• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Controversial opinions

Perhaps I was unfair in saying it in those terms, as you’re right, having a love interest does not automatically render your character development pointless.

I remember watching that last episode live and having as many squees as anyone else. What soured it, and Serena’s entire arc, for me was her telling Satoshi that he was her goal.

It sends such a bad message to kids that a girl who has had good focus on the development of her ‘career’ and is in fact leaving to pursue it (whatever anyone might think about her choosing to do contests next...) can somehow make that all about a boy.

Yeah, I remember a few complaints about Serena telling Ash that he was her goal for similar reasons. It does give off a pretty problematic message that kind of conflicts with Serena choosing to leave in order to work towards her goal. That's one reason why I liked how the dub handled that line. I think that Serena said that Ash would like the person that she'd become, which is at least less blatant and emphasizes more on how she'll change rather than how she sees Ash as her ultimate goal.

While the kiss was a surprising way to end Serena's story and made all of the shippers happy, that's mostly what people are going to remember about Serena, which is kind of a shame when she had some really good moments and development unrelated to her crush on Ash. It wasn't perfect, but her character development was one of the few good things that came out of Showcases in my opinion, so all of that being ignored because she ended up kissing Ash as her goodbye to him is kind of sad.

ii kanji said:
The non-battler complaint RE Serena I agree was a thing, and as @Kyriaki said due to wrong conflation between battling and ‘manliness’ I get how for some ignoramuses this translated as problematic because ‘girly’.

I suspect Mao and Lillie garner less complaints about battling:
  1. Because the cast is bigger, and Suiren is pulling her weight as a female battler.
  2. Not much is required for Suiren to pull her weight as even Satoshi has barely battled.

I've seen people complaining about the female leads, including Serena, being girly since at least May, so that was an issue. I don't think it came up as much compared to Serena not being a battler, taking too long to find a goal and not catching a lot of Pokemon, but using the term girly to complain about Serena came up every once in awhile.

I never really thought of Lana being the female battler of the group. I don't think that Eevee has taken part in a battle, unless we count teaming up with Popplio to defeat those Team Skull grunts in its capture episode, and most of Primarina's focus has been on it learning to create bigger bubbles rather than actually battling. Maybe there are other battles that I either forgot or haven't seen yet, but I wouldn't call any of the SM girls battlers. Although, that is a valid point in that even Ash doesn't battle as often.

The larger cast probably also helps since we have more than one or two female characters for once. I still think that SM Lillie is only popular because of how well received her video game counterpart is. After overcoming her fear of Pokemon, she didn't really have much of a goal and didn't battle, which is pretty similar to what happen with Serena, but since SM Lillie is based on a popular character and is the only SM cast member with character development thus far, it feels like she gets a free pass.
 
While the kiss was a surprising way to end Serena's story and made all of the shippers happy, that's mostly what people are going to remember about Serena, which is kind of a shame when she had some really good moments and development unrelated to her crush on Ash.
That actually reminds me of something unrelated: I think people who like Ash's Butterfree tend to forget that besides it being Ash's first catch, the only notable thing it really did with him to was getting released. That's it. Don't get me wrong, the farewell was emotional and all, but I think people should use more than just the fact that Butterfree was released to define the Pokémon.
 
That actually reminds me of something unrelated: I think people who like Ash's Butterfree tend to forget that besides it being Ash's first catch, the only notable thing it really did with him to was getting released. That's it. Don't get me wrong, the farewell was emotional and all, but I think people should use more than just the fact that Butterfree was released to define the Pokémon.
Didn't Butterfree help Ash win his second Kanto Badge?
 
That actually reminds me of something unrelated: I think people who like Ash's Butterfree tend to forget that besides it being Ash's first catch, the only notable thing it really did with him to was getting released. That's it. Don't get me wrong, the farewell was emotional and all, but I think people should use more than just the fact that Butterfree was released to define the Pokémon.

Outside of being the first Pokemon that Ash caught, Butterfree unfortunately didn't really get to do anything. It was caught and fully evolved within two episodes, was only used in one Gym battle where it lost and it was getting less attention once Ash caught the Kanto starters. There was technically the episode where Ash traded it for a Raticate, but the focus was more on how Ash felt about trading it away, he got it back right away and Butterfree seemingly was unaware that it was traded away, or at least it never came up after the episode.

That's why people don't really use more than its release to define Butterfree. Outside of that emotional farewell, there really isn't anything about Butterfree to make it more unique or memorable.
 
This isn't a steady decline in ratings; this is a total rejection of the show. During Golden-week, Sun and Moon couldn't register in the top 10. Even Yokai Watch and an early morning TV Tokyo anime (which only received 1.9) made the top 10. That is how bad the show is doing right now. There is something fundamentally wrong with the product if it cannot even register a number above shows that are beneath it. And i'm sure there isn't as much of an importance with ratings anymore, but there is no way this show should be rating "that" low.
Friendly reminder that ratings dropped nearly 60% on average during XY/XYZ's run and in its second half it would frequently not make it to the top 10 as well. This is not new.
 
That's why people don't really use more than its release to define Butterfree. Outside of that emotional farewell, there really isn't anything about Butterfree to make it more unique or memorable.
That's the same problem with Pidgeot, really. It had one 'win' against Misty's Starmie, but otherwise never really accomplished anything other than being extremely loyal and reliable. But no one talks about that, only its departure, much like Butterfree. And even that wasn't nearly as touching as Butterfree leaving. But you can really just blame this all on early season writing. As much as I like the Kanto-Saga, i'll admit that it had pretty bad writing. Ash, Brock, Misty, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charizard and the Rocket Trio were the only ones with any kind of personality to them. If it were writting today maybe things would be different; Less slapstick, Butterfree and Pidgeot, along with Brock and Misty's team, having some personality. Brock and Misty have some kind of character arc, the TRio being competent through the whole season and Ash himself slowly growing into a competent trainer.
 
That's the same problem with Pidgeot, really. It had one 'win' against Misty's Starmie, but otherwise never really accomplished anything other than being extremely loyal and reliable. But no one talks about that, only its departure, much like Butterfree. And even that wasn't nearly as touching as Butterfree leaving. But you can really just blame this all on early season writing. As much as I like the Kanto-Saga, i'll admit that it had pretty bad writing. Ash, Brock, Misty, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charizard and the Rocket Trio were the only ones with any kind of personality to them. If it were writting today maybe things would be different; Less slapstick, Butterfree and Pidgeot, along with Brock and Misty's team, having some personality. Brock and Misty have some kind of character arc, the TRio being competent through the whole season and Ash himself slowly growing into a competent trainer.

And even being extremely loyal came right out of nowhere in its departure episode so that it's release would feel sadder than it would have been otherwise. Pidgeotto was primarily used for popping Team Rocket's balloon or going on a search, so it rarely got to do anything more memorable despite being on the cast much longer than Butterfree was. The Kanto saga is a lot of fun to rewatch and there are still plenty of good episodes and emotional moments, but the writing hasn't aged well, especially compared to other Pokemon series. Granted, that is to be expected from their first attempt at making a Pokemon anime. They were still figuring things out, so there is a lot of early season one elements that aren't really included in future series, but it is a bit rough around the edges.
 
If it were writting today maybe things would be different; Less slapstick, Butterfree and Pidgeot, along with Brock and Misty's team, having some personality. Brock and Misty have some kind of character arc, the TRio being competent through the whole season and Ash himself slowly growing into a competent trainer.
Controversial opinion: this would suck compared to the Kanto we actually got.
 
I have to admit to still having a soft spot for some of Kanto's slapstick, but I guess if there is something I would have added to it and Johto too would be more of Ash and Gary's rivalry and backstory (which I'm pretty sure we didn't know even existed until Johto). I don't know if the flashbacks with Ash and Gary in EP269 The Ties That Bind and AG086 Lights, Camerupt, Action! were minor retcons or what, but it seemed very out of nowhere since the first episode at least had me thinking they met for the first time or at the very least never been formally introduced. Regardless of that, I think the end of their rivalry while I say it ended good enough, would have been even better had Gary appeared in more episodes and we got some more backstory with Ash and Gary. Like sure Gary's appearances in Kanto where hilarious in the sense that "Oh man, I can't believe this kid is so popular that he's riding around in a fancy shiny red car, surrounded by all these cheerleaders, and has a crowd of people rooting for him when he leaves his home town. This guy's so meme worthy!", but I would have loved it if we got more scenes of him beforehand beyond "Haha, You're such a loser, Ash.", and more of them being competitive with one another and actually battling. As it stands, while Ash vs Gary in Johto was good, it didn't have as much emotional weight to the battle looking back at it compared to Ash vs Paul in the Sinnoh League where Ash finally proved his and his Pokemon's strength is worth something, and that he wasn't a loser.

I really hope Ash's rival(s) in Sword & Shield appear in plenty of episodes. Also can we see more Hau already!?!
 
Last edited:
This is why I never understand why people think Gary is Ash's 'greatest rival'. They had like, three battles throughout the whole show; Orange Island with Pikachu vs Eevee, in which Ash lost. The Silver Confrence, in which Ash won(And like Golducky just said, didn't have very much emotional weight to it) and then a one-on-one before Ash elft to Sinnoh with Pikachu vs Electivire, in which Ash lost again. I've said it once before but Gary just isn't tat good of a rival. He showed up, mocked Ash and refused just about every challenge Ash wanted. He was always ahead and clearly had better Pokemon. It was a one-sided rivalry on Ash's part, if anything. Gary's brand of mocking probably wouldn't even phase Ash in this day and age. Like I said before, people need to take off their nostalgia goggles and see that the rivalry between these two wasn't really much of anything.
 
On the subject of the emotional weight in Ash and Gary's rival battle in Johto: what was the big deal with the broken Poké Ball thing? It was obviously an attempt to make it seem like the rivalry was deeper than it actually was, but the problem is that we had never heard of it before Ash and Gary were selected to battle each other in the Silver Conference, and after Gary loses and hands his half of the Ball to Ash, it's never brought up again. The whole element which is supposed to give more depth to the two's rivalry was present only for a few measely episodes before being shoved back into obscurity. That's not good writing and feels kinda forced and/or desperate. If they were going to do something like that, why not put it earlier to Johto so that it would have more buildup?

All in all, I think the whole idea was pretty much unnecessary.
 
On the subject of the emotional weight in Ash and Gary's rival battle in Johto: what was the big deal with the broken Poké Ball thing? It was obviously an attempt to make it seem like the rivalry was deeper than it actually was, but the problem is that we had never heard of it before Ash and Gary were selected to battle each other in the Silver Conference, and after Gary loses and hands his half of the Ball to Ash, it's never brought up again. The whole element which is supposed to give more depth to the two's rivalry was present only for a few measely episodes before being shoved back into obscurity. That's not good writing and feels kinda forced and/or desperate. If they were going to do something like that, why not put it earlier to Johto so that it would have more buildup?

All in all, I think the whole idea was pretty much unnecessary.

Technically, it was brought up again when Ash gave half of the Pokeball back to Gary before he left Pallet Town near the end of the original series, but that still isn't saying much either and it was never mentioned or shown after that episode too. Admittedly, the Pokeball thing never bothered me too much. It was tacked on to make their eventual showdown more meaningful, but that didn't bother me as much as Gary barely appearing in Johto. I think he had a few more appearances during the Kanto saga, but that's not saying much.

It just wasn't really a good rivalry from the start. Gary arguably had more of a presence during the first season, but we didn't see what Pokemon he actually had until he faced off against Giovanni and we didn't even know what starter he chose until his Silver Conference match against Ash. Gary always talked a big game, but we didn't see him back it up that much. There was the Pikachu vs. Eevee match, but it was so anticlimactic that I vividly remember being really disappointed by how fast it went after they hyped up their first battle. Gary just needed more appearances to actually showcase his skills instead of just insulting Ash all the time.
 
This is why I never understand why people think Gary is Ash's 'greatest rival'. They had like, three battles throughout the whole show; Orange Island with Pikachu vs Eevee, in which Ash lost. The Silver Confrence, in which Ash won(And like Golducky just said, didn't have very much emotional weight to it) and then a one-on-one before Ash elft to Sinnoh with Pikachu vs Electivire, in which Ash lost again. I've said it once before but Gary just isn't tat good of a rival. He showed up, mocked Ash and refused just about every challenge Ash wanted. He was always ahead and clearly had better Pokemon. It was a one-sided rivalry on Ash's part, if anything. Gary's brand of mocking probably wouldn't even phase Ash in this day and age. Like I said before, people need to take off their nostalgia goggles and see that the rivalry between these two wasn't really much of anything.

Their rivalry worked because Ash and Gary had known each other since they were young kids. Even though we never saw their interactions from back then aside from a small glimpse in a flashback, it was at least established early on that they were essentially mortal enemies from birth. That's not something that we got with Paul or Trip or anyone else. And as far as the whole "one-sided" thing goes, I don't see why that's such a bad thing; Ash's rivalry with Alain was no different, and even his rivalry with Paul was extremely one-sided for the most part.
 
Technically, it was brought up again when Ash gave half of the Pokeball back to Gary before he left Pallet Town near the end of the original series, but that still isn't saying much either and it was never mentioned or shown after that episode too. Admittedly, the Pokeball thing never bothered me too much. It was tacked on to make their eventual showdown more meaningful, but that didn't bother me as much as Gary barely appearing in Johto. I think he had a few more appearances during the Kanto saga, but that's not saying much.

It just wasn't really a good rivalry from the start. Gary arguably had more of a presence during the first season, but we didn't see what Pokemon he actually had until he faced off against Giovanni and we didn't even know what starter he chose until his Silver Conference match against Ash. Gary always talked a big game, but we didn't see him back it up that much. There was the Pikachu vs. Eevee match, but it was so anticlimactic that I vividly remember being really disappointed by how fast it went after they hyped up their first battle. Gary just needed more appearances to actually showcase his skills instead of just insulting Ash all the time.
I still think that Gary's appearances in Johto, Even if they were less frequent than his appearances in Kanto, had more weight to them than his Kanto appearances. In Kanto, Gary did nothing but taunt Ash and show off his unquestionable superiority towards him, which was incredibly flat. But starting from Gary's appearance at the end of the Orange Islands saga, he was shown to have gotten more respect towards Ash. Take the Extreme Pokémon Race episode, for example: even though Gary loses the race to Ash, he's not bitter or mad over his loss. I admit, a few more battle here and there would've been good, but still, Gary's character was overall improved during the Johto saga. I think the writers has realized how flat Gary had been and started improving him in Johto.
 
Last edited:
So something that just came to mind; why is it that Ash and Co. have never really run into another group of traveling trainers, much like themselves? I'd have to imagine traversing an entire region with creatures, no matter how much you like them, that you can't understand could be pretty lonely. That, and safety in numbers and all that.
 
Last edited:
So something that just came to mind; why is it that Ash and Co. have never really run into another group of traveling trainers, much like themselves? I'd have to imagine traversing an entire region with creates, no matter how much you like them, that you can't understand could be pretty lonely. That, and safety in numbers and all that.
I sometimes wonder what happens to most trainers with the luck Ash and his friends normally have. I mean, I'm not trying to assume the worst or anything, but what if a lone trainer and/or their Pokemon got injured badly and there wasn't a Pokemon center or even a human hospital nearby, and they have no medical supplies left? I mean there are like crazy wild Beedrill and Fearow everywhere. It's probably best not to think about, but I just can't help wondering.
 
Back
Top Bottom