Pokemon Evolution in the Anime: Do you think it's Necessary?

[Kurolegacy]

Remember Mallow's Bounsweet and Ash's Dragonite?

Ash’s Dragonite didn’t even belong to him before evolving and all we knew was it had trouble flying. We know nothing of it prior to the episode. Hell, its evolution to save Ash tied into part of the theme of the episode of why Dragonair changes form upon evolving.

With Mallow’s Bounsweet, she had it for years before it evolved and it was constantly out and active with her and even displayed some semblance of skill with how it was able to deal with Rowlet.

And even if you want to somehow count those, in no way does it undermine how terribly handled the Sobble line’s evolutions were especially when evolving into an Inteleon was Sobble’s entire goal in its narrative. When you basically set something like that up to be a character’s narrative on how it will grow, it’s unforgivable to do things the lazy way they did. In this case evolution wasn’t a consequence of development like with other Pokémon, it was the entire point.

 

[Enzap]

Oh this is a really interesting topic!

I like the anime to be at least somewhat consistent with its mechanics. It makes little sense that one Pokemon on Ash's team is able to evolve twice in one season while others never do despite having a similar number of wins. There have been examples where a Pokemon avoids evolving as a part of its character journey, and that's fine and all. But marketability is a poor excuse to just prevent a Pokemon from evolving altogether without any canon reason.

Gen V was particularly bad about this. Snivy and Oshawott were some of Ash's most used Pokemon yet they inexplicably never evolved a single time and this was never even addressed as far as I can remember. It's worth noting that Ash also had a very large rotating team during his Unova adventure so this may have been due to the writers feeling limited as to how many evolutions they could feature. That being said, they were able to have other ways to progress a Pokemon's battle ability outside of evolving, such as learning a powering new move or strategy, yet some like Snivy ended pretty much exactly where they started.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

What are some Pokemon that you guys wished had Evolved?

Usually the Pokemon I want to evolve end up doing so

However there is one exception

And For me that exception is Snivy!

Just what was stopping her from doing so?


Also Oshawott could've at least reached Dewott

 

[Kurolegacy]

What are some Pokemon that you guys wished had Evolved?

Usually the Pokemon I want to evolve end up doing so

However there is one exception

And For me that exception is Snivy!

Just what was stopping her from doing so?


Also Oshawott could've at least reached Dewott

Agreed on both of those. As for the Pokémon Ash caught across the sagas. Not necessarily in the saga they were caught in:

Kanto: Bulbasaur to Ivysaur
Johto: Quilava to Typhlosion
Hoenn: Actually good with the turnout
Sinnoh: Gible at least to Gabite
Unova: Snivy to Serperior, Oshawatt to Dewatt, Scraggy to Scrafty
Kalos: N/A
Alola: Rowlet to Decidueye

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

What are some Pokemon that you guys wished had Evolved?

Kanto: Ash's Bulbasaur evolving into Ivysaur (granted, this one's admittedly in hindisght of the team that the Pokemon Trainer uses in Smash)
Johto: Ash's Cyndaquil evolving into Quilava
Hoenn: May's Skitty evolving into Delcatty, Brock's Marshtomp evolving into Swampert
Sinnoh: Ash's Quilava evolving into Typhlosion (hypothetical conclusion to Cyndaquil evolving into Quilava), Dawn's Buneary evolving into Lopunny
Unova: Ash's Snivy reaching the Serperior stage, Ash's Oshawott evolving into Dewott, Ash's Boldore evolving into Gigalith, Iris's Axew evolving into Fraxure
Kalos: N/A
Alola: Sandy evolving into Vaporeon

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

I know I'm gonna get ripped to shreds for this, but Greninja represented nearly everything I DON'T like about the evolution writing process the show often has. He lost all his fun personality and dynamics he had as Froakie to become Ash's generically stoic and serious battle bot, and got put on a pedestal over the other Pokemon in the group because he was a flashy fully evolved shillmon with a 'chosen one' status. And other mons get downgraded to make it look better

It was poetic justice for me having Lycanroc win a league instead, who subverted nearly all of those writing pot holes and remained a fun likeable evolved Pokemon who could co-exist with his unevolved teammates

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

What are some Pokemon that you guys wished had Evolved?

Usually the Pokemon I want to evolve end up doing so

However there is one exception

And For me that exception is Snivy!

Just what was stopping her from doing so?


Also Oshawott could've at least reached Dewott

Kanto: N/A
Johto: Bayleef to Meganium, Cyndaquil to Typhlosion
Hoenn: N/A
Sinnoh: Gible to Gabite
Unova: Pignite to Emboar, Snivy to Servine, maybe Scraggy to Scrafty
Kalos: N/A
Alola: Rowlet to Decidueye

 

[FelipePR]

I know I'm gonna get ripped to shreds for this, but Greninja represented nearly everything I DON'T like about the evolution writing process the show often has. He lost all his fun personality and dynamics he had as Froakie to become Ash's generically stoic and serious battle bot, and got put on a pedestal over the other Pokemon in the group because he was a flashy fully evolved shillmon with a 'chosen one' status. And other mons get downgraded to make it look better

I can't help but agree with you, but for the most part the dynamic you wrote is more related to that generation's narrative than to the evolution process itself. For instance, when charmeleon evolves he hasn't lost his personality. On the contrary, his defiant personality became his main attribute for a while. Infernape, likewise, carried all of its drama and supressed rage during the evolution process. Well, Chicorita mellow a little when it evolved, but its main trait, the passion for Ash, remained.

The fact is that XY try to build an Ash too focused on battle. Then, in their eagerness to create a Pokémon that would represent this master of battle, they did what they did, this is, forgot that good characters are made of solid personality and memorable characteristics, and not raw power and achievements.