What do you dislike about Diamond and Pearl? (Possible Spoilers)

[Akkipeddi]

Yeah, another one of these, this time for the Diamond and Pearl series.

Diamond and Pearl is regarded as the best and most flawless series in PAD. Dawn is highly regarded and praised for having equal screen time to Ash, the Ash vs Paul rivalry is hailed as the best rivalry in the anime, and Ash finally looked like he could finally win.

Like every series, I personally felt that Diamond and Pearl had issues too

What I disliked in DP:

- Dawn's Rivals : While Dawn herself was developed very well, and contests were very well executed, I personally didn't like her rivals. Ursula and Kenny were boring to me, and I never liked how Dawn never ended up beating Zoey.

- Paul getting off too easy : I understand Paul's style of training is completely opposite from Ash's, and he relied on being strict and almost brutal to get the best out of his team. However, I felt he got off too easy, and I especially didn't like how Reggie never seemed to have issues with his own brother's attitude.

- Infernape screen hogging : Every ace in a region gets more screen time than others, but I felt it was far too much in Infernape's case. It's screen hogging started as a Chimchar itself, and was almost always the star in almost all gym battles. Some Pokémon really suffered as a result such as Torterra, Staraptor, etc.

- Brock : Brock shall always remain my favorite Pokémon companion, but it was unfortunate how he felt so unneeded in this series. He hardly interacted with Dawn, and with Ash finally growing up, he felt all the more unneeded.

- Filler : This series had a lot of filler, and the worst was that long stretch from the Seventh Badge to Eigth Badge. I felt it took up almost a year worth, which could've probably been used for the Sinnoh Battle Frontier.

- Disappointing conclusion of Team Galactic : I like how Team Galactic were introduced early, and we were constantly shown and updated of their activities. However, I felt the main issue was Cyrus himself, and I felt the whole finale of him walking into the Dimension was very underwhelming.

What things do you dislike about Diamond and Pearl? Remember, let's make this a peaceful discussion and please no bashing and namecalling.

 

[UltimateNinja]

-The pacing. It was dragged out to much. Probably because it was 4 years long for a simple badge quest.
-Group interaction was somehow lacking. Especially Brock's interactions with Dawn and Ash.
-Dawn releasing Ambipom and Dawn getting Togekiss was so unnecessary.
-The league end with Tobias.
-Wished for more Galactic episodes.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

The fillers were pretty bad and boring.
Dawn's rivals weren't as good as I would have liked them to be.
Brock not doing much at all.
The pacing was a bit slow.
Team Rocket were at their worst here.

 

[CMButch]

-Fillers between 7th and 8th gym.
-TR being the most annoying here( those Giovanni scenes were awful)
-Brock doing minimum job
-Torterra not doing well after evolving...

That's pretty much it. This is why DP is my favorite series, it has small amount of things that I hate compared to other series, IMO.

 

[Darthlord7]

-Fillers between 7th and last gym.
-Ambipom's release and the way Dawn got Togekiss
-Torterra jobbing
-TR
-Brock being stale and not interacting much with the group.
-Dawn's rivals being underwhelming compared to May's.

Still though, DP is my favourite series.

 

[Halolady]

Contest rivals: Agreed on this one, OP; if there was one thing that kept Dawn's arc from being flawless for me, it was definitely them dull-asf Contest rivals. Honestly, the only one that came close to entertaining for me was Ursula (though I see here's where we disagree). Zoey? Well, I saw potential in her interactions with Dawn, but sadly, she was just more boring than memorable overall. Nando seemed interesting at first, but quickly went M.I.A after. And, uhh...Kenny...hm...yeah, you just can't really base much of an opinion around someone soo...cardboard.

Fillers: Look, DP may be my all-time favorite saga, m'kay? But the fillers though? They were, on average, just offensively boring for me to sit through! I mean, did the writers just dish these ideas right out of the sink or something? Goodness!

Paul's character: Now, the Ash/Paul rivalry may just be my favorite thing ever in all things Pokemon. But Paul's character - or, attitude - can get incredibly jarring at times. Like that time he dissed Maylene? Yeesh. In my opinion, way too OTT even for his character.

Animation: Oy vey! I honestly thought that this saga had the worst animation of them all! This just seemed to be the awkward phase where the animators were transitioning from hand-drawn to full-blown computer-animated animation - it didn't have the more old-school, grounded look of OS-AG's animation, nor did it really have the fluency and sleekness of BW-SM's modern animation either - it was just kinda stuck in a limbo there; resulting in a really awkward use of stock animation and...rather cringe-worthy models of the characters for the most part (just - none of them looked right most of the time).

 

[DatsRight]

Need to watch more of DP but from what I remember:

* TR while having lots of fun side roles this time, were getting stale as villains.
* Brock similarly was becoming obsolete until the last two or so episodes.
* LOTS of padding, especially since the series was a long runner with no location/goal changes like the previous two series had.
* The dubbing started to get REALLY cringe inducing by this point.
* DP was the third to run fully with the 'classic' formula with very few tweaks, and while it was arguably the best handled in some regards, it was getting really derivative by this time. While BW didn't change things up brilliantly execution wise, DP made it obvious WHY they found it necessary.

Contest rivals: Agreed on this one, OP; if there was one thing that kept Dawn's arc from being flawless for me, it was definitely them dull-asf Contest rivals. Honestly, the only one that came close to entertaining for me was Ursula (though I see here's where we disagree). Zoey? Well, I saw potential in her interactions with Dawn, but sadly, she was just more boring than memorable overall. Nando seemed interesting at first, but quickly went M.I.A after. And, uhh...Kenny...hm...yeah, you just can't really base much of an opinion around someone soo...cardboard.

Well they made Jessie a legitimate opponent this time round. That was something. The competition also felt like they were challenging and pushing Dawn to improve more than May's lot, who in the opposite sense, were more about character than being effective competition. Step forward, step back I suppose, though again, Jessie was fun.

 

[Janovy]

- Dawn's rivals were underwhelming compared to May's rivals.
- Torterra being screwed over.
- Brock was pretty much neglected throughout DP.
- TR was kinda annoying (but they did have some nice team episodes).
- Ambipom leaving to play ping pong lmao

 

[Halolady]

- Ambipom leaving to play ping pong lmao

Oh yeah, completely forgot about that one. Honestly, the stupidity of that decision just really shows when they just randomly slotted in Togekiss as a last-minute member upon realizing that she still had one more empty slot to fill in.

 

[GarchompTheAssassin]

- The Paul/Ash rivalry was great but it did feel a little imbalanced
- I agree Paul got off easy, especially for the Chimchar abuse
- Began the tradition of Ash's contrived league exits (I did kinda like Tobias though)
- After the Ash vs Paul league battle, it felt a bit rushed and sort of came to an abrupt ending?
- Brock as becoming stale, and his interactions with Dawn was lacking
- They did Torterra dirty, and Infernape was hogging a bit
- And it was followed by BW jk

Great series though

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Too many fillers
The way Pokémon names were pronounced kept changing sometimes in the same episode (or movie)
The Lake Guardians being built up in a way to have some major role in the Galatic plot to capture Dialga and Palkia but they were hardly featured.
Pacing- It's absurd that it took Ash nearly a year to get the Beacon Badge
Tobias- He literally came from nowhere. No backstory, no mention of where he is from, and no explanation of why no one in Sinnoh knew of his existence until the League.

 

[Janovy]

Oh yeah, completely forgot about that one. Honestly, the stupidity of that decision just really shows when they just randomly slotted in Togekiss as a last-minute member upon realizing that she still had one more empty slot to fill in.

The worst part is: instead of adding a Togekiss, they could have added the evil Togepi into Dawn's team and then made it evolve.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

The worst part is: instead of adding a Togekiss, they could have added the evil Togepi into Dawn's team and then made it evolve.

I think the later parts of DP especially towards the end was somewhat rushed.

 

[Blaze Master X]

-Too much fillers
-Dawn's rivals were underwhelming compared to May's
-Team Rocket
-Torterra became a jobber. Poor Torterra.
-Brock was not doing much

I still love DP series, though. It's one of my favorite series.

 

[Halolady]

Well they made Jessie a legitimate opponent this time round. That was something. The competition also felt like they were challenging and pushing Dawn to improve more than May's lot, who in the opposite sense, were more about character than being effective competition. Step forward, step back I suppose, though again, Jessie was fun.

True...it's just too bad that we can't really get the best of both worlds. And, lol, I kinda forgot about Jessie back there, haha. Yeah...she was a pretty good opponent.

The worst part is: instead of adding a Togekiss, they could have added the evil Togepi into Dawn's team and then made it evolve.

It's a shame, really - as that Togepi could've made for a pretty entertaining member on Dawn's team considering its' personality...

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Paul was a literal drain on my love for the anime. You can literally see the point where the writers decided to start pushing him up as some "great" Trainer. He got off with nothing but a slap on the wrist for abusing Chimchar. And don't say it wasn't abuse. He literally ignored doctor's orders and forced Chimchar to battle in a weakened state against something it was terrified of, then abandoned it immediately after the match saying it was Chimchar's fault for being weak.

Poor Brock didn't get to do much at all.

People complaining about endless filler despite the fact that both the Contests and Team Galactic were wrapped up during that period.

Not enough Nando (never enough Nando).

And Dawn not getting a straight win over Zoey.

 

[DatsRight]

I'm under the theory that the anime doesn't know how to punish any antagonist they can't 'blast off'. Granted DP at least tried a bit harder than AG, where pretty much EVERY non-TR villain was a karma houdini. Galactic and Paul were awkwardly finished but Hunter J was the first Pokemon villain all but blatantly killed off.

 

[satopi]

-Fillers and training episodes were atrocious.
-The pacing was way too slow.
-Team Rocket appearing almost every episode and their role was absolutely UNBEARABLE! I couldn't stand them this saga outside of their actual focus episodes.
-I dislike Paul for his cruelty to his Pokémon especially the way he treated Chimchar
-Watching Ash get super mad or depressed hurts...
-Piplup, I don't like his voice, his hogging screentime, and the fact that he's the representative to all Piplup. He gives Piplup a bad name. He was alright though.
-Nando needed more screentime and Dawn should've beat Zoey at the Grand Festival.
-Turtwig's treatment after he evolved.
-Brock blending into the background. He barely has any meaningful interactions with Dawn.
-Dawn beating May in the Wallace Cup. That was BS!
-Ambipom's release. She should've stayed with Ash or Dawn.
-Pachrisu was useless
-I didn't really like Buneary's crush on Pikachu. ^^

 

[Xuxuba]

* The animation. The heads were too big and their bodies too thin. Sinnoh's sky looked like a child's drawing. At least it got better later in the series.

* Dawn having the same goal as a previous companion.

* May losing to Dawn even though May was far more experienced.

* Dawn's rivals. Kenny and Zoey were just plain boring, there was nothing that made their personalities unique or interesting to watch. Zoey at least was a good coordinator unlike Kenny. Meanwhile, the only interesting thing about Nando was that he was a battler too. Ursula had personality but got no development. Jessie was entertaining but still had no chances of winning the Grand Festival.

* The dialogue felt quite shallow sometimes.

* Brock received no focus and no development. The only time he got some development was when he decided to become a doctor at the very end of the saga and that decision came out of nowhere.

* Paul being just another stereotype that was done before in the series and yet receiving so much praise for it.

* Lots of recycled fillers.

* Team Rocket was even more annoying than usual. It seemed like their jokes got worse too.

- Lots of undeveloped pokemon, like Togekiss and Turtwig

- Ash looked either grumpy or stoic 99% of the time.

- Ash and Dawn's friendship just felt forced to me.

- The badge quest's pacing got really terrible at some point.

 

[Xenon Blue]

-TR served little to no purpose and the show was better off without them
- Brock wasn't bad, but could have been better. A change in character to replace his role seemed to be better.
- Dawn's rivals being pretty bad compared to May (still better than the other female lead's rivals though, which doesn't say much)
- The drought between Snowpoint and Sunnyshore, though there were interesting stuff that happened between it.