Controversial opinions

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

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

SM could have had one with Ash and Pikachu managing to learn and master 10MNV instead of it magically being given to him.

 

[Weddingbells]

SM could have had one with Ash and Pikachu managing to learn and master 10MNV instead of it magically being given to him.

Yup, and can actually develop their relationship further. Better than what they tried to do in that whole Pikachu jealousy weird episode

 

[Enzo]

SM could have had one with Ash and Pikachu managing to learn and master 10MNV instead of it magically being given to him.

Yet another thing about 10MVT that I hate. We got robbed of some good character development.

 

[FelipePR]

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.

Well, reading this discussion about Pikachu and Piplup, I came to realize something that, in a way, I already knew (look at me stating my ideas as if they were facts lol). The quite controversial, who knows, idea is that........ the characters Dawn and Piplup and are completely inspired by Ash and Pikachu.

It is not without reason that Goh, JN 89, states that Dawn and Ash are very much alike, this is the intention of the producers, nor that Ash and Dawn used to be so synergistic with each other, or what Pikachu and Piplup used to be seen training together, with Pikachu sharing their routine activities like blasing off Team Rocket, or that Ash and Dawn not rare adapted each other's strategies to their respective area of expertise.

The fact that Piplup doesn't evolve is not because he's a marketable character. Piplup couldn't evolve because, from the start, like his trainer, he must seek his reflection in the other protagonist Pokémon, Pikachu. So, the producers created/gave to Dawn a Pokémon that they believed was in a position to achieve commercial success regardless of evolution.

All this was intentional, the convergence of the protagonists have the purpose of mirroring Ash and Pikachu personalities in Dawn and Piplup characters as a strategy to gain esteem for the female protagonist. And well, it was quite fruitful, as Dawn is one of the most beloved characters in the franchise, although I don't have much affection for Pochama.

I'm not saying that Dawn and Piplup are the same as Ash and Pikachu, or that Dawn is a female version of Ash. They are not, both the characters have their peculiarities and differences. Piplup isn't suited and strictly correct like Pikachu, nor is Dawn as goofy as Ash, for example.

But it is clear that much of the background and characteristics of these characters were created from the successful mold of Ash and Pikachu, in order to, through these successful protagonists, emulate successful protagonists for the female audience.

But of course, this relationship isn't one-sided either, like Ash and Pikachu, in a slightly similar way, also had a responsibility to reflect and converge towards Dawn and Pochama. So that their images, to a certain extent, are confused with those of the other two.

In Short, what I'm trying to say is that Dawn is not adaptation, or an enhanced version of the previous generation's protagonist, as some might think. Her character is not significantly influenced by hers, although her role in the anime is, but by the ubiquitous Ash of Pallet Town.

 

[Sai]

They should of let May and Serena do more tag battles with Ash or more battle oriented competitions like Dawn did.

I always liked when Dawn did something outside of Contests, like battle in the tag battle tournament, battle the Gym leader Maylene, battle in the Junior Cup in BW, etc. It proved that coordinators can be just as good in regular battles and we got to see her participate in a lot of events outside of her main goal. And as I mentioned Dawn was always active in villain and legendary plots in DP and now whereas most of the other girls usually take a backseat when all that stuff is going on.

It's the one thing I am somewhat sad about when I rewatch the older seasons because you know the writers could have done more with the other girls.

 

[Rockapheller]

I was really sad to not see May during the ORAS promotion in the anime. She is not necessarily among my favorite characters, but I sure do like her and seeing old companions return always makes my heart melt down. Since the beginning of the JN series, I was lowkey hoping her VA could make a way to voice her character for an episode or so, unaware how serious her illness has been. Then just recently, I read Dogasu's post regarding Kaori's illness, he mainly translated her blog entries from the past. It made me really sad to see what she has been going through. She was a voice actor, as well as a band's singer. Suddenly, she got this unexpected, out of nowhere, extremely random illness about her voice and all her dreams fell apart. I am curious to know how she maintains her financial situation and how serious her symptoms are. Because reading about the illness itself, it says that for some people it is not that intense, so it only affects a word or two each two sentences, but sometimes the symptoms are so strong that what they say basically cannot be understood. I mostly felt sorry when I think about how difficult it must have been for her to recognize the problem, understand and accept it...

So now, I am fine not seeing May again. But if we do get to see May some day, I would be more happy about Kaori being able to voice her than actually seeing May back again.

 

[Sai]

What's strange is apparently the disease affected her as early as her DP cameo in 2008 but back then it wasn't as severe. If the writers knew about it back then May might have not have gotten a DP cameo either, but that was only 2 years after AG ended so nobody really knew.

It was always obvious to me no May in 2014 was because of this. People say XY was isolated from the past but I don't think the main female of a gen that was remade wouldn't have appeared at all back then especially when her ORAS design and/or Mega Blaziken could have been promoted then. We always see Misty and Dawn when their games were remade but May was excluded, and I doubt it would have happened otherwise. May could have even been the one to inspire Serena at the time into being a performer since it was in the first year when she had no goal.

But I guess it doesn't matter much now, especially with Journey's ending too it's obvious she won't show up in any of the remaining eps. So she'll be the only girl never to appear this series besides that 1 flashback.

 

[Enzo]

I might be missing some cultural/historical context, but why is that recasting May's VA is such a difficult thing? Like, my dude, her VA literally can't work. It's not gonna kill to cast somebody else, especially when this strong of a justification exists.

 

[Eitarou]

I might be missing some cultural/historical context, but why is that recasting May's VA is such a difficult thing? Like, my dude, her VA literally can't work. It's not gonna kill to cast somebody else, especially when this strong of a justification exists.

VAs are highly respected in Japan, and it's considered rude to replace them unless they're dead or involved in scandals like Raihan's was.

 

[Emmy]

VAs are highly respected in Japan, and it's considered rude to replace them unless they're dead or involved in scandals like Raihan's was.

Personally I'd say it's less that voice actors as an entire group are highly respected and more so that as individuals, VA's can attain a kind of celebrity status since recasts do happen all the time even when the actor is alive and still working and I've noticed the most common denominator tends to be that the actor is a much smaller name that won't cause as much expected backlash compared to recasting someone like say, Goku or Ash.

But that's just my hot take.

 

[Hidden Mew]

What's strange is apparently the disease affected her as early as her DP cameo in 2008 but back then it wasn't as severe. If the writers knew about it back then May might have not have gotten a DP cameo either, but that was only 2 years after AG ended so nobody really knew.

It was always obvious to me no May in 2014 was because of this. People say XY was isolated from the past but I don't think the main female of a gen that was remade wouldn't have appeared at all back then especially when her ORAS design and/or Mega Blaziken could have been promoted then. We always see Misty and Dawn when their games were remade but May was excluded, and I doubt it would have happened otherwise. May could have even been the one to inspire Serena at the time into being a performer since it was in the first year when she had no goal.

They kind of already promoted Mega Blaziken with Blaziken Mask. Granted, that was a really minor character, but maybe they didn't think it was necessary to give it more promotion when it was the first Mega Pokemon featured in XY. Even with Misty and Dawn's returns in mind, I'm still of the opinion that May wasn't featured in XY due to how it had such minimal references to past events. Plus, the promotion for OR/AS in general was minimal compared to how they've promoted the other remakes.

But I guess it doesn't matter much now, especially with Journey's ending too it's obvious she won't show up in any of the remaining eps. So she'll be the only girl never to appear this series besides that 1 flashback.

To be fair, people were making similar arguments about Serena not appearing right up until the leaks came out. Right up until the poster was leaked, people just wrote off the title as misleading to get Serena fans excited. I remember you were pretty certain that the Sylveon in the preview would belong to Lisia instead and didn't think that they'd feature an Altaria two weeks in a row. Obviously, that is a different situation and I don't think that May has the best chances of reappearing regardless, but if Journeys is going to end in November, there would still be enough time for a potential return. I wouldn't put any money on it, but it just seems a bit too early to say that she won't appear in any of the remaining episodes at the same time, even with her voice actress's health condition in mind.

VAs are highly respected in Japan, and it's considered rude to replace them unless they're dead or involved in scandals like Raihan's was.

While that is true, I don't think it's that uncommon for voice actors to be replaced in Japan for other reasons either. They've done that for the Adventure cast in Tri and the reboot. Fruits Basket had an entire recast for its remake, although that was due to how much the manga author didn't like the first series. These are probably the exceptions rather than the standards for how recasts are done, but I'm not sure if recasting May would be necessarily a big problem for fans in Japan. I'm sure it wouldn't be the same if they're fans of her voice actress, but if the writers want to feature May and her voice actress physically can't perform, then having someone else voice her would probably be seen as understandable.

 

[Unireon]

They've done that for the Adventure cast in Tri and the reboot.

Mizutani Yuuko, Sora, died during Tri's production; and Fujita Toshiko, Taichi, passed away the same year it ended.
Though, the latter did manage to reprise her role of Dai for Jump Force.

My guess is that those events played a role in doing a recast for the horrible reboot.

I think that last episode's may be the only appearance of Haruka in this series.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Mizutani Yuuko, Sora, died during Tri's production; and Fujita Toshiko, Taichi, passed away the same year it ended.
Though, the latter did manage to reprise her role of Dai for Jump Force.

My guess is that those events played a role in doing a recast for the horrible reboot.

I think that last episode's may be the only appearance of Haruka in this series.

Admittedly, I didn't know that Taichi's original voice actress passed away, so that's pretty sad. I'm not sure if they were both dealing with health problems during Tri's production, but I thought that all of the Adventure kids had different voice actors for Tri regardless.

 

[FelipePR]

To be fair, people were making similar arguments about Serena not appearing right up until the leaks came out. Right up until the poster was leaked, people just wrote off the title as misleading to get Serena fans excited. I remember you were pretty certain that the Sylveon in the preview would belong to Lisia instead and didn't think that they'd feature an Altaria two weeks in a row. Obviously, that is a different situation and I don't think that May has the best chances of reappearing regardless, but if Journeys is going to end in November, there would still be enough time for a potential return. I wouldn't put any money on it, but it just seems a bit too early to say that she won't appear in any of the remaining episodes at the same time, even with her voice actress's health condition in mind.

Three days ago, Masaaki Iwane shared a sketch of May and another of Max on his twitter account. Not that it means anything, as the artist often posts a plethora of Pokémon-related art. However, I believe this shows that the producers are aware that May and Max are one of the few protagonists who, in fifteen years, have not reappeared, and that many fans await their return.

I might be missing some cultural/historical context, but why is that recasting May's VA is such a difficult thing? Like, my dude, her VA literally can't work. It's not gonna kill to cast somebody else, especially when this strong of a justification exists.

I appreciate the consideration the Japanese give to VAs, but if, unfortunately, after 15 years, May's original voice actress still can't work, I don't see why recasting May would be offensive to her.

I honestly believe that the anime's producers would show much more consideration to the actress if they used the character's return to, somehow, honor Kaori and show support for all those suffering from a similar problem, than simply ostracizing the character.

Often, the greatest tribute is to allow the character that she, for a long time, gave life to continue living, that is, inspiring new children and making Kaori's voice remembered by those who followed the character's journey, as well as by those who, one day, may come to accompany.

But, perhaps, as Brazilians, we may be missing some cultural/historical context, or simply sharing points of view other than the Japaneses.

 

[DogmationsAlt]

Chikorita is actully good

 

[Alola]

If I were Kaori and my illness has completely stopped me from voice acting - as in there is just no possible way for me to record lines and all of this time has passed, I would reach out to whomever about giving my blessing to another VA to take my place. I still can't get over the very real possibility that May will never, ever be animated again in a substantial capacity with spoken lines.

 

[jjliang]

Apparantly, it's very common in Western-produced shows and movies to have certain characters retired or even killed off if their actor died in real life. Take Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street, for example.

And by the way, many Gardevoir in the anime sound way too aggressive. Particularly, Concordia's, Diantha's, Kimia's (M19, shiny), and Kublock's. Melodi's Gardevoir (from DP020), on the other hand, sounded more like how a Gardevoir should. And the Gardevoir from AG109 didn't even sound like how a Gardevoir should at all! What do you think Horace's Gardevoir is probably going to sound like in the dub?

 

[Sai]

If I were Kaori and my illness has completely stopped me from voice acting - as in there is just no possible way for me to record lines and all of this time has passed, I would reach out to whomever about giving my blessing to another VA to take my place. I still can't get over the very real possibility that May will never, ever be animated again in a substantial capacity with spoken lines.

Well I doubt she has any contact with OLM or the anime director/writers. Remember her work for them ended in 2008 and she largely left the industry, I doubt she's ever going to call them on the phone about a character she played almost two decades ago. The writers very likely knew this back in 2014 since they chose not to bring her back at all then either.

As mentioned it's already been 14 years which is nearly a decade and a half, so that's already a long amount of time they let her be. If she can't return in Journey's where the writers will bring back every single female female companion by the time it ends and it features old characters, obviously nothing in the future will. If the show goes back to 1 region again obviously May won't show up in Spain a gen she has nothing to do with. So this really is her one and only chance to appear but it looks entirely unlikely to me with the remaining eps left.

Also I think the apathy a lot of people have for the AG series in general nowadays affects the lack of interest. AG is so old now most of the younger generation never watched it, and of course it never had mainstream popularity like the OS, or popularity within the fandom like DP, XY, SM. Sure the saga wasn't disliked or anything, but it's pretty much overshadowed by everything that came after it for different reasons. It's the same reason other than Drake barely anything from AG has gotten referenced in either XY or Journey's, with Steven being treated like a new character and every other saga getting the fanservice treatment in terms of characters or nostalgia eps. Both the original trio (during SM) and DP trio were reunited (in Arceus eps), SM gets full reunion eps in Alola, the XY cast got treated well, and Iris got made champion and got a good battle with Ash. Nothing from AG would ever be treated similarly.

 

[Daren]

AG is so old now most of the younger generation never watched it, and of course it never had mainstream popularity like the OS, or popularity within the fandom like DP, XY, SM.

Is Sun/Moon more popular? Before the league I saw mostly negative comments on it while AG seems to be mostly accepted as fine now and as I recall was pretty well liked at the time as well.
Edit: for the little it's worth AG has a higher viewer score on myanimelist (7.09 for AG, 6.82 for Sun/moon).

 

[Sai]

Is Sun/Moon more popular? Before the league I saw mostly negative comments on it while AG seems to be mostly accepted as fine now and as I recall was pretty well liked at the time as well.
Edit: for the little it's worth AG has a higher viewer score on myanimelist (7.09 for AG, 6.82 for Sun/moon).

SM definitely has a huge fan base. I also notice a lot of people who grew tired of the old formula of the anime for decades liked it, or people who like the animation and characters. Most of the initial backlash was entirely due to Ash's design, once people either got used to it or moved on, there weren't as much complaints. It's also really loved on Twitter and other forums I've been on since they like the characters and Ash's Pokémon.

AG kinda has the problem now that it just does the same Gym leader formula every other sagas does, but it doesn't have that mainstream evergreen appeal the OS does, and DP and XY just became huge fan favorites in the fandom. Also as I mentioned AG is also nearly 20 years old now, a large chunk of the younger generation who grew up with DP, BW or XY never saw it. I mean just by being on this forum you can see the clear indifference.