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Controversial opinions

It’s a vicious cycle. You market Charizard > A generation grows up with lots of Charizard marketing > likes Charizard > more Charizard marketing for this generation > a new generation grows up with Charizard > rinse and repeat.
By generation I mean literal generations of children.
Nothing else would shine it you don’t market anyone other than Charizard. I grew up in the generation with the least amount of Charizard pandering, Gen 4. I grew up with Infernape and Staraptor as favourites because that’s what I saw on the anime.
The lack of Galar promotion will inherently result in lesser children being exposed to it.
Beyond annoyance at your favourites not getting the spotlight though, is this really a problem? The way I see it, Pikachu, Eevee and Charizard, among other popular and marketable Pokemon, are gateways to the series. They draw people to the anime, games, and so on, where they can find new favourites. With Galar in particular, Sword and Shield are the 2nd highest selling Pokemon games of all time; the lack of dedicated anime promotion hasn't hindered its success in the slightest. I don't think we have anything to worry about when it comes to kids being exposed to Galar.
 
Beyond annoyance at your favourites not getting the spotlight though, is this really a problem? The way I see it, Pikachu, Eevee and Charizard, among other popular and marketable Pokemon, are gateways to the series. They draw people to the anime, games, and so on, where they can find new favourites. With Galar in particular, Sword and Shield are the 2nd highest selling Pokemon games of all time; the lack of dedicated anime promotion hasn't hindered its success in the slightest. I don't think we have anything to worry about when it comes to kids being exposed to Galar.

"How dare a franchise with target audience of children pander to children instead of my own fully developed needs and wants. How dare they!"
 
Controversial opinion, Charizard was the last choice GF could have given Leon. In my opinion, Toxtricity or Corviknight would've been better
I'm surprised they didn't make Dragapult his ace, then give it a Gmax form instead. It's the psuedo-legendary of the region, pretty popular and vaguely matches Leon's colour scheme. Charizard just feels so random here, especially when the other 2 Kanto starters weren't present in the main game.
 
"How dare a franchise with target audience of children pander to children instead of my own fully developed needs and wants. How dare they!"
With due respect, please don’t extrapolate from people's posts to such an extent. I really don’t have the energy to debate this at the moment, but literally no one here probably wants something like that.

My main point was that what becomes marketable in turn is determined by that the promoters decide to promote. It’s not just that somehow each and every generation somehow gravitated to like only Charizard, but that’s the only promotion you’re gonna get, so some people start liking it.

I don’t really say anywhere this is a problem from the POV of the marketers. Just wanted to put this out there because this particular exchange somehow went from "People tend to grow to like stuff that’s promoted a lot", to whatever the post I quoted is supposed to be.
 
I'm surprised they didn't make Dragapult his ace, then give it a Gmax form instead. It's the psuedo-legendary of the region, pretty popular and vaguely matches Leon's colour scheme. Charizard just feels so random here, especially when the other 2 Kanto starters weren't present in the main game.
Simply because They wanted to give Leon a popular shillmon to promote his status as Galar's Undefeated Champion and they had no idea which Galar Pokemon would end up being popular with the audience at the time SwSh was being made
 
I know I'm gonna get ripped to shreds for this, but Greninja represented nearly everything I DON'T like about the evolution writing process the show often has. He lost all his fun personality and dynamics he had as Froakie to become Ash's generically stoic and serious battle bot, and got put on a pedestal over the other Pokemon in the group because he was a flashy fully evolved shillmon with a 'chosen one' status. And other mons get downgraded to make it look better

It was poetic justice for me having Lycanroc win a league instead, who subverted nearly all of those writing pot holes and remained a fun likeable evolved Pokemon who could co-exist with his unevolved teammates
 
Officially kids are not the target audience
You could argue they're being dishonest when they state this, but that's Masuda's word on it.
Ngl I'm kinda surprised to see this, but I guess veterans would also be a large demographic. They appeal to them a lot, but also keep things simple so it's approachable to newcomers (who can be anyone).
 
Simply because They wanted to give Leon a popular shillmon to promote his status as Galar's Undefeated Champion and they had no idea which Galar Pokemon would end up being popular with the audience at the time SwSh was being made
Weren't Leon supposed to represent older generation players? I believe that's why they made Alain's ace as Charizard, it's just they made a game version of Alain and made it canon to every media instead of only staying with anime.
 
On a violent swing of topics lol: I gotta confess: to this day, I don't really see the point of Dawn's Cyndaquil.

Like, Dawn's team, keeping in my she's primarily a performer, is fitting: there's a bunch of small, cute Pokémon that can operate with strong close and long-raged attacks with grace and cuteness. So, Cyndaquil, at first glance, looks like a solid contender, right?? But... what exactly did Cyndaquil added that justified it's addition to the team?

Dawn already had not one, not two, but three of those ''Agile cutie who packs a punch'' on her roster. I frankly don't see what it could've added that the other 3 lacked.

The only thing I can possibly think of would have been the fact that is a Fire type, and it's a good typing to have in any team and added a decent amount of possibilities of combos on Dawn's arsenal... until you realize that Buneary has access to Fire Punch (could've been her 4th move if they wanted to) and Togekiss had 3 (!!!) moves: Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Heat Wave. So it's not like Dawn never had access to Fire before it.

And while you may argue ''But it used Swift quite a lot!'', well, guess who also had Swift and was not only excelent at it, but also could use a flamey move in the form of Fire Punch, someone who was already there but got kicked from the team in an anti-climatic, frustrating way??? I will give you 3 chances.

Now that I think about it... the only thing it did that no one else could've done was using Smoke Screen, but... eh. That's it??? Like, it wasn't a ''Togekiss situation'' where the new addition proved itself actually useful in doing things no one else could, so why was it even there?

Even the ''But HGSS had to receive some sort of promotion!!" excuse doesn't works because A) Cyndaquil had already received enough attention in Johto, while only average imo, was good enough and B) Even in the scenario of giving it to her so they could've showcased both Quilava and Typhlosion, it also hits a concrete wall face-first cuz there was no way in hell they could've made Cyndaquil literally be born and evolve twice in just 33 eps. (Well... maybe the writers would've done that if it happened during JN's run, but that another story)
 
On a violent swing of topics lol: I gotta confess: to this day, I don't really see the point of Dawn's Cyndaquil.

Like, Dawn's team, keeping in my she's primarily a performer, is fitting: there's a bunch of small, cute Pokémon that can operate with strong close and long-raged attacks with grace and cuteness. So, Cyndaquil, at first glance, looks like a solid contender, right?? But... what exactly did Cyndaquil added that justified it's addition to the team?

Dawn already had not one, not two, but three of those ''Agile cutie who packs a punch'' on her roster. I frankly don't see what it could've added that the other 3 lacked.

The only thing I can possibly think of would have been the fact that is a Fire type, and it's a good typing to have in any team and added a decent amount of possibilities of combos on Dawn's arsenal... until you realize that Buneary has access to Fire Punch (could've been her 4th move if they wanted to) and Togekiss had 3 (!!!) moves: Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Heat Wave. So it's not like Dawn never had access to Fire before it.

And while you may argue ''But it used Swift quite a lot!'', well, guess who also had Swift and was not only excelent at it, but also could use a flamey move in the form of Fire Punch, someone who was already there but got kicked from the team in an anti-climatic, frustrating way??? I will give you 3 chances.

Now that I think about it... the only thing it did that no one else could've done was using Smoke Screen, but... eh. That's it??? Like, it wasn't a ''Togekiss situation'' where the new addition proved itself actually useful in doing things no one else could, so why was it even there?

Even the ''But HGSS had to receive some sort of promotion!!" excuse doesn't works because A) Cyndaquil had already received enough attention in Johto, while only average imo, was good enough and B) Even in the scenario of giving it to her so they could've showcased both Quilava and Typhlosion, it also hits a concrete wall face-first cuz there was no way in hell they could've made Cyndaquil literally be born and evolve twice in just 33 eps. (Well... maybe the writers would've done that if it happened during JN's run, but that another story)
This has nothing to do with your actual post, but you are a very considerate person, lol. That's not even that much writing to me, but you put in the spoiler tag anyway. I just write 2000 word essays without a thought lol, but here you are thinking of some random user across the globe. :bulbaLove::LOL:

As for the actual post...I never felt any attachment to her Cyndaquil, honestly. I didn't feel much attachment to Togekiss either, but I still felt more for it than I did her now Quilava. I don't even remember it's personality aside from the fact that it had a rivalry with Dawn's piplup, I guess...? Again, same for Togekiss, but I feel like that highlights how weird this was. Most of Dawn's team all had very distinct personalities, but I can't really come up with anything for Togekiss or Quilava.
 
I know I'm gonna get ripped to shreds for this, but Greninja represented nearly everything I DON'T like about the evolution writing process the show often has. He lost all his fun personality and dynamics he had as Froakie to become Ash's generically stoic and serious battle bot, and got put on a pedestal over the other Pokemon in the group because he was a flashy fully evolved shillmon with a 'chosen one' status. And other mons get downgraded to make it look better

It was poetic justice for me having Lycanroc win a league instead, who subverted nearly all of those writing pot holes and remained a fun likeable evolved Pokemon who could co-exist with his unevolved teammates
There was an unreleased short where Greninja let Pancham and Chespin measure the length of its tongue, that ended in a comical fashion of Pancham being pistol whipped by it after Chespin accidentally let it go. It was also notable because we got to see the Shinobi Pokémon scarfless for a while as well as a more lax side to it. If they would have included more instances of these interactions in the series proper, that would have been nice.
On a violent swing of topics lol: I gotta confess: to this day, I don't really see the point of Dawn's Cyndaquil.

Even the ''But HGSS had to receive some sort of promotion!!" excuse doesn't works because A) Cyndaquil had already received enough attention in Johto, while only average imo, was good enough and B) Even in the scenario of giving it to her so they could've showcased both Quilava and Typhlosion, it also hits a concrete wall face-first cuz there was no way in hell they could've made Cyndaquil literally be born and evolve twice in just 33 eps. (Well... maybe the writers would've done that if it happened during JN's run, but that another story)[/SPOILER]
But it does because Cyndaquil did exactly what the writers intended it to do - promote one of the Johto Starters in the recently released Johto remakes. We got to see it animated in battle, in passing, and even in Sinnoh's Contests. For older fans such as yourself, it's easier to note a Cyndaquil's prominence on the main cast, but you also have to keep in mind there was a 9 year gap between Ash's Cyndaquil's appearance and Dawn's - new fans, new children, joined the fandom in that time and did not grow up with/get to see Dawn's predecessor's screentime. That was one of the points of the Johto Festa - a rundown quick capture of what the Johto region has to offer for a new generation of players. There's also the consideration that the DP saga was a redone Hoenn saga somewhat - as May got a Kanto Starter(s) to promote FRLG, so too did Dawn with HGSS.

It's true they could have evolved it, I agree with you there (although I think Buneary should have any evolution priority in Dawn's team). However, just because they didn't doesn't mean its marketability is any less effective; minor anecdote, but I even used the GTS to get my own Cyndaquil for one of my Platinum playthroughs at the time because of Dawn's. Game Freak tends to heavily market and advertise the base Starter forms anyway for a region, sometimes not even publicly releasing evolutions until players can get one for themselves in-game. And yes - if they did evolve it, there most likely would have been a large amount of condemning regarding how quickly that happened (especially as Ash's own hadn't yet had much more experience).
 
The only thing I can possibly think of would have been the fact that is a Fire type, and it's a good typing to have in any team and added a decent amount of possibilities of combos on Dawn's arsenal... until you realize that Buneary has access to Fire Punch (could've been her 4th move if they wanted to) and Togekiss had 3 (!!!) moves: Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Heat Wave. So it's not like Dawn never had access to Fire before it.

And while you may argue ''But it used Swift quite a lot!'', well, guess who also had Swift and was not only excelent at it, but also could use a flamey move in the form of Fire Punch, someone who was already there but got kicked from the team in an anti-climatic, frustrating way??? I will give you 3 chances.
I feel like they just didn't want Dawn to have 3 Normal Type Pokemon on her Team

(Yes I know Togekiss is Fairy Type now but at the time DP was on-going it was still a Normal Type)
 
Speaking of Dawn Pokemon: Togekiss is the worst member of her team. Why did they come up with this backstory of its Trainer wanting to do Contests, only to give it to Dawn after she had already earned five Ribbons? It basically got a free pass to the Grand Festival when the rest of her Pokemon had to put in actual work.
 
On a violent swing of topics lol: I gotta confess: to this day, I don't really see the point of Dawn's Cyndaquil.

Like, Dawn's team, keeping in my she's primarily a performer, is fitting: there's a bunch of small, cute Pokémon that can operate with strong close and long-raged attacks with grace and cuteness. So, Cyndaquil, at first glance, looks like a solid contender, right?? But... what exactly did Cyndaquil added that justified it's addition to the team?

Dawn already had not one, not two, but three of those ''Agile cutie who packs a punch'' on her roster. I frankly don't see what it could've added that the other 3 lacked.

The only thing I can possibly think of would have been the fact that is a Fire type, and it's a good typing to have in any team and added a decent amount of possibilities of combos on Dawn's arsenal... until you realize that Buneary has access to Fire Punch (could've been her 4th move if they wanted to) and Togekiss had 3 (!!!) moves: Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Heat Wave. So it's not like Dawn never had access to Fire before it.
As cool as it would have been for Buneary to get a Fire type move, I'm not sure if Fire Punch could have been used in a more interesting way, or at least not feel a bit redundant with Dizzy Punch. I think that Dawn relied more on Buneary's Ice Beam and Bounce for appeals over the course of the series too. Togekiss learning some Fire type moves could have been more useful with its appeals, but I also think it's a bit much to just say she could have used Fire type moves from her other Pokemon instead of getting Cyndaquil. It still provided more help with her appeals, particularly with combining it with Mamoswine's Ice Shard, so I don't think they could have easily replaced it with just moves like Fire Punch or Flamethrower from other Pokemon.

And while you may argue ''But it used Swift quite a lot!'', well, guess who also had Swift and was not only excelent at it, but also could use a flamey move in the form of Fire Punch, someone who was already there but got kicked from the team in an anti-climatic, frustrating way??? I will give you 3 chances.

Now that I think about it... the only thing it did that no one else could've done was using Smoke Screen, but... eh. That's it??? Like, it wasn't a ''Togekiss situation'' where the new addition proved itself actually useful in doing things no one else could, so why was it even there?

As much as I hate how Ambipom was written off, I still think that if they wanted to make room in Dawn's team, it was pretty much the only option. They could have handled it immensely better and I still think it should have been brought back for the Grand Festival at least, but the more I think about it, the more I can kind of see why they wrote it out of the series. Giving Ambipom Fire Punch would have been pretty cool though. After learning Double Hit, it didn't learn any new moves and I think its moveset needed a bit of an upgrade after awhile. I don't know how useful Togekiss was in the grand scheme of things, mainly because it was only used in the Grand Festival finals. It's true that it could do things that none of the other members of Dawn's team could do, but given how it felt extremely tacked on, I don't know if that really means much. Plus, Cyndaquil still helped win Dawn's last ribbon and was involved with some of her appeal combinations, so it wasn't like it was pointless or didn't have any impact on her journey.

Even the ''But HGSS had to receive some sort of promotion!!" excuse doesn't works because A) Cyndaquil had already received enough attention in Johto, while only average imo, was good enough and B) Even in the scenario of giving it to her so they could've showcased both Quilava and Typhlosion, it also hits a concrete wall face-first cuz there was no way in hell they could've made Cyndaquil literally be born and evolve twice in just 33 eps. (Well... maybe the writers would've done that if it happened during JN's run, but that another story)

Both of these points kind of confuse me. While I agree that Ash's Cyndaquil had a pretty good amount of screentime, better than the other Johto starters at least, I don't see why that would be good enough to where we wouldn't need another Cyndaquil on the main cast. It's especially strange when the original series had already been over for a number of years, so plenty of new fans at the time wouldn't have seen Ash's Cyndaquil. Ash's Bulbasaur and to a lesser degree Squirtle were used pretty frequently in the original series, but that didn't stop them from giving May her own Bulbasaur and Squirtle in AG. The starters are pretty much mascots of their respective generations, so wanting to feature at least one of them in the anime to tie in with their remakes is pretty standard. Remakes have arguably had less focused in the anime since OR/AS, but they still had Trevor with his Treecko in XY, Lana with Sandy in SM, even if it didn't have much connection to the Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee games beyond having a hair cut, and Dawn and Piplup's appearances in Journeys.

I agree that they couldn't really make Cyndaquil fully evolve within a relatively short amount of time. Maybe they could have made it into a Quilava, but I think that would be pushing it, especially when Ash's much more experienced Cyndaquil didn't get to evolve until right before the Sinnoh League. But I don't think that they were interested in showcasing Quilava or Typhlosion. As underused as Typhlosion has been, I think that they were more interested in having the more marketable Cyndaquil in the main cast to promote HG/SS. For a relatively late series capture, I thought that Dawn's Cyndaquil was handled fine. It had a pretty good amount of screentime/battles, contributed to Dawn's Contest arc and had some cute moments. Admittedly, I do have some personal bias here since Cyndaquil was my first Pokemon in Silver, so the Cyndaquil line getting any kind of attention usually makes me pretty happy. I loved its capture episode partly because of how it was such a blatant commercial for HG/SS. Johto is near and dear to my heart, so focus on that generation makes me happy too. Even without factoring that personal bias in, I never really had much of a problem with Dawn's Cyndaquil and thought it was handled pretty well for what it was.

Speaking of Dawn Pokemon: Togekiss is the worst member of her team. Why did they come up with this backstory of its Trainer wanting to do Contests, only to give it to Dawn after she had already earned five Ribbons? It basically got a free pass to the Grand Festival when the rest of her Pokemon had to put in actual work.

I completely agree. The whole setup for Dawn to get Togekiss was bad. I can understand that they wanted to help the princess to experience a Contest, but when it was seemingly the last one before the Grand Festival, no one had a problem with preventing other Coordinators a chance to get their last ribbon as a result. Giving her a fully evolved Pokemon right before the Grand Festival felt so forced. It was like they forgot to give Dawn a full team and just added Togekiss in at the last minute. Maybe it could have worked if she had bonded with Togekiss prior to the princess giving it to her, but even then, I think it would have been a tough sell. Dawn's other Pokemon took part in multiple Contests throughout the series while Togekiss just got a free ride to the Grand Festival. Ambipom's release is more frustrating, but Togekiss addition to the team is a pretty close second for me. They really should have given Dawn a sixth Pokemon earlier in the series instead of waiting until just before the Grand Festival began to give her one.
 
Short with Pancham getting whacked by Greninja’s tongue. Oh I would pay for that.
I NEED IT!!!!!! Where’s the source? It’s a crime it was unreleased.

Yeah, I wanna know where this came from. Anything involving Chespin and Pancham was great.
Since the sharing of clips is allowed, here ya go - enjoy!
I can understand that they wanted to help the princess to experience a Contest, but when it was seemingly the last one before the Grand Festival, no one had a problem with preventing other Coordinators a chance to get their last ribbon as a result.
Yeah, this always rubbed me the wrong way despite me being happy to see a Togekiss animated and in a Contest Battle no less. While it wasn't the last one per se, it was one of the last chances to earn a Ribbon (there were seven Halls open after Dawn got her 5th Ribbon) and the fact they let a Coordinator with 5 compete for one (who also ended up winning) was frustrating to watch. All they had to do was give Salvia a different outfit or alias rather than have her be Dawn, but then the whole Prince and the Pauper story wouldn't have worked to the writer's liking I guess; Jessie had every right to be steamed.
 
Since the sharing of clips is allowed, here ya go - enjoy!

Yeah, this always rubbed me the wrong way despite me being happy to see a Togekiss animated and in a Contest Battle no less. While it wasn't the last one per se, it was one of the last chances to earn a Ribbon (there were seven Halls open after Dawn got her 5th Ribbon) and the fact they let a Coordinator with 5 compete for one (who also ended up winning) was frustrating to watch. All they had to do was give Salvia a different outfit or alias rather than have her be Dawn, but then the whole Prince and the Pauper story wouldn't have worked to the writer's liking I guess; Jessie had every right to be steamed.
Only 19 seconds...
I LOVE THIS. I see Serena’s Pancham, I upvote
 
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