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Pokémon Evolution/Capture/Release Thread

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FinnishPokéFan92 said:
While watching the recap episode, the stream cut off for the duration of the recap of Ash's team, one part of the recap that I would've wanted to see. Apparently, Gengar was revealed now have Dazzling Gleam in its moveset instead of Psychic.
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Enzo said:
So it completely forgot a move and learned another one off-screen?

Omg what on Earth are they doing?...
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Hidden Mew said:
Considering that it didn't use X-Scissor until Ash's sixth Kalos Gym battle, I think it's really unlikely that it already knew the move prior to being captured. It wouldn't be impossible, but waiting that long to show Hawlucha's fourth move just seems like an odd decision and I don't see how that would make more sense than having Hawlucha learn the move off-screen. Gengar learning a new move off-screen, while still not good, doesn't bother me that much. If it got more focus, I doubt that most people would care about it learning a new move off-screen.
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Personally, I'm less bothered by Gengar getting a new move offscreen than I am by the fact that the move they chose to replace was Psychic instead of Night Shade, which is honestly not that great of a move. Dazzling Gleam and Psychic together do have somewhat redundant coverage with one another, but I'd argue that Night Shade and Shadow Ball are even more redundant together. My best guess is that Psychic was ditched because having a move that can immobilize and puppet the opponent is too overpowered and/or trickier to animate as opposed to a move that involves just shooting sparkly beams.

nickdt said:
They might eventually even get rid of Night Shade, in favor of Dark Pulse, so Gengar has all its weaknesses covered
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Dark Pulse is almost completely redundant coverage-wise with Shadow Ball, though. Literally the only difference is that the former trades being resisted by Fighting-types in exchange for being able to hurt Normal-types. Tbh I'd prefer if Gengar learned a Poison-type move instead so it can have dual STAB. Poison would also be especially useful, since half of Ash's Journey's team is weak to Fairy (and could very well gain another Fairy-weak member in Kubfu), so having something to counter those would be great. I know Lucario could also learn a Steel-type move for the same purpose, but I think it'd be best if both Pokemon got them, so that there's a balance: half of Ash's team is weak to Fairy, but half of it has at least one move that can counter Fairies (Gengar and Lucario's secondary STABS+Pikachu's Iron Tail)
 
Ghost Diplocaulus said:
Personally, I'm less bothered by Gengar getting a new move offscreen than I am by the fact that the move they chose to replace was Psychic instead of Night Shade, which is honestly not that great of a move. Dazzling Gleam and Psychic together do have somewhat redundant coverage with one another, but I'd argue that Night Shade and Shadow Ball are even more redundant together. My best guess is that Psychic was ditched because having a move that can immobilize and puppet the opponent is too overpowered and/or trickier to animate as opposed to a move that involves just shooting sparkly beams.


Dark Pulse is almost completely redundant coverage-wise with Shadow Ball, though. Literally the only difference is that the former trades being resisted by Fighting-types in exchange for being able to hurt Normal-types. Tbh I'd prefer if Gengar learned a Poison-type move instead so it can have dual STAB. Poison would also be especially useful, since half of Ash's Journey's team is weak to Fairy (and could very well gain another Fairy-weak member in Kubfu), so having something to counter those would be great. I know Lucario could also learn a Steel-type move for the same purpose, but I think it'd be best if both Pokemon got them, so that there's a balance: half of Ash's team is weak to Fairy, but half of it has at least one move that can counter Fairies (Gengar and Lucario's secondary STABS+Pikachu's Iron Tail)
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True, Sludge Bomb is also a possibility and you make good points as well, so yeah, Sludge Bomb is better than Dark Pulse.
 
Hidden Mew said:
Considering that it didn't use X-Scissor until Ash's sixth Kalos Gym battle, I think it's really unlikely that it already knew the move prior to being captured. It wouldn't be impossible, but waiting that long to show Hawlucha's fourth move just seems like an odd decision and I don't see how that would make more sense than having Hawlucha learn the move off-screen. Gengar learning a new move off-screen, while still not good, doesn't bother me that much. If it got more focus, I doubt that most people would care about it learning a new move off-screen.
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The problem is because this is yet another instance of Ash and his team being left in the background in JN.

As we seem to be agreeing on, it's still an open question as whether or not Hawlucha learned to use X-Scissor before or after it's capture, but it sorta of doesn't matters that much, since it got focus alongside the XY team (although not as much due to Greninja shallowing most of the screen time, but it did happened.

But Gengar? A whole new move after not battling or having any sort of development on-screen for 47 episodes (yes, you read that one right. 72 - 25 = 47) ? No. Just no. I'm sorry but this one is just straight up foul.
swiftgallade46 said:
It’s really not such a big deal, Pokemon learn new moves offscreen all the time.
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But they were never treated like this tho. Explained in my comment above.
 
Enzo said:
The problem is because this is yet another instance of Ash and his team being left in the background in JN.

As we seem to be agreeing on, it's still an open question as whether or not Hawlucha learned to use X-Scissor before or after it's capture, but it sorta of doesn't matters that much, since it got focus alongside the XY team (although not as much due to Greninja shallowing most of the screen time, but it did happened.

But Gengar? A whole new move after not battling or having any sort of development on-screen for 47 episodes (yes, you read that one right. 72 - 25 = 47) ? No. Just no. I'm sorry but this one is just straight up foul.

But they were never treated like this tho. Explained in my comment above.
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I don’t really think Gengar’s perceived treatment comes into play at all. It’s just an established fact that Pokemon in the anime have been learning moves offscreen for years now and Gengar is no exception. I just really don’t see the big deal.
 
swiftgallade46 said:
I don’t really think Gengar’s perceived treatment comes into play at all. It’s just an established fact that Pokemon in the anime have been learning moves offscreen for years now and Gengar is no exception. I just really don’t see the big deal.
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I think in this situation the problem really boils down to Gengar (and let's face it, the entire Journeys team in general) being seen as not receiving enough focus, and while it's true that offscreen-learned moves are a dime a dozen, in this instance it stings because Gengar learning a new move could have potentially been used as a focus episode instead, but it wasn't, meaning yet another opportunity to put Gengar in the spotlight was flushed down the toilet.
 
Ghost Diplocaulus said:
I think in this situation the problem really boils down to Gengar (and let's face it, the entire Journeys team in general) being seen as not receiving enough focus, and while it's true that offscreen-learned moves are a dime a dozen, in this instance it stings because Gengar learning a new move could have potentially been used as a focus episode instead, but it wasn't, meaning yet another opportunity to put Gengar in the spotlight was flushed down the toilet.
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Omg thank you for putting this into words :bulbaLove: :bulbaLove: :bulbaLove:
 
Ghost Diplocaulus said:
I think in this situation the problem really boils down to Gengar (and let's face it, the entire Journeys team in general) being seen as not receiving enough focus, and while it's true that offscreen-learned moves are a dime a dozen, in this instance it stings because Gengar learning a new move could have potentially been used as a focus episode instead, but it wasn't, meaning yet another opportunity to put Gengar in the spotlight was flushed down the toilet.
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They seem like two separate issues to me. Practically anything could be used as a potential Gengar episode. In fact, we don’t even know for certain that this wont happen in a Gengar episode.
 
VetProf said:
One of the segments in the recap episode showcased all of the 89 Pokemon that Gou has caught and registered in his Pokedex thus far. One of the Pokemon shown was Eternatus, with the narrator proudly exclaiming that Gou has finally caught a Legendary Pokemon when its capture was shown.

Just something that I wanted to point out after watching the special episode.
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God that just turns me off of watching this recap even more. Writers are really proud of their Mary Sue
 
I can see how Gengar learning a new move off screen would make its lack of focus more frustrating, as well as compound the issues with Ash's Journeys team in general, but since Pokemon learning moves off-screen isn't uncommon, it doesn't really bother me. As much as I understand and agree with the issues on Ash's current team, I also feel like it doesn't bother me as much as it does with other fans. I'd love for Ash's Pokemon to at least interact more to showcase their personalities and create new dynamics. But I think I'm more bothered by their decision to give Ash a fully evolved team so early in Journeys more than anything else. I still think that's the root cause of the problem. It doesn't excuse how they have handled Ash's Pokemon thus far, but I think making them evolve so fast doesn't really help matters.

Besides that, it is still possible that they just accidentally revealed Gengar's new move before it learn it given that it was the only different move listed in the recap.
 
Eitarou said:
I'm not sure why Gengar apparently having Dazzling Gleam is being taken seriously when that same image also claims Night Shade and Shadow Ball are Dragon-type moves.
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To be fair tho, that seems to be a simple mistake too. What I think that happened is that they just had a little honest error when they added the icons. It happens.

Because really: why would they put Dazzling Gleam there if it wasn't true? It's not like any other of Ash's Pokémon is able to learn it, so no mix up happened there. And this doesn't seems to be something they would simple add as a mistake either. It wasn't an error.
 
Enzo said:
To be fair tho, that seems to be a simple mistake too. What I think that happened is that they just had a little honest error when they added the icons. It happens.

Because really: why would they put Dazzling Gleam there if it wasn't true? It's not like any other of Ash's Pokémon is able to learn it, so no mix up happened there. And this doesn't seems to be something they would simple add as a mistake either. It wasn't an error.
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Mr. Mime can
 
swiftgallade46 said:
Wasn’t it retconned as one of Ash’s Pokémon?
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Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's part of the "main" team. If anything it's treated more like a reserve, since Ash only used it in one battle (which was before he made any new captures in the saga, to boot) and it hasn't been relevant since the Pikachu Jealousy episode.
 
Ghost Diplocaulus said:
Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's part of the "main" team. If anything it's treated more like a reserve.
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It’s a Pokémon that he began owning as of JN. The claim was “none of his Pokémon learn it”; one of them does. It doesn’t fit on any team other than JN. For all we know this graphic was originally going to include Mr. Mime.
 
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