After the Unova episode I think there just has to be some captures like that because Go is also getting them, it'd be silly that Go can capture powerful Mons like Darmanitan and Golurk that he can instantly whip out to save the day while Satoshi lags behind with weaklings and Pikachu.
I think that’s an apples and oranges situation, Go’s goal is to snag all Pokémon no matter what levels, stage or level of bonding. Satoshi’s goal is that of actually training and battling, if his penultimate goal is fight the supposed strongest trainer in the world but this showdown comes at the work of Pokémon he
didn’t really grow alongside it makes it feel somewhat hollow. Ultimately Go has caught strong Pokémon, but mostly worthless shitmons. They don’t enhance his goal via their strength, they’re just checks on his checklist. He didn’t want the strongest Tamanta he just wanted any Tamanta and their power doesn’t really offer him much payoff. Hihidaruma only came to use Overheat at the end but other Pokémon contributed, Strike jobbed very fast, etc.
I stand by my assumption that we'll get a mix of conventional growth arcs and ready for action captures, we just haven't gotten to the former yet. In Riolu/Galar starters we trust.
I ultimately wonder what to think of the Galarian Starters at this point. They’ll obviously appear but the more time wasted the longer the clock winds down for some development. I certainly don’t want to see Satoshi just catch some final stage Inteleon for example. Not when the first stage offers the perfect personality and criteria for a series-spanning character arc. I also personally don’t mind one but literally Barrierd, Kairyu and Gangar are strong and fully evolved as they are. That kind of takes away from the whole “journey” aspect of the show and satisfaction that I get from watching Satoshi actually do stuff with these Pokémon to bring them to where they are.
Fortunately the Hibunny episode shows character development isn’t being foregone in PM’s more episodic format versus long-standing growth and payoff/rewards so I guess we’ll see. If Satoshi does get Gangar I honestly don’t think it should necessarily become all friendly and compliant to his order. Especially if it’s been holding such nasty feelings for a while and is portrayed to be so blatantly malicious. It’s like with Hakuryu, they could have shown him getting it as it is and left the “growing arms to protect” thing for a latter plot, more excusable since it was a cute lesson. But Barrierd specifically was never really a battler nor Satoshi’s, so why not make something out of that?
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