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What are some questionable choices that the writers (or staff) have made in your opinion?

nekojyara

Member
OS:
- Retcons on TR story between Kanto and Johto
- Indigo League battles
- Gary's rivalry in Johto, he is already set up as strong but ended up not showing much
- Casey not appearing in League
- The relative unprogressiveness of cast in Kanto

AG:
- Some of May's Contest win in Hoenn is too plot armor
- May not catching Swablu
- Glalie having little screentime
- The useless Togetic 2-parter and its release
- Ash's Charizard losing to Dusclops after winning against Articuno IN THE SAME SERIES AND SAME RUN
- Ash vs Tyson and Morrison, the former is too rushed while the latter suffers from unreasonable Morrison upset
- Pikachu losing to Electivire and Ash's Pokedex failed to recognize it (despite successfully scanned other Gen 4 Pokemon). Should use other member instead

DP:
- Pikachu tied with Elekid and losing to Roark. In the former, Pikachu should the one who handles Chimchar while Aipom against Elekid, while the latter should not have Pikachu being used at all
- The very existence of Kenny and how he was written
- Barry appearing very late
- Grotle/Torterra jobbing in the end
- Dawn's rival in general being either written badly or lacking screentime
- Tobias
- Reason for Dawn not joining Ash and Brock back to Kanto is too cheap
- The cast goodbye feels too fast...

BW:
- Ash soft reset and general disrespect for his preceding run, you must already know it all so I won't mention it again here
- Iris lacking more serious run (challenging Gyms, for example) and extra number of development arcs and focus for her, despite her delicate goal
- Team Plasma arc's subpar plot
- Trip
- Anime Alder being creep
- The unbalanced BW team (Boldore, Unfezant, Leavanny, and Palpitoad receiving the end of the stick)
- Purpose of Charizard's return. Even worse since logically he should keep the growth he has in OS-DP...but no.
- Decolora Islands' existence
- The rushed parting between cast

XY:
- OLM's bold move to include plot delivery and tropes only commonly found on older audience-targeted Japanese media, which is not translated for good in the dub and a hit-or-miss for the audience (cue Serena and Tripokalon being controversially received and misunderstood by mostly non-Eastern fans)
- XY part being too laidback while XYZ part being too rushed
- Goomy's arc and its disappointing return
- Kalos League in its entirety, not including battles between preliminary to semifinals which would be useful for Ash's team focus, and Ash's substandard performance against Sawyer and Alain
- The penultimate episode
- Evil Malamar plot that goes to nowhere
- XYZ still having fillers
- Sawyer's lack of backstory
- Clemont lacking focus between Gym Battle and Team Flare incident
- Ash vs Viola, he shouldn't use Pikachu because the loss is jarring
- The Trick Room breaking in Laverre Gym battle, honestly the stupidest asspull in entire Anipoke

SM:
- Hau deserved better and should appear earlier
- SM064 where Ash cosplayed as Passimian is offensive and shouldn't wear that costume or doing that. At all
- Shaymin should battle
- The Ultra Necrozma subplot is too weirdly structured and rushed, despite excellent buildup and heartwarming ending
- Ash vs Hapu should be 2v2 and NOT using pikachu
- Stealth Rock in Ash vs Olivia. It makes the battle less fluid and interesting
- Faba, after all the mess he did (which is very evil and deserved prison), got redeemed? ****.
- Pikachu's eyes drawn too close together

JN:
- Decision to base this series in Kanto and not Galar
- Having Ash's team developed during battles, and almost never having moments outside that, making them feels like just a battle drone (at least until this year)
- Goh's easy catching method. Should use another stronger balls or weaken them bit more, especially for fully evolved strong species
- PWC being rushed in Normal and Great Class
- Iris did dirty by having her as Champion lost on lower ranks to two newly caught/trained Pokemon
- Gengar and Sirfetch'd's poor battle record
- Kiawe acting a bit strange towards Goh...idk?
- The Grookey capture episode, especially where Goh's parents turned into Rillaboom (original version).
- Grookey
- Cinderace and Inteleon evolving too fast and increasingly lost screentime
- Darkest Day arc feels too fast and misplaced
- Mewtwo episode being pointless
- Prioritizing filler/random episodes over plot ones
- Team Rocket having minimum role and screentime
- Overall weird powerscaling between Ash and Goh's Pokemon
- The entire rivalry of Ash and Bea; no reason for him to act cocky and then depressed again at this point, and the resolve is very short
- Some important battles feels too plain
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
The ending of the Galactic arc being so wildly far removed from the games and changing Cyrus's goal to something he specifically says in the games he would never do because if he did then he could never achieve his goal! What in the CRAP was that!

And no, finding out that he's still alive didn't fix how woefully out of character it was to begin with. You don't take one of the more interesting characters the games have had and rip out everything that made them interesting.
 

nekojyara

Member
yeah technically goodra is just handed over, not released. it still could be called for pwc specifically to redeem its poor kalos run
 

Falconmaroni

Well-Known Member
Another weird choice from the anime is the entirety of Johto mons. Like, Bayleef, Noctowl, and Heracross are pretty cool and all, but what was the reason for Cyndaquil to only evolve two series later and Totodile to never do anything significant again.
Cyndaquil should of evolved during the Jasmine Gym battle, it was the perfect time since it defeated her Steelix.
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Another weird choice from the anime is the entirety of Johto starters. Like, Bayleef is pretty cool and all, but what was the reason for Cyndaquil to only evolve two series later and Totodile to never do anything significant again.
Wasn’t that the case with the BW starters as well?
 

wobbanut

Team Awesome
Although I can understand why they changed the arc, I still do not like the way they dumped the original Team Galactic arc in the Unova era. They did a big buildup that totally collapsed due to unfortunate real-world events, but then they never picked up on the lost storylines. They had an interesting guy working with Team Rocket that completely disappeared, and I can't even remember his name anymore. I don't blame them for wanting to separate the show from the devastating earthquake, but they could have handled it better than to completely drop the storyline like it never happened.
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Although I can understand why they changed the arc, I still do not like the way they dumped the original Team Galactic arc in the Unova era. They did a big buildup that totally collapsed due to unfortunate real-world events, but then they never picked up on the lost storylines. They had an interesting guy working with Team Rocket that completely disappeared, and I can't even remember his name anymore. I don't blame them for wanting to separate the show from the devastating earthquake, but they could have handled it better than to completely drop the storyline like it never happened.
You mean Plasma?

His name was Pierce, btw. And yeah, apparently the episodes aren't even banned, just "delayed". I wonder if they'll ever plop them down on the Poke-TV app as a "what if" story.
 

Pokemonfan5

Well-Known Member
Another weird choice from the anime is the entirety of Johto starters. Like, Bayleef is pretty cool and all, but what was the reason for Cyndaquil to only evolve two series later and Totodile to never do anything significant again.
Probably because writers want Charizard to be Ash's ace in johto league, entire Johto league was about kanto pokemons only while johto pokemons play very minor role, imagine Typhloshion get beaten by Magneton and shown weaker than Bulbasaur
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
1. Retconning battle round from contests in Journeys
2. having a 7-8 years old boy (the sm orange boy) having a Pokemon, while Max and Bonnie didn't have one. Also, giving him free Pokemon without him having to catch it, because... why does he need to work hard?
3. Max not appearing in the anime
4. Not having flashbacks to Iris becoming a champion
5. Not having a main poke lead since xy ended
6. Brock catching Mudkip
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
They didn't retcon anything, they flat out said Lisia introduced Contest Live which are more based on idol competitions. The winner didn't receive a Contest ribbon either.
Then why there was a big ribbon on the contest building?
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
Who knows, but neither Serena nor Lisia won a ribbon. They may use the same building for regular Contests still.
Well we still dont know that for sure. They could have gotten a ribbon afterward off screen.
We didnt see them getting any price at all.. How can one participate and win a contest and get no reward ?...
 

nekojyara

Member
Wasn’t that the case with the BW starters as well?
Not. Snivy and Oshawott didn't evolve later and its Pignite instead who evolved. They got relevance for the entirety of the series and never being rotated out of party. Also, Pignite participated in a sumo tournament in Decolora
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Not. Snivy and Oshawott didn't evolve later and its Pignite instead who evolved. They got relevance for the entirety of the series and never being rotated out of party. Also, Pignite participated in a sumo tournament in Decolora
Was discussing the fact that a starter only reached its middle stage and the other remained unevolved.
 
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