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Have the Companion departures become less emotional

Srebak

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It just feels like the anime has stopped treating the moments when Ash has to say goodbye to his companions as really sad events, or at the very least, the anime seems to be a bit sporadic about it.

When Brock left the group in Season 2 and Tracey left in Season 3, the turn of events seemed to be handled a bit too casually. Not very fitting for moments when a person is forced to say goodbye to someone they've been through a great deal with.

At the end of the Johto Region Arc, they really made Misty and Brock's departure from Ash's journey seem like a sad even. They were really being emotional about the turn of events in that episode.

When the Hoenn region arc was over, it looked like they were trying to treat it as an emotional change, but since May, Max and Brock came back anyway, it was rendered somewhat superfluous. The finale for the Battle Frontier Arc was a lot better by comparison.

The finale to the Sinnoh arc was handled very emotionally and it had an ending that i can't help but feel touched by.

However, the closing to Best Wishes just didn't feel like there was emotion to it, you know?


Seeing as Serena has a thing for Ash and Clement really seems to admire the guy to degree, i can only assume that their eventual "goodbye episode" will have a little more weight to it


Any thoughts on any of this?
 
The BW goodbye was a complete joke and felt like a revenge troll by Junki Takegami who spent the majority of the episode on a silly TRio scheme so that Iris and Dent got a 2 second "now FO" departure at the very end. I would be surprised if XY ended like this.
 
The BW goodbye was a complete joke and felt like a revenge troll by Junki Takegami who spent the majority of the episode on a silly TRio scheme so that Iris and Dent got a 2 second "now FO" departure at the very end. I would be surprised if XY ended like this.
You would or you wouldn't be because knowing this show this is exactly what I expect for Serena and Clemont except that it will be a little more emotional.
 
You would or you wouldn't be because knowing this show this is exactly what I expect for Serena and Clemont except that it will be a little more emotional.
They would be. XY has far surpassed BW's less than stellar performance. It would indeed be a shock to ruin things with another mediocre farewell.
 
You're definitely right about BW being less emotional. I remember past goodbyes were filled with emotion, especially when Ash, Brock, and Misty parted ways. When Ash left Iris and Cilan it was just like "Kay! Bye! See ya." I certainly hope that they will make the XY goodbyes more emotional. This group feels more family-like than the BW group did and the XY group does have a younger character(Who is actually mature for her age honestly.) who I can see being very sad after spending so long with the others.
 
I would be surprised because I feel that, based on what I saw of BW and what I've seen of XY, the writers are more emotionally invested in the current group than they were with the BW one.
 
XY farewell cannot be unemotional, simply because, the companions of this time are all emotionally attached to Ash Ketchum.
Serena loves him since childhood time and even dare to escape from home just for him.
Clemont admires him since the day he met him and hoping to learn more about his strong points.
Bonnie respect him and look up to him as a reliant big brother maybe even more trustworthy than her real brother.

Even Ash is indifferent towards the departure, there is no way the other three will be indifferent.
Of course unless, executive darn to meditate, where writer(s) had no choice but to make them OOC at the final moment.
 
Nah. It just varies depending on how popular the companion is, and maybe how well received their saga was.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: at some point, the creative team just gave up on BW and said "Let's just get this over with" every week. The Ash-tachii breakup almost feels like Exhibit A. It also doesn't help that Iris and Cilan weren't very popular (at least not at the time).

I don't think we'll have that problem with XY. This Ash-tachii is rather close knit. In fact, I think they might be closer than ever. I imagine it'll be one of the most, if not THE most emotional Ash-tachii break ups ever.
 
Tbh, yes. Iris and Cilan in particular had a dreadful farewell episode imo: I almost expected Ash to just roughly shove them into the train honestly. It seemed like the writers couldn't bother with giving them a good sendoff.
 
Tbh, yes. Iris and Cilan in particular had a dreadful farewell episode imo: I almost expected Ash to just roughly shove them into the train honestly. It seemed like the writers couldn't bother with giving them a good sendoff.
Pokémopolis summed it up quite well with this little gem: "Welcome to Kanto, now fuck off".
 
For me, the worst part about the BW trio's farewell wasn't just how heartless and emotionless it was, but it actively made the whole arc with the group traveling to Kanto feel kind of pointless. I can understand wanting to keep traveling on their own for their own reasons, even if it was pretty bad like Cilan's was, but they spent all this time because they wanted to come to Kanto with Ash. They didn't even stay an episode to see Professor Oak again or meet Ash's mother. What was the point of traveling to Kanto, aside from using Alexa as a means to hype up X/Y before we got the new series, if they were only going to be there for like five minutes? The fact that they didn't get any kind of fanfare and were just tossed in a train as soon as possible was pretty bad though and I didn't even like the BW trio all that much.

As far as the XY group goes, I imagine that they'll have a more emotional farewell when the time comes for them to go their separate ways. They actually feel like a group of friends who care about each other, so I don't think that they'll all be okay with saying goodbye. It might not be as sad as the original trio splitting up was, but I imagine it's going to be pretty sad and emotional for everyone.
 
I would be surprised if the XY goodbye wasn't emotional but then again I was surprised at how bad BW's was so...*shrugs*

I will say that I do feel the BW trio's goodbye wasn't because of lack of popularity or anything like that (were Iris and Cilan actually unpopular in Japan or do people here think Bulbagarden = everyone?) but rather because of shitty writing. The end of Best Wishes seemed more like "oh god let's get through this as quickly as possible so we can get to the new series and start over", so it wouldn't surprise me if they had that attitude going into writing the goodbye scene.
 
Im with everyone else. The departures are still emotional its just that BW was bashed by fans and everyone including the creators seemed to get bored of it quickly.
 
I feel most of the departures were handled well trying to add some real emotion to it show how it would impact them all but bw
was just poorly set up and handled iris and Cilan basically decided to leave out of no where they didn't have axex and scraggy say their goodbyes even know they were close just everything about it was badly handled
 
I don't think departures as a whole have become less emotional. Look at DP; Piplup literally had an emotional breakdown and needed to be comforted by Pikachu and Dawn, and Dawn was in tears as Ash and Brock sailed back to Kanto. Heck, even Ash and Brock had that handshake before parting on their different paths. I'd say that was rather deep for someone who'd been following them since the beginning. And while AG's wasn't as emotional, there was that brotherly moment Ash had comforting Max about not traveling with May anymore.

I agree that the BW sendoff was probably the worst and a huge downgrade after the end of DP. Part of me isn't that upset about it as I didn't care for Iris or Cilian, and I honestly never really felt like that trio was a close as other groups. That said though, another part of me was like "You just spent over 100 episodes with each other, even traveling to Kanto together, and then you're just like 'Bye Felicia'? Could you show a bit of sadness?". There didn't have to be crying or anything like that, but I honestly didn't feel any emotion at all. That's like a giant middle finger for all those who liked the BW cast. Heck, even I think they at least deserved a better farewell.

I very much doubt XY's will be that lackluster as the group is pretty close. Serena has a crush on Ash and is quite close to Bonnie, so I can definitely see her being a bit sad about the group split up. Clemont admires Ash, so he'll might be a bit down as well. And Bonnie being a child who is close to Serena and Ash will most certainly be a bit emotional about saying good bye to her friends. I'd be surprised if at least Bonnie and/or Serena didn't show some outward sadness about the split up.
 
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