Things you wish that did NOT happen in the anime

[prog rocker]

I'm fairly certain @Gligarman means Sakaki (Giovanni)

Didn't they already meet in Johto?

 

[sc190191]

Didn't they already meet in Johto?

In Mewtwo Returns, a movie special, so not sure if people consider that Canon, anyway, ask the original poster, I'm just saying I think that's what they meant.

 

[Gligarman]

Bill?

Oops. Too late to edit that post now. I meant to say Sakaki.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

He already met and fight with him in the Mewtwo special, so I'm not disburbed by it.

 

[IncineROAR]

The idea of the Alola League, an eternal dumpster fire that makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

Misty leaving was a bad decision I feel. If we needed May to freshen up the cast in Hoenn, then she could've still been added while keeping Misty around and simply not introducing Max since he was kinda useless anyway. If the Hoenn cast really needed a navigator then Misty could've been given the PokeNav instead.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

This is a super minor thing but I was literally just thinking about this before I saw this thread: I really wish Lana didn’t clip Eevee’s hair. He was so much cuter with his dopey, messy hair. It fit his personality way more than... whatever that cut he has now is. Lol.

Shaggeon ran off into the wilds and Lana caught another eevee offscreen (keeping with Lana's other offscreen achievements theme) and named it Nagisa, which also explains why he's completely lost his characterization seen in the Eevee Shorts and is now a glorified arm warmer like Shiron & Shaymin

 

[techitisJ]

Dawn releasing Ambipom during the Diamond and Pearl series. Like what? That always frustrated me so much because Ash had Ambipom, and then Ambipom fell in love with contests so they made a trade. That was great. But then they are like "oh wait let's have a filler episode with Ping-pong in it, and oh we want Dawn to get another Pokemon so she's just going to leave Ambipom with this guy. I honestly saw no reason for it, it did not need to happen.

The XY series seemingly forgetting everything that happened in previous series with Ash. I can handle them not cameoing the previous female protagonists, but besides the fact that Ash met Alexa (I think that's her name), I don't think I can recall a single reference to the past series, which is something I loved to see in previous ones. It really sucks because you can see how much Ash has grown in this series, yet he doesn't reference how he was before.

 

[KrspaceT]

Dawn releasing Ambipom during the Diamond and Pearl series. Like what? That always frustrated me so much because Ash had Ambipom, and then Ambipom fell in love with contests so they made a trade. That was great. But then they are like "oh wait let's have a filler episode with Ping-pong in it, and oh we want Dawn to get another Pokemon so she's just going to leave Ambipom with this guy. I honestly saw no reason for it, it did not need to happen.

The XY series seemingly forgetting everything that happened in previous series with Ash. I can handle them not cameoing the previous female protagonists, but besides the fact that Ash met Alexa (I think that's her name), I don't think I can recall a single reference to the past series, which is something I loved to see in previous ones. It really sucks because you can see how much Ash has grown in this series, yet he doesn't reference how he was before.

The Rotom from BW appeared a few times with Oak as I recall.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

The XY series seemingly forgetting everything that happened in previous series with Ash. I can handle them not cameoing the previous female protagonists, but besides the fact that Ash met Alexa (I think that's her name), I don't think I can recall a single reference to the past series, which is something I loved to see in previous ones. It really sucks because you can see how much Ash has grown in this series, yet he doesn't reference how he was before.

Ash references a piplup he once knew in a magikarp Filler episode

The lack of callbacks (completely accidental on the animator's part) helps make XY its own enclosed thing that doesn't have to rely on nostalgia, which was a nice - if unintentional - touch

 

[Hidden Mew]

Misty leaving was a bad decision I feel. If we needed May to freshen up the cast in Hoenn, then she could've still been added while keeping Misty around and simply not introducing Max since he was kinda useless anyway. If the Hoenn cast really needed a navigator then Misty could've been given the PokeNav instead.

I don't see how making Misty the navigator would have made sense. They still relied more on Brock to figure out where they were than Max even though he had the PokeNav, so it's not like he really did much as the group's navigator to begin with. There also wouldn't be much for Misty to do in Hoenn. Since they already had a new female lead showcasing a new feature of the game, there wouldn't be much of a reason for the writers to give Misty something else to do. She wouldn't really like Contests and even if they were a better fit for his battling style, that would just mean it would take at least twice as long to get to the Grand Festival.

I think it was a good decision to replace Misty. I can understand fans being upset at the time and they could have had more build up to her departure like they've done for most of the other traveling companions, but replacing her at the end of the original series was the best choice. While I don't like Max myself, although I don't know if I dislike him as much as other fans do, I really don't see how AG would have been drastically improved with Misty being in the cast. She's honestly better off at the Cerulean Gym than being in the main cast. At least she can have frequent challengers to help make her Pokemon stronger and she can have her own off-screen adventures, so it's not like she's stuck at the Gym forever.

Dawn releasing Ambipom during the Diamond and Pearl series. Like what? That always frustrated me so much because Ash had Ambipom, and then Ambipom fell in love with contests so they made a trade. That was great. But then they are like "oh wait let's have a filler episode with Ping-pong in it, and oh we want Dawn to get another Pokemon so she's just going to leave Ambipom with this guy. I honestly saw no reason for it, it did not need to happen.

Yeah, that always bothered me too. They spent so much time building up to the trade. It felt natural given both Ambipom and Buizel's personalities. Plus, both Ash and Dawn had to think about it for awhile before realizing what would be best for their Pokemon. If there was some buildup to Ambipom losing interest in Contests or something like that, then it could have been fine, but it seems like Buizel was the only one who really benefited from that trade in the long run. Ambipom deserved to go to the Grand Festival much more so than Togekiss, so that probably makes the situation more frustrating.

The only reason I can think of why they wanted to give Dawn a brand new Pokemon was so that she'd have something that Zoey wasn't familiar with during their last battle. That kind of makes sense with what they were going for with that battle, but it would have been better if they had either just kept Ambipom or at least made Dawn more involved with training and raising her new Pokemon, as opposed to getting a fully evolved well trained Pokemon on a silver plate.

The XY series seemingly forgetting everything that happened in previous series with Ash. I can handle them not cameoing the previous female protagonists, but besides the fact that Ash met Alexa (I think that's her name), I don't think I can recall a single reference to the past series, which is something I loved to see in previous ones. It really sucks because you can see how much Ash has grown in this series, yet he doesn't reference how he was before.

Ash does refer to Dawn's Piplup in one episode, but that's pretty minimal all things considered. It didn't bother me during the course of the series, but it was a pretty strange decision to make references so few and far in-between.

Ash references a piplup he once knew in a magikarp Filler episode

The lack of callbacks (completely accidental on the animator's part) helps make XY its own enclosed thing that doesn't have to rely on nostalgia, which was a nice - if unintentional - touch

I don't think that callbacks necessarily mean that they're trying to rely on nostalgia. Some references in other series can be just a quick flashback or mentioning that they've met a certain character before. Plus, XY is still part of the same continuity as every other series. I don't see how the lack of references make it more like its own enclosed kind of series.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

I don't see how making Misty the navigator would have made sense. They still relied more on Brock to figure out where they were than Max even though he had the PokeNav, so it's not like he really did much as the group's navigator to begin with.

I didn't mean that she would have had to be the navigator, I just meant that if the cast still needed someone to hold the PokeNav, she could've been the one to do that in place of Max. But if she had been in the Hoenn cast, she could've had any other kind of role (or none at all, but I'll get to that next).

There also wouldn't be much for Misty to do in Hoenn. Since they already had a new female lead showcasing a new feature of the game, there wouldn't be much of a reason for the writers to give Misty something else to do. She wouldn't really like Contests and even if they were a better fit for his battling style, that would just mean it would take at least twice as long to get to the Grand Festival.

In terms of activities, I know that she wouldn't have had much to do since May was involved Contests and Ash was doing Gyms. But I don't think she would've necessarily needed an active hobby in Hoenn. She could've just focused on her Water Pokemon specialist goal since Hoenn had so many available Water types for her to capture. Alternatively, she could've just done nothing of actual merit same as Bonnie in XY, who was just an awkward third wheel.

 

[Daenerys]

The idea of the Alola League, an eternal dumpster fire that makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, I'm not liking how apparently anyone can compete in it with hardly any prerequisites. It feels really cheap after the way that Ash had to travel through six main regions and collect eight badges in each one to compete in the previous big Leagues.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I didn't mean that she would have had to be the navigator, I just meant that if the cast still needed someone to hold the PokeNav, she could've been the one to do that in place of Max. But if she had been in the Hoenn cast, she could've had any other kind of role (or none at all, but I'll get to that next).

That's still a pretty bad reason to include Misty in the cast. If all she was going to do would be to hold the PokeNav, which really wasn't even that helpful during AG if I recall correctly, then they should have just given it to Brock instead. At least that would have fit with his role in the cast. Forcing Misty to just stand around with the PokeNav just so she could replace Max would have been a weak justification for keeping her around.

In terms of activities, I know that she wouldn't have had much to do since May was involved Contests and Ash was doing Gyms. But I don't think she would've necessarily needed an active hobby in Hoenn. She could've just focused on her Water Pokemon specialist goal since Hoenn had so many available Water types for her to capture. Alternatively, she could've just done nothing of actual merit same as Bonnie in XY, who was just an awkward third wheel.

There were a lot of Water types in the first two generations, especially the second one, and that didn't really help Misty either. I don't think Hoenn being full of new Water Pokemon would have changed anything either, although I always liked the idea of Misty capturing a Surkit. Still, it just sounds like she would have had the same problems she had during the original series. She wouldn't really have anything to do in order to actually help achieve her goal and capturing more Pokemon could have been more of a problem rather than a solution. Misty had quite a few Pokemon during the original series, including a full team during Kanto, and the vast majority of them were pretty forgettable.

I'm also not sure why you think that Bonnie didn't do anything of actual merit. Her relationship with Squishy was pretty huge and she played a key role during the Team Flare arc. I like her more than Max and actually having a Pokemon to interact with frequently did help. She's still my least favorite XY cast member and I hated her gag with a passion, but saying that she was just an awkward third wheel is pretty inaccurate. If anything, she was a better take on the whole too young to be a trainer main character than Max was. Besides all that, if you really wanted Misty around even if she did nothing of actual merit, then there would be no point at all. Why force a character to stick around if they don't do anything meaningful? She'd be better off just working at the Gym instead of being forced into another series. Plus, fans would probably get tired of her much like what happened with Brock.

 

[TheGoldenToon]

The way Ash won his last Grand Trial against Hapu. Almost everything about that battle felt wrong to me.

Spoiler: SM109 Spoilers for dub only watchers

The fact that only Pikachu and Hapu's Mudsdale was used, the fact that Pikachu once again avoided a Z-move with next to no injury, and the infamous salt water somehow replicating the move Soak to grant Ash said victory, all that stuff combined just made this in my opinion one of the worst battles ever! I know they did something similar like this in the past with Ash vs Brock in Season 1 and the sprinklers, but I thought the writers were above that kind of thing by now. Don't get me wrong, I want Ash to win, but not the way he did here. This might be my most hated episode of SM by far to be completely honest.

I actually like SM, and I couldn't defend this battle at all, it was just really bad.

 

[Hidden Mew]

The way Ash won his last Grand Trial against Hapu. Almost everything about that battle felt wrong to me.

Spoiler: SM109 Spoilers for dub only watchers

The fact that only Pikachu and Hapu's Mudsdale was used, the fact that Pikachu once again avoided a Z-move with next to no injury, and the infamous salt water somehow replicating the move Soak to grant Ash said victory, all that stuff combined just made this in my opinion one of the worst battles ever! I know they did something similar like this in the past with Ash vs Brock in Season 1 and the sprinklers, but I thought the writers were above that kind of thing by now. Don't get me wrong, I want Ash to win, but not the way he did here. This might be my most hated episode of SM by far to be completely honest.

I actually like SM, and I couldn't defend this battle at all, it was just really bad.

I just saw the episode and I completely agree. They kind of setup for Ash to use Pikachu against Hapu when they first met, so I didn't really mind that part. It would have been better if we got at least a two-on-two battle so that Rowlet could have battled against Hapu's Golurk and could have done something besides sleeping for once, but I wasn't too upset with just Pikachu getting a battle. Torracat would have been at a pretty big disadvantage too and Lycanroc battled against all of Nanu's Pokemon in the previous Grand Trial.

The problem came from how Ash won. Up until that point, I thought that the battle was pretty decent, although I'm pretty sure seeing Mudsdale look cool in battle helped with that considering it is one of my favorite seventh generation Pokemon. It was just so unbelievably cheap and a blatant deus ex machina. The worst part about it was how Ash was praised for this strategy when this wasn't too different from how water from the sprinklers made it possible for Pikachu to damage Brock's Onix way back in the first season. That was an accident while this was planned, but it doesn't feel any less cheap. This strategy wouldn't have been able to work if the battle field was in a completely different area.

It was a poor way to end the Poni Island arc and a terrible last Grand Trial to boot. It really made me more convinced that the writers really don't care about the Island Challenge and just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. The other three Grand Trials were much better than this one. It also made me more upset with Rowlet since it couldn't be bothered to stay awake to watch Ash's last Grand Trial. Regardless of the new moves it has learned, I'm pretty sure that Rowlet is always going to come off as completely useless for me.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Pikachu once again avoided a Z-move with next to no injury,

And this is why I just cannot stand Z-moves in the anime whatsoever. They’re not the worst thing in the world game wise but anime wise they keep pulling crap like this and due to that there’s little to no stakes to the point where I can’t even hereby pronounce them stakes.

It’s as if Ash’s team is somehow immortal when it comes to the Z-move team.

 

[KyseL]

And this is why I just cannot stand Z-moves in the anime whatsoever. They’re not the worst thing in the world game wise but anime wise they keep pulling crap like this and due to that there’s little to no stakes to the point where I can’t even hereby pronounce them stakes.

It’s as if Ash’s team is somehow immortal when it comes to the Z-move team.

I'd rather have this than how it is in the games, tbh.

 

[Parissong]

I wish Stoutland didn't die in the SM anime with Litten then being abandoned, but I will admit, it was a tearjerker episode and the writers thought it out very well

 

[PrettySylveon]

Iris getting a Dragonite. I love her as a character, but she was better off getting a Dratini and evolving it. That would have displayed her competence as a Dragon trainer much better.

Iris calling Ash a kid too much...they should have toned it down. I felt Iris was right to call him out when he made mistakes that he learned from in previous arcs, but calling him a kid for things that he doesn’t know much about the Unova region was uncalled for.

May getting tricked by Harley. I know May isn’t the brightest, but she looked like an idiot.

Max joining May in her journey. He was better off as a side character that would pop up every now and then.

Ash losing the Indigo League in such a humiliating way.

Ash losing to Trip at the Tournament . He should have won. Matter fact, Ash losing to Trip at all. He shouldn’t be losing to rookie trainers like Trip.

Ash losing to Cameron at the Unova League. I would rather seen him lose to someone else like Stephan.

Jessie being a part of the Team Rocket Trio...I would rather have Cassidy instead of her.