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All these examples are from the anime.
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Characters from the Pokémon anime that people feel could have had more appearances or development.
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!!!In General
* Any of the regional Evil Teams are always going to get the short stick in terms of appearances, pushed to the backburner in favor of the usual TerribleTrio from Team Rocket.
** In the original series, this even extended to Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket syndicate. Since [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness direct adaptions of the games]] wouldn't become common until [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesRubyAndSapphire Hoenn]], Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket barely get focus in the series adapting their games. Many felt like it was a massive missed opportunity that Ash and Giovanni never directly battled each other, or that so much of the anime was glossing over most Team Rocket plotlines. It wouldn't be until ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'' would the two finally fight each other in person; [[BrokenBase to mixed results]].
* Pokémon that could/should have been captured by one of the main characters because they were either likable Pokémon by the fanbase or because their development with a certain character made it look like they would fit together with that trainer perfectly. Some examples being:
** Haunter, Houndour, Larvitar, Hippopotas, Riolu, Scatterbug, Litleo, a shiny Phantump, Wimpod, and Dreepy and Drakloak for Ash.
*** ''Pokémon Journeys'' actually [[AuthorsSavingThrow starts to rectify this]] by giving him a Gengar[[note]](For those who feel that Ash not catching the Haunter way back in Kanto was a huge missed opportunity, especially since he ended up never owning a Ghost-type until now.)[[/note]] in Episode 16, and a Riolu[[note]](It never made sense for Ash to not have the Riolu/Lucario line when it's been shown time and time again that Ash has a connection to aura.)[[/note]] in Episode 21.
** Stantler and Sharpedo for Brock. In Sharpedo's case, it would have meant Brock catching 3 Water Pokemon in a row.
** Swablu for May -- this example is ''especially'' mean-spirited on the part of the writers, who had May care for the injured bird for an entire episode. When they finally tried to rendezvous with Swablu's flock, the flock was completely absent, causing May to offer to allow Swablu to join her team. The flock ''suddenly appears out of nowhere'' to prevent this.
** Mightyena and Ralts for Max.
** Grimer for Dawn. Another honorable mention for Dawn is that some feel it was a missed opportunity to not have her go after that one-off highly memorable evil Togepi. That way, the writers could build it up to eventually becoming a Togekiss rather than just outright handing Dawn a Togekiss a couple episodes out from the Grand Festival.
** Deino for Iris, particularly because the owner of said Deino returned ''at the last possible minute''.
** Flabébé and a stinkin' Tyrantrum for Bonnie.
** Dewpider for Lana, doubly so given that the Pokemon's evolved form is her signature in the games.
** Galarian Ponyta and Chloe who, while given a lot of advertisement push, ultimately did not join Chloe long term (though unlike most of the ones listed here, did get mentioned again later).
** Seadra for Goh, with more than a few fans finding Seadra's departure at the end of '88 to be odd and thinking the episode would have worked better with Goh evolving said wild Seadra into a wild Kingdra and catching it as a thanks for assisting it versus how the episode approached it.
* While the female protagonists are usually lucky enough to get plenty of focus, the male protagonists of their respective games tend to get screwed in that regard due to the show's strict focus on Ash. If they're lucky, they ''might'' get a cameo in a movie, but many viewers who view Ash as TheArtifact are dismayed with the anime's [[StrictlyFormula refusal to replace him]].
** In terms of which game protagonists have any significance to the anime: Obviously, Ash is Red's counterpart, and May, Dawn and Serena are all main characters. Ethan has his own anime counterpart named Jimmy, and Kris having Marina, while Lyra appears a few times in ''DP''. Brendan makes cameos in a few of the movies, and would logically be Birch's son since May is Norman's daughter, but Birch never mentions having a son to our heroes. Lucas also has some movie cameos, but nothing else. Leaf, Hilbert, Hilda, Nate, Rosa, Calem, Elio, Selene, Victor and Gloria all have nothing so far.
** And if we expand to include the rivals: Gary is obviously based on Blue, and Barry, Bianca, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor, and Hau appear as themselves. Silver makes one brief unnamed cameo in one of the openings, while Cheren is merely a Gym Leader with no connection to Bianca. Wally and Hugh don't even seem to exist at all. The Galar rivals' treatment remains to be seen.
* There is a view among fans, particularly on communities such as Bulbagarden, that starters not captured by Ash tend to be squandered by the anime. While this is not a universal opinion (you will not see it with, for example, May's Blaziken or Dawn's Piplup), the view is fairly prominent in regards to the Mudkip and Chespin lines in particular whom are seen to have been underused and thus underappreciated.
** It happens again in the ''Journeys'' series when it turned out that the writers had decided to have Goh catch all 3 of the Galar starters. Scorbunny not so much as it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be Goh's first Pokémon, and will be getting a lot of screentime for that reason. The Sobble and Grookey catches however were more controversial due to the catches happening later in the series where it had already been established by this point that Goh wasn't much of a battler, but more a catcher. As a result, people are left feeling that Sobble and Grookey aren't going to have much time to shine.
* Porygon and its evolutions have pretty much been banned from ever seeing the light of day in the anime due to the producers wanting to stay clear of anything that could bring up memories of the [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon infamous seizure episode]]. However, as more and more time passes since the incident, it increases the amount of fans who feel that enough time has gone by to finally allow for the Porygon-family to appear in the anime again. This is especially true with the evolutions since [=Porygon2=] and Porygon-Z had nothing to do with the banned episode.
!!!Ash's Pokémon
* Pick a Pokémon from Ash's roster that is believed to have gotten the shaft and watch it get ugly. Primeape, Kingler ([[DayInTheLimelight after the Indigo League]]), Totodile, Torkoal, Torterra ([[BadassDecay after evolving]]), and Palpitoad are some prime examples due to their extreme lack of characterization and screen-time. Some better explained examples amongst Ash's Pokémon include the following:
** For being his first ever Pokémon catch, Butterfree never got to do all that much once it fully evolved. It says a lot when the only screentime fans ever bring up about Butterfree are the two moments where Ash has to deal with the consequences of moving on from it. These being the trade for a Gentleman's Raticate, which Ash trades back after having second thoughts, and Butterfree's [[Recap/PokemonS1E21ByeByeButterfree infamous departure episode]].
** His regional birds had it rough during Kanto and Johto. Pidgeot and Noctowl were given just [[ADayInTheLimelight small doses of limelight]], such as Pidgeot's evolution/release episode, or Noctowl being the star of the Morty gym battle. Outside of that, they were basically relegated to being just glorified scouts to search the surrounding area from the air if the group needs to find something, or they're simply called out to [[GoldfishPoopGang pop Team Rocket's balloon]] when they try to get away. It's not until Hoenn that Ash's regional birds finally started getting as much focus as the rest of his team with Swellow being one of his best Pokémon of that generation.
** The Tauros herd. There's never been a concrete answer as to whether or not the Tauros that Ash calls upon throughout the series have been the same one. Just this one little detail would provide a really crucial bit of info on explaining how Ash goes about using his Tauros, yet in the end, it remains a complete mystery.
** The way Ash's Heracross was handled during Johto will definitely leave some people scratching their heads in confusion. Ash swaps out Heracross for Tauros to take part in a Tauros vs. Tauros competition, but when it was time to send Tauros back to Oak's lab once said event was done with, Heracross ends up not returning. What you're left with is Heracross not actually doing much since it was stashed away before the 3rd Johto gym battle, and doesn't actually appear again under Ash's command all the way until the league match against Gary.
** Ash finally catches a member of a pseudo-legendary line (Gible), but the capture happened so late into the saga that very little was ever done about it. Most of the time Gible ''did'' have was spent on a particularly long arc mastering Draco Meteor.
** Ash's Glalie was his last captured Pokémon during the Hoenn arc of the ''Advanced Generation'' and received such small screen time before he was sent to Oak's Lab for no given reason, not even participating in the Battle Frontier. Glalie also doesn't participate in the Lily of the Valley Conference like some of Ash's other Pokémon.
** Ash's Quilava ended up as this in the ''Diamond & Pearl'' series due to how its "return" for the Sinnoh League was handled. A lot of hype was generated in the episode right before the start of the league due to Cyndaquil ''finally'' evolving after 507 episodes. Unfortunately, the one battle Quilava gets to participate in against Nando's Armaldo was [[FightUnscene almost entirely skipped over]] in favor of watching the Team Rocket trio work a job at the league. The SkewedPriorities of the writers thinking that the viewers would want to see Team Rocket doing their usual antics over watching a battle from a Pokémon that hasn't been seen for ages, and probably won't be seen again for a very long time, left ''a lot'' of people really unsatisfied with the final result.
** Ash's Charizard, of all characters, became this during ''Black & White''. He's added to Ash's Unova team (sending away Unfezant in the process) and rarely, if ever, has any interaction with any of the Unova Pokémon outside of Iris' Dragonite, whose rivalry with him ends as soon it is introduced, and Ash's Pignite, who N states they already have a good friendship but otherwise show the same concern for each other as they would with other Pokémon. They may has well have had Ash send Charizard back to regain Unfezant.
** Ash's Palpitoad deserves special mention. It was Ash's first evolved water type since Kingler and had an impressive showing in its debut episode, but despite Ash having access to it for over 100 episodes it only appeared EIGHT TIMES and never once interacted with Ash outside of battle. This give Palpitoad the dubious honor of having the least appearances out of all the Pokemon Ash still owns
** After evolving up from Goomy, Ash's Goodra was only around for 15 episodes, and only appearing in a few of them, though [[OneSceneWonder it did a lot in those episodes]]. Its departure is a punch in the face to fans who were hyped about Ash finally getting a fully evolved pseudo-legendary. Fans would only get even more disappointed when [[TheBusCameBack Goodra returned for the League]], only to [[BadassDecay not get a single win]]. This is in sharp contrast to other Pokémon that returned after being PutOnABus, such as Charizard, Gliscor, and [[spoiler:Naganadel]], who always come back [[TookALevelInBadass much stronger than before]] and get a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome to defeat some powerful opponent.
** Ash's Noivern. Its only notable moment was putting up a fight against a wild Zapdos in its evolution episode, which made for a decent showing that Noivern had the potential to be a powerhouse for Ash's team. However, it ended up with a very poor win-rate afterwards to the point of being the lowest contributor of Ash's team during the Kalos League.
** There are some who feel that Ash's [[spoiler:Incineroar]] got the short end of the stick by the end of ''Sun and Moon''. [[spoiler:While many appreciated the [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolism]] of it evolving after beating Kukui's Incineroar to an extent, the fact that there were only a few episodes left gave it little time to show off in battle, especially since it faints immediately after the act. Ash leaving it with Kukui along with the rest of his team only added to this sentiment.]]
** Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
* While on the topic of Ash's Pokémon, most fans will agree on a certain level of disappointment towards Ash never calling back any of his Pokémon at Oak's Lab for the Hoenn League or any League Conference after Sinnoh. To many it's frustrating when Ash loses when he's just sitting on a bunch of powerful Pokémon he refuses to use for little to no reason. For others it runs the risk of making his older teams seem obsolete if he does better with his current regional team than he did previously. Then there are missed opportunities in Regions like Kalos where several of Ash's rivals have Pokémon that Ash himself owns (Sawyer with Sceptile and Alain & Trevor with Charizard) and they aren't given the chance to meet and see how they stack up.
!!!Original Series
* Since the very first episode, this will always be a question in the back of everyone's minds. '''Who the heck is Ash's father?!'''
* '''Gary Oak.''' Ash's rival didn't even show up for that many episodes during the course of their rivalry, having more impact on the plot ''after'' the rivalry was over. And now, he hasn’t made a real in-person appearance since the Team Galactic arc ended, which comprises of the ~40 episodes of DP that remained, the new series so far, and three whole series inbetween.
* It's odd that Bill, the guy who made the Pokémon transfer system, was a main character in many manga, yet has only appeared in one episode to date.
* The two Pallet Town trainers that went off on a journey alongside Gary and Ash are only given a couple brief mentions of their unknown journey, and are confirmed by the end of Ash's Kanto journey to have decided to just give up on their goal completely. Why these two were never seen before to interact with Ash, or act as a roadblock for Ash to eventually overcome to become a better trainer, is anyone's guess.
* It was never revealed (nor has it ''ever'' been revealed) who won the Indigo Plateau Conference. In fact, none of the Top 3 were characters that had been introduced previously and they're only seen as shadowed figures when they're declared the winners. This is the ''only'' case in the entire anime where the eventual Conference winner is never shown. The fact any of Top 3 could've been used as characters for Ash to one day challenge never seemed to cross the minds of the writers.
* The eventual winner of the Silver Conference is a character who wasn't introduced until he is shown beating Harrison. He only appeared in the one episode he wins the Conference and is never shown or mentioned again.
* Domino, a noteworthy Team Rocket member that appeared in ''[[Anime/PokemonMewtwoReturns Mewtwo Returns]]''. There are many unanswered questions left about her that are still unresolved to this day. Domino initially appears to be a cute and slightly ditzy college student and assistant to Cullen Calix, but eventually, she reveals herself to be a Team Rocket elite working directly under the big boss Giovanni himself and the second-in-command in his plan to recapture Mewtwo. She’s also shown being able to do things that few other Team Rocket members would be allowed to get away with, such as being able to question Giovanni or talk back at him without getting punished for it. Unfortunately, despite her competence and her being one of Team Rocket’s elite, she hasn’t been heard from since. A shame too, because considering her level of competence, you’d think that Giovanni would make more use of her, but nope.
* Giselle or really any of the major Pokemon Tech students from [[Recap/PokemonS1E9TheSchoolOfHardKnocks "The School of Hard Knocks"]] could have been a nice reoccurring {{Foil}} to Ash and his friends, helping them both learn from each other and indirectly push each other to improve. A later episode [[Recap/PokemonS1E56TheUltimateTest even focuses on an examine people can take to get in the League as opposed to the traditional badge system]], allowing for the perfect opportunity to bring one of them back. Heck, Giselle is one of the few girls in the entire anime Ash shows any form of attraction to [[spoiler: [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY without prompting from the girl in question]]]]. However, outside of a reference in the Mewtwo special, no one from this episode has been seen in the anime since.
* For all his bluster and being the first real HateSink character in the anime, [[Recap/PokemonS1E11CharmanderTheStrayPokemon Damien]] ultimately doesn't even get a proper battle against Ash, instead being chased off by a single Flamethrower by Charmander. Damien could have been a nice, actually threatening rival for Ash in Kanto, especially with how Charmander's disobedience later on could've tied into how Charizard finally warmed up to Ash. Not to mention Ash's attempts to best him and actually push himself giving a legitimate explanation as to why he made it further in the League than Gary. Unfortunately, the StrictlyFormula nature of the show dictated that Damien would never show up again outside of flashbacks. Though thankfully, the same basic idea would be recycled in much greater focus with [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesDiamondAndPearl Paul and Chimchar in DP]], and then Cross and Chamander in ''Anime/PokemonIChooseYou''. Tepig and Shamus had a similar dynamic in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'', but by this time the concept had worn out its welcome with the fans.
* A lot of Pokémon from Misty's and Brock's original Kanto teams were quite underutilized.
** Brock's was especially bad as most of the time, his Pokémon were just kinda...there. Geodude and Onix never really stood out or had any defining persona (though Onix did get some moments of glory in later series' once it evolved into Steelix), and Zubat never truly had any spotlight until receiving some moments in Johto to eventually evolve up to Crobat.
** Meanwhile, Misty never really did anything with her Goldeen except to perform underwater search missions, and her Starmie was such a jobber that no one really cared to see it get left with her Cerulean sisters by the time of [=EP061=], "The Misty Mermaid." And speaking of [=EP061=], you also got Misty leaving her Horsea with her sisters when it's yet another of her Pokémon that didn't get to do all that much. Even in [=EP061=] where it seemed like Horsea was going to be the main focus, the spotlight for said episode ended up being hijacked by the sisters' Seel, who evolved into Dewgong. If that wasn't bad enough regarding Horsea, Misty never brought it back for Johto despite the fact that said region introduced a new evolution to the Horsea-line. The missed potential of Misty eventually owning a Kingdra will always be there. There's also Psyduck, which never truly developed out of being a JokeCharacter who only ever got to shine whenever its headache for using Psychic abilities acted up. It's why viewers consider it amazing to see Psyduck ''finally'' using Water Gun properly during its appearance in the Alola saga, but while it's amazing, it still doesn't change the fact that the training happened off-screen, and took all the way until the Alola saga to finally see Psyduck after some proper training.
** Despite being around throughout the Kanto, Orange Islands and Johto journeys, not much was ever done with Misty's Togepi outside of learning Metronome, and its Advanced series two-parter where Togepi evolved and got PutOnABus. Every other time, it just served as that cute-acting baby Pokémon that Misty would almost always be seen carrying around in her arms. It's part of the reason why some people [[NeverLiveItDown hold it against Misty]] for pushing Ash out of the way of watching Togepi hatch, which resulted in it imprinting on Misty, as some feel that Togepi going to Ash would have resulted in it having a better chance of being properly trained and having more standout moments.
!!!Advanced Series
* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conference]].
* Steven Stone, the Champion in most Hoenn games, used to be this, having only appeared in one episode of Hoenn with no reference to being anything beyond a typical hiker. [[spoiler:In Diamond and Pearl, it was revealed that Wallace was the champion of Hoenn without any mention of Steven Stone, and then in the X and Y series, he appeared in the Mega Evolution specials and was involved in the climax]].
* Misty's Azurill, which seemed like a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Togepi, appears in two episodes without much development before disappearing.
!!!Diamond and Pearl Series
* Compared to how much mileage the anime has gotten out of Darkrai over the years, Cresselia received the short end of the stick. She only gets one episode, and even then she doesn't get to appear until the second half due to the first half being dominated by Team Rocket. And then Team Rocket comes back to hijack the plot again, and she spends the majority of her screentime as a DistressedDamsel who doesn't even aid in her own escape. The only thing she actually gets to do is confront Darkrai at the end of the episode, and the sequence takes fewer than thirty seconds. This would be weak representation for any Pokémon in the series, but this treatment was given to a legendary, and especially one that ''never got a movie'', not even appearing in '''the one starring Darkrai'''. This was only rectified when a two-episode plot in ''Master Journeys'' devoted more time to the duo and their relationship... more than twelve years later.
* During ''Diamond & Pearl,'' the writers made the mistake of trying to cram too many rivals into Dawn's Contest arc. As a result, Ursula's conflict with Dawn, as well as Nando's decision to pursue both Gym Battles and Contests, were never explored in depth because of their lack of screen time (and many opportunities to do so were wasted in favor of irrelevant filler). In fact, Dawn ''never'' directly faces Nando in a Pokémon battle, aside from their short practice battle in "Dawn of a New Era!"
* Connected to Dawn's Contest arc was Lila, a Pokémon Coordinator that served as Dawn's main opponent for winning her third ribbon. Lila was someone who already had four ribbons, and has a major connection to Dawn's family being her mother's primary rival in the past. If her match against Dawn was used as a means to reignite her passion for Contests, all Lila had to do was win one more ribbon at some point, and could have made further appearances as a competitor in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. However, in the end, Lila stayed as a OneShotCharacter.
* Dawn's Ambipom, who many felt was unjustifiably PutOnABus midway through the Sinnoh journey, because Ambipom suddenly took a liking to ping-pong the episode prior to her departure. It was even more of a missed opportunity that Ambipom didn't, at the very least, make a return as a member of Dawn's team for the Sinnoh Grand Festival, especially when you consider that Ambipom's love for Contests was the whole reason that Ash traded Aipom over to Dawn to begin with. It gets even more egregious by the time of the ''Pokémon Journeys'' series where Ash and Goh support a research facility established within Vermilion City, which just so happens to be the city that Ambipom departed towards back in her departure episode. Basically, there's heavy implication that Ash and Ambipom are within the same city throughout ''Pokémon Journeys'', yet Ash never seems to think about walking over to visit Ambipom.
* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. Paul's Gliscor was pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
!!!Best Wishes Series
* Trip. While [[TheScrappy fans preemptively hated him]] for being a less interesting {{replacement|Scrappy}} of Paul, he actually showed a bit of promise when his backstory regarding Alder was revealed. Not only does it help distinguish him from Paul, but it bore resemblance to that of [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Cheren]], an AdaptedOut character from the games whose arc was well-liked. Unfortunately, this potential was ultimately squandered, as not only did he never truly make it out of Paul's shadow, the conclusion of his subplot with Alder was considered incohesive and messy. While he did receive much CharacterDevelopment from his [[DefeatMeansRespect loss to the Champion]], said development is criticized for having nothing to do with Ash, on top of being filled to the brim with poorly written battles. By the time of the Unova League, the writers appeared to have completely given up on him, writing him off in a complete AntiClimax where he was eliminated in the very first round.
* Another misstep of the ''Black & White'' era was how cast aside Burgundy and Georgia were late in the series despite being the primary [[TheRival rivals]] of Cilan and Iris respectively. It can come off a bit surprising that their last true appearances in the series outside of later cameos was during the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup as it leaves off feeling like there was never any true finality to these rivalries.
* Virgil, the eventual winner of the Vertress Conference, is the one Unova rival that Ash never got to battle against. Due to Virgil being portrayed as a competent trainer at the level of those who previously defeated Ash, such as Harrison and Tyson, this led some to view him as a missed opportunity to have Virgil be the one who Ash eventually loses to instead of having Ash suffer a painful loss to someone as brainless as Cameron. It can also come off a bit odd that despite being an Eevee trainer, and Generation VI being just around the corner, Virgil was not the one to introduce the newest Eevolution, Sylveon, as a way to hype up fans for the XY series.
* Bianca. Many thought that both her and Stephan would show up to the Junior Cup just because it was an open tournament, but neither showed up at all. When the writers made her lose to Cameron to place at Top 64, there was nothing left for her. On an unfortunate note, Bianca and Cheren never met unlike the games; this would have been possible had it not been for her being written off the episode before Cheren's debut episode.
* Zekrom. It’s role was limited to restarting Ash and Pikachu at the start of the Unova journey, and ''that's it''. It wasn't even involved in any of the episodes related to N and Team Plasma.
!!!XY Series
* The Evil Malamar. A group of genuinely evil Pokémon trying to take over the world? Hell ya! Too bad you only get them for two episodes. Only one of which contained multiple Malamar, and the plotline remaining [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse somewhat unresolved]].
* Serena's rivals are all widely considered to be poorly handled. Miette was more of a ShipTease RunningGag than a legitimate threat, Nini was an extremely [[FlatCharacter bland rival]] who had little reason being more than a OneShotCharacter, and Shauna heavily decayed after her first onscreen Showcase. The lack of serious motivation for Serena is the biggest complaint about them: as the series went on, it became clear that as soon as Serena figured herself out, none of them stood a chance. OneShotCharacter Amelia is also considered wasted potential for similar reasons: not only could she have provided a rougher, less friendly dynamic with the sweet-natured Serena, but she could have helped flesh out Showcases and their emphasis on popularity.
* [[AnimalThemedSuperbeing Blaziken Mask]] had a handful of appearances in the earlier episodes, and pretty obvious ties to the main cast due to secretly being Clemont and Bonnie's father, but pretty much completely vanished until the Team Flare arc at the very end (where he still didn't do very much).
* The Lumiose Conference brought back Astrid from the ''Mega Evolution Specials'' to serve as an early league opponent for Ash. However, only a brief glimpse of their battle is actually seen.
!!!Sun and Moon Series
* ''Sun & Moon'' sees Ash having his largest group of friends yet with, including him, a group of ''six''. However, it seems clear that the writers either have their favorites or simply can't handle that many characters at once. As a result, some of them tend to be OutOfFocus. One of the worst offenders is Mallow who, besides her Bounsweet fully evolving into Tsareena and her backstory development with her mother and Shaymin, seemed to have been left aside, remaining fairly stagnant as a trainer, and only getting her Z-Ring very shortly before the Alola league at the end of the series, as the Grass Trial was taken by Ash so that his Rowlet could have a Grassium Z first. While Sophocles, Lana and Kiawe fare relatively better, they're both outshined by Lillie, who is the only one to receive a fair amount of presence to the story as the {{Deuteragonist}}.
* It takes awhile for Team Skull to show off any real importance other than being just a mere nuisance to the main cast. While many in the games saw the Team as such, the anime almost makes them look like total pushovers who were DemotedToExtra compared to their game counterparts, with most of the stuff they would be expected to do done by Team Rocket instead. It doesn't help that, even after ''two years'' of the ''Sun & Moon'' series and both [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Motherbeast Lusamine]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Necrozma]] received arcs in the series (the former of which happened [[AdaptedOut without their involvement]]), it took until ''episode 115'' for [[BigBad Guzma]] to finally appear. The fact that [[TheDragon Plumeria]]'s long awaited debut only happened in ''episode 104'' of the series and consisted of only appearing for a few seconds without being named or doing anything only fanned the flames further for some fans. And when Plumeria finally does battle in the Alola League, she is quickly eliminated by Ilima in the preliminary round.
* Hau, the [[TheRival main rival]] of the ''Sun & Moon'' games, is another example of DemotedToExtra, with Gladion instead being Ash's main rival. Like Guzma and Plumeria, Hau was introduced really late into the anime (episode 97), and ends up with a total of just ''one'' episode to build up his character before the start of the Alola League, which is when he finally reappears again. What you're left with is Hau coming off as just an unimportant OneShotCharacter that was lucky enough to make a comeback for the league.
* Mallow's Shaymin. Even considering Mallow herself is already an arguable qualifier (see above), her mythical Pokemon was left incredibly underplayed through its run in ''Sun and Moon''. It only got one proper limelight episode to develop, and only battled once its entire run ''offscreen'', only getting to utilize its Aromatherapy a couple of times otherwise. Even its release was done rather quickly at the very end of the series finale. Its lack of story relevance is especially jarring given the implications that [[spoiler:Shaymin is in fact Mallow's mother reincarnated]].
* Sandy, the Eevee that wound up on the Alolan Islands. Eevee had a lot of hype surrounding it at first due to how it had its own little six clip mini-series that showed off Eevee's arrival on the Alolan Islands. Many figured that Eevee was possibly going to be caught by Ash to take up an empty spot of his party, but it ended up going to Lana instead. At first, people were willing to let go of this to see how Eevee develops under Lana, but as it turned out, ''nothing'' was done with it. Apart from Lana giving it a nickname and haircut moments after capturing it, Sandy simply remained OutOfFocus for the rest of the series to the point that it didn't have a single notable battle under Lana's command besides the aforementioned mostly offscreen battle royal alongside Shaymin, which left people feeling that Sandy was completely wasted as a part of Lana's team instead of going to Ash. Many were even theorizing that Sandy was probably going to evolve into Vaporeon at some point given how Lana is a trainer that specializes in water-types, but the series didn't even do that.
* Lana appeared to be the owner of a Ride Lapras in early points of the Alola series. Unlike even the other Ride Pokémon the students use however, Lapras never really gets any proper limelight and largely disappears altogether by the second half. It is notably the only Pokémon of the students that doesn't take part in the Alola League. It's also particularly odd when you consider that they had no issue with expanding on the Charizard that Kiawe was using as his Ride Pokémon to it eventually becoming a Pokémon that Kiawe uses for battle, yet the same wasn't done for Lana's Ride Lapras.
!!!Journeys Series
* The Kangaskhan from [=JN001=] who took care of Pikachu as a Pichu. Many fans spent the episodes afterwards wondering where this Kangaskhan, or even its own pouchling, might return to build on the details of the first episode's expansion of Pikachu's past. Over a hundred episodes later and the plot point remains untouched, leaving many fans feeling like the potential for a follow up to the first details of Pikachu's past ever given were wasted and forgotten.
* [[spoiler: Both Rose and Oleana. Usually, villains or anti-villains would make minor appearances throughout the series and would be defeated at a much later time. Both Rose and Oleana face off against the heroes at JN044 and JN045, only to go in hiding once Eternatus is defeated and captured by Goh. This is the earliest time a main antagonist team/leader are defeated and it remains unknown if both Rose and Oleana will be written off completely or feature in later episodes.]]
* Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When [=JN046=] aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokemon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that [=JN046=] is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.
* The notable lack of Charon for the ''Diamond & Pearl'' specials did not go unnoticed.
** Fans of Diamond and Pearl and Team Galactic in particular were disappointed that Charon wasn't used as the villain of the 2-part Winter Special for 2021. After being rendered a severe case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse in Diamond and Pearl after somehow escaping being arrested along with the rest of Team Galactic at the end of the Team Galactic arc, the premise of the Winter Special, of a villain seemingly recreating the red chain to try and capture Dialga and Palkia, causing the two to battle and distort time and space in the process, seemed like it could have provided a great organic opportunity to finally wrap up that loose end, and turn the special into a proper follow up to the Team Galactic arc. Instead, the actual villains of the arc end up being an AU version of the Team Rocket Trio, who while not poorly received on their own, it still feels like a let down to some.
** Even more oddly, when Team Galactic actually did reappear as the central villains of a mini-series tying into the release of Legends Arceus, Charon was still a no show. He appears briefly in a flashback to the finale of the Galactic arc, the story follows up on those events with Saturn, Mars and Jupiter somehow having escaped from Police Custody (Along with a good number of Team Galactic grunts) and plotting to bring Cyrus back after his disappearance into another dimension, and the mini-series even borrows elements from the post-game plot of Pokemon Platinum with the Team Galactic members capturing a Heatran, which in the game was Charon's idea... and yet, despite the brief acknowledgement, Charon himself doesn't return nor do the Galactic Admins acknowledge his absence. The fact that the production team clearly did remember him via including him in the flashback just makes the lack of follow up on Charon's prior escape stand out all the more, especially when it would have been easy to have him have been the one to break Saturn, Mars and Jupiter out of prison, with the episodes not even acknowledging how they escaped on their own.
* Minor example, but with the sheer amount of XY continuity and returns in the month of April 2022, the conspicuous absence and lack of mention of Squishy and it's fellow Zygarde cell in [=JN108=], even in the flashback to Greninja's release, raised a few eyebrows among fans.
* [=JN100=] revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight off screen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
* While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post ''Diamond & Pearl'' was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
* Like Hau from the previous series, Hop is severely DemotedToExtra compared to being one of the main [[TheRival rivals]] to the player in the ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' games. In the anime, Hop basically just shows up at the tail end of the ''Journeys'' series as one of the spectators watching the Masters 8 tournament.
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!!!In General
* Any of the regional Evil Teams are always going to get the short stick in terms of appearances, pushed to the backburner in favor of the usual TerribleTrio from Team Rocket.
** In the original series, this even extended to Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket syndicate. Since [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness direct adaptions of the games]] wouldn't become common until [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesRubyAndSapphire Hoenn]], Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket barely get focus in the series adapting their games. Many felt like it was a massive missed opportunity that Ash and Giovanni never directly battled each other, or that so much of the anime was glossing over most Team Rocket plotlines. It wouldn't be until ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'' would the two finally fight each other in person; [[BrokenBase to mixed results]].
* Pokémon that could/should have been captured by one of the main characters because they were either likable Pokémon by the fanbase or because their development with a certain character made it look like they would fit together with that trainer perfectly. Some examples being:
** Haunter, Houndour, Larvitar, Hippopotas, Riolu, Scatterbug, Litleo, a shiny Phantump, Wimpod, and Dreepy and Drakloak for Ash.
*** ''Pokémon Journeys'' actually [[AuthorsSavingThrow starts to rectify this]] by giving him a Gengar[[note]](For those who feel that Ash not catching the Haunter way back in Kanto was a huge missed opportunity, especially since he ended up never owning a Ghost-type until now.)[[/note]] in Episode 16, and a Riolu[[note]](It never made sense for Ash to not have the Riolu/Lucario line when it's been shown time and time again that Ash has a connection to aura.)[[/note]] in Episode 21.
** Stantler and Sharpedo for Brock. In Sharpedo's case, it would have meant Brock catching 3 Water Pokemon in a row.
** Swablu for May -- this example is ''especially'' mean-spirited on the part of the writers, who had May care for the injured bird for an entire episode. When they finally tried to rendezvous with Swablu's flock, the flock was completely absent, causing May to offer to allow Swablu to join her team. The flock ''suddenly appears out of nowhere'' to prevent this.
** Mightyena and Ralts for Max.
** Grimer for Dawn. Another honorable mention for Dawn is that some feel it was a missed opportunity to not have her go after that one-off highly memorable evil Togepi. That way, the writers could build it up to eventually becoming a Togekiss rather than just outright handing Dawn a Togekiss a couple episodes out from the Grand Festival.
** Deino for Iris, particularly because the owner of said Deino returned ''at the last possible minute''.
** Flabébé and a stinkin' Tyrantrum for Bonnie.
** Dewpider for Lana, doubly so given that the Pokemon's evolved form is her signature in the games.
** Galarian Ponyta and Chloe who, while given a lot of advertisement push, ultimately did not join Chloe long term (though unlike most of the ones listed here, did get mentioned again later).
** Seadra for Goh, with more than a few fans finding Seadra's departure at the end of '88 to be odd and thinking the episode would have worked better with Goh evolving said wild Seadra into a wild Kingdra and catching it as a thanks for assisting it versus how the episode approached it.
* While the female protagonists are usually lucky enough to get plenty of focus, the male protagonists of their respective games tend to get screwed in that regard due to the show's strict focus on Ash. If they're lucky, they ''might'' get a cameo in a movie, but many viewers who view Ash as TheArtifact are dismayed with the anime's [[StrictlyFormula refusal to replace him]].
** In terms of which game protagonists have any significance to the anime: Obviously, Ash is Red's counterpart, and May, Dawn and Serena are all main characters. Ethan has his own anime counterpart named Jimmy, and Kris having Marina, while Lyra appears a few times in ''DP''. Brendan makes cameos in a few of the movies, and would logically be Birch's son since May is Norman's daughter, but Birch never mentions having a son to our heroes. Lucas also has some movie cameos, but nothing else. Leaf, Hilbert, Hilda, Nate, Rosa, Calem, Elio, Selene, Victor and Gloria all have nothing so far.
** And if we expand to include the rivals: Gary is obviously based on Blue, and Barry, Bianca, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor, and Hau appear as themselves. Silver makes one brief unnamed cameo in one of the openings, while Cheren is merely a Gym Leader with no connection to Bianca. Wally and Hugh don't even seem to exist at all. The Galar rivals' treatment remains to be seen.
* There is a view among fans, particularly on communities such as Bulbagarden, that starters not captured by Ash tend to be squandered by the anime. While this is not a universal opinion (you will not see it with, for example, May's Blaziken or Dawn's Piplup), the view is fairly prominent in regards to the Mudkip and Chespin lines in particular whom are seen to have been underused and thus underappreciated.
** It happens again in the ''Journeys'' series when it turned out that the writers had decided to have Goh catch all 3 of the Galar starters. Scorbunny not so much as it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be Goh's first Pokémon, and will be getting a lot of screentime for that reason. The Sobble and Grookey catches however were more controversial due to the catches happening later in the series where it had already been established by this point that Goh wasn't much of a battler, but more a catcher. As a result, people are left feeling that Sobble and Grookey aren't going to have much time to shine.
* Porygon and its evolutions have pretty much been banned from ever seeing the light of day in the anime due to the producers wanting to stay clear of anything that could bring up memories of the [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon infamous seizure episode]]. However, as more and more time passes since the incident, it increases the amount of fans who feel that enough time has gone by to finally allow for the Porygon-family to appear in the anime again. This is especially true with the evolutions since [=Porygon2=] and Porygon-Z had nothing to do with the banned episode.
!!!Ash's Pokémon
* Pick a Pokémon from Ash's roster that is believed to have gotten the shaft and watch it get ugly. Primeape, Kingler ([[DayInTheLimelight after the Indigo League]]), Totodile, Torkoal, Torterra ([[BadassDecay after evolving]]), and Palpitoad are some prime examples due to their extreme lack of characterization and screen-time. Some better explained examples amongst Ash's Pokémon include the following:
** For being his first ever Pokémon catch, Butterfree never got to do all that much once it fully evolved. It says a lot when the only screentime fans ever bring up about Butterfree are the two moments where Ash has to deal with the consequences of moving on from it. These being the trade for a Gentleman's Raticate, which Ash trades back after having second thoughts, and Butterfree's [[Recap/PokemonS1E21ByeByeButterfree infamous departure episode]].
** His regional birds had it rough during Kanto and Johto. Pidgeot and Noctowl were given just [[ADayInTheLimelight small doses of limelight]], such as Pidgeot's evolution/release episode, or Noctowl being the star of the Morty gym battle. Outside of that, they were basically relegated to being just glorified scouts to search the surrounding area from the air if the group needs to find something, or they're simply called out to [[GoldfishPoopGang pop Team Rocket's balloon]] when they try to get away. It's not until Hoenn that Ash's regional birds finally started getting as much focus as the rest of his team with Swellow being one of his best Pokémon of that generation.
** The Tauros herd. There's never been a concrete answer as to whether or not the Tauros that Ash calls upon throughout the series have been the same one. Just this one little detail would provide a really crucial bit of info on explaining how Ash goes about using his Tauros, yet in the end, it remains a complete mystery.
** The way Ash's Heracross was handled during Johto will definitely leave some people scratching their heads in confusion. Ash swaps out Heracross for Tauros to take part in a Tauros vs. Tauros competition, but when it was time to send Tauros back to Oak's lab once said event was done with, Heracross ends up not returning. What you're left with is Heracross not actually doing much since it was stashed away before the 3rd Johto gym battle, and doesn't actually appear again under Ash's command all the way until the league match against Gary.
** Ash finally catches a member of a pseudo-legendary line (Gible), but the capture happened so late into the saga that very little was ever done about it. Most of the time Gible ''did'' have was spent on a particularly long arc mastering Draco Meteor.
** Ash's Glalie was his last captured Pokémon during the Hoenn arc of the ''Advanced Generation'' and received such small screen time before he was sent to Oak's Lab for no given reason, not even participating in the Battle Frontier. Glalie also doesn't participate in the Lily of the Valley Conference like some of Ash's other Pokémon.
** Ash's Quilava ended up as this in the ''Diamond & Pearl'' series due to how its "return" for the Sinnoh League was handled. A lot of hype was generated in the episode right before the start of the league due to Cyndaquil ''finally'' evolving after 507 episodes. Unfortunately, the one battle Quilava gets to participate in against Nando's Armaldo was [[FightUnscene almost entirely skipped over]] in favor of watching the Team Rocket trio work a job at the league. The SkewedPriorities of the writers thinking that the viewers would want to see Team Rocket doing their usual antics over watching a battle from a Pokémon that hasn't been seen for ages, and probably won't be seen again for a very long time, left ''a lot'' of people really unsatisfied with the final result.
** Ash's Charizard, of all characters, became this during ''Black & White''. He's added to Ash's Unova team (sending away Unfezant in the process) and rarely, if ever, has any interaction with any of the Unova Pokémon outside of Iris' Dragonite, whose rivalry with him ends as soon it is introduced, and Ash's Pignite, who N states they already have a good friendship but otherwise show the same concern for each other as they would with other Pokémon. They may has well have had Ash send Charizard back to regain Unfezant.
** Ash's Palpitoad deserves special mention. It was Ash's first evolved water type since Kingler and had an impressive showing in its debut episode, but despite Ash having access to it for over 100 episodes it only appeared EIGHT TIMES and never once interacted with Ash outside of battle. This give Palpitoad the dubious honor of having the least appearances out of all the Pokemon Ash still owns
** After evolving up from Goomy, Ash's Goodra was only around for 15 episodes, and only appearing in a few of them, though [[OneSceneWonder it did a lot in those episodes]]. Its departure is a punch in the face to fans who were hyped about Ash finally getting a fully evolved pseudo-legendary. Fans would only get even more disappointed when [[TheBusCameBack Goodra returned for the League]], only to [[BadassDecay not get a single win]]. This is in sharp contrast to other Pokémon that returned after being PutOnABus, such as Charizard, Gliscor, and [[spoiler:Naganadel]], who always come back [[TookALevelInBadass much stronger than before]] and get a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome to defeat some powerful opponent.
** Ash's Noivern. Its only notable moment was putting up a fight against a wild Zapdos in its evolution episode, which made for a decent showing that Noivern had the potential to be a powerhouse for Ash's team. However, it ended up with a very poor win-rate afterwards to the point of being the lowest contributor of Ash's team during the Kalos League.
** There are some who feel that Ash's [[spoiler:Incineroar]] got the short end of the stick by the end of ''Sun and Moon''. [[spoiler:While many appreciated the [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolism]] of it evolving after beating Kukui's Incineroar to an extent, the fact that there were only a few episodes left gave it little time to show off in battle, especially since it faints immediately after the act. Ash leaving it with Kukui along with the rest of his team only added to this sentiment.]]
** Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
* While on the topic of Ash's Pokémon, most fans will agree on a certain level of disappointment towards Ash never calling back any of his Pokémon at Oak's Lab for the Hoenn League or any League Conference after Sinnoh. To many it's frustrating when Ash loses when he's just sitting on a bunch of powerful Pokémon he refuses to use for little to no reason. For others it runs the risk of making his older teams seem obsolete if he does better with his current regional team than he did previously. Then there are missed opportunities in Regions like Kalos where several of Ash's rivals have Pokémon that Ash himself owns (Sawyer with Sceptile and Alain & Trevor with Charizard) and they aren't given the chance to meet and see how they stack up.
!!!Original Series
* Since the very first episode, this will always be a question in the back of everyone's minds. '''Who the heck is Ash's father?!'''
* '''Gary Oak.''' Ash's rival didn't even show up for that many episodes during the course of their rivalry, having more impact on the plot ''after'' the rivalry was over. And now, he hasn’t made a real in-person appearance since the Team Galactic arc ended, which comprises of the ~40 episodes of DP that remained, the new series so far, and three whole series inbetween.
* It's odd that Bill, the guy who made the Pokémon transfer system, was a main character in many manga, yet has only appeared in one episode to date.
* The two Pallet Town trainers that went off on a journey alongside Gary and Ash are only given a couple brief mentions of their unknown journey, and are confirmed by the end of Ash's Kanto journey to have decided to just give up on their goal completely. Why these two were never seen before to interact with Ash, or act as a roadblock for Ash to eventually overcome to become a better trainer, is anyone's guess.
* It was never revealed (nor has it ''ever'' been revealed) who won the Indigo Plateau Conference. In fact, none of the Top 3 were characters that had been introduced previously and they're only seen as shadowed figures when they're declared the winners. This is the ''only'' case in the entire anime where the eventual Conference winner is never shown. The fact any of Top 3 could've been used as characters for Ash to one day challenge never seemed to cross the minds of the writers.
* The eventual winner of the Silver Conference is a character who wasn't introduced until he is shown beating Harrison. He only appeared in the one episode he wins the Conference and is never shown or mentioned again.
* Domino, a noteworthy Team Rocket member that appeared in ''[[Anime/PokemonMewtwoReturns Mewtwo Returns]]''. There are many unanswered questions left about her that are still unresolved to this day. Domino initially appears to be a cute and slightly ditzy college student and assistant to Cullen Calix, but eventually, she reveals herself to be a Team Rocket elite working directly under the big boss Giovanni himself and the second-in-command in his plan to recapture Mewtwo. She’s also shown being able to do things that few other Team Rocket members would be allowed to get away with, such as being able to question Giovanni or talk back at him without getting punished for it. Unfortunately, despite her competence and her being one of Team Rocket’s elite, she hasn’t been heard from since. A shame too, because considering her level of competence, you’d think that Giovanni would make more use of her, but nope.
* Giselle or really any of the major Pokemon Tech students from [[Recap/PokemonS1E9TheSchoolOfHardKnocks "The School of Hard Knocks"]] could have been a nice reoccurring {{Foil}} to Ash and his friends, helping them both learn from each other and indirectly push each other to improve. A later episode [[Recap/PokemonS1E56TheUltimateTest even focuses on an examine people can take to get in the League as opposed to the traditional badge system]], allowing for the perfect opportunity to bring one of them back. Heck, Giselle is one of the few girls in the entire anime Ash shows any form of attraction to [[spoiler: [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY without prompting from the girl in question]]]]. However, outside of a reference in the Mewtwo special, no one from this episode has been seen in the anime since.
* For all his bluster and being the first real HateSink character in the anime, [[Recap/PokemonS1E11CharmanderTheStrayPokemon Damien]] ultimately doesn't even get a proper battle against Ash, instead being chased off by a single Flamethrower by Charmander. Damien could have been a nice, actually threatening rival for Ash in Kanto, especially with how Charmander's disobedience later on could've tied into how Charizard finally warmed up to Ash. Not to mention Ash's attempts to best him and actually push himself giving a legitimate explanation as to why he made it further in the League than Gary. Unfortunately, the StrictlyFormula nature of the show dictated that Damien would never show up again outside of flashbacks. Though thankfully, the same basic idea would be recycled in much greater focus with [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesDiamondAndPearl Paul and Chimchar in DP]], and then Cross and Chamander in ''Anime/PokemonIChooseYou''. Tepig and Shamus had a similar dynamic in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'', but by this time the concept had worn out its welcome with the fans.
* A lot of Pokémon from Misty's and Brock's original Kanto teams were quite underutilized.
** Brock's was especially bad as most of the time, his Pokémon were just kinda...there. Geodude and Onix never really stood out or had any defining persona (though Onix did get some moments of glory in later series' once it evolved into Steelix), and Zubat never truly had any spotlight until receiving some moments in Johto to eventually evolve up to Crobat.
** Meanwhile, Misty never really did anything with her Goldeen except to perform underwater search missions, and her Starmie was such a jobber that no one really cared to see it get left with her Cerulean sisters by the time of [=EP061=], "The Misty Mermaid." And speaking of [=EP061=], you also got Misty leaving her Horsea with her sisters when it's yet another of her Pokémon that didn't get to do all that much. Even in [=EP061=] where it seemed like Horsea was going to be the main focus, the spotlight for said episode ended up being hijacked by the sisters' Seel, who evolved into Dewgong. If that wasn't bad enough regarding Horsea, Misty never brought it back for Johto despite the fact that said region introduced a new evolution to the Horsea-line. The missed potential of Misty eventually owning a Kingdra will always be there. There's also Psyduck, which never truly developed out of being a JokeCharacter who only ever got to shine whenever its headache for using Psychic abilities acted up. It's why viewers consider it amazing to see Psyduck ''finally'' using Water Gun properly during its appearance in the Alola saga, but while it's amazing, it still doesn't change the fact that the training happened off-screen, and took all the way until the Alola saga to finally see Psyduck after some proper training.
** Despite being around throughout the Kanto, Orange Islands and Johto journeys, not much was ever done with Misty's Togepi outside of learning Metronome, and its Advanced series two-parter where Togepi evolved and got PutOnABus. Every other time, it just served as that cute-acting baby Pokémon that Misty would almost always be seen carrying around in her arms. It's part of the reason why some people [[NeverLiveItDown hold it against Misty]] for pushing Ash out of the way of watching Togepi hatch, which resulted in it imprinting on Misty, as some feel that Togepi going to Ash would have resulted in it having a better chance of being properly trained and having more standout moments.
!!!Advanced Series
* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conference]].
* Steven Stone, the Champion in most Hoenn games, used to be this, having only appeared in one episode of Hoenn with no reference to being anything beyond a typical hiker. [[spoiler:In Diamond and Pearl, it was revealed that Wallace was the champion of Hoenn without any mention of Steven Stone, and then in the X and Y series, he appeared in the Mega Evolution specials and was involved in the climax]].
* Misty's Azurill, which seemed like a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Togepi, appears in two episodes without much development before disappearing.
!!!Diamond and Pearl Series
* Compared to how much mileage the anime has gotten out of Darkrai over the years, Cresselia received the short end of the stick. She only gets one episode, and even then she doesn't get to appear until the second half due to the first half being dominated by Team Rocket. And then Team Rocket comes back to hijack the plot again, and she spends the majority of her screentime as a DistressedDamsel who doesn't even aid in her own escape. The only thing she actually gets to do is confront Darkrai at the end of the episode, and the sequence takes fewer than thirty seconds. This would be weak representation for any Pokémon in the series, but this treatment was given to a legendary, and especially one that ''never got a movie'', not even appearing in '''the one starring Darkrai'''. This was only rectified when a two-episode plot in ''Master Journeys'' devoted more time to the duo and their relationship... more than twelve years later.
* During ''Diamond & Pearl,'' the writers made the mistake of trying to cram too many rivals into Dawn's Contest arc. As a result, Ursula's conflict with Dawn, as well as Nando's decision to pursue both Gym Battles and Contests, were never explored in depth because of their lack of screen time (and many opportunities to do so were wasted in favor of irrelevant filler). In fact, Dawn ''never'' directly faces Nando in a Pokémon battle, aside from their short practice battle in "Dawn of a New Era!"
* Connected to Dawn's Contest arc was Lila, a Pokémon Coordinator that served as Dawn's main opponent for winning her third ribbon. Lila was someone who already had four ribbons, and has a major connection to Dawn's family being her mother's primary rival in the past. If her match against Dawn was used as a means to reignite her passion for Contests, all Lila had to do was win one more ribbon at some point, and could have made further appearances as a competitor in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. However, in the end, Lila stayed as a OneShotCharacter.
* Dawn's Ambipom, who many felt was unjustifiably PutOnABus midway through the Sinnoh journey, because Ambipom suddenly took a liking to ping-pong the episode prior to her departure. It was even more of a missed opportunity that Ambipom didn't, at the very least, make a return as a member of Dawn's team for the Sinnoh Grand Festival, especially when you consider that Ambipom's love for Contests was the whole reason that Ash traded Aipom over to Dawn to begin with. It gets even more egregious by the time of the ''Pokémon Journeys'' series where Ash and Goh support a research facility established within Vermilion City, which just so happens to be the city that Ambipom departed towards back in her departure episode. Basically, there's heavy implication that Ash and Ambipom are within the same city throughout ''Pokémon Journeys'', yet Ash never seems to think about walking over to visit Ambipom.
* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. Paul's Gliscor was pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
!!!Best Wishes Series
* Trip. While [[TheScrappy fans preemptively hated him]] for being a less interesting {{replacement|Scrappy}} of Paul, he actually showed a bit of promise when his backstory regarding Alder was revealed. Not only does it help distinguish him from Paul, but it bore resemblance to that of [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Cheren]], an AdaptedOut character from the games whose arc was well-liked. Unfortunately, this potential was ultimately squandered, as not only did he never truly make it out of Paul's shadow, the conclusion of his subplot with Alder was considered incohesive and messy. While he did receive much CharacterDevelopment from his [[DefeatMeansRespect loss to the Champion]], said development is criticized for having nothing to do with Ash, on top of being filled to the brim with poorly written battles. By the time of the Unova League, the writers appeared to have completely given up on him, writing him off in a complete AntiClimax where he was eliminated in the very first round.
* Another misstep of the ''Black & White'' era was how cast aside Burgundy and Georgia were late in the series despite being the primary [[TheRival rivals]] of Cilan and Iris respectively. It can come off a bit surprising that their last true appearances in the series outside of later cameos was during the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup as it leaves off feeling like there was never any true finality to these rivalries.
* Virgil, the eventual winner of the Vertress Conference, is the one Unova rival that Ash never got to battle against. Due to Virgil being portrayed as a competent trainer at the level of those who previously defeated Ash, such as Harrison and Tyson, this led some to view him as a missed opportunity to have Virgil be the one who Ash eventually loses to instead of having Ash suffer a painful loss to someone as brainless as Cameron. It can also come off a bit odd that despite being an Eevee trainer, and Generation VI being just around the corner, Virgil was not the one to introduce the newest Eevolution, Sylveon, as a way to hype up fans for the XY series.
* Bianca. Many thought that both her and Stephan would show up to the Junior Cup just because it was an open tournament, but neither showed up at all. When the writers made her lose to Cameron to place at Top 64, there was nothing left for her. On an unfortunate note, Bianca and Cheren never met unlike the games; this would have been possible had it not been for her being written off the episode before Cheren's debut episode.
* Zekrom. It’s role was limited to restarting Ash and Pikachu at the start of the Unova journey, and ''that's it''. It wasn't even involved in any of the episodes related to N and Team Plasma.
!!!XY Series
* The Evil Malamar. A group of genuinely evil Pokémon trying to take over the world? Hell ya! Too bad you only get them for two episodes. Only one of which contained multiple Malamar, and the plotline remaining [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse somewhat unresolved]].
* Serena's rivals are all widely considered to be poorly handled. Miette was more of a ShipTease RunningGag than a legitimate threat, Nini was an extremely [[FlatCharacter bland rival]] who had little reason being more than a OneShotCharacter, and Shauna heavily decayed after her first onscreen Showcase. The lack of serious motivation for Serena is the biggest complaint about them: as the series went on, it became clear that as soon as Serena figured herself out, none of them stood a chance. OneShotCharacter Amelia is also considered wasted potential for similar reasons: not only could she have provided a rougher, less friendly dynamic with the sweet-natured Serena, but she could have helped flesh out Showcases and their emphasis on popularity.
* [[AnimalThemedSuperbeing Blaziken Mask]] had a handful of appearances in the earlier episodes, and pretty obvious ties to the main cast due to secretly being Clemont and Bonnie's father, but pretty much completely vanished until the Team Flare arc at the very end (where he still didn't do very much).
* The Lumiose Conference brought back Astrid from the ''Mega Evolution Specials'' to serve as an early league opponent for Ash. However, only a brief glimpse of their battle is actually seen.
!!!Sun and Moon Series
* ''Sun & Moon'' sees Ash having his largest group of friends yet with, including him, a group of ''six''. However, it seems clear that the writers either have their favorites or simply can't handle that many characters at once. As a result, some of them tend to be OutOfFocus. One of the worst offenders is Mallow who, besides her Bounsweet fully evolving into Tsareena and her backstory development with her mother and Shaymin, seemed to have been left aside, remaining fairly stagnant as a trainer, and only getting her Z-Ring very shortly before the Alola league at the end of the series, as the Grass Trial was taken by Ash so that his Rowlet could have a Grassium Z first. While Sophocles, Lana and Kiawe fare relatively better, they're both outshined by Lillie, who is the only one to receive a fair amount of presence to the story as the {{Deuteragonist}}.
* It takes awhile for Team Skull to show off any real importance other than being just a mere nuisance to the main cast. While many in the games saw the Team as such, the anime almost makes them look like total pushovers who were DemotedToExtra compared to their game counterparts, with most of the stuff they would be expected to do done by Team Rocket instead. It doesn't help that, even after ''two years'' of the ''Sun & Moon'' series and both [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Motherbeast Lusamine]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Necrozma]] received arcs in the series (the former of which happened [[AdaptedOut without their involvement]]), it took until ''episode 115'' for [[BigBad Guzma]] to finally appear. The fact that [[TheDragon Plumeria]]'s long awaited debut only happened in ''episode 104'' of the series and consisted of only appearing for a few seconds without being named or doing anything only fanned the flames further for some fans. And when Plumeria finally does battle in the Alola League, she is quickly eliminated by Ilima in the preliminary round.
* Hau, the [[TheRival main rival]] of the ''Sun & Moon'' games, is another example of DemotedToExtra, with Gladion instead being Ash's main rival. Like Guzma and Plumeria, Hau was introduced really late into the anime (episode 97), and ends up with a total of just ''one'' episode to build up his character before the start of the Alola League, which is when he finally reappears again. What you're left with is Hau coming off as just an unimportant OneShotCharacter that was lucky enough to make a comeback for the league.
* Mallow's Shaymin. Even considering Mallow herself is already an arguable qualifier (see above), her mythical Pokemon was left incredibly underplayed through its run in ''Sun and Moon''. It only got one proper limelight episode to develop, and only battled once its entire run ''offscreen'', only getting to utilize its Aromatherapy a couple of times otherwise. Even its release was done rather quickly at the very end of the series finale. Its lack of story relevance is especially jarring given the implications that [[spoiler:Shaymin is in fact Mallow's mother reincarnated]].
* Sandy, the Eevee that wound up on the Alolan Islands. Eevee had a lot of hype surrounding it at first due to how it had its own little six clip mini-series that showed off Eevee's arrival on the Alolan Islands. Many figured that Eevee was possibly going to be caught by Ash to take up an empty spot of his party, but it ended up going to Lana instead. At first, people were willing to let go of this to see how Eevee develops under Lana, but as it turned out, ''nothing'' was done with it. Apart from Lana giving it a nickname and haircut moments after capturing it, Sandy simply remained OutOfFocus for the rest of the series to the point that it didn't have a single notable battle under Lana's command besides the aforementioned mostly offscreen battle royal alongside Shaymin, which left people feeling that Sandy was completely wasted as a part of Lana's team instead of going to Ash. Many were even theorizing that Sandy was probably going to evolve into Vaporeon at some point given how Lana is a trainer that specializes in water-types, but the series didn't even do that.
* Lana appeared to be the owner of a Ride Lapras in early points of the Alola series. Unlike even the other Ride Pokémon the students use however, Lapras never really gets any proper limelight and largely disappears altogether by the second half. It is notably the only Pokémon of the students that doesn't take part in the Alola League. It's also particularly odd when you consider that they had no issue with expanding on the Charizard that Kiawe was using as his Ride Pokémon to it eventually becoming a Pokémon that Kiawe uses for battle, yet the same wasn't done for Lana's Ride Lapras.
!!!Journeys Series
* The Kangaskhan from [=JN001=] who took care of Pikachu as a Pichu. Many fans spent the episodes afterwards wondering where this Kangaskhan, or even its own pouchling, might return to build on the details of the first episode's expansion of Pikachu's past. Over a hundred episodes later and the plot point remains untouched, leaving many fans feeling like the potential for a follow up to the first details of Pikachu's past ever given were wasted and forgotten.
* [[spoiler: Both Rose and Oleana. Usually, villains or anti-villains would make minor appearances throughout the series and would be defeated at a much later time. Both Rose and Oleana face off against the heroes at JN044 and JN045, only to go in hiding once Eternatus is defeated and captured by Goh. This is the earliest time a main antagonist team/leader are defeated and it remains unknown if both Rose and Oleana will be written off completely or feature in later episodes.]]
* Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When [=JN046=] aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokemon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that [=JN046=] is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.
* The notable lack of Charon for the ''Diamond & Pearl'' specials did not go unnoticed.
** Fans of Diamond and Pearl and Team Galactic in particular were disappointed that Charon wasn't used as the villain of the 2-part Winter Special for 2021. After being rendered a severe case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse in Diamond and Pearl after somehow escaping being arrested along with the rest of Team Galactic at the end of the Team Galactic arc, the premise of the Winter Special, of a villain seemingly recreating the red chain to try and capture Dialga and Palkia, causing the two to battle and distort time and space in the process, seemed like it could have provided a great organic opportunity to finally wrap up that loose end, and turn the special into a proper follow up to the Team Galactic arc. Instead, the actual villains of the arc end up being an AU version of the Team Rocket Trio, who while not poorly received on their own, it still feels like a let down to some.
** Even more oddly, when Team Galactic actually did reappear as the central villains of a mini-series tying into the release of Legends Arceus, Charon was still a no show. He appears briefly in a flashback to the finale of the Galactic arc, the story follows up on those events with Saturn, Mars and Jupiter somehow having escaped from Police Custody (Along with a good number of Team Galactic grunts) and plotting to bring Cyrus back after his disappearance into another dimension, and the mini-series even borrows elements from the post-game plot of Pokemon Platinum with the Team Galactic members capturing a Heatran, which in the game was Charon's idea... and yet, despite the brief acknowledgement, Charon himself doesn't return nor do the Galactic Admins acknowledge his absence. The fact that the production team clearly did remember him via including him in the flashback just makes the lack of follow up on Charon's prior escape stand out all the more, especially when it would have been easy to have him have been the one to break Saturn, Mars and Jupiter out of prison, with the episodes not even acknowledging how they escaped on their own.
* Minor example, but with the sheer amount of XY continuity and returns in the month of April 2022, the conspicuous absence and lack of mention of Squishy and it's fellow Zygarde cell in [=JN108=], even in the flashback to Greninja's release, raised a few eyebrows among fans.
* [=JN100=] revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight off screen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
* While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post ''Diamond & Pearl'' was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
* Like Hau from the previous series, Hop is severely DemotedToExtra compared to being one of the main [[TheRival rivals]] to the player in the ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' games. In the anime, Hop basically just shows up at the tail end of the ''Journeys'' series as one of the spectators watching the Masters 8 tournament.
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!!!In General
* Any of the regional Evil Teams are always going to get the short stick in terms of appearances, pushed to the backburner in favor of the usual TerribleTrio from Team Rocket.
** In the original series, this even extended to Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket syndicate. Since [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness direct adaptions of the games]] wouldn't become common until [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesRubyAndSapphire Hoenn]], Giovanni and the greater Team Rocket barely get focus in the series adapting their games. Many felt like it was a massive missed opportunity that Ash and Giovanni never directly battled each other, or that so much of the anime was glossing over most Team Rocket plotlines. It wouldn't be until ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'' would the two finally fight each other in person; [[BrokenBase to mixed results]].
* Pokémon that could/should have been captured by one of the main characters because they were either likable Pokémon by the fanbase or because their development with a certain character made it look like they would fit together with that trainer perfectly. Some examples being:
** Haunter, Houndour, Larvitar, Hippopotas, Riolu, Scatterbug, Litleo, a shiny Phantump, Wimpod, and Dreepy and Drakloak for Ash.
*** ''Pokémon Journeys'' actually [[AuthorsSavingThrow starts to rectify this]] by giving him a Gengar[[note]](For those who feel that Ash not catching the Haunter way back in Kanto was a huge missed opportunity, especially since he ended up never owning a Ghost-type until now.)[[/note]] in Episode 16, and a Riolu[[note]](It never made sense for Ash to not have the Riolu/Lucario line when it's been shown time and time again that Ash has a connection to aura.)[[/note]] in Episode 21.
** Stantler and Sharpedo for Brock. In Sharpedo's case, it would have meant Brock catching 3 Water Pokemon in a row.
** Swablu for May -- this example is ''especially'' mean-spirited on the part of the writers, who had May care for the injured bird for an entire episode. When they finally tried to rendezvous with Swablu's flock, the flock was completely absent, causing May to offer to allow Swablu to join her team. The flock ''suddenly appears out of nowhere'' to prevent this.
** Mightyena and Ralts for Max.
** Grimer for Dawn. Another honorable mention for Dawn is that some feel it was a missed opportunity to not have her go after that one-off highly memorable evil Togepi. That way, the writers could build it up to eventually becoming a Togekiss rather than just outright handing Dawn a Togekiss a couple episodes out from the Grand Festival.
** Deino for Iris, particularly because the owner of said Deino returned ''at the last possible minute''.
** Flabébé and a stinkin' Tyrantrum for Bonnie.
** Dewpider for Lana, doubly so given that the Pokemon's evolved form is her signature in the games.
** Galarian Ponyta and Chloe who, while given a lot of advertisement push, ultimately did not join Chloe long term (though unlike most of the ones listed here, did get mentioned again later).
** Seadra for Goh, with more than a few fans finding Seadra's departure at the end of '88 to be odd and thinking the episode would have worked better with Goh evolving said wild Seadra into a wild Kingdra and catching it as a thanks for assisting it versus how the episode approached it.
* While the female protagonists are usually lucky enough to get plenty of focus, the male protagonists of their respective games tend to get screwed in that regard due to the show's strict focus on Ash. If they're lucky, they ''might'' get a cameo in a movie, but many viewers who view Ash as TheArtifact are dismayed with the anime's [[StrictlyFormula refusal to replace him]].
** In terms of which game protagonists have any significance to the anime: Obviously, Ash is Red's counterpart, and May, Dawn and Serena are all main characters. Ethan has his own anime counterpart named Jimmy, and Kris having Marina, while Lyra appears a few times in ''DP''. Brendan makes cameos in a few of the movies, and would logically be Birch's son since May is Norman's daughter, but Birch never mentions having a son to our heroes. Lucas also has some movie cameos, but nothing else. Leaf, Hilbert, Hilda, Nate, Rosa, Calem, Elio, Selene, Victor and Gloria all have nothing so far.
** And if we expand to include the rivals: Gary is obviously based on Blue, and Barry, Bianca, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor, and Hau appear as themselves. Silver makes one brief unnamed cameo in one of the openings, while Cheren is merely a Gym Leader with no connection to Bianca. Wally and Hugh don't even seem to exist at all. The Galar rivals' treatment remains to be seen.
* There is a view among fans, particularly on communities such as Bulbagarden, that starters not captured by Ash tend to be squandered by the anime. While this is not a universal opinion (you will not see it with, for example, May's Blaziken or Dawn's Piplup), the view is fairly prominent in regards to the Mudkip and Chespin lines in particular whom are seen to have been underused and thus underappreciated.
** It happens again in the ''Journeys'' series when it turned out that the writers had decided to have Goh catch all 3 of the Galar starters. Scorbunny not so much as it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be Goh's first Pokémon, and will be getting a lot of screentime for that reason. The Sobble and Grookey catches however were more controversial due to the catches happening later in the series where it had already been established by this point that Goh wasn't much of a battler, but more a catcher. As a result, people are left feeling that Sobble and Grookey aren't going to have much time to shine.
* Porygon and its evolutions have pretty much been banned from ever seeing the light of day in the anime due to the producers wanting to stay clear of anything that could bring up memories of the [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon infamous seizure episode]]. However, as more and more time passes since the incident, it increases the amount of fans who feel that enough time has gone by to finally allow for the Porygon-family to appear in the anime again. This is especially true with the evolutions since [=Porygon2=] and Porygon-Z had nothing to do with the banned episode.
!!!Ash's Pokémon
* Pick a Pokémon from Ash's roster that is believed to have gotten the shaft and watch it get ugly. Primeape, Kingler ([[DayInTheLimelight after the Indigo League]]), Totodile, Torkoal, Torterra ([[BadassDecay after evolving]]), and Palpitoad are some prime examples due to their extreme lack of characterization and screen-time. Some better explained examples amongst Ash's Pokémon include the following:
** For being his first ever Pokémon catch, Butterfree never got to do all that much once it fully evolved. It says a lot when the only screentime fans ever bring up about Butterfree are the two moments where Ash has to deal with the consequences of moving on from it. These being the trade for a Gentleman's Raticate, which Ash trades back after having second thoughts, and Butterfree's [[Recap/PokemonS1E21ByeByeButterfree infamous departure episode]].
** His regional birds had it rough during Kanto and Johto. Pidgeot and Noctowl were given just [[ADayInTheLimelight small doses of limelight]], such as Pidgeot's evolution/release episode, or Noctowl being the star of the Morty gym battle. Outside of that, they were basically relegated to being just glorified scouts to search the surrounding area from the air if the group needs to find something, or they're simply called out to [[GoldfishPoopGang pop Team Rocket's balloon]] when they try to get away. It's not until Hoenn that Ash's regional birds finally started getting as much focus as the rest of his team with Swellow being one of his best Pokémon of that generation.
** The Tauros herd. There's never been a concrete answer as to whether or not the Tauros that Ash calls upon throughout the series have been the same one. Just this one little detail would provide a really crucial bit of info on explaining how Ash goes about using his Tauros, yet in the end, it remains a complete mystery.
** The way Ash's Heracross was handled during Johto will definitely leave some people scratching their heads in confusion. Ash swaps out Heracross for Tauros to take part in a Tauros vs. Tauros competition, but when it was time to send Tauros back to Oak's lab once said event was done with, Heracross ends up not returning. What you're left with is Heracross not actually doing much since it was stashed away before the 3rd Johto gym battle, and doesn't actually appear again under Ash's command all the way until the league match against Gary.
** Ash finally catches a member of a pseudo-legendary line (Gible), but the capture happened so late into the saga that very little was ever done about it. Most of the time Gible ''did'' have was spent on a particularly long arc mastering Draco Meteor.
** Ash's Glalie was his last captured Pokémon during the Hoenn arc of the ''Advanced Generation'' and received such small screen time before he was sent to Oak's Lab for no given reason, not even participating in the Battle Frontier. Glalie also doesn't participate in the Lily of the Valley Conference like some of Ash's other Pokémon.
** Ash's Quilava ended up as this in the ''Diamond & Pearl'' series due to how its "return" for the Sinnoh League was handled. A lot of hype was generated in the episode right before the start of the league due to Cyndaquil ''finally'' evolving after 507 episodes. Unfortunately, the one battle Quilava gets to participate in against Nando's Armaldo was [[FightUnscene almost entirely skipped over]] in favor of watching the Team Rocket trio work a job at the league. The SkewedPriorities of the writers thinking that the viewers would want to see Team Rocket doing their usual antics over watching a battle from a Pokémon that hasn't been seen for ages, and probably won't be seen again for a very long time, left ''a lot'' of people really unsatisfied with the final result.
** Ash's Charizard, of all characters, became this during ''Black & White''. He's added to Ash's Unova team (sending away Unfezant in the process) and rarely, if ever, has any interaction with any of the Unova Pokémon outside of Iris' Dragonite, whose rivalry with him ends as soon it is introduced, and Ash's Pignite, who N states they already have a good friendship but otherwise show the same concern for each other as they would with other Pokémon. They may has well have had Ash send Charizard back to regain Unfezant.
** Ash's Palpitoad deserves special mention. It was Ash's first evolved water type since Kingler and had an impressive showing in its debut episode, but despite Ash having access to it for over 100 episodes it only appeared EIGHT TIMES and never once interacted with Ash outside of battle. This give Palpitoad the dubious honor of having the least appearances out of all the Pokemon Ash still owns
** After evolving up from Goomy, Ash's Goodra was only around for 15 episodes, and only appearing in a few of them, though [[OneSceneWonder it did a lot in those episodes]]. Its departure is a punch in the face to fans who were hyped about Ash finally getting a fully evolved pseudo-legendary. Fans would only get even more disappointed when [[TheBusCameBack Goodra returned for the League]], only to [[BadassDecay not get a single win]]. This is in sharp contrast to other Pokémon that returned after being PutOnABus, such as Charizard, Gliscor, and [[spoiler:Naganadel]], who always come back [[TookALevelInBadass much stronger than before]] and get a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome to defeat some powerful opponent.
** Ash's Noivern. Its only notable moment was putting up a fight against a wild Zapdos in its evolution episode, which made for a decent showing that Noivern had the potential to be a powerhouse for Ash's team. However, it ended up with a very poor win-rate afterwards to the point of being the lowest contributor of Ash's team during the Kalos League.
** There are some who feel that Ash's [[spoiler:Incineroar]] got the short end of the stick by the end of ''Sun and Moon''. [[spoiler:While many appreciated the [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolism]] of it evolving after beating Kukui's Incineroar to an extent, the fact that there were only a few episodes left gave it little time to show off in battle, especially since it faints immediately after the act. Ash leaving it with Kukui along with the rest of his team only added to this sentiment.]]
** Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
* While on the topic of Ash's Pokémon, most fans will agree on a certain level of disappointment towards Ash never calling back any of his Pokémon at Oak's Lab for the Hoenn League or any League Conference after Sinnoh. To many it's frustrating when Ash loses when he's just sitting on a bunch of powerful Pokémon he refuses to use for little to no reason. For others it runs the risk of making his older teams seem obsolete if he does better with his current regional team than he did previously. Then there are missed opportunities in Regions like Kalos where several of Ash's rivals have Pokémon that Ash himself owns (Sawyer with Sceptile and Alain & Trevor with Charizard) and they aren't given the chance to meet and see how they stack up.
!!!Original Series
* Since the very first episode, this will always be a question in the back of everyone's minds. '''Who the heck is Ash's father?!'''
* '''Gary Oak.''' Ash's rival didn't even show up for that many episodes during the course of their rivalry, having more impact on the plot ''after'' the rivalry was over. And now, he hasn’t made a real in-person appearance since the Team Galactic arc ended, which comprises of the ~40 episodes of DP that remained, the new series so far, and three whole series inbetween.
* It's odd that Bill, the guy who made the Pokémon transfer system, was a main character in many manga, yet has only appeared in one episode to date.
* The two Pallet Town trainers that went off on a journey alongside Gary and Ash are only given a couple brief mentions of their unknown journey, and are confirmed by the end of Ash's Kanto journey to have decided to just give up on their goal completely. Why these two were never seen before to interact with Ash, or act as a roadblock for Ash to eventually overcome to become a better trainer, is anyone's guess.
* It was never revealed (nor has it ''ever'' been revealed) who won the Indigo Plateau Conference. In fact, none of the Top 3 were characters that had been introduced previously and they're only seen as shadowed figures when they're declared the winners. This is the ''only'' case in the entire anime where the eventual Conference winner is never shown. The fact any of Top 3 could've been used as characters for Ash to one day challenge never seemed to cross the minds of the writers.
* The eventual winner of the Silver Conference is a character who wasn't introduced until he is shown beating Harrison. He only appeared in the one episode he wins the Conference and is never shown or mentioned again.
* Domino, a noteworthy Team Rocket member that appeared in ''[[Anime/PokemonMewtwoReturns Mewtwo Returns]]''. There are many unanswered questions left about her that are still unresolved to this day. Domino initially appears to be a cute and slightly ditzy college student and assistant to Cullen Calix, but eventually, she reveals herself to be a Team Rocket elite working directly under the big boss Giovanni himself and the second-in-command in his plan to recapture Mewtwo. She’s also shown being able to do things that few other Team Rocket members would be allowed to get away with, such as being able to question Giovanni or talk back at him without getting punished for it. Unfortunately, despite her competence and her being one of Team Rocket’s elite, she hasn’t been heard from since. A shame too, because considering her level of competence, you’d think that Giovanni would make more use of her, but nope.
* Giselle or really any of the major Pokemon Tech students from [[Recap/PokemonS1E9TheSchoolOfHardKnocks "The School of Hard Knocks"]] could have been a nice reoccurring {{Foil}} to Ash and his friends, helping them both learn from each other and indirectly push each other to improve. A later episode [[Recap/PokemonS1E56TheUltimateTest even focuses on an examine people can take to get in the League as opposed to the traditional badge system]], allowing for the perfect opportunity to bring one of them back. Heck, Giselle is one of the few girls in the entire anime Ash shows any form of attraction to [[spoiler: [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY without prompting from the girl in question]]]]. However, outside of a reference in the Mewtwo special, no one from this episode has been seen in the anime since.
* For all his bluster and being the first real HateSink character in the anime, [[Recap/PokemonS1E11CharmanderTheStrayPokemon Damien]] ultimately doesn't even get a proper battle against Ash, instead being chased off by a single Flamethrower by Charmander. Damien could have been a nice, actually threatening rival for Ash in Kanto, especially with how Charmander's disobedience later on could've tied into how Charizard finally warmed up to Ash. Not to mention Ash's attempts to best him and actually push himself giving a legitimate explanation as to why he made it further in the League than Gary. Unfortunately, the StrictlyFormula nature of the show dictated that Damien would never show up again outside of flashbacks. Though thankfully, the same basic idea would be recycled in much greater focus with [[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesDiamondAndPearl Paul and Chimchar in DP]], and then Cross and Chamander in ''Anime/PokemonIChooseYou''. Tepig and Shamus had a similar dynamic in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite Best Wishes]]'', but by this time the concept had worn out its welcome with the fans.
* A lot of Pokémon from Misty's and Brock's original Kanto teams were quite underutilized.
** Brock's was especially bad as most of the time, his Pokémon were just kinda...there. Geodude and Onix never really stood out or had any defining persona (though Onix did get some moments of glory in later series' once it evolved into Steelix), and Zubat never truly had any spotlight until receiving some moments in Johto to eventually evolve up to Crobat.
** Meanwhile, Misty never really did anything with her Goldeen except to perform underwater search missions, and her Starmie was such a jobber that no one really cared to see it get left with her Cerulean sisters by the time of [=EP061=], "The Misty Mermaid." And speaking of [=EP061=], you also got Misty leaving her Horsea with her sisters when it's yet another of her Pokémon that didn't get to do all that much. Even in [=EP061=] where it seemed like Horsea was going to be the main focus, the spotlight for said episode ended up being hijacked by the sisters' Seel, who evolved into Dewgong. If that wasn't bad enough regarding Horsea, Misty never brought it back for Johto despite the fact that said region introduced a new evolution to the Horsea-line. The missed potential of Misty eventually owning a Kingdra will always be there. There's also Psyduck, which never truly developed out of being a JokeCharacter who only ever got to shine whenever its headache for using Psychic abilities acted up. It's why viewers consider it amazing to see Psyduck ''finally'' using Water Gun properly during its appearance in the Alola saga, but while it's amazing, it still doesn't change the fact that the training happened off-screen, and took all the way until the Alola saga to finally see Psyduck after some proper training.
** Despite being around throughout the Kanto, Orange Islands and Johto journeys, not much was ever done with Misty's Togepi outside of learning Metronome, and its Advanced series two-parter where Togepi evolved and got PutOnABus. Every other time, it just served as that cute-acting baby Pokémon that Misty would almost always be seen carrying around in her arms. It's part of the reason why some people [[NeverLiveItDown hold it against Misty]] for pushing Ash out of the way of watching Togepi hatch, which resulted in it imprinting on Misty, as some feel that Togepi going to Ash would have resulted in it having a better chance of being properly trained and having more standout moments.
!!!Advanced Series
* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conference]].
* Steven Stone, the Champion in most Hoenn games, used to be this, having only appeared in one episode of Hoenn with no reference to being anything beyond a typical hiker. [[spoiler:In Diamond and Pearl, it was revealed that Wallace was the champion of Hoenn without any mention of Steven Stone, and then in the X and Y series, he appeared in the Mega Evolution specials and was involved in the climax]].
* Misty's Azurill, which seemed like a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to Togepi, appears in two episodes without much development before disappearing.
!!!Diamond and Pearl Series
* Compared to how much mileage the anime has gotten out of Darkrai over the years, Cresselia received the short end of the stick. She only gets one episode, and even then she doesn't get to appear until the second half due to the first half being dominated by Team Rocket. And then Team Rocket comes back to hijack the plot again, and she spends the majority of her screentime as a DistressedDamsel who doesn't even aid in her own escape. The only thing she actually gets to do is confront Darkrai at the end of the episode, and the sequence takes fewer than thirty seconds. This would be weak representation for any Pokémon in the series, but this treatment was given to a legendary, and especially one that ''never got a movie'', not even appearing in '''the one starring Darkrai'''. This was only rectified when a two-episode plot in ''Master Journeys'' devoted more time to the duo and their relationship... more than twelve years later.
* During ''Diamond & Pearl,'' the writers made the mistake of trying to cram too many rivals into Dawn's Contest arc. As a result, Ursula's conflict with Dawn, as well as Nando's decision to pursue both Gym Battles and Contests, were never explored in depth because of their lack of screen time (and many opportunities to do so were wasted in favor of irrelevant filler). In fact, Dawn ''never'' directly faces Nando in a Pokémon battle, aside from their short practice battle in "Dawn of a New Era!"
* Connected to Dawn's Contest arc was Lila, a Pokémon Coordinator that served as Dawn's main opponent for winning her third ribbon. Lila was someone who already had four ribbons, and has a major connection to Dawn's family being her mother's primary rival in the past. If her match against Dawn was used as a means to reignite her passion for Contests, all Lila had to do was win one more ribbon at some point, and could have made further appearances as a competitor in the Sinnoh Grand Festival. However, in the end, Lila stayed as a OneShotCharacter.
* Dawn's Ambipom, who many felt was unjustifiably PutOnABus midway through the Sinnoh journey, because Ambipom suddenly took a liking to ping-pong the episode prior to her departure. It was even more of a missed opportunity that Ambipom didn't, at the very least, make a return as a member of Dawn's team for the Sinnoh Grand Festival, especially when you consider that Ambipom's love for Contests was the whole reason that Ash traded Aipom over to Dawn to begin with. It gets even more egregious by the time of the ''Pokémon Journeys'' series where Ash and Goh support a research facility established within Vermilion City, which just so happens to be the city that Ambipom departed towards back in her departure episode. Basically, there's heavy implication that Ash and Ambipom are within the same city throughout ''Pokémon Journeys'', yet Ash never seems to think about walking over to visit Ambipom.
* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. Paul's Gliscor was pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
!!!Best Wishes Series
* Trip. While [[TheScrappy fans preemptively hated him]] for being a less interesting {{replacement|Scrappy}} of Paul, he actually showed a bit of promise when his backstory regarding Alder was revealed. Not only does it help distinguish him from Paul, but it bore resemblance to that of [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Cheren]], an AdaptedOut character from the games whose arc was well-liked. Unfortunately, this potential was ultimately squandered, as not only did he never truly make it out of Paul's shadow, the conclusion of his subplot with Alder was considered incohesive and messy. While he did receive much CharacterDevelopment from his [[DefeatMeansRespect loss to the Champion]], said development is criticized for having nothing to do with Ash, on top of being filled to the brim with poorly written battles. By the time of the Unova League, the writers appeared to have completely given up on him, writing him off in a complete AntiClimax where he was eliminated in the very first round.
* Another misstep of the ''Black & White'' era was how cast aside Burgundy and Georgia were late in the series despite being the primary [[TheRival rivals]] of Cilan and Iris respectively. It can come off a bit surprising that their last true appearances in the series outside of later cameos was during the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup as it leaves off feeling like there was never any true finality to these rivalries.
* Virgil, the eventual winner of the Vertress Conference, is the one Unova rival that Ash never got to battle against. Due to Virgil being portrayed as a competent trainer at the level of those who previously defeated Ash, such as Harrison and Tyson, this led some to view him as a missed opportunity to have Virgil be the one who Ash eventually loses to instead of having Ash suffer a painful loss to someone as brainless as Cameron. It can also come off a bit odd that despite being an Eevee trainer, and Generation VI being just around the corner, Virgil was not the one to introduce the newest Eevolution, Sylveon, as a way to hype up fans for the XY series.
* Bianca. Many thought that both her and Stephan would show up to the Junior Cup just because it was an open tournament, but neither showed up at all. When the writers made her lose to Cameron to place at Top 64, there was nothing left for her. On an unfortunate note, Bianca and Cheren never met unlike the games; this would have been possible had it not been for her being written off the episode before Cheren's debut episode.
* Zekrom. It’s role was limited to restarting Ash and Pikachu at the start of the Unova journey, and ''that's it''. It wasn't even involved in any of the episodes related to N and Team Plasma.
!!!XY Series
* The Evil Malamar. A group of genuinely evil Pokémon trying to take over the world? Hell ya! Too bad you only get them for two episodes. Only one of which contained multiple Malamar, and the plotline remaining [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse somewhat unresolved]].
* Serena's rivals are all widely considered to be poorly handled. Miette was more of a ShipTease RunningGag than a legitimate threat, Nini was an extremely [[FlatCharacter bland rival]] who had little reason being more than a OneShotCharacter, and Shauna heavily decayed after her first onscreen Showcase. The lack of serious motivation for Serena is the biggest complaint about them: as the series went on, it became clear that as soon as Serena figured herself out, none of them stood a chance. OneShotCharacter Amelia is also considered wasted potential for similar reasons: not only could she have provided a rougher, less friendly dynamic with the sweet-natured Serena, but she could have helped flesh out Showcases and their emphasis on popularity.
* [[AnimalThemedSuperbeing Blaziken Mask]] had a handful of appearances in the earlier episodes, and pretty obvious ties to the main cast due to secretly being Clemont and Bonnie's father, but pretty much completely vanished until the Team Flare arc at the very end (where he still didn't do very much).
* The Lumiose Conference brought back Astrid from the ''Mega Evolution Specials'' to serve as an early league opponent for Ash. However, only a brief glimpse of their battle is actually seen.
!!!Sun and Moon Series
* ''Sun & Moon'' sees Ash having his largest group of friends yet with, including him, a group of ''six''. However, it seems clear that the writers either have their favorites or simply can't handle that many characters at once. As a result, some of them tend to be OutOfFocus. One of the worst offenders is Mallow who, besides her Bounsweet fully evolving into Tsareena and her backstory development with her mother and Shaymin, seemed to have been left aside, remaining fairly stagnant as a trainer, and only getting her Z-Ring very shortly before the Alola league at the end of the series, as the Grass Trial was taken by Ash so that his Rowlet could have a Grassium Z first. While Sophocles, Lana and Kiawe fare relatively better, they're both outshined by Lillie, who is the only one to receive a fair amount of presence to the story as the {{Deuteragonist}}.
* It takes awhile for Team Skull to show off any real importance other than being just a mere nuisance to the main cast. While many in the games saw the Team as such, the anime almost makes them look like total pushovers who were DemotedToExtra compared to their game counterparts, with most of the stuff they would be expected to do done by Team Rocket instead. It doesn't help that, even after ''two years'' of the ''Sun & Moon'' series and both [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Motherbeast Lusamine]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Necrozma]] received arcs in the series (the former of which happened [[AdaptedOut without their involvement]]), it took until ''episode 115'' for [[BigBad Guzma]] to finally appear. The fact that [[TheDragon Plumeria]]'s long awaited debut only happened in ''episode 104'' of the series and consisted of only appearing for a few seconds without being named or doing anything only fanned the flames further for some fans. And when Plumeria finally does battle in the Alola League, she is quickly eliminated by Ilima in the preliminary round.
* Hau, the [[TheRival main rival]] of the ''Sun & Moon'' games, is another example of DemotedToExtra, with Gladion instead being Ash's main rival. Like Guzma and Plumeria, Hau was introduced really late into the anime (episode 97), and ends up with a total of just ''one'' episode to build up his character before the start of the Alola League, which is when he finally reappears again. What you're left with is Hau coming off as just an unimportant OneShotCharacter that was lucky enough to make a comeback for the league.
* Mallow's Shaymin. Even considering Mallow herself is already an arguable qualifier (see above), her mythical Pokemon was left incredibly underplayed through its run in ''Sun and Moon''. It only got one proper limelight episode to develop, and only battled once its entire run ''offscreen'', only getting to utilize its Aromatherapy a couple of times otherwise. Even its release was done rather quickly at the very end of the series finale. Its lack of story relevance is especially jarring given the implications that [[spoiler:Shaymin is in fact Mallow's mother reincarnated]].
* Sandy, the Eevee that wound up on the Alolan Islands. Eevee had a lot of hype surrounding it at first due to how it had its own little six clip mini-series that showed off Eevee's arrival on the Alolan Islands. Many figured that Eevee was possibly going to be caught by Ash to take up an empty spot of his party, but it ended up going to Lana instead. At first, people were willing to let go of this to see how Eevee develops under Lana, but as it turned out, ''nothing'' was done with it. Apart from Lana giving it a nickname and haircut moments after capturing it, Sandy simply remained OutOfFocus for the rest of the series to the point that it didn't have a single notable battle under Lana's command besides the aforementioned mostly offscreen battle royal alongside Shaymin, which left people feeling that Sandy was completely wasted as a part of Lana's team instead of going to Ash. Many were even theorizing that Sandy was probably going to evolve into Vaporeon at some point given how Lana is a trainer that specializes in water-types, but the series didn't even do that.
* Lana appeared to be the owner of a Ride Lapras in early points of the Alola series. Unlike even the other Ride Pokémon the students use however, Lapras never really gets any proper limelight and largely disappears altogether by the second half. It is notably the only Pokémon of the students that doesn't take part in the Alola League. It's also particularly odd when you consider that they had no issue with expanding on the Charizard that Kiawe was using as his Ride Pokémon to it eventually becoming a Pokémon that Kiawe uses for battle, yet the same wasn't done for Lana's Ride Lapras.
!!!Journeys Series
* The Kangaskhan from [=JN001=] who took care of Pikachu as a Pichu. Many fans spent the episodes afterwards wondering where this Kangaskhan, or even its own pouchling, might return to build on the details of the first episode's expansion of Pikachu's past. Over a hundred episodes later and the plot point remains untouched, leaving many fans feeling like the potential for a follow up to the first details of Pikachu's past ever given were wasted and forgotten.
* [[spoiler: Both Rose and Oleana. Usually, villains or anti-villains would make minor appearances throughout the series and would be defeated at a much later time. Both Rose and Oleana face off against the heroes at JN044 and JN045, only to go in hiding once Eternatus is defeated and captured by Goh. This is the earliest time a main antagonist team/leader are defeated and it remains unknown if both Rose and Oleana will be written off completely or feature in later episodes.]]
* Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When [=JN046=] aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokemon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that [=JN046=] is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.
* The notable lack of Charon for the ''Diamond & Pearl'' specials did not go unnoticed.
** Fans of Diamond and Pearl and Team Galactic in particular were disappointed that Charon wasn't used as the villain of the 2-part Winter Special for 2021. After being rendered a severe case of WhatHappenedToTheMouse in Diamond and Pearl after somehow escaping being arrested along with the rest of Team Galactic at the end of the Team Galactic arc, the premise of the Winter Special, of a villain seemingly recreating the red chain to try and capture Dialga and Palkia, causing the two to battle and distort time and space in the process, seemed like it could have provided a great organic opportunity to finally wrap up that loose end, and turn the special into a proper follow up to the Team Galactic arc. Instead, the actual villains of the arc end up being an AU version of the Team Rocket Trio, who while not poorly received on their own, it still feels like a let down to some.
** Even more oddly, when Team Galactic actually did reappear as the central villains of a mini-series tying into the release of Legends Arceus, Charon was still a no show. He appears briefly in a flashback to the finale of the Galactic arc, the story follows up on those events with Saturn, Mars and Jupiter somehow having escaped from Police Custody (Along with a good number of Team Galactic grunts) and plotting to bring Cyrus back after his disappearance into another dimension, and the mini-series even borrows elements from the post-game plot of Pokemon Platinum with the Team Galactic members capturing a Heatran, which in the game was Charon's idea... and yet, despite the brief acknowledgement, Charon himself doesn't return nor do the Galactic Admins acknowledge his absence. The fact that the production team clearly did remember him via including him in the flashback just makes the lack of follow up on Charon's prior escape stand out all the more, especially when it would have been easy to have him have been the one to break Saturn, Mars and Jupiter out of prison, with the episodes not even acknowledging how they escaped on their own.
* Minor example, but with the sheer amount of XY continuity and returns in the month of April 2022, the conspicuous absence and lack of mention of Squishy and it's fellow Zygarde cell in [=JN108=], even in the flashback to Greninja's release, raised a few eyebrows among fans.
* [=JN100=] revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight off screen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
* While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post ''Diamond & Pearl'' was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
* Like Hau from the previous series, Hop is severely DemotedToExtra compared to being one of the main [[TheRival rivals]] to the player in the ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' games. In the anime, Hop basically just shows up at the tail end of the ''Journeys'' series as one of the spectators watching the Masters 8 tournament.
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* Professor Cerise's role in the story is mostly just "tell Ash and Goh what to do" and there are no signs of him interacting with his daughter and helping ''her'' get into Pokémon until [=JN031=]. It's also never made clear ''why'' Chloe even goes to the Institute in the first place if she supposedly "works with him".
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* Like Hau from the previous series, Hop is severely DemotedToExtra compared to being one of the main [[TheRival rivals]] to the player in the ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' games. In the anime, Hop basically just shows up at the tail end of the ''Journeys'' series as one of the spectators watching the Masters 8 tournament.
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* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conferenc]].
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* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conferenc]].Conference]].
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* The lack of Ash having any major rivals sticks out like a sore thumb during his Hoenn journey. The closest he gets is Morrison and Tyson, who were introduced really late in the series, and were basically just there to be some of his opponents in the [[TournamentArc Ever Grande Conferenc]].
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* Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
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* Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
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* Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
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* Professor Cerise's role in the story is mostly just "tell Ash and Goh what to do" and there are no signs of him interacting with his daughter and helping ''her'' get into Pokémon until Episode 31. It's also never made clear ''why'' Chloe even goes to the Institute in the first place if she supposedly "works with him".
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* Professor Cerise's role in the story is mostly just "tell Ash and Goh what to do" and there are no signs of him interacting with his daughter and helping ''her'' get into Pokémon until Episode 31.[=JN031=]. It's also never made clear ''why'' Chloe even goes to the Institute in the first place if she supposedly "works with him".
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* Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When episode 46 aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokemon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that [=JN046=] is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.
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* Some fans of the First Movie Mewtwo found it's guest appearance in Journeys disappointing. Following a near two decade absence of the character and a very controversial second incarnation of Mewtwo in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, fans were ecstatic at the confirmation that the original, more iconic version of the character would be brought back for a new story in the main anime. When episode 46 [=JN046=] aired however, some fans were underwhelmed by the execution: apart from the fact that Mewtwo only shows up towards the end of the first half, the episode is more about reaffirming Ash and Goh's commitment to their respective goals and serving as a jumping on point for viewers following the SWSH arc. While Mewtwo does get an impressive showing overwhelming Ash's Pikachu and Lucario and Goh's Cinderace in a curbstomp battle, Mewtwo itself gets no further character development apart from a reveal that it's now watching over a group of Pokemon that have been abused by humans, which isn't really explored in any detail and mostly serves as an excuse for why it's on the island Ash and Goh find Mewtwo on. On top of that, the episode makes no direct references to either Mewtwo Strikes Back or Mewtwo Returns, the only indication that it's even the same character apart from Mewtwo's original Japanese voice actor returning being that Ash instantly recognizes him, which Mewtwo doesn't even react to or show similar recognition despite Ash's heavy involvement in Mewtwo's prior character development. It comes off to some as a result like Mewtwo could be replaced with the version from the sixteenth movie, and nothing would actually change about the episode. General consensus among fans is that [=JN046=] is a good episode on it's own, but given the long wait for a reappearance from fans of Mewtwo and there being no indication it'll appear again in Journeys, some were left feeling like the episode did the deliberate bare minimum with the character.character.
* Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
* Fans of Ash's Infernape were less than pleased with it's return in [=JN068=]. After being teased with shots of Infernape battling a Moltres in a special preview, a lot of DP fans were hyped up by the possibility of seeing Ash's Sinnoh ace in a battle equivalent to Charizard's battle with Articuno in the Battle Frontier arc, or Ash's Sceptile defeating Tobias's Darkrai at the Sinnoh League. When the episode actually aired however, it turned out the episode was mostly focused on the return of Gary and setting up the Project Mew subplot for Goh, with Infernape being a side feature who's part in the battle against Moltres only lasted less than half a minute, where the only attack it landed didn't even seem to phase Moltres. Most fans of Infernape ended up feeling underwhelmed and that the episode did a poor job highlighting it's status as one of Ash's strongest Pokemon. These fans got even more bitter when roughly a year later, Ash's Greninja returned in a much better received episode where Greninja was considered to have gotten better focus and if anything came off as stronger than ever, while Infernape hasn't made a proper appearance since with still no indication of a second return (Barring a cameo of an AU version in the Dialga and Palkia two-parter), leaving many feeling cheated.
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* Minor example, but with the sheer amount of XY continuity and returns in the month of April 2022, the conspicuous absence and lack of mention of Squishy and it's fellow Zygarde cell in [=JN108=], even in the flashback to Greninja's release, raised a few eyebrows among fans.
* [=JN100=] revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight off screen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
* While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post ''Diamond & Pearl'' was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
* [=JN100=] revealed that Flint was a member of the Masters Eight, much to the excitement of DP fans who had been much hoping for a rematch between him and Ash, especially with Flint being the most popular of the Sinnoh Elite Four. To say his fans were less than happy with his ultimate treatment in the show, however (being subjected to a rapid curbstomping from Leon where he put up considerably less of a fight than against Cynthia at the end of Diamond and Pearl, with the battle being poorly animated on top of that, and then having it later revealed that Iris had seemingly taken his place in the Masters Eight off screen with no fanfare), would be an understatement.
* While fans have nothing against the Pelipper who delivers the Rocket Prize Master to Jessie and James (And in fact, most like it MORE than the aforementioned device to the point of wishing either Jessie or James would actually catch it), some fans wished that the writers had taken the opportunity to reintroduce the Team Rocket Delibird instead, who's absence post ''Diamond & Pearl'' was lamented by some Team Rocket fans.
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* The Kangaskhan from [=JN001=] who took care of Pikachu as a Pichu. Many fans spent the episodes afterwards wondering where this Kangaskhan, or even its own pouchling, might return to build on the details of the first episode's expansion of Pikachu's past. Over a hundred episodes later and the plot point remains untouched, leaving many fans feeling like the potential for a follow up to the first details of Pikachu's past ever given were wasted and forgotten.
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* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. It's pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
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* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. It's Paul's Gliscor was pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
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* Paul's Gliscor. Despite its connection to Ash's Gligar being the latter's former leader, nothing was done with it outside of their battle in [=DP081=]. It's pretty much forgotten about outside of a cameo in [=DP100=].
