What if Ash had a recurring foe in the vein of Frieza?

[techadon]

You know how some people have fittingly compared the Pilaf Gang from the Dragon Ball franchise to Team Rocket? What with both of them being a bumbling trio of third-rate villains who always fail at their schemes? Well what if the Pokémon anime had a recurring villain similar to Frieza? Someone who is not only competent, but monstrously evil as well?

A Frieza-inspired villain would probably be the leader of an organized crime syndicate that abducts rare and valuable Pokémon and sells them on the black market to the highest bidder. Much like Hunter J but they're also a sadist like Grings Kodai from the Zoroark movie.

Some crimes they could commit include (Trigger Warning!):

Spoiler

• Murdering Trainers for their Pokémon, which would be shown by a collection of souvenirs indicating their previous kills.
• Torturing Pikachu right in front of Ash (probably through sucking the electricity out of it) while he's bound and unable to do anything.
• Siccing one of their own Pokémon on Ash himself and having it beat him to a pulp. Especially while his friends and even Team Rocket watch in horror.
• Abusing Pokémon in general. Both their own and the ones they've stolen.

What do you think of this idea? Would a villain like Frieza been an interesting opponent for Ash and his friends to face? Or would it have been in poor taste?

 

[Daren]

I think it would be incredibly jarring to have someone like that show up then an episode later we're back to zany Team Rocket shenanigans--there were years of Dragon Ball gradually growing darker with more dangerous villains between Pilaf and Freeza. To pull it off we're basically talking about a whole different series than the one we got.

 

[Eitarou]

Um, no thank you.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Nope, this ain't it.

 

[techadon]

I think it would be incredibly jarring to have someone like that show up then an episode later we're back to zany Team Rocket shenanigans--there were years of Dragon Ball gradually growing darker with more dangerous villains between Pilaf and Freeza. To pull it off we're basically talking about a whole different series than the one we got.

They would probably show up sparsely compared to the trio.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Hunter J and maybe Mewtwo are as close as you're ever gonna get to having a Frieza like villain in the pokemon anime. I could've sworn J threatened to kill Ash back in DP.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Hunter J and maybe Mewtwo are as close as you're ever gonna get to having a Frieza like villain in the pokemon anime. I could've sworn J threatened to kill Ash back in DP.

She did. Both with her Drapion (who tried to crush Ash with its claws, and he actually kicked its face it out of defense) and her Salamence (who tried to torch him directly with Flamethrower/Hyper Beam). Ironically, she ended up one of the few villains to die in the series (it's implied, since we didn't actually see her death, but given how it happened, it's pretty safe to say she's dead), but considering how vile and yet realistic her character was (for the Pokemon anime, anyway), it was well-deserved karma. But yes, J and perhaps Lysander will probably be the closest examples to a Frieza-like villain (and both (seemingly) paid for it with their lives, which, for the Pokemon anime, is surprisingly dark).

 

[techadon]

Alternatively, what if this villain is a loan shark who plunges their victims into debt and forces them to pay back money under threat of violence and even death? Even having a visible body count?

While we've already had J try to kill Ash with her Pokémon, imagine if this guy took it a step further and managed to seriously injure him.

Team Rocket might be desperate enough to borrow money from them.