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Controversial opinions

I'm glad Buneary didn't evolve, especially after knowing what Lopunny is based on.
Same with Quilava, they are there to make contests, not for hardcore league battles.
I don't think that Lopunny being based on a Playboy Bunny really makes it inappropriate or anything like that. The rationale that they're there to make Contests and not hardcore League battles is kind of strange to me. Being a Coordinator didn't stop May from getting a Blaziken or having multiple Pokemon evolve off-screen after she left the cast. The idea that a Typhlosion would be too strong for a Contest just seems weird to me, especially when it hasn't really been featured prominently outside of the Legend of Thunder special.
 
I don't think that Lopunny being based on a Playboy Bunny really makes it inappropriate or anything like that. The rationale that they're there to make Contests and not hardcore League battles is kind of strange to me. Being a Coordinator didn't stop May from getting a Blaziken or having multiple Pokemon evolve off-screen after she left the cast. The idea that a Typhlosion would be too strong for a Contest just seems weird to me, especially when it hasn't really been featured prominently outside of the Legend of Thunder special.
I didn't say anything about Typhlosion being too strong for contest, I said If they are not doing hardcore Pokemon battles, they don't necessarily need to evolve, sure they can evolve but staying in mid stage works too.

As for Lopunny, we don't need Pokemon to be banned across %90 of the world because of an episode, I have a feeling that If this episode (or any episodes) featured Lopunny, it has a chance to get censored (or even taken out like they did in OG series)
 
Lopunny's already been in a small handful of episodes and I don't think any of them have been banned. Nando, a rival to both Ash and Dawn, had one and used it in the Grand Festival. Meowth has had two fantasies featuring a Lopunny, one appeared at the end of a Mega Evolution special, one was in the ORAS animated trailer and Platinum has one in the manga. So i'm not sure really sure how featuring a lopunny could get anything banned.
 
I didn't say anything about Typhlosion being too strong for contest, I said If they are not doing hardcore Pokemon battles, they don't necessarily need to evolve, sure they can evolve but staying in mid stage works too.
I got a different impression from the whole hardcore League battle part from your earlier post. While it's true that Pokemon don't necessarily need to evolve to do well in Contests, evolving doesn't hurt either. Contests battles are still Pokemon battles. They aren't the same as regular Pokemon battles, but if your Pokemon isn't strong enough, it's still going to have a hard time doing well. Plus, evolving would make it possible for them to learn new moves, which can be helpful for both the appeal and battle rounds of a Contest. Quilava can still potentially do well without evolving and it would still be stronger than a Cyndaquil, but there's really no harm in making it evolve into Typhlosion either.

As for Lopunny, we don't need Pokemon to be banned across %90 of the world because of an episode, I have a feeling that If this episode (or any episodes) featured Lopunny, it has a chance to get censored (or even taken out like they did in OG series)
That's really ridiculous. They've already featured Lopunny multiple times in the anime with no problem. It was featured in the episode where Dawn and Buneary were taking part in a fashion show and was used in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. I think that you're taking the whole Playboy Bunny inspiration too seriously when it's never been shown as sexual in the anime. It's just a tall brown bunny. There's nothing inherently sexual about its design and unless you look up its trivia on sites like Bulbapedia, I don't think most people would assume what it's based on. There wouldn't be anything to censor or anything that warrants removing the episode. As far as I can tell, none of Lopunny's appearances in the anime or Adventures manga have been edited or banned in different countries, so I don't understand why you'd think it would be such a huge problem.
 
Tsareena is based on a Dominatrix and Mallow still had one

Inteleon is based on a guy universally best known for having sex with multiple women and yet Goh still has one lol


So Lopunny's inspiration probably isn't the reason.

I think they probably just didn't think Lopunny was as marketable as Buneary and then there's the whole crush on Pikachu which they probably thought would've looked akward
 
crush on Pikachu which they probably thought would've looked akward
I'm not sure why Buneary's crush on Pikachu is a major factor preventing her from evolving, though? The whole gist of the gag was that it was awkward, so if anything, Buneary evolving would help it, not hurt it. Also, considering how Togekiss went from as tall as Dawn to up to her knees, I wouldn't be too surprised if Buneary evolved would be her about the size of Goh's Raichu.
 
Tsareena is based on a Dominatrix and Mallow still had one

Inteleon is based on a guy universally best known for having sex with multiple women and yet Goh still has one lol


So Lopunny's inspiration probably isn't the reason.

I think they probably just didn't think Lopunny was as marketable as Buneary and then there's the whole crush on Pikachu which they probably thought would've looked akward
WTF ARE TSAREENA AND INTELEON BASED ON
 
I'm not sure why Buneary's crush on Pikachu is a major factor preventing her from evolving, though? The whole gist of the gag was that it was awkward, so if anything, Buneary evolving would help it, not hurt it. Also, considering how Togekiss went from as tall as Dawn to up to her knees, I wouldn't be too surprised if Buneary evolved would be her about the size of Goh's Raichu.
I mean that's just guess

There's also that whole "Evolution turns you into a different person" thing which might play another part. It happened with Mamoswine and Piplup didn't want to evolve because he was afraid it would happen to him.


WTF ARE TSAREENA AND INTELEON BASED ON
A Dominatrix (BSDM Fetishist) and James Bond respectively lol
 
I don't really see how Buneary's crush would be an issue with it evolving either. Buneary's crush was barely brought up as DP went on and there wasn't a tearful goodbye between them at the end of the series either. Buneary was happy to see Pikachu again in BW due to the crush, but I think that was the only time it was brought up during her first return. The crush is probably one of the more defining traits of Buneary, but I don't think it was that important or emphasized that much to where it would prevent Buneary from evolving either.

As for the whole evolution turns you into a different person, I still think that would be kind of hard to pull off when Buneary evolves through friendship. It is typical for Pokemon to not want to change by evolving and I'm normally fine with that, but I think a conflict like that would be at odds with how Buneary evolves in the first place.
 
I don't really see how Buneary's crush would be an issue with it evolving either. Buneary's crush was barely brought up as DP went on and there wasn't a tearful goodbye between them at the end of the series either. Buneary was happy to see Pikachu again in BW due to the crush, but I think that was the only time it was brought up during her first return. The crush is probably one of the more defining traits of Buneary, but I don't think it was that important or emphasized that much to where it would prevent Buneary from evolving either.

As for the whole evolution turns you into a different person, I still think that would be kind of hard to pull off when Buneary evolves through friendship. It is typical for Pokemon to not want to change by evolving and I'm normally fine with that, but I think a conflict like that would be at odds with how Buneary evolves in the first place.
Can't really think of any other reason for why Buneary didn't evolve besides those

Like @Ghost Diplocaulus once said, they didn't want to see a tall girl crushing on a shorter guy

Other than that Lopunny's design not being marketable to kids for "reasons" is the only other reason I can think of but like I said above, Tsarenna and Inteleon are a thing in the show so I doubt that was the reason either
 
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Can't really think of any other reason for why Buneary didn't evolve besides those

Like @Ghost Diplocaulus once said, they didn't want to see a tall girl crushing on a shorter guy

Other than that Lopunny's design not being marketable to kids for "reasons" is the only other reason I can think of but like I said above, Tsarenna and Inteleon are a thing in the show so I doubt that was the reason either
I still doubt that a tall girl crushing on a shorter guy would be a problem. Like I mentioned before, Buneary's crush on Pikachu was still there, but I don't think it was so prominent that it would be the reason why it didn't evolve. Plus, the crush was completely one-sided already, so why would it matter if a tall Lopunny still had a crush on a short Pikachu?

Lopunny's design isn't unmarketable for kids. Otherwise it wouldn't have been made in the first place. It could be that Buneary is just more popular/mareketable as the cute unevolved Pokemon compared to Lopunny. The idea that Lopunny would be more difficult to animate could have also been a factor for at least why it didn't evolve in DP. I'm not sure if that would be enough to justify not giving Dawn a Lopunny now when she wouldn't be appearing that often though.
 
Lopunny's design isn't unmarketable for kids. Otherwise it wouldn't have been made in the first place. It could be that Buneary is just more popular/mareketable as the cute unevolved Pokemon compared to Lopunny. The idea that Lopunny would be more difficult to animate could have also been a factor for at least why it didn't evolve in DP. I'm not sure if that would be enough to justify not giving Dawn a Lopunny now when she wouldn't be appearing that often though.
Weird Thing is Lopunny's design isn't anymore difficult to animate than Tsareena or Cinderace and yet they still appeared a lot in SuMo and Journeys

And Dawn's been gone for almost a decade, they've could've easily given her a Lopunny if they wanted to

I feel like they wanted to keep her Team the same for Nostalgia reasons

They may have also just didn't like Lopunny for whatever reason
One of the Directors outright said the reason why Piplup never evolved is because he thought Empoleon was too ugly :rolleyes:

(But we now have unconventional Pokemon like Dracovish on the cast so that's a poor excuse too)
 
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Despite my many gripes for how a large number of seasons of the anime turned out, I firmly believe the anime doesn't have to be a 1:1 adaptation of the games. Not sure how controversial it is to say this here since many on this forum (and this particular thread) agree, but I've seen too many fans online talk about following the games plot way too closely and it just wouldn't work.
 
Weird Thing is Lopunny's design isn't anymore difficult to animate than Tsareena or Cinderace and yet they still appeared a lot in SuMo and Journeys

And Dawn's been gone for almost a decade, they've could've easily given her a Lopunny if they wanted to

I feel like they wanted to keep her Team the same for Nostalgia reasons

They may have also just didn't like Lopunny for whatever reason
One of the Directors outright said the reason why Piplup never evolved is because he thought Empoleon was too ugly :rolleyes:

(But we now have unconventional Pokemon like Dracovish on the cast so that's a poor excuse too)
I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to keep her team the same for nostalgia, but it still seems like she's getting the short end of the stick when every other female lead who has returned has some major change with their team whether it's an evolution, new Pokemon or Mega Evolution. Yeah, her team doesn't really have a lot of evolution potential by design, but I still think she should have gotten something to show that she has making progress towards her goal off-screen.

When did one of the directors make that statement about why Piplup didn't evolve though? I can believe it, but I really don't remember that coming up during DP. I just figured that Piplup itself was way to marketable and popular for them to evolve it. Even after DP, it was still quite popular and I'm pretty sure it's the most popular of the Sinnoh starters. I assume the combined popularity of both Dawn and Piplup is one of the reasons why they have promoted her returns in the anime with new promotional posters. Plus, they already had Kenny and eventually Barry appearing frequently enough to showcase Prinplup and Empoleon, so there wasn't really a need for Piplup to evolve from a promotional perspective either.
 
When did one of the directors make that statement about why Piplup didn't evolve though? I can believe it, but I really don't remember that coming up during DP. I just figured that Piplup itself was way to marketable and popular for them to evolve it. Even after DP, it was still quite popular and I'm pretty sure it's the most popular of the Sinnoh starters. I assume the combined popularity of both Dawn and Piplup is one of the reasons why they have promoted her returns in the anime with new promotional posters. Plus, they already had Kenny and eventually Barry appearing frequently enough to showcase Prinplup and Empoleon, so there wasn't really a need for Piplup to evolve from a promotional perspective either.

Here. It's from 2008


https://www.pokebeach.com/2008/07/s...with-masamitsu-hidaka-many-interesting-points

Scroll down a little and you'll find this tidbit:


"How do you decide which Pokemon the characters get?"

"What about for evolving them?"

He said the writers decide and he wasn’t sure what processes they go through, but he said that they will usually evolve something if there is something big coming up. As a side note, he explained the writers were the exact same ones from the beginning of the show and there were very few of them. I also asked why Piplup hasn’t evolved, and he said “probably because it’s cuter that way and its evolution is uglier.”
 
I honestly hate that Lopunny is as famous as it is for you know... those reasons, because I've always loved Lopunny's design and have always found it cute and the design itself is so well done. It's like.. it's very simple when you stop to look into it, but it's adorable and it's just that one type of
character/creature designs that I feel that would've ruined if anything was added to it (albeit don't get me wrong: Mega Lopunny somehow managed to not do that, thankfully).

Like, Lopunny is so cute to me, but saying that it's one of my fav Pokémon, especially since I'm a dude, always hits weird because nearly everybody think I like it because of those reasons, you know? (Btw, it's exactly the same thing with both Gardevoir and Tsareena in my experience)

I don't think Lopunny's... unfortunate associations should hold it back from appearing in the form of Dawn's Buneary, since the anime itself doesn't sees it as a problem ever since it debuted, so why see it as one now?
 
Incineroar and Lucario are my alltime favourite mons and I shudder to think of how much ‘fanart’ there can be of them. It makes me uncomfortable how much people can sexualise pokemon nowadays, though it usually happens with these humanoid ones. Gotta be real careful when searching it up. I can’t look at Lopunny/Gardevoir etc the same way nowadays.
 
Controversial take since it seems people really don’t like the BW and AU TRio, but, I actually like(d) them. Sure they could stand to present some of their personality behind it all but I actually like the competence. After so many years of just the same thing of them being an episodic gag, they just became stale to me to the degree that I like them better when they’re taking part in various competitions than when they’re just being a nuisance that gets blasted off again and again. Those 2 takes on the TRio actually allowed us to have some more quality encounters rather than just the same silly thing every episode plus it encouraged the writers to not simply rely on them for an easy way to wrap up any episode conflicts. I find that mid BW found a good middle ground between the 2 and it’s a shame that they had to fall back into total clown territory by the end of BW. If there’s one thing that Contests, Poke Ringer, Performances, etc. showed me, it’s that I find TRio more interesting when they’re presented with some competency compared to total uselessness.
 
Controversial take since it seems people really don’t like the BW and AU TRio, but, I actually like(d) them. Sure they could stand to present some of their personality behind it all but I actually like the competence. After so many years of just the same thing of them being an episodic gag, they just became stale to me to the degree that I like them better when they’re taking part in various competitions than when they’re just being a nuisance that gets blasted off again and again. Those 2 takes on the TRio actually allowed us to have some more quality encounters rather than just the same silly thing every episode plus it encouraged the writers to not simply rely on them for an easy way to wrap up any episode conflicts. I find that mid BW found a good middle ground between the 2 and it’s a shame that they had to fall back into total clown territory by the end of BW. If there’s one thing that Contests, Poke Ringer, Performances, etc. showed me, it’s that I find TRio more interesting when they’re presented with some competency compared to total uselessness.
I mean, if we're talking competent TRio, then SM Team Rocket were treated as such for the most part. They were pretty threatening there, not to mention how many of their appearances were actual quality and weren't there just to fill the runtime. They added on to the series itself, while in BW they could easily have been replaced with two other random agents of Team Rocket that were needed for the evil plot. Hell, they could've even brought back Butch and Cassidy for that role.

As for competency...I understand completely, but anytime I look back at BW Team Rocket, I keep thinking of the guys who stupidly kept Pikachu captive in a room filled with Poke Balls. Did they not think that Pikachu might call one of its friends for help? Why couldn't they just keep all the Poke Balls untouched in one car while they held the two pokemon without their Poke Balls with them? For such an over-complicated plan to steal pokemon from a Poke Center, it was pretty clear they had no Plan B. Why didn't they get one of their pokemon to fight back instead of just leaving it to Meowth, who only has one move? Maybe it was just that arc that ruined my perception of BW Team Rocket, but the thing that annoyed me most was how the writers couldn't seem to strike a balance, so you ended up with a cartoonish level competent group of villains with barely anything resembling a personality being the threat. Seriously, I would've been all hyped for BW Team Rocket had the train scene between Pikachu and Meowth showed some level of emotion from the latter. Did he even feel bad afterward? How cool would it be to have super competent villains who are actually sympathetic?

I do agree on your last point, though, and I wish we see Team Rocket doing more things, but at the same time, I kind of like the air they give off. They give off a "millennial type characters" vibe and I love it. Still, I'm kind of bummed that we don't get more episodes about Jessie's career. I guess since none of the main girls are doing anything within Jessie's interests, there's no reason for her to do anything, but still. Missed opportunity.
 
Incineroar and Lucario are my alltime favourite mons and I shudder to think of how much ‘fanart’ there can be of them. It makes me uncomfortable how much people can sexualise pokemon nowadays, though it usually happens with these humanoid ones. Gotta be real careful when searching it up. I can’t look at Lopunny/Gardevoir etc the same way nowadays.
Not always.

The Eeveelutions are also pretty notorious for the kinds of "fanart" they have and they are nowhere near close to Humanoid

Charizard also apparently has the most amount of NSFW art out of any Starter for whatever reason
 
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