Controversial opinions

[Sai]

It also would have fit with XY being the final Gym leader quest of the series. Since both SM and Journies moved on from the 8 Gym set up, it does feel like XY was intended to be the grand finale for that formula. But since Ash lost again, it retroactively makes XY feel less important and just another Gym leader quest. DP still has the Paul/Infernape finale but since Alan wasn't really a rival till the last part of XY most of it is just the same basic structure of Ash doing Gyms with no driving force happening.

It's pretty much why XY feels like just another saga in the middle now but people still view the end of DP as the finality of Ash's development.

 

[HiroHunter]

I mean Charizard gained Dragon Typing with it's Mega Evolution which cancelled out it's Water weakness but yeah.

True but from the damage he took from Pikachu pre mega and Greninja post mega. The fact he not only no selled that last attack from Ash-Greninja but he also looked like he didn't take any damage at the end is kinda BS.

 

[Daren]

It also would have fit with XY being the final Gym leader quest of the series. Since both SM and Journies moved on from the 8 Gym set up, it does feel like XY was intended to be the grand finale for that formula. But since Ash lost again, it retroactively makes XY feel less important and just another Gym leader quest. DP still has the Paul/Infernape finale but since Alan wasn't really a rival till the last part of XY most of it is just the same basic structure of Ash doing Gyms with no driving force happening.

It's pretty much why XY feels like just another saga in the middle now but people still view the end of DP as the finality of Ash's development.

It really amazes me that they waited so long to put Team Flare in the main series if they were supposed to be the big finale of XY. I know Lysandre was in the Mega Evolution specials but that still meant Flare took several years to have any interactions with Ash.

How many people would adore DP if Paul didn't show up until Candice? It's a credit to XY's strong points that it has a strong following despite some of the structural issues.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

If Ash really was supossed to win, why would they have a whole scene made for Greninja fainting? I mean if the decision was made at the last second considering all the hints that Ash would win Kalos, they would still have to redo the whole scene of Ash winning to what actually happened in canon. But the fact is:
“That is a question you will never know. The writers can’t seem to figure it out either.”-Team Rocket

 

[Sai]

I don't think the time the villain team debuts affects their quality, for example Team Magma and Aqua debut at the very beginning of AG. Team Magma as early as the second episode no less!

And yet the Magma/Aqua arc wound up being the worst villain team arc by the time it ended. They only appeared in about 9 episodes total so even though they were in the series since the start they didn't get more episodes than any of the others. At least the Mega Evolution specials re-did the arc properly just without using the Magma/Aqua characters themselves a decade later. And back in AG they didn't have the excuse of a real life disaster sabotaging their plans like Team Plasma.

It's the same with the game rivals. Tierno and Trevor debuted early into XY yet they were rather uneventful and Trevor especially was one of the worst game rivals in anime history next to how Hau was treated. Really only Barry served well being introduced late.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

I like the Aqua Magma arc finale, but I wish Steven was involved instead of Lance.
Honestly, I think the higher ups are stupid with how they didn’t let Ash win the Kalos League if this is true. Do they know the Elite 4 exists and they can have Ash loose there? Also if they had Ash loose in the Kalos why at least didn’t Greninja and Charizard battle again in an exhibition match or they took the title away from Alain due to his involvement with Team Flare. Or what if they tied?

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Bringing Charizard in BW was a mistake. They should have saved him for XY.
Or they could have brought Sceptile.

They could’ve brought back Ashs Sceptile and have Sawyer’s ace be Swampert instead

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

I want to make an addition to this post:

I'll never understand fandom's fixation with giving new pokémon to old recurring characters. People talk about how there is no proof of Hikari's growth, as if some random evolution, a new pokémon, or giving her an off-screen GF win really mean anything. Like, Iris is somehow a champion now, and Kibago is apparently fully evolved, cool, but does it really matter anything? Evolution would be just a decoration.

I still believe that lack of changes on her party is not a sign of Hikari's lack of growth. Do you know what really negatively affected her growth? NOT BEATING HER MAIN RIVAL. Seriously, they should bring back Nozomi/Zoey just for that.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I want to make an addition to this post:

I still believe that lack of changes on her party is not a sign of Hikari's lack of growth. Do you know what really negatively affected her growth? NOT BEATING HER MAIN RIVAL. Seriously, they should bring back Nozomi/Zoey just for that.

I never really had a problem with Dawn losing to Zoey. While Zoey was her main rival, they weren't really building up to Dawn eventually defeating her either. They talked about meeting in the finals, but not about Dawn defeating Zoey. She obviously wanted to, but it wasn't what their rivalry was building up to like they were with Ash and Paul's rivalry. Their relationship was more akin to a student/mentor dynamic as opposed to a more typical rivalry. Given how Zoey was always one or two steps ahead during their battle, I think she deserved to win.

Besides all that, I don't think that losing negatively affected Dawn's growth. She knew that she gave that battle everything she had and was still happy despite losing the match. She had the confidence to rely on her Pokemon and her own ribbons even after losing, which is why giving her mother's ribbon back was such a huge moment. A huge aspect of Dawn's storyline was dealing with defeat, so seeing her being able to accept her defeat in the Grand Festival showed how far she had come since the start of the series. Losing to Zoey didn't affect her growth, although I wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to the writers not really know where else to take Dawn when she was already close to reaching her goal in DP. Not having any changes to her team after all this time is much more frustrating for me compared to losing to Zoey. It still makes her come off as more stagnant than I think the writers intended. Although, the main issue isn't necessarily that she doesn't have new Pokemon, but rather that she just hasn't made any progress after leaving the cast. If she still was able to have some noteworthy accomplishments even with having the same team, that probably would have been fine. It still would have been unbelievable for none of her Pokemon to evolve or for her to catch any new Pokemon in her off-screen travels, but that probably would have been easier to buy if Dawn actually did something besides lose more Grand Festivals off-screen.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

It really amazes me that they waited so long to put Team Flare in the main series if they were supposed to be the big finale of XY. I know Lysandre was in the Mega Evolution specials but that still meant Flare took several years to have any interactions with Ash.

How many people would adore DP if Paul didn't show up until Candice? It's a credit to XY's strong points that it has a strong following despite some of the structural issues.

XY's stong points were, to be fair, phenomenal. It's only really the league they messed up on. And, you know, the weird as all-hell transition to SM. And continuity. That's it, nothing else! (I don't know. There might be other things I missed.) By the way, and nobody quote me on this, but I did some digging around, and apparently, the writer of the atrocious, unholy episode, "A Unova League Evolution!", where Ash loses to he-who-shall-not-be-named, alsooo wrote the episode where Ash loses to Alain, "Down to the Fiery Finish!" If this is true (and I'm like 99% sure it is, the episode pages say he was the screenplay guy for both) then why the hell would they ever let that guy near another episode ever again?!? Like, after the Unova League fiasco, that guy should've been fired on the spot. Anybody also notice in that episode that Alain's Bisharp's Iron Head was animated differently to the other instances of the move in the XY series? This might explain why, because a BW writer was running around the script. It probably has nothing to do with the final outcome, as so many of you have said by this point, that was probably a higher up decision (bastards,) but I had known about this for time and thought it was interesting, so I thought I'd share it nonetheless.

Bringing Charizard in BW was a mistake. They should have saved him for XY.
Or they could have brought Sceptile.

Eh, they brought Charizard in BW in a last-ditch attempt to save a dying series, but alas, not even the mighty Charizard could save the utter mess that was BW by that point. BTW, did you mean Sceptile for BW or XY? Because Sceptile's talents would have been utterly wasted in BW too. If you ask me, they should have brought both Charizard and Sceptile in XY, not only because Ash could have used their help in the Kalos League apparently, but also for bragging rights to show them off to Sawyer and Alain. Can you imagine Sawyer's face if Ash had showed off Sceptile to him when his Sceptile was still a Treecko? Sawyer would have been impressed as all hell, even more so than he already was. And Ash's Charizard should have come back so that it could Mega Evolve and face off with Alain's Charizard to avenge the Y form (and Trevor LOL.) Maybe it could have even learned Sky Drop and finished off Alain's with that, as a successor to the Seismic Toss finisher.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Eh, they brought Charizard in BW in a last-ditch attempt to save a dying series, but alas, not even the mighty Charizard could save the utter mess that was BW by that point.

To be fair, that's largely because they did nothing interesting with Charizard that any other Pokemon couldn't have done. We got teased by the opening credits that he would face off against Reshiram, but that never came to pass.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

To be fair, that's largely because they did nothing interesting with Charizard that any other Pokemon couldn't have done. We got teased by the opening credits that he would face off against Reshiram, but that never came to pass.

You're exactly right. They completely wasted Charizard's talents on....scouting. Yeah. That's pretty much all he did after coming back. Also that Charizard vs Reshiram showdown that never came to be was highway robbery. They robbed us of that. The actual Fire/Dragon vs the Pokemon that should have been Fire/Dragon. It would've been badass. Instead, we got Charizard being relegated to Pidgeotto duty. Just.....why?

 

[Hidden Mew]

I remember thinking that they brought Charizard back in order to setup for Ash to get a Mega Charizard in XY. It's possible that the writers were already aware of Mega Evolution since Charizard was brought back fairly late into BW's run. I'm not sure if that was the case and it's just as likely that they just wanted to feature a popular fan favorite Pokemon like Charizard, but it crossed my mind. It wouldn't have made up for Charizard doing nothing in BW, but it would have explained why it came back.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

I remember thinking that they brought Charizard back in order to setup for Ash to get a Mega Charizard in XY. It's possible that the writers were already aware of Mega Evolution since Charizard was brought back fairly late into BW's run. I'm not sure if that was the case and it's just as likely that they just wanted to feature a popular fan favorite Pokemon like Charizard, but it crossed my mind. It wouldn't have made up for Charizard doing nothing in BW, but it would have explained why it came back.

Instead, all Ash's Charizard got was the nothing, while later Alain's got all the glory.

 

[FelipePR]

I remember thinking that they brought Charizard back in order to setup for Ash to get a Mega Charizard in XY. It's possible that the writers were already aware of Mega Evolution since Charizard was brought back fairly late into BW's run. I'm not sure if that was the case and it's just as likely that they just wanted to feature a popular fan favorite Pokemon like Charizard, but it crossed my mind. It wouldn't have made up for Charizard doing nothing in BW, but it would have explained why it came back.

I'm pretty sure they brought Charizard back to try save the show, given that BW was such a flop. The main story of the season had already ended, the anime was at that time of several fillers episodes to fill the gap until the next season. So, in order to get the fans' attention, they brought back a very popular Pokémon, Charizard.

 

[Daren]

By the way, and nobody quote me on this, but I did some digging around, and apparently, the writer of the atrocious, unholy episode, "A Unova League Evolution!", where Ash loses to he-who-shall-not-be-named, alsooo wrote the episode where Ash loses to Alain, "Down to the Fiery Finish!" If this is true (and I'm like 99% sure it is, the episode pages say he was the screenplay guy for both) then why the hell would they ever let that guy near another episode ever again?!? Like, after the Unova League fiasco, that guy should've been fired on the spot. Anybody also notice in that episode that Alain's Bisharp's Iron Head was animated differently to the other instances of the move in the XY series? This might explain why, because a BW writer was running around the script. It probably has nothing to do with the final outcome, as so many of have said my this point that was probably a higher up decision (bastards) but I had known about this for time and thought it was interesting, so I thought I'd share it nonetheless.

People over on another site started talking about those episodes sharing a writer right after the Kalos league ended. He also wrote the Tobias battle, so it seems for whatever reason he was given the unfortunate job of writing the league defeats right when the controversy on them started exploding.
However, he was on the series since Kanto and only left after XY ended so he did plenty of perfectly good episodes like Pikachu's Goodbye and Swellow's evolution, but unfortunately he gets mostly associated with unpopular episodes there was no way he could avoid being controversial.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

why the hell would they ever let that guy near another episode ever again?!? Like, after the Unova League fiasco, that guy should've been fired on the spot.

The outcomes of these battles weren’t his decision, though. That’s with the executives.

 

[FelipePR]

Alola!

Just a quick PSA and friendly reminder that we do in fact have a Controversial Opinion thread about the Pokémon video games. I've seen several posts here that don't reflect the anime, but rather the games moreso; those users may not be aware of the more conducive environment for their thoughts. So, please keep this in mind going forward regarding the, very distinct, two threads and your posts. Thanks!

I believe that this 'friendly reminder' should be added to the topic title, because people are often inattentive and, when looking at "what's new", we end up not paying attention to the section the topic is inserted in.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Their relationship was more akin to a student/mentor dynamic as opposed to a more typical rivalry.

I disagree.

Besides all that, I don't think that losing negatively affected Dawn's growth. She knew that she gave that battle everything she had and was still happy despite losing the match. She had the confidence to rely on her Pokemon and her own ribbons even after losing, which is why giving her mother's ribbon back was such a huge moment.

It is a proof of her emotional growth, yes, but she needs to prove her growth as a skilled trainer/coordinator too.

Not having any changes to her team after all this time is much more frustrating for me compared to losing to Zoey.

Again, I disagree. Thing happened on-screen should be more important than alleged off-screen victories.

 

[KerfishSea]

The newer Pokemon movies are better than the old ones