Guilty Pleasures

[DatsRight]

There are those moments in the anime that we think are awesome and iconic, and those cringeworthy moments we think they screwed up big time.

Then there's those weird moments, those ones we know weren't exactly noteworthy or even that well written yet, for whatever reason, we still found some unusual enjoyment out of them. What are your personal shameful favourite moments?

 

[blizzardblaze]

One of my favorite ones was when in the Orange Islands arc, when Pikachu began surfing on that surfboard as the 2 bulbasaurs yelped in delight and then the wave from the sewers crashed into the mayor

 

[Darthlord7]

I actually enjoyed Elesa's gym battle with Ash. I found Ash's stupidity hilarious throughout the episode especially when he left the gym.

 

[DatsRight]

The 'Ash rescues the Pokegirl' scenes. I know, I'm a male chauvinist, but I love whenever Ash is in 'onii chan' mode around his companions, especially Lillie.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

Ash's pity badges in Kanto, particularly the one with Sabrina. I found it hilarious.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Ash's pity badges in Kanto, particularly the one with Sabrina. I found it hilarious.

You beat me to it, especially his the moment his mouth was opened wide I was laughing so badly that I tripped and twisted my foot. The other moment was when brock's father revealed his identity and ash frankly asked him "you are that good for nothing father that brock told me about". That moment was hilarious as well.

 

[Ignition]

I find the Thunder Armor technique (with Pikachu & Swellow) to be both hilarious and smart. I remember just thinking "Idk what just happened but I'm going to laugh".

Brock saying Water types are weak to Fire types

Ash asking if Treecko was a Water type

Ash throwing a PokéBall at Iris's hair thinking she was a Pokémon

The entire anime is a guilty pleasure tbh

 

[345ash-greninja]

I love it when Ash is on a long winning streak and pretty much never loses a battle, like Ash's year long winning streak in Kalos. While some losses are needed for the sake of more development and make the anime more interesting, I feel that winning most of the time is nothing bad especially if you are struggling a lot to win and overcoming high stake situations in order to get the win.

Like say man, there are protagonists who win 95% of the time and still are likeable characters in terms of character development. Take the Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists for example: how many times did Yugi Muto/Yami Yugi or Yusei Fudo lose a duel?

 

[DatsRight]

A lot of the slapstick, especially in SM. Sure it's often silly and overdone, but I dunno, I enjoy it. I like clownish characters, and while it's emphasized to sometimes ridiculous levels, it never really feels like it's grinding the plot to a halt.

I like the Ash slapstick that is so divisive, and for some reason I love it when female characters get in on it, maybe because it's a rarity in many cartoons (and even the recent anime has started to dial it down). I love characters that can be competent but still make complete buffoons of themselves. Dignified heroes are overrated.

I love it when Ash is on a long winning streak and pretty much never loses a battle, like Ash's year long winning streak in Kalos. While some losses are needed for the sake of more development and make the anime more interesting, I feel that winning most of the time is nothing bad especially if you are struggling a lot to win and overcoming high stake situations in order to get the win.

As mentioned by Brock in one episodes, battles should be more about displaying skill and personality rather than just who wins or loses. I usually don't like characters who win all the time, but that's often more because they usually win generically and easily or have plot armour start to play more into their victories, they rarely keep the balance of them still looking fallible and injecting enough character into HOW they win. Let's face it, a hero has to regularly win stories, but there are so many franchises that don't even try to make it entertaining.

Ash's SM battle run hasn't been too bad despite emphasizing a winning streak since they still tend to emphasize his eccentricity (not to mention jobber battles like Team Rocket/Skull are kept to a minimum this series). His four main battlers have all taken token beatings (arguably far more than any of the other trainers' Pokemon this series) so still have a palpable degree of fallibility.

The only thing that kinda bugs me is how it always tends to fall in his favour when it comes to the Z Moves, with his opponents regularly failing or getting avoided, but his always working perfectly.

I do admit I'm one of those that tends to take too much gratification when one of the twerps actually takes a hit back in battle (I unhealthily savored Meowth actually Fury Swiping Pikachu at long last in the XY Pokeball factory episode, regardless if he still lost, he got in ONE hit, the perfect one sided streak was broken). I prefer even handed fights and when the hero struggles a bit, and of course in earlier series where the majority of climaxes were Team Rocket or legendary focused big arcs, that didn't happen a lot. When there's a bit of pressure on the hero that makes them put real effort into win, then I'm all for rooting for them.

 

[Denko Sekka]

The mid-Johto fillers were bad but I kind of like them? Back then Ash was funny in the dub and so was TR so I didn't mind the bad plots.

 

[JustAStatistic]

Fillers. Even the terrible ones can be fun to watch and laugh at.

The English dub. (although this would apply to all anime) Dub has its own charm that subbed anime can't steal.

 

[DatsRight]

I think I take a bit too much obsession in seeing Team Rocket actually get to put up even a halfway fight against the twerps, as in actually land hits and force them to win through some amount of effort not involving a DEM/Bewear/other bigger fish. Not just being there to pad time, pivot a boost or just make one of the blander twerps look badass by jobbing to them, actually being a developed villain that gives them a real challenge.

My annoyance with TR being useless non-stop is that they are usually the twerps' climax EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, and they almost never defeat them in a remotely different way besides sometimes calling different base attacks or sometimes relying on a DEM when they aren't COMPLETELY useless and it goes too far into them needing IQ points to stop them. It sometimes feels like TR are an excuse to not give them character agency so anytime they give them a developed unnegated challenge or are even just entertaining as foils for them is quite cathartic.

The battle in Do I Hear A Ralts remains one of my very favourites in the whole anime, even over most official ones. Curiously while BW did bring them back to putting up developed face offs a lot of the time, I wasn't as invested in them, since their sympathetic personalities weren't there till near the end. That was what made them look like underdogs and risk competing with the twerps in likeability. XY kept a compromise for a short time, and then gave up. SM doesn't try at all, even with good resources like Mimikyu and Z Moves, but, aside from being spammed in Mallow's episodes, it doesn't feel as much a detriment because they find other things for the twerps to do most of the time to make them feel less like vanilla protagonists leeching off of their straw loser.

The mid-Johto fillers were bad but I kind of like them? Back then Ash was funny in the dub and so was TR so I didn't mind the bad plots.

Yeah, the Johto dub was arguably when the anime was at the height of its popularity in the west, so it felt like 4Kids were trying more then, with wittier improvised dialogue (ie. actual good snarky one liners instead of rhymes and alliterations) and the actors sounding at their most enthusiastic. The Flaming Moltres says it all.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

The one episode with Jessiebelle in DP. I don't know why, but I find it hilarious when Brock and Ash are just acting like James is an old friend, calmly drinking tea while explaining to Dawn that they knew his family was ultra-rich this whole time and his likely motivations for joining Team Rocket.

 

[keepitsimple]

This entire scene

 

[Genaller]

This entire scene

The one episode with Jessiebelle in DP. I don't know why, but I find it hilarious when Brock and Ash are just acting like James is an old friend, calmly drinking tea while explaining to Dawn that they knew his family was ultra-rich this whole time and his likely motivations for joining Team Rocket.

I swear TRio are such great characters... when they’re not being TRio ;-)! I admit that in general I tend to get a kick out of episodes that focus on the TRio’s backstories and/or more intimate aspects of their lives. It’s honestly kind of sad that a lot of the younger fanbase only sees TRio as surface lvl cartoon villains without any knowledge of their background. In addition to the posts I quoted I’d like to give special mention to:

— The story behind Meowth learning human speech
— The story of how TRio first became a team (chronicles)
— Arbok/Weezing release scene (honestly TRio Pokémon release scenes in general are very emotional)

All of this stuff could be classified as “weird” since narratively we’re meant to dislike TRio as the “bad guys” yet stuff like this makes them pretty sympathetic and likeable.

 

[U.N. Owen]

Holiday Hi-Jynx

This was the weirdest holiday special I've seen when I first saw this and it's still in the top five. Santa's boot, Ash trying to swim to the North Pole in his underwear, Jessie's entire plot.

All of this stuff could be classified as “weird” since narratively we’re meant to dislike TRio as the “bad guys” yet stuff like this makes them pretty sympathetic and likeable.

This is probably a left over from the Shudo days where he wanted to make interesting villains to face a bland protagonist, hence why the TRio get backstories and Ash is as flat as a sheet of paper.

 

[Genaller]

This is probably a left over from the Shudo days where he wanted to make interesting villains to face a bland protagonist, hence why the TRio get backstories and Ash is as flat as a sheet of paper.

Well Shudo actually did give Ash an interesting backstory in his novelization though that Novel has seemingly been retconned out of anime canon after he stepped down as head writer.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Holiday Hi-Jynx

This was the weirdest holiday special I've seen when I first saw this and it's still in the top five. Santa's boot, Ash trying to swim to the North Pole in his underwear, Jessie's entire plot.



This is probably a left over from the Shudo days where he wanted to make interesting villains to face a bland protagonist, hence why the TRio get backstories and Ash is as flat as a sheet of paper.

Go and read the novel before commenting, ash and delia both were given very interesting backstories which anime couldn't show otherwise it could have made TR backstory very shallow.

 

[DatsRight]

I think what they mean is that the backstory and setup doesn't always prevent Ash from being a rather vanilla protagonist in terms of role and dynamic (though ironically Shudo was probably one of the better writers at giving him a fun personality besides SM's team).

Shudo did 'get' Team Rocket however, in that he knew they weren't just standard cliche villains and more characters with their own unique premises and complexities that WANTED to be cliche villains. These days writers too often play the cliche straight and make them feel completely irrelevant, they don't even give them a chemistry with the twerps anymore when them being snarky or bewildered by them trying to be REALLY over the top bad guys was half the fun.

Ironically Shudo's successors probably had the premise of Ash being a bland character down better, just they didn't want to be open about it and wouldn't let any other character take too much credibility and limelight away from him so everything else was made worse, hence Team Rocket often just feeling like they're meant to be there to pad screen time or job to the twerps to make them look competent (though Ash at least doesn't rely on this as often now, other twerps still struggle without plot devices like Team Rocket, ironically Ash is probably now more in the role Shudo wanted his side cast to be in; the more bombastic character whenever his support cast are getting dynamic development).

 

[SH65]

Thunder Armor it was so dumb but so cool at the same time.