Controversial opinions

[SerenaToAlola]

How's that controversial?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

How's that controversial?

There's the possibility some people won't see it the same way I do.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

There's the possibility some people won't see it the same way I do.

The fact that the anime exists as a marketing tool is hardly controversial... it’s a literal fact. Each and every one of Ash's teams revolves around marketing.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The fact that the anime exists as a marketing tool is hardly controversial... it’s a literal fact. Each and every one of Ash's teams revolves around marketing.

Yeah, but not all of them are built around what Pokémon are thought to be popular.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Yeah, but not all of them are built around what Pokémon are thought to be popular.

You didn’t mention popularity though? You mentioned

Ash's Alola team was largely constructed around marketing and promotion.

99.9999% of all Pokémon Ash gets are there for marketing and promotion. I'd say Kanto and Unova are the sole exceptions due to main party reserves. And even then the "core" team was created from a marketing standpoint. The entire anime is based on marketing...

 

[nickdt]

You didn’t mention popularity though? You mentioned


99.9999% of all Pokémon Ash gets are there for marketing and promotion. I'd say Kanto and Unova are the sole exceptions due to main party reserves. And even then the "core" team was created from a marketing standpoint. The entire anime is based on marketing...

Kanto, Hoenn and Unova. I mean, he got Glalie and Torkoal in Hoenn, who aren't popular at all and even Corphish isn't all that popular compared to Sceptile and Swellow.

Heck, only from Kalos onwards marketing became a bigger deal than ever before, also helped by the growing rate of the Internet.

Popular mons in Kanto for Ash at the time - Pikachu, the starters, Snorlax and Tauros (And even then Tauros didn't see any action until the Orange Islands)
Johto - The starters, Heracross
Hoenn - Sceptile, Swellow
Sinnoh - Infernape, Turtwig, Gliscor, Gible
Unova - Oshawott, Snivy, Krookodile
Kalos - All of them
Alola - All of them
Galar - Riolu/Lucario, Gengar, Dragonite and the upcoming Sirfetch'd. However, if they were going full fledged Popularity, Ash would have gotten Scorbunny and Sobble as well.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

You didn’t mention popularity though?

Popular Pokémon are the ones most used in marketing. And as mentioned above, it really wasn't until XY that Ash's teams started to be mostly/completely constructed of marketable Pokémon.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I’m not going to argue about popularity since it’s a can of worms that can never be resolved till someone finds a way to unbiased measure it. The part I commented on was

Ash's Alola team was largely constructed around marketing and promotion.

This main opinion.

When we already know that the entire anime is flat out a marketing tool. Ash himself has been constructed around marketing and promotion what he does, whom he battles, and all his Pokémon they all are carefully fabricated for marketing purposes. Nothing is just randomly given to Ash. It isn’t a controversial opinion, let alone even an opinion... it’s a flat out fact so I just thought it was weird to paint it as a "controversial opinion."

Popularity isn’t a part of the equation I commented on. It was marketing and promotion.

 

[SerenaToAlola]

Here's a controversial opinion: even though they gave Ash pokemon that had very obvious promotional purposes, none of them were really popular /looks at poipole and meltan. Even Orange Lycanroc has only middling popularity.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Here's a controversial opinion: even though they gave Ash pokemon that had very obvious promotional purposes, none of them were really popular /looks at poipole and meltan. Even Orange Lycanroc has only middling popularity.

I'd say Poipole was the poster child of USUM and Naganadel was pretty popular. It also attracted attention thanks to evolving. Meltan was the mixed one though.

 

[TheGoldenToon]

I actually have a bit of an effort post it'll take time to write up about the Ash/Red thing. I'll edit it in here later or post it seperately if there's a post before then.
I'll just note that as much as I think some people are too harsh on Ash I think there are some very valid criticisms about how he's written.

This is a super late response, and I do want to say that I understand what you're saying, and I definitely do not want people to think I'm saying people can't have criticisms. There are definitely valid criticisms that people can make about Ash or the writing around him. I'm just annoyed solely at people in particular who say things usually based on misconceptions like people saying "Ash always loses" or "Ash always releases his Pokemon". I would not mind reading anything you have to say about the whole Ash/Red thing.

 

[Daren]

This is a super late response, and I do want to say that I understand what you're saying, and I definitely do not want people to think I'm saying people can't have criticisms. There are definitely valid criticisms that people can make about Ash or the writing around him. I'm just annoyed solely at people in particular who say things usually based on misconceptions like people saying "Ash always loses" or "Ash always releases his Pokemon". I would not mind reading anything you have to say about the whole Ash/Red thing.

At this point I should put the whole thing in my bulba blog once it's done, since this topic has moved well on.
Briefly though, I think it's partly that the anime is often at odds thematically with the games, and partly that the show's weird nature of being self contained within each arc but still remaining in continuity with each other violates a lot of the norms in narrative storytelling. The OS didn't have the latter problem, and I'd argue AG sort of held on (DP is where I think the overall story started to falter but I know a lot of people won't agree with me there).

 

[SerenaToAlola]

I'd say Poipole was the poster child of USUM and Naganadel was pretty popular. It also attracted attention thanks to evolving. Meltan was the mixed one though.

Poipole didn't make it to the top thirty of it's generation in the Pokemon of the Year poll though. Even Decidueye outranked Incineroar.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I'd say Poipole was the poster child of USUM and Naganadel was pretty popular. It also attracted attention thanks to evolving. Meltan was the mixed one though.

Meltan was used to promote Let's Go.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Meltan was used to promote Let's Go.

That post was about popularity...

I think you’re mixing up popularity and marketing a bit on these portions,
You can market something that’s not popular, and popularity is the level of what people already like. I was just replying to @SerenaToAlola's comment about how Poipole, Naganadel and Meltan aren’t popular: I argued Naganadel and Lycanroc are very popular but I don’t know about nanagandel.

 

[Rocket Messiah]

Seeing the calendar and some episodes make me realize that:

Up to this point Sobble is one of the worst starter the anime had ever had.

Be afraid for Grookey...

 

[Greninjaman]

Seeing the calendar and some episodes make me realize that:

Up to this point Sobble is one of the worst starter the anime had ever had.

Be afraid for Grookey...

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

 

[Sobble Bubble-O-Seven]

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

For real. I don't think Sobble has been treated that poorly so far. Sure it was annoying that we basically got misleading advertising, but so far Sobble's gotten a good amount of screen time. I'd like to see it do more obviously, but it could be worse. It could've ended up like Gengar if Sobble went to Ash.

I get the concern for Grookey because it hasn't even shown up yet and we'll probably go a full year before seeing it debut. However, as someone who's usually pessimistic, I'm actually optimistic that Grookey will get treated well. At least I hope. Just debut it already, writers!

 

[Rocket Messiah]

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Of course. But have a remainder that this is my opinion and that I'm not a big Sobble fan. Also this is a problem that the whole series has. Also realize that I said "up to this point".

Normally when a Pokémon gets caught by a main cast character you want to see a development of character. You want to see that said Pokémon get over some problems and obstacles. We had that with Litten for example or Froakie even the Unovan starters.

The main problem with Sobble is that he has done nothing, and that is not entirely his fault.It's fault of Goh goal where unlike other goals from the anime the Pokémon he has does not need any training and it's fault of the writters that forgot how to distribute screen time and moments for some Pokémon like what is happening to Gengar and Dragonite for example.

Another problem is the scale power of this series. Sobble is a weak Pokémon to be fighting big Pokémon like Flygons, Rhydons and other things. That is why we are going so fast by Cinderace. Must I remember to all of you that the series started at late November and had a 2 months hiatus?

What Sobble needs is and episode about him. Even Chespin had one of his own. So we can know him better. What has done in the past episodes appart from crying and beeing cute? Trying to fight Flygon, beeing there in Alola, getting slapped by a Mincinno,dissapaering randomly. That is not enough especially for a starter. What he is now is jus beeing Raboot little brother.

I'm sorry but in my opinion the world tour plot is hurting Galar mons a lot.

By the way about Grookey well I don't know how it will be but up to this point in almost every series all the starter Pokémon had debuted... So I don't know what to think.

 

[Hidden Mew]

To be fair, this series is definitely handling the new starters differently than we're used to. The notion of a new starter like Scorbunny reaching their final form within the first year of any series would have been unthinkable. They didn't even feature Sobble until after Scorbunny became Raboot. I agree that the world tour plot is not really helping them to showcase more of the newest Pokemon, which is a huge shame, but they'll eventually showcase Grookey in the anime.