Controversial opinions

[HiroHunter]

I think the multiple series in a row with eevee was the problem. For example when Serena got an Eevee, it was a good 8 years after May had an Eevee in AG. As well as 3 series later, so it didn't feel redundant even before the Eevee's evolved. Nobody complained Serena got an Eevee even before we knew it would become Sylveon.

But then SM was right after XY and Lana's Eeevee just really proved unnecessary on the cast, and then the series after Koharu's. So now we're 3 series in a row with the female companion having Eevee.

If they spaced it out more like the May to Serena gap it wouldn't be an issue.

Add on to that Serena's Eevee/Sylveon was allowed to do shit outside of looking cute. Unlike both Lana and Koharu's Eevees.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Both Lana and Chloe's Eevee's were utterly pointless additions. I mean both of them lead nowhere.

 

[Unireon]

At least SM left only a few threads hanging, while Journeys is full of them.

This current series has killed itself.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Both Lana and Chloe's Eevee's were utterly pointless additions. I mean both of them lead nowhere.

The sad thing is that Chloe's Eevee at least could've been not-pointless unlike Sandy (who was so useless that if he didn't exist literally nothing of value would be lost: freaking Illima's Eevee had already done pretty much everything that really needed to be covered when it comes to Eevee and then some, and Illima wasn't even considered part of the main cast for Pete's sake!): she was supposed to be a parallel to Chloe herself, and their arcs and development were meant to be foils to each other. They actually had all the pieces set into place here. Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that both Chloe and her Eevee were completely wasted in their potential. Apparently because the writers just really didn't care about them.

All this mismanagement makes me wonder why the hell they didn't just make Goh a girl, give him/her the Eevee to better sell the idea of him/her being Ash's co-protagonist, and simply not have a third wheel kid in the main cast at all.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I haven't seen the conclusion for Chloe's storyline yet, so despite the negative reception I've seen towards it, I can't really say if giving her an Eevee was pointless. Sandy was definitely pointless though. Even after all of that buildup for its appearance in SM, it just did nothing after Lana caught it, which really felt weird.

I don't think that giving female leads an Eevee three series in a row is necessarily a problem. Maybe it comes off as too repetitive or expected at this point, but I think that the real issue is that neither Sandy or Chloe's Eevee were allowed to do anything. Even if they didn't want them to evolve for whatever reason, if they were able to do more than be cute plush toys for the girls to hold in their arms all the time, which admittedly I think was more common for the SM girls with their Pokemon than it was for Chloe, then I don't think having an Eevee in the cast three series in a row would bother anyone.

 

[Sai]

At least SM left only a few threads hanging, while Journeys is full of them.

This current series has killed itself.

Depending how this series ends, I'm not sure what plot thread it would leave hanging. Go will continue to do missions when he leaves, Koharu will go on her own journey, and even if Ash loses to Leon it's not like they hadn't done that before with Alan in XY or so forth.

Anything that didn't get featured from Galar is a different issue entirely but not some plot hanging.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I haven't seen the conclusion for Chloe's storyline yet, so despite the negative reception I've seen towards it, I can't really say if giving her an Eevee was pointless. Sandy was definitely pointless though. Even after all of that buildup for its appearance in SM, it just did nothing after Lana caught it, which really felt weird.

I don't think that giving female leads an Eevee three series in a row is necessarily a problem. Maybe it comes off as too repetitive or expected at this point, but I think that the real issue is that neither Sandy or Chloe's Eevee were allowed to do anything. Even if they didn't want them to evolve for whatever reason, if they were able to do more than be cute plush toys for the girls to hold in their arms all the time, which admittedly I think was more common for the SM girls with their Pokemon than it was for Chloe, then I don't think having an Eevee in the cast three series in a row would bother anyone.

I actually agree with this. After all, very few people have a problem with May and Dawn both having the same goal, and everyone generally agrees that Contests have so far proved the best alternate goal for the non-Ash companions to do to the point that I've seen many people say that they would like to see Contest be an MC goal again. If Contests are popular enough that people would want to see more of them despite them technically being repetitive, then Eevees also being repetitive would be far less complained about if the writers didn't have them do nothing but sit there and be cute.

This is also going to come off as incredibly cynical, but since the whole MC Eevee mismanagement only started once the species was promoted to co-mascot I have kinda theorized that maybe the anime is purposefully wasting Eevee's potential just because they don't like it intruding on Pikachu's mascot turf. I mean, Mimikyu was turned into a horrifying villain and given to the least likeable Team Rocket member after it became a huge fan favorite before the SM series had even aired, and I don't think I even need to mention the horrible treatment that Raichu has gotten over the years, so it's not like this would be the first time a potential competitor for Pikachu was done dirty in an attempt to sabotage its popularity. It seems that Clefairy really dodged a bullet here...

 

[Daren]

This is also going to come off as incredibly cynical, but since the whole MC Eevee mismanagement only started once the species was promoted to co-mascot I have kinda theorized that maybe the anime is purposefully wasting Eevee's potential just because they don't like it intruding on Pikachu's mascot turf. I mean, Mimikyu was turned into a horrifying villain and given to the least likeable Team Rocket member after it became a huge fan favorite before the SM series had even aired, and I don't think I even need to mention the horrible treatment that Raichu has gotten over the years, so it's not like this would be the first time a potential competitor for Pikachu was done dirty in an attempt to sabotage its popularity. It seems that Clefairy really dodged a bullet here...

One possibility was that they were told to put an Eevee in each series but weren't sure what to do with one not allowed to evolve and isn't part of Ash's battle team, especially when having so many evolutions (that unlike some other Pokémon all remain adorable) is a very big part of Eevee's popularity.

Although if we're talking cynical sabotage theories, I can't quite put out of mind that Greninja was/is looking like it might surpass Charizard in fan affection (the frog won that google poll and I belive a Japanese one sometime during gen 6 or 7) and looks whats happened to him; Greninja was entirely left out of the gen 8 games despite how popular it is.

 

[Sobblefan]

Incineroar and Inteleon are ok

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

One possibility was that they were told to put an Eevee in each series but weren't sure what to do with one not allowed to evolve and isn't part of Ash's battle team, especially when having so many evolutions (that unlike some other Pokémon all remain adorable) is a very big part of Eevee's popularity.

Although if we're talking cynical sabotage theories, I can't quite put out of mind that Greninja was/is looking like it might surpass Charizard in fan affection (the frog won that google poll and I belive a Japanese one sometime during gen 6 or 7) and looks whats happened to him; Greninja was entirely left out of the gen 8 games despite how popular it is.

Yeah, but on the other hand it's not like options for a non-evolving Eevee don't exist: Extreme Evoboost, Gigantamax Eevee, and the Partner Moves are right there. It's just that the writers chose not to use any of them for some reason when either one could have provided an alright conclusion to Chloe's Eevee's arc.

Greninja is truly a baffling case, though. In any other situation leaving your most popular character out of the mainline games would be horrible business practice at best, and yet...

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Greninja is truly a baffling case, though. In any other situation leaving your most popular character out of the mainline games would be horrible business practice, and yet...

Ash Greninja should be in the games yet I think it’s overrated af
If (Ash’s) Ash-Greninja was so special and powerful then why couldn’t it beat every opponent that it faced when perfected. Thing should have been way more Op and unbeatable

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Greninja is truly a baffling case, though. In any other situation leaving your most popular character out of the mainline games would be horrible business practice at best, and yet...

We don't know yet, though I'm hearing conflicting information. It would be a horrible move to leave out Greninja again for SV, especially after Kalos was robbed for Gen VIII. It blows my mind considering Greninja has won popularity polls.

Spoiler: SV Spoilers

According to a credible leaker, Greninja is not in, but the next day he said Greninja MIGHT be able to be transferred in from Pokemon Home.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Incineroar and Inteleon are ok

Inteleon is fine but as much as I love Incineroar I cannot deny that Primarina and ESPECIALLY Decidueye were most certainly done dirty to make Incineroar look better lol

I'll never forget about this scene.

Reminder that this scene is the Alola Starters first DEBUTS in the Anime

Can we also please talk about how fucking dirty the writers did Decidueye in general?

It's like they saw how much more popular it was getting over Incineroar so they took the opportunity to make it look as awful as possible.

They made it lose to its own Base Form and to add salt into the wound they deliberately gave said Base Form an Everstone so it'll never evolve

Also Reminder that Decidueye is still the Only Starter in the Anime that has never Won a SINGLE battle onscreen


And all this while hyping up Incineroar as much as they could.
Incineroar was the Champion's Ace and never lost once until Ash's Torracat defeated it....
....only for IT to evolve into an Incineroar itself

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Inteleon is fine but as much as I love Incineroar I cannot deny that Primarina and ESPECIALLY Decidueye were most certainly done dirty to make Incineroar look better lol

I'll never forget about this scene.

Reminder that this scene is the Alola Starters first DEBUTS in the Anime View attachment 163146
Can we also please talk about how fucking dirty the writers did Decidueye in general?

It's like they saw how much more popular it was getting over Incineroar so they took the opportunity to make it look as awful as possible.

They made it lose to its own Base Form and to add salt into the wound they deliberately gave said Base Form an Everstone so it'll never evolve

Also Reminder that Decidueye is still the Only Starter in the Anime that has never Won a SINGLE battle onscreen


And all this while hyping up Incineroar as much as they could.
Incineroar was the Champion's Ace and never lost once until Ash's Torracat defeated it....
....only for IT to evolve into an Incineroar itself

And then Ashs Incineroar never got to battle

 

[Enzo]

You know, a part of me wonders if the real reason on why Leon is written Like That he is is because not only do they want us to feel like he's the ultimate challenge for Ash, but also because they're already laying down that Ash isn't gonna beat him no matter what.

But if that's the case, they chose the worst possible way to do it: shilling Leon to the highest heavens and disrespecting other characters isn't the way to do it.

 

[Sobblefan]

Another unpopular opinion, Sun and Moon would probably be in my top 3 favorite Pokémon animes

 

[Daren]

You know, a part of me wonders if the real reason on why Leon is written Like That he is is because not only do they want us to feel like he's the ultimate challenge for Ash, but also because they're already laying down that Ash isn't gonna beat him no matter what.

But if that's the case, they chose the worst possible way to do it: shilling Leon to the highest heavens and disrespecting other characters isn't the way to do it.

I honestly think it's really just the show doing what it's done before with rivals, but Leon's also a champion so the people he crushes are other "special class" trainers. Gary was portrayed as so cool he had his own cheer squad and got surplus badges during his quest, Paul was portrayed as super strong compared to regular trainers in the later parts of DP, Trip was a literal newbie who kept beating Ash. Honestly I'd go so far as to say that's true of a number of JN complaints; Ash's team feels underdeveloped for this tournament, but that's just a further escalation of each team that wasn't from Unova getting farther than the previous one, and there wasn't really much space between "winning a regional league" and "winning a world tournament".

The other thing is that this show just doesn't really care about power scaling. It could just be the same thing many other works do where the antagonist gets hyped up like crazy so the protagonist beating them feels meaningful.
In a way there's something similar to how Leon was handled in the games; a lot of people complained when Sw/Sh came out that Leon got overhyped, but the amount of buildup he got is pretty minor compared to a number of other video game final bosses, it was just new for Pokémon to do that.
Similarly I think people are used to Ash's opponents being minor fish. Leon's still not as OP as, say, a lot of Dragon Ball's villains (we had a guy there show how dangerous he is by killing his villain predecessor with just his tongue), or Smaug from The Hobbit destroying two kingdoms in a single day on a whim, or various video game villains who are threats to an entire planet or even beyond.

 

[Sobblefan]

Inteleon is fine but as much as I love Incineroar I cannot deny that Primarina and ESPECIALLY Decidueye were most certainly done dirty to make Incineroar look better lol

Let’s also remember that Incineroar got in to Super Smash Bros. instead of Decidueye

 

[Enzo]

I honestly think it's really just the show doing what it's done before with rivals, but Leon's also a champion so the people he crushes are other "special class" trainers. Gary was portrayed as so cool he had his own cheer squad and got surplus badges during his quest, Paul was portrayed as super strong compared to regular trainers in the later parts of DP, Trip was a literal newbie who kept beating Ash. Honestly I'd go so far as to say that's true of a number of JN complaints; Ash's team feels underdeveloped for this tournament, but that's just a further escalation of each team that wasn't from Unova getting farther than the previous one, and there wasn't really much space between "winning a regional league" and "winning a world tournament".

The other thing is that this show just doesn't really care about power scaling. It could just be the same thing many other works do where the antagonist gets hyped up like crazy so the protagonist beating them feels meaningful.

I was actually trying to look for an excuse to talk about Paul and Leon together, so thanks for the cue man lmao.

You see, this is absolutely not to say that Paul was written flawlessly, because of course he wasn't, let's be real. But I do think, however, that Paul was actually well-writen in this aspect. Yeah, he was shown to be much stronger than his peers, sometimes even too strong if I'm to be honest, but they were careful to show that he's strong -> for his level <- (I guess we could call it the pre-teen/teen level??), but he's not unbeatable, nor is he stronger than the ones above his level. He failed to win any of the Leagues he went to even if he (seemingly, mind you) got pretty far, the first battle against Ash ended on a tie, Cynthia trashed him, Brandon grabbed him by the neck and threw him across the room.

Again, he did had his crazy moments that I don't really like (like the Lake Acuity battle and his fight against Barry in the League), but all in all, I do think the power scaling with Paul was done pretty well at the end.

Now the power scaling with Leon, however... A big problem with Leon is because, unlike Paul, there's no "level cap" to hold him down. He's the best of the absolute best, the #1 Trainer in the World, the undefeated guy. He's boundless. And the issue with that is because Leon isn't writen in a way where, when compared to the other 7 best, he just feels slighty, but significantly, better than his peers. Nobody even comes close to being a threat for him.

He's not the strongest because he's better than everyone else, he's the strongest because everyone else is weaker than him.

This, as you said, is a common problem for writers. Of course you want your antagonist to be powerful so they can be a threat for your protagonist. The ultimate issue is to be careful to not show them as unbeatable or too strong, so it present problems like how they can be believably defeated without needing to wrap your protagonist in the world's strongest plot armor in existence, or showing them as being stupidly strong to the point where it looks ridiculous. Which is what happened with Leon.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

To be extremely fair…

Gary was portrayed as so cool he had his own cheer squad and got surplus badges during his quest,

The cheerleaders were mostly played for laughs and there were often moments when Gary got handed his a** pretty frequently.

Paul was portrayed as super strong compared to regular trainers in the later parts of DP,

It was very well established for Paul that he has the same experience as Ash but focuses more on brute force. He’s basically Ash minus the ethics, so he was bound to be powerful. But we still knew his limits compared to other trainers. He did lose to Brandon and others.

Meanwhile the show is literally shitting on character arcs (Ash literally made Alain realise the importance of fun during battles and they threw it away just to make him fodder for Leon. Like they literally undermined all his strength and character for what… let me guess: Greninja vs MCX click bait: since click bait is literally official reasoning for a lot of their choices now), just to make Leon look godlike.

If Alain could defeat Greninja and still is like 1% of Leon’s power; how is Ash even supposed to beat him?

Also, all of these rivals had some or the other flaws. Where is Leon’s flaw?