Controversial opinions

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Pardon me if the details are wrong since I haven’t watched the battle, but didn’t Cameron literally use Ferroothorn against Pignite and Swanna against Pikachu?

Yeah, but we have also seen Ash do stupid matchups and win.

But Cameron's stupid matchups didn't succeed. There's the difference.

 

[Blaine.]

Yeah, but still, I stand with that Cameron won fair and square.

 

[Galactic_V]

Yeah, despite his stupidity, Kotetsu did have a great team. Come on, Sazandra, Daikenki, Swanna and Nutrey? Way better than Satoshi's first stage starters or Zuruggu and those underdeveloped reserves (Kenhallow, Gantle, etc...)

 

[CaptainBuggles]

There's also the issue with the narrative deciding that Cameron apparently 'deserves' a fully obedient Hydreigon in spite of all his flaws, when back in Kanto, the narrative decided that Ash didn't deserve Charizard's obedience until he really worked for it. And that even within the same region, it also decided that Iris didn't deserve Dragonite's (OR Excadrill's) obedience until she worked for it on screen.

You're just left to assume that this idiot, offscreen, without any travel companions for advice/support, somehow knew exactly what to do to get through to a Pokemon like Hydreigon. I don't think it's really all that wrong of me to think that feels contrived. What's so special about him that he gets to be luckier than them?

That on top of how Unova Ash in general typically felt weaker and less competent than before even after accounting for new team members, which also comes off as unfair to Ash. Johto through Sinnoh iterations of him would've never pulled the crap he did with Elesa, for example (and he definitely didn't deserve to win that on his first try). If he was actually at the point he logically should've been, Cameron wouldn't have been such an obstacle.

And as for "well Ash gets away with bs too", two wrongs don't make a right. That only makes me irritated on both occassions, they don't cancel each other out for me.

 

[PrettySylveon]

Yeah, but still, I stand with that Cameron won fair and square.

Even though I agree with you, Bulbagarden is anti-Cameron, so you’re not gonna get that much support for your opinion.

I don’t like Cameron that much as a character, but I’ll take him over Richie and Tobias any day. It’s simply because the former only won due to good luck on his end and bad decisions made by Ash (and also bad luck on Ash’s end) and the latter winning because he had mostly legendary Pokémon with him. Cameron is just the lesser of 3 evils in my eyes compared to them.

Despite his stupidity, he still isn’t a bad trainer and I think he’s better than Richie as a trainer. He also at least evolves his Pokémon.

Alain is the only character on the show that I didn’t mind Ash losing to (the same can go for Harrison and Tyson), simply because he has more character depth and flaws to balance out his bad traits. To me, he’s Tobias done correctly.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

I honestly think Cameron won fairly. Sure he didn't have the "required" 6 pokemon, however, he still had a good team. And if we take a look at Ash's team, Pikachu, Boldore, Snivy, Oshawott, Pignite, and Unfezant, compared to Camerons Riolu/Lucario, Swanna, Samurott, Hydreigon, and Ferrothorn, I would honestly say Cameron had a better team.

Objectively speaking yes Cameron had the better team, but his flaw was that he didn't know how to use his Pokemon properly, save for Samurott and Lucario. He basically kamikaze'd Swanna and Ferrothorn for no apparent reason when he fought Ash and the fact that he couldn't even remember to bring 6 Pokemon to a full battle speaks for itself.

 

[HiroHunter]

Yeah, but still, I stand with that Cameron won fair and square.

Just because he won fair and square doesn't mean it wasn't BS.

 

[Panky..]

Even though I agree with you, Bulbagarden is anti-Cameron, so you’re not gonna get that much support for your opinion.

I don’t like Cameron that much as a character, but I’ll take him over Richie and Tobias any day. It’s simply because the former only won due to good luck on his end and bad decisions made by Ash (and also bad luck on Ash’s end) and the latter winning because he had mostly legendary Pokémon with him. Cameron is just the lesser of 3 evils in my eyes compared to them.

Despite his stupidity, he still isn’t a bad trainer and I think he’s better than Richie as a trainer. He also at least evolves his Pokémon.

Alain is the only character on the show that I didn’t mind Ash losing to (the same can go for Harrison and Tyson), simply because he has more character depth and flaws to balance out his bad traits. To me, he’s Tobias done correctly.

If we're to compare Cameron to any version of Ash, it would be OS Ash. And guess what? OS Ash had it really hard, his Pokemon disobeyed him because he was somewhat of a loser. Why does Cameron get the writing benefit of having several fully evolved Mons obey him without any problems despite him being a total loon?

He's a Deux Ex machina.

 

[PrettySylveon]

If we're to compare Cameron to any version of Ash, it would be OS Ash. And guess what? OS Ash had it really hard, his Pokemon disobeyed him because he was somewhat of a loser. Why does Cameron get the writing benefit of having several fully evolved Mons obey him without any problems despite him being a total loon?

He's a Deux Ex machina.

I think it’s because Ash is the main character and the writers just simply didn’t want Ash walking around with powerful Pokémon obeying him (the same can go for Dawn and her Mamoswine and Iris and her Dragonite). This is also the reason why I hate the Indigo League a lot more than the Unova league. The Unova one comes in second on my list because while I don’t agree with Ash losing to Cameron (due to Cameron being a brain dead idiot), at least Ash’s Pokémon didn’t disobey and humiliate him like Charizard did and he lost with more dignity.

I will admit that Cameron won fair and square like UnofficialBlaine said, but that doesn’t mean Cameron’s win wasn’t problematic. Cameron’s win is the second most problematic to me, while the first is Richie who only won because of good luck on his end and the official rules of the league rather than his skill as a trainer (the ONLY thing that could be said in Richie’s defense is that Richie really wanted a fair fight against Ash).

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

To at least momentarily change the subject: I didn't mind Pikachu speaking in M20.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

SM humor doesn't work in my opinion. First of all humor is subjective and not everyone likes it. Humor can be more subtile than silly faces and screaming. Also the Rowlet-Bounsweet gag suddenly stopped out of nowhere. The Bewear-Trio gag (if you can call it a gag) is very repetitive and gets stale after a while.

I like the idea of the Aloloan pokemon League, but it is excited poorly. Bear with me please, the characters got their development way too late (look at Solphacles: Vikavolt, Z-Ring, new moves in a spam of 30 episodes ) and the battles were split into two episodes.

I don't hate SM

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The Bewear-Trio gag (if you can call it a gag) is very repetitive and gets stale after a while.

Yeah. They could've mixed it up with a few regular blastoffs. It also doesn't help that I'm not exactly a big fan of anime's portrayal of Bewear as an OP gag god. SM140 at least brought a much-welcomed change of pace to that formula...

 

[KenzeyEevee]

Yeah. They could've mixed it up with a few regular blastoffs. It also doesn't help that I'm not exactly a big fan of anime's portrayal of Bewear as an OP gag god. SM140 at least brought a much-welcomed change of pace to that formula...

Only for the fact had Stuffel not fall, Bewear would have beaten Guzzlord with easy.

 

[OniCornwalis]

I like the idea of the Aloloan pokemon League, but it is excited poorly. Bear with me please, the characters got their development way too late (look at Solphacles: Vikavolt, Z-Ring, new moves in a spam of 30 episodes ) and the battles were split into two episodes.

If Plumeria has been introduced in season 2 somewhere and episode 115 had been placed at the beginning of the 3rd season, the Alola League would’ve gone much better. The season would’ve revolved around preparing for the League, and everything would’ve been less rushed. For example, episode 95 could’ve been where Sophocles got Spiky Shield for Togedemaru and his Z-Ring, and preparing for the League could’ve been his reason for evolving Charjabug.

Looking back on it, the first two seasons of Sun and Moon had been roughly the same quality as XY, and it wasn’t until the 3rd season that the series started to crash and burn some.

 

[Rockapheller]

I am not annoyed of Satoshi vs Hau battle in the league. It was fun.

 

[PrettySylveon]

A controversial opinion that I have is that I don't think there are any "bad" main characters or rivals in the series. Many of them have their pros and cons. I mean I find it really sad that the topic of Ash's female companions is such a sensitive topic these days, because all of them have their pros and cons (even though I don't like Serena because I don't find her as interesting as Misty, Iris, and Dawn and her fans treat her like a Mary Sue, and a few reasons I won't bother mentioning, I don't think she's the worst character of the show at all).

Also, I know I can be too hard on Georgia, Richie, and Cameron here, but I am actually hoping that I do like Georgia one day (because despite her immaturity, at least she ended up respecting Iris)...along with Richie and Cameron. I don't feel bad about my feelings towards characters like Team Rocket, Paul, Shamus, Damian, Harley, and Ursula though because at least fans are supposed to hate their guts.

IDK maybe I am saying this because I am tired of seeing myself argue over opinions of FICTIONAL characters and I believe that deep down, every character deserves appreciation.

 

[Alola]

Pardon me if the details are wrong since I haven’t watched the battle, but didn’t Cameron literally use Ferroothorn against Pignite and Swanna against Pikachu?

Even more hilarious, if he just would have switched their two respective opponents with who he sent them out against (Ferrothorn against Pikachu & Swanna against Pignite), it would have made him look quite competent.

 

[OniCornwalis]

Got another spicy hot take headed your guys’ way that’s an improvement from one I made a while back; Aside from animation/choreography, the battles against Alain and Sawyer weren’t anything amazing. Some of the strategies in both battles were very questionable, there was a lot of BS even excluding the final blow with Alain, and the buildups weren’t the best in the world.

For the buildups, the one with Sawyer was pretty decent, as it was a deal where the student overcomes the master, and then the master has to fight him in order to regain his honor. The only problem is that Sawyer went from being a complete pushover to winning against him in the span of one encounter, which really isn’t believable. It was pretty good overall, but nothing amazing. Then there’s Alain, who had no interest in the League before Ash said anything about it, traveled to and completely demolished the gyms in the span of 8 episodes, pulled 5 other Pokemon out of the depths of his asshole somewhere, and really only seemed interested in fighting Greninja, which he could’ve done in a normal battle outside of the League. It also doesn’t make much sense why he’d ignore helping out Chespie for such a long period of time when it was extremely sick. Overall, the buildup with Alain was TRASH.

For the strategies and BS, there’s a lot in both battles. For example, Pikachu vs Aegislash had a strategy where a piece of wood was jammed in Aegislash’s shield. Sounds like a good strategy, right? Well, it is until you realize that the pieces of wood in the air completely defied the laws of gravity by hovering in the air for over a literal minute. I’d argue it’s the biggest BS strategy since Thunder Armor in Hoenn. Then you have Goodra, which Ash didn’t really have a strategy for other than “LUL, just use bide” and “use some attacks”, and how he didn’t immediately switch out Talonflame for Pikachu after Slaking was defeated. Then there was when Hawlucha got some red armor after dancing on some ice a little bit, or Alain’s Bisharp’s Guillotine being OP as hell. Then there was when Sawyer used Slurpuff against Goodra, instead of having it use a Fairy type move he used Flamethrower, which makes no sense considering Dragon resists Fire and how that move would only serve to increase the power of Goodra’s bide. Finally, after dealing an absurd amount of damage to Sawyer’s Slaking, Hawlucha got one shot by an ineffective Counter that only should’ve reflected back the damage of an X-Scissor.

Now there were some good parts, such as Greninja’s fights against Sceptile and Charizard, the overall animation/choreography being consistently good, and some fights like Pikachu vs Tyranitar/Metagross, Talonflame vs Unfezant and Salamence vs Noivern. However, overall Paul vs Ash is better than those two battles in literally every single way except for the animation/choreography, which wasn’t even that terrible. Also, from the way it’s looking like right now, Kukui vs Ash might be better than those two battles as well.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Alain’s Bisharp’s Guillotine being OP as hell.

It’s a literal OHKO move in the games, to be fair though...

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Citron is gay.