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Controversial opinions

Serena and Iris both advanced the most since we last saw them with progression and new pokemon. Now their characters feel complete with fully evolved Braxien and Axew and towards their goals.. Dawn would have been behind them if she had a new evolution but but still does Contests off-screen. Brock is a full fledged doctor now and has a Blissey and also has gotten powerful at battling again with the Mega evolution. Bonnie/Clemont's return was great too and the Alola cast have been treated well so far, they just need to do something with Lillie in the next return which I'm sure they will anyway.
Honestly it kinda does bother me that Serena is the one that gets lisia as the rival and shows Chloe all about contest. While dawn is just left stagnant. But I guess introducing Chloe to showcases, which is pretty much identical to contest now that they apparently removed battling, would be too repetitive
 
Honestly it kinda does bother me that Serena is the one that gets lisia as the rival and shows Chloe all about contest. While dawn is just left stagnant. But I guess introducing Chloe to showcases, which is pretty much identical to contest now that they apparently removed battling, would be too repetitive
Personally, I’m okay with Serena being the one who shows her about Contests since it’s basically the intersection of 3 plot points: Koharu being introduced to world of Contests, Koharu meeting all the Eeveelutions and what Serena has learned since she left for Hoenn to try Contests. These writers have a hard time tying up one plot point without tripping over the finish line yet they masterfully wove all 3 together here.
 
I really don't understand why people get so angry at the term "Shillmon"?

It's just a term for a Pokemon that the Pokemon Company clearly favors and gives more attention towards than the rest.

If someone calls Charizard, Lucario, or Greninja "Shillmons" it's not like they're using the term as a way to insult them.

It's just much easier to type down without having to type "The Pokemon Company's Favorite" all the time
 
I really don't understand why people get so angry at the term "Shillmon"?

It's just a term for a Pokemon that the Pokemon Company clearly favors and gives more attention towards than the rest.

If someone calls Charizard, Lucario, or Greninja "Shillmons" it's not like they're using the term as a way to insult them.

It's just much easier to type down without having to say "The Pokemon Company's Favorite" all the time
Then we could just call those "popular" pokemon or "marketing pokemon" or anything that people won't use as an insult towards those who like said pokemon. I've personally always seen "shillmon" used in a negative connotation, which is why I've never been particularly fond of the term. Most often, I've seen people put others down for liking the "shillmon" or immediately disliking a pokemon solely on the basis that they are supposedly a "shillmon" and nothing else. I'm sure some people use the term neutrally, but the negative connotation has outweighed any neutrality that term might bring for me.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the term shillmon used in any non-negative context. It possibly didn’t start that way, but it definitely caught on as a bad connotation.
I don’t think it’s ever been used as a term of endearment especially since the term shill is always used insultingly. It’s basically a term that those who don’t like the Pokémon’s popularity and favoritism it gets as a result use to insult them and always has been.
 
Yeah too frequently its come off as an insult for a Pokemon simply being popular or getting slightly more screentime. It is used frequently in a negative light and its why I'm tired of the term. I've seen it being used in exaggeration even. I mean especially when it comes to Cinderace, who has essentially been replaced by Grookey at this point in the anime.
 
I think, there's a line between Popular Pokemon and a Shillmon

Dragapult for example is a popular Pokemon but TPC does absolutely zero pushing for it lol

A Shillmon is something that TPC tries their damnest to push even before they know whether it'll become popular or not (but they usually do)

An easy way to identify a Shillmon:

1.) If it's a Starter it will usually have the most appealing design of the 3 Starters (I know design is subjective but there's usually one who is blatantly designed to be more "cooler" than the other 2. Whether it actually works or not is irrelevant here)

2.) Competitively It will usually be OU or Ubers in Smogon or High Ranking in VGC

3.) It's face will be all over all sorts of Merchandise, Spinoff Games, Clothes, Shoes, Plushies, etc

4.) Lastly and probably most notably it will usually play an important role in the Anime.

If a Pokemon falls into at LEAST 3 out of 4 these, It is a Shillmon


I think The term Shillmon was an alternative to just calling a Pokemon a "Creator's Pet" but seeing as the term "Creator's Pet" ALSO has negative connotations People resorted to the phase "Shillmon" (which also now is seems negative)
 
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My controversial take of the day is that I, most likely than not, wouldn't be this interested in a dual-protagonist narrative approach in the future SV anime.

I love this format. I do. But I think one of the reasons JN failed was precisely because of this. There's obviously the general incompetence of the writing team to take into account, of course, but I think that, on a fundamental level, it was meant to fail. The discrepancy between Ash's and Goh's general experience was way too big to let it work as intended. Ash has 7 regions (and I guess 8 if you want to count Galar but this is another debate within itself), 48 Gym Badges, all the 4 Orange Archipelago badges, he won against Drake, got all the 7 Frontier Symbols and even got invited to be a Frontier Brain himself, cleared 7 trials in Alola, went into 7 Leagues, and, finally, became a Champion himself. And Goh... is a rookie.

You actually want to look at me, dead in the eye, with your full chest, and convince me that Ash and Goh are "equals"? No. They are not. This is a fact.

I feel like for the dual-protagonist format to work, the two characters have to either start on the same level or at least be close enough so the gap isn't that brutally distant. The second case was with Dawn, but even I have to admit it had it's hiccups here and there. You just don't get to grab two characters with an abysmal experience gap inbetween them and equalize them without either severely reducing one of them and/or severely overplaying the other. With JN being an offennder of both cases, more frequently the latter.

Frankly? There's a chance it could be even worse for the next series considering Ash just went through a PWC circuit on top of all of his other achievements, so the gap would be even farther.
 
There's always going to have a beginning trainer on each cast so the writers can develop them from the start. They did it with May, Dawn, Serena, Lillie, Go and Koharu. Having Ash's companions battle alongside him even if he should realistically be much stronger than them has always been a thing.

Ash should of dwarfed Dawn in power but Piplup was shown on par with Pikachu for most of the series. The way they tag teamed in arcs, training and against villains/legendaries is pretty similar to what they do with Go and back then Dawn was still a beginner in most of it. Even when they have a female more experienced like Iris they give her a baby Axew that couldn't battle too well for most of the series so she can battle alongside Ash and not overshadow him.
 
My controversial take of the day is that I, most likely than not, wouldn't be this interested in a dual-protagonist narrative approach in the future SV anime.

I love this format. I do. But I think one of the reasons JN failed was precisely because of this. There's obviously the general incompetence of the writing team to take into account, of course, but I think that, on a fundamental level, it was meant to fail. The discrepancy between Ash's and Goh's general experience was way too big to let it work as intended. Ash has 7 regions (and I guess 8 if you want to count Galar but this is another debate within itself), 48 Gym Badges, all the 4 Orange Archipelago badges, he won against Drake, got all the 7 Frontier Symbols and even got invited to be a Frontier Brain himself, cleared 7 trials in Alola, went into 7 Leagues, and, finally, became a Champion himself. And Goh... is a rookie.

You actually want to look at me, dead in the eye, with your full chest, and convince me that Ash and Goh are "equals"? No. They are not. This is a fact.

I feel like for the dual-protagonist format to work, the two characters have to either start on the same level or at least be close enough so the gap isn't that brutally distant. The second case was with Dawn, but even I have to admit it had it's hiccups here and there. You just don't get to grab two characters with an abysmal experience gap inbetween them and equalize them without either severely reducing one of them and/or severely overplaying the other. With JN being an offennder of both cases, more frequently the latter.

Frankly? There's a chance it could be even worse for the next series considering Ash just went through a PWC circuit on top of all of his other achievements, so the gap would be even farther.
Absolutely nailed my issues with the whole dual protagonist thing. There was no way, even by the end.of the series, that ash and goh we're gonna be equal. Nope, no matter how many times the writers try to convince us.
That's why, maybe unpopular, I wanted the new protagonist with ash to be not a rookie. They don't have to be the exact same in power, but not such a jarring gap like goh and ash.

Another unpopular opinion, I missed Chloe straight man personality in the beginning compared to her now. Ik it's for development, but her snark in contrast with ash and goh enthusiasm was fun to watch. Now it's just gone. And idk I just found her less interesting
 
My controversial take of the day is that I, most likely than not, wouldn't be this interested in a dual-protagonist narrative approach in the future SV anime.

I love this format. I do. But I think one of the reasons JN failed was precisely because of this. There's obviously the general incompetence of the writing team to take into account, of course, but I think that, on a fundamental level, it was meant to fail. The discrepancy between Ash's and Goh's general experience was way too big to let it work as intended. Ash has 7 regions (and I guess 8 if you want to count Galar but this is another debate within itself), 48 Gym Badges, all the 4 Orange Archipelago badges, he won against Drake, got all the 7 Frontier Symbols and even got invited to be a Frontier Brain himself, cleared 7 trials in Alola, went into 7 Leagues, and, finally, became a Champion himself. And Goh... is a rookie.

You actually want to look at me, dead in the eye, with your full chest, and convince me that Ash and Goh are "equals"? No. They are not. This is a fact.

I feel like for the dual-protagonist format to work, the two characters have to either start on the same level or at least be close enough so the gap isn't that brutally distant. The second case was with Dawn, but even I have to admit it had it's hiccups here and there. You just don't get to grab two characters with an abysmal experience gap inbetween them and equalize them without either severely reducing one of them and/or severely overplaying the other. With JN being an offennder of both cases, more frequently the latter.

Frankly? There's a chance it could be even worse for the next series considering Ash just went through a PWC circuit on top of all of his other achievements, so the gap would be even farther.
And this is why we should have a new protagonist for SV.
 
There's always going to have a beginning trainer on each cast so the writers can develop them from the start. They did it with May, Dawn, Serena, Lillie, Go and Koharu. Having Ash's companions battle alongside him even if he should realistically be much stronger than them has always been a thing.

Ash should of dwarfed Dawn in power but Piplup was shown on par with Pikachu for most of the series. The way they tag teamed in arcs, training and against villains/legendaries is pretty similar to what they do with Go and back then Dawn was still a beginner in most of it. Even when they have a female more experienced like Iris they give her a baby Axew that couldn't battle too well for most of the series so she can battle alongside Ash and not overshadow him.
But I'm not saying that having rookies, inexperienced trainers alongside Ash is bad or that it doesn't works. I'm just saying treating them both on the same level and equalizing them just doesn't works anymore and Goh is the living proof of that. That's why he developted so quickly and out of nowhere: they were terrified he wouldn't be able to keep up with Ash who's battling E4 members and Champions this season.

Also, yeah, I do admit they could've slowed down on Dawn a bit more. But I also think it's important to note that, besides the writing team just being better, the Ash-Dawn gap was a lot smaller than the Ash-Goh gap is. There's not even room to argue here. It was just easier to bring them to similar levels because of that, which is something they failed completely with Goh. Not that I think it was done flawlessly, of course, but it was easier.

Btw I'm not even gonna comment too much on the Iris thing because I feel like this is another debate on itself, but while, yes, she did started BW more experienced than Dawn did in DP, let's not act like she was that much better than Dawn was.
Heck, if anything Piplup was portrayed as stronger than Pikachu, who didn't have a single important starring win in DP.
I don't really thing that, tbh. Pikachu was still stronger than Piplup, he just didn't starred in any important battles while Pip, being Dawn's first and arguably most reliable and versatile mon, did. Which, and idk if it's a controversial take, but I actually really enjoyed that Pikachu didn't hogged the spotlight too much in DP. Funny to say that while JN is still airing, considering how much Pikachu hogs and steals the spotlight and is present in nearly every single PWC battle.
 
Which, and idk if it's a controversial take, but I actually really enjoyed that Pikachu didn't hogged the spotlight too much in DP. Funny to say that while JN is still airing, considering how much Pikachu hogs and steals the spotlight and is present in nearly every single PWC battle.
AG definitely had a problem with giving Pikachu too many major wins (ed: though it did make him the jobber in Ash's Hoenn league wins and he got a lot of slapstick abuse at times) but I think DP went too far in the opposite direction when he literally didn't even get one, then it just had him tie a legendary at the end that felt like awkward attempt to make it look like he regained some of his late AG-era strength.

Even Aipom was allowed a prominent victory or two (and even got to beat Paul), and they were trade fodder for Dawn who got awkwardly removed for uncertain reasons.
 
AG definitely had a problem with giving Pikachu too many major wins (ed: though it did make him the jobber in Ash's Hoenn league wins and he got a lot of slapstick abuse at times) but I think DP went too far in the opposite direction when he literally didn't even get one, then it just had him tie a legendary at the end that felt like awkward attempt to make it look like he regained some of his late AG-era strength.

Even Aipom was allowed a prominent victory or two (and even got to beat Paul), and they were trade fodder for Dawn who got awkwardly removed for uncertain reasons.
I wonder if maybe Pikachu's lack of prominence in DP was the reason they eventually pendulum-swung in BW to make Pikachu constantly steal glory from the Unova mons. Sure, he had a very rough start what with losing to Trip's Snivy and Cress's Panpour, but outside of that Pikachu tended to win almost every other battle he participated in and was frequently picked over his neglected teammates. I'll admit that I too don't mind Pikachu not getting many major wins in DP. Especially in hindsight due to how much of a glory-stealer he's become. But I can see why people who like him would find his DP portrayal annoying.

I think a good balance of Pikachu would be for him to only participate in battles sporadically but simply have him win whenever he does. Make him Ash's ace-in-the-hole/last hail mary instead of shoving him in situations where other Pokemon whose time for glory is limited could have shined.
 
I think a good balance of Pikachu would be for him to only participate in battles sporadically but simply have him win whenever he does. Make him Ash's ace-in-the-hole/last hail mary instead of shoving him in situations where other Pokemon whose time for glory is limited could have shined.
Looking at DP in particular I think Pikachu not being used much could work into the Paul rivalry.
Paul's whole thing about looking for naturally strong Pokémon and releasing ones that struggle early on? That fits pretty well with how we were told early on that Pikachu was unusually strong for his species.

So here is what I'd do:
In the first Paul battle Starly loses, Aipom ties, and Pikachu wins. Paul makes a comment on Pikachu being the only one with good potential or similar.

At Oresburgh Ash drive it home more; Aipom brings down Geodue, then Onix KOs her and Turtwig. Pikachu finishes off both Onix and Cranidos, and Paul notes again that Ash only won because Pikachu was naturally powerful.

This really bothers Ash. They could do an episode right after Roark where Ash is shaken up by Paul's comments and Pikachu lets him know he's okay with sitting out the Gym challenge and helping train instead. He'd still get use vs evil teams and so on since we can't just cut out the mascot entirely.

At Lake Acuity Pikachu beats Ursaring and maybe one other Pokémon; crucially, however, Pikachu does not battle Paul in the Sinnoh league, subbing in Gible instead, so Ash wins without having to rely on his veteran fighter and truly proves the effectiveness of his style (that here I might recommend giving Pika some sort of important win near the end since he isn't involved in the climax battle, but rather than a Gym or League match maybe Ash ends up having to fight J's Salamence one last time and Pikachu manages to defeat it).
This also further Pikachu's character development--which sort of flattened out after the Orange Islands--by continuing the cycle from unreliable and cowardly to a powerful fighter to finally stepping aside to help train the newcomers.

Naturally BW probably ignores this whole thing entirely but that's the inevitable outcome of a series' format later on.
 
So here is what I'd do:
In the first Paul battle Starly loses, Aipom ties, and Pikachu wins. Paul makes a comment on Pikachu being the only one with good potential or similar.

At Oresburgh Ash drive it home more; Aipom brings down Geodue, then Onix KOs her and Turtwig. Pikachu finishes off both Onix and Cranidos, and Paul notes again that Ash only won because Pikachu was naturally powerful.
I like your setup a lot. It's also really interesting, because Trip actually said something similar in his second battle with Ash (in that only Snivy and Pikachu were good), but unfortunately not only did that go nowhere, but Snivy went on to frequently job in battles while at the same time only Tepig really improved.

Man, BW was just a cavalcade of missed opportunities, wasn't it?
 
Even Aipom was allowed a prominent victory or two (and even got to beat Paul), and they were trade fodder for Dawn who got awkwardly removed for uncertain reasons.
I get your point, but I like that Aipom was allowed to be the star of the Gardenia battle, as it was her last Gym Battle ever. I like how they allowed her to leave Ash with a bang.

If only DP wouldn't shit on her head with that BS ping-pong thing...
 
Looking at DP in particular I think Pikachu not being used much could work into the Paul rivalry.
Paul's whole thing about looking for naturally strong Pokémon and releasing ones that struggle early on? That fits pretty well with how we were told early on that Pikachu was unusually strong for his species.

So here is what I'd do:
In the first Paul battle Starly loses, Aipom ties, and Pikachu wins. Paul makes a comment on Pikachu being the only one with good potential or similar.

At Oresburgh Ash drive it home more; Aipom brings down Geodue, then Onix KOs her and Turtwig. Pikachu finishes off both Onix and Cranidos, and Paul notes again that Ash only won because Pikachu was naturally powerful.

This really bothers Ash. They could do an episode right after Roark where Ash is shaken up by Paul's comments and Pikachu lets him know he's okay with sitting out the Gym challenge and helping train instead. He'd still get use vs evil teams and so on since we can't just cut out the mascot entirely.

At Lake Acuity Pikachu beats Ursaring and maybe one other Pokémon; crucially, however, Pikachu does not battle Paul in the Sinnoh league, subbing in Gible instead, so Ash wins without having to rely on his veteran fighter and truly proves the effectiveness of his style (that here I might recommend giving Pika some sort of important win near the end since he isn't involved in the climax battle, but rather than a Gym or League match maybe Ash ends up having to fight J's Salamence one last time and Pikachu manages to defeat it).
This also further Pikachu's character development--which sort of flattened out after the Orange Islands--by continuing the cycle from unreliable and cowardly to a powerful fighter to finally stepping aside to help train the newcomers.

Naturally BW probably ignores this whole thing entirely but that's the inevitable outcome of a series' format later on.
That reminds me, I don't think Pikachu has really had a major character arc in a long while. Not even XY or sun and moon
 
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