Do you care about companions “out shinning” Ash?

[Mew2]

But even when Dragonite did not listen to Iris she was still winning battles with it left and right and I think that was what annoyed some people because it sent a bad message that you could still win alot even if your Pokemon doesn't like you.

And to make matters worse, it actually started losing once it started listening to Iris. I think the first battle where Dragonite listened to her was her battle against Ash, where he and his mid-battle evolved Krookodile beat her Dragonite. And things only went downhill from there for her Dragonite.

 

[LilligantLewis]

he anime purposely goes out of it’s way to point out that those weren’t legitimate wins through the voice of Georgia and that Iris didn’t earn them.

then Iris should have beaten Georgia later on in a legitimate fashion. By having her only win over Georgia come when Dragonite didn't listen, the writers made it seem like that was the only way Iris could beat her main rival. I know there are rare cases of main characters not beating their rival even once. Dawn v Zoey and Ash v Alain. However, the vast majority of the 10 or 15 rivals that have existed in this show, have been beaten, including Georgia. So the assumption would be, if a main character beats her rival, especially if it happens near the end of a series (and for BW, I just count episodes 1-108 as the main Iris/Georgia rivalry, because Georgia never appears in Episode N or Da!, so the time Iris beats Georgia at WTJC *is* near the end of the series) then the writers are counting that as a legit win. They need to make it clearer if they are calling it not a legit win. Best way to do that would be for an actual legit win to happen later.

 

[Sham]

then Iris should have beaten Georgia later on in a legitimate fashion. By having her only win over Georgia come when Dragonite didn't listen, the writers made it seem like that was the only way Iris could beat her main rival. I know there are rare cases of main characters not beating their rival even once. Dawn v Zoey and Ash v Alain. However, the vast majority of the 10 or 15 rivals that have existed in this show, have been beaten, including Georgia. So the assumption would be, if a main character beats her rival, especially if it happens near the end of a series (and for BW, I just count episodes 1-108 as the main Iris/Georgia rivalry, because Georgia never appears in Episode N or Da!, so the time Iris beats Georgia at WTJC *is* near the end of the series) then the writers are counting that as a legit win. They need to make it clearer if they are calling it not a legit win. Best way to do that would be for an actual legit win to happen later.

They made it clear when they explicitly her had say “I didn’t lose to you, I lost to that Dragonite of yours”. It sounds like you wanted the rivalry to go a certain way and because it didn’t, you’re concluding a situation happened in the anime that didn’t really happen. The anime never tried to imply that Iris legitimately beat Georgia. Prior to this fight Iris tied with Georgia (Excadrill vs Beartic) and won a tournament where Georgia was a participant while also defeating the person who beat her in a match (Ash). I say all this to say; I hardly doubt the anime was painting a picture that the only way Iris could be Georgia was by having Dragonite in her arsenal. Was the rivalry half baked? Yes, but when you have a clearer picture of all the rivals in general portrayed in BW and notice that even that main rival of the series was treated pretty horrible.... I don’t think you can blame Iris getting an “undeserved” Dragonite on why their rivalry was lacking.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I’m fine with others getting their own moments to shine. It keeps them interesting and gives them character. Tracey is pretty much the only companion that suffered even when he got an episode dedicated to him. The others benefit from episodes focusing on them because we get to learn more about them.

 

[Leonhart]

Tracey is pretty much the only companion that suffered even when he got an episode dedicated to him.

The Strike episode from the Orange Archipelago was about him, with the Musashi parts being the only real exception that comes to mind, but those were typical gag scenes that every episode back then used to have. He did get the least amount of screen-time out of all the traveling companions, but given the fact that he wasn't around for very long, I can let that slide.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

The Strike episode from the Orange Archipelago was about him, with the Musashi parts being the only real exception that comes to mind, but those were typical gag scenes that every episode back then used to have. He did get the least amount of screen-time out of all the traveling companions, but given the fact that he wasn't around for very long, I can let that slide.

That’s what I mean. Tracey only had the episode where he caught Scyther and yet it didn’t flesh out his personality or backstory like other episodes with a similar plot. Even the one off characters had more character development to them than Tracey.

 

[Applecorp]

That’s what I mean. Tracey only had the episode where he caught Scyther and yet it didn’t flesh out his personality or backstory like other episodes with a similar plot. Even the one off characters had more character development to them than Tracey.

Didn't he also get development in the Magikarp episode with the other Pokemon watcher character?

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Didn't he also get development in the Magikarp episode with the other Pokemon watcher character?

I don’t remember that episode tbh. But my guess it really wasn’t that much. The only things we really know about Tracey is that he’s an artist, originated somewhere in the Orange Islands, he has a Venonat, Marill, and Scyther, and he was last seen working as an assistant to Prof. Oak.

 

[Leonhart]

Didn't he also get development in the Magikarp episode with the other Pokemon watcher character?

To be fair, Kenji's development in that episode was minor. I didn't get the impression that what he learned in that episode had any benefit towards his hobby, especially since he was going to leave the cast a dozen episodes later, anyway.

 

[Ubermuk]

I didn't like the message that the writers kept trying to pummel us over the head with back then, but I accepted that they were trying to make a point about Iris's lack of initiative when it came to Kairyu. Frankly, I often got the feeling that the writers might not have liked Iris very much since they gave her three Pokemon that experienced some type of disobedience problem at some point in time, and a Kibago who couldn't sit still for longer than three seconds.

I always hated how Iris got the shortest end of the stick when it came to her team. 3 Pokemon with behavioral issues and one of those Pokemon ended up losing alot even when it started listening to her...

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

And then there was Emolga who suddenly started obeying her with no build-up

 

[Leonhart]

I always hated how Iris got the shortest end of the stick when it came to her team. 3 Pokemon with behavioral issues and one of those Pokemon ended up losing alot even when it started listening to her...

In the case of her Doryuzu, I actually thought its disobedience was handled well. I was just a little disappointed that Doryuzu became less important once it began listening to Iris, and after Kairyu became her powerhouse.

 

[Applecorp]

I always hated how Iris got the shortest end of the stick when it came to her team. 3 Pokemon with behavioral issues and one of those Pokemon ended up losing alot even when it started listening to her...

Her goal was kind of whack too I mean what does a Dragon Master even do?

She should've either been turned into Opelucid's gym leader or Unova's champion but I guess the writers feared she would outshine Ash if she did.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Iris would have been a bit more interesting if she slowly stopped treating Acew like a toddler and letting it out to play more than actually training it to help it grow stronger. Outside of the Dragon Rage arc, Axew got very little battling attention and it was seen playing with the other Pokémon instead of training. It didn’t even get that much of a character development as many other Pokémon have gotten. Snivy was a reserved starter that left its trainer because it wasn’t being trained the way it wanted. Emolga liked to use Attract to get out trouble and then run away using Volt Switch. Excadrill was too depressed to get out of its drill shape after losing a battle it thought was very important to Iris and had the arc of it learning that losing doesn’t mean that you are weak.
And Krookidile was following Ash and his friends for a long time before agreeing to join Ash’s team and wore those sunglasses which we only really ever saw Squirtle do and have never seen that many Pokémon wearing shades or even glasses in general.

 

[Sham]

But like Axew had the weirdest power levels in the anime from running around like a baby and getting lost to blasting out moves like Outrage and Giga Impact. It even absurdly damaged Cynthia Garchomp and did Paul’s Pokémon even do that during their battle?

 

[DatsRight]

Since they later came to the realisation they couldn't evolve Axew, it seemed like the creative team were resigned to the fact they couldn't develop him properly, despite, you know, having tons of unevolved Pokemon that naturally developed into powerhouses in a non-fluke or gag-ish way.

 

[Leonhart]

Since they later came to the realisation they couldn't evolve Axew, it seemed like the creative team were resigned to the fact they couldn't develop him properly, despite, you know, having tons of unevolved Pokemon that naturally developed into powerhouses in a non-fluke or gag-ish way.

I find it strange that they'd give Kibago clear foreshadowing for his evolution as early as BW006, only to decide later that they couldn't do it for whatever reason. And I agree that they could've still found a way to develop Kibago even without evolving him, but they chose to focus on Doryuzu and Kairyu's development instead.

 

[DatsRight]

It felt like, since BW was their first 'formula breaking' series, they were doing a lot of stuff on the fly and not thinking through HOW they were gonna go about and what to do if the plan didn't hold up.

An interview seemingly made apparent they intended to evolve Axew, but then realised the animation team wouldn't be able to handle his bigger designs without demoting him and likely diluting his character, so they kept him unevolved but had no idea what to do with him now besides padding episodes with his baby antics.

My guess is since BW had a noticeable animation bump, they overestimated what their new team could do at first. SM felt similarly like a lot of ideas were spontaneous, though at least for that one they had bothered to figure out how to have their animation team handle their plans.

 

[Sham]

I have a slight eye roll at them in hindsight about not being able to animate Axew’s evolutions correctly and throughly when only two generations later they did something like that. Tsareena and Turtonator don’t exactly have simple designs.

 

[DatsRight]

I have a slight eye roll at them in hindsight about not being able to animate Axew’s evolutions correctly and throughly when only two generations later they did something like that. Tsareena and Turtonator don’t exactly have simple designs.

I think it's more that SM had a more freestyle design that allowed them to get away with 'scribbling' or streamlining characters in crowd scenes more often, while the BW/XY era was the series at its most crisp and detailed, making it harder and more time consuming to animate.

It's likely no coincidence that BW barely evolved any of the main Pokemon fully, while XY DID but demoted the large majority of them as a result, usually only appearing together in brief group shots that were practically a still image.