They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character / Pokémon: The Series

Characters from the Pokémon anime that people feel could have had more appearances or development.

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General

Humans

• Any of the regional evil teams are always going to get the short stick in terms of appearances, pushed to the backburner in favor of the usual Terrible Trio from Team Rocket.
  • In the original series, this even extended to Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket syndicate. Since direct adaptions of the games wouldn't become common until Hoenn, Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket barely get focus in the series adapting their games. Many felt like it was a massive missed opportunity that Ash and Giovanni never directly battled each other, or that so much of the anime was glossing over most Team Rocket plotlines. It wouldn't be until Best Wishes that the two would finally fight each other in person; to mixed results.
• While the female protagonists are usually lucky enough to get plenty of focus, the male protagonists of their respective games tend to get screwed in that regard due to the show's strict focus on Ash. If they're lucky, they might get a cameo in a movie, but many viewers who view Ash as The Artifact are dismayed with the anime's refusal to replace him. (And when he finally was retired, the increased customization that had been part of the games since Sun and Moon meant that the stock game protagonists themselves were now The Artifact and relegated to appearing in the manga while the new anime series featured a wholly original cast.)
  • In terms of which game protagonists have any significance to the anime: Obviously, Ash is Red's counterpart, and May, Dawn, and Serena are all main characters. Ethan has his own anime counterpart named Jimmy, and Kris has Marina, while Lyra appears a few times in DP. Brendan makes cameos in a few of the movies, and would logically be Birch's son since May is Norman's daughter, but Birch never mentions having a son to our heroes. Lucas also has some movie cameos, but nothing else.
  • And if we expand to include the rivals: Gary is obviously based on Blue, and Barry, Bianca, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor, and Hau appear as themselves. Silver makes one brief unnamed cameo in one of the openings (though Paul may be his Expy), while Cheren is merely a Gym Leader with no connection to Bianca.

Pokémon Species

• Pokémon that could/should have been captured by one of the main characters because they were either likable Pokémon by the fanbase or because their development with a certain character made it look like they would fit together with that trainer perfectly. Some examples being:
  • Haunter, Magnemite, Rapidash, Elekid, Houndour, Mantine, Larvitar, Sableye, Smoochum, Weavile, Hippopotas, Shieldon, Riolu, Snover, Venipede, Archeops, Meloetta, Scatterbug, Litleo, a shiny Phantump, Skrelp, Wimpod, Passimian, Dreepy and Drakloak, a shiny Volcarona, Hatenna, Beartic, and Latias for Ash.
    • Pokémon Journeys actually starts to rectify this by giving him a Gengar^note (For those who feel that Ash not catching the Haunter way back in Kanto was a huge missed opportunity, especially since he ended up never owning a Ghost-type until now.) in Episode 16, and a Riolu^note (It never made sense for Ash to not have the Riolu/Lucario line when it's been shown time and time again that Ash has a connection to aura.) in Episode 21.
  • Oddish, Jigglypuff (yes THE Jigglypuff), Dewgong, Marill and Teddiursa for Misty. The Johto arc also shows her repeatedly trying and failing to catch an additional water type including Totodile (which went to Ash), Remoraid and Chinchou.
  • Stantler, Sharpedo and Spinda for Brock. In Sharpedo's case, it would have meant Brock catching three Water Pokémon in a row.
  • Swablu for May — this example is especially mean-spirited on the part of the writers, who had May care for the injured bird for an entire episode. When they finally tried to rendezvous with Swablu's flock, the flock was completely absent, causing May to offer to allow Swablu to join her team. The flock suddenly appears out of nowhere to prevent this.
  • Mightyena, Shroomish, Shuppet and especially Ralts for Max, the latter of which he made a promise to come back to get it once he starts his own journey. Many felt that Ralts could easily have been a Foil to Ash's Pikachu, especially as the main starter for Max seeing as how well they got along upon first meeting each other, contrasting with how Ash and Pikachu didn't get along upon their first meeting.
    • While Max isn't exactly thrilled about the idea, at one point he imagines his father giving him a Slakoth as his starter. It would've been interesting to see the pre-evolution of his father's Signature Mon in his possession.
  • Aerodactyl and Grimer for Dawn. Another honorable mention for Dawn is that some feel it was a missed opportunity to not have her go after that one-off highly memorable evil Togepi. That way, the writers could build it up to eventually becoming a Togekiss rather than just outright handing Dawn a Togekiss a couple episodes out from the Grand Festival.
  • Bouffalant and Deino for Iris, particularly because the owner of said Deino returned at the last possible minute.
  • Flabébé and a stinkin' Tyrantrum for Bonnie.
  • Dewpider for Lana, doubly so given that the Pokemon's evolved form is her signature in the games.
  • Pidove and Galarian Ponyta for Chloe. (Though the latter, unlike most of the ones listed here, did get mentioned again later).
  • Seadra for Goh, with more than a few fans finding Seadra's departure at the end of '88 to be odd and thinking the episode would have worked better with Goh evolving said wild Seadra into a wild Kingdra and catching it as a thanks for assisting it versus how the episode approached it.
• There is a view among fans, particularly on communities such as Bulbagarden, that starters not captured by Ash tend to be squandered by the anime. While this is not a universal opinion (you will not see it with, for example, May's Blaziken or Dawn's Piplup), the view is fairly prominent in regards to the Mudkip and Chespin lines in particular whom are seen to have been underused and thus underappreciated.
  • It happens again in the Journeys series when it turned out that the writers had decided to have Goh catch all 3 of the Galar starters. Scorbunny not so much as it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be Goh's first Pokémon, and will be getting a lot of screentime for that reason. The Sobble and Grookey catches however were more controversial due to the catches happening later in the series where it had already been established by this point that Goh wasn't much of a battler, but more a catcher. As a result, people were left feeling that Sobble and Grookey weren't going to have much time to shine. As it turned out, Grookey ended up getting what some fans felt was too much time that very infrequently had any shining at all, as it quickly became Goh's shoulder pet to replace the evolved Scorbunny and Sobble, while as soon as Sobble evolved it was Put on a Bus and largely ignored for the remainder of the series.
• Inversely, Pokémon who aren't starters tend to be given less-preferential treatment in order to keep promoting the games. This is especially obvious in regions where one character had all three (Kanto, Johto, Unova and Journeys) but even in the others the starters are treated as the "main Pokémon", to the degree that (as an example) the practising Electric-type Gym Leader Clemont uses his Chespin much more than any actual Electric-type. Characters who have no starter Pokémon at all (such as Misty) have their Pokémon lack screentime as a result.
• Porygon and its evolutions have pretty much been banned from ever seeing the light of day in the anime due to the producers wanting to stay clear of anything that could bring up memories of the infamous seizure episode. However, as more and more time passes since the incident, it increases the amount of fans who feel that enough time has gone by to finally allow for the Porygon-family to appear in the anime again. This is especially true with the evolutions since Porygon2 and Porygon-Z had nothing to do with the banned episode.
• Any waterbound Pokémon tends to suffer from being ignored when there aren't convenient pools of water around, something the anime admitted it had no idea how to handle in the second episode of the Original Series when Misty sent out her Goldeen only for it to flop around on the floor. While it was at least acknowledged for Misty's Horsea (for whom the problem was solved by leaving it at Cerulean Gym for the rest of the show), Goldeen wasn't even given that luxury having to suffer in Misty's party for the rest of the Original Series, and Ash's Lapras was mainly only used for transportation and was released before the anime returned to large amounts of time on the mainland. Following that, the only other waterbound Pokémon caught by a member of the main cast were caught by Goh and were, again, generally left to their own devices in the river at the Cerise Institute.
  • And on the topic of Water-types for a Pokémon belonging to a main character who isn't Ash, Misty's Luvdisc (nicknamed Caserin) was obtained off screen between two episodes of Pokémon Chronicles and has the dubious distinction of being the only Pokémon owned by a main character to never appear in the main series, only managing its debut episode before disappearing completely.

Ash's Pokémon

• Pick a Pokémon from Ash's roster that is believed to have gotten the shaft and watch it get ugly. Kingler (after the Indigo League), Glalie, Torterra (after evolving), and Palpitoad are some prime examples due to their extreme lack of characterization and screen-time. While in general this can be applied to most Pokémon that aren't starters (or the 'most important' starters in regions with more than one), some better explained examples amongst Ash's Pokémon include the following:
  • For being his first ever Pokémon catch, Butterfree never got to do all that much once it fully evolved. It says a lot when the only screentime fans ever bring up about Butterfree are the two moments where Ash has to deal with the consequences of moving on from it. These being the trade for a Gentleman's Raticate, which Ash trades back after having second thoughts, and Butterfree's infamous departure episode.
  • His regional birds had it rough during Kanto and Johto. Pidgeot and Noctowl were given just small doses of limelight, such as Pidgeot's evolution/release episode, or Noctowl being the star of the Morty gym battle. Outside of that, they were basically relegated to being just glorified scouts to search the surrounding area from the air if the group needs to find something, or they're simply called out to pop Team Rocket's balloon when they try to get away. It's not until Hoenn that Ash's regional birds finally started getting as much focus as the rest of his team with Swellow being one of his best Pokémon of that generation.
  • Primeape is quite noticeable for being an interesting catch for Ash midway through Kanto only for him to ditch it by handing it off to another trainer just a few episodes later. The part that's especially painful about this release is that Ash was starting to form a genuine bond with his unruly Primeape in the exact same episode he moved on from it. Over the years, it's been called upon by the fans time and time again for Primeape to make a return, yet it ended up never happening. And by the time Ash was finally retired from the main series, this left some fans feeling like Primeape got screwed over the most as he was one of the few of Ash's released Pokémon that didn't get to make any sort of comeback.
  • While Ash's Charmander and his final stage Charizard had a plenty of screentime, the middle stage Charmeleon only appeared in three episodes and seemingly just existed for a quick evolution.
  • The Tauros herd. There's never been a concrete answer as to whether or not the Tauros that Ash calls upon throughout the series have been the same one. Just this one little detail would provide a really crucial bit of info on explaining how Ash goes about using his Tauros, yet in the end, it remains a complete mystery.
  • In general a lot of Ash's Kanto Pokémon suffer from the writers' decision to have Ash travel with only a party of five for most of the region. After catching Krabby causes the issue of the party-of-six limit to be raised, the very next thing to happen to Ash's team is the release of Butterfree, and every single Pokémon caught after that is immediately sent to the lab or otherwise removed from the party shortly afterwards (Primeape, Muk and Tauros). After Butterfree's release (and Pidgeot's later on), the next time Ash has a full party is when he catches Snorlax in the Orange Islands, meaning that for most of Kanto he uses only Pikachu, the starters, and Pidgeotto.
  • The way Ash's Heracross was handled during Johto will definitely leave some people scratching their heads in confusion. Ash swaps out Heracross for Tauros to take part in a Tauros vs. Tauros competition, but when it was time to send Tauros back to Oak's lab once said event was done with, Heracross ends up not returning. What you're left with is Heracross not actually doing much since it was stashed away before the 3rd Johto gym battle, and doesn't actually appear again under Ash's command all the way until the league match against Gary. It makes a little more sense looking at the bigger picture, since after the party-of-six limit became a problem catching Krabby the writers got around it by simply having Ash bench a Pokémon before catching a new one, in this case moving Heracross out of the way so Noctowl can be caught (and thus run into the regional birds issue described above). After that, there simply wasn't any Pokémon the writers were willing to take off Ash's team - which consisted at that point of Pikachu, four starter Pokémon and a regional bird, and by the time Bulbasaur was dropped it was simply replaced by a new team member, in this case Phanpy. Though considering Squirtle’s departure occurs the epsiode after Heracross is dropped, and Noctowl’s capture was just three episodes before the first battle with Whitney (where Ash doesn't use Noctowl), a little reshuffling of events could’ve gone a long way.
  • Ash finally catches a member of a pseudo-legendary line (Gible), but the capture happened so late into the saga that very little was ever done about it. Most of the time Gible did have was spent on a particularly long arc mastering Draco Meteor.
  • Ash's Glalie was his last captured Pokémon during the Hoenn arc of the Advanced Generation and received such small screen time before he was sent to Oak's Lab for no given reason, not even participating in the Battle Frontier. Glalie also doesn't participate in the Lily of the Valley Conference like some of Ash's other Pokémon, only getting a small cameo and being considered for the Conference but ultimately not being used.
  • Similar to the Charmeleon problem, you don't get to see Ash's Chimchar/Infernape much during its time as a Monferno due to evolving late into the Sinnoh journey (after Ash's 7th badge). Before evolving again up to Infernape, Ash's Monferno basically only had two noteworthy appearances: its evolution episode, and the 2v2 battle against Lyra and Khoury.
  • Ash's Quilava ended up as this in the Diamond & Pearl series due to how its "return" for the Sinnoh League was handled. A lot of hype was generated in the episode right before the start of the league due to Cyndaquil finally evolving after 507 episodes. Unfortunately, the one battle Quilava gets to participate in against Nando's Armaldo was almost entirely skipped over in favor of watching the Team Rocket trio work a job at the league. The Skewed Priorities of the writers thinking that the viewers would want to see Team Rocket doing their usual antics over watching a battle from a Pokémon that hasn't been seen for ages, and probably won't be seen again for a very long time,^note which, as it turned out, was the rest of Ash's tenure, as Quilava never got any focus again left a lot of people really unsatisfied with the final result.
  • Ash's Charizard, of all characters, became this during Black & White. He's added to Ash's Unova team (sending away Unfezant in the process) and rarely, if ever, has any interaction with any of the Unova Pokémon outside of Iris' Dragonite, whose rivalry with him ends as soon it is introduced, and Ash's Pignite, who N states they already have a good friendship but otherwise show the same concern for each other as they would with other Pokémon. They may as well have had Ash send Charizard back to regain Unfezant.
  • Ash's Palpitoad deserves special mention, as he has the dubious honor of having the least appearances of any Pokémon that Ash still owns. Palpitoad was Ash's first evolved Water-Type since Kingler and had an impressive showing in his debut episode, yet despite Ash having access to him for over 100 episodes he only appeared eight times throughout Black & White, with none of these episodes containing any out of battle interactions. While Palpitoad would receive a few cameos at Professor Oak's Ranch throughout Journeys, none of Palpitoad's interactions with Ash, Goh, or the other Pokémon were substantial enough to extrapolate much personality out of him.
    • Even though an attempt was made to have Ash rotate his team to compensate for catching over the party-of-six limit, in reality he was only rotating through two slots because Pikachu and the three starters never left his team, and once Charizard joined that number went down to one. As a result most of Ash's non-starter Pokémon don’t do much better than Palpitoad’s meager 8 appearances, with only 17 appearances from Leavanny, 18 appearances from Boldore, 26 appearances from Unfezant, 27 appearances from Krookodile (4 of which occurred before Ash caught him), and 34 appearances from Scraggy.
  • After evolving up from Goomy, Ash's Goodra was only around for 15 episodes, and only appearing in a few of them, though it did a lot in those episodes. Its departure is a punch in the face to fans who were hyped about Ash finally getting a fully evolved pseudo-legendary. Fans would only get even more disappointed when Goodra returned for the League, only to not get a single win. This is in sharp contrast to other Pokémon that returned after being Put on a Bus, such as Charizard, Gliscor, and Naganadel, who always come back much stronger than before and get a Moment of Awesome to defeat some powerful opponent.
  • Ash's Noivern. Its only notable moment was putting up a fight against a wild Zapdos in its evolution episode, which made for a decent showing that Noivern had the potential to be a powerhouse for Ash's team. However, it ended up with a very poor win-rate afterwards to the point of being the lowest contributor of Ash's team during the Kalos League.
  • There are some who feel that Ash's Incineroar got the short end of the stick by the end of Sun and Moon. While many appreciated the symbolism of it evolving after beating Kukui's Incineroar to an extent, the fact that there were only a few episodes left gave it little time to show off in battle, especially since it faints immediately after the act. Ash leaving it with Kukui along with the rest of his team only added to this sentiment. Even with its reappearance in Journeys, Incineroar is the only Pokemon Ash owns that has not had an official battle in its current form.
  • Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with its return in JN068. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired, however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature whose part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting its status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
• While on the topic of Ash's Pokémon, most fans will agree on a certain level of disappointment towards Ash never calling back any of his Pokémon at Oak's Lab for the Hoenn League or any League Conference after Sinnoh. To many, it's frustrating when Ash loses when he's just sitting on a bunch of powerful Pokémon he refuses to use for little to no reason, while for others, it makes his older teams seem obsolete if he does better with his current regional team than he did previously. Then there are missed opportunities in Regions like Kalos where several of Ash's rivals have Pokémon that Ash himself owns (Sawyer with Sceptile and Alain & Trevor with Charizard) and they aren't given the chance to meet and see how they stack up.
  • This sentiment became especially common in Journeys due to Ash taking on (and eventually winning) the World Coronation Series; while his reserves did appear a few times and assisted his new team in training, it feels unfair to many fans that Ash's most iconic Pokémon are forced to sit on the sidelines while Ash takes on the world's greatest trainers, especially when several of them had much deeper connections to Ash's opponents (Infernape's history with Cynthia being the most obvious).

Seasons

Original Series

• Since the very first episode, this will always be a question in the back of everyone's minds. Who the heck is Ash's father?!
• Gary Oak. Ash's rival didn't even show up for that many episodes during the course of their rivalry, having more impact on the plot after the rivalry was over.
• It's odd that Bill, the guy who made the Pokémon transfer system, was a main character in many manga, yet has only appeared in one episode to date.
• The two Pallet Town trainers that went off on a journey alongside Gary and Ash are only given a couple brief mentions of their unknown journey, and are confirmed by the end of Ash's Kanto journey to have decided to just give up on their goal completely. Why these two were never seen before to interact with Ash, or act as a roadblock for Ash to eventually overcome to become a better trainer, is anyone's guess.
• It was never revealed (nor has it ever been revealed) who won the Indigo Plateau Conference. In fact, none of the Top 3 were characters that had been introduced previously and they're only seen as shadowed figures when they're declared the winners. This is the only case in the entire anime where the eventual Conference winner is never shown. The fact any of Top 3 could've been used as characters for Ash to one day challenge never seemed to cross the minds of the writers.
• The eventual winner of the Silver Conference is a character who wasn't introduced until he is shown beating Harrison. He only appeared in the one episode he wins the Conference and is never shown or mentioned again.
• Domino, a noteworthy Team Rocket member that appeared in Mewtwo Returns. There are many unanswered questions left about her that are still unresolved to this day. Domino initially appears to be a cute and slightly ditzy college student and assistant to Cullen Calix, but eventually, she reveals herself to be a Team Rocket elite working directly under the big boss Giovanni himself and the second-in-command in his plan to recapture Mewtwo. She’s also shown being able to do things that few other Team Rocket members would be allowed to get away with, such as being able to question Giovanni or talk back at him without getting punished for it. Unfortunately, despite her competence and her being one of Team Rocket’s elite, she hasn’t been heard from since. A shame too, because considering her level of competence, you’d think that Giovanni would make more use of her, but nope.
• Giselle or really any of the major Pokémon Tech students from "The School of Hard Knocks" could have been a nice reoccurring Foil to Ash and his friends, helping them both learn from each other and indirectly push each other to improve. A later episode even focuses on an examine people can take to get in the League as opposed to the traditional badge system, allowing for the perfect opportunity to bring one of them back. Heck, Giselle is one of the few girls in the entire anime Ash shows any form of attraction to without prompting from the girl in question. However, outside of a reference in the Mewtwo special, no one from this episode has been seen in the anime since.
• For all his bluster and being the first real Hate Sink character in the anime, Damien ultimately doesn't even get a proper battle against Ash, instead being chased off by a single Flamethrower by Charmander. Damien could have been a nice, actually threatening rival for Ash in Kanto, especially with how Charmander's disobedience later on could've tied into how Charizard finally warmed up to Ash. Not to mention Ash's attempts to best him and actually push himself giving a legitimate explanation as to why he made it further in the League than Gary. Unfortunately, the Strictly Formula nature of the show dictated that Damien would never show up again outside of flashbacks. Though thankfully, the same basic idea would be recycled in much greater focus with Paul and Chimchar in DP, and then Cross and Chamander in Pokémon: I Choose You!. Tepig and Shamus had a similar dynamic in Best Wishes, but by this time the concept had worn out its welcome with the fans.
• A lot of Pokémon from Misty's and Brock's original Kanto teams were quite underutilized.
  • Brock's was especially bad as most of the time, his Pokémon were just kinda...there. Geodude and Onix never really stood out or had any defining persona (though Onix did get some moments of glory in later series' once it evolved into Steelix), and Zubat never truly had any spotlight until receiving some moments in Johto to eventually evolve up to Crobat.
  • Meanwhile, Misty never really did anything with her Goldeen except to perform underwater search missions, and her Starmie was such a jobber that no one really cared to see it get left with her Cerulean sisters by the time of EP061, "The Misty Mermaid." And speaking of EP061, you also got Misty leaving her Horsea with her sisters when it's yet another of her Pokémon that didn't get to do all that much. Even in EP061 where it seemed like Horsea was going to be the main focus, the spotlight for said episode ended up being hijacked by the sisters' Seel, who evolved into Dewgong. If that wasn't bad enough regarding Horsea, Misty never brought it back for Johto despite the fact that said region introduced a new evolution to the Horsea-line. The missed potential of Misty eventually owning a Kingdra will always be there. There's also Psyduck, which never truly developed out of being a Joke Character who only ever got to shine whenever its headache for using Psychic abilities acted up. It's why viewers consider it amazing to see Psyduck finally using Water Gun properly during its appearance in the Alola saga, but while it's amazing, it still doesn't change the fact that the training happened off-screen, and took all the way until the Alola saga to finally see Psyduck after some proper training.
  • Despite being around throughout the Kanto, Orange Islands and Johto journeys, not much was ever done with Misty's Togepi outside of learning Metronome, and its Advanced series two-parter where Togepi evolved and got Put on a Bus. Every other time, it just served as that cute-acting baby Pokémon that Misty would almost always be seen carrying around in her arms. It's part of the reason why some people hold it against Misty for pushing Ash out of the way of watching Togepi hatch, which resulted in it imprinting on Misty, as some feel that Togepi going to Ash would have resulted in it having a better chance of being properly trained and having more standout moments.
• Mr. Fuji and Mr. Pokémon go completely unadapted. There was a Dr. Fuji in the prologue to the first movie, but aside from sharing the same name, they are completely different characters, with different looks, motivations, and plot relevance. Dr. Fuji is also the one who created Mewtwo, while Mr. Fuji wouldn't be explicitly connected with Mewtwo until the Fire Red/Leaf Green remakes.

Advanced Generation

• The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the Ever Grande Conference.
• Rico the Pokemon poacher from the 6th episode of Advance proves to be a particularly vile, ruthless villain played way more seriously than other antagonists of the series, even forcing Jessie and James to free their signature Pokemon so they can protect the Ekans and Koffings he captured. He also has a powerhouse of a Tyranitar that proves to be a formidable Pokemon. With all of these traits, he could have been a regular antagonist that Ash and his friends could have run into from time to time through the Advance Generation series, but Rico ends being taken down rather easily by Pikachu and Jenny's Growlithe and promptly arrested after his only episode. At the very least, the idea of Ash and his friends facing off against a Pokemon poacher for certain episodes ends up happening in the Diamond & Pearl series with Pokemon Hunter J, who is even more cruel and dangerous than Rico ever was.
• Janet and, to a lesser extent, her friend Chaz from episode 013. Despite the fact they are both excellent coordinators and could have been good rivals for May in the future (with Janet herself being the one who sparked May's interest in contests), they are never seen again in a main role beyond this episode, and their following appearances are brief, silent cameos. Even worse, in the episode Janet wins her third ribbon, meaning she only had to win two more to participate in Hoenn's Grand Festival, so she at least could have been a participant of the event.
• The Team Aqua Grunt that acts as the main antagonist of episodes 017 and 018 has a distinct design and his Crawdaunt proves to be a powerful Pokemon that the main characters are unable to defeat. Despite having two episodes of building as a dangerous villain, he's never seen again after this episode.
• Steven Stone, the Champion in most Hoenn games, used to be this, having only appeared in one episode of Hoenn with no reference to being anything beyond a typical hiker. In Diamond and Pearl, it was revealed that Wallace was the champion of Hoenn without any mention of Steven Stone, and then in the X and Y series, he appeared in the Mega Evolution specials and was involved in the climax.
• Misty's Azurill, which seemed like a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Togepi, appears in two episodes without much development before disappearing. Azurill does finally get to reappear in JN138, but even after all this time, it still hasn't evolved from its baby form.
• Angela, the Girl of the Week in "From Cradle to Save", is a green-haired ninja-girl who wears pink and red and teaches at a Ninja School near Fuchsia City—all of which makes her a needless and Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Aya, Koga's sister from Pokémon: The Original Series and an already-Recurring Character last seen when the cast was visiting another ninja school.

Diamond and Pearl

• Compared to how much mileage the anime has gotten out of Darkrai over the years, Cresselia received the short end of the stick. She only gets one episode, and even then, she doesn't get to appear until the second half due to the first half being dominated by Team Rocket. And then Team Rocket comes back to hijack the plot again, and she spends the majority of her screentime as a Damsel in Distress who doesn't even aid in her own escape. The only thing she actually gets to do is confront Darkrai at the end of the episode, and the sequence takes fewer than thirty seconds. This would be weak representation for any Pokémon in the series, but this treatment was given to a legendary, and especially one that never got a movie, not even appearing in the one starring Darkrai. This was only rectified when a two-episode plot in Master Journeys devoted more time to the duo and their relationship... more than twelve years later.
• During Diamond & Pearl, the writers made the mistake of trying to cram too many rivals into Dawn's Contest arc. As a result, Ursula's conflict with Dawn, as well as Nando's decision to pursue both Gym Battles and Contests, were never explored in depth because of their lack of screen time (and many opportunities to do so were wasted in favor of irrelevant filler). In fact, Dawn never directly faces Nando in a Pokémon battle, aside from their short practice battle in "Dawn of a New Era!"
• Connected to Dawn's Contest arc was Lila, a Pokémon Coordinator that served as Dawn's main opponent for winning her third ribbon. Lila was someone who already had four ribbons, and has a major connection to Dawn's family being her mother's primary rival in the past. If her match against Dawn was used as a means to reignite her passion for Contests, all Lila had to do was win one more ribbon at some point, and could have made further appearances as a competitor in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. However, in the end, Lila stayed as a One-Shot Character.
• Dawn's Ambipom, who many felt was unjustifiably Put on a Bus midway through the Sinnoh journey, because Ambipom suddenly took a liking to ping-pong the episode prior to her departure. It was even more of a missed opportunity that Ambipom didn't, at the very least, make a return as a member of Dawn's team for the Sinnoh Grand Festival, especially when you consider that Ambipom's love for Contests was the whole reason that Ash traded Aipom over to Dawn to begin with. It gets even more egregious by the time of the Pokémon Journeys series where Ash and Goh support a research facility established within Vermilion City, which just so happens to be the city that Ambipom departed towards back in her departure episode. Basically, there's heavy implication that Ash and Ambipom are within the same city throughout Pokémon Journeys, yet Ash never seems to think about walking over to visit Ambipom.
• Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in DP081. Paul's Gliscor was pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in DP100.
• Tobias. The whole idea of a trainer who uses Olympus Mons is actually quite an interesting one. However, Tobias is introduced so late in the series that nothing about the character is actually delved into due to him suddenly just popping up at the league, including the crucial question of where he got his Legendary Pokémon. Thus, making it extremely obvious that the character was created just to be a last second Diabolus ex Machina who keeps Ash from winning the Sinnoh League.

Best Wishes

• One could make a case for the vast majority of the Main Characters’ Pokémon were wasted throughout the show. The series lasted for 142 episodes and 3 movies, yet the only Pokémon to make more than 30 appearances (30 episodes being approximately one-fifth of the series) were Pikachu, Axew, Meowth, the Unova Starters, Pansage, Scraggy, Excadrill, Crustle, and Emolga (who only barely eeked through on account of appearing in all three movies).
• Another misstep of the Black & White era was how cast aside Burgundy and Georgia were late in the series despite being the primary rivals of Cilan and Iris respectively. It can come off a bit surprising that their last true appearances in the series outside of later cameos was during the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup as it leaves off feeling like there was never any true finality to these rivalries.
• Virgil, the eventual winner of the Vertress Conference, is the one Unova rival that Ash never got to battle against. Due to Virgil being portrayed as a competent trainer at the level of those who previously defeated Ash, such as Harrison and Tyson, this led some to view him as a missed opportunity to have Virgil be the one who Ash eventually loses to instead of having Ash suffer a painful loss to someone as brainless as Cameron. It can also come off a bit odd that despite being an Eevee trainer, and Generation VI being just around the corner, Virgil was not the one to introduce the newest Eevolution, Sylveon, as a way to hype up fans for the XY series.
• Bianca. Many thought that both her and Stephan would show up to the Junior Cup just because it was an open tournament, but neither showed up at all. When the writers made her lose to Cameron to place at Top 64, there was nothing left for her. On an unfortunate note, Bianca and Cheren never met unlike the games; this would have been possible had it not been for her being written off the episode before Cheren's debut episode.
• Zekrom. Its role was limited to restarting Ash and Pikachu at the start of the Unova journey, and that's it. It wasn't even involved in any of the episodes related to N and Team Plasma.
• Shamus was one of the biggest Hate Sinks in all of Pokémon. His fate could've been interesting like have him make it to the Pokémon League where what he did was made public for the entire region to hear thereby ruining any chance of him being permitted to be a trainer ever again or having Team Plasma release his Pokemon against his will. Instead, we got a rehash of Damian.
• Many lament that despite Pokémon Black and White having one of the most thought out and developed plots in the franchise, it's animated adaption is probably the least true to the text adaptation the anime has done of the games due to the need to combine it with story elements from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Team Plasma, N and Ghetsis don't show up until the post-League saga while the anime was waiting for the next games to be released, with N in particular having some vast differences in characterization. Many wish that the anime had done a more straight forward adaptation of the game's plot, feeling that Ash and Pikachu's bond would have been a fantastic foil to N's belief that Pokémon and humans should be separated.

XY

• The Evil Malamar. A group of genuinely evil Pokémon trying to take over the world? Hell ya! Too bad you only get them for two episodes. Only one of which contained multiple Malamar, and the plotline remaining somewhat unresolved.
• Serena's rivals are all widely considered to be poorly handled. Miette was more of a Ship Tease Running Gag than a legitimate threat, Nini was an extremely bland rival who had little reason being more than a One-Shot Character, and Shauna heavily decayed after her first onscreen Showcase. The lack of serious motivation for Serena is the biggest complaint about them: as the series went on, it became clear that as soon as Serena figured herself out, none of them stood a chance. One-Shot Character Amelia is also considered wasted potential for similar reasons: not only could she have provided a rougher, less friendly dynamic with the sweet-natured Serena, but she could have helped flesh out Showcases and their emphasis on popularity.
• Blaziken Mask had a handful of appearances in the earlier episodes, and pretty obvious ties to the main cast due to secretly being Clemont and Bonnie's father, but pretty much completely vanished until the Team Flare arc at the very end (where he still didn't do very much).
• The Lumiose Conference brought back Astrid from the Mega Evolution Specials to serve as an early league opponent for Ash. However, only a brief glimpse of their battle is actually seen.
• Malva, one of Kalos's Elite Four, works for Lysandre like in the games...and then she does nothing for him, except when she challenged Alain to a fight in the Mega Evolution special. When the Team Flare arc actually starts, she very quickly does a Heel–Face Turn, making her role as a part of the villain team pointless when she committed no evil deeds onscreen. While this is in keeping with how her game self was also never shown committing villainous acts, the Anime could've taken the chance to show more of her role as a Team Flare agent and part of the Elite Four than the game did.
• While Tierno is widely considered a pointless filler character in the XY games, they could have fixed that in the anime by placing emphasis on his love of dancing and possibly making him one of Serena's Showcase rivals. Instead, he just became yet another underdeveloped rival for Ash.

Sun & Moon

• Sun & Moon sees Ash having his largest group of friends yet with, including him, a group of six. However, it seems clear that the writers either have their favorites or simply can't handle that many characters at once. As a result, some of them tend to be Out of Focus. One of the worst offenders is Mallow who, besides her Bounsweet fully evolving into Tsareena and her backstory development with her mother and Shaymin, seemed to have been left aside, remaining fairly stagnant as a trainer, and only getting her Z-Ring very shortly before the Alola league at the end of the series, as the Grass Trial was taken by Ash so that his Rowlet could have a Grassium Z first. While Sophocles, Lana and Kiawe fare relatively better, they're both outshined by Lillie, who is the only one to receive a fair amount of presence to the story as the Deuteragonist.
• It takes awhile for Team Skull to show off any real importance other than being just a mere nuisance to the main cast. While many in the games saw the Team as such, the anime almost makes them look like total pushovers who were Demoted to Extra compared to their game counterparts, with most of the stuff they would be expected to do done by Team Rocket instead. It doesn't help that, even after two years of the Sun & Moon series and both Motherbeast Lusamine and Necrozma received arcs in the series (the former of which happened without their involvement), it took until episode 115 for Guzma to finally appear. The fact that Plumeria's long-awaited debut only happened in episode 104 of the series and consisted of only appearing for a few seconds without being named or doing anything only fanned the flames further for some fans. And when Plumeria finally does battle in the Alola League, she is quickly eliminated by Ilima in the preliminary round.
• Hau, the main rival of the Sun & Moon games, is another example of Demoted to Extra, with Gladion instead being Ash's main rival. Like Guzma and Plumeria, Hau was introduced really late into the anime (episode 97), and ends up with a total of just one episode to build up his character before the start of the Alola League, which is when he finally reappears again. What you're left with is Hau coming off as just an unimportant One-Shot Character that was lucky enough to make a comeback for the league.
• Mallow's Shaymin. Even considering Mallow herself is already an arguable qualifier (see above), her mythical Pokémon was left incredibly underplayed through its run in Sun and Moon. It only got one proper limelight episode to develop, and only battled once its entire run offscreen, only getting to utilize its Aromatherapy a couple of times otherwise. Even its release was done rather quickly at the very end of the series finale. Its lack of story relevance is especially jarring given the implications that Shaymin is in fact Mallow's mother reincarnated.
• Sandy, the Eevee that wound up on the Alolan Islands. Eevee had a lot of hype surrounding it at first due to how it had its own little six clip mini-series that showed off Eevee's arrival on the Alolan Islands. Many figured that Eevee was possibly going to be caught by Ash to take up an empty spot of his party, but it ended up going to Lana instead. At first, people were willing to let go of this to see how Eevee develops under Lana, but as it turned out, nothing was done with it. Apart from Lana giving it a nickname and haircut moments after capturing it, Sandy simply remained Out of Focus for the rest of the series to the point that it didn't have a single notable battle under Lana's command besides the aforementioned mostly offscreen battle royal alongside Shaymin, which left people feeling that Sandy was completely wasted as a part of Lana's team instead of going to Ash. Many were even theorizing that Sandy was probably going to evolve into Vaporeon at some point given how Lana is a trainer that specializes in water-types, but the series didn't even do that.^note The only thing it actually appears to do is replace Primarina, which having evolved from Popplio meant Lana lacked a small Pokémon that could appear alongside her in every episode.
• Lana appeared to be the owner of a Ride Lapras in early points of the Alola series. Unlike even the other Ride Pokémon the students use however, Lapras never really gets any proper limelight and largely disappears altogether by the second half. It is notably the only Pokémon of the students that doesn't take part in the Alola League. It's also particularly odd when you consider that they had no issue with expanding on the Charizard that Kiawe was using as his Ride Pokémon to it eventually becoming a Pokémon that Kiawe uses for battle, yet the same wasn't done for Lana's Ride Lapras.

Journeys

• The Kangaskhan from JN001 who took care of Pikachu as a Pichu. Many fans spent the episodes afterwards wondering where this Kangaskhan, or even its own pouchling, might return to build on the details of the first episode's expansion of Pikachu's past. With the series over the plot point remains untouched, leaving many fans feeling like the potential for a follow up to the first details of Pikachu's past ever given were wasted and forgotten.
• Both Rose and Oleana. Usually, villains or anti-villains would make minor appearances throughout the series and would be defeated at a much later time. Both Rose and Oleana face off against the heroes at JN 044 and JN 045, only to go in hiding once Eternatus is defeated and captured by Goh. This is the earliest time a main antagonist team/leader are defeated and they never reappear again except in quick cameos at the tail end of the series, and that doesn't get any acknowledgement from the plot itself.
• Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When JN046 aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokémon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that JN046 is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.
• Chloe in general, being the first "companion" to not have that much of an interest in Pokémon, an interesting juxtaposition against the Pokémon-obsessed Ash. Unfortunately because of this she was frequently ignored in favor of Ash and especially Goh; once she obtained Eevee her own development was sidelined, and in the end both her and her Eevee's character arcs would fizzle out with a refusal to commit to anything.
  • Yamper was shown to have a backstory related to Chloe as to why she's not so keen into Pokémon and overcoming her initial jealousy over him getting attention is one of the stepping stones of her becoming a Trainer. Unfortunately, after Yamper helps her get Eevee (20 episodes after his first focus episode) he's regulated into the background and doesn't get a focus episode for another 60 episodes. It would've been interesting to have Chloe have both Eevee and Yamper in her party.
  • Chloe's Eevee, a Pokémon seemingly incapable of evolving, was given little focus outside of being used as an excuse to focus episodes on other Eeveelutions, doing little to justify being the third Eevee to be given to a female companion in a row behind Serena's and Lana's. The inability to evolve was never given an explanation, and even though its entire character arc was based around meeting the other Eeveelutions to decide what to evolve into, the end result is little more than "we'll decide later", almost exactly the state it was introduced in.
• As said under Broken Base, many believe the fact that Sobble and especially Grookey went to Goh instead of Ash is a waste of their potential as Goh is more of a catcher than a Trainer.
  • This went even farther in Sobble's case. It was given the dream of becoming an Inteleon after meeting one in episode 54, but on evolving itself in episode 62, it became depressed over having to go through the Drizzile stage first. It was then immediately Put on a Bus, remaining at Cerise's Lab while Grookey became Goh's replacement shoulder pet, and had no more major appearances until it evolved again 16 episodes later, at which point the audience were informed that it had been training in the background the whole time. This, alongside the "The Great Class Still Image Montage", fueled further complaints about the series telling the audience the characters were developing rather than showing them.
• On the subject of Goh, most of his Pokémon, who sit around at the Cerise Lab looking pretty rather than doing anything worthwhile. There was an assumption that a number of them would get their limelight when Goh finally faced Mew, but in the end the only Pokémon Goh had on hand for that meeting were Cinderace and Grookey.
• Butch and Cassidy returning are seen as this; after much anticipation from many fans, they seem to just come and go, opportunities for flashbacks and proper development swept aside in favor of another "trio considers leaving TR only to stay" episode. Needless to say, it didn't go over well with a majority of fans.
• The notable lack of Charon for the Diamond & Pearl specials did not go unnoticed.
  • Fans of Diamond & Pearl and Team Galactic in particular were disappointed that Charon wasn't used as the villain of the 2-part Winter Special for 2021. After being rendered a severe case of What Happened to the Mouse? in Diamond and Pearl after somehow escaping being arrested along with the rest of Team Galactic at the end of the Team Galactic arc, the premise of the Winter Special, of a villain seemingly recreating the red chain to try and capture Dialga and Palkia, causing the two to battle and distort time and space in the process, seemed like it could have provided a great organic opportunity to finally wrap up that loose end, and turn the special into a proper follow up to the Team Galactic arc. Instead, the actual villains of the arc end up being an AU version of the Team Rocket trio, who while not poorly received on their own, it still feels like a let down to some.
  • Even more oddly, when Team Galactic actually did reappear as the central villains of a mini-series tying into the release of Legends Arceus, Charon was still a no show. He appears briefly in a flashback to the finale of the Galactic arc, the story follows up on those events with Saturn, Mars and Jupiter somehow having escaped from Police Custody (Along with a good number of Team Galactic grunts) and plotting to bring Cyrus back after his disappearance into another dimension, and the mini-series even borrows elements from the post-game plot of Pokémon Platinum with the Team Galactic members capturing a Heatran, which in the game was Charon's idea... and yet, despite the brief acknowledgement, Charon himself doesn't return nor do the Galactic Admins acknowledge his absence. The fact that the production team clearly did remember him via including him in the flashback just makes the lack of follow up on Charon's prior escape stand out all the more, especially when it would have been easy to have him have been the one to break Saturn, Mars and Jupiter out of prison, with the episodes not even acknowledging how they escaped on their own.
• Minor example, but with the sheer amount of XY continuity and returns in the month of April 2022, the conspicuous absence and lack of mention of Squishy and it's fellow Zygarde cell in JN108, even in the flashback to Greninja's release, raised a few eyebrows among fans.
• JN100 revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight offscreen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
• While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post Diamond & Pearl was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
• Fans were excited when Alain was revealed to be a competitor in the Masters Eight tournament, hoping he would end up getting a long-awaited rematch with Ash. Said fans were promptly disappointed when his first round opponent, Leon, ended up wiping the floor with him in a 3-on-3 match, ensuring that he wouldn't get to face Ash in the tournament at all. To add insult to injury, his Mega Charizard X ended up getting taken out in two hits by Leon's base form Charizard, adding to complaints that Leon was getting subjected to Character Shilling at the expense of other characters. And on top of that, he outright leaves the stadium after the end of the first round and only interacts with Ash for a few seconds in a rather generic fashion, ensuring that at best he'll just make a silent cameo going forward, pretty much outright denying a proper rematch or lengthy interaction with Ash.
• Notably, out of the Masters 8 members, only Leon and Cynthia had recurring roles in Journeys before the final tournament. Lance and Iris appeared in one episode each where their roles were primarily to lose to Leon and Ash (Lance also didn't even interact with Ash during his return), while the only build up Steven, Diantha, and Alain got were brief cameos shortly before the tournament. Given that the Masters 8 Tournament is the big climax of the series, many feel that at the very least these three deserved their own full episode returns before the tournament to better hype up their roles in it. Steven's lack of focus especially stands out in light of him being Ash's first round opponent, despite having the least interactions with Ash out of the entire M8 roster, making their matchup feel somewhat impersonal to several fans. A result of all this is that some fans feel that for a tournament that's supposed to be between the 8 strongest trainers in the world, half of the characters feel like placeholders with only Ash and possibly Iris's battles holding much weight, especially in light of Leon's battle with Alain being perceived as so rushed that it comes off as obligatory.^note Which, in a sense, it was - it was stated in an interview that the original intention was that all battles in which Ash wasn't participating wouldn't be fully animated.
• Like Hau from the previous series, Hop and Marnie are severely Demoted to Extra compared to being rivals to the player in the Pokémon Sword and Shield games. Neither show up until the tail end of the show Marnie is relegated to being a One-Shot Character who only fights Ash a single time, while Hop appears in more episodes than Marnie, his only battle opportunity with Ash leads to his only Pokémon Wooloo being predictably stomped, otherwise only appearing so he can cheer on Leon during the Masters 8 tournament.
• While the vast majority of previous companions and rivals Ash reunites with have had major changes in their lives, or at least a change in their Pokémon team (such as Misty catching a Clauncher, Paul getting offered a position as Gym Leader, or Iris becoming Unova's Champion), Dawn, Cilan, Kiawe, Mallow, and Lana have had no such changes since their last appearances. It's most egregious with Dawn, as she’s been absent the longest of those listed, yet despite appearing in eight episodes across the series (twelve if one counts the four web specials about Arceus), she’s arguably made the least progress towards her goal out of all of Ash's prior companions (aside from Max and Bonnie, who are too young to be trainers yet).
• May and Max are the only companions who never got a reunion with Ash in this show, with their only appearances being in flashbacks and a voiceless cameo during Ash's battle against Leon. While this is likely a result of both of their Japanese voice actors being retired, many fans still lament the decision, with international fans finding it unfair to not recast the characters, instead the anime chooses to deprive the characters of proper reappearances worldwide.
• Many fans were understandably upset with the underutilization of most of Dawn's team save Piplup. Despite her having multiple cameos, the overwhelming majority of her team only made a brief appearance in her first scene of her second cameo, and Dawn was the only one of the companions that Ash reunited with whose team hadn't changed at all since her last appearance. This was especially disappointing to Pikachu and Buneary shippers, who had been waiting for nearly a decade for a reunion between the two, only for the latter to be nearly non-existent throughout the series.

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