Controversial opinions

[Charcoatl]

My controversial opinion, not only about anime but franchise as a whole, is that sometimes I wish Disney bought TPC(I) and reboot the whole thing. I don't think it could be worse than whatever they're doing with anime and the games since few generations.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

My controversial opinion, not only about anime but franchise as a whole, is that sometimes I wish Disney bought TPC(I) and reboot the whole thing. I don't think it could be worse than whatever they're doing with anime and the games since few generations.

Given what I've heard and seen of Disney's Star Wars movies, I'm gonna say "nope" to that idea myself.

 

[Daren]

Also, Disney's not a game company. They could end up giving Electronic Arts exclusive rights to make Pokémon games.
Whatever complaints we have about how Gamefreak does things EA would be twenty times worse.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Also, Disney's not a game company. They could end up giving Electronic Arts exclusive rights to make Pokémon games.
Whatever complaints we have about how Gamefreak does things EA would be twenty times worse.

"Enjoy a thrilling new Pokemon adventure but this time, you don't just catch em all... you buy em all with our brand new loot box system."

 

[Pulsaro23]

My controversial opinion, not only about anime but franchise as a whole, is that sometimes I wish Disney bought TPC(I) and reboot the whole thing. I don't think it could be worse than whatever they're doing with anime and the games since few generations.

That's what some of us Star Wars fans used to say after the prequels (not me, though; I have a soft spot for them, as they're the movies that got me into the franchise (plus I really love the Clone Wars era and what came from it)). And, hoo boy, were we wrong.

Trust me, the House of Mouse would most certainly find a way to screw up the anime (even more so than what the current series is doing) by decanonizing almost everything that came before and replacing it with their shallow/watered-down take on it, while also contradicting/breaking everything that they didn't decanonzie. And don't even get me started about the games. At best, they're gonna shut down GF and get rid of the games entirely. At worst... who's ready for some rushed messes full of "surprise mechanics"?

 

[prog rocker]

And here I thought Nintendo getting full control of the franchise would be the worse thing... For those that are wondering why I'm saying this, it is because of the recent track record of the Paper Mario series and the death of Alpha Dream.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

and the death of Alpha Dream.

Alpha Dream would probably still be around if Nintendo didn't make the boneheaded decision of releasing the more recent Mario & Luigi games (the remakes) so late into the 3DS's lifecycle.

And to top that off, one of those remakes was a title that was already on the original DS.

 

[prog rocker]

Alpha Dream would probably still be around if Nintendo didn't make the boneheaded decision of releasing the more recent Mario & Luigi games (the remakes) so late into the 3DS's lifecycle.

And to top that off, one of those remakes was a title that was already on the original DS.

Which means that my opinion of them developing RPGs is even lower.

 

[Phosphene]

My controversial opinion, not only about anime but franchise as a whole, is that sometimes I wish Disney bought TPC(I) and reboot the whole thing. I don't think it could be worse than whatever they're doing with anime and the games since few generations.

I’m not too keen on giving a corporation that already owns several highly successful franchises access to another one.

 

[Daenerys]

I wish they let Glalie out against Darkrai instead of Torkoal. Far better track record, and also far less screentime.

I agree and I think that more people like Glalie over Crykoal anyway, so it would've been a win-win situation (technically a lose situation, but you get what I mean).

 

[Zorchic]

Probably not a controversial opinion, but I guess this is the best thread to discuss it...

I was recently rewatching the Sinnoh league, more specifically Ash vs Tobias at the end and I’m pretty sure many people had gripes about Ash not bringing a Powerhouse-only team against him. Personally I thought all his choices made varying amount of sense, except one.

Heracross: Basically the perfect Darkrai counter if it had been trained enough. Both types are advantageous against Darkrai, and it knows Sleep Talk to avoid being incapacitated by sleep.
Sceptile: The stereotypical powerhouse. A perfect combination of speed and power to deal with Darkrai.
Swellow: Should power or Heracross strategy fail, it could be an attempt to weaken Tobias' Pokemon using its speed.
Pikachu: Duh
Gible: That’s the (second) hardest for me to explain, but it occurred to me that it’s the only Sinnoh Pokemon not used in the Paul full battle, so I guess it deserved a moment of glory here. And as for in universe reasons, I guess Ash planned to remove a chunk of Darkrai's health using Draco Meteor, and would've done so as commented by Tobias if it hadn’t been for Darkrai's speed.

My question is... what distinguishing factor did Torkoal have which led Ash to choose it against Tobias? In fact, it was the worst performing Pokémon in that battle by far. Perhaps it was its tanking skill? It didn’t seem the reason to me when it was literally OHKOed.

Yeah, and how could Darkrai have taken Heracross's Megahorn? Seems like a/an OHKO in the games.

I feel like Gible should have evolved into Gabite and learned Aerial Ace or Dragon Claw to replace Rock Smash.

I wrote a fan fiction about the battle here. I just guessed at what other Pokémon Tobias might have.

And I have a question for you all: If Ash could bring any 6 of the Pokémon in his whole roster, including BW, XY, and SM, which Pokémon do you think he should bring to battle Tobias?

 

[Hidden Mew]

Torkoal is overall one of Ash's most underwhelming Pokémon in terms of its track record in battles. Even its personality was quite annoying at times.

I didn't really think that Torkoal was that annoying. They used the whole crying gag quite a bit, but it wasn't as overdone compared to other running gags. To be honest, I grew to like Torkoal a lot after rewatching most of AG. It had such a good capture episode and I felt like it should have gotten more screentime instead of being defeated nearly all the time.

My controversial opinion, not only about anime but franchise as a whole, is that sometimes I wish Disney bought TPC(I) and reboot the whole thing. I don't think it could be worse than whatever they're doing with anime and the games since few generations.

Yeah, that would be really bad. I don't like the idea of Disney gaining even more power and money with another huge franchise. People joke about how Disney is going to own everything, but they currently have too much control and influence in the entertainment industry. They don't need to get involved with making their own Pokemon series or getting more involved with the video game industry too. I haven't seen a lot of Star Wars movies. I've only seen Phantom Menance and most of Return of the Jedi, so I can't really speak on how they're handling that franchise personally, despite all of the backlash towards the current movie, but Disney probably wouldn't make the best decisions. If a movie or a series doesn't fit their high standards of success/money, then there's an excellent chance that they'll just let the franchise gather dust on their shelves.

Besides that, why would they want to make their own Pokemon animated series when it would still be easier to just keep the Japanese version going and dub it just like what normally happens? They aren't a video game developing company and giving the rights to make Pokemon games to another company could still create some major problems. Granted, I don't think that TPCI would want to go to any company. They wanted full control of the franchise instead of dealing with another third party company, so this is pretty moot as it is, but the last thing we need is to give Disney another major high selling franchise.

 

[sc190191]

My question is... what distinguishing factor did Torkoal have which led Ash to choose it against Tobias? In fact, it was the worst performing Pokémon in that battle by far. Perhaps it was its tanking skill? It didn’t seem the reason to me when it was literally OHKOed.

Not to defend Torkoal, as it rarely did well, but its battle against Brandon's Registeel was actually really good, and that was its most recent battle as of the Sinnoh League. That was battle experience against a legendary Pokemon, so maybe experience is a factor. It lasted a while in the Brandon battle, got off several good hits, was really much more impressive than would have been expected of it at that time.

The OHKO thing isn't super fair, since that happened to Swellow too, which was absolute garbage. Of all the things people get mad about in regards to the Tobias battle, that's really the only part that got me mad. Swellow was so well known for endurance (and imo his ace at Hoenn League), so it was really frustrating that it got one-shot.

Wow it feels good to talk about something other than PM series.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

The OHKO thing isn't super fair, since that happened to Swellow too, which was absolute garbage.

Well, it did get to show off it’s speed as a factor on why Ash chose it. There was just no niche I could find that Torkoal filled on that team. All the others either distinguished themselves by speed, power or strategy.

 

[Zorchic]

Well, it did get to show off it’s speed as a factor on why Ash chose it. There was just no niche I could find that Torkoal filled on that team. All the others either distinguished themselves by speed, power or strategy.

Ash probably thought that Torkoal could tank some of Darkrai’s attacks, but Torkoal didn’t live up to his expectations.

 

[Alola]

Yeah, I'm not impressed with Pocket Monsters at all so far. Not that Sun & Moon was entirely bad, but I prefer it now, and even Best Wishes, to this; every other series has had a stronger lineup of beginning episodes, imo, than what we've gotten so far.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Here's my controversial opinion: I don't mind the Pocket Monsters 2019 being the way it is at all. It's interesting to see the anime doing things that are this vastly different from anything seen in it previously. Sure it may not have the strongest of openings, world-building, or etc., but since it's still very fresh, I think it's unfair to judge it yet. We didn't know in early Best Wishes that Zekrom was never going to return and waste all the potential it carried.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Here's my controversial opinion: I don't mind the Pocket Monsters 2019 being the way it is at all. It's interesting to see the anime doing things that are this vastly different from anything seen in it previously. Sure it may not have the strongest of openings, world-building, or etc., but since it's still very fresh, I think it's unfair to judge it yet. We didn't know in early Best Wishes that Zekrom was never going to return and waste all the potential it carried.

I wouldn't say that it's unfair to judge it. It is still relatively early in its run, but comparing its opening episodes with how other series started out is pretty reasonable. Plus, initial impressions are still pretty important. You don't have to watch an entire series to judge it or form an opinion on it. You can do that with watching a few episodes to decide how you feel about it and if it would be worthwhile to keep watching it.

 

[Daenerys]

I'm kinda starting to like Go. I know it's blasphemous around here to show support for him since many people think he's stealing Ash's spotlight, but I think Go's a much more active character and honestly kinda fun to watch compared to Ash.

 

[sc190191]

Go is a far worse person than Paul (at least so far).

This is my opinion, but I'm going to give reasons to defend it, and hopefully the story will improve to help change this, because it would be pretty rough at this rate to have a protag (and seemingly the only protag) for as many as three years who is this selfish.

First lets compare what they are doing. Paul was certainly selfish as well, he really mostly only cared about being as strong as possible as a trainer. But, whether intended or not, his goal did allow his Pokemon the ability to do something they enjoyed as well, spend a lot of time with their trainer, get stronger, and battle (which they were mostly shown to enjoy - as many Pokemon are shown to enjoy). So maybe it was unintentional, but his Pokemon still got something out of the deal. If a Pokemon wasn't going to thrive with him, he would let it go. Sure, it may seem heartless, in comparison to Ash, who would work really hard to bring out the best in any Pokemon, but it still is better than holding on to a Pokemon and ignoring it.

Go, on the other hand, catches his Pokemon purely for himself. There is quite literally nothing in it for his Pokemon, and he doesn't care at all about them. To him, Pokemon are collector's items, he has no goal involved with them, he may eventually care about evolving them, but again that's just for himself so he can complete a Pokedex. The Pokemon are now left to live in a greenhouse, which will eventually be overcrowded, instead of their original home, and have nothing really to do but just be there as trophies and wait for a call from Go when he needs them for his own purposes. He truly has no reason to have Pokemon at all, he isn't looking for companionship, he isn't a trainer, he isn't a performer, he has a slight interest in research (but then he would learn more from seeing Pokemon in their natural environment anyway), so he literally only has Pokemon for a log in his phone and for his own selfish reasons. His eventual goal is to obtain the ultimate collector's item, Mew. There is no reason he wants Mew other than he thinks its really cool. As a unique and amazing Pokemon, he wants it for himself, he doesn't care about Mew, he doesn't care that Mew may have a place in the world, he doesn't care about others getting to experience Mew, all he cares about is Go. And then, when he gets Mew, he has no plan, he just wants it because its cool. More on this later.

Paul's methods of training are what got him the most negative attention. I agree that some of them went too far, but the important thing to note is that most of his Pokemon actually wanted to train hard. I don't really want to get into that argument here, some of how he treated Chimchar was certainly too far, and was possibly abusive. You know what else is considered abuse, neglect. Paul certainly didn't neglect any of his Pokemon, if they were willing to work hard, he also put in a ton of effort to help them improve and achieve a common goal. There is no such thing as a common goal with Go, all he cares about is collecting. Go's Pokemon don't matter to him once he catches them, unless they can help him catch more Pokemon. The greenhouse where they can live is not something Go knew was available, so it is just luck they even have a decent place to live (although it isn't better than their homes in the wild).

Paul didn't pretend to care about other people. He was distant from most people, he didn't actually try to talk to Ash very often, remember Ash did a lot of the instigating in their conversations. Paul could be pretty rude, but again, you knew exactly how he felt, he didn't hide stuff. Compare this to Go, who only accepted Ash as his friend when he felt he could get something out of Ash, then still teetered around the idea of being willing to be friends with him. He wasn't willing to be friends with Scorbunny until he thought Scorbunny was cool enough to be worthy of him. He seems to use Koharu as well, she tries to help him in school, and she provides the important connection to the Professor, he really hasn't offered anything to their friendship for her sake. Everything he does is about himself. He may not seem mean on the surface, but he is a user of other people and Pokemon and he really doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything that isn't himself. Again, I'm not making this post to defend Paul, he wasn't a great person, but at least with Paul you knew what you were getting, whereas Go is an a*hole in disguise.

Go's desire to collect Pokemon purely for collection's sake reminds me of Lawrence III (for those who don't know, the antagonist of Movie 2 - he didn't have any specifically evil goal like evil teams or most movie antagonists, he just wanted legendary Pokemon for himself because he was a collector). Interestingly Lawrence's first collectors item was a Mew card, similar to Go's motivation for becoming a heartless collector. Now Go's methods of obtaining his collection are not yet to the scale of Lawrence, but he is also just 10 years old and just started. The path he is on could seemingly lead him to turn to worse methods of collecting once he finds certain items he wants to obtain (such as legendaries) are too hard to just get in a Pokeball (since he very clearly isn't interested in doing anything that would be hard). The motivations are essentially the same, Lawrence was also quite selfish, and didn't care how his actions impacted the world around him, but just wanted cool Pokemon to have. He even used parts of his collection to try to get an even bigger collection item, just like Go wants to do to get Mew. Again, there is a pretty significant divide between their actions at this time, but it is quite easy to imagine the start Go is on leading him in this direction, while I can't really imagine much of a positive direction coming out of his current actions. I don't really recall anyone being okay with what Lawrence was doing, but its fine for Go. It really is just about the same thing, just without the same technology and with a different portrayal and more direct consequences in Lawrence's situation.

All in all, I really don't know what they are doing with Go. As I touched on a bit earlier, the selfishness in my opinion seems too common throughout all of his behavior to be an accident, but then again, no one around him has anything negative to say about it, so I really don't know if they are setting him up to learn a lesson or if this is really supposed to be okay now. I guess it would be a cool lesson if they tried to show his actions as leading him towards the path of someone like Lawrence, and then he learned from it, but it really appears as if that isn't the direction the story is going in. There sure is a lot of time to improve, even Paul did improve a lot throughout Sinnoh, with his opposition from Ash being a big part of his learning. The difference is that Ash actually opposed what Paul was doing, whereas in this series he is so far relegated to being a background character and he acts pretty aloof to anything Go does, just thinking it is cool for the most part. I sure do hope something changes soon, but with the premise of the series already set up, I really don't think its going to happen. Go will seemingly continue catching Pokemon to the point where we won't even know what he has anymore. Go has quickly become my least favorite character in the history of the show. I thought Sophocles was boring and annoying, but he was still a good person, and I would far rather watch a series with him as the protagonist. Go may not be as bad a person as some (Lysandre, Cyrus, etc), but they weren't portrayed as good, making their inclusion in the show make sense and be entertaining, while Go is doing awful things but being portrayed as good. Then we have people on here saying its good someone is finally proactive and catching Pokemon, he's better than Ash, there is nothing wrong with what he is doing, etc. That is so gross to me, I'm not a huge Ash fan just because I think he gets a little stale, but one thing I love about Ash is how great he treats Pokemon, so to have a protagonist like Go is just so appalling. I guess it just fits in more to the Pokemon Go-ification of the series, where Pokemon truly have been downgraded from equals to collector's items.