Should Ash Be More Serious Or Comical?

[Alola Adventurer]

I prefer a mix of both. An Ash that's comical personality wise but can be serious when the situation calls for it and being a pretty skilled Trainer which is why I like SM Ash and AG Ash, and even BW Ash. The only con with BW Ash was his skill reset.

Trainer wise I did like XY Ash, but while he had his moments, he was a bit dull when it came to his persoanlity, imo.

 

[FlygontheRavager]

I think Ash should be a bit of both, honestly - a lighthearted and goofy person at his core, but serious when it comes to battles (or when the situation calls for it). His DP and SM selves seems to achieve this balance quite well (even though SM Ash is much more of a kid in terms of personality, which I actually love).

 

[Power Up]

The acting like a 10-year old child argument is complete BS by the way. He's gone through 6 regions, battled many evil people, saw many horrors(and stopped them), fought through many leagues, and you expect him to act like a 10-year old child? That's a huge joke.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

As I’ve said before, it should be a balance of the two for the best personality and storytelling aspects. Ash can be a bit jaded about TRio attacking him daily every now and then but let TR surprise and gain an upper hand against him every so often with very clever plans to steal Pokémon. Give viewers something they can enjoy that isn’t repeated in every episode.

 

[Ignition]

The acting like a 10-year old child argument is complete BS by the way. He's gone through 6 regions, battled many evil people, saw many horrors(and stopped them), fought through many leagues, and you expect him to act like a 10-year old child? That's a huge joke.

Is that all Ash does? No. He still acts like a energetic kid whenever he has the opportunity to battle (especially when a League is mentioned). Most of Ash's life is traveling with his friends and Pokémon, meeting new people, and having fun with several activities ranging from battles to races. All the things you mentioned has him being more mature in the moment. He knows when it's time to get himself together & when it's time to have fun. I "expect" him to react accordingly to what the scenario is. Do you expect him to act serious when he's playing/interacting with his Pokémon: aka most of the series?

 

[Power Up]

Is that all Ash does? No. He still acts like a energetic kid whenever he has the opportunity to battle (especially when a League is mentioned). Most of Ash's life is traveling with his friends and Pokémon, meeting new people, and having fun with several activities ranging from battles to races. All the things you mentioned has him being more mature in the moment. He knows when it's time to get himself together & when it's time to have fun. I "expect" him to react accordingly to what the scenario is. Do you expect him to act serious when he's playing/interacting with his Pokémon: aka most of the series?

I'm not denying that and X/Y was a perfect example of what you mentioned. People give XY/Z a lot of hate because Ash wasn't " expressive " enough or some other make believe stuff Datsright is always preaching. The reality is, Ash acted perfectly normal in XY(the right normal and not this forced crap in SM) and brought it up a notch for the serious stuff in XY/Z. He stepped up, took charge, and progressed through the development that the previous regions(excluding BW) did for him.

 

[DatsRight]

Seeing such things doesn't necessarily change how a character acts full time, they can mature them in some areas, but right now Ash has that, he knows when to be serious and insightful when he HAS TO BE.

Some people are just inherently childlike or eccentric, hell in some cases it's blessing or even a coping mechanism. There's plenty other protagonists that work BECAUSE they're so goofy and wide eyed. Look at stuff like Kung Fu Panda or Guardians of the Galaxy and imagine how dull or ineffective it would be if these characters just did the whole thing the serious way.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

XY Ash felt totally out of character compared to the rest. If this is what you call "serious" then I don't like it because it made him and his character interactions dull.
It's almost like they went out of their way to portray him as Mr. Perfect as well, which made him feel more out of character.
He works best as an underdog with an actual personality of a 10 year old imo

 

[DatsRight]

I'm not denying that and X/Y was a perfect example of what you mentioned. People give XY/Z a lot of hate because Ash wasn't " expressive " enough or some other make believe stuff Datsright is always preaching. The reality is, Ash acted perfectly normal in XY(the right normal and not this forced crap in SM) and brought it up a notch for the serious stuff in XY/Z. He stepped up, took charge, and progressed through the development that the previous regions(excluding BW) did for him.

My problem is that Ash felt a bit too unemotive in XY, serious or not. His interactions with his Pokemon I could argue were fine (at first anyway) but a lot of his chemistry with other human characters felt one note and he tended to use the same stock quotes and responses too often, like making him more down to earth left writers struggling to put anything else in place of his quirks. How many times did someone else talk and he just spouted some stock motivational speech?

If SM Ash was as one note goofy as XY Ash was one note serious I would complain as well, but he feels way more self aware, He bounces off of the other characters and has chemistries and sentiment towards them. There's more a feel of actual two way conversations there.

 

[Power Up]

Seeing such things doesn't necessarily change how a character acts full time, they can mature them in some areas, but right now Ash has that, he knows when to be serious and insightful when he HAS TO BE.

Some people are just inherently childlike or eccentric, hell in some cases it's blessing or even a coping mechanism. There's plenty other protagonists that work BECAUSE they're so goofy and wide eyed. Look at stuff like Kung Fu Panda or Guardians of the Galaxy and imagine how dull or ineffective it would be if these characters just did the whole thing the serious way.

XY Ash was never serious all the time or unexpressive. He was still inherently a boy on an adventure making friends and seeing new Pokemon.

And yet movies like The Dark Knight trilogy as still rated much much better and viewed much better than the Marvel movies. And it's ironic you bring up Marvel movies cause they have the most formulaic and plot-driven stories I've ever seen lmao. And you give XY/XYZ **** for that.

XY Ash felt totally out of character compared to the rest. If this is what you call "serious" then I don't like it because it made him and his character interactions dull.
It's almost like they went out of their way to portray him as Mr. Perfect as well, which made him feel more out of character.
He works best as an underdog with an actual personality of a 10 year old imo

That's basically fake news. I'm going to need serious examples than people just saying he was " Mr. Perfect "

My problem is that Ash felt a bit too unemotive in XY, serious or not. His interactions with his Pokemon I could argue were fine (at first anyway) but a lot of his chemistry with other human characters felt one note and he tended to use the same stock quotes and responses too often, like making him more down to earth left writers struggling to put anything else in place of his quirks.

Proof, please? Examples? What do you want him to do when he meets new people? Do a little butt shake or something? Should he react differently every single time?

 

[Leonhart]

The acting like a 10-year old child argument is complete BS by the way. He's gone through 6 regions, battled many evil people, saw many horrors(and stopped them), fought through many leagues, and you expect him to act like a 10-year old child? That's a huge joke.

He's still just a kid though, not a war veteran with PTSD. I don't think anything that he's experienced in the past was traumatic enough to affect him to the extent of maturing him rapidly.

 

[Power Up]

He's still just a kid though, not a war veteran with PTSD. I don't think anything that he's experienced in the past was traumatic enough to affect him to the extent of maturing him rapidly.

It should still mature him correct? Logically, XY/XYZ was correct progression. How could one say that SM Ash reflects an Ash of progress? He’s easily regressed in his progression. If the anime was any good at progression, Ash should have took the Kalos league loss hard and there should have been some type of blowback in terms of his confidence or something like that and SM should have been a gen of recovery

Instead, he’s basically the worse version of BW in terms of personality with decent enough battle competence.

At least BW didn’t include slapstick comedy.

 

[Slapstick-Olivia]

The best option would be a nice balance of both trades. But If I would choose one personality over the other, I would choose comical. Ash feels more alive this way and it seems that with a more comical personality he can have more than just one character trade. He can be silly, angry, clumsy, stupid, connects with more people, has a bit more of a family bound etc. If he is to serious like in X&Y, he feels more like a blank slate who can't feel any emotions besides been serious.

 

[Redstar45]

I can say that ag Satoshi with some xy calming and shonen won't hurt his characters to me
And when he could talk to baby (human or Pokemon) or small kids...then he allowed to be like his sm self .

Please let him be serious again. I'm done if then next series is SM 2.0 I'm actually not too worried for Gen 8 since they have not really kept him the same since the Japanese era. Since that we have have a back to basics with BW a more serious with XY and well I'm not going to say it since I would offend people so.




I'd support this fully. Hell even SM was an anime about Gladion and his life and journey around Alola I'd actually love it.

don't worry about what other feel .

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

I think leaning more towards the comical side is best. He's the main character, so I want to be interested in him. In that regard, I prefer goofy idiot hero Ash, not boring shonen hero Ash.

 

[Redstar45]

I think leaning more towards the comical side is best. He's the main character, so I want to be interested in him. In that regard, I prefer goofy idiot hero Ash, not boring shonen hero Ash.

He going to be a shonen hero no matter how you are change him as he is sort stick that way even in SM era.

 

[Power Up]

The best option would be a nice balance of both trades. But If I would choose personality over the other, I would choose comical. Ash feels more alive this way and it seems that with a more comical personality he can have more than just one character trade. He can be silly, angry, clumsy, stupid, concats with people, has a bit more of a family bound etc. If he is to serious like in X&Y, he feels more like a blank slate who can't feel any emotions besides been serious.

Where is the blank slate unemotive Mr. Perfect XY Ash everyone rants abt yet no one offers any sort of proof?

I can offer oodles of proof to the contrary. His clumsiness is well displayed in XY. That one arc where
he tried to fight using dance? Ring a bell anyone? His silliness was on full display every time Clemont built an invention. He got angry multiple times in XY/XYZ(at villains, others, himself), unfortunately his stupidness is not on full display thankfully but his trademark recklessness was. Jumping off to save Talonflame and Pikachu were prime examples. And that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.

I’m sick and tired of the persona and the bad rap XY/XYZ Ash gets on this forum. It’s all BS with little to no substance other than the petulant whining of “ oh Ash was such a Stu, he didn’t display 256678 emotions in one frame. “ Complete and utter unadulterated crap. He displayed emotion. Plenty of it. If you people actually watched the doggone season instead of screaming about how AmourShipping is overtaking Serena’s character, you might have seen it as well

And when you were watching the show, all you people saw was “ man Ash is winning battles epically and is stepping up as the leader. He’s acting a bit more badass then usual AND he isn’t getting shat on like the many other seasons that he did. Let’s call him a Stu! “

Please someone indulge me. Where is this tabula rasa Ash everyone loves to talk about? Where is it? Cause I for sure didn’t see it.

 

[keepitsimple]

Even as someone who hasn't finished X and Y, I can still say that claiming he couldn't feel any emotions in that season is complete bs. Criticize him for being "boring" if you want but don't make up things that didn't happen.

 

[DatsRight]

It's not he had zero emotions but more they felt limited to stock reactions, he didn't feel driven by his own personality. His reactions to the others felt like a set pile of phrases that never really changed (eg. his 'science is so amazing' reaction to ALL of Clemont's inventions with nothing much else) they didn't really get new sides and bits of development out of him, I didn't feel much sentiment towards them. Most of the companion's sentiment towards him was just idolisation from all of them too, to the point Serena questioned how hallow her relationship with Ash was the one time he acted truly abrasive (this could have been good development, but was swept under the rug instantly afterwards).

It didn't help that XY Ash never really felt out of his comfort zone like the others, he was nearly always in a good position where he could handily solve things with a battle or the plot would break things down for him, I think this is also played into his reactions being limited compared to other series, where the plots and companions usually at least forced a few different emotions and situations him.

Not to mention Ash did still do incredibly stupid things in XY, just they were mandated by plot, so we didn't really get the gratification of them being at his expense or being treated much like a flaw that often (probably the dub's best edit was in the Pokeball factory episode where they have Team Rocket lampshade how exceptionally brainless he and the others had been falling for their trap, I'm sorry but that was well deserved).

The early few episodes of XY may have had some better displays of emotion from Ash, but even then they felt dumbed down from previous series.

 

[U.N. Owen]

Why was XY Ash so boring? Well, that’s easy. Ash is a boring character. He’s supposed to be the audience surrogate because he needs to learn about the world around him and is alien to the region he’s in, but he has little to no personality traits outside his trainer career and that he stopped being fresh fathomless eons ago. Let’s not forget that the only thing interesting about Ash, from my observations, is his entourage, his rivals, and his team. His XY entourage looked up to him for being stupid by jumping off a tower, his XY rivals were underdeveloped in terms of rivalry proper and/or character, and his team was the only thing good about him.

Rant over.