Why did Axew suddenly forget it wanted to evolve?

[matt0044]

If they wanted their cutesy mascot for Iris, why did they set up that goal for the little guy to become a bigger guy only to pretend it never happened?

Yeesh, at least Dawn's Piplup had an episode explaining WHY it didn't want to evolve. Could've at least gave Axew that.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

Because it would have been too much work for the animators to draw Fraxure/Haxorus

 

[Mega Altaria]

Yeah it would feel weird if there was no explanation why Axew didn't evolve despite it actually wanting to evolve. I don't really know why but Axew could have at least fully evolved near the end if the writers did let Axew fully evolve.

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

Because it would have been too much work for the animators to draw Fraxure/Haxorus

Oh right. They did say this nonsense didn't they? lmao

Marketing also told him not too.

 

[Leonhart]

I've never understood why Kibago's failure to evolve was such a huge issue with fans. Yes, evolving was supposed to be his goal, yet very few characters in this anime manage to achieve their dreams. So Kibago being singled out so often as an example of bad development seems strange.

 

[Genaller]

I've never understood why Kibago's failure to evolve was such a huge issue with fans. Yes, evolving was supposed to be his goal, yet very few characters in this anime manage to achieve their dreams. So Kibago being singled out so often as an example of bad development seems strange.

The issue is that most character goals involve being the “best” in some field (e.g. best trainer, breeder, type specialist, co-ordinator, performer) a.k.a those goals are relative since they involve competing with others whereas with an absolute goal like evolution there’s no competition involved; just sufficient training + desire should be enough which is why it’s jarring that Axew wasn’t able to make significant progress (at least evolve into Fraxure) over the course of an entire saga. The least the writers could have done was have an episode where Axew changed its mind and no longer wanted to evolve which would have actually lead to good development for Iris since she’s choosing to respect her Pokémon’s wishes despite being given the explicit task of evolving it.

 

[AznKei]

I wasn't really a fan of Haxorus design compared to other final state Dragon Pokemons like Dragonite, Garchomp, Goodra and so on.

And yeah, marketing plays also a role despite the lack of explanation in the anime to let Iris Axew evolve.

 

[satopi]

Animating Fraxure is hard for the animators + marketing.

He didn't just forget he wanted to evolve, he just didn't evolve.

 

[Leonhart]

And yeah, marketing plays also a role despite the lack of explanation in the anime to let Iris Axew evolve.

That's probably one of the reasons why Hikari's Pochama remained un-evolved as well. Some Pokemon like him and Kibago just work better as cute mascots in the anime.

 

[matt0044]

Why not save it for Season 2 around the League? Make it a focal point of Iris's arc with Drayden coming to a head. That late in the game, I think they could pull off a cute Fraxure.

 

[AshxSatoshi]

The issue is that most character goals involve being the “best” in some field (e.g. best trainer, breeder, type specialist, co-ordinator, performer) a.k.a those goals are relative since they involve competing with others whereas with an absolute goal like evolution there’s no competition involved; just sufficient training + desire should be enough which is why it’s jarring that Axew wasn’t able to make significant progress (at least evolve into Fraxure) over the course of an entire saga. The least the writers could have done was have an episode where Axew changed its mind and no longer wanted to evolve which would have actually lead to good development for Iris since she’s choosing to respect her Pokémon’s wishes despite being given the explicit task of evolving it.

Except Iris is still trying to evolve Axew so it’s not like either of them gave up on the dream, it just doesn’t didn’t happen yet. Never did the writers imply that Axew was going to evolve over the course of the series. The fans overhyped themselves based on a dream episode that took place 10 episodes into the season and ran with it. And I’d say hurting Cynthia’s Garchomp (not matter what you think of that), learning Giga Impact, learning Outrage and helping win Iris the Club Battle was progress. I can understand if Best Wishes had click baiting title episodes/false hype like the series after it but never did the writers give indication what they were going to do with that plot.

 

[ShadowForce720]

Except Iris is still trying to evolve Axew so it’s not like either of them gave up on the dream, it just doesn’t didn’t happen yet. Never did the writers imply that Axew was going to evolve over the course of the series. The fans overhyped themselves based on a dream episode that took place 10 episodes into the season and ran with it. And I’d say hurting Cynthia’s Garchomp (not matter what you think of that), learning Giga Impact, learning Outrage and helping win Iris the Club Battle was progress. I can understand if Best Wishes had click baiting title episodes/false hype like the series after it but never did the writers give indication what they were going to do with that plot.

I have to disagree here because no matter how you look at it, the moment the writers showed that Axew wants to fully evolve especially showing it wants this at the beginning of the series would create the expectation that it would have evolved at least once in that series there is no getting around that, and saying that oh well it doesn't matter because Iris' axew hurt Cynthia Garchomp and learned Giga Impact and Outrage, the problem with that is that we didn't really see Axew battle enough so it made the whole thing of Axew learning Outrage and Giga Impact and hurting Cynthia's Garchomp seem like this that it just pulled out it's rear.

If the writers didn't intend to evolve Axew at some point in the series then there is no point in bringing up the fact that it wants to evolve, and the whole thing about Scraggy being Axew training partner seem to get to the point to where the writers completely stopped caring about that relationship, considering how loped side there were making Axew in terms of power. I'm not saying that at the end of BW that it had to be a Haxorus, however no matter how you look at it there was no reason why they couldn't have evolved it into a Fraxure at some point, and if the wanted to market Axew a lot then they could have just had it as an Axew for most of the series and then towards the end of the series evolved it into a Fraxure.

 

[SH65]

I don't get why the dream was there if Axew was never going to evolve.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I don't get why the dream was there if Axew was never going to evolve.

I personally felt that it wasn't really meant to take that dream seriously, especially since most BW episodes in the beginning of the series felt bizarre to me (in a good way.)

 

[Dragalge]

I'm surprised people took that one scene to heart tbh. I just felt it was a forgettable scene and nothing more.

 

[Leonhart]

I don't get why the dream was there if Axew was never going to evolve.

It's possible that Kibago's dream was shown as foreshadowing for a planned evolution that just didn't happen. Best Wishes aired for three years after we saw his dream sequence, so plans could've changed during that time.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I don't get why the dream was there if Axew was never going to evolve.

Same way we got the GS Ball.

 

[Jangobadass]

Along the way they decided to make him a mascot, even though we already had Pikachu and the Isshu starters for that. Plus, he wasn't even cute enough to be a highly marketable mascot. Heck, I thought he was kind of ugly.

And as been said the animators say its evolved forms were too hard to draw/animate, which is kind of stupid since they appeared anyway.

Probably so he could ride around in Iris' hair too.

I just wish he hadn't been so useless/annoying part of the time. It was almost like watching Togepi 2.0...

 

[satopi]

I just wish he hadn't been so useless/annoying part of the time. It was almost like watching Togepi 2.0...

No he wasn't. Are you seriously saying Axew did absolutely nothing, had no issues whatsoever? While I'm not a fan of his Axew Gets Lost episodes, he didn't stay in Iris' hair like a decoration. Iris used Axew in battles and he had issues with his moves like Dragon Sneeze, he always struggled with having "deer in headlights" look, always cowering when it came to battling, couldn't say in battle for too long, and Iris kept coddling him which resulted to how weak he was. Axew didn't cry much despite being a baby Pokémon and he improved later on the series.

A good example to call Togepi 2.0 is Dedenne.

 

[Leonhart]

I just wish he hadn't been so useless/annoying part of the time. It was almost like watching Togepi 2.0...

Togepy hardly ever left Kasumi's arms though, and even when it did it mainly wandered off. Kibago might've had a habit of getting lost as well, but he at least battled every now and again.