Controversial opinions

[Rainbow-Rain]

I'm sick and tired of the "MC's Pokemon has a rivalry with their evolved form" trope, it has been used at least once for at least half of the MC Pokemon by this point and it didn't make sense in the first place.

I get what you mean.

It's so obviously meant to show that the MC Pokémon will won't ever evolve.

Because they've defeated their Evolved stages so it means that they don't need evolution to prove themselves stronger

Like Rowlet defeating his Evolutions TWICE AND swallowing an Everstone to Brutally hammer in the point that he will never evolve. Subtle as a brick wall Anipoke Writers

I've also noticed in contrast to the trend of MC Pokémon having rivalries with their Evolutions there's also been a recent trend of MC Pokémon admiring their Evolutions (and those tend to be the ones who end up Evolving)
This has happened for the last 4 Gens with Axew, Froakie, Popplio, and Sobble (although Axew took a while to evolve)

Again, I said "the unevolved usually wins or has the last (i.e. decisive) win of the respective series." Torracat/Incineroar got the last and most decisive win against its evolved form (at the time).

Ah I see. Sorry nevermind then lol

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Like Rowlet defeating his Evolutions TWICE AND swallowing an Everstone to Brutally hammer in the point that he will never evolve. Subtle as a brick wall Anipoke Writers

Not to mention that Rowlet having a rivalry with Decidueye felt forced to begin with, when it had already won their previous match. I'll never be a fan of Ash's Rowlet after how it achieved so much by doing basically nothing and not getting any karma for its laziness.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

It sure ain't no GOD but rather a one trick pony that's all smoke and no mirrors.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Now that the series has ended, I think that the hate for poor Rowlet is kind of excessive at points. I’d rather have a Pokémon like it on the main cast rather than however they’re treating Ash's Gengar, for instance.

 

[RafaSceptile]

Now that the series has ended, I think that the hate for poor Rowlet is kind of excessive at points. I’d rather have a Pokémon like it on the main cast rather than however they’re treating Ash's Gengar, for instance.

Also Rowlet was ironically Ash's most consistent Pokémon during battles in SM. Sure, he is probably weaker than Sceptile or Bulbasaur, but is far from one of Ash's weakest Pokémon as a lot of people claim.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Also Rowlet was ironically Ash's most consistent Pokémon during battles in SM. Sure, he is probably weaker than Sceptile or Bulbasaur, but is far from one of Ash's weakest Pokémon as a lot of people claim.

Rowlet's power is not the question. It's the way it achieved it.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Hot Take:

If it wasn't for the fact that Starters are supposed be like 90% Male, literally no one would have a problem with Primarina's design (or Brionne's for that matter)

 

[prog rocker]

Thank you for reminding me of all the "it's too feminine" complaints I remember seeing back then.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Hot Take:

If it wasn't for the fact that Starters are supposed be like 90% Male, literally no one would have a problem with Primarina's design (or Brionne's for that matter)

I never understood the point of that. I mean sure, maybe boys were the expected majority of the player base, but are cooties really going to turn kids away from a video game? Isn’t that something you’d wanna discourage?

 

[game3524]

To this day Kanto+OI feels like the most overall cohesive part of the series, possessing clear character arcs for the main leads, a shocking (at the time) plot twist when Ash's reliance on heart and hope fails and he gets booted out of the league when all his flaws catch up to him, and a reversal and triumph moment when his and Pikachu's arcs finally reach a payoff when they defeat Drake. The only real loose ends were the G/S ball (which went nowhere) and Ash never facing Gary.

After that the show started to slowly but surely shift to a more plot-based focus where the characters are moved about to fit whatever current story line needs to be done.

Exactly. This is the primary reason why Johto feels a bit lackluster. Most of the main issues Ash faces are wrapped up in OI. I think I have mentioned it before, but GS getting delayed really ended up hurting the Johto arc. In an ideal world, most of the storylines in OI (mainly Charizard's arc and Ash redeeming himself) could have been moved there, plus add the rivalry with Gary and you have enough to build a series around.

 

[TRNatalie]

Now that the series has ended, I think that the hate for poor Rowlet is kind of excessive at points. I’d rather have a Pokémon like it on the main cast rather than however they’re treating Ash's Gengar, for instance.

This. Like I understand the writing for Rowlet wasn’t the best, especially in seasons 2 and 3, some people don’t like the comic relief unevolved starters, and some were annoyed by the Rowlet is God jokes but of the ones that came after Piplup really popularized it, Rowlet was my favorite of them (I think I might’ve liked it more than Piplup at some points). After Oshawott and Chespin and their stealing everyone’s food among other things, I liked having one that didn’t do that, goofy but kindhearted and slept a lot. I thought it was cute how much it loved Ash’s backpack and the friendship it developed with Cosmog because of it (not to mention Meltan). I also thought it was a pretty good battler in the beginning; it played a pivotal role in the Totem Gunshoos battle, the Hala battle, the Totem Lurantis battle (during which it took what would’ve been a super effective hit for Litten), and the Olivia battle (where he carried and got knocked out by his own teammate but held nothing against Rockruff afterwards). I was really disappointed that season 3 (which tried so hard to make him an active battler) dropped his battle style of sneaking up on opponents and attacking, I still think he should’ve been the one to battle Mudsdale (if only because the battle can be done virtually unchanged from Pikachu fighting it, just without Soak-ex machina and I like the bookend the Grand Trials would have by having the same Pokémon first used in one be used in the very last one), and I fully agree that he should’ve learned Sleep Talk. The owl really deserved better and the hate he’s gotten post Alola League just seems to ignore that. He’s not the only Pokémon that got f*cked up in season 3 *coughs* Mimikkyu *coughs* so it’s weird to me that he became irredeemable in the eyes of so many of the fandom. Yeah the Decidueye battle sucked and admittedly it and everything surrounding that ep did sour my feelings for Rowlet but it was really because I know Rowlet could’ve been handled much better so everything just makes me sad (also it did not help Fujisaku’s reputation who still gets dragged every time his name shows up as the scriptwriter. Can’t defend the episode, I just wish he got to do the Musashi vs Kojiro battle instead).

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

The thing about Fujisaku is that he's the kind of writer that's really only suited for certain types of episodes: put him in charge of a comedy-oriented slice of life story and he'll absolutely shine, but as soon as you force him out of his element everything crumbles to dust.

On a different note, I've been thinking about Pikachu's refusal of evolution and how back in the day there were quite a few people lamenting that he wasn't a Raichu... but really, when you think about it, Pikachu remaining unevolved is kind of a blessing in disguise for how long the anime has been running: the fact of the matter is, they can't make Pikachu win literally every battle ever. It would just make things boring, stale, and predictable because even if it makes sense, a protagonist that does nothing but win at everything all the time simply isn't that fun to watch after a while. And I think Pikachu being unevolved in a way can help explain why he loses even after having overcome Legendaries in the past: sure, Pikachu may be incredibly experienced, but at the end of the day he's still an unevolved mon and thus has to work twice as hard to maintain his power and skill, and sometimes there's gonna be days when his lack of natural raw power is going to work against him, hence why he can go from beating a Legendary Tapu Koko to losing to a regular old Grapploct for example. Sure, such dissonance might be perplexing to some, but I think Pikachu being unevolved helps keep his losses plausible and believable: if he was a Raichu it'd at best be borderline impossible to believe his fluctuating power levels.

Also, yes, there's some losses that absolutely can't be justified like everything about Trip's Snivy/Servine but we don't talk about that shhh

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

I never understood the point of that. I mean sure, maybe boys were the expected majority of the player base, but are cooties really going to turn kids away from a video game? Isn’t that something you’d wanna discourage?

I think the whole reason for the Gender ratio is to make it harder for players to breed Starters

You either have to find Ditto (usually pretty late into the game) or you just have to reset the game a bunch of times to hopefully get a female Starter

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Hot Take:

If it wasn't for the fact that Starters are supposed be like 90% Male, literally no one would have a problem with Primarina's design (or Brionne's for that matter)

I never understood the point of that. I mean sure, maybe boys were the expected majority of the player base, but are cooties really going to turn kids away from a video game? Isn’t that something you’d wanna discourage?

To add onto this point, I’ve never quite processed the complaints for the starters looking "too feminine" but having a majority male gender ratio: Why do Pokémon have to adhere to human gender differences?
Unfezant follows bird gender morphology with the males being the brightly coloured ones. With these starters, people are putting human gender stereotypes onto Pokémon and expecting their gender ratio to adhere to it which I find weird since Pokémon are not humans and nor do they have gender norms similar to humans.
In Pokémon universe it might even be the case that Male Gardevoir and Primarina prefer more decoration. Why not?

 

[prog rocker]

In Pokémon universe it might even be the case that Male Gardevoir and Primarina prefer more decoration. Why not?

There's also the situation that in real life, sometimes the males of certain species are more colorful than females, like with those ducks whose name I forgot (Mandarin ducks?)

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

There's also the situation that in real life, sometimes the males of certain species are more colorful than females, like with those ducks whose name I forgot (Mandarin ducks?)

That's actually the case for most birds with sexual dimorphism. Males have bright plumage for displays while females are drab so that they can blend with their surroundings while brooding eggs. And then we have those animal species where both males and females look masculine or feminine from a human-centric perspective, such as gorillas or swans respectively. So yeah, a male Primarina is no different from a real world male swan; animals that look "girly" to literally no one but our biased human brain

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

This whole Pokémon gender discussion is news to me. Sure I know some starter Pokémon are more feminine than others, but I didn't know it was such a hot topic of discussion amongst fans. At most, I thought it was just a source of jokes.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Delphox>Braixen

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Eevee>Pikachu

 

[Okido]

Charmander > Charizard.