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Controversial opinions

Go's desire to collect Pokemon purely for collection's sake reminds me of Lawrence III (for those who don't know, the antagonist of Movie 2 - he didn't have any specifically evil goal like evil teams or most movie antagonists, he just wanted legendary Pokemon for himself because he was a collector). Interestingly Lawrence's first collectors item was a Mew card, similar to Go's motivation for becoming a heartless collector. Now Go's methods of obtaining his collection are not yet to the scale of Lawrence, but he is also just 10 years old and just started. The path he is on could seemingly lead him to turn to worse methods of collecting once he finds certain items he wants to obtain (such as legendaries) are too hard to just get in a Pokeball (since he very clearly isn't interested in doing anything that would be hard). The motivations are essentially the same, Lawrence was also quite selfish, and didn't care how his actions impacted the world around him, but just wanted cool Pokemon to have. He even used parts of his collection to try to get an even bigger collection item, just like Go wants to do to get Mew. Again, there is a pretty significant divide between their actions at this time, but it is quite easy to imagine the start Go is on leading him in this direction, while I can't really imagine much of a positive direction coming out of his current actions. I don't really recall anyone being okay with what Lawrence was doing, but its fine for Go. It really is just about the same thing, just without the same technology and with a different portrayal and more direct consequences in Lawrence's situation.
You know, that would actually be an amazing character arc if the producers had the foresight and the writers had the balls to make it good.

Go slowly becoming Lawrence (who btw was never named onscreen) while people around dismiss it as childish wish fulfillment until it’s too late would go into some deep territory with good story potential.
 
I like Gou. He's adorable :3

You know, that would actually be an amazing character arc if the producers had the foresight and the writers had the balls to make it good.

Go slowly becoming Lawrence (who btw was never named onscreen) while people around dismiss it as childish wish fulfillment until it’s too late would go into some deep territory with good story potential.
Now I'm imagining Dark Gou. Omg. That would make him an amazing villain.
 
Tbh I'd never compare Go to Lawrence from the Lugia film. Lawrence was a selfish and stylish person who would've let the world burn just to fulfill his own greedy desires, but Go catching lots of Pokemon ain't even a bad thing tbh. I foresee a lot of salt in the coming months from those who simply hate that Ash can't catch as many Pokemon as Go has in the same time frame.

Rainchu is WAY better

KF6aWRu.gif
 
I foresee a lot of salt in the coming months from those who simply hate that Ash can't catch as many Pokemon as Go has in the same time frame.
I find that doubtful. People complain about Gou's captures because they're stupidly easy compared to how it works in the mainline games and the show itself up to this point. If Ash had the same interest as Gou his capture rate would leave Gou's jaw cartoonishly dropped on the ground since Ash actually has strong Pokémon for weakening wild ones and capturing them, while Gou got utterly humiliated in his first battle.
The complaints about Ash's capture numbers is that he's caught so few compared to how many he usually does.
 
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Tbh I'd never compare Go to Lawrence from the Lugia film. Lawrence was a selfish and stylish person who would've let the world burn just to fulfill his own greedy desires, but Go catching lots of Pokemon ain't even a bad thing tbh. I foresee a lot of salt in the coming months from those who simply hate that Ash can't catch as many Pokemon as Go has in the same time frame.

Or you could try and read the words of the people who complain about Go's captures because it has nothing at all to do with Ash. If you're going to make comments calling out other people and their opinions, try actually giving a basis for what you're saying. What makes Go any different from Lawrence? He isn't an adult yet, he doesn't have incredible technology, and he hasn't set his eyes on legendaries that support the ecosystem, but he still just catches Pokemon because he's selfish and greedy. You don't become Lawrence overnight, and Lawrence didn't think of himself as bad, but greed and selfishness can easily cloud common sense and if you are never called out on your selfishness its quite easy to continue down the path of getting worse and worse. The motivation isn't different between the two.

What makes Go catching lots of Pokemon not a bad thing? I'm honestly curious to hear your argument (if you even bother coming up with one) because it adds a lot more to a conversation than trolling does. If you've read what people actually say, many people like and respect Ash because he doesn't try to just catch every Pokemon and that he gives his individual Pokemon a lot of attention and works hard with them, so there would be no jealousy that Ash doesn't go on a wild catching spree for Pokemon he can neglect. Sure, people are upset that Ash gets less screen time than this new monster (I honestly don't care about Ash screen time myself, I just wish Go didn't get so much because he's a selfish, disgusting, awful person), but very few people have been upset because Ash can't catch Pokemon like Go can. In this new series, literally anyone with the funds to get a Pokeball and the ability to throw can catch heaps of Pokemon, so who gives a shit. The point is that Pokemon have not been treated like trophies in the past anime series, and catching all of them just to fill out a log is a pretty shitty thing to do. You don't have to think this way, but don't misclassify other people being upset as something petty and worthless when the actual reason has been explained over and over again (and then not explain your own reasoning, on top of that).
 
Or you could try and read the words of the people who complain about Go's captures because it has nothing at all to do with Ash. If you're going to make comments calling out other people and their opinions, try actually giving a basis for what you're saying. What makes Go any different from Lawrence? He isn't an adult yet, he doesn't have incredible technology, and he hasn't set his eyes on legendaries that support the ecosystem, but he still just catches Pokemon because he's selfish and greedy. You don't become Lawrence overnight, and Lawrence didn't think of himself as bad, but greed and selfishness can easily cloud common sense and if you are never called out on your selfishness its quite easy to continue down the path of getting worse and worse. The motivation isn't different between the two.

What makes Go catching lots of Pokemon not a bad thing? I'm honestly curious to hear your argument (if you even bother coming up with one) because it adds a lot more to a conversation than trolling does. If you've read what people actually say, many people like and respect Ash because he doesn't try to just catch every Pokemon and that he gives his individual Pokemon a lot of attention and works hard with them, so there would be no jealousy that Ash doesn't go on a wild catching spree for Pokemon he can neglect. Sure, people are upset that Ash gets less screen time than this new monster (I honestly don't care about Ash screen time myself, I just wish Go didn't get so much because he's a selfish, disgusting, awful person), but very few people have been upset because Ash can't catch Pokemon like Go can. In this new series, literally anyone with the funds to get a Pokeball and the ability to throw can catch heaps of Pokemon, so who gives a shit. The point is that Pokemon have not been treated like trophies in the past anime series, and catching all of them just to fill out a log is a pretty shitty thing to do. You don't have to think this way, but don't misclassify other people being upset as something petty and worthless when the actual reason has been explained over and over again (and then not explain your own reasoning, on top of that).
Have you seen the Safari Zone episode? Assuming there were ways for you to see it? (It wasn't banned where I live) Ash caught his Tauros with almost no difficulty - every time he tried to capture something a Tauros herd would stampede across and get caught in a Safari Ball instead. This is early OS, but Ash never really befriended or tried to befriend any pokemon in the Safari Zone. No questions, no polite "join my team" at all. Same with all the Tauros. Every throw was unquestioned and it was an easy capture. Just consider Gou's capture spree something like a GO-adapted-thingy-of-the-Safari-Zone which has clearly been a thing. An OS thing that actually existed at one point.

Also, you might want to consider actual players who try to fill the dex or accumulate catch numbers - go to a route, throw a Quick Ball. Done. No one - not even in-game NPCs - questions the morality. Except for maybe N?

And if we reeally want to get in the morality of capturing and stuff in the pokemon franchise, there's a huge can of worms that's just waiting to be opened.
 
Have you seen the Safari Zone episode? Assuming there were ways for you to see it? (It wasn't banned where I live) Ash caught his Tauros with almost no difficulty - every time he tried to capture something a Tauros herd would stampede across and get caught in a Safari Ball instead. This is early OS, but Ash never really befriended or tried to befriend any pokemon in the Safari Zone. No questions, no polite "join my team" at all. Same with all the Tauros. Every throw was unquestioned and it was an easy capture. Just consider Gou's capture spree something like a GO-adapted-thingy-of-the-Safari-Zone which has clearly been a thing. An OS thing that actually existed at one point.

While I understand the point you're making, I think that there are some key differences. The Safari Zone in the original games was designed that way. You don't battle Pokemon, but just throw items or Pokeballs in the hopes of catching one. The anime most likely wanted to keep this aspect of the Safari Zone in tact and Ash catching a bunch of Tauros like that was treated as a bit of a gag if I recall correctly. If Gou does something similar with all of his captures thus far, then I'm not sure if it's fair to just write it off as just an adaptation of the Safari Zone, especially when he has made captures in different regions as opposed to one specific location like the Safari Zone.

I can't really make an opinion on Gou's character yet, but I can understand the issue about how he just captures Pokemon for the shake of it. With most of the other series, they have given each Pokemon some personality traits/gimmicks to make them more appealing to the audience. They weren't just there for the battles, but they were effectively members of the main cast. Obviously not every Pokemon is full of personality and none of them had equal screentime, but generally speaking, most of do tend to stick out. If Gou's Pokemon aside from Scorbunny are just there for him to catch and serve no other purpose beyond that and maybe helping him out in future battles, then there's little to no emotional investment with the audience. There's no bond between Gou and his Pokemon or any interesting dynamics between his various Pokemon either. Showcasing different relationships between the Pokemon themselves can help to flesh them out further and give them more to do. As much as I dislike how Ash's Noivern was handled, one of the few good things about it was that it allowed for Hawlucha to get more screentime and become almost like a mentor figure for Noivern.

At least from what I can tell, Gou just catching for the shake of it doesn't quite mix with how the anime has generally handled Pokemon, so that can be upsetting or jarring. I'm kind of curious how I'll feel about Gou once the dub eventually gets to the new series. I doubt that he'll be my new least favorite character in the series for a few reasons, but the mixed at best response towards his character around here does make me wonder how I'll feel about him. I do hope that the series finds more of a footing sooner rather than later. A part of me kind of wonders if they would have been better off with the usual badge quest setup, especially when I still want them to cover more of Galar, but they probably still would have run into the same kind of problems they've had when they've attempted to stretch out a storyline for a few years. I definitely don't like the sound of the anime taking inspiration from Pokemon Go. As I've said before, I like Pokemon Go, but it does not really mix well with the anime.
 
I find that doubtful. People complain about Gou's captures because they're stupidly easy compared to how it works in the mainline games and the show itself up to this point. If Ash had the same interest as Gou his capture rate would leave Gou's jaw cartoonishly dropped on the ground since Ash actually has strong Pokémon for weakening wild ones and capturing them, while Gou got utterly humiliated in his first battle.
The complaints about Ash's capture numbers is that he's caught so few compared to how many he usually does.

You're making it sound as if Ash didn't capture a lot of his Pokemon with relative ease too, even though he has; hell many of his Kanto Pokemon were caught without putting up much of a fight including things like Caterpie, Charmander, Squirtle and the 30 Tauros that were basically handed to Ash on a silver platter.

I could go through all his other Pokemon in the other regions and find many similar examples of Ash getting Pokemon with minimal effort yet people will conveniently ignore that and do a Matrix-style dodge just to make another swing at Go. Let's face it, he's the current punching bag and will be for the foreseeable future because a lot of folks just don't like the idea of another male character doing things that they think Ash should be doing. Excuses like 'people only hate Go because he gets Pokemon too easily' can only get y'all so far. :/
 
Have you seen the Safari Zone episode? Assuming there were ways for you to see it? (It wasn't banned where I live) Ash caught his Tauros with almost no difficulty - every time he tried to capture something a Tauros herd would stampede across and get caught in a Safari Ball instead. This is early OS, but Ash never really befriended or tried to befriend any pokemon in the Safari Zone. No questions, no polite "join my team" at all. Same with all the Tauros. Every throw was unquestioned and it was an easy capture. Just consider Gou's capture spree something like a GO-adapted-thingy-of-the-Safari-Zone which has clearly been a thing. An OS thing that actually existed at one point.
The occasions when Ash does it are few and far between. The vast majority of Ash's Pokémon have had meaningful captures, whereas literally everything captured by Go is collectible style.
 
I have a feeling this whole thread will eventually be clogged by variations of this one sentence for the duration of this new series:

"They don't make the anime like the good old days anymore"

Safari Zone episode aside, we can't deny Pokemon GO and Let's GO have been the popular games during the past few years. Catching pokemon with ease, going on a capture spree - so many people have done that. The anime adapted GO as Gou. The anime decided that Gou is doing GO things.
 
Have you seen the Safari Zone episode? Assuming there were ways for you to see it? (It wasn't banned where I live) Ash caught his Tauros with almost no difficulty - every time he tried to capture something a Tauros herd would stampede across and get caught in a Safari Ball instead. This is early OS, but Ash never really befriended or tried to befriend any pokemon in the Safari Zone. No questions, no polite "join my team" at all. Same with all the Tauros. Every throw was unquestioned and it was an easy capture. Just consider Gou's capture spree something like a GO-adapted-thingy-of-the-Safari-Zone which has clearly been a thing. An OS thing that actually existed at one point.

Also, you might want to consider actual players who try to fill the dex or accumulate catch numbers - go to a route, throw a Quick Ball. Done. No one - not even in-game NPCs - questions the morality. Except for maybe N?

And if we reeally want to get in the morality of capturing and stuff in the pokemon franchise, there's a huge can of worms that's just waiting to be opened.

Yes I've seen the episode, I've already addressed that very point, the episode was very much a joke, the catching was mostly by accident, the ease of catches was due to the Safari Zone, and the Tauros life is almost identical to before as Oak's Ranch is a vast area with tons of nature and plenty of area to roam. That all being said, as I've said before, its not something I really liked, but it also happened like 20 years ago and plenty has been shown as quite different since that time. And having 1 episode in 1,000 come across this way is a lot different than it becoming a part of every week.

I've also addressed all your other points so many times I can't even count, but I'll go through it again I suppose.

As for the game mechanic, the game is still a game. The PC is the only person collecting loads of Pokemon, at least that's what I gather (outside of quotes from Gen 1 Blue I can't really think of anyone else). Collecting Pokemon is very much a game mechanic, not a part of the world building. It isn't an ideal thing, but its a part of a game. Even the game has tried to make some adaptions to make the PC storage feel less bad, with things like Pelago and Poke Jobs, but on the whole it was still just a game mechanic. Its not the universe the anime was trying to show. I'd argue it really isn't even what the games are stressing as important, but then again I'm more of a playthrough/team type person, and the games are really what you make of them. The anime in some ways can be very similar to the games, but they have set up an extremely different universe in some aspects. The anime has never in any way had anything remotely similar to the dex completion goals of the games, the dex already has the info on Pokemon, it is just a useful tool for a trainer. The anime has repeatedly stressed the importance of relationships with Pokemon, treated Pokemon like equals, and shown collection as a negative until this series. The anime has always felt more real than the games to me, the world building was more complete, and people and Pokemon were given a lot more, well, everything. In some ways, the adaptation of Pokemon Go is a closer adaptation of a game then Gen 1-7 anime was of the regular game, and Pokemon Go is much less an adaptable game, since it isn't even designed to be its own universe.

I have no issue with you liking Go, that's your choice, and there is no problem with you saying it either, but there is also no problem with me not liking him and sharing my opinion. I really do wonder though what Go fans think of his reasoning for getting Pokemon. Instead of finding the one obscure time that "Ash did it too", what is it that makes it okay for Go? What about his collecting isn't selfish? What is in it for these Pokemon?

You're making it sound as if Ash didn't capture a lot of his Pokemon with relative ease too, even though he has; hell many of his Kanto Pokemon were caught without putting up much of a fight including things like Caterpie, Charmander, Squirtle and the 30 Tauros that were basically handed to Ash on a silver platter.

I could go through all his other Pokemon in the other regions and find many similar examples of Ash getting Pokemon with minimal effort yet people will conveniently ignore that and do a Matrix-style dodge just to make another swing at Go. Let's face it, he's the current punching bag and will be for the foreseeable future because a lot of folks just don't like the idea of another male character doing things that they think Ash should be doing. Excuses like 'people only hate Go because he gets Pokemon too easily' can only get y'all so far. :/

Pokemon wanted to join Ash because he befriended them is so amazingly different from sneaking up and throwing balls at Pokemon and you well know that is the case. Tauros joke episode, Caterpie is a Caterpie, wow those are easy points.

Again, only reading the easy parts, putting words in other people's mouths, I guess maybe this is just one for the ignore list since an intelligent back and forth conversation just isn't going to happen. I literally have a long list of all the reasons I hate Go above on this page, I don't care if you don't want to read it, but don't make shit up to simplify your argument and make yourself feel like a big winner. Matrix-style dodge, lol that's literally what you do on every post, you aren't saying anything of value, instead of taking stabs at others, try to actually produce an argument in support of your new hero.

I have a feeling this whole thread will eventually be clogged by variations of this one sentence for the duration of this new series:

"They don't make the anime like the good old days anymore"

Safari Zone episode aside, we can't deny Pokemon GO and Let's GO have been the popular games during the past few years. Catching pokemon with ease, going on a capture spree - so many people have done that. The anime adapted GO as Gou. The anime decided that Gou is doing GO things.

Really no reason to insult people and their post style, there really aren't that many people that use one sentence. A lot of people on here take a lot of time and effort to go in depth to explain stuff, which is fine if you don't read it, but the effort is still there. Probably don't need to go down the path of the other poster and put words in people's mouths.

If Go is the new anime then they probably should have rebooted the series instead of using the same series because it doesn't fit the morals the previous series set up. I honestly feel like it really is immoral in general, but this is not the place to discuss morals. At the end of the day, you win anyway, since my favorite series was thrown in the trash, and you still like it, so congrats on that. I'm glad you like it, I guess. I should probably just stop watching since it upsets me so much, but its hard to move on from something you have loved for 20 years.
 
Safari Zone episode aside, we can't deny Pokemon GO and Let's GO have been the popular games during the past few years. Catching pokemon with ease, going on a capture spree - so many people have done that. The anime adapted GO as Gou. The anime decided that Gou is doing GO things.
And we can decide to point out that the sudden change in philosophies is pretty jarring. One can’t deny that the anime used to give a pretty consistent message of capturing Pokémon and treating them as your friends and companions with some capture exceptions aside. Almost every capture was meaningful in some capacity, whether battled or not.
There’s a reason completing the Pokedex has never been a priority.

That’s what I liked about the anime's deviation from the games- it made the world building better. I didn’t mind Ash capturing a few Pokémon and befriending them because that’s how it would make sense in a hypothetical Pokémon world. In fact, I played the games after watching the anime and thanks to it ended up facing the E4 with my trusty 6 and the 4-5 gift Pokémon in the box. Capture-everything-blindly in a world you’re dealing with intelligent creatures that are supposed to be your companions was avoided. Now it’s sacrificing 20 years of world building to adapt a game which literally treats Pokémon as vessels to throw away for candy when you find a better one.

I don’t hate Pokémon go, in fact I play the game almost daily, but it’s style doesn’t mesh well with what the anime has built up to be morally correct at all. I’d have no issues at all if it were a side series, but it’s an express continuation to the anime we're talking about.

P.S.: people do now accept GO mechanics, but I do remember the jarred réactions and memes at the candy system.

Let's face it, he's the current punching bag and will be for the foreseeable future because a lot of folks just don't like the idea of another male character doing things that they think Ash should be doing. Excuses like 'people only hate Go because he gets Pokemon too easily' can only get y'all so far. :/
One thing I've noticed constantly in your posts is... they mostly happen to be of the format of "People said this but now they’re complaining about x." "You all are saying x because of this."

Not all people who have Opinion 1 have the Opinion 2 and vice versa. And it’s incorrect to generalise based on that assumption, specially if you further assume bad faith that people are saying this just because they like to complain.

Can you please stop with that? This is not a hive mind and no one's following the same streams of thought. It’s pretty trollish of you to group everyone complaining about Go into the same group. I never had any issues with Ash capturing less Pokémon, and I don’t care how many he captures as long as each of them gets focus. I usually like the team of 6 he gets every region. And I don’t like Go capturing Pokémon left and right either.

These gross overgeneralisations get annoying at a lot of times. I don’t like being relegated to a group of opinions I disagree with just because I'm complaining about something I find wrong now.
 
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And we can decide to point out that the sudden change in philosophies is pretty jarring. One can’t deny that the anime used to give a pretty consistent message of capturing Pokémon and treating them as your friends and companions with some capture exceptions aside. Almost every capture was meaningful in some capacity, whether battled or not.
There’s a reason completing the Pokedex has never been a priority.

That’s what I liked about the anime's deviation from the games- it made the world building better. I didn’t mind Ash capturing a few Pokémon and befriending them because that’s how it would make sense in a hypothetical Pokémon world. In fact, I played the games after watching the anime and thanks to it ended up facing the E4 with my trusty 6 and the 4-5 gift Pokémon in the box. Capture-everything-blindly in a world you’re dealing with intelligent creatures that are supposed to be your companions was avoided. Now it’s sacrificing 20 years of world building to adapt a game which literally treats Pokémon as vessels to throw away for candy when you find a better one.

I don’t hate Pokémon go, in fact I play the game almost daily, but it’s style doesn’t mesh well with what the anime has built up to be morally correct at all. I’d have no issues at all if it were a side series, but it’s an express continuation to the anime we're talking about.

P.S.: people do now accept GO mechanics, but I do remember the jarred réactions and memes at the candy system.
The anime is probably trying to acknowledge and appeal to the fans established by GO. There's no denying that GO brought back (and brought new) fans into playing Pokemon GO. Incidentally, GO's advertisements also promoted Pokemon as a family franchise, which fits in what the current era of pokemon is like - grown up 90s kids with families of their own, enjoying pokemon with their children. The past few years have been GO's time. There was Gen7, but I don't know how the numbers would stack up if we statistically compared the number of main-game players vs GO players (and then there's a group that plays both). Also, children are probably already familiarized with smartphone apps like GO before they get their Switch game. But this probably belongs to a different thread.
Back to the anime: Gou as a character is promoted as one of the duo protagonist and they want to make Gou popular as one of their main protagonist. GO is still popular. So the anime is using GO for Gou and traditional battles for Ash (at least up to episode 7 - it could be different for the future). Gou is the new generation.
 
The anime is probably trying to acknowledge and appeal to the fans established by GO. There's no denying that GO brought back (and brought new) fans into playing Pokemon GO. Incidentally, GO's advertisements also promoted Pokemon as a family franchise, which fits in what the current era of pokemon is like - grown up 90s kids with families of their own, enjoying pokemon with their children. The past few years have been GO's time.
Back to the anime: Gou as a character is promoted as one of the duo protagonist and they want to make Gou popular as one of their main protagonist. GO is still popular. So the anime is using GO for Gou and traditional battles for Ash (at least up to episode 7 - it could be different for the future). Gou is the new generation.
I’m not sure how does that answer my points? I’m explaining why are the complaints against Go valid.
Well... that’s fine and dandy but people's complains are stemming from the fact that this is occurring at the expense of the anime world building and the very process of what it is to capture and raise a Pokemon. I personally find those complains completely valid.

Go should be either developed in a way that doesn’t contradict the the previously set up anime world so much or given a new side series role if they want to go so far into the GO universe.

Promotion can occur without throwing away 20 years of world building, philosophies and what it means to capture a Pokémon and raise it.
 
I’m not sure how does that answer my points? I’m explaining why are the complaints against Go valid.
Well... that’s fine and dandy but people's complains are stemming from the fact that this is occurring at the expense of the anime world building and the very process of what it is to capture and raise a Pokemon. I personally find those complains completely valid.

Go should be either developed in a way that doesn’t contradict the the previously set up anime world so much or given a new side series role if they want to go so far into the GO universe.

Promotion can occur without throwing away 20 years of world building, philosophies and what it means to capture a Pokémon and raise it.
And it could be that: they might have chosen to take the easy route for promoting pokemon. The most efficient way to make money. And maybe they can't do the thing you just said - keeping the same 20-year-old established philosophy and earn money efficiently at the same time. I've heard so many fans complain every time a new Star Wars movie comes out because its so "different" but it still makes tons of money. Is Star Wars going to accept the complaints and "go back to the old" when money is going to roll in anyway? I don't know - maybe after calculating the cost, perhaps.
 
One thing I've noticed constantly in your posts is... they mostly happen to be of the format of "People said this but now they’re complaining about x." "You all are saying x because of this."

Not all people who have Opinion 1 have the Opinion 2 and vice versa. And it’s incorrect to generalise based on that assumption, specially if you further assume bad faith that people are saying this just because they like to complain.

Can you please stop with that? This is not a hive mind and no one's following the same streams of thought. It’s pretty trollish of you to group everyone complaining about Go into the same group. I never had any issues with Ash capturing less Pokémon, and I don’t care how many he captures as long as each of them gets focus. I usually like the team of 6 he gets every region. And I don’t like Go capturing Pokémon left and right either.

These gross overgeneralisations get annoying at a lot of times. I don’t like being relegated to a group of opinions I disagree with just because I'm complaining about something I find wrong now.

First of all, I don't think I've ever quoted you or replied to anything you've posted so I'm not sure why you're attacking me when I've never done anything to you. Second of all, I'm not going to ask every single member here separately how they feel about Go. I'm sorry if generalizations irritate you, but I'm not going to go out of my way to analyze every individual opinion just to make you feel better. Either add me to your ignore list if me making blanket statements bothers you that much, or find a way to actually refute what I posted. But calling me out in public over something so petty is unnecessary and frankly childish.

I was only talking about how the majority of our fandom seems to feel about Go based on what I observe on an almost daily basis for Christ's sake. It's fully possible that I could be wrong, but at the end of the day the thread is called 'Controversial opinions.' I don't see why I should be crucified for expressing my belief that a lot of people might harbor ill will towards Go considering that there have been some extremely judgmental comments in this section about Go for even the most inane reasons, like this thread whining about how weak his Scorbunny is and how it's all Go's fault apparently. People will find any way to get back at Go and it all comes down to some people just disliking him and not even giving him a chance 7 episodes into this series.
 
And it could be that: they might have chosen to take the easy route for promoting pokemon. The most efficient way to make money. And maybe they can't do the thing you just said - keeping the same 20-year-old established philosophy and earn money efficiently at the same time.
Are you telling me that handling Go’s captures in a slightly different manner is going to affect their earnings in a negative manner? I doubt some storyline decisions are going to affect them that much.

First of all, I don't think I've ever quoted you or replied to anything you've posted so I'm not sure why you're attacking me when I've never done anything to you. Second of all, I'm not going to ask every single member here separately how they feel about Go. I'm sorry if generalizations irritate you, but I'm not going to go out of my way to analyze every individual opinion just to make you feel better. Either add me to your ignore list if me making blanket statements bothers you that much, or find a way to actually refute what I posted. But calling me out in public over something so petty is unnecessary and frankly childish.

I was only talking about how the majority of our fandom seems to feel about Go based on what I observe on an almost daily basis for Christ's sake. It's fully possible that I could be wrong, but at the end of the day the thread is called 'Controversial opinions.' I don't see why I should be crucified for expressing my belief that a lot of people might harbor ill will towards Go considering that there have been some extremely judgmental comments in this section about Go for even the most inane reasons, like this thread whining about how weak his Scorbunny is and how it's all Go's fault apparently. People will find any way to get back at Go and it all comes down to some people just disliking him and not even giving him a chance 7 episodes into this series.
Well, I do think some criticism is undue, but I don’t really think that the majority of it is undue. I found the premise of the Scorbunny-is-weak thread pretty nonsensical myself but that type of stuff (at least on these forums) I’ve found to be minor compared to more level headed criticism. And I’ve never seen that Ash catching Pokémon to a degree Go does is a popular demand here.

I was just a bit ticked off at the notion that the majority is upset at Go because Ash doesn’t make 12 captures a day, because on these forums at least what people are opposed to is the method of capture. I didn’t intend to come off as harassing or making an extreme attack and I apologise if I came off as too harsh.
 
I'm not a fan of the "Gou represents Pokemon GO players" idea because it misses the reason Pokemon GO was such a success in the first place. Pokemon GO made Pokemon into a social event again by encouraging people to go outside and share information on where Pokemon and Poke Stops were. You could go out and see a stranger playing the same game and have that moment of "wow, we're doing the same thing". The game gained traction not because people had an inherent desire to catch Pokemon, but because they wanted in on a growing social event and to feel a part of something. This was also how Pokemon Red and Blue took off and became this cultural phenomenon, until greater information accessibility curtailed the social element and turned the games into a more solitary experience.

People can relate to a character whose goal is to catch all the Pokemon because it's a shared experience, but Gou only represents a limited amount of those people because he doesn't engage in the social side of being a Pokemon trainer. He's not out there trading information with other collectors, nor is he collaborating or competing with others. He goes out, throws a ball, gets his Pokemon, and then goes home, which comes off as cynical. To me, he's more like those players who play Pokemon as a single player experience, but so far he's limited because he's only engaging in one aspect of being a trainer, and that aspect has had a shallow presentation.

Which I guess brings me to my controversial opinion, which is that the anime should not be representing GO or even Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee, because those games reduce the Pokemon to commodities you need to collect whereas the anime has been staunchly opposed to this idea for two decades. The anime glorifies the bond between Pokemon and trainer and treats each Pokemon on the cast like they're a human character. Now, though, Pokemon 2019 is only personifying the Pokemon after they've been caught, and eventually they'll encounter a problem of having too many Pokemon to give personalities to. They even had an entire movie, arguably the most well-received Pokemon movie to date, where the main villain was a collector who objectified Pokemon and cared little for the impact his actions were having on the world, to say nothing of the numerous poachers the show has demonised and blasted off. So there's this whiplash where the show is going against the ideas and convictions its already established by thrusting this new collector into the spotlight and treating his goal as something worthwhile, while nobody questions anything. Characters have no problem asking Ash what a Pokemon Master is supposed to be and whether his dream is realistic, but the same questions aren't asked of Gou's desire to catch Mew.

It's hard reconciling this, especially after The Power of Us, which I adored precisely because it had such an intimate focus on the relationships between people and one or two Pokemon, and how they can positively effect each other's lives. I consider this to be the anime's greatest strength, something it does even better than the games do, so to see it now focusing on an entirely different idea is difficult to accept. There's a real risk of corrupting 20 years of work when they can just as easily invent another spin-off anime to focus on Go/Let's Go if they so desire.
 
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