• 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
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Is evolution necessary?

Status
Not open for further replies.

PokeMaster366

Well-Known Member
My thread about Charizard blew up into this conversation about evolution proving strength in the anime. I made a new thread for that conversation. So what are your views? Should Ash evolve all of his weaker Pokemon? Are they strong on their own? What role does marketing play in all of this?

The only big complaint that I have with evolution is that whenever it does occur in favor of Ash, it is typically contrived with little effort to make it seem natural. Under the typical Ash circumstances, his Pokemon almost always evolve when they're in a corner in an important battle such as a rival battle, Gym Battle, and certain Team Rocket battles. Whenever this does happen, the tables have a habit of turning very quickly and the newly evolved Pokemon finishes the current opponent off with a new move they pulled out of their arse. After that specific battle, however, the newly evolved Pokemon's win/loss record or power levels become sporadic at best and it's hard to tell whether or not they really are improving (Torterra is a prime example of this). We could blame Ash for the sporadic win/loss records, but the point or this thread is to see if evolution needs to happen to show the POKEMON'S growth, and not the trainer's.

Overall, I would prefer for evolutions to have more of a Zatch Bell presence and formula. They can happen to show physical proof that the Pokemon has gotten physically stronger, but that potential should only be hidden until the Pokemon shows an acceptable level of EMOTIONAL GROWTH and trainer/Pokemon synergy to accompany that power. Ash's Pokemon are okay as they are right now, but they have to show progress and be seriously pushed, otherwise, they'll stagnate even more than they already have. Marketing also has a negative impact on Ash's team since the people behind them are clingy. The people behind the Pokemon marketing are a lot like typical PO players in that they'll stay with one successful team for as long as possible until they run into the one person that is anti-teaming and anti-styling them. It's the big reason why Piplup's Dawn's cameo was such a bust (You see the blood red writing on the wall! You know as well as everyone else that the executives wanted an excuse to bring Piplup back!).
 

XXD17

Draco rex
Personally, I've never liked the fact that the main cast rarely evolves their pokemon...In Indigo, Ash had squirtle and bulbasaur...I understand that bulba didn't want to evolve and all but squirtle should have at least evolved into a wartortle...then there would be bulbasaur, wartortle and charizard...In Johto, it was WORSE...Why didn't cyndaquil evolve earlier? I really wanted to see Ash with typhlosion considering that charizard left...but of course only chikorita evolved and then only once...and totodile, he kinda flopped and was never really seen again....Johto was just not that great...For hoenn, it was better since all of Ash's pokemon ended up evolving...I was particularly happy that Ash got a sceptile...but not so much that marshtomp didn't evolve...Sinnoh by far was my favorite considering that not only chimchar evolved all the way, but turtwig did ALSO...that surprised me...The only thing was that bousel didn't evolve and that kinda annoyed me since I don't really like buizels face as opposed to floatzel's but that's OK since both infernape and staraptor were awesome...As for BW, I think it's ok so far...but I DO think that boldore and palpitoad should evolve...they just never had anything extremely exciting happen to them and evolution would do the trick very nicely to end their story of being neglected background pokemon...as for snivy, I WoULD LOVE IT if she evolved but to me, it's not necessary, I love snivy as she is but a serperior would be so awesome as well....

I see evolution as development. It never really has anything to do with power, in my opinion, but rather that the evolution just makes it seem that the anime is actually going somewhere...I mean the point of pokemon is to grow with your pokemon and unlock each other's potentials...that usually involves evolving...if that doesn't happen, then you just constantly see the same pokemon over and over again and it gets kinda bland...
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
The only big complaint that I have with evolution is that whenever it does occur in favor of Ash, it is typically contrived with little effort to make it seem natural. Under the typical Ash circumstances, his Pokemon almost always evolve when they're in a corner in an important battle such as a rival battle, Gym Battle, and certain Team Rocket battles. Whenever this does happen, the tables have a habit of turning very quickly and the newly evolved Pokemon finishes the current opponent off with a new move they pulled out of their arse. After that specific battle, however, the newly evolved Pokemon's win/loss record or power levels become sporadic at best and it's hard to tell whether or not they really are improving (Torterra is a prime example of this).

In Sinnoh whenever a pokemon of Ash's evolved, it got it's butt kicked and didn't win it's first non TR conflict fight, Staravia going to Staraptor being the only exception and possibly Gliscor since it managed a draw against Barry's Roserade, but it still didn't win.

This generation however it does seem like that by evolving the pokemon do back it up and kick butt in thier first fights after evolving so i'll give you that.
 

Lorde

Let's go to the beach, each.
Well those are the big two who have no real in-universe reason to have not evolved at this point and it's pretty glaring that they haven't.

Your post is almost an exact copy of the one I quoted in the Oshawott thread. But just to reiterate, since when have the writers needed to give a reason for Pokemon not evolving? How easily we forget all the other Pokemon Ash owns like Buizel and Corphish that never evolved and had no "in-universe" reason not to evolve. I don't understand why this is suddenly an issue, nor do I think that it's "glaring" that Snivy and Oshawott haven't evolved. Do you think the majority of kids really care? All the Snivy and Oshawott merchandise that is sold every single day should be enough confirmation that they don't stress over trivial things like evolutions.
 

Eievui-Nymphia

XY, gen of dreams.
Why some pokemon doesn't evolve? Because they're marketable and merchandise plays a big part on pokemon merchandise. Now it's worse because Ash is the only star and because the writers are more sensible to keep as much marketable pokemon as possible. And because 90% of marketable pokemon are unevolved pokemon (or pokemon born to be in sales, see you Emolga) some pokemon remain unevolved.

Because they're too sensible, they are keeping the plushies' team intact with the only exception of Pignite and because the league was near (if the league wasn't near, I completely saw more time of Ash's Tepig).

and @dman_dustin, you're wrong that the decision of making some pokemon unevovled are BS. That was the inside reason of this, but they're doing this to explain fans like you that they aren't evolving some pokemon because they'll find very important to promotion.

-Pikachu is the FACE of the franchise. Enter something with pokemon and possibly the first thing that you'll see is a Pikachu!!!! Sorry, but no. Also, Raichu isn't going to be a Pokemon mascot (I want that Raichu returns to being in sets to troll people thinking that Ash's Piakchu are evolving)

-Bulbasaur was a popular pokemon that now it's getting some merchandise via PC and what not. That means popular.

-Piplup. This guy is so marketbale. He is possibly selling more than 2 times the amount o merchandise than Axew "in the second part of 2012!!!). Yes, in Best Wishes series. That's a lot for a promotion for a pokemon that eblongs to a older main character.

I think that when a characters leaves they planned to be permanently and not thinks of a character are returning. I only see two main reasons to return a character in the pokemon series:
-That the character ithat replaced him was unpopular to begin and the decision of leaving was bad writing at the finest (Brock's situation in OI.)
-THat his main pokemon are selling more merchandise than the main pokemon of the new character in the series where only the latter are the main character: Here is the catch: Piplup is more popular than Axew now. (Note: Remember that BW1 was a special case in marketing, Axew was more popular here but for obvious reasons)

Marketing of Piplup is the sole reason that I see a older character returning to the show full time. I alkso think that Dawn was way more popular and Iris (I think that Iris wasn't very popular until the game counterpart was revealed to be Champion: the CHampion status has helped in Iris' popularity, trust me).

And I completely see for marketing reason that the main stars of the main cast of Gen VI are Pikachu, Piplup and Eevee.
 

Spin Attaxx

2012-2013
^ Further proof to me that the Pokémon animé is like the Japanese He-Man and Transformers cartoons - it's a 30 minute toy advert disguised as "entertainment".
 

PokeMaster366

Well-Known Member
In Sinnoh whenever a pokemon of Ash's evolved, it got it's butt kicked and didn't win it's first non TR conflict fight, Staravia going to Staraptor being the only exception and possibly Gliscor since it managed a draw against Barry's Roserade, but it still didn't win.

This generation however it does seem like that by evolving the pokemon do back it up and kick butt in thier first fights after evolving so i'll give you that.

Please note that I was also counting Team Rocket battles as well, and if I remember correctly, the only Pokemon who did evolve in Sinnoh were Turtwig, Chimchar, Starly, and Gligar. I'll admit that Turtwig did defy the norm when he evolved into Grotle, but it's hard to label him since he did conform to the evolve/new move/pwn when he went from Grotle to Torterra in that episode in Sunyshore City. Chimchar almost conformed to the formula during the 6 vs. 6 battle with Ash vs. Paul, but they managed to barely avoid it by having him lose quickly after he evolved and learned Mach Punch. The formula was also fulfilled somewhat when he went from Monferno to Infernape (Team Rocket conflicts count as well in these calculations), but again, he didn't get any new moves. Gligar evolved during a Team Rocket conflict as well (I only remember because Gary was in the episode, too), but one thing that was different in that scenario was that no new moves were pulled out of nowhere since the episode was focused more on move mastery anyway.

I guess one of the more enjoyable things about Hoenn and Sinnoh is that when Team Rocket battles are taken out of the equation, Ash never won his Gym Battles and rival battles by having his Pokemon pull new moves and/or evolutions out of their arses. We knew what to expect, and on the rare occasions where it did happen (that Sceptile vs. Claydol battle in the Battle Frontier), it was foreshadowed and it's full moveset wasn't revealed (I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong).

Now that we've gone into Unova, however, the victories have been more likely to be unjustified. Whenever a Pokemon does learn a new move, it either happens during a gym battle or off-screen (which I believe is the equivalent of pulling new moves out of nowhere), and if Trip's latest battle with Ash and the rest of the league battles are any indication, it makes everything more inconsistent and makes it more likely for fans to call bull**** on Ash's victories. I would mention how often "The Formula" was used here, but I don't feel like beating a dead horse.
 

ludiloco

Well-Known Member
Of course it's necessary, evolution makes pokemon get stronger than its unevolved forms.
 

ludiloco

Well-Known Member
No. Marketing killed the cat or in this case the rat. Raichu is stronger than Pikachu but for obvious reasons Pikachu wins. Cartoon logic ftw

But that doesn't change the fact that Raichu is stronger than Pikachu (unless Light ball)
 

IcySealeo

Well-Known Member
I think that evolution is the best sign to a development of a Pokemon. People might say that there are other ways to develop a Pokemon but I think evolution is the best one.
 

Lucario95

Behold The Aura!
I think is their own personal decision to choose weather evolve or not. But in my own way, evolution is a secure way to make your team better, I know that for some pokemon are so powerful without evolving and some are better. But let face it. Which region was the best result for Ash? Sinnoh right?. Now, check the pokemon that he caught in Sinnoh, most of them had evolved once( I know that he used some of his pokemon from different region to compete). I can conclude that Ash is a good trainer, but what he need is to evolve more, I'm not saying to everyone, but to some that can obviously can see that they have caliber to be better, for example Gible, Buizel, Oshawott, Totodile, Corphish etc.. I know that some pokemon had made worse when they evolve like when Turtwig evolve into Grotle, But most of the pokemon that he evolved had shown improvements. In the Unova League, Ash would have success if he uses his other pokemon. He had shown lot of luck when facing Trip and Stephan. Everything that I said is IMO.
 

crawdauntpro

darksidetrainer
I think Oshawott and Snivy are the new Squirtle and Bulbasaur so an evolution for them would probably seem not in the writer's thinking at this point. Palpitoad, Boldore, Totodile, Corphish, Buizel, Bayleef and Scraggy could definitely do with an evolution to progress them as they, at least to me they are, seem stale...
 

Joltik-Kid

Careful? Where's the fun in that?
I think Oshawott and Snivy are the new Squirtle and Bulbasaur so an evolution for them would probably seem not in the writer's thinking at this point. Palpitoad, Boldore, Totodile, Corphish, Buizel, Bayleef and Scraggy could definitely do with an evolution to progress them as they, at least to me they are, seem stale...
Well the could explain it somewhat... Squirtle and Bulbasaur sucked during their original time on the cast. (though Bulbasaur did get a bit better after Charizard got used less) Squirtle's still far from impressive though, at best he's borderline. Given we haven't seen Kingler's feats since Johto, I'd argue that it's a toss up between Chorpish and Buizel as Ash's strongest Water type.
 
To me, it's not necessary.

Reasoning: Some of my favorite Pokemon are un-evolved. Examples of that are Ash's Corphish, Dawn's Buneary, Brock's Marshtomp (instead of becoming Swampert), and Cilan's Pansage. Mainly, I like a balance of un-evolved and fully-evolved. For example, Ash having Gible and Buizel while also having Torterra, Infernape, Staraptor, and Gliscor. A better example would probably be Dawn. She had Piplup, Quilava, and Buneary while having Mamoswine, Ambipom, Pachirisu, and Togekiss.
 

Lorde

Let's go to the beach, each.
I think Oshawott and Snivy are the new Squirtle and Bulbasaur so an evolution for them would probably seem not in the writer's thinking at this point. Palpitoad, Boldore, Totodile, Corphish, Buizel, Bayleef and Scraggy could definitely do with an evolution to progress them as they, at least to me they are, seem stale...

While I would like to see some of those Pokemon develop, I'm against the writers evolving them just because they want to create the illusion of development. BW in particular has been been subjected to this illusion repeatedly; there's always so much hype when a Pokemon evolves, yet it's not true development. Usually a Pokemon will evolve merely to give Ash a convenient win, and in the case of the reserve Pokemon, they usually have to wait a while before getting another big role (Krookodile being the exception). I want real development for Ash's Pokemon, not more lazy writing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top