Controversial opinions

[RetroPokeFan]

Typical Journeys pulling the "Tell, don't show" card yet again.

 

[Rockapheller]

Personality-wise, Totodile fits Brock more than Ash.

 

[Nicolas721]

So we're going to ignore the many scenes where Cinderace acted like a big bro to Goh's Pokemon, including the two episodes explicitly dedicated to it.

In JN004 Scorbunny was more of a younger brother, and in JN022 Raboot was more of a cooler friend. And none of the Pokemon it interacted with (Nickit, Lombre, Zigzagoon, etc.) joined the main cast.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

It makes me sad that this very interesting dynamic was scrapped in favor of Pikachu becoming your average anime protagonist that gets thoroughly thrashed and then gets up and wins in one or two hits, a direct inversion of his original style. You can see this very clearly against opponents like Hala’s Hariyama, Roxie’s Garbodor, Alain’s Metagross and Trip’s Serperior, all showing him shrugging off brutal combos from the opponent and then defeating them with a couple powerful attacks. The biggest offender, IMO, is his battle against Hapu’s Mudsdale, where he tanked a bunch of super effective hits from his massive for and somehow shrugged off Tectonic Rage, before fighting back and winning with what was basically a Gigavolt Havoc OHKO.

I'd actually argue that Ash's Pokemon in general tend to be pretty similar offenders to certain extent. It's obviously way more forgivable with physically large and sturdy powerhouses like Snorlax, but smaller and/or unevolved Pokemon or Pokemon who are supposed to be quite frail? Not so much. Pikachu's obviously the most egregious due to the fact that he has the highest number of examples, but he's hardly the only case, sadly.

Hoenn I think is the series where this trend of "Ash's Pokemon survive a billion nukes to the face and then proceed to knock out their usually bigger opponents by giving them a couple of moderately strong taps" was particularly egregious. Look, I love Swellow, I really do. I can never thank it enough for finally breaking the trend of the Regional Birds being the designated canon fodder of Ash's teams, but I can't deny that maybe the pendulum swung a bit too far in the other direction when it came to compensating for past birds, because a fair number of Swellow's wins stretch the willing suspension of disbelief a bit too much if you ask me. Obviously there's the ever-memetic Thunder Armor, but that's hardly the only instance of ridiculous victories involving Swellow: there's the Gym Battle against Winona, where Ash's Swellow was repeatedly pelted with about half a dozen Hyper Beams an Aerial Aces only to knock out its opponent after landing a single Wing Attack; or the League Battle against Tyson, where Swellow was repeatedly pummeled by Tyson's Donphan's Rollout (an attack that is not only super-effective, but also gets stronger with each successful use), but then Swellow defeats Donphan by catching it and then lightly tossing it into a rock... yeah, Swellow didn't even use an actual attack for that win, it was just lucky enough to be fighting against a Donphan with the worst case of vertigo; and then there's the Battle against Frontier Brain Tucker, where Swellow and its partner Corphish were repeatedly struck by devastating move combos only for them to knock out their opponents with one basic attack each (Arcanine's knockout may be slightly more justified, since it was at least hit by Corphish's Crabhammer, which is STAB and super-effective. Not so much with bulky Swampert being downed by just one Aerial Ace... sure, it's not anywhere as bad as other OHKOs we've seen, but still).

And then we have those cases where the exact opposite happens in that a Pokemon that should have a lot of endurance is taken out with minimal effort. Like poor Torterra, who was not only never allowed to master its tanking battle style, but its Synthesis, which by all accounts should have been perfect to facilitate that strategy, never seemed to actually heal it, since it wasn't uncommon for Torterra to get knocked out in one hit right after using it... it really just makes the cases of "tiny creature endures hits that should have bodied it a hundred times over" look even worse.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

but smaller and/or unevolved Pokemon or Pokemon who are supposed to be quite frail?

Actually, that just reminded me of why I've always loved whenever Pikachu's Static ability was used, even though it was only like two or three times. Like, instead of making Pikachu tank impossible hits multiple times over, why not just make his Static ability be a thing used more regularly instead of once in a blue moon? Then they could do something along the lines of "it's hard to hit Pikachu because of his speed, but when you do hit him, you have to find a way past Static". That way, Ash's opponent would have to think on their feet, making a more interesting battle, Pikachu would still be presented as a strong opponent, they could allude to the differences between defense and endurance, Pikachu's speed would be more clear to be his hallmark trait, and it would help abilities be more implemented within the anime.

The same applies for Rowlet, though my feelings are a bit more passionate about this small detail because of how wasted it was. Imagine how cool it would've been to have a pokemon that belongs to Ash that IS weak, but is a super tough opponent because they're stealthy. Not to mention, seeing Ash work with stealth in the first place would be super interesting to see being integrated within the anime, but no...they didn't have Ash work with a different style for Torterra, so why would they do it here? Don't get me wrong, I love Rowlet, but its battling is the only thing that I don't like about it. Why'd they have to go and get rid of stealth for sheer brute force? Force is not always the answer.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

a fair number of Swellow's wins stretch the willing suspension of disbelief a bit too much if you ask me.

I kinda always accepted it as one of those of Ash’s pokemon with an unnatural skill that defies its species, like Snorlax being uncannily nimble or Turtwig being speedy, but I can see the problem.

Swellow and its partner Corphish were repeatedly struck by devastating move combos only for them to knock out their opponents with one attack each

You know, Corphish is a pokemon that I always found frustrating for how unbearably inconsistent its strength was. When you look into it, you’ll notice almost every single one of its battles went one of two ways: it was either a powerhouse that matched its opponent blow by blow for the victory... or it was a jobber that got taken out in one hit. Seriously. I can’t think of one battle where Corphish was the fall guy where it actually contributed to taking the opponent down.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I kinda always accepted it as one of those of Ash’s pokemon with an unnatural skill that defies its species, like Snorlax being uncannily nimble or Turtwig being speedy, but I can see the problem.

I think Swellow's case is a bit too ridiculously exaggerated, though. Snorlax may be nimble, sure, but for the most part its battle style was still what you'd expect for its species in that it was a tanky powerhouse that could take hits and dish them just as hard, and it wasn't uncommon for Snorlax to face opponents that could outmanouver it. In fact, Snorlax's nimbleness usually only came about either during comedic moments involving food or in seriously desperate battle situations, and the latter wasn't even 100% guaranteed to happen. Turtwig's speedyness meanwhile was actually not even unique to it within its species, as Gardenia's Turtwig was shown to have the same battle style. I'm pretty sure that Swellow's case was really just meant to be an application of its Guts Ability, but I think they could made it less... shonen-anime-protagonist-y. Granted, I probably wouldn't mind Swellow being so unusually durable anywhere near as much if it in turn also took many hits to take its opponents down, but that was basically never the case, resulting in any narratives where it was supposed to be the underdog kinda fall flat on their face.

 

[Daren]

As ludicrous as Swellow was he never got as OP as Charizard so I honestly appreciated the wild ride he provided throughout AG.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

Speaking of Charizard...I know people always gave Pignite flack for just being a carbon copy of the flying type, but he's just so much nicer compared to Charizard that I honestly can't help loving him. Charizard is still one of my favorites of Ash's pokemon, but like...can you honestly look at Pignite doing something as simple as covering his smaller teammates in the rain and leaving himself out in the open and then tell me he's just a copy of Charizard??? This guy's a fire type and he once was just standing there, unprotected, in the freaking RAIN. Why? So he can shelter his teammates instead...

Spoiler

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Speaking of Charizard...I know people always gave Pignite flack for just being a carbon copy of the flying type, but he's just so much nicer compared to Charizard that I honestly can't help loving him. Charizard is still one of my favorites of Ash's pokemon, but like...can you honestly look at Pignite doing something as simple as covering his smaller teammates in the rain and leaving himself out in the open and then tell me he's just a copy of Charizard??? This guy's a fire type and he once was just standing there, unprotected, in the freaking RAIN. Why? So he can shelter his teammates instead...

Spoiler

View attachment 148880

View attachment 148881

Is that a "My Neighbor Totoro" reference? lol

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

As ludicrous as Swellow was he never got as OP as Charizard so I honestly appreciated the wild ride he provided throughout AG.

To be somewhat fair to Ash's Charizard specifically, homie still had to work his tail off to reach his current power level, and for the most part I do think his growth in that aspect was perfectly believable. In fact, one of the issues I have with modern Charizard portrayals as a species of bordeline-invincible, quasi-Legendary juggernauts (other than the fact that they undermine basically every other Pokemon in the near vicinity with their mere presence) is that I feel like they make the training Ash's one had to go through seem kinda pointless in retrospect, because it apparently turns out that being demigodlike is just the norm for his kind XD

Speaking of Charizard...I know people always gave Pignite flack for just being a carbon copy of the flying type, but he's just so much nicer compared to Charizard that I honestly can't help loving him. Charizard is still one of my favorites of Ash's pokemon, but like...can you honestly look at Pignite doing something as simple as covering his smaller teammates in the rain and leaving himself out in the open and then tell me he's just a copy of Charizard??? This guy's a fire type and he once was just standing there, unprotected, in the freaking RAIN. Why? So he can shelter his teammates instead...

To be fair, Pignite doesn't have any body parts that need to be perpetually on fire. Also, the problem people (myself included) have with Pignite being a carbon copy is more related to his arc and backstory than his personality. One thing that definitely didn't help in that regard is that Pignite came right off the heels of Infernape, who had already pushed that particular plotline to its absolute peak. Nor did the fact that Pignite was one of very few Unova Pokemon with a fully realized arc, so the fact that they opted for a rehash instead of something more original or even just giving focus to the mountain of underutilized Unova Pokemon aching to get anything is... a huge bummer, to say the least.

 

[Eitarou]

In JN004 Scorbunny was more of a younger brother,

Scorbunny joined a trio of Nickit and helped keep them fed with its skills, then was forced to leave them behind because they could now fend for themselves.

What kind of younger sibling protects and feeds the elder?

and in JN022 Raboot was more of a cooler friend.

And in the various Japanese media I've seen, someone like that'd be called some variant of "big bro".

And none of the Pokemon it interacted with (Nickit, Lombre, Zigzagoon, etc.) joined the main cast.

OK? I didn't say he was a big bro to Goh's Pokemon exclusively.

 

[nickdt]

Goh's Pokémon evolving doesn't really "benefit" Goh in ways that some of y'all make it out to be, in my opinion. Evolution doesn't mean much to Goh since he is not even a battler. The writers just make plots revolving around Pokémon evolutions these days rather than going for longer arcs for the sake of the recent series being handled that way, similar to how Ash was mostly given fully evolved Pokémon since start of this series.

Yes it does benefit Goh to get to his goal, since he gets that data.

 

[CyberMonsterTrainer]

Yes it does benefit Goh to get to his goal, since he gets that data.

And another heavy hitter Pokemon he gets for himself, that he has no business having
(I'm assuming, don't know well it'll actually do in battle)

 

[Enzo]

To be somewhat fair to Ash's Charizard specifically, homie still had to work his tail off to reach his current power level, and for the most part I do think his growth in that aspect was perfectly believable. In fact, one of the issues I have with modern Charizard portrayals as a species of bordeline-invincible, quasi-Legendary juggernauts (other than the fact that they undermine basically every other Pokemon in the near vicinity with their mere presence) is that I feel like they make the training Ash's one had to go through seem kinda pointless in retrospect, because it apparently turns out that being demigodlike is just the norm for his kind XD

I feel like, besides the fact that Charizard is overexposed as a species, this is probably my biggest hang up with it: Charizard has to be the strongest one in the room no matter what. This specially got worse once XY hit, because of the way that Alain's Charizard was treated lke a God among us. And now we see Leon, somebody who is/was unbeatable, uses a Charizard as his ace, being transformed into thee Strongest Trainer in the World due to the PWC in the anime universe. So considering his strongest is a Charizard, that pretty much means that thee strongest Pokémon in the world, at least in the human-made measurement, is a Charizard.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

So considering his strongest is a Charizard, that pretty much means that thee strongest Pokémon in the world, at least in the human-made measurement, is a Charizard.

Charizard: the Pokémon that can fix all of life's smallest and biggest problems.

 

[nickdt]

I feel like, besides the fact that Charizard is overexposed as a species, this is probably my biggest hang up with it: Charizard has to be the strongest one in the room no matter what. This specially got worse once XY hit, because of the way that Alain's Charizard was treated lke a God among us. And now we see Leon, somebody who is/was unbeatable, uses a Charizard as his ace, being transformed into thee Strongest Trainer in the World due to the PWC in the anime universe. So considering his strongest is a Charizard, that pretty much means that thee strongest Pokémon in the world, at least in the human-made measurement, is a Charizard.

Please, don't say that. Maybe Gamefreak is reading this and are like: Oh welp guys, we need to give gen 9 champion a Charizard as the ace as well.

 

[FluffleFi]

Not all Charizard are treated like unstoppable gods, Trevor's went down pretty easily back in the Kalos League, buuut they probably just showed that off to make Alain's own look more impressive.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

So can we all collectively agree that giving Goh all 3 Galar Starters was just a bad idea entirely?

 

[Hidden Mew]

Yes it does benefit Goh to get to his goal, since he gets that data.

I feel like that's a bit of a stretch to say that it benefits Goh though. Yeah, he wants to catch every Pokemon, but he doesn't see or treat them as new data entries for his Pokedex and he isn't even going for something like a living dex either. Maybe it just rubs me the wrong way because of how people have claimed that Goh only cares about getting the data after catching Pokemon before.

And another heavy hitter Pokemon he gets for himself, that he has no business having
(I'm assuming, don't know well it'll actually do in battle)

That does seem like a bit of an odd assumption. I can understand not liking how Goh gets another fully evolved starter, but there's nothing to indication that it's going to be a heavy hitter and he isn't going to be battling as much as Ash either.