Controversial opinions

[Jewel the Quaxly]

I mean, it's been discussed before that a director for the anime joked about female characters being dropped each season because "boys need eye candy". He may have meant it in a joking manner, but as a working adult, it's not hard to read comments like that and wonder what the environment is like at OLM and how they actually view their female characters.

One director. And if I remember correctly, this was back from the OS saga so it's pretty dated.

slightly off-topic, but it also kind of bothered me how the anime kept Brock over Misty for the Hoenn saga considering the sheer amount of water present in those games and how a water-type tournament could have been handled throughout that series but, I digress

If I remember correctly, the only reason Brock was kept was because of how popular he was. Misty was popular too, yes, but Brock has always been arguably more popular. Remember, they DID easily try and replace him without a moment's notice for the OI saga because of racial stereotypes. That, and, Misty got a return IN said saga, which arguably was better than Brock's entire presence in AG since it provided some closure with Togepi(and arguably on a more subtle level-development for her).

You also have to consider the actual nature of contests and how they were portrayed when compared gym-battles while acknowledging that only the female protagonists worked towards and maintained this goal. The anime couldn't introduce a male traveling companion that was also interested in this? Brock couldn't somehow get involved in contests?

There is logical reasoning for all of this, I feel. Contests DO involve some battling, there are MALE competitors in contests(May especially had mostly male rivals), and from a narrative standpoint, two main characters shown working for gyms at the same time would get stale and more repetitive than Team Rocket's catching Pikachu plots. Brock didn't get involved in contests because straight up from Indigo League(which was way before contests were a thing, mind you), his role is vastly different and he has been shown to have a different goal. Why WOULD he get into contests? As for introducing a male travelling companion into contests...so, then, what would the girl do? Ash is doing gyms, this new guy is doing contests...what on Earth can the girl do-especially considering the same problem with a female traveling companion doing gyms: it would get flat and boring if two characters were doing contests.

And then of course there is Serena, whose competitive goal plays off of very dated sexist tropes.

This is significantly harder to argue for, as its more of a world-building problem with how the goal is introduced-but this does not make Serena's character as a whole sexist. If anything, performances were introduced because of marketing, if I remember correctly-as performances themselves are based off of the games and idol competitions..which...are mostly predominantly female...? The argument about guys doing contests works better here, honestly, because Tierno perfectly fit the bill for Pokemon Performances, but the anime established it as female only, so of course he was going to default to battling.

Like I said in an earlier post, girls are judged way harder than guys because if they fall into a feminine stereotype, they're going to be labelled as sexist, one way or another. Unless a female character's entire existence is made up of stereotypes and they have nothing about them that constitutes them being their own person, it should not be considered sexist.

 

[prog rocker]

May/Dawn/contests,

I don't see contests as sexist. I see it more as an artistic counterpart to battles. I might have seen them as sexist if only girls were allowed to participate, but we have seen plenty of guys in contests.

 

[Unireon]

She wasn't a second protagonist in the DP anime in the way that Go is in Journeys though.

In the same way, of course not.
It was better, Satoshi and Hikari were handled equally.

 

[J Bouken]

I mean, it's been discussed before that a director for the anime joked about female characters being dropped each season because "boys need eye candy". He may have meant it in a joking manner, but as a working adult, it's not hard to read comments like that and wonder what the environment is like at OLM and how they actually view their female characters.

I'm pretty sure this comment is over a decade old now, and the person in question no longer works on Pokemon. I'm not in-the-know about OLM's working culture but given they frequently change up directors and writing staff I think it's unfair to suggest those comments reflect anything other than a single person's opinion.

Considering that Brock was kept for 8 more years to do very little other than make occasionally crude jokes about wanting female characters while viewers had to go through 2 more female protagonist switch-ups until the anime started with a clean slate can be off-putting to some.

I want to focus on this bit specifically because it highlights a difference in treatment, but not in the way you'd think. As you say, Brock did very little during his time on the cast post OS. By comparison, May and Dawn were dynamic, round characters who went through full character arcs and had numerous moments to shine on their own. That they were eventually replaced doesn't undermine this. If anything, it meant they went out on a high while Brock overstayed his welcome. May and Dawn were crucial to AG and DP while Brock was an afterthought, so it seems to me at least he got the shorter end of the stick.

You also have to consider the actual nature of contests and how they were portrayed when compared gym-battles while acknowledging that only the female protagonists worked towards and maintained this goal. The anime couldn't introduce a male traveling companion that was also interested in this? Brock couldn't somehow get involved in contests? And then of course there is Serena, whose competitive goal plays off of very dated sexist tropes.

We discussed Serena a bit already so I'll focus on the contests. I can see why you'd see it as a female-targeted activity. The majority of named female characters, including now three protagonists, participated in them. But at the same time, we still had Drew, Harley, Kenny and Nando, at no point does the show make out Contests are only for girls or that the boys shouldn't participate.

For me, Contests were portrayed as an alternative to battles, with emphasis on appearances and performances, two things which were low priority in gym battles. Compared to the Showcases, there were fewer gender stereotypes at work. Even when Sinnoh introduced the dress-up aspect, the rule applied to everyone, and existed only because contestants were expected to look the part and not because "oh look girls in dresses".

I'd really question why a male protagonist ever needed to get involved, any more so than a female protagonist. That they were May and Dawn's thing was more coincidence than anything, because they so happened to give them something to do without stepping on Ash's toes.

Then there's Ash lacking proper female rivals, especially in the context of the Pokemon league and how the "final rival" is almost always a male. It's precisely those stereotypes that draw in criticism of the anime not treating female MCs well. Personally, I think the anime has gotten much better about this over the years, but Journeys lacking a female MC was a huge misstep imo. I still fail to find justification for why Chloe/Koharu couldn't be the third traveling companion. What really is the reason for this?

They could probably stand to introduce more female battlers.

As for Chloe, I suspect it's purely a creative decision in line with the broader trend of Pokemon trying out new things since the start of Sun and Moon. They're trying a different approach to the heroine this time and I think there are ample signs she's gearing up for a more active role in the show. Given the episodic nature of the show and the high number of recurring/returning characters so far, they probably thought it'd be easier to keep track of a duo rather than a trio.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I wonder if maybe we should make a separate thread to discuss potential sexism in the Pokemon anime. We have one for discussions about racism, and the current conversations about the treatment of the girl companions make me think maybe it'd be a good idea to make a similar thread for the sexism angle: the topic is extremely broad and complicated and runs the risk of eclipsing everything else about general discussions, but I do think it's a topic worth discussing, so I'd be alright with making a thread for it so the conversations can continue there if you'd all like that.

 

[Hidden Mew]

She wasn't a second protagonist in the DP anime in the way that Go is in Journeys though. Sure she got more development and focus than Brock, but it's not the same as Journeys in terms of traveling dynamics and screen-time. I haven't really caught up with Journeys for a while now, but from the first 20-odd episodes I've seen, she's definitely gotten the short end of the stick compared to other female MC's.

I think that's underplaying Dawn's role in DP. Saying that she got more development and focus than Brock did is accurate, but I think that ignores just how huge her Contest arc was for the series. It wasn't just important for her development. Dawn did help inspire some of Ash's strategies and vice versa. She was effectively a co-protagonist and she easily had the biggest role out of all of the female leads thus far, so to say that she got the short end of the stick seems really odd to me.

[quote='"Mr. MoonStone"]But diving deeper, if we speak historically on how lead female characters have been treated we have to look at those stereotypes and how they're portrayed, especially in context of the genre of this show (an action/adventure series targeting young kids). You have Misty who didn't get an established goal until the end of the season she debuted in. While this isn't inherently sexist at all, when you look at it in the context of her two traveling companions, and the fact that they had goals established well beyond the last quarter of the show, can be troublesome. It doesn't help that she was written off the show before we even got a chance to really dive deep into how she planned on reaching this goal (slightly off-topic, but it also kind of bothered me how the anime kept Brock over Misty for the Hoenn saga considering the sheer amount of water present in those games and how a water-type tournament could have been handled throughout that series but, I digress). Considering that Brock was kept for 8 more years to do very little other than make occasionally crude jokes about wanting female characters while viewers had to go through 2 more female protagonist switch-ups until the anime started with a clean slate can be off-putting to some.[/quote]

Misty always had a goal. She wanted to become a Water Pokemon Master from day one. She didn't spend the first series traveling around Ash without any goal until she was forced to go back to the Cerulean Gym. I can understand being frustrated over how she was written out of the series before they did more with her goal. One of my problems with Misty was how she kept talking about being a great Water Pokemon Master, but didn't really do much to reach that goal prior to the Whirl Cup. However, the main reason why I wouldn't really consider this necessarily sexist is because this wasn't an issue exclusive to Misty. Brock had a goal of becoming a Pokemon Breeder, but he arguably had less focus than Misty did and there was even less that they could do to show him making progress towards that goal. Not to mention the original series wasn't particularly interested in giving characters that weren't Ash or Team Rocket attention anyway.

As for why they kept Brock around, I think it was mainly because they didn't want to risk too much by replacing two characters at the same time, especially when fans weren't happy when Brock was replaced for the Orange Islands either. Plus, I don't think that there were any characters from the then recent third and fourth generation games that could have taken his place. Bringing in new female leads to showcase Contests, something that Misty really wouldn't have been interested in doing, made sense. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Brock's gag myself and there are moments where I don't think it has aged well, I think saying that he would occasionally make crude jokes is a bit much. He wasn't like an old pervert kind of character. I'm also not sure if keeping Brock around for two more series before they wiped the slate clean did really bother people, at least in the sense that people were upset over the girls being replaced while Brock stuck around. Up until the end of DP, I think a lot of fans just thought he was a possible permanent cast member much like Ash and Team Rocket.

You also have to consider the actual nature of contests and how they were portrayed when compared gym-battles while acknowledging that only the female protagonists worked towards and maintained this goal. The anime couldn't introduce a male traveling companion that was also interested in this? Brock couldn't somehow get involved in contests? And then of course there is Serena, whose competitive goal plays off of very dated sexist tropes.

I've never understood this logic in regards to Contests. They were obviously designed to appeal to girls with the focus on beauty and appeals, but at the end of the day, Contests still involved battling. If the Coordinators weren't good at battling and making combinations, then they wouldn't make it through a competition. It wouldn't be really fair to write them off as sexist just because only the female leads took part in them when they still required both performance and battling skills to win Ribbons. They didn't need to introduce a male Coordinator for the main cast or make Brock a Coordinator when there weren't any shortage of male Coordinators in the first place. Both May and Dawn had multiple male rivals too. Brock being a Coordinator wouldn't have made sense when he wasn't into battling and Contests are ultimately a different form of battling.

I think that you can make a stronger arguments over Showcases being sexist. Unlike Contests, they are limited to just girls, there is more focus on things like fashion, cooking, etc., and not having a battling round really makes them less challenging. They are more of a glorified beauty pageant than anything else. I'm not sure if I'd call Showcases sexist, mainly because they're just boring as heck to me more than anything else. At the very least, I wouldn't say that Showcases make Serena a sexist character since in my opinion, all of her best moments involve her determination to become a good Performer and bonding with her Pokemon.

Then there's Ash lacking proper female rivals, especially in the context of the Pokemon league and how the "final rival" is almost always a male. It's precisely those stereotypes that draw in criticism of the anime not treating female MCs well. Personally, I think the anime has gotten much better about this over the years, but Journeys lacking a female MC was a huge misstep imo. I still fail to find justification for why Chloe/Koharu couldn't be the third traveling companion. What really is the reason for this?

While I would love to see Ash have more female rivals, I think that the final rival always being male is typical for most battle themed series. That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but it's hard for me to get upset about it when that's just typical of battle heavy series. They could still afford to showcase more strong girl trainers in Leagues though and Bea possibly might be Ash's first proper female rival. I do agree that Journeys not having a proper female lead was a big step backwards, especially when both XY and SM had more female characters in the main cast than before. Knowing that Chloe isn't really sure about how she feels about Pokemon and she doesn't become a proper trainer until she meets Eevee, I can understand why she wasn't included from the start as a proper companion. Each of her focus episode slowly build up to her gaining more interest in Pokemon, leading up to her catching Eevee. It would have been harder to justify her going on more adventures with Ash and Goh if she wasn't a Trainer or interested in Pokemon initially. I still wish that she could have more screentime though.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

One director. And if I remember correctly, this was back from the OS saga so it's pretty dated.

I'm fairly certain this was from the time of the Hoenn episodes as the comment was in context of why Misty was removed. Even if dated, it is quite problematic, and again, from a company perspective and as working adult I would absolutely side-eye this lmao

If I remember correctly, the only reason Brock was kept was because of how popular he was. Misty was popular too, yes, but Brock has always been arguably more popular. Remember, they DID easily try and replace him without a moment's notice for the OI saga because of racial stereotypes. That, and, Misty got a return IN said saga, which arguably was better than Brock's entire presence in AG since it provided some closure with Togepi(and arguably on a more subtle level-development for her).

Personally, i don't think either Misty nor Brock needed to be written off of the show in the first place as I felt neither story had much closure in the first place, but that's probably more appropriate for a different thread lol, but my point is why the female character had to be removed anyways? I get that there is a running excuse that mostly boys watch Pokemon and that they can't bond with female characters as much as male ones and may have been the justification for her removal as opposed to Brock, but I think that's rather lazy tbh. I think the writing of the character and how they're portrayed in certain scenarios is much more impactful imo.

There is logical reasoning for all of this, I feel. Contests DO involve some battling, there are MALE competitors in contests(May especially had mostly male rivals), and from a narrative standpoint, two main characters shown working for gyms at the same time would get stale and more repetitive than Team Rocket's catching Pikachu plots. Brock didn't get involved in contests because straight up from Indigo League(which was way before contests were a thing, mind you), his role is vastly different and he has been shown to have a different goal. Why WOULD he get into contests? As for introducing a male travelling companion into contests...so, then, what would the girl do? Ash is doing gyms, this new guy is doing contests...what on Earth can the girl do-especially considering the same problem with a female traveling companion doing gyms: it would get flat and boring if two characters were doing contests.

I'm...not arguing that contests are sexist though; rather pointing out that, once again, female characters are shafted to that role. Brock didn't need to be in the DP story arc, is it completely unreasonable and unrealistic to not introduce another male traveling companion that is active in contests as a foil to May's character from the previous season? Why did we need to drop may in the first place to move onto Sinnoh. For me, personally, it just doesn't make sense to have continued dropping female characters like that at the time.
I mentioned Brock as an example because he infamously did very little on-screen in terms of actively pursuing his goal as a Pokemon breeder (and then eventually doctor, I think?). Why not have him undergo different challenges to better understand his bond with Pokemon and use contests as a backdrop for that? He already changes his goal in the series anyways, nothing is stopping the writers from saying, hey maybe Brock wants to do contests instead? And I'm highlighting this again because there's no reason Ash couldn't travel with a female companion whose goal was beating the battle Frontier, or hunting for a specific legendary, or something else. The anime possibilities are truly limitless, they really don't have to stick with certain tropes.

This is significantly harder to argue for, as its more of a world-building problem with how the goal is introduced-but this does not make Serena's character as a whole sexist. If anything, performances were introduced because of marketing, if I remember correctly-as performances themselves are based off of the games and idol competitions..which...are mostly predominantly female...? The argument about guys doing contests works better here, honestly, because Tierno perfectly fit the bill for Pokemon Performances, but the anime established it as female only, so of course he was going to default to battling.

Like I said in an earlier post, girls are judged way harder than guys because if they fall into a feminine stereotype, they're going to be labelled as sexist, one way or another. Unless a female character's entire existence is made up of stereotypes and they have nothing about them that constitutes them being their own person, it should not be considered sexist.

But WHY does it have to be female-only? The issue isn't that she likes girly things or that she had feelings for Ash or that her Pokemon were cute; those all been valid character-traits. It's that in the context of the others in a battle-oriented series, she gets shafted into another position of that reeks of sexism. And even then, if the anime wants to do a female-only competition, why does it have to involve baking and fashion and whatnot? The Battle Maison was right there in the game, if handled well it could've easily been retconned into something else that didn't completely stick to those tropes.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

I don't see contests as sexist. I see it more as an artistic counterpart to battles. I might have seen them as sexist if only girls were allowed to participate, but we have seen plenty of guys in contests.

This is the last comment I'm going to reply to regarding sexism in the anime since mods kind of are hiting that they want this to be in a separate thread lol but I don't think contests are sexist.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Thread's here! Any discussions about sexism or the treatment of the female leads will go in the newest thread from now on. Thanks!

 

[Enzo]

She wasn't a second protagonist in the DP anime in the way that Go is in Journeys though. Sure she got more development and focus than Brock, but it's not the same as Journeys in terms of traveling dynamics and screen-time. I haven't really caught up with Journeys for a while now, but from the first 20-odd episodes I've seen, she's definitely gotten the short end of the stick compared to other female MC's.

But she was a co-protagonist tho. They just weren't as ''in your face'' (so to speak) as they are currently marketing Goh as a co-protagonist.

In fact, she was an excelent one at that. She had the same narrative weight as Ash's, her Constests arc had the same amount of focus as Ash's Gym Battle/League did, Dawn and Ash helped each other out in ways never seen before: He helped her with Contests and building her confidence and she helped him out with coming up with crazy strategies that not even he thought of (ice-aqua jet, spin and dodge, counter-shield, to name a few). Their relationship was a delight and everything about her played just as much importance in the series as what concerned Ash. She was a true co-protagonist.

Matter of fact, even tho I'm not exactly sure about how controversial this is, well, we clicked the thread for the controversial opnions, didn't we? So here it goes:

Dawn as a co-protagonist was done a million times better than Goh. Imo she is the best co-protagonist we ever had and she's way better in this narrative format than Goh.

 

[J Bouken]

What we're really saying here is: Contests > Pokemon catching.

Contests having a battling element made it very easy for Ash and Dawn to connect and learn from one another. When Ash had a gym battle, Dawn had greater interest in them beyond just supporting Ash because she could pick up ideas for her appeals. Likewise, when Dawn had a Contest, Ash could watch and pick up unorthodox techniques he could use while battling. What we got in the end were two activities that felt distinct but at the same time managed to keep both characters invested, rather than the rather more awkward thing we got in AG where May had a Contest and Ash buggered off to do his own training.

Comparatively, while Ash and Goh have a great dynamic, they don't weigh in very often on each other's specialities. Ash doesn't give tips to Goh about battling Pokemon so he can catch them, and Goh doesn't tell Ash anything about catching Pokemon because, well, what's there for Ash to learn? So we end up with two characters who are great together but, ironically, have no synergy between their goals and often end up doing their own thing, resulting in awkwardly placed segments in episodes of Goh catching random Pokemon. They're spectators to one another's stories instead of active participants.

 

[Enzo]

Comparatively, while Ash and Goh have a great dynamic, they don't weigh in very often on each other's specialities. Ash doesn't give tips to Goh about battling Pokemon so he can catch them, and Goh doesn't tell Ash anything about catching Pokemon because, well, what's there for Ash to learn? So we end up with two characters who are great together but, ironically, have no synergy between their goals and often end up doing their own thing, resulting in awkwardly placed segments in episodes of Goh catching random Pokemon. They're spectators to one another's stories instead of active participants.

Which is exactly why I think JN failed with the dual portagonist narrative format. They don't really learn a lot from one another. Goh at least gets the longer end of the stick here since he's travelling with a seasoned battler and well, traveller so he gets some stuff here and there, but Ash doesn't loses anything but he gets pretty much nothing out of this deal.

Besides the fact that their goals are a bit too different too. There's this very fine line in this type of narrative that you, as a writer, have to find a balance: The goals of both protagonists have to be similar enough so they doesn't feels disconnected from one another (both in and out of universe) at the same time they cannot be too similar so it doesn't feels like the same thing and thus gets boring. And imo, they are failing to do the former in JN, while they nailed it in DP with Contests and Battles fitting this criteria.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

Entirely unrelated, but I personally always vastly preferred the opening Mega V Volt over XYZ in Pokemon XY. The latter just feels overrated, in my opinion. The former is underrated and deserves more attention for how much of an upbeat song it is. Mega V Volt is upbeat, has amazing and creative visuals, ties in Serena's development, and works well as either inspirational or badass. XYZ just feels like the Ash-Greninja anthem. Mega V Volt feels like the Pokemon XY anthem.

That being said, on another note, the Japanese openings for Alola were top notch and the English openings felt as if it butchered them.

 

[Unireon]

Going back to the 'double protagonist thingy'.

I've already said that Satoshi and Gou's relationship is unhealthy/unbalanced.
Gou is all take and no give.

Regarding Hikari....
I hated that she was dropped unceremoniously.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

I've already said that Satoshi and Gou's relationship is unhealthy/unbalanced.
Gou is all take and no give.

Every relationship is different-it's not always give and take. There is absolutely nothing unhealthy about Ash and Goh's relationship. Maybe it isn't the most balanced dynamic, but saying it is unhealthy is an odd exaggeration to make, to say the least.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

Agree with you, although I like XYZ more. However, XYZ sounds too much like one of my personal favorites, 私、負けない (I won't lose!), which was May's theme.

This...honestly sounds BETTER than XYZ lol-I can definitely hear the similarities, but I don't think it's too similar. Also, thank you for introducing me to this piece of art.

 

[Unireon]

Every relationship is different-it's not always give and take. There is absolutely nothing unhealthy about Ash and Goh's relationship. Maybe it isn't the most balanced dynamic, but saying it is unhealthy is an odd exaggeration to make, to say the least.

Personal preference, I guess.
That's the only thing I don't like about it.

I like that ending.
Reflects Haruka's growth.
Giving image songs before XY overdid it.
Too bad that they missed the cue and gave Kimi no Soba de - Hikari's theme to another person; and even after her seiyuu sang it, they never used it in the series proper.

 

[Galactic_V]

Entirely unrelated, but I personally always vastly preferred the opening Mega V Volt over XYZ in Pokemon XY. The latter just feels overrated, in my opinion. The former is underrated and deserves more attention for how much of an upbeat song it is. Mega V Volt is upbeat, has amazing and creative visuals, ties in Serena's development, and works well as either inspirational or badass. XYZ just feels like the Ash-Greninja anthem. Mega V Volt feels like the Pokemon XY anthem.

That being said, on another note, the Japanese openings for Alola were top notch and the English openings felt as if it butchered them.

I like Mega V Volt but the problem is that the singer is not very good lol I remember people saying he was auto-tunned as heck to improve his voice and even then it didn't sound that great lol But I like it a lot, along with all XY openings.

My personal favorite, though, is Getta Banban. It's got perfect animation in perfect syncronization with the song, that sounds good as well.



Anywho, my avatar's traditional art is based in the Serena shot at the end, when she's facing the audience. And the usertitle is the part of the song that plays when she's doing it.

 

[Unireon]

Wasn't it in the movies or as an EP!?

'Kimi no Soba de' was originally sung by Grin, she did two remixes too, all were endings.

But Toyoguchi Megumi's version was only included in the Saikou Everyday single.
Never featured in anything else, that's why it's not that well known.


This is fanmade, what could have been....

 

[Galactic_V]

Getta Banban is amazing, it reminds me of Natsumeku Sakamichi! Good light-pop feel.

Also, Serena had an image song! It was DoriDori Power (sounds like a Purikyua spinoff). Covered by Rica Matsumoto as well.

Idk, I just love this scene I drew and the following one (of Satoshi facing Citron and he moving his glasses), that's why this ended up as my all-time favorite. I'm not really a fan of DoriDori Power (I sorta like the Makiguchi Mayumi one, but not as much as Getta Banban, besides I'm not particularly fond of any of the XY's ending themes).