History YMMV / PokemonAnime

** Serena is this to Iris, who is one of the least popular female companions to date. While Serena is not without her detractors for her perceived RomanticPlotTumor and for her never-before-mentioned ForgottenFirstMeeting with Ash, some of the fandom agree that she's an improvement over Iris. She also further won fans for having an arc of CharacterDevelopment that helped to have her RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap, although how it ended [[BrokenBase is a point of contention]] that you [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment REALLY need to tread carefully around.]] Also, she's one of the few girls to [[KissingDiscretionShot kiss Ash]], and the only female companion to ever do so, so she definitely has that going for her.

** {{Always Accurate Attack}}s, such as Swift and Aerial Ace, have been shown to miss throughout the anime. This is particularly bad when said attacks miss because of the Pokémon simply dodging it.

** {{Always Accurate Attack}}s, such as Swift and Aerial Ace, have occasionally been shown to miss throughout the anime. This is particularly bad when said attacks miss because of the Pokémon simply dodging it.

** {{Always Accurate Attack}}s, such as Swift and Aerial Ace, have been occasionally shown to miss throughout the anime. This is particularly bad when said attacks miss because of the Pokémon simply dodging it.

** A trainer ordering a Scizor to "finish it off with [[HpToOne False Swipe]]." In this example's defense, the anime portrays this exactly like what would happen if you tried to finish a Pokémon off with False Swipe as Ash's Heracross wasn't actually knocked out by the attack. CriticalResearchFailure would have been a lot worse had the knock out actually happened, but the question still remains if the creators at the time forgot that False Swipe doesn't defeat Pokémon.

* InformedWrongness: Paul's abuse of his Pokémon and jerkass treatment of others later gets downplayed as simply being "a different training style" than Ash, and that Ash should learn to respect their differences. But the frequency and serenity of Paul's actions were equal to, if not worse than, many of the series' clear-cut villains who Ash and others were treated as justifiably opposing. Amongst them was Paul abandoning his fire-type starter for being weak, which was treated as a MoralEventHorizon for Damian and Shamus when they did the same (a difference is they lied to their starters about abandoning them while Paul was upfront about it, but that's not acknowledged by the work).

* CreatorsPet: Dawn's Piplup. He's a whiny, spoiled toddler and a high and mighty ControlFreak SpotlightStealingSquad that took over Pikachu's turf by staying out of his Poké Ball in almost every single episode. What contributes is the fact that it got at least twice as much CharacterFocus as any other Sinnoh Pokémon of the main cast in the DP saga, besides Chimchar.

* InformedWrongness: Paul's abuse of his Pokémon later gets downplayed as simply being "a different training style" than Ash, and that ''Ash'' should learn to respect their differences.

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt:
** Practically once every year during the ''Diamond and Pearl'' seasons, there was an episode wherein [[TerribleTrio Team Rocket]] will either [[BreakingTheFellowship break up]] or actually quit following Ash & Pikachu to [[CutLexLuthorACheck do something legit]]. [[StatusQuoIsGod It never sticks.]] They did it ''again'' in ''Black and White'', culminating with Meowth [[SixthRanger joining Ash's team]] for a few episodes! But [[HeelFaceMole once again]]...
** Another reused episode plot involves Ash and Pikachu facing off against a trainer with his Raichu. Ash begins to doubt that Pikachu strength would be enough against such an opponent, but ultimately decides to go against it. This never sticks due to the fact that Pikachu is the SeriesMascot.
** When ''Sun and Moon'' finally had members of the main cast getting OlympusMons, many called from the start that there was no way the writers would allow them to keep them. [[spoiler:The final episode has them ''all'' leave the main cast for various reasons (Naganadel abruptly goes back to it's home in the first few minutes, Melmetal is left in Alola with the rest of Ash's Alola team, and Shaymin leaves Mallow during the ''credits'').]]
** In Japan, the trailer for episode 35 of Journeys revealed that Ash's Pikachu would evolve. in reality the scenes were shown out of order. with multiple Raichu evolving throughout the episode. Ash's Pikachu never evolved, however the Pikachu that evolved in the trailer was closer to the beginning of the episode. and the scene where Goh's Pikachu chased Ash's Pikachu behind a rock, all it did was trip on another Pikachu and evolved that one instead. [[spoiler:however Goh's Pikachu evolved into Raichu during a Team Rocket attack.]]

** Bewear was already a powerful Pokémon upon its debut in the games, being able to destroy anything in its path by accident, but its anime counterpart ramps this up to the point where it can leap several bounds into the air and on top of buildings, and even run so fast that it can tread water[[note]]For the record, Bewear can't even learn Surf[[/note]]. Bewear even manages to top this feat by running on water for at least ''three days'' without any sign of exhaustion, ''from Kanto to Alola''.

** The times when Ash caught Aipom and Gligar were seen as surprising captures due to the belief that the anime was on a bit of a trend where Ash will only catch Pokémon of the current generation that was going on. In these cases, Aipom was caught during the Hoenn generation when Ash was taking on the Kanto Battle Frontier, and Gligar was caught in Sinnoh. Of course, everyone caught on shortly after that the reason they were captured was because Gen 4 provided them new evolutions.

** The times when Ash caught Aipom and Gligar were seen as surprising captures due to the belief that the anime was on a bit of a trend where Ash will only catch Pokémon of the current generation that was going on. In these cases, Aipom was caught during the Hoenn generation when Ash was taking on the Kanto Battle Frontier, and Gligar was caught during Sinnoh. Of course, everyone caught on shortly after that the reason they were captured was because Gen 4 provided them new evolutions.

** Very few Pokemon expected Ash to catch [[spoiler:Galarian Farfetch'd]], especially right after [[spoiler:Riolu]], another pure Fighting-type.

** Also from the BW Series, the fired Meowth arc had the potential to completely turn the series on its head. What would the series have been like had Meowth actually moved on from Team Rocket? How would Meowth have acted if he actually was caught by Iris? Would his loyalty to Jessie and James come into question being under the ownership of another trainer? So many intriguing ideas come to mind regarding this plotline, but in the end, it turned out that Meowth was just faking it to trap the gang in a glorified 2-part Team Rocket scheme.

*** The move Aerial Ace is drastically different from its game counterpart. Aerial Ace is meant to be a swordfighting technique that can be learned by pretty much anything with claws or talons but is only used by Flying-types in the anime as a glorified Tackle.

** Internally, it's pretty much Original Series fans vs. ''Diamond & Pearl'' fans vs. ''X&Y'' fans vs. ''SM'' fans whenever the debate of the show's best series rises up. The former two will always be attacked for not aging well by the others, and the latter two will always be attacked for many of the choices made that differ from the previous series.

** Considering how Ash-Greninja's debut in the games was in ''Sun and Moon'', many wanted Ash's Greninja to return to his team at some point in the ''Sun and Moon'' anime.

* PanderingToTheBase: Ash catching a Gengar and a Riolu in the ''Journeys'' series; aside from both being highly popular species in their own right, fans have long been annoyed that Ash did not keep the Haunter he befriended in the Sabrina arc on his team permanently, and many had expected him to catch a Riolu during ''Diamond & Pearl'' due to Lucario's SeriesMascot status and to tie in with Ash's established Aura abilities. As a result of these, Gengar and Lucario are among the most frequent CanonForeigner Pokémon included on Ash's team by Fanfic writers, so him actually capturing these Pokémon in the anime was very well-recieved by the fanbase.

** The Battle Frontier episodes really missed an opportunity to show off new developments to Kanto ever since Ash, Misty and Brock first journeyed around the region in the original series. Very few things were actually revisited or updated by the time the Battle Frontier journey finishes, and if it wasn't for the city locations that Ash and company travel around to being mentioned, viewers would probably quickly forget that they're actually going around Kanto.

*** Pikachu's infamous loss against Trip's Snivy is easily the worst black mark he would ever have on his battle career. Never mind that Ash was unaware that he got locked out of his electric moves leaving him with only Iron Tail and Quick Attack until the battle itself already began while Trip's Snivy had access to Leaf Tornado, a move that a starter ''fresh from the lab'' shouldn't have access to. Pikachu's previous battle being against ''Tobias' Latios'' just made things worse for him.

** The TCPi English dub voice actors were initially this to the 4Kids voice cast, not helped by the jarring transition between the casts. While the bitterness has mostly subsided as the TCPi actors have settled into their roles, some fans still considered them inferior to the original cast.

** After the controversial decision by TCPi to [[TheOtherDarrin recast the entire series]], Sarah Natochenny received the bulk of fan backlash for replacing Creator/VeronicaTaylor as Ash. As time’s gone on and Natochenny has had the chance to [[HeReallyCanAct settle into the role and make it her own]], fans now positively regard her take on Ash.

* SoOkayItsAverage: This seems to be the overarching fandom sentiment about ''Advanced Generation''; it’s almost never ranked as one of the show’s worst seasons, but in time it seems to have been eclipsed in popularity by later seasons such as ''Diamond & Pearl'' and ''XY''. Pluses include strong development for [[DumbassNoMore Ash]], several memorable characters (May, her rivals, Ash's Sceptile and Corphish), and a more balanced focus on Ash's Hoenn team in comparison to his Johto team [[note]] particularly with Swellow, who unlike previous Regional Birds did not fall OutOfFocus and set the trend for later additions like Staraptor and Talonflame [[/note]] , but cons include [[NoAntagonist Ash's lack of a rival]], the mishandling of the Team Magma & Team Aqua arc, and an abundance of [[StrictlyFormula formulaic filler]].

* SpoiledByTheFormat:
** You could tell [[spoiler:Ash's Kalos League defeat]] a mile away just from the fact that [[spoiler:[[TitleThemeDrop the theme song already played in full for Ash's fight with Sawyer]],]] thus there'd be no way for it to repeat for the very next battle.
* StrangledByTheRedString: A complaint of Ash/Serena, which is completely unsubtle in its ShipTease and originates in a {{Retcon}} to Ash's backstory (though in its defense, it is one-sided on Serena's part, as the retcon to Ash's past [[ObliviousToLove doesn't affect him at all]]).

** In the XY Series neither Ash, nor any of his companions, receive a Mega Ring / Key Stone. Instead, Ash gets a unique Bond-Greninja evolution as a replacement for learning how to mega evolve while the Mega Evolutions are given to other major characters like Alain, Sawyer and Sycamore. This comes off as a missed opportunity to some when Ash owns several Pokémon that can Mega Evolve, such as Charizard, Heracross, Sceptile, and Glalie.

* AwardSnub: An infamous example of this happened at the 2000's Kids Choice Awards. The anime, which was at it's peak popularity at the time, was nominated for "Favorite Cartoon". Because of this, many people expected ''Pokemon'' to reign victorious, only for ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', one of Nickelodeon's own shows, to win. Adding more salt to the wound, some saw the snub as a way to plug the ''WesternAnimation/RugratsInParis'' film, as after the winner was announced, they cut to a specially-animated sequence of Angelica Pickles.

* SoOkayItsAverage: This seems to be the overarching fandom sentiment about ''Advanced Generation''; it’s almost never ranked as one of the show’s worst seasons, but in time it seems to have been eclipsed in popularity by later seasons such as ''Diamond & Pearl'' and ''XY''. Pluses include strong development for [[DumbassNoMore Ash]], several memorable characters (May, her rivals, Ash's Sceptile and Corphish), a more balanced focus on Ash's Hoenn team in comparison to his Johto team [[note]] particularly with Swellow, who unlike previous Regional Birds did not fall OutOfFocus and set the trend for later additions like Staraptor and Talonflame [[/note]] , but cons include [[NoAntagonist Ash's lack of a rival]], the mishandling of the Team Magma & Team Aqua arc, and an abundance of [[StrictlyFormula formulaic filler]].

** Pretty much everything after Kanto has a fair share of detractors, with the most common complaints being ExecutiveMeddling, [[RecycledScript recycled plots]] or (perceived) lack of major character development for Ash and Team Rocket. The eras most commonly accused of this, however, are Johto (too much {{Filler}} resulting in poor pacing, Ash and his friends' misfortunes frequently being caused by WhatAnIdiot moments especially when dealing with Team Rocket, Brock and Misty's characters began to stagnate, and Ash's Johto team, aside from [[ClingyJealousGirl Bayleef]], wasn't very well-fleshed out in comparison to his original Kanto team) and Black & White/Unova (Ash lost all his character development and reverted back to being a naïve IdiotHero, Cilan and especially Iris were poorly received and viewed as [[PoorMansSubstitute inferior copies]] for Brock and Misty, the League storyline was mishandled, the Team Plasma story arc was too short, Charizard's return was a wasted opportunity, and Decolore Islands was essentially an entire arc of {{Filler}} that made Johto look eventful).

* SoOkayItsAverage: This seems to be the overarching fandom sentiment about ''Advanced Generation''; it’s almost never ranked as one of the show’s worst seasons, but in time it seems to have been eclipsed in popularity by later seasons such as ''Diamond & Pearl'' and ''XY''. Pluses include strong development for [[DumbassNoMore Ash]], several memorable characters (May, her rivals, Ash's Sceptile and Corphish), making the regional bird more reliable with Swellow, and the Battle Frontier arc, but cons include [[NoAntagonist Ash's lack of a rival]], the mishandling of the Team Magma & Team Aqua arc, and an abundance of [[StrictlyFormula formulaic filler]].