Worst character development in the show?

[Sham]

To contrast to the “best character development” thread. Honestly I’ve gotta say Tracey. Besides becoming Oak’s professor, he really didn’t leave any differently. I GUESS Max became slightly less arrogant but he still was by the time of AG’s ending to an extent.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Easy traey that guy didn't have any charater development at all. Max was fine especially at the start of AG. All other characters have some good character development.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

Tracey, Bonnie, Cilan, Ash, Jessie, and Serena imo

 

[UltimateNinja]

Misty for doing almost nothing for over 250 episodes other than being the typical tsundere of the series.

Tracey...for being just there and also not doing anything worthwhile.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

Tracey, Bonnie, Cilan, Ash, Jessie, and Serena imo

Lol seriously ash from OS-DP is by far the most consistent character in the show. Serena got much better focus than iris, lillie, misty, lana and mallow. Cilan was handled much better than brock and bonnie got more focus than max. Those 4 should not be there.

Misty for doing almost nothing for over 250 episodes other than being the typical tsundere of the series.

Tracey...for being just there and also not doing anything worthwhile.

I have been hard on misty in the past but after watching Kanto and OI she was pretty entertaining. Writers just didn't know how to handle the goal part. and storyline ars and just focused on humor.

 

[DatsRight]

Brock wasn't a bad character but he wasn't developed well at all, slowly being demoted to a background character and then quickly given a definition in occupation at the very end of DP.

 

[AznKei]

Ash. I didn't really watch much of the Pokemon anime prior to XY but since then he was pretty much inconsistent, and his character development always go down to the toilet whenever he fails the leagues, releases or sends his Pokemons to professor Oak, travels into a new region and gets resetted.

 

[Go to Sleep]

Trip. Built up to be Ash's main rival with a bit of cliche development with the champion. Fights the champion and loses and then loses to Ash in a 1 v 1 and yeets out of there.

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

Lol seriously ash from OS-DP is by far the most consistent character in the show. Serena got much better focus than iris, lillie, misty, lana and mallow. Cilan was handled much better than brock and bonnie got more focus than max. Those 4 should not be there.



I have been hard on misty in the past but after watching Kanto and OI she was pretty entertaining. Writers just didn't know how to handle the goal part. and storyline ars and just focused on humor.

That's the problem I've had with Ash lately. When it's too focused on humor, it makes his character out to be completely incompetent.

 

[shoz999]

Georgia. She hardly has any character development. It's pretty much "YOU HAVE A DRAGON! I'M GOING TO BUST THAT DRAGON!" and that's pretty much it lol. The funny part is that this sounds like a Character of the Day right? Nope! This is a legit main rival of Iris, one of the main characters of Best Wishes. She literally feels like she was just created to be Iris's rival for the sake of Iris needing some kind of rival but they just couldn't think of reason why she would even be there. In fact, to be honest. Her "I'm going to defeat a dragon this and defeat a dragon that" is more annoying than Iris's "Your such a kid" quote.

 

[satopi]

I’m gonna have to go with Clemont and Dento. They’re not bad nor unlikable characters, their development is just bad but on different degrees. Clemont strives to be more like Ash and thought that by traveling, he’ll be a more confident Gym Leader with a backbone, only for his essence as a character to take the back burner worse than Brock himself when he lost to Ash at his own Gym in the middle of the saga. After that, he was just there. Sure he battled (off screen) Xerosic and proudly claimed his title as Gym Leader but he never really changed throughout his journey with Ash. His later episodes focused more on his Pokémon rather than him himself. He didn’t really develop, only the false illusion that he did. Same as when Bonnie has a last minute speech that we could speculate is the start of her potential off screen development (like Serena). Clemont barely did anything to change himself, at least Serena cut her hair and knew her flaws. As for Dento, he wanted to get into a higher rank as a Sommerlier but he didn’t really have much to work on. His various amount of hobbies kept him (and is) entertained but how can he improve when he has yet to show any issues with his craft? Even his rival wasn’t a threat, more like a joke he sympathized with.

Georgia. She hardly has any character development. It's pretty much "YOU HAVE A DRAGON! I'M GOING TO BUST THAT DRAGON!" and that's pretty much it lol. The funny part is that this sounds like a Character of the Day right? Nope! This is a legit main rival of Iris, one of the main characters of Best Wishes. She literally feels like she was just created to be Iris's rival for the sake of Iris needing some kind of rival but they just couldn't think of reason why she would even be there. In fact, to be honest. Her "I'm going to defeat a dragon this and defeat a dragon that" is more annoying than Iris's "Your such a kid" quote.

Langley was a threat to Iris and their relationship did improve and develop when they had to work together. If you wanna dump on how bad the main characters’ rivals are then Paul must have terrible character development for holding his beliefs that Pokémon are tools to help get you stronger and only developed this belief, because his older brother lost and Paul didn’t somewhat have his beliefs shook until his last appearance where he acknowledged Ash after he beat him at the League. Langley had limited appearances (and all the rivals stopped showing up later in the saga) and I think she’s the better of the three considering Cabernet is a joke with a grudge that never gets resolved and Shooti barely acknowledges Ash as his rival.

 

[Zoruagible]

Bonnie. "Oh no, I losing big bro D:" "Oh yay, big bro's back! Hey ladyyyy, wanna marry my bro?" -.-
Seriously, it'd have been good character development if they got rid of that gag. Having Bonnie repeat herself all over again at the end made the entire thing pointless!

Trip. This guy had potential... but they basically gave up, much like they did with all the BW characters. Lately it feels like the writers don't even try anymore in the latter half, post DP series.

Oh yeah, and pretty much every Alola Pokemon save for Lycanroc, Nebby and Bewear

 

[U.N. Owen]

Clemont. "Hey, I want to be more confident and have a stronger presence." Goes to being walking scenery right/glorified exposition/continuing to be a bad running gag after his arc.

 

[DatsRight]

I have to say unless they pull a real curveball at the end of SM, Lana feels kind of cheaply done. The early episodes imply her to be an introverted and somewhat under confident girl that is slowly discovering her hidden talent pool and starts taking interest in battling, then they decide to skip over all that by MAKING HER PERFECT. No need to have her discovering and harnessing those talents because she just happens to be inherently good at everything and she knows it. They didn't even let her do ONE competitive battle before the league despite recurring signs of interest from her in doing stuff like the battle royal. It also means she lacks a broadened flaw to develop on in the first place and her secondary Pokemon feels much more superfluous to her role than those of the other cast members of her respective series.

Her bubble thing was also completely arbitrary and undercooked. I don't have problems with a more childish and bizarre goal so long as it connects to some sort of depth in the long run (Sophocles dream of being an astronaut was called back for his development for example) but Lana's bubble training just seems to exist to almost be taken as a serious goal to say she's doing SOMETHING onscreen.

I've said many times how unimpressed I was with Mallow as well, though I appreciate they had moments in Ultra Legends that it felt like they were TRYING to land something with her, just they couldn't really get a consistent agency with her. She felt like the one the writers just didn't have a clue with, while Lana feels like the one they took a big sneaky short cut with because they couldn't be bothered.

 

[PorcelainVulpix]

Ash. I didn't really watch much of the Pokemon anime prior to XY but since then he was pretty much inconsistent, and his character development always go down to the toilet whenever he fails the leagues, releases or sends his Pokemons to professor Oak, travels into a new region and gets resetted.

Ash actually had some pretty decent character development between Kanto through Sinnoh. If you still haven’t watched OS, AG or DP, I’d really recommend it or just watching some of the key episodes. I know it sounds unbelievable considering how inconsistent Ash’s character is now, but he really did used to exhibit great development..

 

[AznKei]

Ash actually had some pretty decent character development between Kanto through Sinnoh. If you still haven’t watched OS, AG or DP, I’d really recommend it or just watching some of the key episodes. I know it sounds unbelievable considering how inconsistent Ash’s character is now, but he really did used to exhibit great development..

Tbh, I never really liked Ash even back in OS. I always saw him like a joke as a main character when we as players were more competent than him back in the gen 1 games. I even wrote that I rather have Eevee than Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow, because the latter was overrated not to mention was a massive burden for your team. And I was tired of the whole "beat the gym leaders, fight the Elite four at the Pokemon leagues and defeat the Champion" goal, which is partly why it leads me to do my Serena fan project, not only because of Serena, but also I want to see a goal that is more dynamic, fast paced and real-time, that rewards the characters/players depending of their skills, some of the mechanics similar of the arcade dance games I liked to play, instead of just simply defeating a gym leader and then moving to the next one and turn-based. I'll probably to watch the past series if I had the time though.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

If we count Pokémon too, Lana's Eevee comes to mind.

I'm convinced Shaggeon left at the end of its episode, leaving behind a Substitute Doll and nobody's noticed the swap


As for characters without character development...

For Alola, it's definitely Mallow, who keeps saying she wants to make Aina Café popular, then does nothing to actually promote it

I'm sure at the end of the series she'll magically get a lot of customers because she participated in the League though

Instead of doing something actually related to cooking, like becoming an actual rival to Team Rocket in selling food

Lillie's up there as well, since after being able to touch pokémon, she didn't do much of anything until she FINALLY got a Z-Ring and took the time to master it, resulting in one of the single best animated Z-Moves in the series because of course she gets the most effort dedicated to making her look good while sacrificing others to do so

Also took Kiawe getting a second Z-Crystal to (vaguely) help him claw his way out of the flanderization pit he fell into during the first year where he goes from cultured Alolan to screaming hothead

And then Sophocles literally does nothing for two and a half years before finally evolving Charjabug and getting tortured by Ash and Kiawe while learning how to use a Z-Move

(Contrast to the girls, who are in the lap of luxury while they train)


Say what you like about previous regions, at least they kept characterization consistent

 

[Xuxuba]

Mallow. Even tho i like her personality, unfortunately, she didn't receive that much attention from the writers, who didn't know how to develop her as a person or as a trainer. And probably Sophocles too, although he had bit more of development as a trainer.

Clemont. "Hey, I want to be more confident and have a stronger presence." Goes to being walking scenery right/glorified exposition/continuing to be a bad running gag after his arc.

Well, that walking scenery saved the entire city of Lumiose.

If that isn't showing a stronger presence, then idk what is.

 

[U.N. Owen]

Well, that walking scenery saved the entire city of Lumiose.

If that isn't showing a stronger presence, then idk what is.

A decent showing in one arc doesn't exactly make up for the fathomless sea of doing absolutely little to nothing of value post-gym battle.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

A decent showing in one arc doesn't exactly make up for the fathomless sea of doing absolutely little to nothing of value post-gym battle.

Just like how many other characters who somehow get a free pass while doing the exact same thing?