A lot of people say Pikachu was justified. Seeing the subs I disagree.
If Pikachu had been more vocal about training cutting before Riolu, I'd say Pikachu would've trained. But Riolu was the first one to make any sort of "train me" like after dinner, had Pikachu gone first and was ready to train, Ash might've trained Pikachu.
And Ash was going to pay attention to Pikachu but Pikachu fell asleep and Ash thought Pikachu was disinterested and was being disrespectful. Like the moment Ash said "Riolu was working hard too" and Pikachu was ready to zap Ash. At least Ash wasn't angry.
And a lot of this is coming out of nowhere to even begin with. Like there's no measure of time, but the episode tried (and failed) to make it seem like this was some kind of recurring thing, the issue with that, is it doesn't make sense, the curse of being episodic I guess, and trying to portray a serial plot in an episodic fashion is why this failed.
I'm not completely hating on this episode. This episode was heavily emotional. But it would've better better if it wasn't about "Pikachu made about Ash training Riolu"
They must be put on a pedestal and worshipped to no end.
Apparently so must Pikachu.
The criticism of Riolu/Lucario, let me blunt, will never make any damn sense. Opinions be opinions and that's all I can derive out of it.
I get it, people hate Riolu hate Lucario, but holy jesus christ on a cracker is it absolutely NOT necessary to make EVERY damn post about Riolu/Lucario negative/hateful towards the Pokemon. It's honestly annoying. You don't see me complaining about Klinklang every chance I get, do you?
Like at the end of the day "WE GET IT" move on would you? Or don't....whatever.
Because the way I see it, Riolu is a baby and needs all the experience it can get if it's going to take out Elite Four Champion Pokemon in the future, and remember Paul destroyed Maylene's Lucario and mocked her for it. Ash's hypothetical Lucario cannot just be sitting its poke ball gathering dust no matter how much people want it to be. If its going to go against Paul for example, it's going to need all the focus it gets.
The only time I would understand people's criticism, in which they would make sense to me. Is if Ash were to use Riolu/Lucario for 3 PWC matches in a row, and I mean 1 vs 1's as well and someone like Gengar hasn't seen over 20 episodes or perhaps Ash's next capture we don't even see in the following few episodes.
Sure Riolu is stronger than Farfetch'd, so I wouldn't be opposed to Riolu taking the backseat for a bit, as long as Farfetch'd got some focus, but who knows, we might just have to rely on Riolu and Farfetch'd training each other.
My other issue I have is that people complained about Ash not training his Pokemon. But god forbid as LONG as it's NOT Riolu, right?