Do you have any unpopular opinions about the anime?

[megaevolvedmushroom]

The problem isn't Misty's team, it's the movesets given to them by the writers.

 

[Cybersai]

So basically Misty's team was not handled well. Starmie never used any psychic attacks either. It was basically just a bigger clone of Staryu.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

The problem isn't Misty's team, it's the movesets given to them by the writers.

How good her team was treated depends from pokemon to pokemon in reality. Looking back writers didnt started to enrich Mistys team with more diverse moves until Johto came around prior to that spamming us with basic attacks from pokemon from Ash or Brock too. Which can be noticed with his bulbasaur and Charmander back in Kanto spamming us with razor leaf,vine whip and flamethrower on daily basis.

Back than in starting days there wasnt very diverse movepool among pokemon being used with fault not coming from Mistys water pokemon but writers and lack of creative,m more interesting moves in games for pokemon to use. Although there were som exceptions like Psyduck which used psychic attacks, Togepi occasionally, Staryu with his swift and wide line up of physical attacks whether its double edge, rapid spin, agility etc.

Regardless in second half of run her pokemon really started to gain more individuality from each other with choice of attacks they use and value they brought to show. Such as Corsola mirror coat, spike cannon or recover, Goldeen supersonic and horn drill, Poliwhir l(later Politoad)psychic moves like swagger, headbutt, double team, dynamic punch, bubble beam etc. And later on Gyarados with impressively diverse move pool Luvdisc knowing ice beam, sweet kiss etc.

I guess her best handled pokemon when she was on show were definitely Corsola, Staryu and POlitoad not jhaving much to complain about their focus and importance.

 

[megaevolvedmushroom]

Another one: I didn't like Movie 8 all that much.

 

[FANG-TAN]

I think I'm the only one who has ever voiced dissatisfaction with how most Gym Leaders are handled in the anime. It seems like when they're too lazy to give them personalities, they give them the Generic Anime Gym Leader™ personality - mature, righteous, and overly friendly. For example: in the games, Mikan is meek and somewhat shy; in the anime, she's a Generic Anime Gym Leader™. Akane, who is somewhat of a crybaby, a pretty-girl, and a sore loser in the games, is a Generic Anime Gym Leader™. Ibuki, a overconfident Gym Leader who feels disgraced over losing to a child, is a Generic Anime Leader™. Even Kikuko, who is a member of the Kanto/Jouto Elite Four in both canons, is given the personality of a Generic Anime Gym Leader™ in the anime, while in the games she is a short-tempered old hag who is bitter about who Professor Orchid's become in recent years.

This is mainly prevalent in Jouto through Houen, of which I really wanted to punch the screen due to most of the Gym Leaders might as well being one person when they had unique base personalities in the games that could be expanded upon in the anime. From what I've seen of DP, at least Natane has a distinctive personality. In the original Kanto, however, they succeeded in making most Gym Leaders into unique characters, obviously including Takeshi and Kasumi.

 

[TheCableGuy]

I think I'm the only one who has ever voiced dissatisfaction with how most Gym Leaders are handled in the anime. It seems like when they're too lazy to give them personalities, they give them the Generic Anime Gym Leader™ personality - mature, righteous, and overly friendly. For example: in the games, Mikan is meek and somewhat shy; in the anime, she's a Generic Anime Gym Leader™. Akane, who is somewhat of a crybaby, a pretty-girl, and a sore loser in the games, is a Generic Anime Gym Leader™. Ibuki, a overconfident Gym Leader who feels disgraced over losing to a child, is a Generic Anime Leader™. Even Kikuko, who is a member of the Kanto/Jouto Elite Four in both canons, is given the personality of a Generic Anime Gym Leader™ in the anime, while in the games she is a short-tempered old hag who is bitter about who Professor Orchid's become in recent years.

This is mainly prevalent in Jouto through Houen, of which I really wanted to punch the screen due to most of the Gym Leaders might as well being one person when they had unique base personalities in the games that could be expanded upon in the anime. From what I've seen of DP, at least Natane has a distinctive personality. In the original Kanto, however, they succeeded in making most Gym Leaders into unique characters, obviously including Takeshi and Kasumi.

I can honestly say I don't see that.
Most of the Anime Gym Leaders don't strike me all that "mature, righteous, or overly friendly"
(though perhaps these descriptions are entirely too subjective to really be accurate descriptions.)
Mostly, I'd describe most Gym Leaders as "Professional" on the field but each one have very interesting and detailed personalities off the field.
Sadly, we just don't get to see most of the Gym Leader's Personalities show-cased in the show when they have very little actual screen-time,
But of what we do get to see, I think they each have their own unique and very interesting Personalities.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[FANG-TAN]

I can honestly say I don't see that.
Most of the Anime Gym Leaders don't strike me all that "mature, righteous, or overly friendly"
(though perhaps these descriptions are entirely too subjective to really be accurate descriptions.)
Mostly, I'd describe most Gym Leaders as "Professional" on the field but each one have very interesting and detailed personalities off the field.
Sadly, we just don't get to see most of the Gym Leader's Personalities show-cased in the show when they have very little actual screen-time,
But of what we do get to see, I think they each have their own unique and very interesting Personalities.

But that's just my opinion.

Very bad excuse. There are unique Gym Leaders in the anime like Yanagi and, of course, the Kanto Gym Leaders, but other than that, most of them aren't distinct enough to be memorable. In most of the games, they have only several lines of dialogue yet it's easy to tell that they have their own unique quirks. In the anime, there's virtually no difference in personality, for example, between Akane, Mikan, Tsutsuji, and Nagi, aside from "I prefer using this specific type of Pokemon."

Back in Kanto, to name a few, we had Natsume, who was a former introverted kuudere who carried a doll containing her split personality that liked turning challengers into dolls so they could become her friends for eternity (a unique take that I think is superior to her in-game counterpart, and much more memorable in the anime), Matis who was (as in the games) an American, prefered the brute force of evolutions, and threw out extremely hilarious Engrish in his speech, and Katsura, who was a weird dude living in a volcano that loved telling ridiculously hard riddles that made challengers' heads spin. Compared to those days, they hardly even try writing the Gym Leaders anymore, aside from a select few.

I mean, hell, if screen time is the problem of why the anime Gym Leaders are usually boring characters, than why not shove some of the fillers aside? Bad writing.

 

[TheCableGuy]

I can honestly say I don't see that.
Most of the Anime Gym Leaders don't strike me all that "mature, righteous, or overly friendly"
(though perhaps these descriptions are entirely too subjective to really be accurate descriptions.)
Mostly, I'd describe most Gym Leaders as "Professional" on the field but each one have very interesting and detailed personalities off the field.
Sadly, we just don't get to see most of the Gym Leader's Personalities show-cased in the show when they have very little actual screen-time,
But of what we do get to see, I think they each have their own unique and very interesting Personalities.

But that's just my opinion.

Very bad excuse. There are unique Gym Leaders in the anime like Yanagi and, of course, the Kanto Gym Leaders, but other than that, most of them aren't distinct enough to be memorable. In most of the games, they have only several lines of dialogue yet it's easy to tell that they have their own unique quirks. In the anime, there's virtually no difference in personality, for example, between Akane, Mikan, Tsutsuji, and Nagi, aside from "I prefer using this specific type of Pokemon."

Back in Kanto, to name a few, we had Natsume, who was a former introverted kuudere who carried a doll containing her split personality that liked turning challengers into dolls so they could become her friends for eternity (a unique take that I think is superior to her in-game counterpart, and much more memorable in the anime), Matis who was (as in the games) an American, prefered the brute force of evolutions, and threw out extremely hilarious Engrish in his speech, and Katsura, who was a weird dude living in a volcano that loved telling ridiculously hard riddles that made challengers' heads spin. Compared to those days, they hardly even try writing the Gym Leaders anymore, aside from a select few.

I mean, hell, if screen time is the problem of why the anime Gym Leaders are usually boring characters, than why not shove some of the fillers aside? Bad writing.

Well, you're free to have your own opinion of course.
But I think you're confusing a character not having an 'over-the-top' personality with having no personally.
Forgive me if I don't believe that every character in Pokemon need to be a borderline loon,
be girl-crazy, or have deep emotional problems to be said to have a personality.

Granted that some of them had some shallow development:
Tsukushi/Bugsy, for example, showed very little personally, but he was introduced in and remained for the duration of only a single episode
but honestly, not every character introduced need to be integral to the story beyond a single battle.

But the other Johto Gym Leaders have pretty well Developed Personalities,
Even Shijima/Chuck who only had a single Episode.
And Matsuba/Morty had several Episodes to help define his personality,
though his Personality was well defined enough in his first episode.
And I loved Akane/Whitney's total Directionally-challenged Air-headedness,
although her battling personality left much to be desired.

And you can't seriously claim that any Unova Gym Leaders lack Personality.
The Kanto Gym Leaders had nothing on the Unova Gym Leaders.

Sadly, I don't remember much from the Sinnoh Region cause I missed that arc,
though I do remember Sumomo/Maylene was absolutely adorable with her sudo-crush on Ash.

Same with Hoenn, come to think of it. Missed most of that one too.
But I did play the games but I can honestly say that, much like the other Gens,
the Hoenn Gym Leaders in the game had absolutely no Personalities what-so-ever.

Now, if you want to talk about Lazy writing, then we can discuss the Games.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana" is funnier than Georgia and Burgundy

 

[Cybersai]

A lot of the Gym leaders aren't really focused on in depth in the anime, which is why some of them can be bland.

Look at Marlon, he had one episode and most of the ep focused on Cameron over him.

 

[FANG-TAN]

Well, you're free to have your own opinion of course.
But I think you're confusing a character not having an 'over-the-top' personality with having no personally.
Forgive me if I don't believe that every character in Pokemon need to be a borderline loon,
be girl-crazy, or have deep emotional problems to be said to have a personality.

Read my post again. I've been saying "generic personality", not "no personality." Obviously they have personalities or else they'd be zombies. I'm bothered by the fact that many of the anime Gym Leaders are bland to the point where they might as well be the same character. If they couldn't think of a unique or memorable characterization, they could at least use the personality set forth by the games. If a Gym Leader *was* a loon in the games, there's no reason for him/her to be a Generic Anime Gym Leader™.

(Especially in the original English dub, where almost all of the female Gym Leaders were voiced by Lisa Ortiz - that didn't help.)

Granted that some of them had some shallow development:
Tsukushi/Bugsy, for example, showed very little personally, but he was introduced in and remained for the duration of only a single episode
but honestly, not every character introduced need to be integral to the story beyond a single battle.

They're important characters from the game. If you're going to make them boring and as forgettable as a filler character, then that's a problem.

Also, again, the anime has no excuse for this beyond lazy writing. All of those uninteresting filler episodes in Jouto, for example, could have been put aside to develop in-game characters.

But the other Johto Gym Leaders have pretty well Developed Personalities,
Even Shijima/Chuck who only had a single Episode.
And Matsuba/Morty had several Episodes to help define his personality,
though his Personality was well defined enough in his first episode.
And I loved Akane/Whitney's total Directionally-challenged Air-headedness,
although her battling personality left much to be desired.

I did say that there were exceptions post-Kanto. Still, some of them don't have to be distinct characters, all of them can.

And you can't seriously claim that any Unova Gym Leaders lack Personality.
The Kanto Gym Leaders had nothing on the Unova Gym Leaders.
Sadly, I don't remember much from the Sinnoh Region cause I missed that arc,
though I do remember Sumomo/Maylene was absolutely adorable with her sudo-crush on Ash.
Same with Hoenn, come to think of it. Missed most of that one too.

I said most prevalent in Jouto and Houen. I got back into the anime just for Episode N. I dropped the DP anime shortly after the Natane episodes and haven't watched much of the Best Wishes episodes aside from Episode N.

If there's an Isshu Gym Leader that's as memorable as the lovely Nastume, feel free to share that with me.

But I did play the games but I can honestly say that, much like the other Gens,
the Hoenn Gym Leaders in the game had absolutely no Personalities what-so-ever.

Now, if you want to talk about Lazy writing, then we can discuss the Games.

That's not true at all. Many of the in-game Gym Leaders have distinct personalities that sets them apart from the others. The player wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of going through the trials in Dragon's Den if Ibuki didn't have a distinct personality from the other Gym Leaders.

The games may not have much in the story department, but the characters do have notable personalities. But it's up to mediums like the anime and manga to expand upon them. Pokemon Special does a decent job with this. The anime...not so much, though it does shine in some areas. The anime's Mewtwo has the most depth compared to its counterparts within all canons, but Mewtwo's not a Gym Leader.

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

Another one: I didn't like Movie 8 all that much.

I personally didn't like it either. I found Movie 7 was the best of the AG films (Destiny Deoxys) myself.

The dubbed versions of Movie 8 and 9 are the same to me, though.

8's plot and Pokemon focused on was pretty abysmal, but the dubbing was great, whereas
9's plot and Pokemon focused on was pretty cool, but the dubbing was mediocre.

 

[Cybersai]

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

Usually there's only like 2-3 bad or lackluster Gym battles a region and you can excuse it, but in Unova they were all just meh.

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

Usually there's only like 2-3 bad or lackluster Gym battles a region and you can excuse it, but in Unova they were all just meh.

Gyms 4 and 8 made me cringe in Unova. I thought all the others were pretty good, though. 4 was more bearable for me than 8, though.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

Usually there's only like 2-3 bad or lackluster Gym battles a region and you can excuse it, but in Unova they were all just meh.

I thought that the seventh Gym battle was really good. There was more strategy there than in most of the other Gym battles in Unova, Ash's choices in Pokemon made more sense and it was more engaging to watch. I agree that pretty much everything else ranged from meh to just plain bad. There were some that started out good like the second and fifth Gym battles, but then those led to cheap unbelievable/questionable victories too. I'm not sure if that's better than Kanto being full of mainly pity Gym badges, but it is frustrating and annoying. The fourth and eighth Gym battles were especially bad due to how they made Ash look so much worse than usual.

 

[Moe]

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

I think that's still true without ignoring the Kanto pity badges.

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

Usually there's only like 2-3 bad or lackluster Gym battles a region and you can excuse it, but in Unova they were all just meh.

I thought that the seventh Gym battle was really good. There was more strategy there than in most of the other Gym battles in Unova, Ash's choices in Pokemon made more sense and it was more engaging to watch. I agree that pretty much everything else ranged from meh to just plain bad. There were some that started out good like the second and fifth Gym battles, but then those led to cheap unbelievable/questionable victories too. I'm not sure if that's better than Kanto being full of mainly pity Gym badges, but it is frustrating and annoying. The fourth and eighth Gym battles were especially bad due to how they made Ash look so much worse than usual.

Completely agreed with you here. While I wasn't a big fan of DP, I feel it probably had the best gym battles and most innovative strategies and stuff to maneuver around the field. BW's been extremely underwhelming for me in that respect when compared to DP. I think the third gym battle with Burgh was pretty decent as well. The eight was my worst between itself and the fourth (I think a lot of people agree with both of us here those two were the worst). While Ash's...incredible...stupidity in the fourth battle in terms of grabbing his Snivy mid-way through the gym battle was frustrating, I feel the eighth gym battle with Roxie takes the cake. From Ash scanning a Koffing, a Pokemon he even battled against James of TRio with numerous times and even its evolution, to barely managing to win a 6 vs. 3 battle...worst one this saga, IMO. The seventh was pretty well excuted with Brycen, though.

Ignoring Kanto's pity badges, I think Unova had the worst overall Gym battles of all the regions.

I think that's still true without ignoring the Kanto pity badges.

Agreed. Considering Kanto was the start of the series, and Ash was a beginner at the time, it was understandable to me the writers took that route. I also do have some nostalgia for how he earned some of the badges honorably through good deeds as opposed to Gym Battles, though, like when Ash rescued Gloom from Erika's gym in Celadon City, though.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Completely agreed with you here. While I wasn't a big fan of DP, I feel it probably had the best gym battles and most innovative strategies and stuff to maneuver around the field. BW's been extremely underwhelming for me in that respect when compared to DP. I think the third gym battle with Burgh was pretty decent as well. The eight was my worst between itself and the fourth (I think a lot of people agree with both of us here those two were the worst). While Ash's...incredible...stupidity in the fourth battle in terms of grabbing his Snivy mid-way through the gym battle was frustrating, I feel the eighth gym battle with Roxie takes the cake. From Ash scanning a Koffing, a Pokemon he even battled against James of TRio with numerous times and even its evolution, to barely managing to win a 6 vs. 3 battle...worst one this saga, IMO. The seventh was pretty well excuted with Brycen, though.

The third Gym battle started off okay, but once Sewaddle evolved and started the trend of BW Gym battles have cheap evolution victories, even though it didn't end up winning the battle for Ash like most of the other last minute evolutions did, it went downhill for me. The fourth and eighth battles are definitely the worst out of the bunch. Ash's plan to rely only on Palpitoad to the point where he apparently didn't bring any other Pokemon with him aside from it and Pikachu was incredibly bad. I don't have much of a problem with Ash scanning Koffing. He battled int frequently, but that was over a decade ago and it isn't uncommon for Ash to use his Pokedex on Pokemon he's met before. It's just so that kids in the audience who weren't around when those Pokemon first appeared can get a bit of information on them. The battle itself was the main problem when it made Roxie look like the stronger trainer, despite Ash winning the match, since it took all six Pokemon to take down her three Poison types and it just made it look like Ash wasn't really ready for the Unova League with that as his last badge.

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

Completely agreed with you here. While I wasn't a big fan of DP, I feel it probably had the best gym battles and most innovative strategies and stuff to maneuver around the field. BW's been extremely underwhelming for me in that respect when compared to DP. I think the third gym battle with Burgh was pretty decent as well. The eight was my worst between itself and the fourth (I think a lot of people agree with both of us here those two were the worst). While Ash's...incredible...stupidity in the fourth battle in terms of grabbing his Snivy mid-way through the gym battle was frustrating, I feel the eighth gym battle with Roxie takes the cake. From Ash scanning a Koffing, a Pokemon he even battled against James of TRio with numerous times and even its evolution, to barely managing to win a 6 vs. 3 battle...worst one this saga, IMO. The seventh was pretty well excuted with Brycen, though.

The third Gym battle started off okay, but once Sewaddle evolved and started the trend of BW Gym battles have cheap evolution victories, even though it didn't end up winning the battle for Ash like most of the other last minute evolutions did, it went downhill for me. The fourth and eighth battles are definitely the worst out of the bunch. Ash's plan to rely only on Palpitoad to the point where he apparently didn't bring any other Pokemon with him aside from it and Pikachu was incredibly bad. I don't have much of a problem with Ash scanning Koffing. He battled int frequently, but that was over a decade ago and it isn't uncommon for Ash to use his Pokedex on Pokemon he's met before. It's just so that kids in the audience who weren't around when those Pokemon first appeared can get a bit of information on them. The battle itself was the main problem when it made Roxie look like the stronger trainer, despite Ash winning the match, since it took all six Pokemon to take down her three Poison types and it just made it look like Ash wasn't really ready for the Unova League with that as his last badge.

Good points. I definitely understand where you're coming from on all of them. The 6 Pokemon just to take down 3 Pokemon was very depressing to watch. I honestly felt like that was a terrible way for him to end his final gym battle of the region (though the League was a disaster).

 

[Misty Calls Masquerain]

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana" is funnier than Georgia and Burgundy

"Why did the chicken cross the road, to get to the other side" is also funnier.