The problem here is not Ash's Pokemon, but the thing called Piplup. I think Grotle haven't done a thing since it evolved, Chimchar haven't got much to do for the moment, Staraptor just evolved and goes soon under the same catagory as Grotle. While Buizel and Gliscor haven't done much the last time, so the problem is Piplup. I like Pikachu and I can only wait to the day when Dawn goes bye bye, and Pikachu rocks the world again.
All of this is before their first saga even ended; most of Ash's pokemon will probably get a filler arc too:
Pikachu only took down two gym leader owned pokemon so far; it's Ash's least used pokemon in gyms. I think it's a good idea though. Pikachu was in all 8 of the Kanto gyms, and most of the Johto and Hoeen gyms. That's not even counting the Orange Islands and the Battle Frontier where it also got a ton of attention. The writers are taking the smart route and neglecting it instead of one of the Sinnoh pokemon who have a limited amount of time on Ash's team. Of coursee it hasn't been all bad for Pikachu; it starred against Reggie and Jun and was the only pokemon of Ash's that Paul sorta respected.
Grotle took down Roark's strongest pokemon as a Turtwig, semi-starred in Gardenia's gym by taking down her Turtwig which seemed to share the position of 'main pokemon' on her team with Roserade. It also helped in the battles against Allan and Reggie and twice against Paul. It evolved, developed a 'problem', more or less overcame said problem and learned two new attacks.
Chimchar was used against Roark under Paul and took down 6 major opponets in a row; Ursaring, Staraptor, Mismagius and Drifblim. It demolished Fantina and took down both of what you may consider her 'main' pokemon. It's confirmed to evolve and we all know that it will overcome it's blaze problems and give Paul what he has coming to him eventually. All of that and a few new attacks are what we can expect from Chimchar. I will honestly be very surprised if Chimchar didn't evolve all the way to Infernape eventually. In all honestly, Chimchar is probably Ash's best developed pokemon ever, background-wise anyway.
Gliscor overcame its little scardy cat problem and learned two new attacks. It tied with Jun's Roserade and starred in Byron's gym by taking down his most powerful pokemon. He has had the least attention in battles but it's still not terrible; at least he earned Ash a badge which is more than you can say for a lot of Ash's older pokemon. And you know they're gonna do something with Paul's Gliscor. It was the leader of Gligar's old group and they wouldn't have had Paul catch it and keep it for no reason.
Staraptor took down two of Maylene's pokemon in a row. It was Ash's only bird to ever beat a gym leader's pokemon without being fully evolved. It didn't only beat one either; it beat three. It's learned two new attacks now and is confirmed to be used against Candice. It also won the pokeringer contest beating the same Honchkrow who managed to defeat a Dragonite.
Buizel was used against 4 gym leaders in a row, defeating at least one pokemon in 3 of them. It sorta shared spotlight with Staravia against Maylene and took down 2 of Wake's pokemon including Wake's strongest pokemon which just happened to be Buizel's evolved form. It was very successsful in the Wallace Cup considering Ash isn't the best coordinator
I really don't see how any one can say the Sinnoh team isn't developed. IMO they're already far ahead of all three of Ash's other teams and we're probably only about half way through the DPpt series.
Compare this to Kanto, Johto and even AG:
Kanto:
- Ash caught pokemon and only kept them for like 20-30 episodes like Butterfree and Lapras or even just two like Primeape.
- Oaking Ash's pokemon for new ones so that the old ones could be used at a later time seemed to be a foreign idea to the writers back then, they just released them and we never heard from them again.
- Ash caught a lot of reserves (Muk, Tauros, Kingler, Snorlax) but really, none of them ever did anything too major so he might as well not have caught them in the first place. Snorlax is the only one that's even particial acceptable
- Guess who are the only Kanto pokemon to ever really 'shine' in a gym? Pikachu and Charizard. That's all. Not Bulbasaur, not Squirtle, Pidgeoto? Forget it. That can probably be blamed on the writers not having Ash actually win most of the badges fairly though.
Main problem: Ash didn't really have many real battles so his team never got any fair wins. The writers were focusing more on catching pokemon than winning battles and they gave Ash more than they could handle.
Johto:
- Totodile never did anything. At all. Don't fool yourself, it didn't
- Noctowl and Bayleef..meh..they got a gym. Bayleef got a slightly better deal than Noctowl with the crush on Ash and evolving but that's all that separates these two pokemon in the development department. They both learned one new attack..wow..
- Heracross was pretty much a new Muk/Tauros/Kingler
- Phanphy didn't get crap if you don't count the Battle Frontier (where it still didn't do much outside of evolving really).
- Cyndaquil was handled well; I liked the way they handled it.
- The lack of development for this saga can be blamed on Ash using his older pokemon most of the time rather than the new ones.
Main problem: The Kanto pokemon were used to make up for lost time in their saga, however, that just put the Johto pokemon in the same position.
AG:
- This saga was much better now that they learned how to handle Ash pokemon. Rather than bringing the old ones along to act as screentime cancer to Ash's newer pokemon they had Ash Oak them and use them sparingly during the filler saga.
- Almost every one of Ash's new pokemon got to star once or twice. Sceptile, Swellow and Corphish were all handled excellently. Glalie and Torkoal still got the short end of the straw though. I blame it on Pikachu still being used a lot during Hoeen.
Main problem: Pikachu was still used a bunch. In fact, it starred in 3 1/2 gyms (Roxanne, Wattson, Juan and it shared spotlight with Swellow against Tate and Liza).
It seems like the writers have learned from their mistakes with the Sinnoh team.
They ya go; basically my review of the pokemon anime up till now.
Wall of text? Yeah, well it actually all relates to the topic. It only took me about 5 minutes to type so I gotta figure it will only take about 2 minutes to read.
). In fact, I'm gonna dare so much as say that Dawn has had more screentime than Ash. Call me crazy, but that's just my opinion.
