What arcs in the anime do you wish they did/would do?

[SandmasterL]

Very true. Saying Bonnie did nothing prior to XYZ is just wrong. She also had a sizable role in most of Clemont’s eps too. Besides that she usually had cute scenes in eps that weren’t about her, she never felt like she was just a background character like Max became quickly enough. I mean there’s a clear difference of how Bonnie even got more focus than Serena at times, whereas Max was just Brock 2.0 but even more useless at times.

 

[Lightning Bolt]

She helped hiding Puni-chan from Team Flare whenever he was defenseless after using all of it's powers, she snapped him out of frenzy before he could do any further damage to Lumiose city at least until her brother was able to shut down the machine, she brought him to the center of the destruction where the other Core was and she restored the Cores' faith on humanity, which allowed them to fuse together and stop the Megalith before it destroyed the world.

Dunno about you but i think that is doing a lot more than Mallow ever did with Shaymin. Comparing these two cases is not reasonable at all, especially since Shaymin is not relevant in any way.

I never said anything about Zygarde doing more than Shaymin. Everyone needs to accept that. I don't really like Shaymin, but just like Zygarde prior to it, it felt like the writers handed legendaries to these girls just so they could look relevant. "Oh hey, look here! I am kidnapping this legendary here so I will actually feel relevant for once instead of being a female version of Max (!). Shaymin is a legendary, Zygarde is a legendary. Bonnie was a companion, Mallow is a companion. Shaymin not being relevant wasn't even my point.

she had to earn his trust and he was constantly trying to run away from her even though he clearly needed the humans' help. They grew a bond together, unlike Mallow and Shaymin...

Fair enough.

Before XYZ, her development was focused on learning to let go of a Pokémon, which ends up being relevant to her final goodbye to Zygarde. You might not have liked it, but it still was important to her character in the end, because there was no way she would have been so grown up about leaving Puni-chan and allowing him to do his job if it weren't for the several instances where she had to do the same to other Pokémon, like Lapras, Tyrantrum and Flabébé.

She became a bit sad when leaving Tyrantrum and Flabebé (though I don't think the Lapras goodbye was as emotional like these others since the cotd kids had more of a bond with it than Bonnie) but she bonded way more with Puni-chan than she did with Tyrantrum and Flabebé which were featured in filler episodes while Puni-chan was basically the key character for the entire TF arc. Of course her final scene with Puni-chan would be more emotional since she only bonded with these 3 Pokémon for a few minutes while Zygarde was under her care for the most part of XYZ. The problem with that is: this development was featured mainly in filler episodes because while it shows a tiny bit of development for Bonnie, you can skip it if you want and by the climax of the TF arc you won't even remember about it.

She also had a sizable role in most of Clemont’s eps too.

Which were, for the most part, fillers.

Besides that she usually had cute scenes in eps that weren’t about her

Being cute don't make a character interesting, y'know.

I mean there’s a clear difference of how Bonnie even got more focus than Serena at times, whereas Max was just Brock 2.0 but even more useless at times.

That's exactly the problem though. Somehow, if a bit of that focus went to Serena, her character would be much more enjoyable.

 

[Xuxuba]

I never said anything about Zygarde doing more than Shaymin. Everyone needs to accept that. I don't really like Shaymin, but just like Zygarde prior to it, it felt like the writers handed legendaries to these girls just so they could look relevant. "Oh hey, look here! I am kidnapping this legendary here so I will actually feel relevant for once instead of being a female version of Max (!). Shaymin is a legendary, Zygarde is a legendary. Bonnie was a companion, Mallow is a companion. Shaymin not being relevant wasn't even my point.

Fair enough.
She became a bit sad when leaving Tyrantrum and Flabebé (though I don't think the Lapras goodbye was as emotional like these others since the cotd kids had more of a bond with it than Bonnie) but she bonded way more with Puni-chan than she did with Tyrantrum and Flabebé which were featured in filler episodes while Puni-chan was basically the key character for the entire TF arc. Of course her final scene with Puni-chan would be more emotional since she only bonded with these 3 Pokémon for a few minutes while Zygarde was under her care for the most part of XYZ. The problem with that is: this development was featured mainly in filler episodes because while it shows a tiny bit of development for Bonnie, you can skip it if you want and by the climax of the TF arc you won't even remember about it.

Which were, for the most part, fillers.

Being cute don't make a character interesting, y'know.

That's exactly the problem though. Somehow, if a bit of that focus went to Serena, her character would be much more enjoyable.

No, but you did pretty much say that Mallow and Shaymin's arc is the same as Bonnie and Zygarde's arc just because they both carry legendaries around, which is unreasonable, cuz the latter actually has a storyline and their bond do serve a greater purpose (also, Shaymin is not a legendary, but that is beyond the point).

If it has character development, then it's not that dispensable. You can chose to not watch it if you want to, but you shouldn't complain about not understanding the character later on, because that was your choice. Filler is a fan term that has two uses: one is to describe episodes that aren't part of the original source's canon (which is nearly the entire Pokémon anime) and the second is to describe episodes where either the plot or the main characters have no development (and you said it yourself that these episodes had development in it).

Also, if you payed enough attention to Bonnie's focused episodes, which you are so ready to dismiss, you would have seen that she wasn't useless. In these episodes, she was actually fighting and helping Pokémon. Even in episodes where she wasn't the focus, you could see her trying to help, like in XY061.

Handing all of Bonnie's development to Serena wouldn't have made much sense. These two character arcs had completely different themes and subjects. Serena's character was about self-discovery and gaining confidence, while Bonnie's character was about learning that you do not always get what you want and sometimes what you want is not necessarily what you or your friends need. The idea Bonnie's development was detrimental to Serena's is not reasonable at all. If they wanted to make more episodes focused on Serena, they could've without removing Bonnie's episodes.

 

[SandmasterL]

Which were, for the most part, fillers.

Besides a few a lot of Clemont's eps gave him development or backstory to his pokemon like Luxio or his bunny. Or ones that showed how his inventions helped the city. The other ones were about him getting a date, which were fillers but fun eps similar to the ones Brock almost had a girl fall for him in the past. Clemont also doesn't work as much as a solo character without Bonnie, they were introduced as a set to play off the nerdy older brother and fun outgoing little sister. In a way it was a role reversal of May and Max, only difference was since May was a lead character she obviously got much more focus than Max.

That's exactly the problem though. Somehow, if a bit of that focus went to Serena, her character would be much more enjoyable.

The XY anime had two lead females. Bonnie was a lead female in everything except a real pokemon team (since she only had 1 pokemon), she was written as a main female of the saga and then Serena was written as one too once her arc started going. People wrongly assume Bonnie was unimportant because she's another little sibling character or they compare her to Max, which wasn't Bonnie's role at all. Rewatching XY in full a while ago made me it obvious Bonnie and Serena were both sharing the female lead role in XY, it just switched off between them whenever the other was getting spotlight. In a way it was a preview of what we'd get with Lillie/Mallow/Lana, which again other than Lillie being slightly more important, there are 3 lead females in SM too.

 

[MockingJ]

The anime should've done an arc about Emma from X/Y. That would've been the perfect chance to bring Looker back too and it sucks how the writing staff didn't do anything with that.

 

[Leonhart]

The anime should've done an arc about Emma from X/Y. That would've been the perfect chance to bring Looker back too and it sucks how the writing staff didn't do anything with that.

I dislike Handsome for the most part, but I would've tolerated his presence if it meant that we would've seen Matiere in the anime. I figure that we just didn't get any episodes about them because of XY&Z's rushed pacing at the end.

 

[LilligantLewis]

Johto alone was longer than BW, XY and SM are and almost the same length as AG and DP

This is not remotely true. While I agree Johto was longer than the three you mention, it's not even close to AG and DP. AG and DP, 192 and 191. Johto: 156

You're really stretching the definition of almost, and I hate misleading statistics like this, because people who won't look it up will just assume you're right, especially when it's in favor of your argument, which it was in this case

And yes, it was longer than those three, but not by much. Certainly not by as much as the gap in size between Johto and AG/DP.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I'm hoping in the next series that there will be episodes that take place in different regions that focus on the past characters. I'm also hoping that these replace most of the generic filler/almost filler episodes with a cotd/potd and Team Rocket.

I'm not expecting any of this to happen though, sadly.

 

[RedJirachi]

The original Plasma Arc

 

[Mikeachu]

The full Pokemon World Tournament from B2W2. When the games basically gift wrap you the best dang fanservice-driven, nostalgia-ladened tournament arc for your anime, USE IT! The countless cameos & guest returns. The many dream matches between trainers of matching types. Ash finally beating the Kanto gym leaders he didn't beat the 1st time around & putting that tired old "fan" complaint behind him.

Or ya know, they could just bring Dawn back for a jr. cup thing & leave it at that. Close enough, right?

 

[Emelie]

I like Serena a lot but sometimes she felt a little out of place in a battle oriented series like XY. I almost wish she had her own shoujo series which would be focused on slice-of-life and romance kind of like "Pocket Monsters PiPiPi Adventures". I liked this manga a lot as a kid and I'm a little sad that they never released another manga targeted at a shoujo audience again.

Does anybody remember this obscure old manga?

 

[MockingJ]

The original Plasma Arc

I know that people are still salty that it got scrapped from the main show, but I'm actually glad that it wasn't featured since I preferred the BW2 Plasma arc over the BW one.

 

[Jeal]

I think Alain fighting with the XY gang for Puni-chan was a missed oportunity. The opening suggested that this would happen, but it led to nothing.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I think Alain fighting with the XY gang for Puni-chan was a missed oportunity. The opening suggested that this would happen, but it led to nothing.

I'd also like to add Charizard vs Reshiram since it was in an opening as well.

 

[Leonhart]

The original Plasma Arc

I agree wholeheartedly. The Plasma-dan arc from the Black/White games was my favorite villainous team storyarc from the franchise as a whole, so it's a shame that it wasn't shown in the anime because of the 2011 tsunami and earthquake. The previews for the two banned episodes that featured the Plasma-dan looked so good too, and I was interested in finding out how the Rocket-dan would handle them.

 

[Moonlight Starlight]

I like Serena a lot but sometimes she felt a little out of place in a battle oriented series like XY. I almost wish she had her own shoujo series which would be focused on slice-of-life and romance kind of like "Pocket Monsters PiPiPi Adventures". I liked this manga a lot as a kid and I'm a little sad that they never released another manga targeted at a shoujo audience again.

Does anybody remember this obscure old manga?

I saw that picture manga way back on the Wikipedia which I was surprise which how would be great if Pokemon would had a shoujo series. But it didn't just having a shonen series and manga instead.

 

[mysticalglacia]

Alain being on less-than-friendly terms with Ash & co. over Puni-chan could’ve been so great, but alas. Wasted potential doubled with the writer’s insatiable need for filler and the low episode count resulted in the most boring rivalry possible. Whoo hoo...

A big one for me is the Sinnoh Battle Frontier. I understand why they didn’t do it in DP, and I didn’t want them to then; I thought the slow and drawn-out pacing greatly benefited the series, and I wouldn’t have wanted them to rush through Sinnoh’s lore and everything relating to Ash & Dawn just to promote it. But I still would’ve liked to see a more faithfully-adapted Frontier than what we got in AG (which I loved, but they really were just Gym Battles), and I preferred the Sinnoh Frontier Brains’ designs and personalities to the Hoenn ones.

If there are DP remakes in the future, I hope they include it (which isn’t happening, but we can dream). Maybe then they’d dedicate a BF/XYZ-like arc to it; they could just say it’s the Galar Frontier like they did in Kanto. I’d love to see a battle in someplace like the Battle Arcade with the new flashy animation and return of the 3D camera.

 

[shoz999]

I like Serena a lot but sometimes she felt a little out of place in a battle oriented series like XY. I almost wish she had her own shoujo series which would be focused on slice-of-life and romance kind of like "Pocket Monsters PiPiPi Adventures". I liked this manga a lot as a kid and I'm a little sad that they never released another manga targeted at a shoujo audience again.

Does anybody remember this obscure old manga?

I believe I seen a picture of it. Heard that manga is now crazy expensive.

 

[Lunalah]

I like Serena a lot but sometimes she felt a little out of place in a battle oriented series like XY. I almost wish she had her own shoujo series which would be focused on slice-of-life and romance kind of like "Pocket Monsters PiPiPi Adventures". I liked this manga a lot as a kid and I'm a little sad that they never released another manga targeted at a shoujo audience again.

Does anybody remember this obscure old manga?

Was that the manga with the characters named after nuts that focused more on shipping than on the Pokemon themselves? Because if it is then I totally get what you mean. To me Serena's part of XY felt like a shoujo anime.

 

[shoz999]

There's not really a lot in the Pokemon anime that strike me as interesting but I do wonder if anyone here is interested in exploring the adventures of Delilah Ketchum in her kid years as a trainer. If I recall, she did a Pokemon Journey too so I always thought it was strange how the anime never mentions a single Pokemon she may have caught. She's clearly decent and confident at her battling skills so it's unlikely she went on a Pokemon journey without Pokemon.