YMMV / Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • In the second episode ("Two Degrees of Separation"), Brock says "These two men are gonna do it with or without a beautiful woman at their side!" with Ash's approval.
  • In "Ancient Family Matters!" Byron responds to his son Roark about how he loves how a hole was dug. It's easy to take out of context.
    Roark: Somebody dug this hole!
    Byron: I don't believe it! [long pause] And still, I love this hole! [In response, everyone else facefaults]
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Brock's Croagunk's famous Running Gag of using Poison Jab on his owner every time he flirts with a pretty girl. Is Croagunk deliberately destroying Brock's chances because he's jealous? Is he trying to keep the girls from being unnecessarily approached? Is he just doing it For the Lulz? Or is this his way of getting Brock to stop getting distracted by every skirt he sees and focus on accomplishing a worthwhile goal? Given how stoic the poison frog is, it's hard to say exactly why he's doing it.
  • It's a never-ending debate on whether Paul is either a domestic abuser who tortures Pokemon, never shows any care for them whatsoever, and deserves to have his license as a trainer taken away, or if he's simply a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk and very strict trainer who's also fair enough to his Pokemon and knows his methods will pay off in the end. If you look at the way Paul is from his first appearances to his last, you'll most certainly see he's made some changes.
  • Is Johanna (Dawn's mom) a pageant mom, conditioning Dawn into contests and making her succeed so she can live through her achievements, or is she honestly supporting her daughter's interest in contests after having a successful career in the field herself?
• Arc Fatigue: While the Sinnoh saga isn't nearly as bad as the Johto saga due to the presence of more secondary plotlines and less reliance on filler, Ash's badge quest and subsequent League challenge still end up suffering in pacing. There are 31 episodes between the Gardenia and Maylene fights and 52 episodes between Candice and Volker, which are the two longest gaps for Gym battles in the anime's history. This leads to Ash's plotline (ostensibly the primary one) taking a backseat to Dawn's Contest tour, the Team Galactic plot, or straight-up filler for extended periods of time.
• Ass Pull: Ash's loss in the Sinnoh League. Tobias shows up, having no prior appearance, with a Darkrai at the League and one-shots half of Ash's Pokemon. When Ash beats Tobias's first, he sends out a Latios! Who then wipes the floor with Ash's remaining Pokemon before drawing with Pikachu. Nothing is ever explained about how Tobias had those two and he is never heard from again.
• Badass Decay: Turtwig. In his first major battle, he was able to beat a Rampardos that's more than four times his size. Then writers turned him into a Jobber to make Paul (and by extension, Infernape) look stronger. Torterra was meant to still be considered strong, but beating nobody except Team Rocket seriously weakened his cred.
• Base-Breaking Character: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The episode "Nosing 'Round the Mountain" is a case of this as Jessie goes sunbathing halfway through and is wearing a bikini for the remainder of the episode.
• Bizarro Episode: "Where No Togepi Has Gone Before!", in which an evil Togepi invades Team Rocket's new base and sends the entire cast to space for...some reason (featuring a cameo by a trigger-happy Rayquaza). About the most relevance it has to the overall series is that it definitively confirmed that Ash's Pikachu was male.
• Broken Base: See here.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After getting away with every horrible thing she did throughout Diamond & Pearl and just being a straight up nasty piece of work overall, it is beyond satisfying seeing karma FINALLY catching up to Pokémon Hunter J in "The Needs of the Three!" when her airship is crashed in Lake Valor and exploding with her still in it, heavily implying that she DIDN'T survive.
  • Ash finally beating Paul in the Sinnoh League with the same Chimchar (now Infernape) that he dumped many episodes back for being weak.
  • On the subject on Paul, his crushing losses to both Cynthia and Brandon is this as well especially in the former's case where the surrounding trainers were criticizing Paul's decisions and Brandon giving a fierce lecture on Paul about how he acts towards others.
• Character Perception Evolution: Paul was originally disliked for being similar to Gary without the fun personality, a massive Jerkass to any trainer and Pokémon he thought weak yet getting away with brutally defeating them while others defended his philosophy and parsed his strength as a trainer, and his redemption seen as too left-field and too little to be legit. Black and White starred to change as Trip was seen as an inferior replacement to Paul despite being nicer for being underwhelming in character and skill, his victories contributing to and relying on Ash regressing in competence. This, along with Ash becoming highly competent next series onward, caused many to now see Paul's victories and praise as better deserved due to his legitimate skill and had the payoff of forcing Ash to step up and achieve his aforementioned competence. This reevaluation also led fans to more notice Paul's mitigating nuances and compelling contrasts to Ash, which grew as the franchise shifted to Friendly Rivals which were seen as a major step down in interest and writing quality. These days, Paul is seen as a strong contender for Ash's best rival, with criticisms of Paul nowadays generally focusing on the writing surrounding him rather than the character himself.
• Complete Monster:
  • Cyrus, leader of Team Galactic, completely lacks the magnificence and genuinely good intentions that defined his game counterpart. Cyrus seeks to use the power of Dialga and Palkia to create a perfect new world at the knowing cost of the old one, and demonstrates a total Lack of Empathy in gathering the components for this plan, at one point ordering the hugely-populated Iron Island destroyed simply to kill Ash Ketchum and his allies. Ultimately, after having employed the equally-ruthless Hunter J toward his cause, Cyrus tortures Dialga and Palkia into creating a "new world" for him, and he promptly attempts to abandon all of Team Galactic to die with the old world so he can experience perfection alone.
  • Pokémon Hunter J is a remorseless poacher of Pokémon who hunts rare Pokémon, petrifying them and selling them on the Black Market. Hunter J has no compunction not only stealing from innocent trainers, but petrifying them as well and leaving them to die. Employed at numerous points during the season to capture innocent Pokémon—including by Cyrus—Hunter J dumps numbers of her own men off her ship without caring if they live or die; happily tortures people; and has her Salamence raze a densely-populated forest just to flush out and kill Ash.
• Creepy Awesome: Conway remains an Ensemble Dark Horse well after the end of DP due to his hilariously disturbing demeanor (a Badass Bookworm strategist frequently framed in Scary Shiny Glasses while speaking in a Creepy Monotone) and equally creepy awesome Pokémon.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Paul is meant to be a Deconstruction of competitive players, as while his training methods can be effective under the right circumstances, there is a fine line between Tough Love and animal abuse that Paul more than crosses with Chimchar. While he does grow out of it, the fact that his methods are shown to be effective despite his cruelty (more effective than Ash's for most of the series) potentially sends the wrong message.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Paul is easily the biggest Jerkass among Ash's rivals, releasing any Pokémon that don't meet his standards, insulting Ash at any given opportunity and acting cold toward everyone else he meets, and most notably having his entire team gang up on his Chimchar in an effort to force it into activating its Blaze ability (which is unusually powerful) and then rage-quitting on it and releasing it, effectively abandoning it out of disgust (everything that happened that day and the night before really soured Ash's opinion of Paul). Despite his jerkassery, he has a sizable fanbase on account of the excellent quality of his battles, high count of Jerkass Has a Point moments across the series, and Character Development similar to Silver by the end, to the point where he's part of a fairly popular ship with Dawn.
• Even Better Sequel: You can't get a universal sentiment with this fandom, but a fairly common opinion about Diamond & Pearl is that it took everything Advanced Generation did right (Ash being Older and Wiser, a secondary female protagonist whose quest alternated with Ash's, a more balanced focus on Ash's regional team including better handling of the regional bird, a subplot with the regional evil team, etc.) and combined them with more serialized storytelling and a true rival in the form of Paul, resulting in an even stronger season in the process.
• Fanon: Some like to think that the Dusknoir used by Conway during the Sinnoh League is the same one that the gang met and saved Conway from falling off a cliff in DP090 (Ghoul Daze!).
• Growing the Beard: Season 11, Battle Dimensions, marked the point when the TPCI English Dub stopped being overseen by TAJ Productions and began being worked on by DuArt. This switch resulted in a strong improvement in voice acting and directing and even allowed some of the 4Kids actors to return to the show, albeit most in different roles. While preferring the 4Kids cast from the first eight seasons is still a relatively popular opinion, the improvements in voice direction have caused most fans to see the TPCI cast as worthy replacements, rather than the Poor Man's Substitute they had been seen as in Seasons 9 and 10.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The episode with Aaron and his Beautifly features flashbacks to Ash's Butterfree, with Ash expressing a desire to see him again. Come Episode 136 of Journeys, he'll get his wish.
• I Knew It!: During Diamond & Pearl, the hints were pretty obvious that Ash and Dawn were eventually going to trade their respective Aipom and Buizel. It was always really questionable why Dawn was the one that captured Buizel when she already had Piplup as her team's Water-type, and Buizel being battle-hungry while Aipom enjoyed Contests just seemed like a better fit if their trainers were swapped.
• Memetic Badass: Brock's Happiny is well known for her comically ridiculous strength, pulling off ridiculous feats such as throwing massive boulders hundreds of feats in the air and lifting an entire frozen lake with her bare hands. As such, it's not rare to see fans treat her as a juggernaut that could effortlessly defeat the world's strongest Pokémon.
• Memetic Troll: Tobias gets this to the point he even received the Fan Nickname of "Trollbias", due to fans seeing him as an overpowered character coming out of nowhere who essentially only existed so Ash wouldn't be able to win at the Sinnoh League, regarding him as a troll both in-universe towards Ash and, in a meta sense, towards the audience.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Paul is written as a criticism of some competitive players, as he demonstrates a total Lack of Empathy, loves to gloat, and is strong enough to get away with it. A few of the less savory competitive players who otherwise cannot stand the show or its characters love Paul because they emotionally connect to him and see him as a role model, though how much of this is joking around is uncertain.
  • Similarly, Conway, who was intended to be a case of This Loser Is You. Again, it's rather botched in writing: if Conway's creepy attitude towards Dawn is meant to be bad and thus fans like him are bad too, then why does the anime staff go out of their way to show Dawn off?
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Pokémon Hunter J is always evil in all of her appearances, but in the "Pokémon Ranger and the Kidnapped Riolu" two-parter she really shows her cruelty when - besides her pursuit of the titular Riolu - she tries to kill Ash several times, complete with a Slasher Smile. First, she orders her Salamence to burn the surrounding forest and fire Hyper Beam and Flamethrower point blank; then, she has her Drapion attempt to crush him (leading to one of the few times Ash ever directly attacks a Pokémon); and finally, she ejects him from her ship at great height. She even says that she wanted to punish Ash personally and took pleasure in trying to kill him.
  • Team Galactic's (and Cyrus' in particular) comes when Cyrus orders Mars to blow up Iron Island (full of people and Pokémon) after Team Galactic have finished scanning Mt. Coronet, and he sported a Slasher Smile when he gave that order. The reason behind this order? Just to make a statement about Team Galactic and the "new world". The guy's an Omnicidal Maniac par excellence, after all. Cyrus' plan to destroy the universe and create a new world in his image qualifies, too.
• More Popular Replacement: Dawn is seen as a more refined version of May from the previous series. She takes much of what fans liked about May and ironed out many of the flaws with the latter's Contests — most notably May's tendency to always pass the first round, regardless of whether or not she really deserved to. In contrast, Dawn struggles far more believably against her competition in Sinnoh (not to mention the effect those struggles had on her mentally), easing that criticism immensely. Combine that with increased plot focus, more creative Contests, and a likable yet still distinct personality, Dawn is typically held in high regard among Ash's companions.
• One-Scene Wonder: The evil Togepi from DP142 (Where No Togepi has Gone Before!) is quite memorable as the star of what is considered by many fans to be one of the best Filler episodes of the series. Some even wishing that this Togepi was caught by Dawn to have her train it up to a Togekiss rather than being given one for free just a few episodes out from the Grand Festival.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The otherwise well-received Sinnoh League arc is overshadowed by fans' distaste for Tobias, who is suddenly introduced, uses Legendary Pokémon on his team (which is seen as a Cheese Strategy by those who play the games), and curb-stomps Ash with just two of his Pokémon (Darkrai and Latios). The result is a widespread (and not unreasonable) perception that the writers threw in an Invincible Villain at the last moment as an excuse to make Ash lose the league, and Tobias becoming one of the most disliked league victors in the anime's history.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Hunter J is one of the more frightening villains due to the fact that her goals and personality are much more realistic, being used to demonstrate the harm caused by poaching in real life. In contrast to most of the show's villains, who are generally hammy and over the top, J is an ice-cold sociopath who rarely shows emotion, and she's not out to Take Over the World, she just cares about money and has no problem killing anyone in her way. This is lampshaded by Dawn in her debut appearance, who says it's shocking that people like her really exist.
• Ron the Death Eater: In canon, Tobias is simply a strong trainer who defeated Ash with two legendaries. Overpowered, yes, but he wasn't evil or even arrogant, and even compliments Ash for his effort in the end. In fanfics, he's often portrayed as evil, with some even going as far as to have him actively hurt or try to kill others, or at the very least, just a massive prick that massively relies on legendary mons to assist on his trainer career, and without them he's just a massive rookie. Lets just say it's extremely rare to see him portrayed in any kind of positive light. There even are people who believe Tobias is the Iron Masked Marauder, who by the way is a Team Rocket agent, despite the two characters looking nothing like each other.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Ash x Zoey has a surprising bit of fanart and fan-fiction despite how little they've interacted.
• Signature Series Arc:
  • The Hearthome Tag Battle Tournament, for its many memorable side characters and highly praised Chimchar storyline, creating a major shift in Ash and Paul's rivalry that would become the major part of it for the remainder of the series.
  • The Wallace Cup, which serves as the climax for Dawn's arc up to that point, and also features the return of May.
  • The Sinnoh League, which features the return of many of Ash's reserve Pokémon, the fan-favorite league battle between Ash and Paul, and the final tournament to close out the anime's classic era. For better or worse, the Sinnoh League is also known for the massive Diabolus ex Machina that is Tobias, who to this day is one of the most infamous characters in the anime's history.
• Strawman Has a Point: A minor moment in "Lost Leader Strategy". Maylene tried to get her Lucario to apologize to Electabuzz, Pikachu, and Piplup for using its Aura Sphere on them, and Lucario was made out to be in the wrong for not wanting to apologize. Sure, Lucario went too far, but those three Pokémon refused to stop fighting one another even after the other trainers tried to get them to stop.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: See here.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: See here.
• Wangst: Paul being the way he is because of his brother Reggie losing to Pyramid King Brandon and giving up his dream has been met with this response, as it doesn't even remotely justify anything. It doesn't help that Reggie doesn't have any angst over it himself, and only gave up his dream because he found a new occupation that he decided he liked better.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Paul’s relationship with Chimchar, and its subsequent healing from it, is horrifyingly similar to abusive relationships in real life, down to the repression, victim blaming and shaming, deeply-rooted trauma, as well as both physical and emotional abuse. In addition, Chimchar’s reaction to facing Zangoose in both Glory Blaze! and Tears For Fears! can only be described as PTSD.
• Woolseyism: In the original Japanese version, Dawn has the Embarrassing Nickname of Pikari, combining her name Hikari and pika, the onomatopoeia for sparkle, because her hair was once made crazy by a Plusle and Minun, and doubling as combining her name with Pikachu as a pun from the Electric Type connection. While there is no way to accurately translate that into English, the dub worked around it by making it "Dee-Dee" to fit the Pikari mouth movements, explaining that it means "Diamond Dandruff" because of how her crazy hair looked because of the Electric Types, allowing the concept to not be Lost in Translation.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor Chimchar was abandoned by Paul when it didn't live up for his standards. Luckily Ash took Chimchar under his wing.
  • Ash's Grotle/Torterra eventually. After it evolved, it hardly won any battles.
  • Riolu from the "Pokemon Ranger and the Kidnapped Riolu" two-parter. He just wants to go back to his kingdom, and spends the whole story looking like a sad puppy, takes a lot of abuse, and Hunter J is after him personally.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Paul was not a sympathetic character per se, but his character was defended and his strength as a trainer was praised on the principle of respecting those with different opinions, as Paul would eventually come to do himself — but before he finally got there, Paul routinely failed to respect different opinions by disrespecting those who disagreed with him or failed to live up to his expectations, and "different opinions" was no justification for his punishing treatment and abandonment of Chimchar for being weak (which has happened before in the series, but when it did it was treated unquestionably as the point the perpetrator was considered Beyond Redemption). The ostensible catalyst for Paul's redemption — his loss to Brandon and discovery that Ash had beaten him — had its effect weakened by Paul defeating Ash in a rematch almost immediately after. In the end, even if there was something to be said for Paul's ideas of how to train Pokémon, the show went beyond that and routinely tried to insist Paul was respectable when he generally wasn't.
  • Kenny is meant to be seen as a guy who secretly loves and admires Dawn despite his teasing. However, many fans feel that Kenny's Loving Bully tendencies lean far too much into the bullying angle to be seen as genuine affection. This perception is caused by how often Kenny embarrasses Dawn by sharing embarrassing stories from their youth and by constantly referring to Dawn as "Dee Dee", a nickname Dawn has made clear she hates. Compounding the issue, Kenny's final appearance has him try to force an ultimatum on Dawn by making a bet with Ash that states Dawn has to travel with him instead of Ash if he beats Ash in a Pokémon battle, something that screams Entitled to Have You. Although Dawn chooses to go with Ash anyway despite Kenny coming out on top in the ensuing battle, and he accepts this, it can sometimes be hard to reconcile with his earlier actions.