Things you are mad at that the anime didn’t do/take advantage of

[Aduro]

I think they didn't use Ash's rivals enough in the OS and AG. Gary went from arrogant jerk to supportive, polite rival really quickly. Leaving audiences confused, and the vaguely speculate that getting wrecked by Mewtwo just sort of humbled him. It was jarring. While May's rivals were quite consistent and well developed, Ash's League rivals in AG were all introduced after Ash had nearly all his gym badges.

They had such a massive amount of time that they misused for pointless filler episodes.

Not giving Ash a main female rival. It is pretty sad Katie in the Hoenn League is the closest we got along with Astrid in the XY series being horribly underused. Hopefully the Pokemon 2019 anime can buck the trend since Marnie is a significant character in the Sword/Shield games.


May not catching Swablu. The would be plot line may end up similiar to Ash's Lapras but it is a shame the reunion with its flock occurred in the same episode.

Katie definitely would have made a great rival for Ash. She was smart enough to switch and use terrain well. That kind of opponent could push Ash to train smarter as well as harder.

 

[blizzardblaze]

Adding on to that is how Gary barely showed up during OS, meaning he didn't get much screentime meaning most of their rivalry had to be developed during the end

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Rotating Ash's team in the new show. Since he is now allowed to use Pokemon from different generations, I wish he would randomly use a different Oak'd Pokemon alongside his new captures.

I have yet to see him do it successfully,he tried it in OS/Johto and failed.He had more than 6 pokemon in BW and failed.Paul and Gary seem to be the only on screen trainers that were capable of training new and old pokemon giving them equal amount of focus but this especially applied to Paul.

 

[SerenaRulez]

Adding on to that is how Gary barely showed up during OS, meaning he didn't get much screentime meaning most of their rivalry had to be developed during the end

Yeah he should have appeared a lot more and maybe battled Ash a few times in Kanto too which could have made their rivalry stronger if Ash had lost to him.

 

[Aduro]

I have yet to see him do it successfully,he tried it in OS/Johto and failed.He had more than 6 pokemon in BW and failed.Paul and Gary seem to be the only on screen trainers that were capable of training new and old pokemon giving them equal amount of focus but this especially applied to Paul.

Pretty much. Ash tends to collect a lot of weak pokemon that require a ton of time and attention to grow strong, while Paul exclusively went for pokemon that already had a good amount of strength and obvious potential. I can see Gary having a similar attitude, especially early-on.
Its also possible that Paul's pokemon effectively are reserves that get more training for battle from his brother than Ash's pokemon get from Oak.

If Ash rotated pokemon like his Snorunt, Goomy or Gible, they would never have become even decent battlers in time for the League. I'm totally fine with Ash having 5 -6 new pokemon per region, so long as they are interesting characters, which are used a lot more creatively.

 

[DatsRight]

Truth be told, Misty and Brock didn't use their Pokemon a lot in Kanto either. It's just the looser formula allowed them to stand out more in terms of standard personality and agency. By Johto the standard formula had gotten tighter. Also Kanto had that more indiscriminately cynical edge to it where they liked picking on all the main characters and their insecurities while by Johto they'd gotten more adjusted to making Team Rocket the butt monkeys of the show and the COTDs less antagonistic. Notice that most of the Johto episodes that were still top quality were the Team Rocket centred ones.

In terms of a girl battler, I thought it was a shame they didn't let Lana do much. They were clearly setting her up as the female battler of the SM group, but she didn't get to do a single trainer battle until the league and her Pokemon team was almost as underdeveloped as Mallow and Lillie's (she was infamously screwed out of Dewpider and Sandy didn't really get any development at all despite being capable of evolving into a water type). I could buy that she could use Primarina effectively but that was more because of her general hyper competent characterisation rather than getting a lot of opportunities to show her stuff.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Pretty much. Ash tends to collect a lot of weak pokemon that require a ton of time and attention to grow strong, while Paul exclusively went for pokemon that already had a good amount of strength and obvious potential.

This hurt him the most in Unova,he was better off rotating in pokemon like Heracross,Noctowl,Sceptile and Buizel throughout all his gym battles and the Unova League.Paul's method was finding the strongest species of pokemon he could find in the wild,train them up to get even stronger,for the most part he was focused on building up a strong balanced team as quickly as possible so he can have an advantage at the league.He 3-0ed a random trainer along with Barry at the sinnoh league,it got him all the way to the top 8.Ash barley beat him,Paul's Drapion/Electivire alone took out 5 of Ash's pokemon,the others were used for scouting and disrupting.

Its also possible that Paul's pokemon effectively are reserves that get more training for battle from his brother than Ash's pokemon get from Oak.

It's possible but all the training sessions we've seen with Paul's pokemon on screen involved Paul and no one else,when Reggie retired from being a trainer he became a breeder who took care of other pokemon.Even if he did have a part in his pokemon's training it wouldn't have been to the extent of the way Paul trained them.

If Ash rotated pokemon like his Snorunt, Goomy or Gible, they would never have become even decent battlers in time for the League.

Yeah if he isn't training them enough but it wouldn't matter as much if he rotates his older pokemon.He would have won in Hoenn and Unova if he went this route.

 

[k6666]

OS : Misty and Brock Team Pokemon , Marina and Suzy as their rival , Casey and Ritchie
AG : Wally as Ash Rival
DP : Battle Frointer
BW : BW Games Plot , Bianca
XY : Amelia , Lisia , Wally , I really like korrina when she on group , she has clear goal than the other 2 when being add to the cast
SM : School setting , Dewpider

 

[Aduro]

Yeah if he isn't training them enough but it wouldn't matter as much if he rotates his older pokemon.He would have won in Hoenn and Unova if he went this route.

I just wouldn't want Ash to bring in reserves at the expense of helping his new pokemon become as strong as they could be. Or at the extent of them growing as characters. I loved that in the Alola and Hoenn leagues, all of Ash's pokemon got at least one chance to shine.

To me, Ash is much more heroic and sympathetic when he cares for a weak pokemon until it becomes strong and happy than he is when he wins. Ash didn't prove himself as a better trainer than Paul by KOing Paul's pokemon. He did it by taking the Chimchar that Paul mistreated and released as worthless, and turning it into a happy, confident pokemon.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

I just wouldn't want Ash to bring in reserves at the expense of helping his new pokemon become as strong as they could be. Or at the extent of them growing as characters. I loved that in the Alola and Hoenn leagues, all of Ash's pokemon got at least one chance to shine.

Even when he did just use new pokemon the entire time they still didn't reach their full potential.

To me, Ash is much more heroic and sympathetic when he cares for a weak pokemon until it becomes strong and happy than he is when he wins.

WTF?

Ash didn't prove himself as a better trainer than Paul by KOing Paul's pokemon. He did it by taking the Chimchar that Paul mistreated and released as worthless, and turning it into a happy, confident pokemon.

He may have been able to do that but that doesn't automatically put him as the better trainer,there's more that goes into it than just caring for your pokemon.

 

[Nebbygetinthebag]

Ash's Torterra should have won more battle, I was really disappointed of how it was handle.

The GS ball never been brought up again

 

[shoz999]

I can tell this is going to be a popular list, judging the anime for what it didn't do instead of what it did lol. I'm not really mad, I suppose not really annoyed but if I had to change one thing. I'd let the character's age after the Indigo League series ended. You know rival Green from Pokemon Advnetures? In the anime, Gary Oak is 10. In the manga, Green stands head to head with Diantha. Having characters age would change everything about the anime. For example, you know the popular Armourshipping? Won't exist because if Ash had aged by then, he'd probably be in his adult years and Serena would be 10 or if were going by the games/manga, 12 years old. Actually by then, they'd probably give the torch to a different protagonist which would be interesting to see what the anime does with characters like Hilbert or Calem and try their best to differentiate their characteristics.

 

[Leonhart]

Rotating Ash's team in the new show. Since he is now allowed to use Pokemon from different generations, I wish he would randomly use a different Oak'd Pokemon alongside his new captures.

There's still time for him to bring back his old Pokemon, although I personally think that it should be kept to a minimum since many of his reserve Pokemon already had their time to shine, and I'm personally rather see Satoshi train his new Pokemon instead of bringing the old ones back.

 

[Red and Blue]

I'm genuinely surprised that the XY anime didn't use Emma or AZ. Where their storylines too dark for the anime to handle?

 

[NeedsAName]

I'm genuinely surprised that the XY anime didn't use Emma or AZ. Where their storylines too dark for the anime to handle?

I played through Y entirely only once, and I remember AZ, but not Emma. Who's Emma?

 

[Leonhart]

I played through Y entirely only once, and I remember AZ, but not Emma. Who's Emma?

The little girl with the Nyasper who had a role in the post-game. She was involved in the "Looker Bureau" subplot.

 

[SerenaRulez]

I played through Y entirely only once, and I remember AZ, but not Emma. Who's Emma?

She was the girl who had that alter ego called Essentia. I don't remember the specifics but she was used as a puppet by Xerosic I think. I wish she had appeared in the Kalos series.

 

[Deleted member 384931]

The unique creatures UBs were. They could have done alot more with the Ultra Beasts. Even arcs that are intense, but no, each UB except Motherbeast Lusamine, Poipole and Guzzlord (first time) was sent back after 1 ep. Like the unique worlds they live in. It would have made the transition between Motherbeast Lusamine and the Necrozma arc less boring.

Spreading Dawns contests more, so the Grand festival can take place between the 7th and 8th gym badge (why was there even a gap of a year??)

Not making Iris a gym leader at the beginning of the BW series. Would have made her more enjoyable to watch. But Dragon Master and Water Master (Misty) sound so hollow and more of we have no idea to do with that character.

The GS ball. No more needs to be said about this lol..

 

[Zoruagible]

Team Plasma was heavily butchered. Imagine loving a villain team and being excited to see them animated.... only to get a steaming turd!
Oh, and Cheren got ignored only to show up as his BW 2 counterpart...? Why couldn't he just be the dreamcrusher if you wanted to hold him off THAT long?! He kicked Ash's ass anyways!
Hugh got skipped -_-

Rainbow Rocket getting skipped, I'd have loved to see a huge Rocket centric arc with old Rocket agents coming back to cause havoc! Or just Butch/Cassidy running an operation...
Oh, and Giovanni and his past with Nanu. The **** was that about? It would have been nice to see a glimpse of Giovanni's backstory and learn more about him

 

[brtnvm]

Not giving Ash a main female rival. It is pretty sad Katie in the Hoenn League is the closest we got along with Astrid in the XY series being horribly underused. Hopefully the Pokemon 2019 anime can buck the trend since Marnie is a significant character in the Sword/Shield games.


May not catching Swablu. The would be plot line may end up similiar to Ash's Lapras but it is a shame the reunion with its flock occurred in the same episode.

What about BW Bianca?