YMMV / Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire

• Ass Pull:
  • During the battle against Tate and Liza, Pikachu uses "Thunder Armor", an improvised move that has him use Thunder on himself and Swellow to increase their power and speed, and enables them beat Lunatone and Solrock. The technique comes out of nowhere with no real foreshadowing, doesn't follow the show's internal logic, and is never used again afterward.
  • At one point, May had Bulbasaur use a Razor Leaf to divert an incoming Fire Blast. No explanation is given for how this works, as the leaves should burn up due to the fire.
• Base-Breaking Character: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Broken Base: See here.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Harley is often softened up because he's extremely popular and over-the-top, to the point that James even said he wore leather pants in the PUSA dub. His sheer flamboyancy garners him quite a fan base, even if in-universe, most attempts at being pleasant are purely manipulation to fulfill his vindictive (and hard to define) obsession with destroying a ten-year-old girl.
• Growing the Beard: While the Hoenn saga is largely considered So Okay, It's Average by most fans, the final year's Battle Frontier arc is considered a significant increase in quality and one of the anime's biggest highlights. It's praised for its improved pacing with reduced filler, abundance of Continuity Nods and Fanservice, addressing previous writing flaws from May's Hoenn-era Contests, excellent introductions to next-generation Pokémon, and giving Ash his greatest official achievement until his Alola League victory.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the final episode, Max is distraught over the group going their separate ways, this causes Ash to comfort Max by promising they’d meet again and even battle when Max is old enough to be a trainer. Max would end up being the only companion of Ash who would never get a reunion with him in a later series (aside from Goh, who was Ash’s last companion overall) before Ash was retired as the lead in favor of Liko and Roy. This episode even marked Max’s last speaking role in the franchise due to his Japanese VA retiring, and May's Japanese VA being forced to retire due to troubles with her vocal cords.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Some people can't help but find it funny that after Misty's departure as a main character of the series, Brock sorta replaced her as the Water-type specialist due to his captures of Lotad and Mudkip during the Hoenn journey. It's part of the reason that some fans wanted Brock to catch that Sharpedo he befriended in AG019 just to continue the "Brock only catches Water-types" theme.
• Magnificent Bastard: Brodie, the Man of a Thousand Faces, is a thief initially under Team Magma's employ. Disguising himself as a scientist named Millie, Brodie steals data on Groudon and Kyogre from the Weather Institute, successfully fending off Team Aqua in the process. After Team Magma's dissolution, Brodie becomes a lone thief, stealthily nabbing the Ribbon Cup while it was being transported to the Hoenn Grand Festival. Evading attempts at capturing him, Brodie eventually surrenders the trophy willingly before escaping justice.
• Memetic Badass:
  • It was not rare to see Ash pulling really ludicrous feats of physical prowess such as leaping dozens of meters into the air or lifting and chucking large wooden logs as if they weighted nothing. This led many fans to jokingly treat Ash as basically superhuman.
  • Jessie also gets this treatment due to the infamous scene of her beating up her soon-to-be Seviper in a complete No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, with fans joking about her ability to do the same to the strongest Pokémon around.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: When it was airing in the West, all discussions on the Battle Frontier arc were squared solely on the fact that the voice actors for just about every character (the narrator,^note The original narrator voice, Rodger Parsons, had already left the series prior to the recasting incident, and it was what happened to reinstate him after Mike Pollock was let go as the narrator Wobbuffet, and Pokémon that kept their Japanse voices were the only members of the main cast that remained) got unceremoniously fired upon 4Kids Entertainment losing the license. Most fans saw the new voice actors as inferior replacements with constant comparisons made to the old voice actors. The fact this actor switch was done as a cost-saving measure, and none of the cast was warned ahead of time added more fuel to the fire. While hatred for the Pokémon Company International's dub cast would die down with time as the new actors grew into their roles and a few old actors were eventually rehired, there still exists a Vocal Minority that swears off everything dub related after the 8th Movie due to these unsavory circumstances.
• Salvaged Story: The two previous Pokemon Leagues had plenty of uses for usually underused members of Ash's Pokemon from his whole journey, standouts being Kingler, Heracross, or Muk. The Hoenn League averts this however, with Ash deciding to stick only with the team he built in Hoenn, leading to the battles losing a lot in variety, repeating a lot of beats of the previous seasons. The Battle Frontier arc feels like a way to compensate for this, given Ash swaps his team with each Frontier Brain fight with Pokemon from his past.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: In fanwork, Harley is frequently shipped with Tucker even though the two have never interacted, because they're both flamboyant, attractive, and Ambiguously Gay young men from the same era of the series.
• So Okay, It's Average: In time, a consensus has formed that this was a decent season held back from being among the show's best by a few glaring flaws. Pluses include strong character development for 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. Cons include Ash's lack of a rival, the mishandling of the Team Magma & Team Aqua arc, and an abundance of formulaic filler.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: See here.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: See here.
• Vindicated by History: When the series was airing its reception at best was overall lukewarm, with many considering it stuck in the shadow of the first generation for numerous reasons, such as Misty and most of the previous Pokémon being dropped from the cast, May gaining contest victories too easily, the mishandling of the Magma vs Aqua Arc, and Max being The Load. However, with time the Kanto Saga would undergo Hype Backlash and the anime would have series far more controversial than Ruby & Sapphire, which would cause a reevaluation among fans. Ruby & Sapphire would now be highlighted as being one of the funniest seasons of the show, while still allowing for superb Character Development for Ash and May and increasing the anime's focus on battles and strategy. Later series improved upon the foundation of the new formula established here, which would cause many to see its flaws as growing pains rather than major issues. While it’s rare for anybody to list Ruby & Sapphire as their favorite series, its reputation has increased exponentially since its initial airing.
• Writer Cop Out: After a big deal is made out of Ash losing to Brandon in their first two battles as a result of Brandon using the move Lock-On in conjunction with a powerful move, Ash wins because… Brandon’s Regice conveniently didn't know the move Lock-On.

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