Pokémon anime

Kinda just a symptom of being from the original series tbh. It took them way longer than it should've to realize they could actually use those 100+ episodes to develop their supporting cast.

Hell, the main rival Gary only battled Ash once prior to settling things at the Johto League. And said battle wasn't even in the Kanto arc. It took them an absurdly long time to figure out how to write a proper rivalry.

There are rumors that they might have settled things at Kanto back when the original ending for the series was set to happen, but we do not know if Ash and Gary were really set to battle in the Indigo League.

Seems like there was preview of Horizons's next Story Arc at the end of the most recent episode, and a definite appearance of Penny (alongside the Elite Four) and possibly Geeta handing out the Tera Orbs to the protags.

As for today's ep (or I guess yesterdays), Spinel seems like he's a bit tougher than Amethio. He gave Friede a much harder time.

Then again, Spinel seems to be more of a planner, while Amethio is pure brute force. It's their differing methods that seem to be the key.

Having a villain like Coral have a Pokemon who knows Self-Destruct is such a power play. Things are turning out bad? Just make your partner explode n front of the enemy. Not even legendaries are immune to that.

Makes me wonder if the Explorers will get Rayquaza.

TheScrappy.Pokemon:

• Melvin the Magician from "The March of the Exeggutor Squad" is well-remembered by fans for all the wrong reasons. He's made out to be a sympathetic, aspiring magician, but throughout the entire episode, he repeatedly takes advantage of Ash and co. for his own gain, including having a hypnotized Ash catch him all of his Exeggutors. The moment that caused Melvin to lose all sympathy from the fanbase is when he announces that he plans on using his Exeggutors to hypnotize the entire town into visiting his magic show, and even after the Exeggutors go on a rampage in said town, Melvin is still Easily Forgiven by Ash despite how much he used him, which left an extremely bitter taste in fans' mouths.

While he's hated by fans, The Scrappy requires they still have presence in/be off discussed by fans as opposed to just being ignored out of dislike. The Samurai is a Scrappy because despite his dislike he's still a memorable part of the work oft brought up in fan material even if just to bash.

Melvin this is the first I've of this so it seems more like ignored for his unlikabily than hatedom, Designated Hero or Unintentionally Unsympathetic better fitting. Thoughts?

Melvin shouldn't be either Designated Hero since he was effectively the antagonist of the (single) episode. He was a pathetic performer who could evoke pity at first. However, once he knew what Exeggcute could do, he wanted to capture a bunch of Exeggcutor so that his audience would always applaud him. Then again, once his own Exeggcute evolved and started a hypnosis battle with the other Exeggcutor, Melvin quickly learned that Evil Is Not a Toy.

Given that this episode was part of the Shudo era, you could say that Melvin was yet another example of Shudo's "Lost Generation" influence, so I don't think that Unintentionally Unsympathetic works either. And Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain doesn't work because this is a case of him being Not So Harmless. I'd say that he's just a Loser Antagonist which is assumed to be a redundancy.

EDIT: And the few times that Melvin is discussed, it's more towards his "methods" of "villainy", but he's outclassed in that by a Pokemon species. Conversely, Samurai likely suffers from First Cour "Wins" enhancing his scrappyhood.

Now, there may be some residual effect of this being the episode where Charmander first evolved, leading to him growing up too fast, marking Melvin as a downplayed Unwitting Instigator of Doom, but I'm not sure how much of the fanbase connected those dots.

Edited by DonaldthePotholer on Mar 25th 2024 at 10:42:24 AM

Weird question that's kinda sorta on topic.

Do we know if the Brave Olivine/Asagi is a hot airship?

Or does it use maybe helium?

Been on a bit of an Airship kick and I got to wondering about it.

The Brave Olivine is essentially a boat that was given a Zeppelin balloon on top. And it's not like any airship you've seen, past or present because of one thing... the engine system.

That engine at the back of the Brave Olivine is powered by coal, as seen with Carkol and Slugma being there in the logical roles. There is only one engine that uses coal, and it's a steam engine. Which makes sense since steam power in the Pokémon world is very easy to make for a cheap price. But really, there exists no airship that I know of that uses steam engine.

As for the balloon itself, it's likely full of helium since the purpose of the balloon is to lift everything else and the show makes it clear that any opening on the balloon is pretty much grounding the vehicle forever.

Plus, you need to walk through the balloon to get to the Pokémon battle arena. Walkways between helium gas bags inside the giant balloon are the only way to do it safely because oh boy, you do not want to be walking inside a balloon where the air is superheated.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 26th 2024 at 8:27:10 AM

huh.

I wonder if helium is less rare in the Pokemon world.

Probably there are two or three Pokemon that produce it waiting in the wings, really.

If there are Pokemon making the helium, then it's likely we haven't met them yet. Which ones do you think they are?

Edited by 6f5e4d on Mar 27th 2024 at 6:34:08 AM

Probably will have to wait a generation or two to make one, unless the Drifloon line can share something.

Most real life Helium is the result of radioactive decay, which given the absence of (canon) nuclear Pokémon or nuclear anything, are not part of the setting such it gives an unintentional world building reason.

Relating to my prior question about Pokémon:

• Tommy's parents from "The Kangaskhan Kid" are some of the most detested one-shot characters in the entire series. In just one flashback alone, their sympathy goes out the window when Tommy's dad dangles Tommy out the window of an airborne helicopter and ends up dropping him with little concern. They do appear to care for their son's whereabouts, and karma does repeatedly strike them for how much hell they put Ash and co. through, but their collective irresponsible parenting ends up getting rewarded by reuniting and living in the wild with their son, when they're the last people Tommy should be around. The fact that the story plays them up to be sympathetic only adds to their hatedom, as their idiotic parenting and selfish attitudes are meant to be seen as positive qualities, when they're anything but.

They seems more like Designated Hero/Unintentionally Unsympathetic as they're more ignored by fans as opposed to hatedom/oft bought up about it. Thoughts?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 28th 2024 at 10:36:15 AM

The anime being quite a dark world in the beginning, means that a lot of characters of the day come across as jerks, and since First Installment Wins, many fans often encounter these characters and hate them because of their attitudes, though because they end up disappearing afterward, they never usually stick around long enough for the fans to keep that hatred active longer. And once Shudo's departure allowed The Pokemon Company to solidify a Lighter and Softer version of his vision as the definitive image of the anime, the characters of the day stopped being jerks. Alas, this may have lead to the idea of these characters being seen as unmemorable.

Keeping in mind that Ash was meant to be a Vanilla Protagonist at first, the characters of the day coming across as jerks was meant to give them greater notability under Shudo's vision.

Honestly, there are better human raised by Pokémon stories people turn to now. Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle comes to mind. The Kangaskhan Kid is just a weird episode squashed between the most viewed Pokémon episode ever (The Flame Pokémon-athon!) and the second most infamous banned episode of Pokémon (Legend of Dratini). It might as well not happened because of how skippable it is.

With that said, the parents are more of Unintentional Unsympathetic because their whole Disney Death sacrifice is supposed to show they do care about Tomo even if they aren't the best parents around.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 28th 2024 at 3:43:19 AM

What makes The Flame Pokémon-athon the most-viewed episode ever?

A good wacky race with Pokemon?

No one knows, it's the biggest ratings hit in Japan. Quoting Dogasu...

• Oh, and here's some random trivia for you. This episode, in Japan, earned the series its highest TV ratings ever at 18.6%. As in, no other episode of any of the various TV series was watched by as many people as this one. I don't know why, but I find it extremely interesting that a throwaway episode about pokemon running somehow became the franchise's top-rated show ever.

Either everybody loves Ponyta/Rapidash, or everyone just likes a good race.

Both could be true. It certainly was a very good episode.

Meanwhile, not only does Sprigatito evolve into Floragato, but Gibeon unveils a Shiny Zygarde.

Gibeon having a shiny Zygarde definitely carries a lot of implications. At the very least I can think of that this is prep-up for PLZA arc in the future.

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe Gibeon is a collector of Shiny Legendary Pokémon.

I am so behind on Horizons. Maybe I should watch 5 episodes a day to catch up. Only watched 8.