What are your unpopular opinions about the anime?

[Krackochu]

Y'know one of the reasons I would love for Ash to end up with no one is it's nice to see characters being single or no kids when grown up as their ending. Its rare especially when the default ending people always suggest is married with kids. It's not intentional, but it kinda pushes the message that you can't just be happy by yourself or have no kids as an ending when you grow up.

It's always married with kids etc for character endings

This everybody pretends people need kids or a romantic other to be 'happy' in every form of media.

But this is a kids show and that dream will never come true ginger.

So out of Pure Spite i want them to do what the Digimon anime did. The SHEER OUTRAGE From shipper will keep me well fed for decades!

 

[GohMaster!]

Still baffles me how Ash is rotating his reserves when he’s just chilling now, but not during a worldwide battle tournament

Idk, its opposite for me and makes perfect sense. Why rotate out your team that is absolutely dominating to bring in like totodile or whatever? When you're winning in sports, you go with whats hot. Same logic.

 

[MunchMunch]

The issue is Ash could've trained his reserved as well if he wanted too.

 

[Bendicion]

I also feel May's Torchic was handled like crap now that I'm on the subject. It was treated so poorly because May focused all her attention on a generic Beautifly for Contests and Torchic just warmed the bench. It's made even worse because Max specifically points this out to Ash and Brock in one episode and both of them tell him he's crazy and that May obviously loves it, and after that episode Torchic continued to be ignored proving Max right until it finally evolved and became useful for May to utilize in Contests where it was treated well from then on. Its as if May never has any sort of realization prior of how badly she was neglecting it, because we were told she wasn't and that's that I guess. Horrendous writing.

It's just so bizarre to me the writers were self aware enough to know they wrote May as basically ignoring Torchic and acknowledged it but immediately doubled down and say everything was fine and May treat it well by the narrative when she obviously was not. Such a baffling way to handle that entire thing like I've never seen the show so clearly acknowledge a writing faux pa in universe only to tell the audience they're not gonna do anything to fix it.

 

[mehmeh1]

 

[Krackochu]

i never felt like ash had to "take down team rocket and catch mewtwo" to end his story

it's one of those things that always pops up and i've never understood it

I always thought he'd catch ho-ho to end his story because it makes to much sense.

 

[Krackochu]

Somebody here was so convinced that BW didn’t happen that they took the mirror filler from XY and said that BW must have taken place in an alternate universe from what we saw and now fast forward and it’s one of the most relevant series

Narrative dissonance just like that one Xyz gut who made an entire wiki on how SM and Journeys were reboots and how they needed to make Ash an adult for no reason.

 

[Krackochu]

My unpopular opinion of the day: a good animation is always good to see, but if you mix it with a bad artstyle, then you can't go far. This is the reason why JN artstyle and animation, like a whole, are better than SM artstyle and animation.

...

The only bad thing about SM artstyle is Ash's face.

 

[GohMaster!]

...

The only bad thing about SM artstyle is Ash's face.

Ash looks adorable in SM

 

[Bendicion]

Almost all of May's wins were through blatant use of plot armor. The worst offenders being May vs Phantom, May vs Harley (specifically the one where May's Squirtle fought against Harley's Ariados) and May vs Brock. To articulate further, with May vs Phantom, firstly she uses Skitty who's moveset is comprised of 3 normal moves and a not mastered Blizzard. And her entire strategy was to spam Assist and hope it would work out, then she gets lucky when Skitty learns to master Blizzard at the most convenient moment. With Squirtle vs Ariados, Squirtle was inexperienced with Ice Beam, yet despite this it somehow was able to do well enough to score her the win last minute when the out of control move froze the spider webs? Yet Ariados has the upper hand the whole fight. (Slightly off note, but she once defeated Harley's Banette under the use of Jessie using Rapid Spin and Tackle, two normal type moves. And Tackle was used as the finishing blow!) May vs Brock is even worse, Brock's Marshtomp is completely dominating the whole fight and countering any of Eevee's offenses, even to the point it couldn't use Dig to avoid hits. Then somehow May wins the battle because Eevee manage to get a couple of Tackle's in moments before the timer ended; Despite Brock clearly having the bigger advantage the entire time.

 

[mehmeh1]

You're seriously gonna make me call him aren't ya

 

[Morax]

You're seriously gonna make me call him aren't ya

Spoiler

 

[mehmeh1]

Spoiler

Scottbusters!

 

[Sham]

People need to stop pretending that Serena entering a baking competition and making a YouTube video was part of her overall arc of finding out what she wanted to do instead of it just being the activity of the day that most episodes have. She never once in those episodes said "Hey, I think I wanna try to do this as a!" and nor did the overall context and narrative paint it like that.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

People need to stop pretending that Serena entering a baking competition and making a YouTube video was part of her overall arc of finding out what she wanted to do instead of it just being the activity of the day that most episodes have. She never once in those episodes said "Hey, I think I wanna try to do this as a!" and nor did the overall context and narrative paint it like that.

She was pretty much just a background tree even more so than the SM companions not named Lillie or Kiawe back then in the first year of XY.

 

[Gingertail24]

People need to stop pretending that Serena entering a baking competition and making a YouTube video was part of her overall arc of finding out what she wanted to do instead of it just being the activity of the day that most episodes have. She never once in those episodes said "Hey, I think I wanna try to do this as a!" and nor did the overall context and narrative paint it like that.

I mean didn't it lead to her being good at baking pokepuffs, which was also one of the challenges in showcases

 

[Sham]

I mean didn't it lead to her being good at baking pokepuffs, which was also one of the challenges in showcases

She already talented at it too begin with, one of her first interactions with the XY gang was giving them Macaroons

 

[Gingertail24]

She already talented at it too begin with, one of her first interactions with the XY gang was giving them Macaroons

Yeah true. With the showcase I meant it relates to the thing Ash told her. How nothing you do is pointless and it can help you along the way

So her being good at baking wasn't just a fun hobby, it led to her winning one of the showcase challenges

 

[DatsRight]

I feel Ash and Kiawe is pretty underrated as well

I'm gonna be honest, Kiawe kinda feels like the 'older male companion' archetype they had since Brock but finally used properly, as in he has the usual running gags and expositional role, but still manages to keep hold of the REST of the role the whole series. He still comes off as competent and gets to battle recurrently and is actually rarely just a background prop, and most of the things he's expositioning don't feel like stuff Ash and co likely already know. Even his Pokemon feel more developed than his predecessors' despite again having the same 'powerhouse' and 'comic relief' archetypes.

I think Kiawe benefited from SM having more focus on good character dynamics than just individual arcs for the odd protagonist. A lot of characters benefit from having others to bounce off of effectively while waiting for their own screentime.

 

[Gingertail24]

I'm gonna be honest, Kiawe kinda feels like the 'older male companion' archetype they had since Brock but finally used properly, as in he has the usual running gags and expositional role, but still manages to keep hold of the REST of the role the whole series. He still comes off as competent and gets to battle recurrently and is actually rarely just a background prop, and most of the things he's expositioning don't feel like stuff Ash and co likely already know. Even his Pokemon feel more developed than his predecessors' despite again having the same 'powerhouse' and 'comic relief' archetypes.

I think Kiawe benefited from SM having more focus on good character dynamics than just individual arcs for the odd protagonist. A lot of characters benefit from having others to bounce off of effectively while waiting for their own screentime.

That reminds of clemont who was just there after his arc is complete