Controversial opinions

[PaperSplash]

Given how Z-Moves and Dynamax have been handled, I don't think that the next regional gimmick will exclusively focus on older Pokemon like Mega Evolution did. There are still exclusive Z-Moves and Gigatamax forms for older Pokemon of course, but they also incorporated new Pokemon. That's why we got Alola starter Z-Moves and Gigtamax forms for the Galar starters. I don't think that Game Freak will go back to handling new forms like they did with Mega Evolutions. As much as people liked the idea and have put Mega Pokemon on more of a pedestal over the years than what I recall during the sixth generation, I think putting the focus exclusively on older Pokemon was a huge limitation, which is why the other regional gimmicks have focused more on both old and new Pokemon.

I can still understand liking the idea of Ash having more freedom in what he can catch. On paper, that sounds really cool, but with the minimal screentime and development his Pokemon have gotten, that freedom doesn't really mean anything. The little Galar representation on his team doesn't help either. Although, that applies for Journeys as a whole too, so that isn't exclusive to just Ash's team.

Fair point. Game Freak has indeed been moving away from the regional gimmicks exclusive to older Pokémon in these past two generations with Z-Moves and G-Max forms. I do think that it's still very possible that we'll eventually get another gimmick exclusive to older Pokémon again though. It's hard to know for sure though and I don't want to go too off-topic talking about the games.

Yes, freedom and variety is another reason I like the regional restrictions on Ash's team being removed, but you make another good point about it not mattering much if the screentime between them is balanced improperly, like it certainly is in Journeys. I guess I was just looking at this subject from an overly idealistic perspective that isn't realistically going to happen, the anime being the glorified marketing tool that it is. If the newer Pokémon aren't prioritized in terms of focus, then the most marketable ones will, which isn't exactly the freedom I was envisioning.

 

[Sai]

So is it safe to agree Dawn's Piplup is still the most marketable and popular pokemon ever owned by a female companion in the series? Seeing how it was the star of Dawn's cameos, that whole music video was centered around it, and it's never been surpassed by any other female leads main pokemon in comparison.

Thinking about Togepi, Torchic, Axew, Braixen, Alola Vulpix or Koharu's Eevee, none of them really broke out into mainstream evergreen popularity like Dawn's Piplup did. It actually amazes me it's been like 15 years since DP started and the little penguin is still just as popular now as it was two decades ago.

 

[Hidden Mew]

So is it safe to agree Dawn's Piplup is still the most marketable and popular pokemon ever owned by a female companion in the series? Seeing how it was the star of Dawn's cameos, that whole music video was centered around it, and it's never been surpassed by any other female leads main pokemon in comparison.

Thinking about Togepi, Torchic, Axew, Braixen, Alola Vulpix or Koharu's Eevee, none of them really broke out into mainstream evergreen popularity like Dawn's Piplup did. It actually amazes me it's been like 15 years since DP started and the little penguin is still just as popular now as it was two decades ago.

I'm not sure if that would even be up for debate. Dawn's Piplup is practically her version of Pikachu in regards to being marketable as can be. While I still think Dawn herself is still quite popular among all of the female leads, I'm pretty sure that she's gotten multiple posters for her returns in large part due to Piplup's popularity as well.

I think that the only other main Pokemon from other female leads that comes close to Piplup are Togepi and maybe Alolan Vulpix. Togepi would be at least more recognizable by older fans since Misty had it for most of the original series. It might be more accurate to say that Alolan Vulpix itself is popular instead of Snowy in particular, but it's still one of the more popular regional forms. I don't think that they were really trying to give May or Serena really marketable partner Pokemon in the same vein as Piplup. I think that they tried to do that with Axew, but I don't think it was particularly popular.

 

[Soniman]

Does anyone else feel like May's Torchic was handled like crap now that we're on the subject?it was treated so poorly because May focused all her attention on Beautifly for Contests and Torchic just warmed the bench. It's made even worse because Max specifically points this out to Ash and Brock in one episode and both of them tell him he's crazy and that May obviously loves it, and after that episode Torchic continued to be ignored proving Max right until it finally evolved and became useful for May to utilize in Contest where it was treated well from then on. She never has any sort of realization prior of how badly she was neglecting it, because we were told she wasn't and that's that I guess.

It's just so weird to me the writers were self aware enough to know they wrote May as basically ignoring Torchic and acknowledged it but immediately doubled down and say everything was fine and May treat it well by the narrative when she obviously not. Such a baffling way yo handle that entire thing like I've never seen the show so clearly acknowledge a writing faux pa in universe only to tell the audience they're not gonna do anything to fix it LOL

 

[Sai]

Interesting enough it's also the only starter of the series that's portrayed as realistically weak for what should be a Level 5 starter from a lab. Every other starter seems to be capable of battling right away. Even odder is like 2 eps before AG started we had Harrisons Blaziken hyped up as Ash's final battle in Johto, so the writers had made the Hoenn starter line a big thing, and we go from that to Torchic doing practically nothing for 80 episodes. Like it took until the last year of Hoenn for Torchic to evolve, they was crazy in retrospect since 2/3rds of May's run was nearly over.

A lot if early AG was experimental so I can't fault it too much, but it really did seem like the writers had no interest in Torchic at all. It wasn't just Beautifly but also Skitty and her Bulbasaur got more sceentime than it during the same time too. So weird since Blaziken was the first Gen 3 starter debuted in the anime in the Johto league and they didn't take advantage of that in AG at all. Besides May having a slow start in general, it feels like May was the Serena before Serena existed.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Does anyone else feel like May's Torchic was handled like crap now that we're on the subject?it was treated so poorly because May focused all her attention on Beautifly for Contests and Torchic just warmed the bench. It's made even worse because Max specifically points this out to Ash and Brock in one episode and both of them tell him he's crazy and that May obviously loves it, and after that episode Torchic continued to be ignored proving Max right until it finally evolved and became useful for May to utilize in Contest where it was treated well from then on. She never has any sort of realization prior of how badly she was neglecting it, because we were told she wasn't and that's that I guess.

It's just so weird to me the writers were self aware enough to know they wrote May as basically ignoring Torchic and acknowledged it but immediately doubled down and say everything was fine and May treat it well by the narrative when she obviously not. Such a baffling way yo handle that entire thing like I've never seen the show so clearly acknowledge a writing faux pa in universe only to tell the audience they're not gonna do anything to fix it LOL

I wouldn't really go that far in regards to how May treated it. She was definitely more focused on trying to win a Contest with her Beautifly since that was part of the inspiration for her to become a Coordinator in the first place, but she did clearly care about her Torchic. In that same episode, she was relieved to find Torchic after Ash and Max tried to use it to hide the fact that another Torchic evolved before it could be chosen as a starter Pokemon. I think it's just hard for me to see it as being neglected when aside from one brief moment where it looked sad, Torchic never had any problems. It was still happy to be with May and it was never brought up again. Torchic being on the sideline in favor of May's other Pokemon doesn't really come off as neglect.

That being said, it was still a really bad decision to not have Torchic involved in a Contest until it evolved. While Torchic was weak and took awhile for it to even use its moves properly, it still should have been used at least during an appeal round before it became a Combusken. I think that would have potentially helped in fleshing out May's connection to her partner Pokemon and make Torchic look less useless prior to evolving. That was something that I appreciated about Dawn right from the start. She used Piplup right from the start and trained for it to be in Contests. To be fair, Dawn knew she wanted to be a Top Coordinator, they were definitely more interested in making Piplup a mascot than they ever were for Torchic and Piplup honestly has more personality than Torchic did, but even back when DP first started, I liked that Dawn actually used her starter for her Contests.

Interesting enough it's also the only starter of the series that's portrayed as realistically weak for what should be a Level 5 starter from a lab. Every other starter seems to be capable of battling right away. Even odder is like 2 eps before AG started we had Harrisons Blaziken hyped up as Ash's final battle in Johto, so the writers had made the Hoenn starter line a big thing, and we go from that to Torchic doing practically nothing for 80 episodes. Like it took until the last year of Hoenn for Torchic to evolve, they was crazy in retrospect since 2/3rds of May's run was nearly over.

A lot if early AG was experimental so I can't fault it too much, but it really did seem like the writers had no interest in Torchic at all. It wasn't just Beautifly but also Skitty and her Bulbasaur got more sceentime than it during the same time too. So weird since Blaziken was the first Gen 3 starter debuted in the anime in the Johto league and they didn't take advantage of that in AG at all. Besides May having a slow start in general, it feels like May was the Serena before Serena existed.

I'm not sure about Bulbasaur getting more screentime. One of the reasons why I didn't like May dropping it off at Professor Oak's lab before the Battle Frontier arc was that I thought it didn't get enough attention. But that could have been also due to how I liked its capture episode and there was no good reason for May not to keep it when she still had an open slot for the rest of AG. I assume that they didn't want to give her a Blaziken too early since it might have been too strong. I think giving her a Blaziken before she left showed that May was ready to make it on her own, but at the same time, they also limited how much screentime and presence it could have. Although, I'm probably more disappointed that they didn't evolve Brock's Marshtomp since it would have been so cool for three main characters to have fully evolve starters for that generation.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Speaking of May's Pokemon, can we talk about her Squirtle for a bit? From what I've seen it appears to be the least popular of her Pokemon, and to be honest I can see why: May getting yet another Kanto Starter to promote FireRed/LeafGreen when Bulbasaur was already filling that role was way overkill, and I've also seen people complain that Squirtle was too unreallistically strong for a baby. I'm not sure if it's fair to single Squirtle out for that specifically, though, since strong baby Pokemon are actually not that uncommon in the anime, but perhaps Squirtle having somewhat of a needy "please coddle me at all times" personality just looked too dissonant with its power level. It also probably didn't help that May would later get another baby Pokemon in Eevee, who was far less needy and whiny than Squirtle despite being younger, making the turtle look somewhat immature on top of everything else. Actually, now that I think of it, May's Squirtle was something of an Axew prototype. Granted, I do think Squirtle was much better handled than Axew, since at least Squirtle actually did have more believable growth within its series while Axew had basically all his accomplishment bar the mastery of Dragon Rage being Deus Ex Machinas.

All that being said, I think the problem with May's Squirtle really only boils down to it being another Kanto Starter on May's team and essentially replacing Bulbasaur. I think its presence made May's lineup feel a little too similar to Ash's Kanto roster, which can come off a bit odd. I personally theorize that May being given Squirtle might have had a bit less to do with Gen 1 remake promotion and a bit more to do with the writers feeling that, like Ash, May needed to have a Fire/Grass/Water core and it was simply decided that none of the Hoenn Water-types were good fits for May so they just dumped another Kanto Starter on her. I do think that trying to adhere so hard to that specific lineup for companions was not a good idea in the long run, and it seems that the writers did realize this, as none of Ash's subsequent companions have ever had that type triangle on their teams. Something that I'm personally really glad for. I'm glad that Dawn doesn't have a Grass-type. I'm glad that Serena was given a Fighting and a Fairy-type instead of a Water and a Grass-type to complement her Braixen. It makes their teams stand out more from Ash's, and in a good way.

 

[Sai]

Yeah it was all of that, and it's also that it beat Harley in the first Kanto contest as a baby when it would have been more interesting to build Harley up as a threat in the next arc. The writers learned from that because Harley beats her Munchlax in the next contest after. In a way though her Squirtle was a precursor to Piplup, it did the same ice beam and bubble appeals you would see Dawn's Piplup and Buneary do in the next arc.

I also wish May kept her Hoenn pokemon into BF. Weirdly May never had a full team at once because she dropped all her pokemon besides Combusken or Munchlax after Hoenn ended. Beautifly especially should have stayed on her team permanently and I'm glad it came back in the end and in DP

 

[Hidden Mew]

Speaking of May's Pokemon, can we talk about her Squirtle for a bit? From what I've seen it appears to be the least popular of her Pokemon, and to be honest I can see why: May getting yet another Kanto Starter to promote FireRed/LeafGreen when Bulbasaur was already filling that role was way overkill, and I've also seen people complain that Squirtle was too unreallistically strong for a baby. I'm not sure if it's fair to single Squirtle out for that specifically, though, since strong baby Pokemon are actually not that uncommon in the anime, but perhaps Squirtle having somewhat of a needy "please coddle me at all times" personality just looked too dissonant with its power level. It also probably didn't help that May would later get another baby Pokemon in Eevee, who was far less needy and whiny than Squirtle despite being younger, making the turtle look somewhat immature on top of everything else. Actually, now that I think of it, May's Squirtle was something of an Axew prototype. Granted, I do think Squirtle was much better handled than Axew, since at least Squirtle actually did have more believable growth within its series while Axew had basically all his accomplishment bar the mastery of Dragon Rage being Deus Ex Machinas.

Yeah, it was a really odd choice to give her a second Kanto starter when she still had Bulbasaur. I think giving May mostly Pokemon to tie in with FR/LG and D/P really contributed to her team being a bit less memorable oddly enough. Despite being the representative of the third generation, she only had three third generation Pokemon for her team. Dawn had some Pokemon that were evolved forms of second generation Pokemon, but her team is still clearly all fourth generation Pokemon, which I think helped to make them feel more natural. I still think she should have at least kept her Bulbasaur, if only because I think being in Kanto Contests would have made its eventual Venuasaur cameo more believable.

As for Squirtle itself, I do remember people thinking that it was too strong for a baby Pokemon, but that issue seems less understandable over time. The anime has always been rather inconsistent with how strong baby Pokemon are. Togepi was treated as if it didn't know any moves because it was too young, but then Ash's Phanpy in the same series hatched perfectly battle ready with a few moves. Not to mention Scraggy's moves were weak for quite some time. I do remember people being annoyed at Squirtle defeating Harely during its first Contest though, along with it just suddenly learning Ice Beam out of nowhere with no training from May. The comparison with Axew is interesting. I can kind of see it given their more baby personality traits, although I'd still say that Axew didn't even earn its Dragon Rage accomplishment in my opinion. Getting another baby Pokemon with Eevee so soon afterwards probably didn't help matters either.

All that being said, I think the problem with May's Squirtle really only boils down to it being another Kanto Starter on May's team and essentially replacing Bulbasaur. I think its presence made May's lineup feel a little too similar to Ash's Kanto roster, which can come off a bit odd. I personally theorize that May being given Squirtle might have had a bit less to do with Gen 1 remake promotion and a bit more to do with the writers feeling that, like Ash, May needed to have a Fire/Grass/Water core and it was simply felt that none of the Hoenn Water-types were good fits for May so they just dumped another Kanto Starter on her. I do think that trying to adhere so hard to that specific lineup for companions was not a good idea in the long run, and it seems that the writers did realize this, as none of Ash's subsequent companions have ever had that type triangle on their teams. Something that I'm personally really glad for. I'm glad that Dawn doesn't have a Grass-type. I'm glad that Serena was given a Fighting and a Fairy-type instead of a Water and a Grass-type to complement her Braixen. It makes their teams stand out more from Ash's, and in a good way.

Oddly enough, I do wish that Dawn had gotten a Grass type, if only to give her team a bit more variety. Plus, I really think a Leafeon would have been cool to see in the main cast.

I also wish May kept her Hoenn pokemon into BF. Weirdly May never had a full team at once because she dropped all her pokemon besides Combusken or Munchlax after Hoenn ended. Beautifly especially should have stayed on her team permanently and I'm glad it came back in the end and in DP

I can kind of see why they didn't keep Beautifly and Skitty into the Battle Frontier. May had relied on those two pretty frequently throughout her Hoenn Contests, so giving her the chance to try out new Pokemon for her Kanto Contests made sense. They did need to make room for Squritle and Eevee, although they probably could have just given her Eevee instead given that May needlessly had an empty slot for the rest of the series anyway. Admittedly, the fact that they gave Squirtle Ice Beam after May relied so much on Skitty's Blizzard doesn't really help with this idea. Plus, Beautifly was her first Pokemon capture, so leaving it at home did feel like a bit of an odd choice with that in mind. It was still nice to see it shine in DP though. It showed how much better May had become in Contest battles with her Beautifly, especially compared to their first Contest together.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Yeah, it was a really odd choice to give her a second Kanto starter when she still had Bulbasaur. I think giving May mostly Pokemon to tie in with FR/LG and D/P really contributed to her team being a bit less memorable oddly enough. Despite being the representative of the third generation, she only had three third generation Pokemon for her team. Dawn had some Pokemon that were evolved forms of second generation Pokemon, but her team is still clearly all fourth generation Pokemon, which I think helped to make them feel more natural. I still think she should have at least kept her Bulbasaur, if only because I think being in Kanto Contests would have made its eventual Venuasaur cameo more believable.

Yeah, the lack of Hoenn Pokemon in May's team makes it even sadder that the writers ultimately decided not to let her catch that Swablu she bonded with early in the series. Not only would it have added at least one extra Hoenn Pokemon to her team, but Altaria is a beautiful and graceful Pokemon that feels ideal for Contests. Plus, it could have potentially made for a nice rivalry with Drew's Flygon. And yeah, May really should have kept Bulbasaur with her in her Kanto journey as not only would it have made the eventual Venusaur less jarring, especially if Bulbasaur evolved into Ivysaur during the BF, but it might have lessened the negative feelings towards her Squirtle at least a tad, since there'd be no case to be made that it replaced Bulbasaur. I still think Squirtle should not have been caught even then, though. Bulbasaur was perfectly fine Gen 1 remake rep by herself, and with Munchlax being the Gen 4 teaser and Eevee sort of pulling double duty in a single package (being a Gen 1 Pokemon with new Gen 4 evolutions. Not to mention that evolving into Glaceon gave May's team some nice type variety), Squirtle really is the most superfluous and unnecessary of May's catches. I kinda tend to go back and forth a bit on which Pokemon I wish May had caught and which ones I wish she hadn't, but Squirtle has always firmly been in the "shouldn't have been caught" camp for me.

Oddly enough, I do wish that Dawn had gotten a Grass type, if only to give her team a bit more variety. Plus, I really think a Leafeon would have been cool to see in the main cast.

Eh, I will admit that with so many girl companions having Eevees these days I find it extremely refreshing in hindsight that Dawn never got one. I'd probably be more into the idea of Dawn with a Leafeon if at least Sandy had never existed, though. A hypothetical Leafeon for Dawn certainly would have had way more action, importance, and development than Sandy could have ever had, so it would have gone down much better. It would have also better showcased the new evolution method, since May's Glaceon only evolved via flashback. The only other snag I can see with this is that Zoey already had a Leafeon herself, but maybe she could have been the one to showcase Togekiss instead, as Togekiss was already an extremely late catch for Dawn anyway and only really did stuff in the Grand Festival, so it wouldn't have made much of a difference for Zoey to be the one to have it. Plus, Togekiss is an extremely powerful Pokemon (it has a BST of 545, which is kind of insane), so it would have better reflected Zoey's status as the "more powerful and experienced" rival figure. Also, Zoey did have a Gallade and a Mismagius, both of which evolve with Evolution Stones that were introduced in Gen 4, so giving her a Togekiss would effectively complete the whole set. So... yeah, TL;DR, Dawn and Zoey maybe should have swapped Togekiss and Leafeon with each other. Meta-wise, I mean.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Everyone on Twitter: "Lucario and Cinderace are the best Pokemon Duo!" "Best Bros!" "Best Ship!"

Me in the corner:

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

"Best Ship!"

Spoiler

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

They haven't even let Lucario and Cinderace properly interact in probably 48 episodes.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Spoiler

View attachment 155295

Hey don't look at me like that, I just know it's a very popular ship. Not helped by JN48.

Even from a shipper viewpoint I personally think these two have next to no chemistry imo

They haven't even let Lucario and Cinderace properly interact in probably 48 episodes.

Yeah most of the time they're just standing next to each other

They share only ONE episode, where the two just barely tolerate each other to rescue Pikachu

Hardly what I'd consider the "Best Pokemon Duo"

In Journeys? Sure maybe but that's a damn low bar with all things considered.

But in the franchise overall? FAT NO.

 

[HiroHunter]

Everyone on Twitter: "Lucario and Cinderace are the best Pokemon Duo!" "Best Bros!" "Best Ship!"

When was the last time they talked to each other? And saying that they're the best Pokemon Duo in JN isn't saying anything because what other Pokemon Duos are there. But in all time in the Pokemon Anime. NOPE they're not even in the same ball park as older and better Pokemon Duos.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

When was the last time they talked to each other? And saying that they're the best Pokemon Duo in JN isn't saying anything because what other Pokemon Duos are there. But in all time in the Pokemon Anime. NOPE they're not even in the same ball park as older and better Pokemon Duos.

Not even close. Look at the likes of Bulbasaur and Squirtle, Chespin and Pancham, Hawlucha and Noivern, or Rowlet and Melmetal.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Guys, please remember that these are shippers, and if any of you have been around fandoms long enough it should come as no surprise that they're shouting "OTP!" at a couple with next to no canonical interactions. Seriously, shippers of just about every fandom do this literally all the time. It's practically a professional sport for them.

Lucario and Cinderace probably would have been shipped by someone even if Journeys hadn't tried to push them as counterparts simply because they're both popular mons based on anthropomorphic animals and that concept alone is inherently interesting to a lot of people. Heck, the fact that Lucario is a canine and Cinderace a rabbit makes me sort of surprised that I haven't seen anyone do a Beastars crossover with these two yet. Another thing that helps push these two as a "couple" is also probably an extension of the AshXGoh ship.

 

[Unireon]

Satoshi x Gou is the worst shit, ship; I have ever seen, between main characters, in any media.

I loathe relationships where there is someone that only takes without giving.
Went so far to call it Journeys/DualProtagonistsshitting in Twitter.

And I also fail to see what is so appealing in the shillmon and the banished as a ship.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Yeah, the lack of Hoenn Pokemon in May's team makes it even sadder that the writers ultimately decided not to let her catch that Swablu she bonded with early in the series. Not only would it have added at least one extra Hoenn Pokemon to her team, but Altaria is a beautiful and graceful Pokemon that feels ideal for Contests. Plus, it could have potentially made for a nice rivalry with Drew's Flygon. And yeah, May really should have kept Bulbasaur with her in her Kanto journey as not only would it have made the eventual Venusaur less jarring, especially if Bulbasaur evolved into Ivysaur during the BF, but it might have lessened the negative feelings towards her Squirtle at least a tad, since there'd be no case to be made that it replaced Bulbasaur. I still think Squirtle should not have been caught even then, though. Bulbasaur was perfectly fine Gen 1 remake rep by herself, and with Munchlax being the Gen 4 teaser and Eevee sort of pulling double duty in a single package (being a Gen 1 Pokemon with new Gen 4 evolutions. Not to mention that evolving into Glaceon gave May's team some nice type variety), Squirtle really is the most superfluous and unnecessary of May's catches. I kinda tend to go back and forth a bit on which Pokemon I wish May had caught and which ones I wish she hadn't, but Squirtle has always firmly been in the "shouldn't have been caught" camp for me.

It was such a cruel tease for May to even bring out a Pokeball to catch Swablu only for its flock to show up a second later. Swablu would have been absolutely perfect for Contests and the bond between May and Swablu felt so genuine too. The only reason I think that they didn't let May catch it was because the writers didn't want anyone in the main cast to have a Dragon type, but even that would be kind of weak when Altaria wasn't really considered a powerful Dragon type at the time. She did already have a Flying type with Beautifly, but the writers never cared about repeating types before, especially for Ash's teams. A rivalry between May's Swablu and Drew's Flygon would have been really cool.

I didn't have that much of a problem with Squirlte at the time, but between it and Bulbasaur, I always preferred May's Bulbasaur. It had a better capture episode, a bit more personality and I think that it needed more attention, so I would have been fine with May not getting her Squirtle. I don't know if Bulbasaur could have evolved into Ivysaur during the Battle Frontier, if only because of how many evolutions they saved for May after she left the cast, but that would have been cool. As much as I liked Wartortle's performance during the Wallace Cup, I would have been happy if they just gave that appearance to her Ivysaur/Venusaur instead. May didn't really need multiple Pokemon representing FR/LG. Even Munchlax didn't really get to do anything until the Battle Frontier arc. She didn't even know its moves during the Grand Festival, which didn't reflect well on her skills as a trainer.

Eh, I will admit that with so many girl companions having Eevees these days I find it extremely refreshing in hindsight that Dawn never got one. I'd probably be more into the idea of Dawn with a Leafeon if at least Sandy had never existed, though. A hypothetical Leafeon for Dawn certainly would have had way more action, importance, and development than Sandy could have ever had, so it would have gone down much better. It would have also better showcased the new evolution method, since May's Glaceon only evolved via flashback. The only other snag I can see with this is that Zoey already had a Leafeon herself, but maybe she could have been the one to showcase Togekiss instead, as Togekiss was already an extremely late catch for Dawn anyway and only really did stuff in the Grand Festival, so it wouldn't have made much of a difference for Zoey to be the one to have it. Plus, Togekiss is an extremely powerful Pokemon (it has a BST of 545, which is kind of insane), so it would have better reflected Zoey's status as the "more powerful and experienced" rival figure. Also, Zoey did have a Gallade and a Mismagius, both of which evolve with Evolution Stones that were introduced in Gen 4, so giving her a Togekiss would effectively complete the whole set. So... yeah, TL;DR, Dawn and Zoey maybe should have swapped Togekiss and Leafeon with each other. Meta-wise, I mean.

While I'm not as bothered by the amount of girls getting Eevee over the past few series, I can understand that issue, especially when Sandy barely existed after its capture episode. I'm not sure how Dawn could have gotten an Eevee. Cyndaquil was already her baby Pokemon and it probably would have been better to give her an Eevee in a different way just to make it more distinct from May's Eevee. Zoey had her Leafeon and it was featured in her battle against Nando, easily one of the best Contest battles and one of the reasons why I thought that she deserved to win the Grand Festival. It sill would have been nice for Leafeon to be featured more during the series, if only because it became one of my favorite Eevee evolutions when I raised it in Ultra Moon.

Swapping Togekiss and Leafeon with Dawn and Zoey does sound quite nice. Not only because of how much I hated Togekiss's capture, but I think it would have been easier to justify a late series capture with an Eevee as opposed to a fully evolved Pokemon like Togekiss. It might have helped to make her team more distinct to not have an Eevee evolution in the long run, but I do think that Dawn could have used some kind of Grass type at least.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

It was such a cruel tease for May to even bring out a Pokeball to catch Swablu only for its flock to show up a second later. Swablu would have been absolutely perfect for Contests and the bond between May and Swablu felt so genuine too. The only reason I think that they didn't let May catch it was because the writers didn't want anyone in the main cast to have a Dragon type, but even that would be kind of weak when Altaria wasn't really considered a powerful Dragon type at the time. She did already have a Flying type with Beautifly, but the writers never cared about repeating types before, especially for Ash's teams. A rivalry between May's Swablu and Drew's Flygon would have been really cool.

That, and because Flying as a type is almost always paired with something else means that the overlap with Beautifly hardly matters anyway, since the fact that one would be Bug and the other Dragon would give the two plenty of ways to differentiate each other. Besides, May was also given no less than three pure Normal-types (at least until Eevee evolved), so I'm not sure why an extra Flying-type would have been such an issue if the amount of Normal-types was apparently fine. I guess one could say it's a reference to the type her dad specializes in, but it still feels odd.

While I'm not as bothered by the amount of girls getting Eevee over the past few series, I can understand that issue, especially when Sandy barely existed after its capture episode. I'm not sure how Dawn could have gotten an Eevee. Cyndaquil was already her baby Pokemon and it probably would have been better to give her an Eevee in a different way just to make it more distinct from May's Eevee. Zoey had her Leafeon and it was featured in her battle against Nando, easily one of the best Contest battles and one of the reasons why I thought that she deserved to win the Grand Festival. It sill would have been nice for Leafeon to be featured more during the series, if only because it became one of my favorite Eevee evolutions when I raised it in Ultra Moon.

Swapping Togekiss and Leafeon with Dawn and Zoey does sound quite nice. Not only because of how much I hated Togekiss's capture, but I think it would have been easier to justify a late series capture with an Eevee as opposed to a fully evolved Pokemon like Togekiss. It might have helped to make her team more distinct to not have an Eevee evolution in the long run, but I do think that Dawn could have used some kind of Grass type at least.

I'm not sure how Dawn could've caught an Eevee either, but perhaps obtaining it from Bebe might have worked? It would have been a nice shoutout to the games, and in Platinum at least she gives an Eevee to the player right away, so Dawn getting an Eevee earlier than usual wouldn't have contradicted the games too much. Maybe have an episode where Dawn helps Bebe with some problem and bonds with the Eevee during that time, and Bebe ultimately decides to give Eevee to Dawn after seeing them become so close, as well as because Bebe decides it might be better for Eevee to travel and grow strong as a Contest Pokemon than to stay as a sedentary pet. As for the evolution episode, maybe have Gardenia be the one to inspire it? She could have made a return for a couple of episodes, and being the Grass-type specialist she'd be the first to suggest Dawn evolve her Eevee into a Leafeon. Plus, it would be a neat opportunity to see James's Cacnea again. Not sure where this sequence of events would fit exactly, though. That said, I wouldn't make Dawn's Eevee as late of a capture as Togekiss was. Mainly because I didn't like how Togekiss was really only useful for the last leg of Dawn's Journey, so I wouldn't want the hypothetical Eevee/Leafon to have the same problem.