Redstar45
The Anime/Special's canon know it all.
It is as should be Satoshi goal too as they should bring his Lizrdom and Pokemon that could do mega evolution.
-
Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.
However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.
We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure. -
Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
Do you care about companions “out shinning” Ash?
- Thread starter Sham
- Start date
Spider-Phoenix
#ChespinGang
I'd blame that on animation budget, to be honest. The performances we saw gave us an idea of what they are about. Showing more than that is probably too draining for both writers and animators. Specially with an anime with such a tight production schedule as Pokémon.
Sham
The Guardian of War
But that wouldn’t explain why DP was able to show multiple appeal rounds with multiple different characters. I guess you could argue XY used its budge else where but that just goes to show how much they cared about Showcases
XY had a much more linear focus on quality control than other series, investing nearly all its time and effort and budget onto the main arcs and battles. The rest of the stuff maybe had enough attention to get a handful of high quality stock footage clips like the showcase performances but otherwise they were the afterthought.
Notice that BW and SM were considered trash in terms of battle/main climax animation compared to XY, and that's because they had a more rounded selection, instead investing some of the more fluid high budget moments on character scenes and what not. SOMETHING has to take the fall ultimately.
Notice that BW and SM were considered trash in terms of battle/main climax animation compared to XY, and that's because they had a more rounded selection, instead investing some of the more fluid high budget moments on character scenes and what not. SOMETHING has to take the fall ultimately.
Leonhart
Imagineer
Sham said:
I do remember some rather nice-looking CGI in the DP Contest appeal rounds. It's not so impressive by today's standards of course, but for that time period it looked quite spiffy. I remember when the animators started using CGI for certain attacks in AG, but I wasn't fond of it at first.
Rockapheller
A Pokémon Enthusiast
I have a feeling this is quite an unpopular opinion, but here I go. I don't dislike Ash, obviously, but Ash has been there for over 20 years and it has already reached a point where it gets repetitive at times. Even if Ash is not there to leave the show at any point, it is always refreshing to have co-protagonists like how Dawn was treated during early DP saga, and obviously now Goh is sharing the screentime with him. I am totally cool with Ash not being in the centre of attention every single time. Although there are fans out there who despise the very first Ash-less main series episode, I actually thought it was a really good one. It definitely helps when Ash is not present when he is not needed.
Ignition
We are so back Zygardebros
This isn't unpopular. So many people have brought up some variation of the anime going on without Ash whether it'd be letting each new generation's respective protagonist be the MC like Ash to Red or speculating since XY if this would be his last season.
Leonhart
Imagineer
Rockapheller said:
Frankly I haven't rooted for Satoshi in a very long time, but my indifference towards his character isn't necessarily abated by seeing the companion characters outshine him, because unfortunately even when they get the spotlight it's not always handled well. SM in particular showed that the writers can't juggle development for that many characters properly since Kaki and Lilie were arguably the only companion characters who developed in a realistic way without questionable plot contrivances dictating everything.
I think SM did a decent job trying to reignite Ash personality-wise and break him out of the old formula, though it has come to a point that I think they struggle to take his character new places to tremendous detail, and I feel like they could have shared the limelight more evenly between him and the other protagonists. Ash is meant to be a colourful yet rather simplistic and approachable character compared to the others, not to say he is bland, but generally his development as a person is kept more subtle and gradual so he remains versatile as main character, while the others get one series as more dynamic characters.
Besides SM onwards seems like it has increased Ash's chemistry focus, which means he works well as a supporting character anyway. So long as the other characters have a good dynamic with him, Ash doesn't really suffer from others taking central stage more often (maybe another reason Kiawe, Lillie and Sophocles intertwined the best out of the SM cast, since they bounced off Ash well enough to keep getting tidbits of personality and importance).
Journeys deciding to focus on Go a bit more dominantly isn't a bad direction, it's just a shame that there isn't really any other companions proper, just supporting characters like Chloe who get the rare bit of limelight, which leads to Go sometimes having a similar issues as Ash of sometimes feeling too dominant and linear a focus.
Besides SM onwards seems like it has increased Ash's chemistry focus, which means he works well as a supporting character anyway. So long as the other characters have a good dynamic with him, Ash doesn't really suffer from others taking central stage more often (maybe another reason Kiawe, Lillie and Sophocles intertwined the best out of the SM cast, since they bounced off Ash well enough to keep getting tidbits of personality and importance).
Journeys deciding to focus on Go a bit more dominantly isn't a bad direction, it's just a shame that there isn't really any other companions proper, just supporting characters like Chloe who get the rare bit of limelight, which leads to Go sometimes having a similar issues as Ash of sometimes feeling too dominant and linear a focus.
Last edited:
Leonhart
Imagineer
DatsRight said:
Frankly, I thought that they tried too hard to make him more interesting in SM. The constant face faults and comedy gags seemed a bit forced especially coming off the back of XY, which wasn't quite as comedy driven [although there were some funny moments shown every now and then]. Seeing Satoshi's personality shift slightly from DP to BW to XY to SM to now is actually a bit unsettling.
Sham
The Guardian of War
I wonder will someone ever actually ask this question in an interview as to why are they limiting the Pokegirls of each series post BW. Serena and Iris got the same exact amount of focus episodes but the former barely ever had a cohesive battle nor contributed much to the action, Alola gals barely battled (Lillie had a total of five I believe) and Lana and Mallow didn’t really do much until the League and now we have Chloe.
Ubermuk
Sticky & Sweet
Yeah it's weird how there's been this surge in the males getting more attention than the girls even though you'd think that having the girls do more would be a smart move because then female fans might want to watch the show more.
LilligantLewis
Bonnie stan
since DP tbh. When all 4 of the Elite Four debuted within a current generation's main series for the first time (it didn't happen in OS because Agatha didn't debut till AG), Cynthia made frequent appearances, Ash was at his strongest with Paul seemingly being his only roadblock, before Tobias was revealed many fans were speculating it was Ash's last generation and that either Dawn would take over for a few generations or that a totally new main character would arise.
take a look at these for examples: https://forums.serebii.net/threads/the-new-sinnoh-league-elite-4-2010-thread.433844/page-15
https://forums.bulbagarden.net/inde...ague-end-of-sinnoh-generation-v-thread.58108/
Also, until BW were announced in April, which is the soonest before a new generation that games have ever been announced (only 5 months before they came out) the end of the Sinnoh anime wasn't clear, and people thought there would be an Elite Four arc in the fall.
Leonhart
Imagineer
Ubermuk said:
I don't think it's done on purpose, because I can't see what the benefit of neglecting the female characters is. When it comes to Serena at least, her lack of battling was due to her crush apparently being the writers' priority, as well as TryPokaron lacking battles in the first place.
Ignition
We are so back Zygardebros
Didn’t even know that theory was a thing since I was just a dumb kid enjoying DP. People have wanted Ash gone for so long. I could see why they thought that
It's kinda weird, I guess maybe they've lost investment in the female characters (they made a token effort for Lillie, but likely for the reason she was THE SM story character, they couldn't get away with not using her). Or maybe they realised the male companions kept getting the shaft and decided to give them a fair turn.
Concerning battling, I always had this theory that someone in charge complained about the more vicious TR battles in BW/early XY and said to tone down the cuter/feminine characters getting roughed up. It would explain the awkwardness of them always trying to call off Serena's battles when it was inevitable she'd get her ass kicked, and why SM pushed far more for non-battle agendas and scenarios (and why Lana, despite being the 'battler girl' actually did ZERO trainer battles). They can still battle TR and other baddies plenty times, but of course TR were toned back down to curbstomp material around that point too.
There's a strange consistent pattern post-BW in that the girls all officially lose ONE battle each, it's weird, like if someone DID make that mandate they added 'Oh fine, they can get kicked around ONCE just to tone down the plot armour'. SM certainly timed that event methodically if so, though Journeys would suggest they just couldn't tweak the formula enough to make the girls interesting otherwise. They tried some more unique agendas and stories but after a while it just comes back to battling.
Granted Ash was also the ultimate clown in SM, as were his team, it was hard to compete in terms of gags and slapstick with him, and he would inevitably get the best battles even if the others DID do them. There were many occasions they overused Ash but I think more because he was far more game for it than the other characters, who sometimes struggled to establish a core to work off of.
Concerning battling, I always had this theory that someone in charge complained about the more vicious TR battles in BW/early XY and said to tone down the cuter/feminine characters getting roughed up. It would explain the awkwardness of them always trying to call off Serena's battles when it was inevitable she'd get her ass kicked, and why SM pushed far more for non-battle agendas and scenarios (and why Lana, despite being the 'battler girl' actually did ZERO trainer battles). They can still battle TR and other baddies plenty times, but of course TR were toned back down to curbstomp material around that point too.
There's a strange consistent pattern post-BW in that the girls all officially lose ONE battle each, it's weird, like if someone DID make that mandate they added 'Oh fine, they can get kicked around ONCE just to tone down the plot armour'. SM certainly timed that event methodically if so, though Journeys would suggest they just couldn't tweak the formula enough to make the girls interesting otherwise. They tried some more unique agendas and stories but after a while it just comes back to battling.
Granted Ash was also the ultimate clown in SM, as were his team, it was hard to compete in terms of gags and slapstick with him, and he would inevitably get the best battles even if the others DID do them. There were many occasions they overused Ash but I think more because he was far more game for it than the other characters, who sometimes struggled to establish a core to work off of.
Last edited:
They were delusional then because there was no way that the writing staff and producers would've let a girl be the lead character or get rid of Ash.
Like come on even for 2010's standards that was a weird thing for people to expect.
LilligantLewis
Bonnie stan
With the Ash being gone thing, I think at the time it wasn't clear how they could continue Ash's story and make him weak enough to lose to early gym leaders, no one knew at the time (because OS-DP had been one continuous progression) that the "reset" BW would bring was coming.
Pokegirl Fan~
Liko>>>>>Ash
Its what killed Ash for me, it was clear that DP should have been his last series. His character and story hasn't felt connected to OS-DP ever since BW and the reset was part of the problem.
Spider-Phoenix
#ChespinGang
It's actually very recurring. Sometimes it feels like this whole "Ash should leave/be replaced" talk comes every once a year. It's basically a tradition like Easter, Christmas or Thanksgiving.