- Joined
- Jun 17, 2006
- Messages
- 14,493
- Reaction score
- 21,126
- Staff
- #81
Well it's not like the series director doesn't get to decide which episodes take place in which region. If they wanted another early Galar episode for Ash to get a starter, they would have just added one. I'm with you in that I prefer to see Ash's Pokemon train and grow throughout the series, but all signs point to that not happening here. Introducing weak, inexperienced Pokemon now after Ash has already caught two fully evolved, battle-ready goliaths would be sort of ass-backwards. Frankly, the best thing this series has going for it is that Ash hasn't been nerfed for the first time ever. Giving Ash a weak Pokemon now would be a nerf in and of itself, and would be a mind-boggling decision to do 20+ episodes into the series, as opposed to at the start where no one would bat an eye.
I don't think that giving Ash a weak Pokemon would necessarily be a nerf. An unevolved Pokemon could still be powerful in its own right instead of just being automatically considered weak simply because it isn't a fully evolved powerhouse. Chimchar had a lot of power well before it became Infernape for example, so they could easily do something like that. I just don't like the notion that Ash can't possibly be bothered to actually raise his Pokemon from the ground up just because they retcon Mr. Mime into being a strong and gave him a Dragonite and Gengar. It just feels kind of backwards to Ash has always seen training Pokemon and how plenty of Pokemon are strong regardless of whether or not they evolve. If Ash really isn't allowed to get any unevolved Pokemon for this whole series, I'd be pretty annoyed and disappointed on multiple levels.
Beatsy Ray said:You can't say Charizard was released for 'space' when Ash was regularly rotating his team at the time. He would have just left it at Oak's if that were the case. The writers had to completely eliminate it from his team otherwise they would never be able to justify Ash using Cyndaquil. They would have the same problem here. In fact, there is no logical reason for Ash not to use his reserves in this series, but as long as the new Pokemon he catches are equally as strong it's at least somewhat believable that opts not to use them.
Outside of the Indigo and Orange Island Leagues, I don't recall Ash regularly rotating his team at the time, so I think that space was a factor. Considering Charizard's personality and how it had just recently learned to listen to Ash, I don't think that they'd want to just leave it at Professor Oak's lab. There wouldn't have been a good justified reason for Ash to leave it there right after he started traveling through Johto. At least leaving Bulbasaur there did kind of fit with its personality and backstory, even if it did take them way too long to actually do it. I think that they wanted to give the Kanto starters bigger sendoffs because of their popularity, which is why they all got a proper sendoff episode. Plus, they didn't realize that it would be better marketing wise for Ash to start off with a nearly fresh team until AG. While I understand your point about how having Charizard around would make it harder to justify Ash using Cyndaquil, I also have a bit of a hard time really seeing that as a big issue, mainly because by that same notion there's no reason as to why he should bother raising any other Fire Pokemon when he has Infernape.