Move effectiveness confusion

[Pattyman]

Why is it that some anime episodes show a Pokémon's move successfully damaging a Pokémon with a type-immunity to that move such as Normal-type moves with Ghost-type Pokémon and Electric-type moves with Ground-type Pokémon?

It might cause some confusion to us, including anime characters themselves. It was evidenced with Ash in Dancing With the Ducklett Trio! where he commanded Pikachu to use Thunderbolt on Sandile and it had no effect (someone else even pointed out that Ash shouldn't have done that) even though other episodes showed that Electric-type moves were effective against Ground-type Pokémon. Another instance was when Ash's Goomy's Bide in the 55th episode of the XY series, taking into factor its Generation VI effect, easily damaged Jessie's Pumpkaboo even though if I remember correctly Max and Agatha mentioned in the Advanced Generation series that Normal-types moves had no effect on Ghost-type Pokémon when May had her Skitty use Double Slap on Dusclops and Ash had Pikachu use Quick Attack on Gengar.

 

[Nicolas721]

I think that 30% of the time is for storyline puroposes (episode 5), and 70% of the time is because the writers/animators forgot about it. For example, its pretty easy to forget that Bone Rush is a ground type move, and Pumpkaboo and Honedge doesn't look very ghostly.

 

[Life]

If the anime team really can't remember simple type effectiveness rules or can't bother to look it up when they write battles, I question if they should still be doing their job, so I don't think that's the case. I think that it's more or less them not caring about the type chart, unless they want to make the battle seem even harder for Ash and friends.

However, I think it's fine for the anime to make their own canon rules, granted they're consistent.

Bone Rush, for example, is a ground-type move and by game standards should not cause damage to flying-types. But I personally think that it should. The bone the pokemon creates is a physical object that has no reason not to hit flying-types.The reason that flying-types are immune to ground-type moves in the first place is because of the logic that flying-types are up in the air and are immune to damage on the ground. But when the damage is not coming directly from the ground, it (in my opinion) should hit.

In the case of ghost-types, they are (presumably) gaseous creatures that can dematerialize at will, thus why normal-type moves can't hit them. I'd rather not go in to greater detail about why other types can hit them and such as this is more of my own head cannon than anything else, so I'll end with this: Flying-types (aside from the Drifblim line) are not able to materialize/dematerialize at will, which means that if they are being targeted with a physical object, the attack should in some way affect them.

As for an explanation on why some ground-types have been affected by electric-type moves or why normal-types have hit ghost-types, I have no idea. But honestly, I don't mind as long as they just pick one rule and be consistent with it.

 

[JacobYBM]

These five series have mostly used the same six or so freelance writers since 1997 so everyone is definitely familiar with the rules of the games. They simply choose to ignore them for story purposes.

 

[Steel_Justice]

1. The show has many, many different writers that come and go so it's very inconsistent.
2. They don't really care. Sure explains the writing quality lately.
3. Moves work as the plot demands it so the episode can finish.
4. They do remember type effectiveness but ignore it to make Ash look like a dumbass if the move fails.

 

[JacobYBM]

3. Moves work as the plot demands it so the episode can finish.

Hard to care when you're not the final authority on the storyline or have the ability to have your vision executed due to the demands of a multi-billion dollar franchise.

 

[Kallyle]

Most of the time, the immunity that they're working with just isn't plot-relevant, so they Anime writers are flexible with them. In the case of Electric-types hitting Ground-types though, that was one of the things that's special about Ash's Pikachu. Normally, Electric-type moves generally can't hit Ground-types in the anime. However, Ash's Pikachu has the ability to bypass that immunity under certain conditions. It's just in BW Pikachu had its electricity sapped by Zekrom, so it couldn't bypass Sandile's immunity at the time.

 

[Pattyman]

4. They do remember type effectiveness but ignore it to make Ash look like a dumbass if the move fails.

Yet, it wouldn't be fair if it's determining if Ash is smart or not.

Most of the time, the immunity that they're working with just isn't plot-relevant, so they Anime writers are flexible with them. In the case of Electric-types hitting Ground-types though, that was one of the things that's special about Ash's Pikachu. Normally, Electric-type moves generally can't hit Ground-types in the anime. However, Ash's Pikachu has the ability to bypass that immunity under certain conditions. It's just in BW Pikachu had its electricity sapped by Zekrom, so it couldn't bypass Sandile's immunity at the time.

There was that Rhydon in the Hearthome City Tag Battle and Vicky Winstrate's Camerupt that were unfazed by electricity.

 

[Lluksonak]

There was that Rhydon in the Hearthome City Tag Battle and Vicky Winstrate's Camerupt that were unfazed by electricity.

I think that Rhydon had the Lightningrod ability.

 

[Pinball Wizard]

Answer: Because if you AIM FOR THE HORN Ground's immunity to Electric is null and void.

 

[Yoshi1001]

Maybe it's like the TCG and there is no total type immunity. [emoji6]

 

[Team Gaara]

It's probably just for convenience that they ignore type matchups, rather than just not knowing or caring. After all, if they had to take into account every Ground-type that Pikachu's signature Thunderbolt couldn't hit, especially in the OS, it would have made for some pretty sad battles considering Pikachu really only knows Electric and Normal moves until much later on.

 

[henrymidfields]

For Ground -> Flying, let's keep in mind that said type immunity doesn't always make sense when you consider some of the moves shown in the games/anime. We had a Sentret use Dig in the Johto League prelims with that Sentret jumping up into the air. Bone Rush is using, well, bones as a projectile. Both of those should affect Flying types in some way where basic logic is concerned.

Similarly, Normal -> Ghost. Back in the days of Gen 1-2, this immunity made sense - the only ghosts were the Ghastly line and Misdreavus, both being more or less gaseous. I say that from Gen 3 onwards, the immunity in the game starts becoming a grandfather clause - as there are Ghost-type Pokémon that look and act more solid, and in terms of physics and logic, should be affected by normal type moves. For this, I don't really mind if Normal attacks in the anime affect more solid-looking Ghosts such as the Drifblim line, or the Golett line.

 

[Muur]

Just gotta go with them forgetting I suppose, or just not caring for being 100% fixed to the games.

 

[LordSeliph]

Hey, it's the anime, chances are it'll have its own logic independent of the source material

 

[pokepal_123]

1. The show has many, many different writers that come and go so it's very inconsistent.
2. They don't really care. Sure explains the writing quality lately.

2.The writing quality may not be that good but I think that the writers do care about Type Advantages but not to the extent like games. Why do you think they gave Frogadier Aerial Ace?

I think that the writers have been trying to be consistent with Type Advantages since DP and sometime the writers might occasionally slip up like the Bone Rush example or Bide.

So I don't know why people give the writers a hard time.

 

[Almonds]

They've been writing for this anime for years, I think they'd have the type chart memorized.

It's just for dramatic effects and making scenes more awesome on screen. If they just played by the type chart that would be boring. They had Steven's Metagross eat up a STAB Blast Burn from Alain's Charizard when it should have normally killed it. Dramatic effects, drawing out the "NO WAY THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE" reaction from the viewers... that's what they want.