I guess they hadn't considered the 'reserving Pokemon for younger companion' idea until XY. Plus Clemont is more of a doormat than May.
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Having more filler does more than just screw with plot and pacing
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I guess they hadn't considered the 'reserving Pokemon for younger companion' idea until XY. Plus Clemont is more of a doormat than May.
AuraChannelerChris
Easygoing Luxray.
A shame, really, because Wally doesn't exist in the anime so no one could show off with the Ralts line.
While it would have worked better if it had amounted to something in the long run of things, I don't think the twerps' involvement is futile just because it's episodic. You can still get new depths and challenges to give them a bit more personality even if it's not a long term thing, it's just that so much filler doesn't even try that, or only goes halfway into it before reverting back to irrelevant formula.
My issue with episodes like XYZ 20 and 21 for example is that they look like they'll be unique limelight episodes for Bonnie and Serena respectfully and give them a unique moment of being flawed. Unfortunately rather than playing it through, having their actions have consequences and them learning anything from their mistakes, we get the usual generic Team Rocket intervention that makes the first half of the plot completely irrelevant, skipping the intended climax and thus having both characters face no consequences and seemingly end the episode learning nothing. Nothing has come of benefit from this setup, not even just getting a little bit of new personality from the character in question. TR butting in is essentially a plot device to keep them flat.
Episodes like Sophocles' 'moving away fake out' for example, while episodic and basic, are at least fully realised and let us see a new glimpse of the character, we see Sophocles making an error, fearing the consequences but ultimately knowing he has to do it (if in a characteristically dithering melodramatic way). Nothing negates this character plot or dumbs it down significantly (besides maybe the others taking it ridiculously well, I get they're his friends and all, but they could have at least done a comedic faint or something) so if anything the character does get some benefit from this episode existing. Same for episodes like the Passimian episode showing Ash's more eccentric sense of altruism when a more complicated threat occurs.
This is stuff fillers should be exploited for more often, character studies, showing depths to the characters that we can't while they're progressing or busy in the main arcs. Ironically only Team Rocket themselves tended to get fully realised ones pre-SM (besides the pilot episode for Ash of course).
My issue with episodes like XYZ 20 and 21 for example is that they look like they'll be unique limelight episodes for Bonnie and Serena respectfully and give them a unique moment of being flawed. Unfortunately rather than playing it through, having their actions have consequences and them learning anything from their mistakes, we get the usual generic Team Rocket intervention that makes the first half of the plot completely irrelevant, skipping the intended climax and thus having both characters face no consequences and seemingly end the episode learning nothing. Nothing has come of benefit from this setup, not even just getting a little bit of new personality from the character in question. TR butting in is essentially a plot device to keep them flat.
Episodes like Sophocles' 'moving away fake out' for example, while episodic and basic, are at least fully realised and let us see a new glimpse of the character, we see Sophocles making an error, fearing the consequences but ultimately knowing he has to do it (if in a characteristically dithering melodramatic way). Nothing negates this character plot or dumbs it down significantly (besides maybe the others taking it ridiculously well, I get they're his friends and all, but they could have at least done a comedic faint or something) so if anything the character does get some benefit from this episode existing. Same for episodes like the Passimian episode showing Ash's more eccentric sense of altruism when a more complicated threat occurs.
This is stuff fillers should be exploited for more often, character studies, showing depths to the characters that we can't while they're progressing or busy in the main arcs. Ironically only Team Rocket themselves tended to get fully realised ones pre-SM (besides the pilot episode for Ash of course).
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janejane6178
Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
I dont mind getting fillers about Pokemon related stuff. But I do mind when its about things like an orange hair boring child afraid to move out his home with his parents. Or playing baseball, or making a theater show. This is a Pokemon show, not Arthur reed show.
Or taking care as their sick boyfriend, or making an amateur film, or baking.
On paper, nearly anything can sound very dull and un-Pokemon-ish. Execution makes it all. I mean there's tons of fillers that sound like they're gonna be really epic or take true advantage of the games concepts, then turn out to be some generic TR/COTD affair or other formulaic snooze fest (and no I'm not just bashing XY in that regard, EVERY series does it).
Hell often times you know you have a good character when they can take a plot about barely anything and make it fun.
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Jeal
Well-Known Member
The thing is... these episodes are not funny. They are terribly boring.
It varies depending on what the character can do. And either way putting in a repetitive COTD or TR situation isn't exactly a good alternative.
Ignition
We are so back Zygardebros
Wouldn't you need to watch the fillers to actually see if they're bad?
Jeal
Well-Known Member
No, just you cares about it, no one else want to watch a episode about a talking pokedex playing a detective, or a pointless pancake race, no matter how good the characters are. And I posted above how much COTD episodes bore me out.
janejane6178
Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
Every show ahs it? Yes ur right. But only 1 abomination one has 99 % of itOr taking care as their sick boyfriend, or making an amateur film, or baking.
On paper, nearly anything can sound very dull and un-Pokemon-ish. Execution makes it all. I mean there's tons of fillers that sound like they're gonna be really epic or take true advantage of the games concepts, then turn out to be some generic TR/COTD affair or other formulaic snooze fest (and no I'm not just bashing XY in that regard, EVERY series does it).
Hell often times you know you have a good character when they can take a plot about barely anything and make it fun.
At least it does 'abomination' stories in FULL AND WITH VARIATION. Seriously I got completely apathetic from how mechanical and repetitive the pre-SM fillers got, almost like they actively avoided making the protagonists do anything interesting. Almost any time it looked like the twerps would do anything remotely entertaining as characters....nope, Team Rocket curb stomp and stock quotes. What an awesome way to flow every single episode.
Not every SM filler is good, true, but being mundane is different from being bland.
Okay you define to me an ideal filler episode.
AznKei
Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
For me, seeing and being spoiled by other animes which do better jobs for their casts, I think pointing the issues of the anime are justified. But knowing the producers/writers that they don't care on what we (mainly Western fans) think about the show, I just watch it for my own will, and handle my own consequence if the episodes don't please me.
Jeal
Well-Known Member
But, how we mentioned above, they are not doing anything interesting. They are the most boring characters of this show ever.
Well, it's frustrating wait weeks until a good episode comes out(poor Naruto fans, I wonder the suffering they endured).
Again, give me an example of a character that has done something incredibly entertaining in a filler episode past the OS.
Jeal
Well-Known Member
The ideal filler episode is the one that make you laugh, rather than force the viewer to watch the characters doing random boring things. Again, no one here is defending the old fillers, just saying that SM fillers are terribly boring too.
That is a pretty non-specific description, since a character can be tasked with absolutely any mundane task and somehow make it funny in the right circumstance and method. Subjective as it may be, I thought some of the SM fillers, in spite of being random and mundane, could be funny. Admittedly not all of them, but some.
Hell I could argue the COTD and TR situations were funny in execution in the earliest points of the anime, just now they don't even bother.
Jeal
Well-Known Member
Yeah, you are right. But SM fillers are not like that. The only thing different in SM fillers is the characters making stupid faces every single moment, and it's not funny, it's annoying.
FlygontheRavager
#1 Pokémon Anime Fan!
Well, then I must not exist, because I loved those episodes. Please don’t pass off your opinions as fact or make assumptions; that kind of stuff will only edge this forum closer to becoming like the YouTube Pokémon anime community - and let me tell you, THAT is a steaming hot mess right now.