Controversial opinions

[Jewel the Quaxly]

And of course we can't forget what the Anime did to the Cosplay Pikachus!

I hate this in particular because I always wished that the franchise itself didn't give gender differences to Pikachu in the first place. It's kinda like Frillish. Like, why is the girl pink and the boy blue? But here, it's worse for me because Pikachu are literally the franchise mascot, so unless a pikachu has an indent in their tail, its going to be a boy that's the face of eighty percent of whatever comes out of the franchise.

This is also why I hated that one SM episode with a passion, not only because of the OOCness, but also because of how irritating it was to see the whole "two guys fighting over girl who needs to be rescued" trope in pokemon. It was like when Serena and Miette fought over Ash, but ten times worse, because at least Ash didn't INSTIGATE them(e.g the female pikachu literally kissing both pikachu...).

 

[FluffleFi]

Although a Pokemon's gender doesn't really add too much, that doesn't mean the writers can't have more variety.There's nothing wrong with the females that have come before; THe Pokegirls, though results may vary, were all strong in there own rights. They had goals and thankfully the 'damsel in distress' plot line was rarely ever used. But when it comes to the female Pokemon in the cast...Tracey's Marill(It's gender was never confirmed, but it mated with a POkemon on Oak's corral and gave birth to Misty's Azuril), Bayleef, Ambipom, Unfeazant, Snivy, May's Skitty(not confirmed, but Meowth ended up falling for her), Brock's Chansey, May's Venusaur, Dawn's Buneary, Dawn's Togekiss, Iris' Emolga, Serena's Braixen, Serena's Sylveon, Lana's Primarina, Mallow's Tsarenna, Sophocle's Togedemaru and Lillie's Alolan Vulpix.

Not counting the three Pokemon Clemont left at the gym, all of Ash's Tauros, or the large cast of Pokemon Goh keeps at the Cerise Park, 120 Pokemon have been on the main cast from the start and to the latest episode. But only 17 of them are (confirmed) females. How in the hell is the ratio so skewed towards male? All of Ash's aces, unless you wanna say his Johto ace is Bayleef, are male. Iris, despite her in-game counterpart having only Archeops as her only male, only has Emogla as her sole female. Oh the humanity if its ever found out that the likes of Infernape, Incineroar or Lucario are females.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

Lana's Primarina

I don't know why, but I was always so annoyed when I found out Lana's Primarina was a girl. I always thought of it as a boy and saw no reason why it couldn't be a boy. It was because of this that I had a sneaking suspicion it was a girl because of the incredibly "feminine" look of the final evolution by society's standards, which made it all the more frustrating to me.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

To gauge at the female pokemon ratio, just take a look at Iris’ Emolga. There was a handful of times where she’d spam Attract through huge crowds and one or another pokemon in there would be a girl.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

But when it comes to the female Pokemon in the cast...Tracey's Marill(It's gender was never confirmed, but it mated with a POkemon on Oak's corral and gave birth to Misty's Azuril), Bayleef, Ambipom, Unfeazant, Snivy, May's Skitty(not confirmed, but Meowth ended up falling for her), Brock's Chansey, May's Venusaur, Dawn's Buneary, Dawn's Togekiss, Iris' Emolga, Serena's Braixen, Serena's Sylveon, Lana's Primarina, Mallow's Tsarenna, Sophocle's Togedemaru and Lillie's Alolan Vulpix.

To make matters even worse, the majority of Female Pokemon on the cast are handled pretty mediocre

Remind me of how memorable, Tracey's Marill, Mallow's Tsareena, Sophocle's Togemaru, Ash’s Unfezant, Brock's Chansey, and Dawn’s Togekiss were?

Ash’s Aipom got traded and then released in the most insulting way possible.

Ash's Snivy, Lana's Primarina, and Serena's Braixen barely got any development to themselves.

May's Skitty, Dawn's Buneary, and Iris's Emolga were mostly treated as jokes a good portion of the time.
(To their credit, Skitty and Buneary did have some good contest showing tho)

And speaking of which, notice how Female Pokemon only get regulated to either Contests or Showcases? And That's IF they get to do anything at all.

The only Female Pokemon who participated in Gym Battles were Snivy, Aipom, Bayleef, and Unfezant.

And Snivy and Unfezant both have terrible track records in Unova.

Aipom, like I said above, left Gyms battles for Contests and later freaking Ping Pong!

Bayleef was okay but still nothing all that special compared to the likes of Charizard, Sceptile, Infernape, Greninja, Incineroar, or even Lucario now

Oh the humanity if its ever found out that the likes of Infernape, Incineroar or Lucario are females.

With as much as Lucario has been spammed in over a Decade, the fact that we haven't seen a single Female is freaking Ridiculous.

We've seen a Lucario Egg but not a single Mother Lucario?

Come On.

 

[Enzo]

Also, are we forgetting the ep was literally called ''Kalos League Victory! Satoshi's Ultimate Match!!"?????? It's actually pretty funny because I watched it on the english dub for the first time and wasn't aware of the japanese title yet, and when I saw what the jp title was I vividly recall audibly letting out a ''Bruh'' quite loudly.

Say what you want about the english dub, but at least ''Down to the Fiery Finish'' didn't tricked anyone and wasn't as ''on the nose'' as the og ver. I frankly don't blame anybody who got their hopes up based off the ep title alone.

Update: I went through Bulbagarden to see if I could find the preview thread for the ep and man...

I'm sorry but I'm hollering because everyone was so excited and I'm laughing so hard rn. I'm so sorry y'all but lmaooooo.

These writers man lollll.

 

[Daren]

I'm sorry but I'm hollering because everyone was so excited and I'm laughing so hard rn. I'm so sorry y'all but lmaooooo.

I warned them. Papa Daren remembers the League win hype during late DP.

I was wrong about Alola though, so there's that.

 

[Enzo]

I warned them. Papa Daren remembers the League win hype during late DP.

I was wrong about Alola though, so there's that.

I'm sorry but it's just so funny when you actually read throught this thread. I feel so bad for all these people but this has no business being this funny.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Update: I went through Bulbagarden to see if I could find the preview thread for the ep and man...

I'm sorry but I'm hollering because everyone was so excited and I'm laughing so hard rn. I'm so sorry y'all but lmaooooo.

These writers man lollll.

That's the other thing: People legitimately did think Ash has a realistic shot at winning it considering he's never faced Alain with the full potential of Battle Bond, and he has never got to defeat him before. It was like Gary, Paul, and Trip. Ash had to lose multiple times to them before he could defeat him. Plus there was that unexplained massive orange disc attack people thought would be powerful enough to defeat that OP Mega Charizard X.

 

[Alola]

I warned them. Papa Daren remembers the League win hype during late DP.

I was wrong about Alola though, so there's that.

As did I, lol. But I completely understand why a number of people thought he would. I will never forget the sheer online outrage I saw across here, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube. Man, was that something.

 

[DankOverlord]

As did I, lol. But I completely understand why a number of people thought he would. I will never forget the sheer online outrage I saw across here, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube. Man, was that something.

Oh yeah it was, I saw users in other websites get suspended because they got that angry over the issue. Furthermore, people to this day still complain.

I myself didn't find it too bad since the loss was built-up with the Uber Strong Haxzard that brute forced his way into victory and the League being a rushed tournament devoid of meaningful stakes besides Sawyer and Alain since the Kalos Crisis was the real climax.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Okay, all this Kalos League talk reminds me of a really, really controversial opinion I've had for some time now: I think that I'd have much preferred if Alain and Sawyer had swapped roles at the League, with the former losing to Ash and the latter beating him. Heck, maybe it would actually make the Kalos League loss less controversial because it'd essentially be a reversal of Ash's usual situation in his rivalries in that he continually loses until the League but now Sawyer would be the one in that role.

Obviously some story adjustments would be needed to make this work, such as not giving Sawyer that win prior to the League and also not making Alain as OP (at the very least don't make him beat Malva), but overall I think it would have been a more satisfying loss for Ash to lose against the underdog rival who has clearly been training his pants off to reach him instead of against an overpowered edgelord who brute-forces his way through everyone with his Marketing's Pet of a Charizard.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Sawyer beating Ash in the finals would have been a lot better honestly than losing to Alain and his OP as hell Mega Charizard X.

 

[Daren]

As did I, lol. But I completely understand why a number of people thought he would. I will never forget the sheer online outrage I saw across here, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube. Man, was that something.

I think it was shortly after the XY132 trailer got bomber harder than Alderaan that the official Japanese Pokémon youtube page disabled like/dislikes on the videos.
Might have been a coincidence like the Nintendo stock drop right after. But a funny one.

Sidenote: You know, funnily enough I recalled that the year after the Kalos League the Dragon Ball fandom had a surprisingly similar backlash during a tournament arc (though it was on a smaller scale, at least in the English web) when Super spent several episodes hyping up Krillin getting back into the action, only for him to get one shotted in I believe the second episode of the tournament.
Didn't get nearly as bad as the Kalos league, perhaps partly because that fandom is very experienced with things getting built up then utterly failing.
*

Moving away from XY: this might be probably is an old man arguing with ghosts long gone, but for a long time it was a common argument that Meowth should have been allowed to keep Togepi back in Kanto.

Yes, I agree Meowth is very sympathetic and seemed enamored with the little tyke, but he really had no claim to them; he stole the egg, he took care of it less time than Brock had, and he agreed to settle the issue with battle despite having no plan for how to win and lost. Plus an infant wouldn't exactly be safe with the TRio considering all the explosions.
Plus considering the minor Buttons and Mindy stuff Pikachu got up to with Togepi later I don't think Meowth needed more trouble in his life.

 

[Galactic_V]

but for a long time it was a common argument that Meowth should have been allowed to keep Togepi back in Kanto.

Yes, I agree Meowth is very sympathetic and seemed enamored with the little tyke, but he really had no claim to them; he stole the egg, he took care of it less time than Brock had, and he agreed to settle the issue with battle despite having no plan for how to win and lost. Plus an infant wouldn't exactly be safe with the TRio considering all the explosions.
Plus considering the minor Buttons and Mindy stuff Pikachu got up to with Togepi later I don't think Meowth needed more trouble in his life.

Of course they woudn't just give the villains a Gold and Silver Pokemon lol But even though I think this episode is pretty entertraining and funny (although I remember getting really angry at Kasumi for bending the little tournament rules when I was a kid xD), my main problem with it is that Nyasu's never showed any affection for Togepi before, and never did again after this episode, so basically it came out-of-the-blue.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think it was shortly after the XY132 trailer got bomber harder than Alderaan that the official Japanese Pokémon youtube page disabled like/dislikes on the videos.
Might have been a coincidence like the Nintendo stock drop right after. But a funny one.

I remember the likes/dislikes being disabled shortly after the Kalos League finals as well. While Tobias seems to be much more infamous by comparison, the backlash towards the Kalos League defeat was quite intense. Social media being more widespread than it was for DP, plenty of reasonable reasons why fans thought that Ash would win and the outcome not being spoiled by episode titles or summaries really made a huge difference. The backlash cooled down after a couple of weeks due to how well the Team Flare arc was received and XY still seemed to be pretty well received in spite of that immense backlash.

Moving away from XY: this might be probably is an old man arguing with ghosts long gone, but for a long time it was a common argument that Meowth should have been allowed to keep Togepi back in Kanto.

Yes, I agree Meowth is very sympathetic and seemed enamored with the little tyke, but he really had no claim to them; he stole the egg, he took care of it less time than Brock had, and he agreed to settle the issue with battle despite having no plan for how to win and lost. Plus an infant wouldn't exactly be safe with the TRio considering all the explosions.
Plus considering the minor Buttons and Mindy stuff Pikachu got up to with Togepi later I don't think Meowth needed more trouble in his life.

I don't quite remember fans saying that Meowth should have kept it. It's an interesting thought, but since Meowth only had it for less than an episode and it was still part of the villain group, there was no way that Meowth had any chance of keeping it. I always thought it was strange that they made a big deal about Meowth bonding with Togepi, trying so hard to win it and being sad once it lost, but Meowth never really interacted with Togepi afterwards.

I remember people saying that Ash or even Brock should have kept Togepi instead. Brock took care of it, while Ash could have potentially used Togepi in battle at some point. Misty did virtually nothing with Togepi, barely put any effort into training it and didn't evolve until AG. I don't know if it would have been necessarily better with a different trainer, especially if they still wanted to make it this mysterious Pokemon, but it was pretty much just the cute useless secondary mascot for Misty to hold all the time.

 

[Alola]

Okay, all this Kalos League talk reminds me of a really, really controversial opinion I've had for some time now: I think that I'd have much preferred if Alain and Sawyer had swapped roles at the League, with the former losing to Ash and the latter beating him. Heck, maybe it would actually make the Kalos League loss less controversial because it'd essentially be a reversal of Ash's usual situation in his rivalries in that he continually loses until the League but now Sawyer would be the one in that role.

But is it that controversial of an opinion though? Ash had three options for the Kalos League: to lose to Alain, to lose to Sawyer, or win the thing. And while I would assume a majority of people wanted him to win such as myself, on the chance people could select who Ash were to lose to, Sawyer would most likely be picked by a large margin. As you mentioned, he was an underdog determined from the jump to beat Ash (which is a dynamic Ash had never had before in a rival - usually they're on equal footing or Ash is catching up to them), he actually developed his strength more or less on-screen from his introduction, battled Ash several times throughout the region (Alain did too, but his were all shoehorned in XYZ), and had an ace Pokémon with an advantage over Greninja and Pikachu for that matter. And speaking of Sceptile, Mega Sceptile Vs. Ash Greninja was arguably the best battle of the League and one of the best in the series (quick aside, but there was a YouTube video of it with several million views for years before it was finally taken down) - that fight would have been more satisfactory and acceptable, albeit disappointing for Ash and his fans, as a League conclusion rather than Charizard being Charizard and winning with plot armor. I don't think the backlash would have been as intense; Sawyer's win after a large amount of studying, training, losses, and analytical battle style would have felt more believable.

Then Alain could do Alain things with Team Flare.

 

[Galactic_V]

I always thought it was strange that they made a big deal about Meowth bonding with Togepi, trying so hard to win it and being sad once it lost, but Meowth never really interacted with Togepi afterwards.

From watching the episode my opinion is that it was to be played for laughs only. Kanto did have those WTF moments in which they'd be dropped shortly afterwards... Kinda reminds me of that scene from "Gardie and Kojirou". where Takeshi is seem crying for Kojirou's "death" even though he is standing right there telling the story (ok, Satoshi cried too, but it was sorta-kinda in-character for him to do so).

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

he actually developed his strength more or less on-screen from his introduction, battled Ash several times throughout the region (Alain did too, but his were all shoehorned in XYZ)

Personally, I don't think Alain actually developed his strength all that much because by all accounts he was already insanely powerful right from his introduction: the only confirmed losses he ever had were against Lysandre (and that one barely counts because it happened several in-universe years ago when his Charizard was still only a Charmeleon and thus didn't yet have the special blessings of the Plot Armor Marketing God), and against an Elite Four member whose main Pokemon was one with both a type advantage and with an Ability that boosted the power of its super-effective against Megazard X Dragon Pulse. Though I will give Siebold's Blastoise some credit for being literally the only Blastoise in history to actually beat a Charizard, since every other Blastoise loses these bouts. Apart from that, Alain and his Charizard spent pretty much the entirety of their screentime just steamrolling over everyone else without ever breaking so much as a mild sweat.

 

[Alola]

Personally, I don't think Alain actually developed his strength all that much because by all accounts he was already insanely powerful right from his introduction: the only confirmed losses he ever had were against Lysandre (and that one barely counts because it happened several in-universe years ago when his Charizard was still only a Charmeleon and thus didn't yet have the special blessings of the Plot Armor Marketing God), and against an Elite Four member whose main Pokemon was one with both a type advantage and with an Ability that boosted the power of its super-effective against Megazard X Dragon Pulse. Though I will give Siebold's Blastoise some credit for being literally the only Blastoise in history to actually beat a Charizard, since every other Blastoise loses these bouts. Apart from that, Alain and his Charizard spent pretty much the entirety of their screentime just steamrolling over everyone else without ever breaking so much as a mild sweat.

lol my "Alain did too" comment wasn't in reference to him developing his strength throughout the series - it was to the rival battles he had with Ash prior to the League, just like Sawyer; unlike Sawyer, his were all during XYZ.

he actually developed his strength more or less on-screen from his introduction, battled Ash several times throughout the region (Alain did too, but his were all shoehorned in XYZ)

Yes, Alain was indeed plenty powerful before meeting Ash.