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What is your biggest complaint about the Pokemon series?

What is your biggest issue with the show?


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Paulisthebest

"Ursaring, standby for battle!"
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I’m not going to throw stones at people for complaining about certain things about the series because I do it myself. Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of threads about TR, Misty, voice actors, etc. So, I think this will be a good thread for people to talk about their main issues with the series all in one place.

What things about the show bother you like character changes, captures, evolutions, voices, Ash still being 10, Pikachu’s crazy power issues, TR making a 360 degree change in their character, some characters getting more attention than others, Ash losing to a legendary user, etc?

The poll itself is limited so just post thoughts that are not included on it and why it bothers you.
 
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While I understand the anime is aimed at kids, I just don't know why Ash can still be 10 after nearly fifteen years. Can't they age him up just a little?
 
While I understand the anime is aimed at kids, I just don't know why Ash can still be 10 after nearly fifteen years. Can't they age him up just a little?

Yeah, they should've had Unova allow 13 year olds become trainers so that I'd make sense if Ash was 13 or above in BW.
 
Hmm. I have no complaints at all, actually! I do agree, however, that Satoshi still being 10 is a bit absurd. In Sinnoh I considered him to be about 14.

Now if we were in AG or DP, I would have some complaints. But I really enjoy Best Wishes now and it's difficult to find anything that I'd feel the need to complain about. Without being too nitpicky, that is.
 
I don't really have much of a complaint, more like minor issue. I honestly don't care much about the main things, stuff like that never bothered me. I mostly get annoyed with Ash always jumping in the way of attacks, when Pikachu is at his side 24-7 and he could just have him Thunderbolt it or something, rather than getting himself hurt. Since its been going on forever, scene's like these irk me, just a smidge.

Also, whenever anyone, usually they're being portrayed as an antagonist, does something "wrong" and here comes Ash, master of all things good and sunshine and rainbows to set them straight, like his way is always the right way only when sometimes its like... seriously, Ash writers.
 
Not much, oddly enough.
But I think the biggest issue I have with the series is how they balance out screentime between pokemon. If it's not someone in the main cast's team being favoured at the expense of another (or even several others), it's the same selection of pokemon being used by other trainers/appearing in the wild over and over. With a series that has literally hundreds of monsters to choose from, it's kind of irksome.

Also, I don't agree with the direction they've taken with the Rockets. Yeah. Complaining.
 
Its tied between the main character being an idiot, there's close to no character development (the writers seem completely incapable of pulling this off anyway, as the most "Character Development" we get is a Pokèmon changing completely just because he evolved...like Charmander-Charmeleon) leading to them simply replacing the main characters from time to time, and having Ash release his Pokèmon for illogical reasons.
 
Them not switching the main character.

I've come to terms with this and know that as long as Pikachu is in the children's hearts, he'll never go away, but still. They should have switched Ash out a long time ago.

Other than that I'm relatively okay with stuff.
 
Ash should have won a league by now (specifically the Sinnoh league), and his older pokemon should get more than one appearance after every 200 episodes.

Any other complaints I used to have were fixed. Thank god we aren't sitting throughout endless fillers like in Johto anymore, or constantly watching Ash release his Pokemon.

Basically everything that made Johto bad was fixed by all the following arcs. Then the villain teams also improved with each passing gen, making up for Magma/Aqua being handled poorly.
 
Paul not getting the soothebells back from Ash. I am infuriated.
 
I would have love Ash to get a win in the league as well. As for my biggest complaint, it's probably Pikachu's reset. My second biggest is actually not really a complaint, which is the fact that there are so many episodes in the series. Don't get me wrong, the quantity's its strength, but it's the fact that catching up is a challenge. Yeah, not a good complaint, but it's just me.

Thanks for reading.
 
Yeah, the length of the series is also a problem.

Its obvious most people aren't going to watch all 670+ episodes nowadays, unless you saw most arcs when they were originally airing all those years ago.
 
Ash still being 10 is total and utter BS and I really wish that was not reiterated in BW so everyone could still maintain their own interpretation on the matter. And Iris calling Ash a little kid 5 times per episode in BW is not making that any easier to swallow (especially when Iris herself looks younger than he does and apparently can't get it through her thick head that Ash is a foreigner, of course he's not going to know jack shit about Unova). I understand they want to keep him young so the target audience can relate to the protagonist better, but would it seriously alienate them to make Ash just a couple of years older? Other series can manage this with no problem and they aren't 600+ episode monster series like Pokemon is. Seriously, when the amount of episodes nearly equal 2 years if you count 1 episode as 1 day (and that's not accounting for the time gaps that are established to happen between certain episodes) and the 1-year anniversary thing with Pikachu and they still say 1 year hasn't passed yet, that... is totally and utterly ridiculous and I cannot buy that, even from this crazy-ass series.

That's ignoring the fact that Ash has obviously matured since his Kanto days (well, IMO he's regressed in BW, but in DP he really came off more as a 13 year-old rather than 10), I believe these Leagues must be yearly and are probably the Pokemon world's equivalent of the Superbowl, i.e. they all happen around the same time and thus Ash isn't going through 4 leagues in under a year... if this series were just a slice-of-life show where every episode isn't a direct continuation of the previous one I wouldn't mind, but this is an ongoing journey, has been from the get-go... so any excuse not to age Ash is pure and utter bullshit.

Beyond that, I'm also not a fan of how the direction of the Rockets has changed since BW started. I mean, I don't mind change as long as it's better or at least equal to the previous shtick, but when they're this goddamn boring I just can't get into it at all. It's so drastic that the TR we know and love is barely recognizable most of the time, and after 14 years or so, that is a very jarring change to accept.

The inconsistency of Pikachu's power is another thing that bugs me, though it didn't seriously bother me until BW. In AG it was a relatively new concept, in DP it eventually made sense when Paul was revealed to be every bit as experienced as Ash in addition to being smarter than him... in BW it was just totally phoned in, and even after that Pikachu is losing the simplest of battles for absolutely no reason and now they're just trying to piss me off with this losing-despite-type-advantage BS with Cress and losing to established-newb Trip... just because...?

So, the other stuff... I've gotten used to the VA change ages ago (to the point where it's actually jarring and weird hearing the 4Kids voices in the Johto reruns on Boomerang), I don't mind the cast changes each season either since it's keeping things fresh (though I have to admit that I'm in the minority in one aspect, though: Iris and Cilan have yet to grow on me), Ash not winning a League yet suits me just fine since the show's being surprisingly realistic in that respect for being an action shounen genre. It's much less annoying than watching the protagonist win all the time like I've seen in certain series. Tyson from the original Beyblade series and Jaden Yuki from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX come to mind immediately. Compared to that, seeing Ash not win all the time is quite refreshing, and at least he is making progress with every passing series, so there is a sense of optimism that eventually he'll win someday.

What bugs me that isn't listed is the issue of equal distribution of limelight (lack thereof, that is) and how some rivals are handled... and the occasional DEM battles that happen in this series, but over time they've gotten better about that with some exceptions. Johto really didn't do that good of a job showcasing the new Pokemon Ash captured, then in DP I'd say it's hard to argue that Piplup didn't sap away a great deal of development potential from the rest of Dawn's Pokemon. It doesn't help that the majority of Piplup's character development was handled within the first few episodes either, so later on most Piplup-centered episodes weren't much more than the penguin being the whiny, bitchy little brat he's always been. I mean, it's nice that he had much more of an established personality than May's starter ever got, but it wasn't a very endearing one... especially when Piplup was all over the place in the series.

Brock and his Pokemon got shunned in general, but that's pretty much always been the case. I'd say Ash's DP Pokemon fared much better in terms of development, though later on Infernape got a loooot of focus; probably more than what it needed. But it wasn't so much that it made me grow to hate it or anything. Only thing that really bothered me was how Torterra essentially became a giant load by late-DP and they could have addressed this since Torterra's far from the type of Pokemon Ash is good at utilizing (plus it could never truly match up to {Paul's Torterra, of course). Buizel became a major jobber for the majority of the series, but got a little bit of redemption by the end. Ambipom lost all of her charm upon evolving and got inarguably the worst send-off of any Pokemon in the show, and even Paul's Electivire being whored out at every single opportunity for no real reason pissed me off, too. Sure, it had a personality, but I just never felt much for its forced rivalry with Pikachu (which Pikachu never overcame) and Infernape. I wanted to see more of Paul's Torterra, which would have made sense since, y'know, it's his starter and was a much better representation of the species than Ash's ever was. Nando and no full battles until the Top 8 aside, Paul not using Torterra against Ash is one of my biggest Sinnoh League complaints. His Weavile was never really shown to be as awesome as the rest of his team, either, which also bugged me since I have a major Weavile bias.

As for rivals, well... we all know how rushed and forced the League rivals tend to be, but with every series they get less grating, at least. Gary was a great rival, but the writers really stiffed the guy by barely letting him appear and giving him a goal change out of the blue. So far, Trip is really not doing it for me since he's only coming off as a xenophobic Paul-lite. It's a bit early to judge him too hard, but compared to DP, Paul already had more appearances within 21 episodes, had a much stronger introduction, actually did stuff or at least provided entertainment, and had a legitimate reason for always being a step ahead of Ash. Making Trip a beginner was probably the biggest mistake; it's just hard to buy him being legitimately superior to Ash when Ash has four regions of experience over the guy. It's understandable to really have a rival stand out after the spectacular job they did with Paul, but with Trip it really just feels like they put no effort into him. I'm sure he'll be better-developed later on, but this whole beginner topping a trainer in his fifth region BS is going to be very hard to justify for the whole series.

I actually had no problem with May's rivals. Her rivals-of-the-day for the most part were interesting, and long-term Drew+Harley were excellent, memorable rivals. That's why I was so disappointed with Dawn's, however, since Dawn is conceptually supposed to be all of the writers' experience from developing May, hence any mistakes made with May would be rectified through Dawn. In most cases, the BS Contest wins were fixed, but the rivals were a major step down from May's in my opinion, which made Dawn's part of the story very hard for me to give a crap about after a while. Combined with vanilla rivals and Piplup taking up 90% of her Pokemon's development opportunities, Dawn's Contest storyline in general was a major bore and easily my least favorite part of the DP series. It didn't help that Dawn's character development, what little she had of it, seriously paled in comparison to May's.

Boy, I don't think I tl;dr'ed enough, do you?
 
Good lord Shinneth.

Anyway, my biggest complaint is Ash not being written off yet.
 
^
^
So. Many. Words....but, great points IMO.
I think my major problem is how most new pokemon aren't showcased nearly as much as I would like them to. Just because the pokemon 'happens not' to be caught by a main character it becomes condemned to a life of only 2 or 3 episode appearances.
Also like what Kaitou Kid mentioned, I really can't stand why Ash is ALWAYS the one to rectify problems. In all respects he's just. A. 10-year old (according to the anime). Other people have the power and almost everyone has the brains to figure out the problems. Now, I know Ash is the main character, but I feel as though making a 10-year old the savior of the Pokemon World over and over again when there are plenty of competent people to take care of the world's problems is a little to farfet'ched (spelling?) to me.

I also can't stand how Ash is so ready to jump into anything. I think that is the most grating think about his character is his impulsivness. I mean really, thinking you are the only one on the entire planet that can affect Legendary Pokemon by begging to them to stop is just too unrealistic to me.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the Pokemon Anime, and even though there are many problems with Ash, I still think he does a good job of caring the series and giving it some direction.

:)
 
I actually had no problem with May's rivals. Her rivals-of-the-day for the most part were interesting, and long-term Drew+Harley were excellent, memorable rivals. That's why I was so disappointed with Dawn's, however, since Dawn is conceptually supposed to be all of the writers' experience from developing May, hence any mistakes made with May would be rectified through Dawn. In most cases, the BS Contest wins were fixed, but the rivals were a major step down from May's in my opinion, which made Dawn's part of the story very hard for me to give a crap about after a while. Combined with vanilla rivals and Piplup taking up 90% of her Pokemon's development opportunities, Dawn's Contest storyline in general was a major bore and easily my least favorite part of the DP series. It didn't help that Dawn's character development, what little she had of it, seriously paled in comparison to May's.
Seconded. Dawn's bullshit storyline killed DP hard for me.

Actually, let's just go with DP in general. Let's cut/paste Paul and Cynthia into AG and forget that DP ever happened. Johto can come to the reject corner too.
 
There are a lot of minor issues like game mechanics translating to the anime that have been, for the most part, remedied prior to the AG saga.

My biggest issue (and honestly, I don't even care that much) is Satoshi's aging, or lack thereof. I understand the reasoning behind it, and it's most definitely for the best (what if the anime lasts 30 years? If they wanted to keep Satoshi as the main character, he would be unrelatable for the target audience), it just leaves me rolling my eyes occasionally when Haruka or Hikari "finally turn 10!" and therefore get to start their pokémon journey. If Satoshi was the only one who would ever show a birthday at the beginning of the show and would subsequently never age, don't reference other character's birthdays (Whether or not this has actually been done, I'm not too sure, though I did think there was a reference to Hikari turning 10 at the beginning of DP).

My other major gripe was the lack of an intact soundtrack. BW has now fixed this, and I am happy.
 
Yeah, there are plenty of Pokemon who also get the short end of the stick and only seem to have one general Stereotype. Unless its owned by Ash or some other nice person, Raichu's are usually big dicks and they get so little screen time and have to get their asses whooped by Pikachu :| Pikachu's the main character and Pichu, got 3 specials, a movie and its own game rendition. I'm convinced the writers don't really like Raichu :(

Spearow? Evil. I don't even remember ever seeing a nice Spearow. Has Fearow even got an episode, where it wasn't used for evil and got more than cameo screen time? Pidgey and its evolutions on the other hand... Beedrill? Their default response to chase everything in its sight away. Butterfree's are full of sugary coated goodness.

I've always wanted to see some more people with Pikachu. Not like all in your face, but it would be nice to get different perspectives of a Pokemon species from other people, instead of the main characters. It really sucked they never showed us a female Pikachu in the anime. I know Ash is the main character and all, but I don't think they should they treat other Pikachu's that don't belong to Ash like an extinct species in the anime. At least Meowth was a little bit better. Persian was also rare, I think a total of 3 or 4 have appeared and doesn't get much screen time either, I also wouldn't have minded more Rattata. Damn, they really do favor alot more Pokemon over others.
 
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