgia also brings a lot of charm to character as well for example tea gardener in yugioh is still considered best girl in franchise due to being first girl even though she was mostly useless, same can be said about brock, OS trio had the best dynamic of all the groups so far but individually they were all lacking.

 

[Nodame]

You do have a point, and she had a strong personality too which became weaker especially once she got togepi which mild her down, still say she is loved mostly by western fans mainly due to her being first of companions, nostalgia also brings a lot of charm to character as well for example tea gardener in yugioh is still considered best girl in franchise due to being first girl even though she was mostly useless, same can be said about brock, OS trio had the best dynamic of all the groups so far but individually they were all lacking.

Her good traits outclasses her bad traits IMO, having a strong personality is what matters to me and most fans out there. We do realize her flaws though. And her getting Togepi was one of the most adorable things that happened in Pokemon because I appreciate cuteness, unlike others in here. I also think it made her more mature.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Her good traits outclasses her bad traits IMO, having a strong personality is what matters to me and most fans out there. We do realize her flaws though. And her getting Togepi was one of the most adorable things that happened in Pokemon because I appreciate cuteness, unlike others in here. I also think it made her more mature.

That is fine but even her strong personality became stale with time, not to mention she became background character for most of the OS. That was her biggest issue, wrietrs didn't know how to handle her and brock. As for her and togepi, it would be better if togepi had gotten focus on itself which would have helped misty grow as well but even it didn't do anything, it got more focus in those 2 AG cameo then it did in 200+ episodes in OS, as for cuteness all the girls have gotten cute pokemon so that is nothing new, also misty is a tomboy and not girly unlike may, dawn, serena and lillie who are way more cute.

 

[Nodame]

That is fine but even her strong personality became stale with time, not to mention she became background character for most of the OS. That was her biggest issue, wrietrs didn't know how to handle her and brock. As for her and togepi, it would be better if togepi had gotten focus on itself which would have helped misty grow as well but even it didn't do anything, it got more focus in those 2 AG cameo then it did in 200+ episodes in OS, as for cuteness all the girls have gotten cute pokemon so that is nothing new, also misty is a tomboy and not girly unlike may, dawn, serena and lillie who are way more cute.

We can debate forever and is getting pointless now. She never became stale, the writing direction was different in the past, where it was solely focusing on Ash and nothing else matters, it's not that the writers did not know what to do with her, it's only when May and Dawn appeared people started the comparison.

And what's wrong with Misty being tomboy though? its what makes her interesting and different. For other girls being "cuter", that's subjective. To me, Misty had the most iconic design of all.

 

[DatsRight]

There often seems to be these characters in shows, the problem isn't they're bland, the writers bothered to give them a fun personality and all the potential for a good role in the story, but then when the plot starts to set up they seem to find out they don't really have any idea what to do with them.

For the OS trio I suppose there's the excuse that Shudo underestimated how much his original plans would be stifled and how he'd end up being limited to a long running formula (though even early on Brock didn't seem incredibly developed).

I am disappointed that Misty seemingly won't get an episode to herself in SM, and maybe even Brock's will get a TR interruption. I'd have loved them to get a turn with the more character driven format and just an episode of them doing their own stuff with no formula or bad guys or generic disasters butting into it. They keep having snippets of the old OS dynamic and character moments but they don't seem to ever play it in full.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

We can debate forever and is getting pointless now. She never became stale, the writing direction was different in the past, where it was solely focusing on Ash and nothing else matters, it's not that the writers did not know what to do with her, it's only when May and Dawn appeared people started the comparison.

And what's wrong with Misty being tomboy though? its what makes her interesting and different. For other girls being "cuter", that's subjective. To me, Misty had the most iconic design of all.

What are you talking about, shee definitely became stale by the time, compare her in starting episodes and compare her in johto series and part of that was due to her taking backseat and the big reason for that was babysitting togepi, they watered down her personality to matchup with togepi and to be fair she didn't have much focus with togepi as well. Yeah writing direction aside writers were clueless about misty/brock, iris was handled better and she was also a type based trainer so yeah blame should be on the writers as well, the main reason why she was axed after the show was mainly because she was stale by the end of OS, writers wanted another girl or you can say eye candy to attract new viewers.

In the current episode lillie looked much cuter imo, calling her design as best is like saying OS has best design when XY, AG and DP has better and more mature designs if you ask me, though OS is most iconic only due to nostalgia.

For the OS trio I suppose there's the excuse that Shudo underestimated how much his original plans would be stifled and how he'd end up being limited to a long running formula (though even early on Brock didn't seem incredibly developed).

I dont think brock/misty were remembered for there development, they were mre popular due to bringing humour and most importantly strong group dynamic, i think OS had the best dynamic of all the groups.

 

[DatsRight]

I dont think brock/misty were remembered for there development, they were mre popular due to bringing humour and most importantly strong group dynamic, i think OS had the best dynamic of all the groups.

What I mean is that initially Shudo had this much more cynical and ruthless depiction of the Pokemon trainer profession that was supposed to make the characters' backstories and personal struggles more humanized, though after a while it all got dumbed down, and as a result a lot of the cast lost that spike about them. Misty venting the crap she got from the likes of her sisters onto Ash for example. While it made sense for them to develop out of it, that more jaded aspect of world building was not brought up as part of it as the OS continued. I don't think Shudo and the others had many ideas what to replace the original plans with.

Team Rocket also suffered a great deal because of this, because their backstories as professional washouts throughout Kanto played a lot into them being rounded and relevant characters instead of generic villains. One of their best Johto episodes for example was one where a Pokemon Centre Blissey turned out to have a connection with Jessie, though as they continued changing regions and the story became more idealised that shade of depth slowly disappeared.

 

[Kintaro]

One thing I dislike in cameos is when characters return they don't get new pokemon anymore. When Dawn appeared in BW she didn't have any new captures from Hoenn. When Misty/Brock return they don't have any new pokemon (just Mega evo's), and that's it. May also didn't have any new captures from Johto but at least the sheer mass of evolutions made up for it.

Why don't the writers show old characters capture new pokemon off-screen anymore? These characters have now been traveling on their own for a long time, and they come back with no new Pokemon at all?