March 8th: PM2019 016: Satoshi Has Been Cursed...!

[AuraChannelerChris]

Yes and this is NOTHING compared to the games pandering -_-
Also johto shouldn't count. It literally was part of the OS, and heck they had ash get rid of his kanto mons to give attention to his johto ones. The system of leaving his Pokemon behind for every region didn't begin then
Srsly, puss in boots is forcing kanto down our throats?
In no way were iris and cilan Brock and misty knockoffs. I agree with Charizard returning tho, it was clearly a PR move and then again, he didn't do anything.
In XY yes Alain had mega Charizard X, I still wouldn't count it as pandering considering it mostly focused on its mega form
In SM misty Brock returned coz of anniversary while eevee was due to LGPE, that is the games.
Srsly kanto mons appearing doesn't mean kanto pandering -_-
Kiawe Charizard didn't even appear as much compared to turtonator and marowak. Same with eevee.


So yeah the anime is nothing compared to games when it comes to KANTOO

Johto is part of OS, yes, but Ash's ace was Charizard and not any of the Johto deals. Hell, his second main battle was against Gary; a Kanto rival.

You can't catch a Meowth in RS. How else do you explain that special Meowth? Why not a Hoenn Pokemon ace as the final opponent?

Iris and Cilan were Misty and Brock expies. They all are Gym Leaders, and Unova was very obviously taking after Kanto with the large amount of new Pokemon and not even bothering to have previous Pokemon appear until the sequels happened. Also, like I mentioned, you can't get a Pikachu in BW, so it's more glaring.

Charizard is still a Gen 1 Pokemon, which will always reference Kanto no matter what.

Alola by default is one gigantic Kanto pandering.

Kiawe's Charizard was still shoved on us in the last episodes.

Pandering doesn't really need to show a lot if it will show in VERY prominent roles.

Are we even off topic or not? I can't really tell

On topic, since Ash is, for now, seemingly catching Kanto Pokemon.

 

[Leonhart]

Frankly, I'd be okay if Ash got 10-20 given we have eight regions here. Like give him 1 for every 10 Gou captures.

I don't think that Satoshi should be expected to get a lot of Pokemon just because Gou will. One of Gou's goals is to capture as many Pokemon as he can, so at least there's a solid reason why he gets plenty of Pokemon, meanwhile Satoshi's goal at the moment doesn't necessitate him going on similar catching sprees. At the very least, I admit that the Gangar capture scenario is starting to seem more plausible to me, so I could tolerate it if Gangar joins Satoshi's team in this episode.

 

[ShadowForce720]

I don't think that Satoshi should be expected to get a lot of Pokemon just because Gou will. That sounds like unnecessary appeasement to me. One of Gou's goals is to capture as many Pokemon as he can, so at least there's a solid reason why he goes plenty of Pokemon, but Satoshi's goal at the moment doesn't necessitate him going on similar catching sprees. At the very least, I admit that the Gangar capture scenario is starting to seem more plausible to me, so I could tolerate it if Gangar joins Satoshi's team in this episode.

The thing is it's not so much that people are expecting Ash to get a lot of pokemon just because Gou will, but more do to the fact that the writers went out of their way to have Ash specify that he wants to catch loads more pokemon which is unusually for him to mention because he usually doesn't mention a desire to catch lots of pokemon. So if anything that combine with the rate Ash is possibly getting his pokemon and that pokemon from all the regions are open to him it makes a lot of sense that Ash would get a lot of pokemon.

Here is the line from episode 11 that seems to be suggesting that Ash is going to be catching a lot of pokemon this time around:

Ash: You sure caught a lot of Pokemon.
Gou: I've still got a long way to go! There are so many more I haven't caught yet!
Ash: That's true. I wanna battle and catch loads more, too!

Now that would be a weird thing for the writers to have Ash specify that he wants to catch loads more Pokemon but then only catch 5-6 pokemon.

 

[desdar300]

It honestly feels like they're trying to create that whole Dream Team vibe that you see in sports.
So I imagine he'll at least have at least one Pokemon from each region at the very least.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Johto is part of OS, yes, but Ash's ace was Charizard and not any of the Johto deals. Hell, his second main battle was against Gary; a Kanto rival.

You can't catch a Meowth in RS. How else do you explain that special Meowth? Why not a Hoenn Pokemon ace as the final opponent?

Iris and Cilan were Misty and Brock expies. They all are Gym Leaders, and Unova was very obviously taking after Kanto with the large amount of new Pokemon and not even bothering to have previous Pokemon appear until the sequels happened. Also, like I mentioned, you can't get a Pikachu in BW, so it's more glaring.

Charizard is still a Gen 1 Pokemon, which will always reference Kanto no matter what.

Alola by default is one gigantic Kanto pandering.

Kiawe's Charizard was still shoved on us in the last episodes.

Pandering doesn't really need to show a lot if it will show in VERY prominent roles.



On topic, since Ash is, for now, seemingly catching Kanto Pokemon.

And that still doesn't compare to how much the games pander to kanto. Are you seriously gonna use these arguments to say that the anime panders to Gen 1 more then the games?

 

[dman_dustin]

Are we even off topic or not? I can't really tell

I mean strictly speaking I suppose the discussion should be solely if Ash is going to catch Gengar this episode or if at all.

But I do think the problem, is that no one has any real idea what they are doing with this series, especially in regards to captures for Ash. So its really hard to know if Gengar will be caught or not or if that's what their inevitable goal is.

I do believe however in the context of generation 1 pandering, Gengar if caught by Ash will be his last Kanto (1st generation) Pokemon. I mean there is potentially Machamp, but I'm not quite sold on that as a possibility. Some of these Pokemon have to be Go's right?

I mean the only thing we really have is Ash wants to catch Gengar. I'd be more interested in knowing if they will ever double up on Pokemon. Will Go for example capture a Pikachu (Pichu/Raichu), and if Ash does get Gengar will Go get a Gastly/Haunter/Gengar, or will Go ONLY catch Pokemon that will not be associated with Ash (not counting Oak/Kukui Pokemon) later on in the future. And if Go catches a Pokemon is Ash really barred from catching one himself. Does Go have an agreement between each other that when someone catches a species alone or from an evolutionary line, the other is as long as they are together forbidden to catch one on their own (and would that even be a fair agreement anyway).

This is so much worse than past generations because at least we had some IDEA of what was going to happen. At least Aipom could've been justified even without the future Ambipom by Ash catching a Pokemon in a filler saga/arc rather than a main series.

But here, with Dragonite, potentially Gengar, and even potentially Litwick or Riolu, and even the absence of 8th generation Pokemon what is the end goal for Ash here? I mean they obviously won't tell us, but I do feel that Ash catching Litwick (and Ash has to catch Litwick) and then Gengar (while also being the one to capture Gengar), and we get new titles revolving around Riolu/Lucario perhaps that can give us a much better clue of what's going to happen to Ash's team.

If Ash doesn't get Litwick and only gets Gengar, then I think we're just stuck back with not having any idea what they are doing. And should Gengar be nothing more than a red herring, then we're at even greater loss.

Really would like some titles to be revealed and have them be clear cut what's going to happen but if Ash does presumably get Litwick and or Gengar, I can't help but think the following titles will be not that interesting.

 

[wolf jani]

I mean strictly speaking I suppose the discussion should be solely if Ash is going to catch Gengar this episode or if at all.

But I do think the problem, is that no one has any real idea what they are doing with this series, especially in regards to captures for Ash. So its really hard to know if Gengar will be caught or not or if that's what their inevitable goal is.

I do believe however in the context of generation 1 pandering, Gengar if caught by Ash will be his last Kanto (1st generation) Pokemon. I mean there is potentially Machamp, but I'm not quite sold on that as a possibility. Some of these Pokemon have to be Go's right?

I mean the only thing we really have is Ash wants to catch Gengar. I'd be more interested in knowing if they will ever double up on Pokemon. Will Go for example capture a Pikachu (Pichu/Raichu), and if Ash does get Gengar will Go get a Gastly/Haunter/Gengar, or will Go ONLY catch Pokemon that will not be associated with Ash (not counting Oak/Kukui Pokemon) later on in the future. And if Go catches a Pokemon is Ash really barred from catching one himself. Does Go have an agreement between each other that when someone catches a species alone or from an evolutionary line, the other is as long as they are together forbidden to catch one on their own (and would that even be a fair agreement anyway).

This is so much worse than past generations because at least we had some IDEA of what was going to happen. At least Aipom could've been justified even without the future Ambipom by Ash catching a Pokemon in a filler saga/arc rather than a main series.

But here, with Dragonite, potentially Gengar, and even potentially Litwick or Riolu, and even the absence of 8th generation Pokemon what is the end goal for Ash here? I mean they obviously won't tell us, but I do feel that Ash catching Litwick (and Ash has to catch Litwick) and then Gengar (while also being the one to capture Gengar), and we get new titles revolving around Riolu/Lucario perhaps that can give us a much better clue of what's going to happen to Ash's team.

If Ash doesn't get Litwick and only gets Gengar, then I think we're just stuck back with not having any idea what they are doing. And should Gengar be nothing more than a red herring, then we're at even greater loss.

Really would like some titles to be revealed and have them be clear cut what's going to happen but if Ash does presumably get Litwick and or Gengar, I can't help but think the following titles will be not that interesting.

next titles will probably be revealed next week since we usually get them on the 2nd week of the month and on the 4th week of the month

 

[Ignition]

Best case scenario is if each ~20 episodes had a mixture of all regions in terms of setting but the Pokemon being caught (for Ash) came from a specific generation.


But knowing the anime I wouldn't be surprised if it was mostly Kanto for 90% of this season's run. I feel as though the world tour idea is being heavily underutilized currently and hope it changes soon

 

[BabaVanga]

While Gengar is not on the top of my list of Kanto Pokémon I'd like Ash to catch, I wouldn't mind him catching it in the slightest. He's a Kanto character after all so it's only logical the vast majority of his team be Kanto Pokémon.

They purposely avoided him catching older Pokémon in other series and focusing just on the new ones because marketing, they made him leave all his older Pokémon barring Pikachu because marketing, but when he's catching popular Pokémon now it's suddenly a problem. I would understand the complaints if it was main character from Galar catching older Pokémon... but Ash isn't from Galar. Half of May's team being Kanto, Dawn's Quilava, Iris' Dragonite, Clemont's Luxray or Mallow's Shaymin were much bigger offences to me than Ash's Dragonite or his potential Gengar/Lucario.

 

[CMButch]

Glaring Kanto points in bold.

Johto:
Clearly, Ash's Charizard was the ace. Poor Cyndaquil.

Hoenn:
Ash's league rival was a guy with a cheesy Puss in Boots parody in a Meowth.
The Battle Frontier was moved all across Kanto (which strangely enough did not have a lot of Kanto call backs).

Sinnoh:
It actually did not have Kanto pandering, despite promoting the Johto remakes. (Best region does it again.)

BW:
You really can't catch a Pikachu in BW, and yet here we are!
Blatantly tried to emulate Kanto with the Misty and Brock expies.
Iris gets a Dragonite just because. Notice no one else in the cast got a single non-Unova Pokemon but her.
Heya, Ash's Charizard!

XY(Z):
Siebold gains Mega Blastoise.
Heya, Alain's godly Mega Charizard X!

SM:
Heya, Kiawe's Charizard! (Huh. I'm noticing a pattern here...)
There was an Eevee in the main cast. It did not evolve.
A Blastoise - poor thing - was meat for Gladion to eat.
Kukui has a Venasaur out of nowhere.
We blatantly had an arc set in Kanto featuring Brock and Misty, who by the way had a second arc in Alola.
An Alolan Exeggutor was mainly a recurring gag for Ash to get smacked by.

General pandering that's right there:
The Kanto kid with the special Pikachu being chased by the evil team from the Kanto region with the talking Meowth. Have I mentioned they all are basically immortal.

More:

Johto:
Until episode 147: Ash had half of Kantomon on team: Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Pikachu.
In Johto league, Kantomons shined more than Johtomons
One of the main focus of bad guy arc was Mewtwo( Mewtwo Comes Back) instead of you know; dogs having main arc.

Hoenn:
It was Bulbasaur,Squirtle,Charitard and Pikachu who beat Brandon and not his Johto/Hoenn mons.
May gets Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Eevee.Half her team in Kanto is Kantomons.

BW:
Virgil wins Unova league with Eevee and Flareon beat Lucario that beat Pikachu.

Like you said: DP had no Kanto pandering and XY had the least.
All I am gonna say is: poor Johto.

 

[BabaVanga]

Johto:
Until episode 147: Ash had half of Kantomon on team: Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Pikachu.
In Johto league, Kantomons shined more than Johtomons

Hoenn:
It was Bulbasaur,Squirtle,Charitard and Pikachu who beat Brandon and not his Johto/Hoenn mons.

That's not really Kanto pandering, more like continuity.

 

[game3524]

The Battle Frontier arc was about Kanto (really FireRed and LeafGreen promotion), so yeah it made sense Ash would use his original four in the final match.

 

[Ignition]

While Gengar is not on the top of my list of Kanto Pokémon I'd like Ash to catch, I wouldn't mind him catching it in the slightest. He's a Kanto character after all so it's only logical the vast majority of his team be Kanto Pokémon.

They purposely avoided him catching older Pokémon in other series and focusing just on the new ones because marketing, they made him leave all his older Pokémon barring Pikachu because marketing, but when he's catching popular Pokémon now it's suddenly a problem. I would understand the complaints if it was main character from Galar catching older Pokémon... but Ash isn't from Galar. Half of May's team being Kanto, Dawn's Quilava, Iris' Dragonite, Clemont's Luxray or Mallow's Shaymin were much bigger offences to me than Ash's Dragonite or his potential Gengar/Lucario.

People had a problem with his BW focusing on the more marketable Pokemon like the starters and Scraggy, his XY team having basically come down to promoting Greninja, and his entire Alola team being walking advertisements so I'm not sure how it's "suddenly a problem". And have you not seen the complaints about the lack of continuity in terms of reserves?

What does his region of origin have to do with what he catches? Ash has always been about seeing, catching, and battling new Pokemon. Based on who Ash is, it's more logical for him to want to catch new Pokemon. He's seen Dragonite and Gengar plenty of times and hasn't had the desire to catch one iirc (even then it's not like in or out of universe Ash is promoted as the Kanto Trainer). It makes sense for him to want to catch a Pokemon he's never seen before without it coming off as obvious marketing.

All the cases you mentioned for last companions are still arguably "bad" but it makes sense for them to want to catch old Pokemon as, to then, they're just as "new" as their regional Pokemon.

 

[BabaVanga]

People had a problem with his BW focusing on the more marketable Pokemon like the starters and Scraggy, his XY team having basically come down to promoting Greninja, and his entire Alola team being walking advertisements so I'm not sure how it's "suddenly a problem". And have you not seen the complaints about the lack of continuity in terms of reserves?

I don't remember (m)any complaints about Ash getting new popular Pokémon before he caught them. We don't even know for sure if Ash is gonna capture Gengar or Lucario and people are already complaining.

What does his region of origin have to do with what he catches? Ash has always been about seeing, catching, and battling new Pokemon. Based on who Ash is, it's more logical for him to want to catch new Pokemon. He's seen Dragonite and Gengar plenty of times and hasn't had the desire to catch one iirc (even then it's not like in or out of universe Ash is promoted as the Kanto Trainer). It makes sense for him to want to catch a Pokemon he's never seen before without it coming off as obvious marketing.

Ash has always (or for most of his run) been about bonding with Pokémon before attempting to catch them, it's just all of them were conveniently Pokémon relevant to the newest generation. I don't think in-universe Ash would refuse to catch Pokémon he bonded with that wants to go with him just because he encountered the species before.

All the cases you mentioned for last companions are still arguably "bad" but it makes sense for them to want to catch old Pokemon as, to then, they're just as "new" as their regional Pokemon.

It's the real pandering though, they're travelling through their native region so logically they should get higher chance of getting Pokémon from that region over the older ones. Some of the captures were not even in respective regional Pokédex and didn't promote any remakes either.

 

[Ignition]

I don't remember (m)any complaints about Ash getting new popular Pokémon before he caught them. We don't even know for sure if Ash is gonna capture Gengar or Lucario and people are already complaining.


Ash has always (or for most of his run) been about bonding with Pokémon before attempting to catch them, it's just all of them were conveniently Pokémon relevant to the newest generation. I don't think in-universe Ash would refuse to catch Pokémon he bonded with that wants to go with him just because he encountered the species before.

It's the real pandering though, they're travelling through their native region so logically they should get higher chance of getting Pokémon from that region over the older ones. Some of the captures were not even in respective regional Pokédex and didn't promote any remakes either.

Look in the SM Pokemon speculation thread and you'll notice a lot of people hoping that Gen 8 would give Ash more regular Pokemon. And yeah obviously we don't know yet but most people are saying that if we do get Gengar, it's annoying.

Yes but he's also had some variation of "I want to go to travel to the world and meet new Pokemon" at the end of his current run. It has become a key part of his characterization to the point where people close to him like Delia and Oak expect him to leave home not too long after he comes back. I didn't say he couldn't catch a Pokemon of a species he's already encountered (look at Gligar and Gible). It's more forced for him to suddenly have an encounter with a Pokemon he's seen plenty of times before. It's certainly less pandering than having Ash want to bond and capture a Pokemon he's never seen.

Higher chance doesn't remove the possibility. How was Luxray pandering? Regional Pokedexes have never been a limit to the anime. Togepi, Kecleon, Munchlax, Zorua, Meltan are just some of many who appeared out of their usual in game places so that's never been an issue (or always has depending on how you look at it). And just because, say, Dragonite, isn't a Gen 5 Pokemon doesn't mean it's not native to Unova. Generations aren't fully interchangeable with regions. Regardless, it's just as forced as having him get these reoccurring popular Pokemon by that logic

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

The Battle Frontier arc was about Kanto (really FireRed and LeafGreen promotion), so yeah it made sense Ash would use his original four in the final match.

My poor heartbroken Sceptile.

 

[CMButch]

That's not really Kanto pandering, more like continuity.

About Johto: Yeah, but Squirtle and Bulbasaur shouldn't be there. Poor Heracross. Only Charizard thing was continuity.
About league: I don't see how it's continuity but still Johto mons should've shined at least on par with Kantomon.

And BF: Same with above IDK how it's continuity where Ash chose Squirtle who left to be a firemen and Ambassador Bulbasaur over Sceptile, Torkoal and Johtomons like Donphan and Heracross. I understand Charizard.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Weeeeeeell, if we want to be technical about it, Hoenn was on equal terms with Kanto only because the BF was relocated to Kanto.

 

[Umbilical Noose]

More:

Johto:
Until episode 147: Ash had half of Kantomon on team: Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Pikachu.
In Johto league, Kantomons shined more than Johtomons
One of the main focus of bad guy arc was Mewtwo( Mewtwo Comes Back) instead of you know; dogs having main arc.

Hoenn:
It was Bulbasaur,Squirtle,Charitard and Pikachu who beat Brandon and not his Johto/Hoenn mons.
May gets Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Eevee.Half her team in Kanto is Kantomons.

BW:
Virgil wins Unova league with Eevee and Flareon beat Lucario that beat Pikachu.

Like you said: DP had no Kanto pandering and XY had the least.
All I am gonna say is: poor Johto.

That's Episode 147 of the OS not Johto. Catching three Johto mons by Episode 30 isn't bad considering he caught the fourth soon afterwards.

I would love to reply to the rest of the points but they are kind of flawed, at first sight.

On Topic: I don't think Ash is getting Gengar here, if he is going to catch it. They will most likely drag it further for at least 5 episodes, make it cause much more havoc.

 

[Red and Blue]

That's Episode 147 of the OS not Johto. Catching three Johto mons by Episode 30 isn't bad considering he caught the fourth soon afterwards.

I would love to reply to the rest of the points but they are kind of flawed, at first sight.

On Topic: I don't think Ash is getting Gengar here, if he is going to catch it. They will most likely drag it further for at least 5 episodes, make it cause much more havoc.

I doubt Gengar will go uncaught for five more episodes. The furthest I can see is one more appearance if this isnt its capture episode