Controversial opinions

[lisianthus]

It's nothing really complex; it's just been suggested (occasionally stated as fact but as far as I know it has never been confirmed) that Alain defeating Ash twice before the league and Lysandre's interest in Battle Bond suggest Ash was supposed to win the finals, but late on somebody high up (I usually see it blamed on anonymous executives) forced them to change it for unknown reasons.


I wouldn't say XY failed; it's still got a lot of fans. It just built up more hype than it could deliver on.

I've heard...who was it, maybe Rica Matsumoto (Ash's Japanese voice) say that if Ash wins the League was decided on beforehand, so if I remembered correctly, that all but confirms it.
XY people: Ash is going to win the league, let's build up for a good series that will complement the victory!
[2.5 years later]
XY people: For [REDACTED REASON], Ash will not win the league. Please make the story have that ending.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

People who make nsfw generalizations about why people like Humanoid Pokémon are annoying, gross, and eye-roll worthy

I've heard people asking shit like :"Oh you like Gardevoir/Incineroar/Inteleon? You just want to **** it don't you?"

This type of thought process has never come to my head when thinking about these Pokémon (or any Pokémon) and it makes me feel physically ill that it's the first thing that comes to people's minds when they're mentioned

It's even dumber considering that the majority are Humanoid Pokémon aren't even the top contenders for amount of furry art in this Fandom. (The Eeveelutions get this in spades but nobody says that people only like them for NSFW purposes )

 

[Hidden Mew]

In a lot of ways I think where XY went wrong is that it was more interested in buildup than payoff.
They try to set Ash up as really cool and respected...but they won't let him make appreciable progress as a trainer.
They set up a romance arc...that goes nowhere.
They set up Greninja as having a special bond and power...then release him so nothing comes of it we hadn't seen other Pokémon accomplish without that.
The whole thing is just so bizarre from a writing standpoint I'm more and more starting to wonder if the lat minute force to switch theory might be true.

To be fair in regards to the romance arc, I think that the kiss in the finale was the most they could have reasonably done with it. I remember quite a few people wanted Ash to win the Kalos League and ride off into the sunset with Serena as his girlfriend, but that just wouldn't have made sense. They couldn't have Ash and Serena in an actual relationship given their two storylines and especially with Ash always being the protagonist. I don't think that they could have done anything beyond the confession and even that was more than fans expected.

The points on the buildup for Ash and especially Greninja are pretty understandable though. Even though I guess they're kind of the same point, I was more annoyed with Greninja's full power not leading to it defeating Mega Charizard X than Ash losing the Kalos League if that makes any sense. It still wasn't pointless when mastering its new power was still a major help in the Team Flare arc and I really liked Ash reconnecting with Greninja after losing in the eighth Gym, but it definitely seemed like there was more buildup going for Ash-Greninja beyond that. A part of me wouldn't be surprised if there was a last minute change with the Kalos League, mainly because Alain winning didn't really matter in the long run.

Sadly, I suspect it accidentally hurled a metaphorical brick through the window and the show will never build up that sort of anticipation again.

tl;dr: XY was Game of Thrones ending but rated G.

I'm not sure if it's that bad. I've never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones and I only know of the ending's reputation, but despite the lackluster payoff for the Kalos League and Greninja, I don't think it really affected XY's overall reception. It still seems to be pretty popular and well received from what I can tell. Despite all of the intense initial backlash for the Kalos League itself, things calmed down pretty quickly with the Team Flare arc. Although, I think that it also led to people thinking that XY was more serious and intense than it really was as a result.

Personally, I don't think that XY Ash was really that more serious either. It might have been because it was right after BW or due how the last chuck of XY was, but I always felt like saying that he was too serious to still be ten and similar notions was a bit much. Both SM and Journeys make him feel more like a ten year old kid with his demeanor by comparison, but he still didn't really come off too differently than he did during DP to me.

 

[UglyToast]

Alright, from watching this thread around like 5-6 months without opening an account, I finally found courage to open this account and share my opinions
Firstly I'm not a troll just to make it clear, I'm starting, here's my controversial takes.

1. XY Ash deserved to lose Kalos League.

2. Like How Greninja received Battle Bound thing, Delphox and Chesnaught should've gotten something like that too.

3. We need Pokemons talk eachother need to be translated with subtitles (maybe not always and not necessary but it wouldn't hurt)

4. Delphox is not Ugly (as well as Emboar) as peoples make out to be.

5. They should bring back Sceptile instead of Infernape, for more development cause for me, Sceptile kinda didn't develop as much as other aces Ash had, Like Charizard got itself an Arc and learning to listen Ash again, and Greninja having a whole season dedicated to it.
(I'm not saying this to see Sceptile more, and yes I know anime is in a way to promote games but Infernape's story ended on a very good note, If they HAVE to bring a Sinnoh Starter back, they can use Torterra, it didn't got much development)

But then again these are my opinions, feel free to disagree with me.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Just a friendly reminder that this thread is for controversial opinions on specifically the anime. Our Video Games section has an equivalent thread for anything pertaining to the games such as Pokémon designs etc.

 

[lisianthus]

Alright, from watching this thread around like 5-6 months without opening an account, I finally found courage to open this account and share my opinions
Firstly I'm not a troll just to make it clear, I'm starting, here's my controversial takes.

1. XY Ash deserved to lose Kalos League.

2. Like How Greninja received Battle Bound thing, Delphox and Chesnaught should've gotten something like that too.

3. We need Pokemons talk eachother need to be translated with subtitles (maybe not always and not necessary but it wouldn't hurt)

4. Delphox is not Ugly (as well as Emboar) as peoples make out to be.

5. They should bring back Sceptile instead of Infernape, for more development cause for me, Sceptile kinda didn't develop as much as other aces Ash had, Like Charizard got itself an Arc and learning to listen Ash again, and Greninja having a whole season dedicated to it.
(I'm not saying this to see Sceptile more, and yes I know anime is in a way to promote games but Infernape's story ended on a very good note, If they HAVE to bring a Sinnoh Starter back, they can use Torterra, it didn't got much development)

But then again these are my opinions, feel free to disagree with me.

Congrats for your courage!!
I'm responding now.
1. Please explain? I'm quite interested.
2. Also please explain? Those two were not the protagonist (Ash)'s Pokemon, so to give them the Battle Bond would have taken away the "special" feeling with it IMO. Additionally, Clemont never owned a Chesnaut. Serena wasn't focused on battling, it wouldn't have made sense.
3. I like this idea, however I think that they communicate with each other will always be part of the mysteries of Pokemon, unless if something is done about it.
4. Delphox is cute!! But I dislike emboar lol. Hey that's your opinion man
5. That seems relatively smart, I'm not updated on the anime so I can't comment on that.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

I've never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones and I only know of the ending's reputation, but despite the lackluster payoff for the Kalos League and Greninja, I don't think it really affected XY's overall reception. It still seems to be pretty popular and well received from what I can tell.

And at least with that, there's still people who like and talk about the show even with knowing about that ending whereas with Game of Thrones the minute the final episode aired and angered everyone, they pretty much proceeded to wipe all of their memories of said show clean and now I don't see a single person talk about it these days.

It went from being one of the biggest shows of all time... to just another flavor of the month that quickly hit it's best before date.

 

[prog rocker]

2. Like How Greninja received Battle Bound thing, Delphox and Chesnaught should've gotten something like that too.

This is something I actually wanted, since I like the starters being treated equally, but we almost ended with a Charizard 2.0 situation.

 

[RafaSceptile]

XY&Z feels more like Ash's Greninja anime than Ash's anime, and the penultimate episode is the pinnacle of this feeling

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

The points on the buildup for Ash and especially Greninja are pretty understandable though. Even though I guess they're kind of the same point, I was more annoyed with Greninja's full power not leading to it defeating Mega Charizard X than Ash losing the Kalos League if that makes any sense. It still wasn't pointless when mastering its new power was still a major help in the Team Flare arc and I really liked Ash reconnecting with Greninja after losing in the eighth Gym, but it definitely seemed like there was more buildup going for Ash-Greninja beyond that. A part of me wouldn't be surprised if there was a last minute change with the Kalos League, mainly because Alain winning didn't really matter in the long run.

I think what makes Greninja's loss to Charizard especially weird is that immediately afterwards, Lysandre arbitrarily decides that Greninja's bond phenomenon is superior to the bond of Mega Evolution, so he uses Ash and Greninja for his plans instead of Alain and Charizard like he originally intended. And let's face it, Lysandre's conclusions would make a lot more sense if Greninja had defeated Charizard. So yeah, not only does Greninja's loss effectively render all the hype and buildup of its Bond Phenomenon basically moot, it straight up doesn't mesh at all with the stuff that happens later.

It's even dumber considering that the majority are Humanoid Pokémon aren't even the top contenders for amount of furry art in this Fandom. (The Eeveelutions get this in spades but nobody says that people only like them for NSFW purposes )

You better not be making this assumption of Eeveelution fans yourself, though. Because speaking as a shameless Eeveelution fan, I find it so perplexing and gross that they get so much NSFW art. In general, though, NSFW art of any Pokemon just feels wrong, seeing how this is still a franchise primarily aimed at kids and all. That said, sorry if you've gotten accusations of this nature yourself. It sucks that people just aren't allowed to like anything in an innocent context these days.

 

[Daren]

I'm not sure if it's that bad. I've never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones and I only know of the ending's reputation, but despite the lackluster payoff for the Kalos League and Greninja, I don't think it really affected XY's overall reception. It still seems to be pretty popular and well received from what I can tell. Despite all of the intense initial backlash for the Kalos League itself, things calmed down pretty quickly with the Team Flare arc. Although, I think that it also led to people thinking that XY was more serious and intense than it really was as a result.

And at least with that, there's still people who like and talk about the show even with knowing about that ending whereas with Game of Thrones the minute the final episode aired and angered everyone, they pretty much proceeded to wipe all of their memories of said show clean and now I don't see a single person talk about it these days.

It went from being one of the biggest shows of all time... to just another flavor of the month that quickly hit it's best before date.

I should specify I didn't mean that XY's reputation sank to the same extent GoT did (GOT's ending backlash feels nigh unprecedented to me, at least for television), but that a number of the complaints were of a similar nature.

Although the XY backlash had a weird component I saw on non-Pokémon sites where a lot of former viewers started watching XY based off it's strong internet rep and desire to see Ash win a league; I doubt many of them stuck around for Team Flare. I'm not sure how many came back for the Alola league.

To be fair in regards to the romance arc, I think that the kiss in the finale was the most they could have reasonably done with it. I remember quite a few people wanted Ash to win the Kalos League and ride off into the sunset with Serena as his girlfriend, but that just wouldn't have made sense. They couldn't have Ash and Serena in an actual relationship given their two storylines and especially with Ash always being the protagonist. I don't think that they could have done anything beyond the confession and even that was more than fans expected.

Personally I figured it wouldn't go anywhere, but I saw enough complaints about how it ended I figured I'd mention it. Honestly it felt like sort of a waste to me to spend such a long time on a romance we know they couldn't really give a conclusion to one way or the other.

I think what makes Greninja's loss to Charizard especially weird is that immediately afterwards, Lysandre arbitrarily decides that Greninja's bond phenomenon is superior to the bond of Mega Evolution, so he uses Ash and Greninja for his plans instead of Alain and Charizard like he originally intended. And let's face it, Lysandre's conclusions would make a lot more sense if Greninja had defeated Charizard. So yeah, not only does Greninja's loss effectively render all the hype and buildup of its Bond Phenomenon basically moot, it straight up doesn't mesh at all with the stuff that happens later.

Yeah, it definitely fuels the "was this a last minute rewrite?" feeling.

 

[Enzo]

To be fair in regards to the romance arc, I think that the kiss in the finale was the most they could have reasonably done with it. I remember quite a few people wanted Ash to win the Kalos League and ride off into the sunset with Serena as his girlfriend, but that just wouldn't have made sense. They couldn't have Ash and Serena in an actual relationship given their two storylines and especially with Ash always being the protagonist. I don't think that they could have done anything beyond the confession and even that was more than fans expected.

And this is why to me, personaly, this romance was kinda of pointless.

Like, okay, having an slighter ''older'' Ash having an actual romantic relationship sounds good on paper, but in all honesty, it was kinda of something fated to failure imo. It was obvious that they couldn't actually dive into that deep in this subject. Because these two were/are just 12 (?) year olds. The only way I could see it actually take flight would be if both of them got aged up at least a bit, but as you can tell, there's no way in hell they would let Ash grow up that much.

There's only so much that you can do with two 12 year olds in a situation like this. Idk if I can explain it this well, but it was an shot to the foot, since the writers themselves knew they couldn't do a lot with it but tried to anyways.

 

[Hidden Mew]

And this is why to me, personaly, this romance was kinda of pointless.

Like, okay, having an slighter ''older'' Ash having an actual romantic relationship sounds good on paper, but in all honesty, it was kinda of something fated to failure imo. It was obvious that they couldn't actually dive into that deep in this subject. Because these two were/are just 12 (?) year olds. The only way I could see it actually take flight would be if both of them got aged up at least a bit, but as you can tell, there's no way in hell they would let Ash grow up that much.

There's only so much that you can do with two 12 year olds in a situation like this. Idk if I can explain it this well, but it was an shot to the foot, since the writers themselves knew they couldn't do a lot with it but tried to anyways.

They were both ten years old kids. Ash is a forever ten year old boy and while I don't think that the anime confirmed Serena's age, I assume that she's also ten years old like all of the other beginning trainers over the course of the anime. It's true that there still isn't much to really do with ten year old kids in a romantic relationship, especially when XY wasn't a romance series to begin with, but I don't think that make it really pointless per say. It didn't really come off as a plot point so much as a gimmick or a way to make Serena more distinct from the start. The crush was certainly there and affected their dynamic from Serena's perspective, but it wasn't really treated like a plot point compared to something like Ash-Greninja

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

I really hope Dawn's Buneary has evolved into a Lopunny by the time she retuns

Dawn's Buneary was some incredibly wasted potential imo

It's been with Dawn almost as long as Piplup and yet it never got any development

I think it actually would've been a lot more interesting if the show actually acknowledged how Buneary is the only Pokémon in the games (not counting Legendaries) that starts at Base 0 Friendship

Could've been possibly some really nice development of seeing Dawn trying to get Buneary to warm up to her


But nah let's instead throw that potential out the window to have Buneary primarily revolve around her crush on Pikachu

 

[lisianthus]

I think it actually would've been a lot more interesting if the show actually acknowledged how Buneary is the only Pokémon in the games (not counting Legendaries) that starts at Base 0 Friendship

Could've been possibly some really nice development of seeing Dawn trying to get Buneary to warm up to her

Would have been smart to do this.
Something like Brock saying "You know, many Pokemon researchers have found that Buneary are quite cold to their owners for some reason.", and they try to get it to like Dawn more for an episode (or as a recurring segment around the arc of the anime).

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Journeys Ash is very experienced and shows it off too in his battles. He just beat a Champion recently, even.

Battling is basically what Ash's goal is all about. What else would he do?

Ash's existence was maintained outside of battles in other series, though. He’s more like a companion in this series imo.

And again, your post highlights a major problem with the Iris battle for me. People go back and forth on whether or not Ash beating a "Champion" counts or not. I wouldn’t put this in line with the other champion battles since without Iris' advise, Ash's dragonite would've lost. I’m not sure if every champion gives pep talks to their opponents. Ash gets his battles, but all of them come at a huge cost recently.

And even though JN Ash does it, there are other reasons people don’t like the way he’s being handled. It seems like the equivalent of quoting someone's opinion and going... "No."

 

[UglyToast]

Congrats for your courage!!
I'm responding now.
1. Please explain? I'm quite interested.
2. Also please explain? Those two were not the protagonist (Ash)'s Pokemon, so to give them the Battle Bond would have taken away the "special" feeling with it IMO. Additionally, Clemont never owned a Chesnaut. Serena wasn't focused on battling, it wouldn't have made sense.
3. I like this idea, however I think that they communicate with each other will always be part of the mysteries of Pokemon, unless if something is done about it.
4. Delphox is cute!! But I dislike emboar lol. Hey that's your opinion man
5. That seems relatively smart, I'm not updated on the anime so I can't comment on that.

1. Because he focused on his regional starter way more than he did with his other Pokemons, Noivern and Goodra could use some more training to evade attacks and learn more powerful moves than they already had.

2. For equality, Protean is already made Greninja broken in competitive
(Imagine that in anime with no move limit, it would be way more OP than it did in games and I know mod said don't bring game ones here but since you already asked me for an answer, I might as well answer that)
Besides Chesnaught has a way of being useful with Bullet Proof but Delphox with Magician is pretty useless unless you want to do something specific.
(They could've given it Magic Bounce or Magic Guard and either way it would have worked better)

3. I mean they had done that in OG series for one episode I think (not entirely sure about that) and If you ask me they can still do it, I don't think many peoples (or children) would dislike something like that, since it would give more personality to Pokemons and make them feel more alive.

4. I'm not going to try to change your mind about Emboar but I believe some parts of it's design can use a few changes.

5. I mean If you don't know, I don't want to spoil for you, so either search it up from the internet or watch the anime (or least last 25 episodes) to understand things.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

XY&Z feels more like Ash's Greninja anime than Ash's anime, and the penultimate episode is the pinnacle of this feeling

100% agreed. I've been saying the same myself. Greninja feels so much like a typical shonen hero with a grand destiny that it can even feel cliche.

not only does Greninja's loss effectively render all the hype and buildup of its Bond Phenomenon basically moot, it straight up doesn't mesh at all with the stuff that happens later.

Kalos League wasn't what it had the Bond Phenomenon for. It was for stopping the disaster caused by Team Flare.

 

[UglyToast]

100% agreed. I've been saying the same myself. Greninja feels so much like a typical shonen hero with a grand destiny that it can even feel cliche.

Kalos League wasn't what it had the Bond Phenomenon for. It was for stopping the disaster caused by Team Flare.

Honestly I don't blame for peoples thinking Ash would win a league finally in Kalos, producers hyped every single drop of that and I think that was the XY&Z anime's biggest flaw, Hyping something too much and not delivering that said thing.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Kalos League wasn't what it had the Bond Phenomenon for. It was for stopping the disaster caused by Team Flare.

That comes across as rather weak though when you realize that Greninja had basically zero connection to Team Flare beyond the five seconds of Lysadre randomly deciding that Bond Phenomenon was better than Megas (...right after seeing said Bond Phenomenon getting utterly stomped by a Mega, so his conclusion doesn't make a shred of sense). If some sort of connection between Greninja and Team Flare had been established early on, maybe the argument about Bond Phenomenon being more for stopping Team Flare would have some weight to it, but as things are, said Bond Phenomenon seemed to be set up far more for the purposes of League Beating than anything to do with stopping Team Flare, what with imperfect Ash-Greninja coming fairly close to beating Diantha's Mega Gardevoir, the ongoing rivalry with Sawyer's Sceptile, and then the rivalry with Mega Charizard X. By contrast, the only thing the Team Flare crisis has going for it in regards to Ash-Greninja stopping it is Olympia's prophesy, which is fine and all but sorely lacks personal stakes to make it compelling.

Contrast this with Infernape, who from the very beginning of DP was built up to overcome its former abusive trainer and prove him wrong and at the end succeeds in doing exactly that, making for a very satisfying conclusion to its story even if Ash did end up losing the League.

Even all of this aside, though, there's really no reason why we couldn't have had both a League win and a stopping ultimate evil purpose for Ash-Greninja. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.