Pokémon anime

Well he did catch a Palpitoad.

Did I miss-type somewhere? I said fully evolved, Palpitoad is a middle-stager.

edited 29th Oct '14 3:39:44 PM by WorldTurtle

Snorlax shouldn't count because of the retroactively part.

He also caught a Beedrill in an early season even thought he gave it away. There's a lot of other times he borrowed/traded, but those weren't caught by him even if he fully commanded them respectively. Like when he was given a Raichu to train temporarily.

Not sure if those others should count, though.

World Turtle: None of those happened near the end-gyms, though; the closest was Muk and that was before the 7th Gym. If there's any precedent, it was set by Dawn with Togekiss. Which lends more towards Serena getting an 11th-Hour Ranger of that sort, though with her collection rate, it'd be the standard Sixth.

Of course, precedent seems to be ignored by this series, usually to good effect.

Still, Ash getting any Pokemon late-game without long-term development strikes me as off because of what it'd entail:

• If the relationship is cold at first, it's a reprise of Charizard but without the Charmander phase.
• Otherwise, it's Instant Friends with Cthulhu which may lead to God-Mode Sue. If this is going to be Ash's Victory campaign, I'd rather it not be tainted by that.

There's not enough time to get in requisite development. Unless we're doing the "Evil Threat after the Gyms" plot-style again. Which, given that there's been no setup yet,^note Malamar notwithstanding, I don't see ending well.

Precita: I will grant that Dawn is the female companion with the most Character Development, given her struggles with self-confidence and her interactions with Pokemon, to say nothing about those with her rivals and Ash; but I would argue that Serena is devloping rather nicely. And, no, not in the physical manner, but in an emotional one.

There have been some parallels between Serena and May which warrant examination: They are both starting trainers who, unlike Dawn, don't want to follow in their parent's footsteps, even though they have excellent potential to do so. The difference between them is how this aspect of their character plays out. With May, once she saw Contests, she was hooked. She also first saw them around the time of the first Gym. Serena didn't know about Pokevision until 20 episodes in, and about Pokemon Performance until the Summer Camp arc. Granted, it may end up like May's situation in which she's hooked instantly, but the fact that she'd only be so around episode 55, as opposed to 15, at least allows for a sense of breathing room, actual development or not. And even then, there were several minor developments hinting towards this path, such as Fenekin not wanting to get her fur dirty.

And with that, the time is ripe for me to point out something that I've wanted to for the past couple of weeks: That there are so many contrasts between Serena and Misty that it's uncanny, effectively creating a meta-Betty and Veronica dynamic between them. (Granted, other posters may have hit on this earlier, but I like to do things in-depth.)

Misty is the sister of a trio of performance artists and thinks of them as overly flighty, though some of this is due to their treatment of her. She strikes out on her own in protest of this treatment and winds up meeting Ash on the road (when Pikachu destroys her bike). She professes that she'll be a stellar water Pokemon trainer, yet, apart from the Whirl Islands Tournament Arc, we don't see her taking any strides towards that goal. She also claims to follow Ash to make sure he pays her back for it and is rather Tsun towards him. These last two make her to be either an outright liar, somebody with no real clue as to how the world works, or vindictive and self-destructive.^note i.e., Her quest to become a Water-Master gets run aground when she's distracted by her own anger. It's notable that I interpret Shudo's blog posts on her as his intending the second option, supported by the fact that she Thinks Like a Romance Novel, though where he was going with that long-term we'll never know. Out of all the companions, including Iris, Misty's one of the only two thus far that ended with essentially the same situation as she started: bound to the Gym (though now as nominal leader as opposed to forgettable assistant) and her sisters' whims. Cilan's the other, and at least he A: has a hammy outlook on life, and B: was seen as the defacto leader of his sibling group from the start. Even the Togepi-based development was essentially nullified when she had to part with him and we didn't see the aftermath; Azurill seems to be Togepi's Replacement, but it didn't appear in the Mirage Pokemon OVA and Misty hasn't appeared since.

Serena is the daughter of a champion Rhyhorn racer who, as previously mentioned, doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. She starts her adventure upon learning that Ash is now in-region, but acknowledges that she has no other dreams. This last becomes a significant factor in her character during the Summer Camp mini-series. Prior to this, those looking closely see that she truly is a novice when it comes to adventuring, though she does not claim otherwise. She also has a more positive rapport with Ash, both as crush and confidant, though she still doesn't let Ash get away with selfish/extremely idiotic moments. The indications that she's about to get a purpose in life gives her development by default, though how much she gets remains to be seen.

In essence, Serena is the Anti-Misty. And while she presently has only about as much development as the average non-Dawn-companion, she's only been here for about 50 episodes/3 Gyms, so she still has time.

edited 29th Oct '14 6:59:06 PM by DonaldthePotholer

My point is Iris caught a Dragonite. So why can't Ash catch something that is fully evolved? He's an experienced trainer. Why does he always need to work from the ground up with basic stage Pokemon?

edited 29th Oct '14 7:55:37 PM by WorldTurtle

...But he has. Beedrill(even if given away), Muk, and Noctowl. Not counting middle evolutions, or special circumstances like temporarily having one. Or ones without evolutions(Megas aside), period.

Now, him catching another one would be cool.

If Ash caught a fully evolved Pokemon, it would depend on what kind of Pokemon on it was. If it was a fully evolved Pseudo, I'd be miffed. If it's something like a Vivillon, I wouldn't mind.

Right, he has, but not since the Original Series (And of those Muk was Oak'd and left there and Noctowl was kind of on the small side which might have got it a pass). Its just as far as speculation goes I don't see fully evolved Pokemon themselves ever suggested other then how far people think whatever Pokemon Ash has or might get will evolve too.

I think Aegislash would be a workable choice if they introduced one that has an Arthurian/Excalibur/Sword from the Stone characterization going and deeming Ash to be worthy.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:35:52 PM by WorldTurtle

To be fair on suggestions (and their suggestors), having fully-evolved Mons tends to bring about accusations of not merely Sue-dom, but of Hard Work Hardly Works - as in, rather than Ash working with a member of his team and it growing alongside him, he has it at full-power and has little needed to be done to work with it. Of course, for Ash this would be less shocking (and aggravating) for the fanbase, since he's been so well-established as a trainer and character, so one could feel that he'd be well-deserving of one (and with some time, he could train it). Heck, they handled it really, really well with Dawn and Togekiss considering how late in the game it happened and such (with her being so well-known and Princess Salvia admiring her,plus Togekiss being trained-up for being a Contest Mon, it worked).

This is a large part of the problem with Iris and Dragonite - it happens relatively early, is extremely random, feels like it was done just to give her a powerhouse of the Dragon-type to replace Excadrill in the role of Iris' main battler (though at least Excadrill got to get even with Drayden's Haxorus]]), and there was little time to really develop their bond. It doesn't help that: a) Iris' Character Development and growth as a trainer and battler was sparse up to that point (and in the future as well); and b) the immediate handling of Dragonite under Iris was done in such a way that only further fanned the flames, with him being the one Mon she used in the "World" (*cough*bullshit*cough*) Junior Cup and constantly Worfing his opponents (although the extreme minority of Iris' Hate Dumb ignore that Iris herself was embarrassed by her lack of control and deliberately used him because she hoped it would strengthen their bond...) That Best Wishes was essentially rushed at times - revealed to be because they'd only planned a 3-year series this time, saving the remakes for Gen VI (actually, do we even know if this series is meant to be 4 years long like AG and DP, or if they've completely abandoned that and it'll be 3 years...?) - didn't help as it meant there was less time for A Day in the Limelight and other developmental aspects to be thrown in at times... One thing additional Filler can do, if used right, is to devote time on the side for emphasis on characterisation (see Dawn's Heroic Blue Screen of Death after her 2nd consecutive Contest Preliminary loss, which ran as a B-Plot for a while) or to give smaller-but-beneficial growth aspects to (a) character(s) by drawing a parallel to the plot-of-the-week (for example, Treecko learning Bullet Seed, his first Grass-type move, in that episode with that watermelon-tender who had taught it to her Grovyle by having it practicing spitting watermelon seeds).

Your analysis makes a lot of sense, and it helps explain both why I like Serena so much as a character and why the overall handling of her doesn't bother me so much as it does others... and why it puzzles me how so many are starting to dislike her - especially those who call her a Mary Sue, utterly ridiculous; people seem to just like using that term to put down characters they dislike, especially girls, disregarding why the word originated and its purpose (which was a critique of characters who never face realistic conflict or obstacles in-story, which is not about power per se but about defining them as BELIEVABLE HUMANS. Granted I do think the writers might have pushed it a little too long in some areas (episode 30-something was, I think, her first ever official battler, and she took SO bloody long to make a capture - ironically enough, quite soon after she seems to have found her goal/dream, not too different from May's getting Wurmple the episode after she learned of Contests...)

Only downside to those examples is that, besides them being Out of Focus much of the time, none of them are 3rd-stage Mons. Still, it's interesting that the writers were willing to do such for Dawn and Iris, yet don't seem to be considering the possibility for Ash...

As a side note: one trend introduced by Iris' Dragonite (one thing that's actually good about its presence) is that, for the first time, a character in the main cast made a capture that was not one from the Generation(s) whose game(s) was/were being released at the time - Clemont's Luxio is a follow-up of this new trend. Of course, the writers could have in both cases used a different Mon (something other than Dragonite for Iris, like Altaria or Flygon or a lower-stage of the Bagon line like Shelgon - anything besides the overexposed Dragonite - and an Electrike/Manectric or other for Clemont), but that doesn't mean it's a bad trend to have.

Given that ORAS was already announced by that point, giving Clemont an Electrike would not establish a trend of "out-of-print generation getting a mon on the team;" Electrike would've served as the quasi-mascot of ORAS in that case. Better that than Blaziken, though.

edited 30th Oct '14 7:45:33 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Speaking of Blaziken, do you think the next time we see Meyer's it will have its Megastone somewhere on it?

I know that - I was simply commenting in general. I listed multiple ones (for Iris' Dragonite as a replacement) that were out of Gen. V because it was the only Gen that had games, due to other Generations lacking any remakes; despite mentioning the "new trend", I wasn't strictly adhering to that with my list there. For a theoretical Luxio replacement, I was simply too lazy to try and list any others (or think of them), so I just left it to the imagination.

The one consistency I left with both was to NOT have any lines from the "current" Gen. in each case (V and VI); not too hard really, Gen V is large but has few Dragon-type lines, and Ge. VI is tiny with Clemont having all its Electric-types already! Meaning that besides Manectric, I could have listed any others such as Joltik, Mareep/Flaafy, Electabuzz, Tynamo or even Voltorb; I just wasn't bothered is all.

Why are your posts always so amazing? I almost have a tear in my eye upon seeing your attack on Iris and Dragonite, and defense on Dawn's Togekiss and Serena. I'm glad people like you exist. We need to catch up soon.

edited 30th Oct '14 11:50:10 AM by bubblesishot46853

My theory about why the writers gave Clemont a Luxio over Electrike is taking into consideration how Mega Evolution works needing time to develop (or redevelop in this case) the bond between Trainer and Pokemon and by the time the plot gets to the point that the main characters will start using Mega Evolution-perhaps against Team Flare-the need to promote ORAS will be over (perhaps because Z or X2 & Y2 will be out, and have Mega Luxray since people said the ORAS demo didn't have one)

IIRC people called Serena a Mary Sue for doing what pretty much any COTD Trainer could do: Send Team Rocket Blasting Off. Clearly some people just hate her.

If Ash does get Skiddo and Goomy thus rounding out his team for now. I could see the writers either giving him one more Kalos Pokemon later between the 7th-8th gym like Snorunt or Gible. Or they'll leave the team as is so when they get to a theoretical Mega Evolution Filler Arc Ash can bring in Charizard/Sceptile/Whoever, the Kalos Mons will have hopefully gotten satisfactory development no one will complain when they rejoin the cast.

edited 30th Oct '14 11:01:57 PM by WorldTurtle

Not sure if anyone posted this already, but here it is.

Birds migrate. What does this have to do with anything? Mega Pidgeot. Forget about Charizard, Heracross, Sceptile, Glalie, or something totally new. Bring back the one whose defining trait was her loyalty to her trainer. If there was ever an opportunity to have a reason to bring back Pidgeot this would be it. Please, people who produce/write/manage the anime don't waste this chance!

edited 30th Oct '14 11:29:15 PM by WorldTurtle

Pidgeot was a girl?

Sorry, I picked up the habit of referring to Pidgeot as a girl because 'she' is often identified as such in fics I read. Out of curiosity, as I don't like using 'it' either, if I used 'he' or 'his' would you have asked if Pidgeot was male?

Once again: I would love it if Ash's Mega would be Pidgeot. It was the Merchandise-Driven nature of the show that caused Pidgeot to be left behind and all but forgotten in the first place and it has now given Pidgeot a chance to make a return through Mega Evolution.

edited 31st Oct '14 12:43:48 AM by WorldTurtle

Not gonna happen.

There have been multiple opportunities to bring it back, and all have been ignored. The original writers didn't care about Pidgeot, and by now, there must be newer writers who care even less.

Just not gonna happen, ever.

Yeah, I'm behind that theory - it makes sense in a way, especially if Luxio evolves and ends up Clemont's best battler (alongside maybe Heliolisk); I can definitely see Bunnelby not evolving (doesn't mean he won't, but Diggersby might be too Gonk, and the younger audience is kept in by the Badass Adorable), and I think Chespin's going to essentially be the equivalent of Brock's Mudkip (that is, he'll evolve once, very late into the story, and stay there when XY ends - and Clemont most likely leaves).

I was more stating that Electrike would be good for now as well as later on, giving Clemont a Mon who gets to represent the current Gen. and then a new Mega Evolution... But frankly, I don't mind all that much overall with it. My main issue was the subjective sort, that I feel like Electrike never gets to really stand out while Luxio does get quite a bit (besides Wattson's episodes, Electrike and Manectric are reduced to minor roles, while the Shinx line get both more constant appearances overall AND more significance...) If they handle it well, then I have no problems with it.

(BTW, have you noticed that the current Gen. has yet to introduce any Mega Evolutions? They've all been of previous Generations, pretty much substituting for how the even-numbered Gens have always done the "Extended Family" thing with older Gens...)

As for Ash, I think he will not get his 6th team member (and 5th Kalosian Mon) until at least after the 6th Gym. Judging by the rates at which the story is going, he'll get his 5th between the 4th and 5th Gyms - if it's a Grass-type, it'll help against Clemont. After that, I daresay we won't see another addition until after Valerie and maybe even Olympia (but before Wulfric). And he might change his team after the League, so he might add more Mons/bring in old one(s) to give us variety (like Phanpy and Aipom).

Actually... am I the only one who thinks that Kalos will be expanded in a later game of Gen. VI - either in a remake or in a sequel)? Because in the sequel it would show "South Kalos" (the region we got is only the North France territory - I checked - so we could get) as new areas from the get-go, a la B2W2; in a remake, it would possible be part of an extended post-gae experience. And if you consider all of that... It gives Ash something to do post-League, before he returns to Kanto (and preps for his Gen VII adventure), and would keep with using further focus on Mega Evolution (rather than going to Hoenn for a random reason or something...)

Anyone else think along those times?

I'm... not that good, really. *blushes* I could certainly cut down the excessive wording at times, and such, and it just seems like common sense to me, my reasoning...

But one thing to note, and I hope you dont misunderstand me. I was not critiquing Iris and Dragonite directly; I was going at the writers, because it's their own faults that the writing had this response from the audience. It's not that they owe us - a writer must create a story they feel is good, not just pander to the audience - but they do need to respect our intelligence. They need to realise that Iris' characterisation and growth is all over the place; that with a few exceptional episodes and moments (such as the Deino-at-the-daycare episode), it feels like she is handled

To me, Iris seems to be the epitome of Unintentionally Unsympathetic in the eyes of the fanbase (at least in the West). Thing is that the writers intended her to be a Bratty Half-Pint - a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who was subject to Hypocritical Humour (the "such a kid" comments come to mind), but who was slowly maturing into an admirable person. And there are bits of this scattered about, no matter what you say: she cares about Axew and really wants to raise him to be a strong and brave Haxorus; she has a deep bond with Excadrill and never really stops using him in battle after they reconnect, and also cares about Emolga (the Clubsplosion shows how she cares for Excadrill after his humiliating loss to that Throh, and the episode where Emolga joined TR showed how Iris really loves her); and even Dragonite is supposed to be a Bruiser with a Soft Centre deep down, below that Hair-Trigger Temper. Not to mention that the show did at times get her on the receiving end of her humour (the famous "I thought Charizard was a Dragon-type" - Mega Evolution aside, she thought it was always a Dragon-type - being one example), and she really did have a number of nicer moments with Ash and Cilan both (she did the facepaint thing in his last Gym Battle, and was genuinely distraught in the Team Plasma finale when he and N fell down that hole...) So despite how big the hate can get, I really don't think she's as irredeemably bad as many people (yourself included, it would seem) appear to believe...

The problem is, a lot of the time the writers did not live up to what they promised us. Much of the time, the humour was not effective, giving us a Jerkass with some Moral Dissonance that lead to Disproportionate Retribution (I seriously cannot defend the crossdressing episode as anything but Iris being petty, even if I can defend other instances...) Nor did they really break free of Hard Work Hardly Works a lot of the time, or utilise Show, Don't Tell efficiently: for the latter, they would claim that Iris was training Axew but showed very little of it, and thus very little growth in the little dragon as a character; playing into that, the former had the problem where Axew would seem to learn moves at the critical moment to win the battle/impress the opponent (the Club Battle bout against Luke, as well as the fight with Cynthia), yet he would never seem to use these moves again (Outrage never appeared again to my memory, and I only remember Dragon Rush being used once otherwise) and would thus stagnate... This gave the impression that Axew wasn't really growing and progressing at all, no matter that it was the point of his character (plus, his dream to evolve was only brought up once - if it was still valid and not Characterisation Marches One, why was it never again referenced?)

And Dragonite... ho boy, why exactly did the writers think that having a newly caught Mon No-Sell all of Ensemble Dark Horse Mamoswine's attacks and hand him The Worf Effect was in any way a good idea? Especially since such power should by all rights make him invincible - he has a weakness to Ice 4x - and yet when Krookodile has Dragon Claw (only 2x), it suddenly can do enough damage to him that he has a Freak Out (*facepalm*). That's not to say that a Power Level should ever be relied on in the strictest sense, but it's quite insulting to both Dawn and Mamoswine - while they worked hard to get where they were, the writers didn't bother to give Iris a Dragon (or something similar) that she could steadily build up the power of. Instead, they gave her a Crutch Character, and dealt Dawn a humiliating loss, because They Just Didn't Care about consistency and respecting characters - while Dawn's victory over May was a true Crowning Moment Of Awesome (especially since it validated her dreams after some major self-doubts, and May was an established Badass at that point), Iris getting to beat Dawn like that was... urgh!

I will iterate, once again, that I don't think this is her fault - it's the writers who had no idea how to write well! The writers could have handled Iris getting a Dragonite well - even in that form - if they did it right, and without stepping all over everyone else in the process (was there any purpose to him besides hastily reminding people she's a Dragon-master-in-training, and giving her a powerhouse because only the Ground/Steel-type Excadrill was actually powerful). But they did not. They had a great character concept, a fine idea, and they butchered it - and to fans who find such a character-type like Iris annoying by default, that is a death sentence all on its own. Unlike May and Dawn, it didn't feel like Iris was earning her accomplishments (and praise, as Drayden gave her to some measure later on) - it felt like it was being handed to her worse than what Ash sometimes got! That they elected to not have her "finish" some goal... well, Misty technically was a bit similar (didn't do much for her dreams on-screen), but the issue is that by this point, the writers should now better than to regress in writing like that... They should only be improving, using older stuff and building on it later - not repeating stuff from Gen. I, because while it was forgivable then because it feels like a "necessary step" in the growth of the story (a stepping stone, like Ash not winning all his badges for example), it can NOT be excused much later on. Animation Age Ghetto is never an excuse!

I don't know that Eileen Stevens' delivery in the dub does her version of Iris ay favours, either - I don't think Stevens is a bad voice actress, at most a mediocre one (no worse than Sarah Natochenny as Ash, after all), but while I don't dislike her Iris voice, I... cannot help feeling that she was perhaps rather miscast in the role. Because she makes Iris sound older than she's meant to be (10 years of age), it's less excusable when Iris acts like a brat. It's like Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion - his voice in the dub was originally too mature, and it made his "whininess" (problematic enough) look like Wangst rather than showing him as a young boy in a harsh situation... Voice acting is a big deal, a major one - you have to make the audience buy into your character, or else it falls flat and things go off the rails, badly, in Alternate Character Interpretation.

You are free to dislike Iris, even consider her one of your personal "least liked" characters if it comes to that. Just... try to be a little more objective at times. Recognise how much is the fault of writing, and how much the writers; don't pretend the better parts are non-existent (calling them inconsistent characterisation, as I do, is a different beast altogether), because that road leads to Hate Dumb. You are an intelligent person in your own right, so just try to keep this in mind and consider it even if you don't adopt a similar mindset, OK?

Sad as it is, I think you're right. Until such a time as the writers do decide to do this, there's no point... For my personal sanity (so as to shut out the accusations of Ash being a lying bastard - HE IS NOT!!), I'm just putting it all down to a blunder on the writers' part. Therefore: Pidgeot was going to wait for Ash, but found that the flock still needed her; they migrated, either before or after he returned; Ash looked offscreen, had a talk about this, and realised that he might not get to see his old friend again... But that doesn't mean that the memories were untreasured. And if they ever meet again, it will be a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming to end just about all of them.

We good on that one, then?

edited 31st Oct '14 7:58:17 AM by CaellachTigerEye

I know how you feel. I also wanted Pidgeot to return (my first ever battle was Pidgeotto vs Ekans and Koffing, so I kinda took a shy to him).

The poor bastard never got a break; came from a time when the flying types not only had mostly weak attacks, but also back when the flying types weren't even focused on in the plot.

They evolved it into a powerful form, then got rid of it in the same ep. They clearly didn't know what to do with him. It wouldn't be until Hoenn that they got better at doing stuff with all the mon and not just the starters for the most part.

Hell, even Pidgeotto's capture ep was shared with Caterpie, who was the much bigger deal. The poor bird was just a filler from the start. It's really miracle that it lasted as long as it did.

I'm just putting it all down to a blunder on the writers' part

Seeing Ash is a fictional character, everything he does 'wrong' can be blamed on the writers and of course that can be blamed on the merchandise driven nature of the series making them work with in those constraints in the first place.

I'm not whining or at least not intending too. All I'm pointing out is 'Hey Mega Pidgeot wouldn't be cool if they brought Ash's back for that?'. As for how it would get to Kalos, Birds Migrate in RL so they can use that. Yes, I know its unlikely they would bring back Pidgeot, but what's wrong with just having a brief moment of wishful thinking?

edited 31st Oct '14 12:34:01 PM by WorldTurtle