Worst Gag Pokémon?

[Kurolegacy]

I'd say a Pokémon who literally fell asleep in a league without any external stressors is incompetent. Plot armor compensates but at its core it’s a pretty incompetent move.

And let’s not forget how it couldn’t even retrieve a berry that was literally uphill from it without completely ignoring that and going to sleep on the same tree as said berry.

 

[Daren]

Rowlet compared to older Ash Pokémon teaches us that some people can coast through life with minimum effort (in the real world this is often because their parents were rich), while others struggle and sweat for everything they have and never get to what the first one did.

It's an important lesson for the kids.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

You know. When it comes to Pokémon like Sobble and Grookey, I can't help but shake the feeling that the writers intentionally made them as boring and annoying as possible so that nobody would miss them when they evolved or maybe I'm overthinking it

 

[Kurolegacy]

You know. When it comes to Pokémon like Sobble and Grookey, I can't help but shake the feeling that the writers intentionally made them as boring and annoying as possible so that nobody would miss them when they evolved or maybe I'm overthinking it

With Sobble, I think it was a case of the writers basically writing Sobble akin to having a species specific personality to a fault. In Grookey’s case, I get the feeling that the writers genuinely think that the viewer finds it funny. Can’t really say whether or not it’s to e deaf though since I don’t know how Japanese children feel about it.

 

[Eitarou]

It also had perhaps one of the worst rivalries in the other anime. I've never understood why it was so passionate to defeat a Pokémon it had already beaten before.

Rowlet beat Dartrix once, out of two battles. And they made it incredibly clear Rowlet ONLY won because of Bloom Doom, something Hau couldn't block since he had no Z-Ring of his own. Since then Dartrix evolved and Hau got his ring. Rowlet had every reason to question his chances of winning. Also, he clearly thought Decidueye was cool, hence his desire to win.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Rowlet compared to older Ash Pokémon teaches us that some people can coast through life with minimum effort (in the real world this is often because their parents were rich), while others struggle and sweat for everything they have and never get to what the first one did.

It's an important lesson for the kids.

The one who struggles and sweats is Greninja. Works hard but choked and never won a league.

 

[Enzo]

I still will say Oshawott, despite JN (unfortunately) not being done just yet so I guess I have to wait and see how Morpeko and Grookey end up.

I feel like Oshawott's ultimate problem was due to the fact that they tried way too hard to make it the ''next Piplup'' for it's own good, and the two thing that wrote it's death certificate imo were both the fact that it had all of Piplup's flaws turned louder and the way it had none of the penguin's good attributes.

Piplup was played for laughs here and there and definitely had it's moments, but I think that what exactly made it work were the 1) Good relationship with Dawn 2) Good development overall and 3) The fact that it was actually competent in it's job. I mean, c'mon y'all, it got Dawn to the finals and almost got her the win alongside Togekiss. Piplup put it's entire back on it's training and was overall pretty sucessful in what it did. And I agree: I don't see Piplup as a ''gag mon'' like some do here.

But Oshawott not only had all of negatives traits of Piplup x10, but also the ultimate problem of just being one of Ash's weakest Pokémon in this entire anime's history. (Btw, I don't think it was the straight up weakest of all times but I don't think it gets all the flake it deserves.) It barely did anything of note. None of it's gags were funny imo, and it did not had good feedback to help it's own case.

Overall, I do agree that they have been trying to make the ''Next Piplup'' ever since BW, but I still Oshawott was the one who failed the most in it's task.

 

[Sai]

Giving Ash all the starters again in BW was a mistake and turned me off Ash getting starters forever unless they're really focused on like Greninja or Torracat/Incineroar. Rowlett was used well so I give it a pass.

I just hate the idea of Ash getting starters who don't evolve because then they never amount to much and are just remembered as his weakest pokemon. I mean looking back on them now what are the Unova teams legacy? They beat some Unova Gym leaders sure but then have no real accomplishments, arcs, and are pretty much forgotten. They're just there as a weak, unremarkable team.

Honestly I think that's why I don't care Ash didn't get any starters in the current series, I think back to the Unova team and I'm like "Nah I don't need to see this again."

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Giving Ash all the starters again in BW was a mistake and turned me off Ash getting starters forever unless they're really focused on like Greninja or Torracat/Incineroar. Rowlett was used well so I give it a pass.

I just hate the idea of Ash getting starters who don't evolve because then they never amount to much and are just remembered as his weakest pokemon. I mean looking back on them now what are the Unova teams legacy? They beat some Unova Gym leaders sure but then have no real accomplishments, arcs, and are pretty much forgotten. They're just there as a weak, unremarkable team.

Honestly I think that's why I don't care Ash didn't get any starters in the current series, I think back to the Unova team and I'm like "Nah I don't need to see this again."

Based on your post, I don't think it makes sense to not give Ash any starters at all, and I'm confused at your JN reasoning. You yourself admit all starters Ash owned after BW were used well.
And it’s not as if the JN starters are doing any better under Go. They could've easily given Ash Sobble and have it treated miles better than it has been currently.

I'm confused at your reasoning because for each year of BW you think a starter was mishandled, there are two years from future series where starters were well handled.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Giving Ash all the starters again in BW was a mistake and turned me off Ash getting starters forever unless they're really focused on like Greninja or Torracat/Incineroar. Rowlett was used well so I give it a pass.

I just hate the idea of Ash getting starters who don't evolve because then they never amount to much and are just remembered as his weakest pokemon. I mean looking back on them now what are the Unova teams legacy? They beat some Unova Gym leaders sure but then have no real accomplishments, arcs, and are pretty much forgotten. They're just there as a weak, unremarkable team.

Honestly I think that's why I don't care Ash didn't get any starters in the current series, I think back to the Unova team and I'm like "Nah I don't need to see this again."

Yeah, your logic here makes absolutely no sense. You say Ash having all 3 Starters in Unova made you never wanna see him have a starter again, but then literally every starter AFTER Unova was fine by you. Unova's team in general was handled pretty poorly and had plenty of missed opportunities. Who's to say if Ash got any starters in Journeys he would have got all 3? I don't think he should ever get all 3 again because when he does, they tend to not get the best treatment compared to when he has 1 or 2. But seriously, who's to say if he did get one, he would have got all?

Seeing how Journeys has handled the starters under Goh makes me never want to see Ash have no starters again after they were all given to a character that doesn't use them in battle or train frequently to show off their abilities often. Plus we saw their development handled significantly worse than Unova's trio where they even rushed through Sobble's stages just to get to Inteleon as fast as possible because the Pokemon is popular in Japan.

 

[Sai]

The difference is Greninja and Torracat were the stars of the following two teams and got the bulk of the focus episodes. Even though Rowlett didn't evolve it was used a lot in battle and was fun personality wise.

Giving Ash more than one starter has always been an issue as seen with Johto and Torterra but during Unova it was just an issue all around.

Lana's starter really didn't do much either for the first 2/3rd of SM and got a really rushed double evolution by the last year of the show, so it's really not much different than Go's starters.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

The difference is Greninja and Torracat were the stars of the following two teams and got the bulk of the focus episodes. Even though Rowlett didn't evolve it was used a lot in battle and was fun personality wise.

Torracat wasn’t the star of it's team. That was Lycanroc

Nearly all of Ash's Starters are used a lot in battles and are fun personality wise.

Giving Ash more than one starter has always been an issue as seen with Johto and Torterra but during Unova it was just an issue all around.

Charizard, Bulbasaur and Squirtle were handled great. And like you said Litten and Rowlet were handled well

Lana's starter really didn't do much either for the first 2/3rd of SM and got a really rushed double evolution by the last year of the show, so it's really not much different than Go's starters.

And everyone complained about that too.

In fact Popplio once held the record the for most rushed evolution until Sobble came along

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

In Popplio's defense, at least she actually did plenty of stuff onscreen in all evolutionary stages whereas with Drizzile they pulled a horrible "it's been training offscreen this whole time" stunt just so they wouldn't have to give the middle stage screentime.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Brionne’s rushed evolution can at least be justified in universe by the stakes of the situation: her beloved trainer was in range of getting killed by an angry sea god, so it forced itself to grow stronger.

Drizzile’s stakes were beating up a gecko.

 

[Blob]

Not a gag mon, but I don't like how Snivy not only kept the same 4 moves for the entirety of BW, but also didn't even get to evolve or have a rivalry with Trip's Snivy. Her last real battle had her lose to an OP Riolu -> Lucario. Why did Ash use his 3 starters in the fight against Camoron anyway? 2/3 sucked and were clearly underpowered compared to half of Ash's BW team and the other starter was the only Pokémon other than Pikachu to get any wins.

Never liked Piplup TBH. I found it way too annoying, hogged the limelight of Dawn's other Pokémon and kept on getting episodes where it would run away.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Sooo lemme get this straight….In today's episode, they catch a drowsy Dreepy falling from Drakloak who promptly used Grookey as a replacement. Grookey hits Drakloak causing them to freak out and DREEPY gets told to not fall off again like that was THEIR fault?!


.....Honestly can't believe im asking for this but if they could just rush through Grookey's evolutions and have him banished to off screen land that'd be awesome actually

I am seriously getting tired of everyone EXCEPT Grookey being blamed for GROOKEY'S antics

Say what you will about Oshawott, but at least he got karma for his shit

Grookey never learns from his antics because he's a Karma Houdini

I thought Sobble could be annoying but at least he was well behaved, and didn't cause problems for everyone else (at least not intentionally).
Yeah his crying gag was bad but at least he started getting better about that and it went away after awhile

Grookey on the other hand, it's gags are getting progressively worse as the show goes on