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Controversial opinions

I like how XY didn't need to resort to depowering Pikachu (start of Hoenn, or Zekrom in Unova) or resetting Ash's experience just to give him a challenge, same as Sinnoh. Sinnoh and Kalos asked Ash to up his game (it helped a lot that Paul stood on equal footing for Ash instead of being a newbie trainer, which combined with Zekrom nullifying Pikachu's electric techniques is where BW stumbled with Trip), and he did. Alola sidestepped this by not being the conventional walking the earth journey.
 
I like how XY didn't need to resort to depowering Pikachu (start of Hoenn, or Zekrom in Unova) or resetting Ash's experience just to give him a challenge, same as Sinnoh. Sinnoh and Kalos asked Ash to up his game (it helped a lot that Paul stood on equal footing for Ash instead of being a newbie trainer, which combined with Zekrom nullifying Pikachu's electric techniques is where BW stumbled with Trip), and he did. Alola sidestepped this by not being the conventional walking the earth journey.
Honestly, I can't agree that Sinnoh didn't depower Pikachu. He got severely injured in the first episode (fit way too well with what happened to him at the start of Hoenn), almost died later, then noticeably had his worst performance of any series throughout the rest of the region. (Ed: Any region up to that point).

I agree that that was a good feature of XY.
 
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It's still shocking how some countries didn't bother dubbing them and the fact they still aren't available on home media either. You kinda need them to understand Alain, Mairin, Steven Stone and even Lysandre more because otherwise without them they're just a bunch of random characters who pop out of nowhere (the first three especially) and become important for whatever reason.

I was lucky enough to have seen all four of them when CITV aired them, other countries weren't.
wait some countries didn't dub the Mega Evolution specials?! Why? They're incredibly important, so much so the english dub who typically don't dub specials even dubbed them because they knew how important those specials were to the upcoming XYZ arc at the time.
 
I'm pretty sure the last special to ever get dubbed was that incredibly boring Legend of XYZ special instead of the Clemont and Cilan episode. Of all special episodes why dub that instead of the episode that brought back an old companion?
I think that they dubbed the Legend of XYZ special because it featured the Kalos Legendary trio. This was the last time they could really use them to promote the sixth generation and Yvetal had only appeared in the Diance movie too. Plus, I'm pretty sure that none of the other specials were dubbed because they didn't feature any new Pokemon or tie in with a new game. It's a really dumb reason in my opinion. They were willing and able to dub the ten minute short for Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs, but they're seemingly uninterested in dubbing specials featuring old companions.
 
The Mega Evolution "specials" are canonically a part of the main series and are a required viewing to understand the league/Flare arc so the decision is quite baffling.
Fun fact: I didn't watched those specials during my first XY/XYZ watch, since I was pretty isolated from the fandom and was just in my lane doing my stuff, and I got SO confused when the Flare arc happened. I vividly remember being like ''Who's this guy? Who's Mairin? What the hell is a ''Chespie''?".

So yeah, it was pretty important to see those lol.
 
wait some countries didn't dub the Mega Evolution specials?! Why? They're incredibly important, so much so the english dub who typically don't dub specials even dubbed them because they knew how important those specials were to the upcoming XYZ arc at the time.
Even though they were dubbed in several languages, now they can't be found anywhere on any official service, either free or paid. If they were made part of their respective seasons (like "The Legend of XYZ" for Season 19), they would have been available wherever Seasons 17 or 18 is.
 
Fun fact: I didn't watched those specials during my first XY/XYZ watch, since I was pretty isolated from the fandom and was just in my lane doing my stuff, and I got SO confused when the Flare arc happened. I vividly remember being like ''Who's this guy? Who's Mairin? What the hell is a ''Chespie''?".

So yeah, it was pretty important to see those lol.
It happened to me in reverse... I ONLY watched the specials for the longest amount of time and spent a decent amount of time and effort looking for the next one... And then it connected to the main series so I moved over there xD
 
I like how XY didn't need to resort to depowering Pikachu (start of Hoenn, or Zekrom in Unova) or resetting Ash's experience just to give him a challenge, same as Sinnoh. Sinnoh and Kalos asked Ash to up his game (it helped a lot that Paul stood on equal footing for Ash instead of being a newbie trainer, which combined with Zekrom nullifying Pikachu's electric techniques is where BW stumbled with Trip), and he did. Alola sidestepped this by not being the conventional walking the earth journey.
I think DP started depowering Pikachu concept because at the end of BF pikachu beat a Legendary pokemon but at the start of DP he tie/lose to Elekid who was barely first gym leader level, that Elekid has to be as powerful as Paul's torterra to actually tie with pikachu, than pikachu lost to so many weak Pokemons and has worst performance in gym battles, Pikachu in AG/BF had far better battle record.

BW sadly follow the trend with Pikachu losing to Snivy and Panpour than XY did same with Surskit and Lucario, in all those battles Pikachu was like he was new born baby who is battling first time in his life.

SM did the best job for handling pikachu, Pikachu face much stronger opponents throughout series but only lost two times and one tie, yes he struggled against some weak Pokemons but he didn't lost, in past series Pikachu shown weaker than newly caught Pokemons so many times but in SM Pikachu was always shown stronger than Alola Pokemons, when there is time for other pokemons to shine pikachu get sideline to not take away the spotlight.
 
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I will die without knowing why on Earth they decided to make a homebase in Vermillion City of all places. There's no reason for it.
Vermilion is a port city with connections to the rest of the world. It's symbolic.
So comparing the PWC-which so far has only two confirmed champions in the running(Iris and Raihan, IIRC)
Raihan may be as strong as a Champion, but he's not officially one.
I'd say it's the opposite. May and Serena worked because they were pampered girls who had to face many obstacles in their first adventure, whereas Chloe just kept going to school and has been around Pokemon as she always has. It doesn't feel like Ash and Goh's "new job" has impacted her life that much, at least during the first 50 episodes.

Also, while in real life it's ok to not have a reason for not being into something, I feel her character would be better with one as that way she could follow a clearer path with her development.

i do think she still has enough time to improve and become memorable, though.
I think the same way. Koharu is easily a likeable character with a lot of potential, but her own doubts and uncertainties, plus those of the producers, and the lack of a clear path, are hindering her development a relevant character in the Pokemon World.
I actually like how they decided to defy the formula of a Pokégirl starting out with a clear goal or figuring one our pretty soon. Makes her seem more like a real person.
Goh's baby-role Pokemon are more annoying then they should be
Personally, I find Grookey to be very annoying, like this thing just seems to be an annoyance everywhere it went. Sure, it has the personality of a troublemaker, but they seem to have turned the annoyance factor up to 11. I can't tell a single moment where i genuinely enjoyed Grookey on screen. The same problem also extended to Sobble, where its crying mechanic was very annoying, but it has since grown out of this habit (literally).
While I was fine with Sobble, yeah, Grookey is really starting to annoy me. For example, in the latest episode, it was essentially the cause of the episode's main conflict by aggravating a Falinks into attacking Ash and Goh. This forced Ash to defend them with Pikachu, causing the Falinks to split apart and resulting in the main plot of the episode. But does Grookey get any of the blame? Oh, heavens, no! Why would the cute shoulder warmer get blamed for anything?! Let's instead put the blame on Ash for rightfully defending himself and his friend from a wild Pokémon's attack, ignoring that Grookey was the one who caused it to attack in the first place!
 
Vermilion is a port city with connections to the rest of the world. It's symbolic.
?

That literally doesn't means anything my guy. It can be ''''''symbolic''''' as it wants, or more precisely, pretents to be, and it won't change the fact that Magnolia's Lab should've been the base instead.

It shouldn't have been in Kanto. It should've been in Galar. The writers had no business putting the base in Kanto and creating a bunch of all-new anime-original characters that have the personality of a cardboard sheet instead of using the galarian places and cast. It was just yet another instance of Kanto being shoved down the audience's throats. Galar is the newest region and got robbed hard.
 
So in the end, Alain was really like Ryo Akiyama... sigh
Yesn't. I feel Ryou is a tad bit worse cause he doesn't even stem from stuff that aired during the same time as Tamers, he literally spawns from an entire game line, including backstory that siples into Tamers, with him.

Meanwhile Alain, even without the specials can... just be chalked up as another strong trainer that simply was there. It's not like other Pokémon seasons did something different in that aspect.

Not to mention Ryou also warped heaven, earth and mechanics in-show to fit in. They had to asspull a 'memory loss' to warrant his place of residence, he suddenly shows up out of nowhere being able to Bio-Merge in the real world and nobody ever questions anything about how dubious he is. (Him sticking out like a sore thumb is even funnier when you read the Tamers' director's personal blog entry about Ryou where he goes "I really iddn't want to use this guy but they forced me or I didn't get the show so I agreed but I didn't like it" and it shows cause he uses him minimally and doesn't waste any time on him otherwise to have stuff make sense.)
 
?

That literally doesn't means anything my guy. It can be ''''''symbolic''''' as it wants, or more precisely, pretents to be, and it won't change the fact that Magnolia's Lab should've been the base instead.

It shouldn't have been in Kanto. It should've been in Galar. The writers had no business putting the base in Kanto and creating a bunch of all-new anime-original characters that have the personality of a cardboard sheet instead of using the galarian places and cast. It was just yet another instance of Kanto being shoved down the audience's throats. Galar is the newest region and got robbed hard.
Personally I'm fine with Vermillion being the base of operations, I do wish we could see Galar more but I don't see Vermillion being the base as a big issue. I also really like the regular supporting characters like Professor Cerise, Chloe, Ren and Chrysa, I think they're all quite charming. This doesn't mean I don't want to see Galar more, I do and I do think they haven't done a great job representing it as much as I enjoy Journeys as a series and I especially want to see more Galar characters, like more Gym Leaders as well as the rivals like Hop and Bede.
 
?

That literally doesn't means anything my guy. It can be ''''''symbolic''''' as it wants, or more precisely, pretents to be, and it won't change the fact that Magnolia's Lab should've been the base instead.

It shouldn't have been in Kanto. It should've been in Galar. The writers had no business putting the base in Kanto and creating a bunch of all-new anime-original characters that have the personality of a cardboard sheet instead of using the galarian places and cast. It was just yet another instance of Kanto being shoved down the audience's throats. Galar is the newest region and got robbed hard.

We don't know if Pokemon Journeys would last for more than one generation ala the original Pokemon series, so this might be the case that the writers erring on the side of caution. If Pokemon Journeys does indeed cover more than Gen VIII, they probably wouldn't want the base to be in Galar. Since Kanto is the original region, they wouldn't need to worry about the home base being outdated.

However, having said the above, I also agree that the Galar Region should have been the home base, regardless of whether Pokemon Journeys lasting longer than just Gen VIII.
 
?

That literally doesn't means anything my guy. It can be ''''''symbolic''''' as it wants, or more precisely, pretents to be, and it won't change the fact that Magnolia's Lab should've been the base instead.

It shouldn't have been in Kanto. It should've been in Galar. The writers had no business putting the base in Kanto and creating a bunch of all-new anime-original characters that have the personality of a cardboard sheet instead of using the galarian places and cast. It was just yet another instance of Kanto being shoved down the audience's throats. Galar is the newest region and got robbed hard.
Galar was robbed big time. Because we don't spend much time in Galar, we're missing out on seeing the various locations, the Galar Pokemon don't get to shine that much, and we hardly see Galar's characters. Its especially disappointing because I really like Galar's characters. We haven't even seen characters like Milo, Nessa, Kabu, or Allister yet. If this was like any other series, we would have been probably on our way to facing Opal, or on the road to fighting Gordie or Melony. We got Opal but it was just for a joke.
 
Galar was robbed big time. Because we don't spend much time in Galar, we're missing out on seeing the various locations, the Galar Pokemon don't get to shine that much, and we hardly see Galar's characters. Its especially disappointing because I really like Galar's characters. We haven't even seen characters like Milo, Nessa, Kabu, or Allister yet. If this was like any other series, we would have been probably on our way to facing Opal, or on the road to fighting Gordie or Melony. We got Opal but it was just for a joke.
I'm still SO salty that my fave gym leader of all times god reduced to an extremely unfunny and annoying joke and that the prettiest city/location of all games up to this point (at least imo, that is) got reduced from this masterpiece:
Ballonlea_SwSh.png
to whatever the hell this is:
Ballonlea_anime.png
 
I actually like how they decided to defy the formula of a Pokégirl starting out with a clear goal or figuring one our pretty soon. Makes her seem more like a real person.
I mean, no offence but didn’t you actually say before that she’s the least interesting character on the main cast? I’m just slightly confused as to how you perceive her character right now.
 
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