Gravy said:
I'd love to say Torkoal is the most neglected pokémon Ash has ever had on his team, but alas, I can't. It HAS had one or two moderately ok-ish battles, as few and far between as they were, and it DID get a decent amount of screentime compared to a lot of other potential neglecties.
So I'm going for Noctowl. That thing had so much freaking potential it's not even funny. The fist pokémon Ash had that could use Psychic abilities. Now, that alone is gold, but when you factor in it's initial personallity witnessed during it's intro episode, you'd think we'd have a winner on our hands. And hey, it's shiny too!
But Jesus Hot-Dog Hugging Chirst. They treated the avian Einstein like regurgitated earthworm chow. Constantly used for scouting missions that didn't display any of it's unique capabilities at all? Wow-ee-wow. Needless to say, to this very day I'm still stunned
For the Catch n' Oak catagory, Muk is definately the most neglected pokémon out there. Even more so than poor ol' Noctowl and the loveable Torkoal infact. It's Indigo League battle was nothing short of majorly unimpressive, despite providing a chuckle. And in the Silver Conference, it essentially had it's non-existant butt cheeks handed to it on a Steel type plater by Gary's Scizor.
2 major battles. One consisted of it simply lying on top of it's opponent. The other made it look like a pile of...well..what it looks like. The rest of it's screentime being devoted to it's smother-filled antics.
Pretty damn sad.
at least Yorunozuku got to dominate in a gym battle, and Betbeton got the pleasure of being able to call itself Satoshi's trump card for at least one league battle. What does Cotoise have? Taking out Senri's Namakero after Pikachu already did a job of weakening it, then getting one-hit KOed by Yarukimono, and let's not forget how it was friggin screwed in its league. That's about it.
Given, Waninoko never had such accomplishments, neither, but he saw quite a lot of usage in the numerous Jouto fillers. Hinoarashi, who did get to shine in a couple gym battles, could possibly be considered screwed in its own league worse than Cotoise (who got at least a tie and a win). However, on a comparitive scale, I'd say Cotoise had it worse. Hinoarashi may not've got a single win in the Shirogane tournament, but that's because it only got a single battle in the whole damn thing (in which the writers need Fushigidane to upstage everyone, along with the other Kantou starters -_-), and I can bet if Satoshi didn't stick to his fresh start, Cotoise would've been in as deep as Hinoarashi, if not worse. Also, for being on Satoshi's party for the whole latter half of Houen (Satoshi's Pokemon usually getting more focus than any other Pokemon, Satoshi being the star), Cotoise barely even has accomplishments in filler episodes up to its name, which is a lot less than can be said for his two, underpowered Jouto starters (not even those two Banebuu episodes, in which it just so happened to be out of its ball, didn't seem to give it decent characterization). Hell, Cotoise probably got less screentime than Hasubrero, which is a friggin Takeshi Pokemon.
Also, I can agree that Yorunozuku's abilities went to waste, but Cotoise also had wasted traits. I keep saying this, but I think one problem with Cotoise is that it's a defensive Pokemon. What do these writers do? Make it jumping 20 feet into the air and run around to dodge attacks, just like another agile fighter. Instead of focusing on defense combined with its powerful long-range attack (which later on got stolen by Lizardon and Wakashamo), it barely blocks with its shell and focuses its muscles on its legs, so when it gets hit, it goes flying and suffers just as badly as an agile fighter would take a hit. Should Cotoise have been fitted more to its role as a slow-moving tank (as was the case when it was used by Asuna), I think it would've turned out much better.
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