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Controversial opinions

What was the point of hiding Kukui’s team? I get why he would hide Incineroar from the students, what with his whole Masked Royal charade (we were also never told why he made such a big deal out of that secret and then said “fuck it, Imma fight unmasked”), but how would the rest compromise him in any way? It took us 50 episodes to even find out he has... a Braviary. When did they even eat?

This is made further weird by the fact that his team has types, moves and experience that would definitely teach the students more about pokemon and maybe even directly help developing their own (e.g. Braviary teaching Rowlet Brave Bird, Empoleon using its tides knowledge to aid on Primarina’s bubbles, Lucario teaching Turtonator Dragon Pulse...). I feel like it would have been more logical and satisfying if we had known them before the showdown.

Bad writing.
They should have made Gladion the endgame and give the guy a full proper team instead of trying to pass off that an entire team have been living in the same house as Ash for the past 100 episodes. It just makes Kukui come off as cruel and inhumane, never letting his Pokemon outside and keeping them locked away.

Torracat not evolving until the very last possible moment was a BIG mistake, further improved by Lycanroc battling Kiawe instead of him!

They should have let Torracat beat Incineroar and evolve earlier then wrap up the League with Ash vs Gladion + Nebby vs Lunala, while Ash utilizing Tapunium against Guzzlord(He should have been the one to utilize it, Kukui jacked it from him!)

To tell the truth I don't mind that Barrierd's now Satoshi's Pokemon. Even if they waited 20 years for the big reveal it's not a plothole or inconsistency of any kind, and in my opinion it sorta makes sense (since Hanako is not a trainer I'd expect Satoshi to get it before if started working on his house).

Of course it's a Pokemon I don't care about, at all. And its PM 2019 portrayal kinda annoys me... Back in OS it ate just as any other Pokemon would, so why they had to bring Detective Pikachu's Barrierd personality and make it mimic instead?

Although I'm a little biased on this as I don't really like the Detective Pikachu movie.


I love Detective Pikachu but I hate what they did to Mimey, he was just fine the way he was and it just makes me further sickened they left Incineroar and the others in Alola if they were going to leave Delia alone in two episodes. If Incineroar was living with her I'd find Mimey hanging out with Ash more acceptable
 
To tell the truth I don't mind that Barrierd's now Satoshi's Pokemon. Even if they waited 20 years for the big reveal it's not a plothole or inconsistency of any kind, and in my opinion it sorta makes sense (since Hanako is not a trainer I'd expect Satoshi to get it before if started working on his house).

Of course it's a Pokemon I don't care about, at all. And its PM 2019 portrayal kinda annoys me... Back in OS it ate just as any other Pokemon would, so why they had to bring Detective Pikachu's Barrierd personality and make it mimic instead?

Although I'm a little biased on this as I don't really like the Detective Pikachu movie.

It isn't a plothole exactly, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Why wait so long to show that Mr. Mime was indeed caught by Ash? Sure, his mother isn't a trainer, but Mr. Mime could have just wanted to stay without being captured. We've seen that with other Pokemon and it would make way more sense than Ash catching it off screen and never using it for twenty years. I really like the Detective Pikachu movie, but I'm not a fan of basically retconning Mr. Mime's personality to make it more akin to that version of Mr. Mime. If this was a brand new Mr. Mime, then it would be fine. It would still feel like a blatant attempt at trying to make Mr. Mime more popular within the anime, but it wouldn't feel so forced and jarring. They just should have given Ash his own Mr. Mime instead of making such a strange retcon.

Bad writing.
They should have made Gladion the endgame and give the guy a full proper team instead of trying to pass off that an entire team have been living in the same house as Ash for the past 100 episodes. It just makes Kukui come off as cruel and inhumane, never letting his Pokemon outside and keeping them locked away.

I don't think that the audience was suppose to think that none of his Pokemon aside from Braviary and Incineroar were locked away. Granted, Ash actually living with Professor Kukui makes it weirder that he never saw any of these Pokemon, but I think reading it as Kukui being cruel and inhumane is a bit much. I don't know if I could have seen Gladion being the endgame match instead of Proessor Kukui. There was enough buildup to make Ash vs. Gladion to be a fitting final round of the Alola League, but he didn't have as much hype as the Masked Royal did and battling him was effectively the prize for winning the Alola League too.

Shadowlarvitar said:
Torracat not evolving until the very last possible moment was a BIG mistake, further improved by Lycanroc battling Kiawe instead of him!

They should have let Torracat beat Incineroar and evolve earlier then wrap up the League with Ash vs Gladion + Nebby vs Lunala, while Ash utilizing Tapunium against Guzzlord(He should have been the one to utilize it, Kukui jacked it from him!)

While I do wish that Incineroar could have had a battle after it evolved, I don't think that there would have been a more fitting time for Torracat to evolve. It's goal was to defeat Professor Kukui's Incineroar. Evolving before that match wouldn't have worked and I think Torracat evolving from the experience of that battle instead of giving it the extra push it needed to win felt pretty refreshing in a way. Besides that, the battle with Kiawe was mostly off-screen, so I don't think that Incineroar would have gotten much of a battle in that case. I don't think that they planned for Ash to win the Alola League from the start of SM, but considering how much hype there was for Professorr Kukui's Incineroar, I don't know if defeating it outside of the Alola League would have worked. I'm also not sure how Solgaleo vs. Lunala would fit into this.

I was fine with Professor Kukui using Tapunium. Ash using it against Guzzlord would have been cool, but I thought that Tapu Koko recognizing Professor Kukui's own strength with use of its own Z-Move was really cool too. His team and skills were pretty solid so being acknowledged in such a way was neat. Plus, Pikachu fighting against a giant Tapu Koko with its own Z-Move was really great.
 
Well I for one loved that they retconned Mimey as Ash's Pokemon. Especially because it gave him two of the types he was missing. If people dont like it oh well :p
I'd prefer if Ash caught a different Mr. Mime but I'm glad he got the species because I honestly don't see any of the Psychic and (especially) Fairy types fitting him more.
 
I'm only seven episodes into Journeys, so it still might be too early to say for sure, but I like Goh. While I do have mixed feelings on his capture spree style of getting Pokemon, it's also clear that he does care about them and his bond with Scorbunny is already quite sweet. I can understand some of the complaints about his goal and his capture style a bit more, but Goh himself is perfectly fine and likable thus far to me.
The biggest problem for me is not Goh himself as a character. Its his goal and how its handled. First of all, Goh is meant to represent Pokemon Go and honestly, I don't think he and how he catches Pokemon should have been how they represent it. I think if they really wanted to represent Pokemon Go, they should have given roles to Professor Willow, Blanche, Candela, and Spark. Secondly, Goh's goal is just....He catches Pokemon too easily. There's almost no effort, and its just throwing years of established rules out the window when we've sat there hearing you have to weaken a Pokemon before you could catch it for years. So there's that, and to go on top of this, he doesn't even train them, nor does he even battle. When he just catches like 5 Pokemon an episode too easily and never uses them, what incentive do I have to root for him? I sit there and go why do you need all these Flabebe? Why do you need one of every color? How is this gonna get you Mew? A collector just doesn't work for an interesting protagonist goal in the Pokemon anime. If Goh was out there traveling the world to track down Mew and build a team that could defeat Mew and help him catch it, maybe I could root for him, but that isn't the case.
 
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I personally find that l, in situations like that, that’s an incredibly lazy way of doing it. If you want to give Ash a fairy and/or a psychic type, have him capture them just as he’s had to with literally every other type. It makes it feel less like an accomplishment when they rely on things that even the series can’t back up.
Who knows if he was ever going to get another Psychic or Fairy type after eight gens. That wasn't the reason they retconned Mimey as his but it is an added bonus. Plus I like Mr. Mime as a Pokemon so fine with me. I feel like people complaining are making a mountain out of a molehill
 
The biggest problem for me is not Goh himself as a character. Its his goal and how its handled. First of all, Goh is meant to represent Pokemon Go and honestly, I don't think he and how he catches Pokemon should have been how they represent it. I think if they really wanted to represent Pokemon Go, they should have given roles to Professor Willow, Blanche, Candela, and Spark. Secondly, Goh's goal is just....He catches Pokemon too easily. There's almost no effort, and its just throwing years of established rules out the window when we've sat there hearing you have to weaken a Pokemon before you could catch it for years. So there's that, and to go on top of this, he doesn't even train them, nor does he even battle. When he just catches like 5 Pokemon an episode too easily and never uses them, what incentive do I have to root for him? I sit there and go why do you need all these Flabebe? Why do you need one of every color? How is this gonna get you Mew? A collector just doesn't work for an interesting protagonist goal in the Pokemon anime. If Goh was out there traveling the world to track down Mew and build a team that could defeat Mew and help him catch it, maybe I could root for him, but that isn't the case.

I'm not sure if I could have seen them giving roles to the Go Team Leaders, although Professor Willow might have worked instead of making a brand new Professor for Vermillion City. While I'm sure that they wanted to incorporate the Pokemon Go style of captures, it also just reminds me of how by a certain point in each game, nearly all of my captures are just done with Quick Balls. He definitely does catch Pokemon way too easily. I play Pokemon Go all the time and I don't capture Pokemon with one attempt nearly that often. Throwing out the established rules feel more jarring to me than anything else. I can understand why that would be upsetting, but after they incorporated the Pokemon Go catching in a main series title, I'm not sure if seeing the anime doing something similar bothers me that much either.

I think part of the problem is that the anime is trying to make catching more akin to how it is done in the games and not just Pokemon Go. Despite how the Pokedex still has information on every Pokemon they encounter available, they now register Pokemon that a character catches to their Pokedex, which wasn't really done before. For some reason, I think that felt weirder to me than just Go catching the bulk of his Pokemon without battling. I don't think that it bothers me that Goh doesn't train or battle with his Pokemon, at least not yet. A character doesn't really need to battle if they aren't interested in doing so. I often said the same thing about Serena, but it does potentially give the character less to do or a less engaging goal if they aren't being more proactive with their Pokemon.

I don't think his goal of working back to Mew makes sense, the catching spree doesn't really translate well into the context of the anime, being a collector isn't really the most engaging goal for a main character to have and I can understand the frustration of seeing him catch a bunch of Pokemon only to never use them, especially if he catches a Pokemon that you really like. I think that the main reasons why his goal doesn't bother me as much right now boils down to how Goh himself is still pretty likable, he still clearly cares about his Pokemon and it does remind me of how I catch Pokemon by a certain point in the main series. Goh catching everything left and right with Pokeballs reminded me of how I was doing basically the same thing when I first got to the Isle of Armor. Going on a capture spree to find even older Pokemon is quite fun. Like I said before, this is a video game element that doesn't quite work within the anime, but I think it's harder for me to get that upset about it when I think of how I capture Pokemon too.

Who knows if he was ever going to get another Psychic or Fairy type after eight gens. That wasn't the reason they retconned Mimey as his but it is an added bonus. Plus I like Mr. Mime as a Pokemon so fine with me. I feel like people complaining are making a mountain out of a molehill

I'm pretty sure that they could have easily found a different Psychic or Fairy type to give Ash instead of randomly retconning Mr. Mime. Fairy might have been a bit more difficult by comparison, but there are plenty of good Psychic types out there that would fit with Ash. This was just the quickest/laziest way they could have done so. I'm not sure if it really good for Mr. Mime if it hasn't been used in battle after that small tournament. It comes off more as a way to justify Ash not using his reserves or not catching a new Pokemon proper for another few episodes than anything else. I didn't like the idea of this retcon before, but seeing more of Journeys myself and the battle itself really reminded me why I didn't like it. It isn't a huge deal breaker. I still like Journeys thus far, that specific episode was still good and the battles were surprisingly solid, especially for Ash's first proper trainer battle in the series. I just also still think that the retcon was bad and downright unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
 
Who knows if he was ever going to get another Psychic or Fairy type after eight gens. That wasn't the reason they retconned Mimey as his but it is an added bonus. Plus I like Mr. Mime as a Pokemon so fine with me. I feel like people complaining are making a mountain out of a molehill
Lazy writing in the form of retcons is never a bonus nor should it be viewed as such. This is a medium of show don’t tell and we’ve followed Ash directly for the entire run. There is no excuse for such laziness. If they had ever intended Mr. Mime to be Ash’s, they would have either shown it or acknowledged it within the series where these things can be backed up. The fact that they had to “reveal” it via a Tweet of all things just shows how halfassed the whole thing was. That much isn’t a matter of bias but looking at the writing objectively. At the end of the day, it’s both lazy and bad writing on their part.
 
Lazy writing in the form of retcons is never a bonus nor should it be viewed as such. This is a medium of show don’t tell and we’ve followed Ash directly for the entire run. There is no excuse for such laziness. If they had ever intended Mr. Mime to be Ash’s, they would have either shown it or acknowledged it within the series where these things can be backed up. The fact that they had to “reveal” it via a Tweet of all things just shows how halfassed the whole thing was. That much isn’t a matter of bias but looking at the writing objectively. At the end of the day, it’s both lazy and bad writing on their part.
Sure it isn't a bonus for you but it is for me. I don't necessarily disagree it was lazy writing on their part but since it finally gave Ash a Psychic and Fairy Pokemon after twenty years I don't really care.

Plus there were already hints it belonged to Ash way before Pokemon Journey
 
Sure it isn't a bonus for you but it is for me. I don't necessarily disagree it was lazy writing on their part but since it finally gave Ash a Psychic and Fairy Pokemon after twenty years I don't really care.

Plus there were already hints it belonged to Ash way before Pokemon Journey
There was literally not a single hint within the series that it belonged to Ash. I’d also like to point out that the prospect of ‘I agree that it’s lazy writing but don’t care because it caters to me’ only makes the scenario look even worse.
 
There was literally not a single hint within the series that it belonged to Ash. I’d also like to point out that the prospect of ‘I agree that it’s lazy writing but don’t care because it caters to me’ only makes the scenario look even worse.
Not within the series but there have been official sources and websites that claimed Mimey as Ash's.
 
Not within the series but there have been official sources and websites that claimed Mimey as Ash's.
And there in lies the problem. That is a case of tell, don’t show. Nothing that occurred within the series or even anything that could be considered supplemental material makes that kind of confirmation, thus it can’t be cited nor can it be traced back to something to confirm it. It’s literally a case of ‘It’s true because I said so’ despite the burden of proof then falling on them to actually prove it. It’s insulting for longtime viewers and newer viewers alike because, at that point, they are saying that they could pull literally anything out of their asses and they don’t have to explain or prove anything.
 
None of those sources were directly related to the anime or the staff

Not true. One of the sources that showed Mr. Mime with the rest of Ash's caught Pokemon was the main Pokemon anime website. I don't have the exact link but it was posted around before and if the official Pokemon anime website isn't official then what is?
 
Not within the series but there have been official sources and websites that claimed Mimey as Ash's.

That's still pretty bad and lazy. If they have to rely on outside sources to justify Mr. Mime being Ash's Pokemon instead of actually confirming it within the show itself, that's pretty bad writing. It would still be bad even if they had included a flashback just because there had been no indication within the anime for over twenty years that Ash caught Mr. Mime. Neither Ash or Mr. Mime are that excited to see each other whenever he comes back home, it has been associated with Delia since its debut and he never attempted to battle with Mr. Mime prior to Journeys. It is absolutely unbelievable that Ash wouldn't have used Mr. Mime in the Indigo League if he caught it back then. Admittedly, a flashback would at least provide more effort to the explanation than a tweet, but that doesn't say much either.

I can understand wanting Ash to get a Psychic and Fairy type, but wouldn't it be more meaningful to actually see him bond with Pokemon of said types and see him catch them instead of giving him a random retcon Mr. Mime? There are plenty of Pokemon that I wish Ash could catch, but having them be caught off screen or retcon into being his Pokemon wouldn't really make me happy or at the very least sour the experience for me. I'm still not sure if it was really worthwhile to do that with Mr. Mime either. I don't think it has really done much in Journeys beyond its miming gag and one battle and I think most of Ash's new captures have gotten more attention lately too.
 
It isn't a plothole exactly, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Why wait so long to show that Mr. Mime was indeed caught by Ash? Sure, his mother isn't a trainer, but Mr. Mime could have just wanted to stay without being captured. We've seen that with other Pokemon and it would make way more sense than Ash catching it off screen and never using it for twenty years. I really like the Detective Pikachu movie, but I'm not a fan of basically retconning Mr. Mime's personality to make it more akin to that version of Mr. Mime. If this was a brand new Mr. Mime, then it would be fine. It would still feel like a blatant attempt at trying to make Mr. Mime more popular within the anime, but it wouldn't feel so forced and jarring. They just should have given Ash his own Mr. Mime instead of making such a strange retcon.

I don't think we should go by the "Barrierd was Satoshi's Pokemon all along" scenario. From what I understand the whole off-screen capture thing was a retcon already, but one that brought no inconsistency to the show. I kind of doubt the writers back in Kanto considered it as Satoshi's Pokemon to be honest.

I completely agree that they should've added a flashback-ish scene of Barrierd's capture, for a better explanation and some well deserved past reference, but I can see how the writers didn't bother to include one as the show's target audience nowadays probably doesn't even know where this Pokemon came from.
 
I always just assumed Ash caught it for his mom and he didn’t use it for battles since the only thing Mimey was interested in was Delia, but now that Delia has ordered it to watch after and stay with Ash, him using it makes sense, at least in my opinion.
Why would that assumption even exist when the series has shown numerous times that people have wild Pokémon living with them that they have never caught them? Hell for a major character, Kukui basically had Rockruff as a part of his household and it was wild the whole time until Ash caught it. So I’m not really understanding where people coming out of the woodwork with statements like that would have ever had a basis for that.
 
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I always just assumed Ash caught it for his mom and he didn’t use it for battles since the only thing Mimey was interested in was Delia, but now that Delia has ordered it to watch after and stay with Ash, him using it makes sense, at least in my opinion.
That's how I explain it in-universe even though I think it's pretty unlikely that was the idea at the time.
 
That's how I explain it in-universe even though I think it's pretty unlikely that was the idea at the time.
Fans should never have to create their own canon to justify an asspull. At that point, you’re just justifying bad writing and the writers insulting your intelligence as a viewer by thinking that they can just pull anything and it’ll just be eaten up even when it runs counter to the narrative of the overall series. This whole thing could have easily been resolved without any problems if they had just listed it among Pokémon that were temporarily used by Ash, which would make more sense seeing as his mother told Mimey to look after Ash for her, rather then belonging to him especially since beyond that single use, it hasn’t been used by Ash again nor has it been listed as a member of his team in anything that’s covered his growing team this series.
 
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