The Unpopular Opinions Thread

[VoltTacklingPika]

I don't like how the word "団" (dan) is inflexibly translated as "Team" in the Pokemon games.

"dan" simply means "group", so it can be translated into any synonym of the world "group" depending on the context of the name. In this respect, "Team Skull" is a silly name, because Team Skull is obviously a gang of hoodlums, not an organized group of mafia/terrorists/cultists like in prior regions. In the early games, I think the word "gang" was censored, which is why you have a name like "Team Rocket".

BUT, when you have actual hoodlums in the game, it's quite strange to have the name censored, but not the characters. Team Skull has so little in common with its "predecessor" groups (i.e., none) it shouldn't share the name. Neither should "Team Yell", either.

I don't believe the word "gang" was censored at all, if only because there was no reason to. The word on its own is inoffensive and the connotations are too broad to refer to any specific events or methodologies that the translation would want to distance itself from.

Team Rocket likely exists because "Rocket Group" sounds too formal for a crime organisation in a kid's game. Team is an inoffensive word with more positive connotations, so it softens the impact of having criminals in the game, even if it's not contextually perfect. After that, it became a trend to put "Team" in front of every evil group in the game. In Team Skull's case, it's just a matter of being consistent with terminology, and also serves as something of a misdirect. The "Team" part of Team Yell actually seems to fit well, considering it is, on the surface, a group of cheerleaders.

And oh boy, do they bring it back in an...interesting way. I’m not calling XY Ash an emotionless robot, but I’m calling XY Ash an emotionless robot. I know it’s not a very unpopular opinion these days, but to a large majority it still is. To me, watching the characters interact in that saga was like being forced to eat white bread without the butter, cream cheese, bagel seasoning, whatever. It was so boring, and so was the mentor position Ash was in. There was no tension or conflict between him and the companions, which I think is necessary to establish that dynamic. With May and Dawn, it worked, because both of them had flaws that clashed with Ash but gradually matured with time, as the result of his influence on them. Clemont and especially Serena (who I like a lot, don’t get it twisted) were written too perfect and nice most of the time that there was nothing like that with them. Nothing to resolve or change other than “thanks for inspiring me to do something!” That’s boring. It’s not fun to watch.

Ash was less of a mentor in XY and more of an inspirational figure instead. Rather than learn from his technical knowledge about Pokemon or get specific advice on how to handle them (in the way May and Dawn did), Clement and Serena were motivated by Ash's personality, outlook and actions.

In this case, there may have been a missed opportunity to add wrinkles to Ash's role model status. Conflict could have come from Clemont and Serena realising that Ash wasn't perfect and the dangers of putting someone on a pedestal, but the show seemed quite intent on keeping Ash as vanilla as possible, at least until a certain point in XYZ. But even there, where Ash's displays clear flaws in his character and thinking, it doesn't change how his friends view him at all, so it loses a lot of its potential impact.

On one hand, I do think it's nice to have a supportive and wholesome group dynamic. On the other hand, I did grow bored of the group by the halfway point and wished there was more friction between them.

 

[Sham]

Lillie is the most developed out of the SM group and more than some Pokegirls. Also unrelated but if I had to pick between two evils of a type master goal and whatever the writers decide to make, give me type specialist. The writers need to never attempt an anime exclusive goal ever. Either stick to the games or give them a reason to battle here and there.

 

[p96822]

I don't believe the word "gang" was censored at all, if only because there was no reason to. The word on its own is inoffensive and the connotations are too broad to refer to any specific events or methodologies that the translation would want to distance itself from.

Team Rocket likely exists because "Rocket Group" sounds too formal for a crime organisation in a kid's game. Team is an inoffensive word with more positive connotations, so it softens the impact of having criminals in the game, even if it's not contextually perfect. After that, it became a trend to put "Team" in front of every evil group in the game. In Team Skull's case, it's just a matter of being consistent with terminology, and also serves as something of a misdirect. The "Team" part of Team Yell actually seems to fit well, considering it is, on the surface, a group of cheerleaders.



Ash was less of a mentor in XY and more of an inspirational figure instead. Rather than learn from his technical knowledge about Pokemon or get specific advice on how to handle them (in the way May and Dawn did), Clement and Serena were motivated by Ash's personality, outlook and actions.

In this case, there may have been a missed opportunity to add wrinkles to Ash's role model status. Conflict could have come from Clemont and Serena realising that Ash wasn't perfect and the dangers of putting someone on a pedestal, but the show seemed quite intent on keeping Ash as vanilla as possible, at least until a certain point in XYZ. But even there, where Ash's displays clear flaws in his character and thinking, it doesn't change how his friends view him at all, so it loses a lot of its potential impact.

On one hand, I do think it's nice to have a supportive and wholesome group dynamic. On the other hand, I did grow bored of the group by the halfway point and wished there was more friction between them.

Not completely true. Serena said this in episode 86 “Geez... you’re always reckless!” This shows that Serena doesn’t putting Ash on a high pedestal. She knows that Ash’s most negative quality of him being a reck taking actions.Even though this is just one episode, this shows that she doesn’t put Ash on a high pedestal

 

[Dragalge]

I actually liked Ash vs Alain more than Ash vs Sawyer and in the latter, Ash vs Aegislash was the best battle in that match to me.

 

[DatsRight]

Lillie is the most developed out of the SM group and more than some Pokegirls. Also unrelated but if I had to pick between two evils of a type master goal and whatever the writers decide to make, give me type specialist. The writers need to never attempt an anime exclusive goal ever. Either stick to the games or give them a reason to battle here and there.

I don't find most of the goals bad in concept per se as much as the writers make them and then have trouble developing from that base. They're blatantly just there to say that the characters are doing something.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I also don't really mind the way Iris captured Dragonite since she did bond with it and helped it out before capturing. It's pretty similar with how some of Ash's captures happened tbh, like Charmander or Squirtle.

 

[Dragalge]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I also don't really mind the way Iris captured Dragonite since she did bond with it and helped it out before capturing. It's pretty similar with how some of Ash's captures happened tbh, like Charmander or Squirtle.

The way they handled Togekiss was just terrible after how they dumped Ambipom in the worst release possible (Ping Pong!!). The bird-thing gets one focus episode and the only episode it’s in during the Grand Festival it loses.

There’s other questionable decisions in the anime later on but even in DP you have to think why they did all this in the first place. You set up a capture for DP promotion, do a trade, then...this out of nowhere.

 

[lemoncatpower]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I also don't really mind the way Iris captured Dragonite since she did bond with it and helped it out before capturing. It's pretty similar with how some of Ash's captures happened tbh, like Charmander or Squirtle.

Agreed, honestly I would have preferred if they brought in Misty for a special during DP instead where she meets up with Togetic again and the stone for it to evolve rather than have a bad showing with Dawn.

 

[DatsRight]

I'm not as much annoyed with Togekiss' premise in general but more how damn late into the series it was done, leaving it far too late to develop it properly. Given it's motherly personality and a performing style different from Dawn's, it felt like they could have done a reasonable arc with it if they had merely pushed it earlier into the series to make it's presence more natural.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I also don't really mind the way Iris captured Dragonite since she did bond with it and helped it out before capturing. It's pretty similar with how some of Ash's captures happened tbh, like Charmander or Squirtle.

I dont think dawn and iris cptues were unpopular opinion, but for charmander and squirtle were fine capture maybe in chramander's case brock might have deserved it but then it would have become another forgotten pokemon of anime instead of becoming one of the best developed pokemon.

 

[VoltTacklingPika]

Not completely true. Serena said this in episode 86 “Geez... you’re always reckless!” This shows that Serena doesn’t putting Ash on a high pedestal. She knows that Ash’s most negative quality of him being a reck taking actions.Even though this is just one episode, this shows that she doesn’t put Ash on a high pedestal

Technically, she's known about Ash's recklessness since episode two, when she saw him do a suicide dive off a tower. Nonetheless, this doesn't influence her view of him. Ash was someone she admired and wanted to be around from the beginning.

In this case, knowing about a negative quality of his isn't the same as not placing someone on a pedestal, because that knowledge doesn't change how she views him and their relationship. Same with Clemont. Clemont knew Ash was reckless, and had seen him lose in battle and lose his temper, yet still regarded him as the person he had to prove himself against.

I'm not knocking the show for this, just pointing it out as a feature and something that I would have liked to see explored.

 

[Leonhart]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I agree with that. I wish that Salvia had only lent Togekiss to Hikari instead of just handing it over free of charge. It seemed like just a quick way for the writers to fill the last remaining space on Hikari's team before the Shinou Grand Festival.

 

[Pikachu979]

I didn't like the way Dawn got Togekiss; it was pretty much handed to her without any kind of bonding between the two.

I also don't really mind the way Iris captured Dragonite since she did bond with it and helped it out before capturing. It's pretty similar with how some of Ash's captures happened tbh, like Charmander or Squirtle.

I really wish Dawn would have gotten that bad togepi from that filler episode.

 

[p96822]

Technically, she's known about Ash's recklessness since episode two, when she saw him do a suicide dive off a tower. Nonetheless, this doesn't influence her view of him. Ash was someone she admired and wanted to be around from the beginning.

In this case, knowing about a negative quality of his isn't the same as not placing someone on a pedestal, because that knowledge doesn't change how she views him and their relationship. Same with Clemont. Clemont knew Ash was reckless, and had seen him lose in battle and lose his temper, yet still regarded him as the person he had to prove himself against.

I'm not knocking the show for this, just pointing it out as a feature and something that I would have liked to see explored.

From how she sounded in that episode, she seems to be annoyed by Ash’s reckless stunts. It’s not gonna change their relationship or anything like that. But her mentioning it shows that she is annoyed that Ash will these death defying stunts.

I’m not saying that this point shouldn’t be explored, but I saying that she doesn’t like when Ash does these things

 

[Leonhart]

I’m not saying that this point shouldn’t be explored, but I saying that she doesn’t like when Ash does these things

Well Satoshi being reckless is a big part of his character, so it's not something that will change anytime soon. I like that Serena and the others showed concern whenever he would pull off a dangerous stunt during XY though, especially when Satoshi collapsed after syncing with Gekkouga that first time.

 

[Xuxuba]

Post Aether Foundation arc Lillie is even more underdeveloped than the other SM main characters.

Well Satoshi being reckless is a big part of his character, so it's not something that will change anytime soon. I like that Serena and the others showed concern whenever he would pull off a dangerous stunt during XY though, especially when Satoshi collapsed after syncing with Gekkouga that first time.

Now that you mention, one of the biggest grips i had with OS-Kanto was how little Ash's friends seem to care when he was in trouble.

Like in the first movie where Ash turns into stone, these random pokémon started crying over his death while Misty and Brock just stood there expressionless not saying more than "oh no" as if it was a mild inconvenience that their friend had died.

Not sure if that is a unpopular opinion or not but since i haven't seen anyone commenting about it, i am just gonna suppose it is.

 

[PorcelainVulpix]

Post Aether Foundation arc Lillie is even more underdeveloped than the other SM main characters.


Now that you mention, one of the biggest grips i had with OS-Kanto was how little Ash's friends seem to care when he was in trouble.

Like in the first movie where Ash turns into stone, these random pokémon started crying over his death while Misty and Brock just stood there expressionless not saying more than "oh no" as if it was a mild inconvenience that their friend had died.

Not sure if that is a unpopular opinion or not but since i haven't seen anyone commenting about it, i am just gonna suppose it is.

I’d have to disagree. They showed a lot of concern over Ash during Tower of Terror or the second movie. I guess the writers would kind of pick and choose when they wanted them to seem more or less concerned.

 

[Apslup]

I love the 4kids dub. TPCI dub sucks.

 

[Sham]

I love the 4kids dub. TPCI dub sucks.

I just didn’t like how 4kids changed so much dialogue.

 

[maartjeverhoef]

I never liked Drew and I think the idea of a jerky rival having a romantic subplot with a Pokégirl is one of the worst things that has ever come out of this anime.