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PokeAni Missed Opportunities

matt0044

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Whether it be concepts from past sagas that were never fully developed or game elements that could've been interesting to see animated, the Pokemon Anime has a lot of moments where there could've been something great but it seems like the plans fell through or they never thought of it to begin with.

I'll start by pondering this: what if N had be in Trip's place as Ash's main rival right out the gate?

The more I think about it, the more it become apparent that this was the biggest missed opportunity in the Anime ever.

For one thing, N could easily be the antagonistic rival to Ash like Paul was but in a different way considering how he’s a Trainer who’s been around. He’d meet Ash like Trip would’ve at the Juniper Laboratory to get a starter and commence his cover as a Pokémon Trainer for Team Plasma.

However, when Pikachu returns to Ash and gets all chummy with the humans, N would be intrigued by this apparent bond and accept a challenge to battle Ash.

Pikachu would lose and prompt N to tell off Ash for how he let his friend battle without realizing that he wasn’t feeling well. And that's just episode one.

Even if Team Plasma still had limited appearances, N would still be an effective rival on par with Paul if they played their cards right. Maybe they'd team up when Team Rocket butts in and find they have more in common than they'd like to admit.

That's it for me. Anybody else?
 
Yeah that would be an interesting concept, or at least if they developed Trip more. Only 2 of his 6 Pokémon appeared in more than one episode and battle.
 
I think they missed a great deal of opportunities with Serena. Instead of having her be a Performer, they could have made her into a battler through Sky Training, like her Adventures counterpart, or had her take the Battle Chateau challenge with her goal being to become a Grand Duchess or even the Chateau Queen or an animé exclusive rank like that. I think that it would have increased her popularity even more and could have also helped improve the animé's ratings. Even more, in universe, I get the impression that it could have even gotten Ash to notice her a bit more and become closer to her, not necessarily romantically like shippers would want, but they would have become closer friends, bouncing ideas off of each other. I got the impression from my viewing that Ash isn't quite as close to these companions as he was to the likes of Misty, Brock, May, Dawn, and even Iris and Cilan. Had Serena had a battling goal, I think that it could have brought the two of them closer together.
 
• Ash getting all of his Kanto badges by battling instead of running errands.

• Not having a Gen II character travel with Ash throughout Johto.

• The GS Ball plot never being concluded.

• Grovyle not fully evolving before the Hoenn league.

• Ash having a six man team for Unova instead of rotations.

• Trip not being a poorly written expy of Paul.

• Charizard returning in Unova and not doing anything important for the rest of BW.

• Ash's flashback in the Winding Woods episode not being about Snow Way Out

• Alain revealing somehow to Ash that he worked for Team Flare, before the league happened.
 
  • Giving Iris a Deino since her game counterpart has one and she always wanted one.
  • Giving the Ralts that Max took care of as he took it to the Pokemon center to him once it's all better. He could have asked May if he can have it and convince her that he can take good care of it, and asked the Ralts if he wants to come. May would just catch the Ralts for Max and give it to him.
  • Developing Max more by having him befriending Pokemon and help care for the group's Pokemon.
  • Giving Ash a proper mega stone and mega ring to have one of his Pokemon mega evolve.
  • Both Ash's Gible and Noivern development.
  • Results from Sycamore's swabbing and analyzing Puni-chan's DNA and telling us about what he found.
  • Seeing more of Manon's Flabebe.
  • Steven appearing more in generation 3.
  • Team Flare should have more appearances, replacing the filler episodes in XYZ such as the lock keeping episode.
  • The Litleo episode should have been more interesting then what it is now, such as such as Ash, Serena, Bonnie, and Clemont finds a lost Litleo in a town and try to find it's trainer until they find him/her. Not some random Litleo going across the savanna that has no place in Kalos because reasons.
  • Ash not evolving Cyndaquill all they way through.
  • The GS ball being concluded instead of being dropped, that would have saved Johto from a lot of fillers.
  • Ash eventually learning the Pokemon he saw on his first day on his journey is Ho-Oh.
  • Yveltal appearing in the main anime somehow.
  • Gary meeting up with Ash, Dawn, and Brock after the Team Galactic incident.
 
Ash's intro to Mega Evolution at the start of XY should've involved Alain and his Charizard, prompting Ash to megavolve his Charizard (into its Y-form, to counter Alain's X-form Charizard). The two 'zards could've spent XY trying to one-up each other until their climactic league showdown. (And that could've been a far more awesome battle than Trevor and his Charizard-Y getting curb-stomped.)
 
• The GS Ball plot never being concluded.
THIS.

I understand the GS Ball plot was scraped in favor of an actual theatrical showcase of Celebi, which I honestly do think was the better choice, but there's no reason why it couldn't be retconned into something different. The best solution to this would have been something that foreshadowed the actual Celebi movie. What I would have done was have the GS Ball contain etched runes of some sort (Unown?) on the inside that vaguely spoke of Celebi. Perhaps have Kurt even appear in the movie investigating the forest with the GS Ball in hand?
 
-The GS Ball plot.
-Cyndaquil evolving in Johto rather than Sinnoh.
-N as a rival for Ash would have been better than the poorly developed Trip.
-Team Plasma pre-Episode N
-Actual development of Burgundy and Georgia.
-A full battle between Ash and Trip in the Unova League.
-The Gym Leaders uniting to take on Team Plasma.
-Cameos during the Kalos League
-Ash winning the Kalos League:
-Development from Alain losing, then getting the news that he was helping Team Flare's evil goal.
-Ash actually talking to Steven Stone.
 
Goodra staying on team to get further development.
Noibat gotten earlier so it can get development.
Gible not evolving once.
Torterra not getting enough wins as it should.
Only have gen 2 pokemon in Johto so team would be better developed.
Having a Meganium or Typhlosion for fully evolved starter of Johto.
Pignite should have evolved.
 
There's also Team Plasma overall. I can't help but feel like they had a storyline gift wrapped to them from the games and just decided to shelf it largely. I don't just mean the infamous two parter but BW Season 1 overall. In addition to N, they could've been a good reoccuring antagonist group and even have a conflict with Team Rocket in how they go against what Plasma stands for.

It doesn't have to be anything groundbreaker so much as a good story. They did complex reoccurring plots well in Diamond & Pearl.
 
Dawn should've keep Ambipom.
At the very least, confirm (or deny) that there was nothing inside the GS Ball.
Ash should have caught fewer Pokémon in BW so there would be more screen time for each.
Axew should've evolved.
Ash should have won the Kalos League.
Pokémon Showcases should have at least had more competitions for the performers to do and more often.
All of the Elite Four of every region should have appeared at some point.
Not enough references to previous series in XY.
Ash should've kept Primeape, if nothing else.
The Team Plasma arc in Castelia City not happening is a definite waste.

Ash eventually learning the Pokemon he saw on his first day on his journey is Ho-Oh.
Ash actually did eventually learn about Ho-Oh.
 
I have a few of those
  • Better development for Ash's Unova rival Trip or at least a better rival like N or even Cheren
  • Ash could have caught a Grass Pokémon in Kalos
  • Primape should return to Ash by now
  • The GS Ball plotline should have been done or retconned at some point
  • Axew should have evolved by the time BW ended
  • Give Totodile the time to shine and evolve at least
  • Same as everyone, Ash winning the Kalos League
  • All of the Elite Four members appearing in their respective regions either on separate times or in the same episode
  • Gary Oak cameo appearance, could happen still
  • Team Plasma arc could have been done better
  • Porygon family finally making an appearance after almost 20 years
 
-Neo Plasma could've still been like old Team Plasma but with a different uniform. Wouldn't be that hard and be a lot more interesting that Team Rocket-lite.

-Iris's arc with Drayden could've been the Season 1 finale so Season 2 could focus on adapting BW2 elements. But no, Game FREAK had to give them specified instructions to drop that in favor of Roxie, one who didn't even need to be a Gym Leader period.

-While Ash winning the Kalos League was probably a pipe dream, they still could've had him tie with Alain by having Greninja's shuriken nail Charizard X before he faints from sheer exhaustion. Then Team Flare attacks the league before any tie breakers.
 
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*not using BW/B2W2 game characters to their fullest potential. Cheren should have been a rival, not a gym leader, and they could have introduced Hugh or Nate/Rosa instead of Cameron. Anime-only characters are interesting, but if they can't develop/design them right, at least they could've used game characters who already have established personalities and backstories so they don't have to come up with some idiot with no backstory and brought only 5 pokemon to a full battle stage.

*Gary Oak cameos. I miss him!

*GS Ball plot. But we're never going to know...

*Brock and his mysterious return from the Orange Islands.
 
Ending Team Rocket as an organization in Johto while they had the chance. Even if Jessie and James had to be strung along, Team Rocket as an organization is a real loose end that I have doubts as to whether they'll be tied up or not.

"Team Plasma Vs. Team Rocket." They really couldn't delay all the episodes for a week or two and get the two parter tweaked because... because.

Heck, it still begs the question as to whether there were other Team Plasma episodes planned for season 1 dropped or not.
 
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  • Team Rocket gets permanent redesigns in each region that kind of resemble the current regional villain team, though not too much since unlike Ash/the male protag from the games the villain teams actually show up.
  • Team Rocket actually successfully captures Pikachu. I'm talking like a full-fledged multi-episode arc here; the first episode opens with Ash&friends trying to find TR, arguing about what happened and blaming it on each other ("you didn't see them in time!" "your Pokemon's attack missed!"), and there could be different flashbacks from each character's POV that differ based on who they blame. Heck it could even show TR fighting with one another trying to take credit for the capture with similar flashbacks. The episode ends with Ash/friends reaching TR's temporary base preparing to fight only to find them gone, which is where the episode ends. Then the next episode could have them take Pikachu back to an actual TR base, present Pikachu and try to show the other agents why they've spent so long trying to capture it. Throughout this Giovanni could discover its powers (does he know they're after it?) and when Ash inevitably gets it back he tells the TRio to keep following him, keeping the endless cycle of trying to catch it going.
  • Serena in XY should have been a boy but had the same goal. It would have made the Performance goal way more subversive and interesting. Think about it-- he has a mother that wants him to master Ryhorn racing, a more masculine dream. He learns about Performaces from Shauna at the summer camp like normal and wants to join but learns it's for girls only. He's talked into it by Ash and decides to cross-dress to make it in. He still messes up the first one and has a moment of self-doubt, not sure how the haircut scene would work but w/e. Anyways, then the performance storyline continues more or less as normal, the episode with Aria and Fennekin's evolution could still happen but Aria secretly realizes Serena is a boy, she's cool with it and it foreshadows the end of the arc. Eventually Jessie catches on and plans on exposing Serena (Calem?) to get him out of the competition. There could be an episode like Forest Grumps or A Hole Lotta Trouble where the groups are split and it's just Jessie/Serena and they have a heart to heart. Jessie remembers her struggles trying to be an actress/nurse/whatever and decides not to rat out Serena and has a moment of real growth. Blah blah blah get to the semifinals, his secret is somehow revealed to everyone (probably instead of the wrist-sprain our Serena got maybe the wig or something falls off) and he is disqualified. But Aria behind the scenes campaigns for Serena to be put back in and he is. The final round happens as normal, except boy!Serena doesn't have to be in drag any more (maybe still a dress but not like a full wig/makeup), sings DoriDori and it's very triumphant. Then afterwards, even though he lost Palermo says she'll reconsider the gender barriers next year thanks to him. As he's leaving to join Ash/the others a little boy comes over to him and says he's been inspired by Serena's performances and wants to be just like him when he's older. This would be framed as the real victory for Serena, even though he technically lost he still changed the world for the better. It would send a great message that it's ok for boys to like feminine things and I would have loved every second of it
 
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