Do you think Goh's Grookey is the worst starter a main character has ever had in the anime?

[Nichole the Otter]

Not giving Ash a single Galarian starter just felt wrong.

I am with you. Hopefully the writers for the S/V series can redeem the starters. The problem is I’m not sure which one they would give to Ash.

And even bigger question, will they continue recent trends by making the Grass-type (Sprigatito) an unevolved comic relief? Evolving the Water-type (Quaxly) fully for the fourth gen in a row? Or have the Fire-type (Fuecoco) get preferential treatment again by evolving fully and hogging all the development from the other two? And which one would be dictated the most by merchandise sales?

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

So with only about 20 episodes left, We can now officially agree that Grookey is the worst starter in the Anime now?

Imagine having only 1 move to your name and it wasn't even in a Battle

A shame too because it's a nice Poke in the games

And even bigger question, will they continue recent trends by making the Grass-type (Sprigatito) an unevolved comic relief?

Depends on how much Japan likes it's Evolutions. Since Gen 6 Japan has favored the Base Stage Grass Starters over the Final forms

Snivy was the only really odd ball since Serperior was more popular (if only by a hair). My only guess is that they just didn't want Ash to overlap with Trip

Evolving the Water-type (Quaxly) fully for the fourth gen in a row?

Depends on how much Japan likes it's Evolutions.
Since Gen 6 Japan has favored the Final Stage Water Starters over the Base forms

Or have the Fire-type (Fuecoco) get preferential treatment again by evolving fully and hogging all the development from the other two?

Judging by the Anime's track record, It'll likely evolve at least once but whether it goes to it's final Evolution or not depends on how much Japan likes it

And which one would be dictated the most by merchandise sales?

Whoever is the most popular (in this case probably Sprigatito)


(Yeah I know that all sounds really repetitive but that's usually the way TPC's thought process goes)

 

[Kurolegacy]

I’d say that Grookey will certainly go down as the biggest waste of space out of any starter in the anime. If the entire plan for a Pokémon in the series is to just sit there doing nothing unless it’s causing trouble, don’t even bother adding it to the cast because it does nothing to actually show off the Pokémon. At that point, they would be better off giving it to a recurring character since at least at that point it could be used more effectively.

I know that this isn’t a thread about Go but I stand by that his presence in this series set a precedence and not for anything good since, for a lot of his effect, the writers seem to think that it’s good enough to just show a Pokémon and not have to actually do anything with it. It happened with the majority of the Pokémon he caught and happened with Grookey. It’s not pleasing and it’s not good, it’s just lazy. Even gagmon in the past weren’t that bad since they had their gags but they actually would get to contribute and do things. With Grookey, that’s not the case.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

I know that this isn’t a thread about Go but I stand by that his presence in this series set a precedence and not for anything good since, for a lot of his effect, the writers seem to think that it’s good enough to just show a Pokémon and not have to actually do anything with it. It happened with the majority of the Pokémon he caught and happened with Grookey. It’s not pleasing and it’s not good, it’s just lazy. Even gagmon in the past weren’t that bad since they had their gags but they actually would get to contribute and do things. With Grookey, that’s not the case.

The writing in Journeys is some of the laziest I think I've ever seen. Like, they didn't even try sometimes, as is the case with Grookey.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

I’d say that Grookey will certainly go down as the biggest waste of space out of any starter in the anime. If the entire plan for a Pokémon in the series is to just sit there doing nothing unless it’s causing trouble, don’t even bother adding it to the cast because it does nothing to actually show off the Pokémon. At that point, they would be better off giving it to a recurring character since at least at that point it could be used more effectively.

I know that this isn’t a thread about Go but I stand by that his presence in this series set a precedence and not for anything good since, for a lot of his effect, the writers seem to think that it’s good enough to just show a Pokémon and not have to actually do anything with it. It happened with the majority of the Pokémon he caught and happened with Grookey. It’s not pleasing and it’s not good, it’s just lazy. Even gagmon in the past weren’t that bad since they had their gags but they actually would get to contribute and do things. With Grookey, that’s not the case.

I'm so scared of Sprigatito ending up like that

I don't wanna see my kitty become Grookey 2.0

 

[Kurolegacy]

I'm so scared of Sprigatito ending up like that

I don't wanna see my kitty become Grookey 2.0

I’d say that that all depends on if they keep Go or not, distribute the starters and the goals of the main cast. Here’s hoping that either the goals are feasible in a way that actually shows off the starters or Ash gets Sprigatito as that guarantees that it’ll get use.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Honestly, I still don't think Grookey is that bad. It is bad to have a starter be so virtually useless, but I'm more confused about Grookey than anything else. If the main goal was to give Goh a cute unevolved starter Pokemon to be his mascot, why did they bother to evolve Scorbunny or Sobble in the first place? Why not just keep one or both of them unevolved? Why wait so long for Grookey to appear in the anime if they weren't going to do anything with it? Why not give Grookey to Ash or even Chloe if it was just going to be the cute but useless kind of marketable Pokemon? Although, they clearly weren't interested in giving Chloe another Pokemon, but it just seems so strange and confusing to me to do basically nothing with a starter Pokemon. I know that Cinderace and Inteleon have been used and their evolutions have been important, but I don't really see why they evolved them just so that Goh could have Grookey as his main outside of its Pokeball parnter, especially when they definitely could have used more time to space out Sobble's evolutions instead of rushing through them.

Despite all this, I don't think I'd say that Grookey is the worst starter owned by a main character in the anime. It's still rather cute and outside of a couple of moments, it hasn't really annoyed me yet. Plus, I think that Mudkip and arguably Totodile were handled worse. Yeah, they both got to battle and actually use multiple moves, which is more than you can say for Grookey, but Mudkip didn't really have much, if any, personality after its was captured, it had a pretty small amount of screentime since Brock caught it and Lotad was a far more memorable Pokemon on his AG team. Totodile had more personality, but it really didn't get much focus or battles. It was only used in one Gym battle where it was basically fodder and only had one memorable victory in the Johto League, which is a shame since its one of my favorite Water starters. I do think that they could have done a much better job with Grookey. Even if they didn't want it to evolve, they could have at least given it some battles or using its moves more often, but I don't think it's the worst starter in the history of the anime either.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Honestly, I still don't think Grookey is that bad. It is bad to have a starter be so virtually useless, but I'm more confused about Grookey than anything else. If the main goal was to give Goh a cute unevolved starter Pokemon to be his mascot, why did they bother to evolve Scorbunny or Sobble in the first place? Why not just keep one or both of them unevolved? Why wait so long for Grookey to appear in the anime if they weren't going to do anything with it? Why not give Grookey to Ash or even Chloe if it was just going to be the cute but useless kind of marketable Pokemon? Although, they clearly weren't interested in giving Chloe another Pokemon, but it just seems so strange and confusing to me to do basically nothing with a starter Pokemon. I know that Cinderace and Inteleon have been used and their evolutions have been important, but I don't really see why they evolved them just so that Goh could have Grookey as his main outside of its Pokeball parnter, especially when they definitely could have used more time to space out Sobble's evolutions instead of rushing through them.

Despite all this, I don't think I'd say that Grookey is the worst starter owned by a main character in the anime. It's still rather cute and outside of a couple of moments, it hasn't really annoyed me yet. Plus, I think that Mudkip and arguably Totodile were handled worse. Yeah, they both got to battle and actually use multiple moves, which is more than you can say for Grookey, but Mudkip didn't really have much, if any, personality after its was captured, it had a pretty small amount of screentime since Brock caught it and Lotad was a far more memorable Pokemon on his AG team. Totodile had more personality, but it really didn't get much focus or battles. It was only used in one Gym battle where it was basically fodder and only had one memorable victory in the Johto League, which is a shame since its one of my favorite Water starters. I do think that they could have done a much better job with Grookey. Even if they didn't want it to evolve, they could have at least given it some battles or using its moves more often, but I don't think it's the worst starter in the history of the anime either.

How dare you diss Mudkip?
His personality was that he was always caring, and this caring nature to the slower Lotad who wasn’t up to speed mentally with everyone else is what made their relationship so special. It’s just that after season 6 Mudkip barely appeared because he was Brock’s Pokemon, which is a shame. At least Chespin had its gag. Then Ludicolo gets off screened to become a baggage carrier and never interacts with Mudkip again, during this time in which he finally evolves. Also I find it funny how in that one episode Marshtomp was a simp but it was never expanded on again. It should have been a permanent thing to have one of Brock’s Pokemon mirror him.

 

[Hidden Mew]

How dare you diss Mudkip?
His personality was that he was always caring, and this caring nature to the slower Lotad who wasn’t up to speed mentally with everyone else is what made their relationship so special. It’s just that after season 6 Mudkip barely appeared because he was Brock’s Pokemon, which is a shame. At least Chespin had its gag. Then Ludicolo gets off screened to become a baggage carrier and never interacts with Mudkip again, during this time in which he finally evolves. Also I find it funny how in that one episode Marshtomp was a simp but it was never expanded on again. It should have been a permanent thing to have one of Brock’s Pokemon mirror him.

Mudkip barely showed any of that caring personality after it was caught. That was the point I was trying to make. I don't recall Mudkip having much of a relationship with Lotad either. Even after Ludicolo evolved and was left with Brock's family, that didn't really do much for Mudkip's personality or screentime. I think that they just weren't interested in doing much with it, especially when Brock wasn't interested in battling that much either.

Considering that Brock's love daze gag could get old, especially during AG, and it does feel like that's the only personality trait fans associate him with, I think it was a good thing to not have one of Brock's Pokemon mirror him. It would have made Marshtomp stand out more personality wise, but it probably would have been annoying and got old really fast. It's the same reason why I'm glad that they didn't keep that same gag for Totodile after its crush on Azumaril.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Honestly, I still don't think Grookey is that bad. It is bad to have a starter be so virtually useless, but I'm more confused about Grookey than anything else. If the main goal was to give Goh a cute unevolved starter Pokemon to be his mascot, why did they bother to evolve Scorbunny or Sobble in the first place? Why not just keep one or both of them unevolved? Why wait so long for Grookey to appear in the anime if they weren't going to do anything with it? Why not give Grookey to Ash or even Chloe if it was just going to be the cute but useless kind of marketable Pokemon? Although, they clearly weren't interested in giving Chloe another Pokemon, but it just seems so strange and confusing to me to do basically nothing with a starter Pokemon. I know that Cinderace and Inteleon have been used and their evolutions have been important, but I don't really see why they evolved them just so that Goh could have Grookey as his main outside of its Pokeball parnter, especially when they definitely could have used more time to space out Sobble's evolutions instead of rushing through them.

They clearly weren't interested in giving Ash a Starter this series and they didn't want Goh to have 2 Unevolved Shouldermon sharing the spotlight

And since the writers clearly weren't very invested Sobble considering it did even less social interaction than Grookey so Evolving Sobble to justify taking it out of the spotlight was the easier solution