PokeAni Missed Opportunities

[Kallyle]

Thy should have included Noctowl in the reunion episodes to see it interact with Rowlet. Also, they should have had Ash bring either Totodile because of the GS Virtual console release or Snorlax for Snorlium Z back to Alola with him. The writers missed two avenues of promotion right there.

 

[Silktree]

Snorlax would be too overpowered, especially with its Z-move.

I agree about Totodile, but the VC games aren't being marketed for kids. Totodile's gag factor and the lack of suitable Water-types for Ash in Alola, are a better reason.

 

[Fan of Jarrus]

Iris having respect for Satoshi after he won the Sinnoh League who keeps his competence. They help a beginning trainer based on the Player in BW.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Idk if it was said before, but here it is:

* Silver not appearing outside a cameo.

 

[techitisJ]

Gary not appearing since a DP (besides the flashback). Having his grandfather's cousin being a supporting ole in the anime should be reason enough that he visits Alola, and ends up seeing Ash there. Maybe he's helping his grandpa out with some research and he goes there or something. Who knows. Just don't make this a true missed opportunity, this needs to happen.

Not including the male player characters from the series. I don't think any of them, outside of cameos or other series, have gotten appearances. Heck, they could just simply be a character of the day (just there for that one episode.) Like what the heck.

Charizard could have mega evolved before the end of BW, just to promote XY.

 

[EscLucy]

Charizard could have mega evolved before the end of BW, just to promote XY.

But Mega Evolution is specific for XY not BW, wouldn't make sense to viewers as the end of BW should be wrapping everything up not including new things.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

The biggest problem of the entire Best Wishes series for me was the multitude of missed opportunities the series had but failed live up to. So now I'm going to list/ramble about a few here:

* Having Iris be a Gym Leader whom Ash would one day have to face in order to get his last Unova Badge would've been such a great opportunity to have great buildup for a Gym battle. Think about it: For Brock, Ash only met him at his Gym as the Gym Leader, and for Misty, Ash sure met her before arriving in Cerulean City, but it wasn't until then that he learned of her Gym Leader status. No buildup for those two whatsoever. Norman was a close case, but he wasn't a traveling companion of Ash's, so it wasn't built up the same way. The buildup for Ash and Clemont's Gym battle was amazing, and is quite honestly the closest to what the buildup for Iris could've been. But nope. Instead she's a character who doesn't even have anything comparable to Contests or Showcases to signify her growth as a character.

* Team Plasma... Oh boy, do we all know what happened with this one. Having to ban the two TR vs. TP episodes and eventually even retcon them out of continuity (urgh, it hurts every time when I even think about it) was a huge blow to not just Team Plasma's story arc, but the entire Best Wishes series as a whole, as I'm pretty sure they had to do a lot of rewriting after that. All that buildup down the drain... It hurts so much... And what did we get instead? A very lame excuse for a villainous team arc, which pales in comparison to any such arcs in the past, even the Johto and Hoenn ones, I dare say. And N... Some time ago, I heard someone sum it up pretty well: instead of having N challenge Ash's way of thinking about Pokémon training and the two questioning each other's ideologies, it's Ash's status as the main character that automatically makes his opinion on the subject the right one, and N starts accepting Ash's ideology without any sort of emotional debates between the two, completely wasting this interesting potential.

* I'm just gonna say it: as much as I love Charizard, I've come to realize that Ash's Charizard returning during the Best Wishes series was nothing more than fanservice. It didn't take part in anything huge or notable, or at least its presence didn't change pretty much anything. And giving it moves like Slash and Wing Attack, some of the most basic moves a Charizard can have (Dragon Tail was alright, BTW) while getting rid of its more powerful moves and, most of all, replacing the iconic Seismic Toss? What the frick biscuit?! Yeah. Fanservice. The whole thing was nothing but fanservice, even though it had so much potential to be so much more... Seriously, the only notable thing the whole return even amounted to IMO was that now Charizard at least resides at Oak's lab instead of the Charicific Valley.

* The Decolore Islands were pretty cheap way to attempt to copy the Orange Islands, as far as I can tell. They could've provided an interesting story arc or two while our heroes traveled towards Kanto, but nope. Just filler all the way through. Aside from Professor Oak showing up in one episode to catch Rotom and Alexa being introduced, you could basically skip this entire arc and miss nothing.

There. That's some issues I have with this series off my chest. Feel free to comment and share your own opinions about these points with me if you feel like it.

 

[HiroHunter]

Having Ash join the kanto BF and becoming a traveling brain.

 

[EscLucy]

Having Iris be a Gym Leader whom Ash would one day have to face in order to get his last Unova Badge would've been such a great opportunity to have great buildup for a Gym battle.

The Decolore Islands were pretty cheap way to attempt to copy the Orange Islands, as far as I can tell.

Agreed

 

[Hidden Mew]

The biggest problem of the entire Best Wishes series for me was the multitude of missed opportunities the series had but failed live up to. So now I'm going to list/ramble about a few here:

* Having Iris be a Gym Leader whom Ash would one day have to face in order to get his last Unova Badge would've been such a great opportunity to have great buildup for a Gym battle. Think about it: For Brock, Ash only met him at his Gym as the Gym Leader, and for Misty, Ash sure met her before arriving in Cerulean City, but it wasn't until then that he learned of her Gym Leader status. No buildup for those two whatsoever. Norman was a close case, but he wasn't a traveling companion of Ash's, so it wasn't built up the same way. The buildup for Ash and Clemont's Gym battle was amazing, and is quite honestly the closest to what the buildup for Iris could've been. But nope. Instead she's a character who doesn't even have anything comparable to Contests or Showcases to signify her growth as a character.

That might have been interesting depending on how they handled the buildup and didn't make Iris suddenly a special gifted trainer. Seeing her not be interested in training Axew to wanting to show Emolga how fun battling has been after capturing it was really jarring, even though I honestly forgot that she caught Emolga in the first place. I'm not sure if they knew what they wanted to do with Iris. Considering she didn't have a reason to travel with Ash other than being the token female lead and they waited quite awhile to reveal her whole Dragon Master in-training goal, they may not have had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with her character.

* Team Plasma... Oh boy, do we all know what happened with this one. Having to ban the two TR vs. TP episodes and eventually even retcon them out of continuity (urgh, it hurts every time when I even think about it) was a huge blow to not just Team Plasma's story arc, but the entire Best Wishes series as a whole, as I'm pretty sure they had to do a lot of rewriting after that. All that buildup down the drain... It hurts so much... And what did we get instead? A very lame excuse for a villainous team arc, which pales in comparison to any such arcs in the past, even the Johto and Hoenn ones, I dare say. And N... Some time ago, I heard someone sum it up pretty well: instead of having N challenge Ash's way of thinking about Pokémon training and the two questioning each other's ideologies, it's Ash's status as the main character that automatically makes his opinion on the subject the right one, and N starts accepting Ash's ideology without any sort of emotional debates between the two, completely wasting this interesting potential.

While losing that two-parter was disappointing, I don't think it affected BW as a whole. They probably did have to do rewriting when it came to Team Plasma, but I don't know if Team Plasma would have had a larger role after that two parter. They might have had small scenes involving Team Plasma, but considering that only one other episode shortly after the two parter had to be edited around, it seems unlikely that they would have been involved in any major way in episodes shortly after that two parter would have aired.

That being said, I can almost understand why fans tend to use the Team Plasma two parter as the scapegoat for BW's problems. For the first twenty or so episodes, the series was pretty good overall. I still have huge problems with Iris, Bianca and Trip right from their debuts, Team Rocket's characterization is still strange and issues like the faster pace, Ash catching too many Pokemon and last minute evolutions during his Gym battles are already kind of showing up, but it is more enjoyable to rewatch the series than I expected. I might have been focused on what I dislike about the series during and after its run than I forgot that there were aspects of BW that I do like. Even Ash's first two Unova Gym battles were better than I remembered and most of the filler episodes are pretty entertaining. I doubt my feelings on the series overall will change by the time I finish rewatching it, but it is nice to see/remember that there are things I like about BW. Since a lot of BW's problems become more noticeable after the Team Plasma two parter was skipped, I think that makes it easier for people blame it all on that situation. The main reason why I don't think it drastically changed BW is because all of my big problems with the series have nothing to do with Team Plasma and I doubt that their inclusion would have improved the series, especially when I'm not sure if they could have covered the B/W Team Plasma storyline.

* The Decolore Islands were pretty cheap way to attempt to copy the Orange Islands, as far as I can tell. They could've provided an interesting story arc or two while our heroes traveled towards Kanto, but nope. Just filler all the way through. Aside from Professor Oak showing up in one episode to catch Rotom and Alexa being introduced, you could basically skip this entire arc and miss nothing.

Clair's appearance was kind of important given Iris left to challenge her, even if it was really sudden, but you wouldn't miss much if you just went to the last couple of episodes of the series. Even Alexa felt rather shoehorned into the arc based on what I remember. She wasn't involved in an episode's plot too often and was mainly there for a bit of early sixth generation promotion, as well as giving Ash the idea of traveling to Kalos by the end of the series. To the arc's credit, I remember most of the filler episodes being entertaining, but ending the series on a journey back to Kanto was a pretty lackluster note.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Oh, and I also meant to say this, but completely forgot while writing that previous post:

* It was established early on in the Best Wishes series that not only was Iris supposed to evolve Axew, but Axew also wanted to evolve, and Iris was all in for the idea! And with over 100 to do something with this idea, what did it amount to? That's right: absolutely nothing! All that Axew did was master an imperfect move and learn two new ones (one of which it hasn't even used since the episode where it was learned, if I may add), and not a single sign at any point that it was even close to evolving. Why even establish the whole idea of Iris's Axew being supposed to evolve and both sides of the pair being supportive of the idea, if you're not going to do anything with that idea?! Yeah, let's just give the girl a fully evolved pseudo-legendary Dragon instead of having her evolve her own frickin' starter Dragon! At least with Dawn's Piplup, they went through the trouble of establishing why it isn't going to evolve!

 

[EscLucy]

Yes, agree with Iris' Axew. She got a Dragonite but the Village Elder gave her an Axew to train and to evolve? If she really wants a Dragon Master, then she should have a reason why she doesn't want to evolve her Axew. On the other hand, Axew is really cute and funny in the anime - Dragon sneeze aww lol

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Yes, agree with Iris' Axew. She got a Dragonite but the Village Elder gave her an Axew to train and to evolve? If she really wants a Dragon Master, then she should have a reason why she doesn't want to evolve her Axew. On the other hand, Axew is really cute and funny in the anime - Dragon sneeze aww lol

I think you actually hit the nail on the head: it's the cuteness. They didn't let Axew evolve because it's too cute and marketable as it is. Still doesn't explain why they established the whole idea that would go nowhere, though...

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

Ash using the not using the first aid brock apparently taught him and Dawn after that one filler in a later series. Unless I'm forgetting something.

 

[matt0044]

eventually even retcon them out of continuity

How would they even do that? I mean, animation take months upon months to produce. Almost seemed like Team Plasma was to appear only there and then maybe around the league.

 

[HiroHunter]

Have the Ash-Greninja are start in the 2nd half of XY so they can still give XY Ash's other mon time in the limelight, while still giving Ash-Greninja his time as well.

 

[matt0044]

One other thing: the twerps never getting any phones. No PokeGear, no X-Transceivers, no Holo Casters, they don't think that phones will help when they get lost.

 

[EscLucy]

One other thing: the twerps never getting any phones. No PokeGear, no X-Transceivers, no Holo Casters, they don't think that phones will help when they get lost.

I think that the no phones rule the producers have had forever is a funny thing tbh. It shows like independence and makes adventure, which one of the themes the anime based around, more applicable.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Oh, and I also meant to say this, but completely forgot while writing that previous post:

* It was established early on in the Best Wishes series that not only was Iris supposed to evolve Axew, but Axew also wanted to evolve, and Iris was all in for the idea! And with over 100 to do something with this idea, what did it amount to? That's right: absolutely nothing! All that Axew did was master an imperfect move and learn two new ones (one of which it hasn't even used since the episode where it was learned, if I may add), and not a single sign at any point that it was even close to evolving. Why even establish the whole idea of Iris's Axew being supposed to evolve and both sides of the pair being supportive of the idea, if you're not going to do anything with that idea?! Yeah, let's just give the girl a fully evolved pseudo-legendary Dragon instead of having her evolve her own frickin' starter Dragon! At least with Dawn's Piplup, they went through the trouble of establishing why it isn't going to evolve!

They did practically drop the idea of evolution for Axew right when they brought it up. Even though it was presented as the secondary mascot of the series, they introduced the idea that Axew's evolution was going to be a key part of Iris's goal. Raising an Axew into a Haxorus was presented as a rite of passage for her village. They obviously wanted to keep it cute and marketable, which wouldn't have been a necessarily a bad choice if it was handled differently.

They could have gone the Piplup route in that they have Axew slowly but surely becoming stronger as the series progress. Even though Piplup was the secondary mascot of DP and Dawn's main Pokemon, it didn't learn Hydro Pump during Dawn's first Contest. They saved stuff like that for near the end of the series after Piplup had gained more experience. They could have done something similar with Axew if Iris used it more often in battle and actually trained it, as opposed to just hoping for Dragon Rage to work until it did. Instead, they just gave Axew two overpowered moves to give the illusion that it had become stronger and gave Iris a Dragonite so she wouldn't have to work to get a fully evolved Dragon Pokemon. It also doesn't help that they couldn't decide on what to do with Axew either. One episode it could be the cute useless baby Pokemon like Togepi and in another episode it could be presented like a strong secondary mascot Pokemon like Piplup. Trying to go in both directions for Axew really didn't work.

One other thing: the twerps never getting any phones. No PokeGear, no X-Transceivers, no Holo Casters, they don't think that phones will help when they get lost.

If they can just phone each other after getting lost, that would potentially take away any tension they could get from the groups being separated. Either that or they'd have to throw in some explanation for why their phones don't work every time.

 

[matt0044]

I think that the no phones rule the producers have had forever is a funny thing tbh. It shows like independence and makes adventure, which one of the themes the anime based around, more applicable.

Well, sometimes it feels like everybody needs a leash on everybody. You telling me Clemont wouldn't be overprotective enough to give Bonnie a Holo Caster for emergencies?

If they can just phone each other after getting lost, that would potentially take away any tension they could get from the groups being separated. Either that or they'd have to throw in some explanation for why their phones don't work every time.

Or get creative with these elements without sacrificing common sense on the protagonist's part. Ash's crew gets so separated that you'd think it'd dawn on them to have some way of getting in touch.