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Controversial opinions

To be fair, Brock and Misty literally got Mega stones off-screen. And Brock's Onix never won a battle to my recollection after the initial Pewter Gym battle with Ash.
 
It's also really hard for me to put much stock into Iris' Champion title when it feels incredibly forced. Misty and Brock getting Mega Stones off-screen was more than plausible. Misty would be battling pretty frequently with Gyarados and while Brock wasn't a Gym Leader anymore, his Steelix was left at the Pewter Gym, so I can assume it battled pretty regularly. The fact that it was also Brock's first Pokemon made it easier for me to believe that they would have a strong enough connection to make Mega Evolution work. Iris becoming the new Unova Champion does not make any sense to me. Even the idea that Iris just trained and battle a lot off-screen felt too much of a weak excuse when it is at odds with how she barely did any battling in BW, was not interested in becoming a Gym Leader and wasn't in a position where she'd have to battle frequently like a good portion of the other female leads do.

If I liked Iris or was more invested in her storyline, then this probably wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I still think that this is too unbelievable. I have a much easier time believing Goh's accomplishments than anything Iris ever did during and after BW.
 
To be fair, Brock and Misty literally got Mega stones off-screen. And Brock's Onix never won a battle to my recollection after the initial Pewter Gym battle with Ash.

Brock's Onix even evolved when it was under the care of his brother Forrest. It was probably at that time, when it was facing battles against other trainers' Pokémon, that it became a good duelist, and not while traveling with the gang.

Brock worked hard to become a Pokémon caretaker, not a trainer, at least during the time he was Ash's companion.
 
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When it comes to Iris, I wish we saw her quest to become Champion, especially back in XY when it would have been nice to get the past companion return episode, but it doesn't feel too far out of left field to me considering she became Champion in BW2.

Speaking of that, one flaw I will always agree about when it comes to XY is its lack of connection to past series. There's few references to the past outside of Cilan's special episode they should have dubbed. I love the XY series, but they should have had more connections to the past. We should have seen Iris return. We should have had a return from May to promote ORAS. I just wish they did more. It was so good they made up for it in Sun and Moon with 4 episodes featuring Brock and Misty.
 
I think May not appearing for ORAS is more jarring now that Misty came back for Let's Go in SM and Dawn twice for DP remakes promotion. May is the only one who was completely ignored when her gen was remade. Since there are her VA issues the least they could have done is give her a flashback or reference but they didn't even acknowledge her.

The writers definitely show some favoritism to certain female companions over others.
 
When it comes to Iris, I wish we saw her quest to become Champion, especially back in XY when it would have been nice to get the past companion return episode, but it doesn't feel too far out of left field to me considering she became Champion in BW2.

Speaking of that, one flaw I will always agree about when it comes to XY is its lack of connection to past series. There's few references to the past outside of Cilan's special episode they should have dubbed. I love the XY series, but they should have had more connections to the past. We should have seen Iris return. We should have had a return from May to promote ORAS. I just wish they did more. It was so good they made up for it in Sun and Moon with 4 episodes featuring Brock and Misty.
Something that bothered about XY was the lack of continuity. Fun fact: Ash’s Bulbasaur and Muk as well as Brock have appeared in every series EXCEPT for you guessed it, XY
 
When it comes to Iris, I wish we saw her quest to become Champion, especially back in XY when it would have been nice to get the past companion return episode, but it doesn't feel too far out of left field to me considering she became Champion in BW2.
As much as it would have helped to see more of Iris' quest to become the Champion, I'm still kind of glad that she didn't appear in XY. After Dawn's return in BW, I did not want them to force an Iris return just for the shake of tradition. Most of the reasons people came up for why she could appear in Kalos, such as the Fairy type and meeting with Drasna, always felt kind of weak to me. She would have benefited from a special or two though. It's such a shame that they don't really make specials focused on Ash's friends considering just how many former companions there are now. It still feels too out of left field for me when video game Iris and anime Iris weren't really the same. At least Iris was a Gym Leader proper in the games and Gym Leaders had been shown to advance through the ranks in previous generations too.

Speaking of that, one flaw I will always agree about when it comes to XY is its lack of connection to past series. There's few references to the past outside of Cilan's special episode they should have dubbed. I love the XY series, but they should have had more connections to the past. We should have seen Iris return. We should have had a return from May to promote ORAS. I just wish they did more. It was so good they made up for it in Sun and Moon with 4 episodes featuring Brock and Misty.
I would have loved a May return to promote OR/AS. I thought that she would have fit in much more naturally with the XY cast than Iris would, especially when she could have connected quite nicely with Serena. Since May didn't have a goal in mind before she started on her journey, it could have given Serena some more support and reassurance.

I think May not appearing for ORAS is more jarring now that Misty came back for Let's Go in SM and Dawn twice for DP remakes promotion. May is the only one who was completely ignored when her gen was remade. Since there are her VA issues the least they could have done is give her a flashback or reference but they didn't even acknowledge her.

The writers definitely show some favoritism to certain female companions over others.
I'm not sure if May not appearing was necessarily due to her voice actress. OR/AS had pretty minimal promotion compared to FR/LG and HG/SS. It wasn't helped that XY was pretty light on references to past series and characters. I think that they brought Misty back more so for the 20th anniversary than for Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. It might be kind of a moot point when their Alola vacation was around the time the games came out, but they didn't really feature their Pokemon used in those games or give them their new outfits. Dawn's appearances definitely tie in more with BD/SP though. I'm pretty sure that Dawn is still one of the more popular characters in the series and having such a popular/marketable Pokemon like Piplup definitely gives her a huge edge too.
 
I also didn't felt it when they 'said' that Iris, somehow, became the Champion.

It's hard to believe when there is no coherence with her established characterization.

Hikari is the best companion, and the first Coprotagonist, but Journeys messed up with her character.
I still can't understand how badly the writers missed all the cues.

XY was fine on its own, the fact that it didn't need continuity enforcement was one of its strenghts.
The bad thing for Haruka is that seiyuu-recasting tends to happen only if the previous died or don't want to play the character anymore.
Of course I am not taking into account remake-animes, those are a different case.
Most probable is she getting a silent cameo.
 
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I think May not appearing for ORAS is more jarring now that Misty came back for Let's Go in SM and Dawn twice for DP remakes promotion. May is the only one who was completely ignored when her gen was remade. Since there are her VA issues the least they could have done is give her a flashback or reference but they didn't even acknowledge her.

The writers definitely show some favoritism to certain female companions over others.
Dawn's appearances definitely tie in more with BD/SP though. I'm pretty sure that Dawn is still one of the more popular characters in the series and having such a popular/marketable Pokemon like Piplup definitely gives her a huge edge too.

I agree with you that Dawn has a good edge, but I think the biggest difference is the moment of the anime itself. May not reappearing in XY was not so jarring as it seems, since XY was pretty light on references to past series and characters. That is, a series totally focused on itself, so none of Ash's main companions from last season reappeared, as was usual. In fact, the two most relevant reappearances, Steven and Cilan one, took place in special episodes not directly linked to the main script.

Now in journeys, we're seeing just the opposite, a greater appeal to characters from the past peppered with doses of nostlagia. Hard, then, to believe that Dawn and Cynthia would not reappear.

Surely, at the time of XY here were rumors and hopes that May might reappear, but to be honest, I thought Brendan or Wally would appear instead of May, even though it was in a special battling episode against Alan. But the lucky one happened to be Steven. I expected something more in line with what was done with the 2nd generation remakes, but, yes, the references were even poorer.

Nevertheless, I hope that May can still appear in Pokémon Journeys or another series.
 
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Hikari is the best companion, and the first Coprotagonist, but Journeys messed up with her character.
I still can't understand how badly the writers missed all the cues.
I don't know why you feel that way since Dawn is handled just fine. Her personality is the same as its ever been. Not giving her any team changes doesn't mean they messed her up.

Anyone who grew up with DP or liked Dawn back then should be happy with the sheer mass of throwbacks they did with her character so far.
 
Once again it’s that progression of Goh’s character that’s my main gripe. Like with super class they blazed through the important parts of his development, like changing his perspective on pokemon, battle skills and even character motivation. So it’s harder to be invested where he is now. It’s believable to me that Goh would reach this point, but at the end of the series not within ~50 episodes. That first season really messed up the pacing.

Nowadays he’s slowed down though. He struggles more with catching important pokemon, needs to bond with them and has to problem solve a lot more. He’s also at a higher power level now so him catching fully evolved pokemon doesn’t feel as bad as it used to.
 
Her personality is the same as its ever been.

Anyone who grew up with DP or liked Dawn back then should be happy with the sheer mass of throwbacks they did with her character so far.
Well, most of the episodes were fine, but I personally didn’t think Dawn was well.. "Dawn" in the first episode. It felt like her character traits were driven up to eleven to show her as an overexcited counterpart for JN!Ash. The second episode seemed fine, but as someone grew up with DP, Dawn's character felt slightly butchered to give Chloe someone "similar to Ash" to bounce off.

Honestly, aren’t people allowed to have opinions? "Anyone who grew up with DP should love how JN treated Dawn" is a weird blanket statement. I haven’t checked out the latest Sinnoh two parter, but the first two parter was borderline devoid of the actual reunion aspect. Just because a character is featured many times doesn’t mean their depiction should magically be liked by everyone.
 
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Hikari is the best companion, and the first Coprotagonist, but Journeys messed up with her character.

I can't agree with the first part, although I do agree that Journeys messed up with Dawn's character in Darkrai and Cresselia arc.

Well, most of the episodes were fine, but I personally didn’t think Dawn was well.. "Dawn" in the first episode. It felt like her character traits were driven up to eleven to show her as an overexcited counterpart for JN!Ash. The second episode seemed fine, but as someone grew up with DP, Dawn's character felt slightly butchered to give Chloe someone "similar to Ash" to bounce off.

Well I believe I signed a similar impression when I watched the Darkrai and Cresselia arc,
Maybe they should have waited a while with Dawn's/Hikari's return, I am not a great fan of her return episodes either, but they were still nice.

I don't think that Koharu was exactly more mature, but much more rigid and logical in her attitudes, not allowing herself to uncompromisingly enjoy the world around. While Dawn did not act as a mentor, she certainly inspired Koharu through her performance and presentation of the Pokémon Contests, as well as telling her own life story and aspirations.

At the end of the episode, the impression is that Koharu learned relevant lessons from his interaction with Dawn and Darkrai/Cresselia, especially regarding friendship, companionship and chasing her own dreams.

However, Hikari's behavior seemed a bit weird to me. She seemed to act more like our ever-cheerful and silly Ash boy than her old self. Despite that, the fraternization between both characters, Dawn and Ash, was, in short, frustrating.

The producers apparently want to highlight features in Dawn that are typical of the Ash, so the character looks more similar to the protagonist than she was before. In spite of that, the interaction between both, in that episode, was disappointing, especially when taking into account how friendly they were with each other in Diamond and Pearl.
 
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Well, most of the episodes were fine, but I personally didn’t think Dawn was well.. "Dawn" in the first episode. It felt like her character traits were driven up to eleven to show her as an overexcited counterpart for JN!Ash. The second episode seemed fine, but as someone grew up with DP, Dawn's character felt slightly butchered to give Chloe someone "similar to Ash" to bounce off.

Honestly, aren’t people allowed to have opinions? "Anyone who grew up with DP should love how JN treated Dawn" is a weird blanket statement. I haven’t checked out the latest Sinnoh two parter, but the first two parter was borderline devoid of the actual reunion aspect. Just because a character is featured many times doesn’t mean their depiction should magically be liked by everyone.
Her personality in the first 2 parter was also the same as its ever been, she was trying to get Koharu enthusiastic to explore Sinnoh and take her time instead of rushing to their destination. We got other direct callbacks to DP with Dawn having messy hair while sleeping in the tent and asking Piplup to bubblebeam it for her.

Then later in the ep Dawn and Koharu started to get annoyed with each other while walking in the woods and Dawn getting annoyed and somewhat impulsive is how she got in DP at times with Ash every so often, but then she rectified it. Finally Dawn showing off a Contest appeal to her and grabbing her up by the hand when she was sitting in the woods (and again in the beach scene at the end of the second episode) was showing Dawn's enthusiastic and friendly personality.

As someone who watched DP in full about 3-4 times, I noticed every major Dawn scene in those eps were a callback to old scenes she did in DP or very similar.

Now in the current arc, Dawn and Ash's interactions in that first scene were great with Dawn getting depressed, calling Ash for help and thanking him for bringing her a snack to cheer her up. It's all callbacks to DP.

I don't see how any of this is out of character. I remember people saying Dawn acted out of character in her BW cameo (which I didn't completely agree with either, but I don't want to get into that now) but in Journey's she's much more like her old self.
 
I need the know the names of the people responsible for Ash’s Kalos League loss. Like was there a vote deciding who would win? What exactly happened behind closed doors? It seems like such a last minute decision.
I need an answer to this possibly unanswerable question.
 
I need the know the names of the people responsible for Ash’s Kalos League loss. Like was there a vote deciding who would win? What exactly happened behind closed doors? It seems like such a last minute decision.
I need an answer to this possibly unanswerable question.
Its easy to see why the writers had Ash lose the Kalos League. Its because they can't have MCX and Charizard in general look weak for ANY reason even when it would make sense for him to lose he just won't. I mean look at Origins that 4 part felt like to show off how super cool Charizard is even burying other pokemon to make it look good.
 
Its easy to see why the writers had Ash lose the Kalos League. Its because they can't have MCX and Charizard in general look weak for ANY reason even when it would make sense for him to lose he just won't. I mean look at Origins that 4 part felt like to show off how super cool Charizard is even burying other pokemon to make it look good.
Either way, it was still a horrendous writing decision after everything that happened in Kalos. They spent so long shoving down our throats how OP Mega Charizard X was and that thing needed to be knocked down a peg.
 
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