Do you think Goh's Grookey is the worst starter a main character has ever had in the anime?

[Kurolegacy]

Greninja had a Mary Sue exclusive form, stole screentime from it's Teammates, and was overly hyped up and overexposed to near Charizard levels (tho this has died down)

Mary Sue form aside, I didn't find Greninja that bad personally but I can see why it annoys some people

Yea but to the point of being considered worse than a dead weight nuisance who does nothing but create chaos and never suffers any kind of repercussions or comeuppance? Even looking at it objectively, Grookey is worse by virtue of Greninja at least being important to the plot while Grookey is either a shoulder warmer that could be removed and nothing would change or a brat that causes trouble.

 

[Squad_Broke_Down]

There's a reason why my label for Goh's Grookey is "the little shit", and granted that I very rarely label something like that,this should already be an indication that Goh's Grookey is hated by myself and a majority of the people here.


Grookey is just hateable for all the antics it causes, and yet Goh takes ZERO responsibility, even blaming others for the stuff this little shit has done. It is the primary driving point for countless conflicts in the anime,and yet has zero repercussions. I won't shove the stuff about kids being influenced by this behavior.

As for other annoying Pokemon, at least they had things of value. Chespin was somewhat successful in some comic relief, Oshawott was adorable in some episodes and actually had a couple of good episodes, and Piplup was Dawn's main and was also a great Pokemon. Grookey has zero value and even better, it has only done something of some value in ONE episode (which was also filler so it doesn't count in the first place) in JN Funni Number.

Even better, even remove the annoying part from Grookey, and there's no trait that makes it good. Cute? Grookey isn't that cute to begin with. Funny? It hasn't done anything funny so far. It seems like it's main trait is being annoying. It's complete dead weight and a waste of a Galar starter. Personally I wouldn't have cared if Grookey was thrown with Goh, but the execution for Grookey in any and all aspects was handled horribly.

Now that I think about it, I can already compare Grookey and the community reaction to how the DOAWK community treats Manny:granted DOAWK's community is much more toxic than this community has, has ever, and hopefully will ever be, but when the community is treating Grookey as the worst Goh Pokemon in existence, you know you dun goofed.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Greninja had a Mary Sue exclusive form, stole screentime from it's Teammates, and was overly hyped up and overexposed to near Charizard levels (tho this has died down)

Mary Sue form aside, I didn't find Greninja that bad personally but I can see why it annoys some people

I mean, it literally is not a Mary Sue. The fact that Greninja can never win with the fandom can be demonstrated in this plus the controversial opinions thread. It might be the only Pokémon I've seen called BOTH a "Mary Sue" and "It’s bad and weak since it lost all its battles against Charizard".

Ash-Greninja actually had drawbacks associated with it and took time to master, unlike some other mechanics (coughcoughPikashuniumZcoughcough) not to mention it actually wasn't allowed to get the longtime-rival-win literally almost all aces got.
Ash-Greninja may be badly written or may hog focus, but it objectively isn’t a Mary Sue.

I still don’t really find it comparable with Grookey because, the fundamental issue with them is different. Greninja's issues stem from a consequence of its popularity and mostly out of universe reasons. Meanwhile, Grookey has been handled so badly even in universe, I won’t bother to write about it all over again.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

This video right here actually sums up a pretty big reason for why Grookey's capture episode bothers me in retrospect.

https://youtu.be/0OcvETUHt44

We aren't given any actual reason why Grookey favors Goh over TR so much


Grookey wants to be with Goh because....?

Because why? We aren't given any actual reason

 

[Unireon]

Grookey wants to be with Goh because....?

Because why? We aren't given any actual reason

Because...... Reasons?

Even that monkey's introduction was contrived.

So that was the video where people called Gou a thief......

 

[Kurolegacy]

This video right here actually sums up a pretty big reason for why Grookey's capture episode bothers me in retrospect.

https://youtu.be/0OcvETUHt44

We aren't given any actual reason why Grookey favors Goh over TR so much


Grookey wants to be with Goh because....?

Because why? We aren't given any actual reason

Hell, the entire scenario of the episode was contrived as Hell. Like, Grookey’s pokeball just so happens to be dropped by Pelipher right outside of the Sakuragi lab and, rather than go anywhere else, Grookey climbs into Ash’s and Go’s room and lays in Go’s arms just as he’s having a dream about being given one. Then the thing clings to Go for no reason. You’d think that it were Togepi and imprinting happened and it thought that Go was it’s parent. They then find out that it belongs to someone and set out to return it to its owner which could have been a nice premise what with Go learning that there’s more important things than catching a Pokémon even if he’s started bonding with it. But no, that all goes out the window when it just so happens to turn out to be TRio’s Pokémon. At that point, said Pokémon liberates itself simply so Go can get it. God, the stars had to align to get a capture this bad and for a starter at that. I thought they couldn’t do worse than Sobble’s capture but the writer of this one must’ve saw that episode and just been like ‘hold my beer. I can do one better.’

 

[Enzo]

This video right here actually sums up a pretty big reason for why Grookey's capture episode bothers me in retrospect.

https://youtu.be/0OcvETUHt44

We aren't given any actual reason why Grookey favors Goh over TR so much


Grookey wants to be with Goh because....?

Because why? We aren't given any actual reason

No but it's honestly batshit insane because Grookey, literally, fell out of the sky onto Goh's lap. It just gave itself to him.

And I think this is just yet another aspect of one of the biggest problems with Goh's character: why do we have to root for him, exactly? Like, in what aspect does Goh deserves stuff besides the fact that he's the main character?

Grookey is just yet another example: okay, why is that Goh deserves Grookey more than the TRio does and what's the reason why Grookey wants to be with him??? We just don't have any sort of explanation and we're just supposed to jump up and down happily because... checks notes... ''Goh is the main character threfore he deserves absolutely everything he wants"?

 

[Eitarou]

Grookey favored Goh more because it befriended him first. Goh also showed more concern by attempting to return its stick. I don't get how this is complicated, nor do I get this logic of trying to demonize a literal child as somehow being worse than a criminal organization that poaches Pokemon on a week-to-week basis (and likely did for all the Gatchat Pokemon to begin with. Grookey included.)

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

They shouldn't have made Grookey TRio's pokemon to begin with. It served zero purpose other than for a plot twist while simultaneously finding a way to justify Goh becoming Grookey's new trainer without looking like a complete asshole. If Grookey belonged to a different trainer beforehand, then had the same scenario occurred, Goh would look selfish in hindsight for keeping it(unless its previous trainer was somehow a jerk or abusive, but that has other problems on its own, so I won't go there).

If they really wanted Grookey to originally be a trained pokemon before going to Goh, then there's a lot of factors that need to be fixed, like the overall circumstances, Grookey's introduction, and its relationship with Goh. As it is, it's just very forced and contrived all around.

 

[goldenchimchar]

They shouldn't have made Grookey TRio's pokemon to begin with. It served zero purpose other than for a plot twist while simultaneously finding a way to justify Goh becoming Grookey's new trainer without looking like a complete asshole. If Grookey belonged to a different trainer beforehand, then had the same scenario occurred, Goh would look selfish in hindsight for keeping it(unless its previous trainer was somehow a jerk or abusive, but that has other problems on its own, so I won't go there).

If they really wanted Grookey to originally be a trained pokemon before going to Goh, then there's a lot of factors that need to be fixed, like the overall circumstances, Grookey's introduction, and its relationship with Goh. As it is, it's just very forced and contrived all around.

If they wanted to give Grookey to Goh, there were plenty of other ways to make it happen without it being forced. It honestly felt more like wish fulfillment than something deep. Episodes like that happen when you bend the universe and its rules to favor one character. If I wrote the episode, I would have made Grookey a wild Pokemon that both Goh and TRio wanted to get, and they compete against each other to catch it. Yeah, it wouldn't be perfect, but it wouldn't be so contrived, and the rules of the universe remain intact.

 

[goldenchimchar]

Grookey favored Goh more because it befriended him first. Goh also showed more concern by attempting to return its stick. I don't get how this is complicated, nor do I get this logic of trying to demonize a literal child as somehow being worse than a criminal organization that poaches Pokemon on a week-to-week basis (and likely did for all the Gatchat Pokemon to begin with. Grookey included.)

The thing is, the episode told us about their so-called bond instead of showing us. From what I see, I don't see any semblance of bonding. It was more like they just hung out with each other. But they told us about their "bond" to justify giving it to Goh. That's one of the problems with the show.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Grookey favored Goh more because it befriended him first. Goh also showed more concern by attempting to return its stick. I don't get how this is complicated, nor do I get this logic of trying to demonize a literal child as somehow being worse than a criminal organization that poaches Pokemon on a week-to-week basis (and likely did for all the Gatchat Pokemon to begin with. Grookey included.)

Nobody is trying to demonize Goh tho?

They could've done it a lot better than Grookey by chance entering Goh's room and Gookey is somehow attached to Goh

Like @goldenchimchar said, there's just too much telling and not enough showing

Then again that's a big problem with Journeys as a whole

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Hell, the entire scenario of the episode was contrived as Hell. Like, Grookey’s pokeball just so happens to be dropped by Pelipher right outside of the Sakuragi lab and, rather than go anywhere else, Grookey climbs into Ash’s and Go’s room and lays in Go’s arms just as he’s having a dream about being given one. Then the thing clings to Go for no reason. You’d think that it were Togepi and imprinting happened and it thought that Go was it’s parent. They then find out that it belongs to someone and set out to return it to its owner which could have been a nice premise what with Go learning that there’s more important things than catching a Pokémon even if he’s started bonding with it. But no, that all goes out the window when it just so happens to turn out to be TRio’s Pokémon. At that point, said Pokémon liberates itself simply so Go can get it. God, the stars had to align to get a capture this bad and for a starter at that. I thought they couldn’t do worse than Sobble’s capture but the writer of this one must’ve saw that episode and just been like ‘hold my beer. I can do one better.’

Journeys has had some pretty abysmal writing in terms of some of its episodes.

 

[Eitarou]

Nobody is trying to demonize Goh tho?

The dozens of "Goh stole Grookey from TR" claims from when the ep aired say otherwise.

 

[HiroHunter]

Why was Grookey TRio's pokemon to begin with and not a wild pokemon? Really what did it starting as TRio's pokemon add to anything?

 

[goldenchimchar]

Why was Grookey TRio's pokemon to begin with and not a wild pokemon? Really what did it starting as TRio's pokemon add to anything?

The writers had to justify giving Grookey to Goh somehow.

 

[Eitarou]

Why was Grookey TRio's pokemon to begin with and not a wild pokemon? Really what did it starting as TRio's pokemon add to anything?

They probably wanted to do something different?

 

[HiroHunter]

They probably wanted to do something different?

If that was the case they didn't do it well.

 

[Guzma]

I don't watch Journeys and I probably won't even watch a single episode until the shiny Volcarona episode hits Netflix, but man is this thread entertaining.

 

[Eitarou]

If that was the case they didn't do it well.

I like to think of it as karma for Yanma.