Pokémon anime

Problem is that we're not talking about Ash having just gotten off the boat, so to speak.

We're talking about Ash having gotten at least 6 of the region's badges going up against the main bad guys.

There's no reason to expect that a newly arrived Ash to be able to stand against Evil Team Grunts not named Jessie, James, or Meowth. But an Ash with a (nearly) full complement of Badges and Pokemon should be able to win against an Admin and/or give the Big Bad a hard enough time for the Supporting Leader to follow soon thereafter to finish the Big off.

EDIT: It makes sense that he wasn't able to do so in Kanto or Hoenn (the latter by way of the increased threat); though given that he only faced two Anime-only Admins in Johto, he should've been able to hold his own there (and, IIRC, he did do so vs Dr. Nambla). Sinnoh is where it starts to get egregious, but that particular instance is offset by his overriding role as one of three Chosen Ones; still, it probably would've been better for him to have actually wielded (i.e. directed) Azelf rather than just letting him do his thing automatically. The Unovan instances... yeah, the less said the better.

edited 30th Aug '15 6:25:56 PM by DonaldthePotholer

Anyone sometimes go back and read the earlier pages of this thread out of curiosity? This thread was created back when DP was airing in '08 so its interesting to see what people were thinking back then.

Some were still complaining about the new voices in the dub, others either really liked Dawn or didn't care for her much, people were speculating about how Ash would beat Paul in the league. Wondering if Brock would ever leave the show. Heh.

Being in the Pokemon fandom so long its sometimes fun to see how the anime really did play out compared to what people were thinking years ago when DP or prior were airing.

You know, that Giovanni battle does create Fridge Logic. Why would Giovanni allow Jessie and James to spend countless money on schemes to capture a Pikachu he was able to beat in one hit?

I may be in the minority on this but i really like Ash's X/Y Team besides the fact he has too many flying types. It is currently far better than his B/W Team

edited 31st Aug '15 5:08:25 AM by MalcolmBelmontS

But Ash never needs to fight the team villain leader. He has no stake on them. Compared to J who antagonizes them or Team Aqua which involved his Pikachu.

It's funny that you guys want him to do a cliche'd "hero must defeat villain" when he has no connections with them.

Also why do people forget that Giovanni allowed Jessie and James to continue their spiel because he himself witnessed getting blown away by Pikachu, all while under the influence of a mystic item that commands legendaries? I know it's from a shitty season but still...

edited 31st Aug '15 5:46:40 AM by Ookamikun

I find it hard to believe Ash would have no stake in stopping any of the game villains plans. At this point every game villain has been, at worst, a global catastrophe. Doesn't take much more than that to want to stop them.

I dig his XY team as well. Personally, I don't mind the extra flying types. XY as whole didn't really have that diverse of a lineup to pick from as a whole.

I pretty much like Ash's team in almost every generation, with the exception of BW since he caught too many pokemon and his starters didn't evolve. Also in Johto his team turned out rather lackluster until the writers evolved Phanpy and Cyndaquil in later regions. I did love Bayleef and Heracross though.

As a kid I loved his Kanto team and his AG team, and his DP team was probably his best developed. XY is shaping up nicely too.

Ash always gets a Regional Flying Type. It just so happens that with Kalos divided into three regions he had to get three flying types for each region.

Joking aside. I really don't get the problem here: The Three-Stage Regional Fire/Flying Bird, The Single-Stage Fighting/Flying Luchador Bird, and The Two-Stage Flying/Dragon Bat who's the "team baby". They're all unique and can be easily differentiated by their other types.

If it were something like Pidgeot, Fearow, and Farfetch'd. Three Normal/Flying Birds I could understand the complaint.

edited 1st Sep '15 12:16:42 AM by WorldTurtle2

Agreed, everyone ignores that Charizard is part flying type. Did anyone complain when he had Pidgeotto and Charizard in Kanto...two flying types? No obviously, because people totally ignored Charizard being a flying type in the show.

Also in DP, 3 of Ash's Pokemon were also ground types, Torterra, Gliscor, and Gible.

He also had two water pokemon at the same time in Orange Islands, both Squirtle and Lapras. Not to mention both Bulbasaur and Chikorita/Bayleef for more than half of Johto.

edited 1st Sep '15 12:20:11 AM by precita

The way I see it: Talonflame is the Fire Type (especially since both times he evolved had him being set on fire), Hawlucha the Fighting Type, and Noibat is the Flying Type (because of the emphasis on his Flying ability or lack there of being a new born. Which I feel was done to avoid making him look like a Replacement Scrappy for Ash's other Dragon who had just been recently released.)

edited 3rd Sep '15 10:34:56 AM by WorldTurtle2

Let's be honest the only good member of Ash's team in B/W was Krookdile

That's because they never directly confront him or his friends. At most, their hirelings directly confront him, and defeating them indirectly affects the villain's plans. You can even see it in the films - he only confronts the villain because they directly go after something related to him.

And besides, you already have champions doing the global heroic work. And superheroes exist in Kalos.

edited 1st Sep '15 5:11:28 AM by Ookamikun

Don't get me wrong, I don't want Ash to do anything about the game villains I just find fault in your reasoning.

I really wish Ash didn't get all the starters in BW. I know they did it to mimic the OS but there was no need for it.

I get the feeling Oshawott would have evolved if it was Ash's only BW starter since he always has one starter that evolves. If I recall Iris wanted to capture Tepig when she first saw it so she could have gotten it, and Snivy could have gone to Cilan because uh...they're both green? Heh.

I don't have an issue with Ash not getting all 3 starters every region. I was actually disappointed that didn't happen when I was watching Pokemon Advance as a kid. Of course now I'm uncaring if he does get them but I'm not against that never happening again.

I remember being oddly excited when I saw May choose Torchic in the first Hoenn episode when it originally aired back in 2003. I was like, "Wait if she gets Torchic, that means Ash isn't getting one too, right?" and it made me think, "Hey, May is just like Ash, she's a beginning trainer like Ash was in Kanto!" etc.

Back then the whole idea of Ash's travel companions ever getting a lot of screentime was unheard of because Misty/Brock and Tracey were the only other characters who existed at the time. I certainly didn't expect May to get as much screentime as she did, they could have just had her as a tag along who carried Torchic in her arms the same way Misty did with Togepi. Thank god that didn't happen.

It was all very refreshing at the time, especially back then since it was the first new saga after the original series and everything was changing for the first time.

Oh yeah I agree. Part of why I have such a soft spot for Ash's Hoenn crew was that it was the first time his whole team really got fleshed out.

Ditto. I just wish he had caught one more Hoenn Mon. If only to round out the team since Pikachu's moved on. With only five members they're one short a full team of six.

Ooka: Incorrect. He was captured and taken to Maxie's office in the Aqua/Magma climax; whether this was because Pikachu had absorbed the Red Orb before hand or he absorbed it there I don't remember. And IIRC he confronted Cyrus to rescue the Lake Trio; they just didn't battle. Same with Getheis and Reshiram, though in that case it definitely wasn't necessary to do more than break Colress' machine.

Effectively, this is the problem of having an Audience Surrogate in an adaptation of a series where^note with one controversial exception The Player Character Does Everything and everyone else has Bystander Syndrome to some degree:^note though if Ash were replaced every generation, the problem would arguably be worse in that we'd have an army of Boring Invincible Heroes, each one being rotated out per generation

• On the one hand, if you don't have the AS directly involved in the climaxes, then you violate The Stations of the Canon. Remember, this is effectively a series of 22 minute advertisements, though its effect is nulled by the point of such a Play vs Evil Team battle, and you can't advertise the presence of an Evil Team without having some sort of resolution in mind.
• On the other hand, outside of Chronicles^note which dealt with past heroes and The Legend of Thunder,^note which was the original 4th movie prior to Executive Meddling repurposed with Suspiciously Similar Substitutes, we didn't have another Hero appear in his own adventures until Alain. So if the Champion went up against the Evil Team Leader without Ash's assistance,^note whatever that is worth, we'd probably get only 5 minutes of that fight if that. And nobody wants such a climactic moment to happen Offscreen.^note Cough*Mew*Hack*Two*Cough*Returns.

Thus, the compromise: Apart from Gen I, the Anime still had Ash present at (most of) the climactic battles,^note Or a proxy in the case of B2W2, but had him in one of two roles:

• For Gens 2 & 3, he was an Action Survivor. Given that he only had a couple of journeys under his belt at the time, that made sense then.
• For Gens 4 & 5(.5), his role was to trigger the Instant-Win Condition. In the former, he had a personal stake (or at least one thrust upon him). The latter was more of a "fate of Pokemon & Society" thing.

Perhaps what we need is a Little Hero, Big War scenario: Ash still takes Thursdays and has a Rogues Gallery of JJ&M, Cross Through Admins, Rivals, and the occasional Filler Villain, while one Sunday a Month contains the Evil Team developing their plot and battling League Officials and/or said Rivals along the way. And even if Ash and his rivals aren't involved in the takedown of the evil teams, the plots should all link up at the Inevitable Tournament.

And for those who say that the Evil Teams shouldn't be in the Anime at all... well I do have to admit that for all the problems Best Wishes had, the absence of Team Plasma in the arc proper was relatively minor. But, to butcher the Theory of Narrative Causality, "Things happen in an adaptation because the source material says they should."

edited 1st Sep '15 6:59:06 PM by DonaldthePotholer

Pokémon Calendar 2016◊. Greninja confirmed

I think the evil teams being taken out of the anime would be for the best actually. Nothing's really being done with them except half-assed attempts at adapting the game plots, and Ash can just be antagonized by Jesse, James, and Meowth plus a Canon Foreigner or 2.

edited 2nd Sep '15 9:19:16 AM by VeryMelon

2016 is bound to be the last year of the Kalos journey. With the 7th Gym this fall I imagine the league will happen around summer. I'm guessing we'll have another secondary arc like Battle Frontier or Orange Islands after the Kalos quest ends.

Greninja yeah!

Melon: Probably true, but JJ&M have themselves fallen into irrelevancy.

I'd actually rather a system like comic serials wherein you split the episodes between Ash and varying regional figures/rivals (alternating per week) with Fifth Week Events featuring former party members. Such a schedule could be modified for long battles and suspended for Tournament Arcs and/or the main battle against the evil teams. Ash himself probably wouldn't have much to do with the latter, (that would be for the Regional Champ, one or two Gym Leaders, and likely the Major Rival,) but he and maybe a lesser Rival or two would Cross Through that plot on occasion.

Other than that, Ash and the Rivals can do what Ash usually does when Team Rocket's not in the picture. Somewhat of To Be a Master meets Slice of Life.

On a side note, the more I think about it, the more I find the possibility that Ash's adventure this time around plus the Mega Evolution arc combine to form a Prequel to the game itself with Calem as the hero interesting. Maybe future seasons can take the opposite tact: The Champion and/or the Major Rival who, in this case, would be a Player Character Surrogate have already taken down the game's Big Bad but some of the general Admins are still at large causing trouble (Shut up, you two!) EDIT: which Ash and some others would resolve.

In essence, don't follow the game's Metaplot but build around it.

Oh, and for those who want to see Serena battle, a recently revealed title gives some hope. My chief question is this: Since Serebii.net said that Shauna will only be in the following episode, who will Tierno's battle partner be for the scrimage against Ash and Serena?

edited 3rd Sep '15 6:53:44 PM by DonaldthePotholer