Unfair battles in the Pokemon anime

[XLugiaReshX]

Someone's Rhyhorn/don one-shotting Red's Jolteon with an Electric-type move (can't remember the details) in Pokémon Origins.
1) Jolteon has Volt Absorb. Even though abilities didn't exist in Gen 1, Jolteon would still resist it due to being an Electric-type.
2) Rhydon has abysmal base special attack (45). All Electric-type moves were special in the first three gens, and that move is definitely still special now.
Maybe Red's Jolteon just fails at living. /meme

Pretty much this and it was Giovanni's ryhorn

 

[wobbanut]

The pelliper guy in "You Said a Mouthful": most unfair guy EVER.

 

[CyberCubed]

The pelliper guy in "You Said a Mouthful": most unfair guy EVER.

But that was done purposely. We're talking about legitimate battles that were poorly written to be unfair.

 

[malcolm_n]

*snip*

I agree with most of this regarding the anime. They do a surprisingly decent job of keeping most things equal between the two, but where they take liberties is at least explainable for the purpose of the storytelling.

As to battles, I don't really find any of them to have been poorly written, with the strong exception of most 1st-3rd episodes of a given season. With how long Ash has been raising Pikachu, it's surprising that he doesn't just mop the floor with new trainers. Black and White did well in this respect by having Zekrom zap Pikachu out of his element (no pun intended). I know they can't do this every time, but I would like to, for once, see Ash at least stand a chance against the new kid in town.

 

[SBaby]

Wow. I completely neglected this topic. Let's see.

Something like that could have happened in BW if Dawn stayed a little longer for Operation Tempest. I don't know why they wrote Dawn off before then as it would have made her return a little more significant imo.

She wouldn't even have to stay that long. Two, maybe three episodes, tops. That would be enough time to introduce the new characters to the old character and set up the situation that leads to the team up. I wouldn't really harp on this too much, but this is basic stuff that anyone making a kid's show is pretty much expected to know.

Still struggling to see how the Tobias battle was unfair. Tobias abided by the rules and brought his best team to clear house. There's not exactly any reason other trainers couldn't go out and try to catch Legendaries.

I wouldn't say it was unfair. But it was definitely badly written, and it turned Tobias into a Gary Stu. Legendary Pokémon should not be catchable. Period.

He has a Pokémon that can essentially maze a Trainer, as well as one that can give a Trainer amnesia and teleport them across the countryside. Both of these things are canon in the anime. It makes no sense that it was even possible for him to catch them.