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Controversial opinions

I feel like I might need to expand on this eventually, but as I don't have the sufficient brainpower needed to do so rn (lol), I will only say this now: it's really upsetting to me how Goh could've been a way better character if he was written as an aspiring Pokémon Professor as opposed to the mess he actually is.

Like, to be honest, I still think the "living dex" in the anime is frankly too problematic of a concept with WAY too many flaws to ever be viable imo, but it's crazy how even that could've been improved with such a premise.
 
I feel like I might need to expand on this eventually, but as I don't have the sufficient brainpower needed to do so rn (lol), I will only say this now: it's really upsetting to me how Goh could've been a way better character if he was written as an aspiring Pokémon Professor as opposed to the mess he actually is.

Like, to be honest, I still think the "living dex" in the anime is frankly too problematic of a concept with WAY too many flaws to ever be viable imo, but it's crazy how even that could've been improved with such a premise.
An aspiring professor would be fine, but his goal of catching Mew still could have worked if they only focused on Project Mew and not catching everything that breathes. Before Goh came along, trainers didn't need to catch Pokemon to get the dex entry. They could simply scan them for info. It was such an unnecessary retcon. Before his time, he wouldn't have needed to catch the Pokemon for a dex entry. In the context of the game, we were building the dex for the professor, but in the anime, the dex was already built and had the information readily available, until a new Pokemon popped up from the next generation that the current regional professor's dex didn't contain information on.

The thing though is, Goh could have been a lot more engaging if his goal simply revolved around trials for Project Mew membership. It certainly should have came into focus a lot earlier and we should have seen Goh face actual struggles and develop overtime, while dealing with rivals also looking to become members. Like, his lack of teamwork is something they should have brought up a lot sooner and showed him learning to cooperate with others over time and eventually showing to Professor Amaranth that he is capable. If they focused his goal solely on Project Mew, instead of capturing anything that breathes, he would have been a significantly more engaging character.
 
While that is true, I think that a difference is that those other goals are at least more plausible/reachable for the characters to achieve compared to Goh completing the Pokedex. That just isn't going to happen since I don't see him catching every Legendary Pokemon and there will always be new Pokemon for him to capture too. I'm not saying that it isn't progress, but because I don't see him getting a complete dex, it just doesn't feel like a huge deal to me, especially when he'd probably get these evolved Pokemon by catching them if they didn't evolve anyway.


Having something like Project Mew earlier in the series could have given Goh's goal some much needed structure and could have potentially reduced some of the backlash from earlier in the series too. I can't really blame them for not wondering how he'd fit all of those Pokemon in the lab, mainly because they never had to worry about that with Professor Oak's lab even with Ash's ever growing roster of Pokemon, but wondering how he'll catch one of a kind Pokemon could be interesting. Although, that's one of the reasons why I don't see Goh completing his Pokedex in the first place. I don't have much of a problem with Goh's goal, but I agree that it could have been handled more effectively within the structure of the anime.


To be clear, I didn't say that it's a good reason. I directly complained about Ash's unearned evolutions in that post, so I wasn't saying it's okay because it has happened in the past. My point was that the anime isn't bending over backwards for Goh when unearned evolutions with no consequences happened in previous series. It's not a new development or exclusive to Goh. That was the point I was trying to make.


Pretty much because all of my problems with Ash's XY team began with that evolution. Goomy's evolution felt unearned, which continued as it became a Goodra just so that Ash could have a powerhouse for his Gym battle with Clemont. Then Noibat was captured only to do little throughout the rest of the series and they kept Goodra's slot so it could come back for the Kalos League, which would have been fine if it did more than draw with its opponents. People often complain about Ash Greninja taking up attention in the last stretch of XY and I do understand that too, but I just felt that Ash's team had bigger problems way before that happened.


Honestly, I still feel like Lana being a battler is a bit of a stretch. She was the most battle active out of the SM girls, but that really doesn't say much. Granted, I always thought that Lana was overrated, so that probably doesn't help my feelings towards Popplio's evolutions either. I was fine with Brionne evolving into Primarina, but Popplio into Brionne felt a bit too weak for me given that they were always more interested in blowing bubbles. It's also a bit hard for me to retroactively give Tsareena more credit for evolving due to their bond mainly because Mallow's tragic backstory felt pretty tacked on. Mallow and Tsareena still cared about each another throughout SM before their backstory was revealed, but I don't think it makes the evolutions feel more earned in retrospect.

As much as I like the idea of justifying these evolutions based on the bonds between their trainers, I also think it falls a bit too flat for me ultimately. This is mainly because the point was originally that Goh gets evolved Pokemon too easily and without battling, but now it's he doesn't even have a strong enough connection with these Pokemon to justify these evolutions. I know that you said that the justifications for Lana and Mallow weren't perfect, but I don't know if their connections alone would be enough to make their evolutions feel earned or believable or if that would work with every other non battle active character. And yes, Goh's Pokemon have evolved through weak reasons too. I've said multiple times that not all of his evolutions get a pass here, so I'm not ignoring them. It's just hard to make Sobble's evolution look sigificantly worse compared to something like Popplio's in my opinion.


I know that's what at least Charizard's disobedience was based on, but that clearly wasn't the case given that it still took Charizard awhile to listen to Ash even after getting his first set of badges. I was talking about the evolutions themselves being undeserved, not how the Pokemon felt about their trainers afterwards.
Oof sorry for missing your point there

And yeah I agree the mallow and tsareena evolution still feels unearned. It evolved from beating Meowth and then evolved from using stomp.on a cage. None of those had anything to do with a bond with mallow. Heck it would be better if steene evolved during the mist episode. Mallow mom was irrelevant to mallow character if we're being honest
 
Oof sorry for missing your point there
It's okay. I might not have been clear enough beforehand.

And yeah I agree the mallow and tsareena evolution still feels unearned. It evolved from beating Meowth and then evolved from using stomp.on a cage. None of those had anything to do with a bond with mallow. Heck it would be better if steene evolved during the mist episode. Mallow mom was irrelevant to mallow character if we're being honest
To be fair, Steeene does evolve after learning Stomp in the games, which is probably what they were going for with it stomping on a cage, but it still didn't have anything related to their bond. Steenee evolving in the mist episode could have been nice since Mallow's mom could actually see the evolution, but I'm not surprised it evolved before that episode either.
 
To be fair, Steeene does evolve after learning Stomp in the games, which is probably what they were going for with it stomping on a cage, but it still didn't have anything related to their bond. Steenee evolving in the mist episode could have been nice since Mallow's mom could actually see the evolution, but I'm not surprised it evolved before that episode either.
I still think they had her evolve earlier than that ep both because Tsareena is fairly popular but also because the "Look how much you've grown" line wouldn't have hit as hard, especially as we find out Bounsweet was Mallow's mon last gift to her before her death.

Bounsweet being fully evolved sells is the point further imo.
 
Prior to Go I don't see the big deal out of companions pokemon evolving with barely any battles, same thing happened with most of Misty and Brock's pokemon back in the day. Misty's Poliwag had like 2 real battles before evolving, Brock's Zubat and Pineco evolved after doing virtually nothing, same with Lotad, etc.

Obviously the writers never really cared about that, it only really matters with Ash IMO. Even Dawn's Swinub evolved after what...eating? If I remember right. It's not a big deal.
 
I still think they had her evolve earlier than that ep both because Tsareena is fairly popular but also because the "Look how much you've grown" line wouldn't have hit as hard, especially as we find out Bounsweet was Mallow's mon last gift to her before her death.

Bounsweet being fully evolved sells is the point further imo.
Still doesn't change the fact that mallow evolution was unearned
 
Prior to Go I don't see the big deal out of companions pokemon evolving with barely any battles, same thing happened with most of Misty and Brock's pokemon back in the day. Misty's Poliwag had like 2 real battles before evolving, Brock's Zubat and Pineco evolved after doing virtually nothing, same with Lotad, etc.

Obviously the writers never really cared about that, it only really matters with Ash IMO. Even Dawn's Swinub evolved after what...eating? If I remember right. It's not a big deal.
Idk, the whole "it happened in the past, so it's ok if it happened here" isn't an excuse. And no it shouldn't only matter when ash does it. Especially if the writers want us to be invested in the other characters goals
 
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I think the anime has proven many times that Pokémon don’t have to evolve out of battle experience so that doesn’t bother me so much. If a significant life event or moment triggers something in a Pokémon to get stronger (and, evolve), then I think the new addition is justified, even if it goes against game logic/mechanisms. The issue arises when nothing of significance to the Pokémon happens, making the evolution unwarranted.
 
I think the anime has proven many times that Pokémon don’t have to evolve out of battle experience so that doesn’t bother me so much. If a significant life event or moment triggers something in a Pokémon to get stronger (and, evolve), then I think the new addition is justified, even if it goes against game logic/mechanisms. The issue arises when nothing of significance to the Pokémon happens, making the evolution unwarranted.
Even in the games the level requirement mostly seems to apply to Pokémon in the player's party rather than being a hard rule of how the universe works; you see overevolved Pokémon in NPC teams or the wild (Lance's Dragonite team in G/S/C, Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest in Yellow, low level Salamence in Sun/Moon), as well as unevolved Pokémon past the evolution level.
 
It's really disappointing Misty and Brock didn't battle much back in the day. It made their characters entirely inactive in most episodes and they could have been used in the action more. I swear in some episodes where TR would be attacking the group or battling Ash, Misty and Brock would just stand there in the background motionless as if they forgot they had Pokémon.

Misty's only competition besides the princess festival if you count that was the Whirl Cup in Johto and it was only like 2 episodes long. Besides that she battled maybe once or twice a season at most.
 
I know this post is a bit old, but I just realized what's the thing that was bothering me when it came to the bottom pic was

They almost never complete the mouth line and always looks weird. There's some stuff that only works in way cartoonier styles, it seems.

Besides, the "static doll eyes" syndrome is still plaguing JN, it seems.
 
Even in the games the level requirement mostly seems to apply to Pokémon in the player's party rather than being a hard rule of how the universe works; you see overevolved Pokémon in NPC teams or the wild (Lance's Dragonite team in G/S/C, Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest in Yellow, low level Salamence in Sun/Moon), as well as unevolved Pokémon past the evolution level.
I know this is a HUGE tangent, but this does remind me of how I once came up with an idea to revamp the games' Natures, EVs, and IVs system. Firstly was of course getting rid of IVs entirely and making EVs fully customizeable (kinda like what the Grit Dust does in Legends Arceus) instead of dependent on what kinds Pokemon you knock out. Then making Natures not affect stats, but instead affecting things like how fast a Pokemon levels up and/or evolves (with certain restrictions of course so we don't get ridiculous stuff like a fully evolved Venusaur before you reach the first Gym or a Caterpie that's yet to become a Metapod despite you being close to the endgame) and maybe even certain Natures can give a Pokemon natural access to moves that other members of its species can only learn via TM, Tutoring, or Breeding. This way the theme of every Pokemon feeling unique that the system intended is kept intact, but it doesn't come at the cost of battling prowess and doesn't affect competitive battling too much, since every almost all Pokemon are very samey there anyways.
 
The world tour aspect of Journeys has disappointed many, and thinking about there's something I wish the anime staff would have taken advantage of: Having characters meet who otherwise would never meet, kind of like Pokemon Masters. Paul and Iris are both apparently showing up at some point, so instead of having one of or both of them battle Ash, how about they have a balls to the wall battle against each other? Paul is likely the most popular rival while Iris is one of the least popular pokegirls, but I don't care about that I just wanna see what i'd hope would be a cool battle. Or how about instead of wasting Wallace in an episode that had little to do with him, he has a battle with Misty? If she's going toe-to-toe with a champion, ex or not, could be a good way of showing how far she's come since her's and Ash's one-on-one. At the end of the day I know this series all about Ash and his exploits and that, for the most part, we'll always be seeing things from his eyes, but that doesn't mean others can't have their moments. Hell, I kind of wish Journey's took some ideas from One Piece and let us hear about other going ons in the world instead of just what Ash and Goh are doing.
 
The world tour aspect of Journeys has disappointed many, and thinking about there's something I wish the anime staff would have taken advantage of: Having characters meet who otherwise would never meet, kind of like Pokemon Masters. Paul and Iris are both apparently showing up at some point, so instead of having one of or both of them battle Ash, how about they have a balls to the wall battle against each other? Paul is likely the most popular rival while Iris is one of the least popular pokegirls, but I don't care about that I just wanna see what i'd hope would be a cool battle. Or how about instead of wasting Wallace in an episode that had little to do with him, he has a battle with Misty? If she's going toe-to-toe with a champion, ex or not, could be a good way of showing how far she's come since her's and Ash's one-on-one. At the end of the day I know this series all about Ash and his exploits and that, for the most part, we'll always be seeing things from his eyes, but that doesn't mean others can't have their moments. Hell, I kind of wish Journey's took some ideas from One Piece and let us hear about other going ons in the world instead of just what Ash and Goh are doing.
That's what they did?

They had Korrina meet Bea. Lance meet Leon. Flint battle Leon. Iris is going to meet the other Champions soon.

Also Wallace has always been more of a Coordinator than anything anime wise, and Lisia is related to him, so it makes sense to see him in that ep
 
As much as I like Iris as a character, there’s no way I can see her defeating Cynthia. Lance and Diantha, yes, but I can see Cynthia beating Iris.
 
I just wish the world tournament aspect was more thought out. This isn't even controversial in the slightest, but since these episodes aren't really adapted from a game source, they might as well have gone all out with it. Even with all the recent focus episodes and discourse about the upcoming Masters 8 battle, it still feels underwhelming imo.
 
I just wish the world tournament aspect was more thought out. This isn't even controversial in the slightest, but since these episodes aren't really adapted from a game source, they might as well have gone all out with it. Even with all the recent focus episodes and discourse about the upcoming Masters 8 battle, it still feels underwhelming imo.
The PWC seems rather pointless in retrospect. It was supposed to determine the strongest trainers in the world, but we already knew who the strongest were because they already earned their titles by winning their respective leagues. It was interesting when we thought there was a chance that gym leaders and E4 members might surprise us by making it in, but now it's literally just a champions tournament + Alain, which it might as well have been from the start.

Maybe champions shouldn't have been allowed to enter, but that would defeat the purpose because no Leon.
 
The PWC seems rather pointless in retrospect. It was supposed to determine the strongest trainers in the world, but we already knew who the strongest were because they already earned their titles by winning their respective leagues. It was interesting when we thought there was a chance that gym leaders and E4 members might surprise us by making it in, but now it's literally just a champions tournament + Alain, which it might as well have been from the start.
This 100%. Like don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see underappreciated characters like iris and diantha there, but the other half of the slots just seems too predictable in my opinion. I would've loved to see the anime build up to this final tournament in a more fulfilling way with new and old characters having a heavy hand in its progression but...well...I don't know what happened honestly. I think maybe the early decision to try to make this series more episodic than others may have played a role in the weird pacing? idk. Journeys is just so strange to me :confused:
 
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The PWC seems rather pointless in retrospect. It was supposed to determine the strongest trainers in the world, but we already knew who the strongest were because they already earned their titles by winning their respective leagues. It was interesting when we thought there was a chance that gym leaders and E4 members might surprise us by making it in, but now it's literally just a champions tournament + Alain, which it might as well have been from the start.

Maybe champions shouldn't have been allowed to enter, but that would defeat the purpose because no Leon.
That's because the rankings can change, as we saw when Flint got knocked out of the top 8. The final 8 are not set in stone till the end and that's how Ash and Iris managed to make it there when they both in Super Class before.

As for in general, of course all the strongest trainers should mostly be Champions. If we're having a tournament of the strongest trainers most of the characters being Champions or as strong as them like Alan would make sense.

Anyone else would seem superfluous. Flint and whoever else was there was probably knocked out when Iris got in. And Ash took Raihan"s spot.
 
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