Controversial opinions

[DankOverlord]

Red to me is overrated. He's always hyped up as this badass trainer who's greater than everyone else. People especially compare him to Ash and honestly, I like Ash a lot more. At least Ash has a personality.

Honestly Adventures!Red is probably the course correction Red needs, but everyone only knows about bland games/Origins Red

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I feel like part of the reason that Red gets so much egregious worship is at least in part precisely because he's such a bland player-insert: any and all of his accomplishments are technically your accomplishments, so by praising his development and skills people by extension are effectively praising themselves as well. And him getting this more than the other Pokemon protagonists despite all of them being about as much of player-inserts as him, as well as technically more accomplished, probably has to do with the fact that Red was the first, and as TVTropes puts it, First Installment Wins.

 

[Unireon]

Red is like that because the staff botched the process when adapting the games.
Origins was the opportunity to give him a proper personality.

They chose, on purpose, to depict him like the Player Character he is.
Meant to represent the person playing and of course he has to beat the game and felt powerful.
He is a blank slate, no personality, for the very same reason.

Satoshi has an actual personality, despite getting blander as time passed.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Another thing I forgot to add is that when you think about it, it's very possible that one reason Origins got so much praise is because it had extremely lucky timing: the OVA was aired at the end of Gen 5, which had the BW anime, at the time probably the most despised saga yet, and to this day still agreed to be the one with the worst League conference and by extension the worst sendoff for Ash. That, and Charizard wasn't yet quite the monumental spotlight-stealing black hole of shilling and marketing that it would eventually become (granted, that's also because it is arguably Origins itself that first gave rise to that little trend, seeing how poorly every other Pokemon in that OVA is treated next to the dragon), so people weren't burned out of Charizard yet, pun very much intended. Those things are probably what helped people latch onto Origins as the "superior" adaptation. If Origins had instead aired after Alola or even XY, where Ash was significantly better as a battler and Charizard was starting to become groan-worthy thanks to Alain's and Leon's ones being hyped to high heaven, it's possible that people wouldn't have been as willing to let its faults slide.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Red is overrated. Leaf deserves more appreciation. I said what I said!

 

[HiroHunter]

Red is overrated. Leaf deserves more appreciation. I said what I said!

Agree we need Leaf from the Let's Go games in the anime. Or more Leaf love overall shes a better character than Red by a country mile.

 

[nickdt]

Sawyer beating Ash in the finals would have been a lot better honestly than losing to Alain and his OP as hell Mega Charizard X.

It would have made more sense as well, rather than Haxninja tanking three Frenzy Plants.

 

[Enzo]

Honestly, the Red worship is weird because he's not that impressive. Every other Pokémon protagonist exceeds his accomplishments, and that's me being as nice as possible because if you open it up to protagonists of other RPGs he falls even farther behind the various world-savers.

Every other play character managed to also reach Champion-status so it kinda gets to the point of it not being that noteworthy cuz everyone is on the same base level (that is: regional champ), but they also stopped not only their own villainous team but also stopped region/world-wide crisis.

Red is, so far, the only player character who failed at defeating their regional villainous team, since Team Rocket was only scared away by him (and he also didn't had a ''Legendary Pokémon threatens the world in some form" like the others, so he had no crisis to solve besides TR, which he failed at) but was only effectively stopped by Ethan/Lyra, who, may I add, in HGSS, not only became Johto's own Champion, but also went to Kanto and dethroned Red, so they are also Kanto's Champion.

It's so funny because every other player character stomps Red when it comes to accomplishments but people still praise him to no end.

EDIT: I now just noticed Red is also the first and so far the only player character who canonically got defeated out of the Champion position, so he's not a Champ anymore unlike his other peers. That's tough buddy.

 

[FluffleFi]

Even obtaining the championship title was harder for the other protagonists since, aside from Alola and Kanto itself, they all had regional champions to beat. Hilbert/Hilda, for instance, not only had to battle through the E4, but they also had to face N, who had a Legendary dragon and had previously defeated Alder.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Agree we need Leaf from the Let's Go games in the anime. Or more Leaf love overall shes a better character than Red by a country mile.

Given how much time that they spend in Kanto, it’s a huge missed opportunity that they didn’t introduce her anime counterpart in Journeys. From what little we saw of her personality in Let’s Go, she would have been a fun addition.

 

[DankOverlord]

Given how much time that they spend in Kanto, it’s a huge missed opportunity that they didn’t introduce her anime counterpart in Journeys. From what little we saw of her personality in Let’s Go, she would have been a fun addition.

At least she's getting some spotlight in Evolutions

 

[Almonds]

Another thing I forgot to add is that when you think about it, it's very possible that one reason Origins got so much praise is because it had extremely lucky timing: the OVA was aired at the end of Gen 5, which had the BW anime, at the time probably the most despised saga yet, and to this day still agreed to be the one with the worst League conference and by extension the worst sendoff for Ash. That, and Charizard wasn't yet quite the monumental spotlight-stealing black hole of shilling and marketing that it would eventually become (granted, that's also because it is arguably Origins itself that first gave rise to that little trend, seeing how poorly every other Pokemon in that OVA is treated next to the dragon), so people weren't burned out of Charizard yet, pun very much intended. Those things are probably what helped people latch onto Origins as the "superior" adaptation. If Origins had instead aired after Alola or even XY, where Ash was significantly better as a battler and Charizard was starting to become groan-worthy thanks to Alain's and Leon's ones being hyped to high heaven, it's possible that people wouldn't have been as willing to let its faults slide.

Now that you mention it, the Charizard favoritism wasn't as bad pre-Gen 6, so Origins probably did play some role making that worse. I imagine if it wasn't for Origins amplifying the Charizard hype then it may very well be possible Leon might have had a different ace.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Now that you mention it, the Charizard favoritism wasn't as bad pre-Gen 6, so Origins probably did play some role making that worse. I imagine if it wasn't for Origins amplifying the Charizard hype then it may very well be possible Leon might have had a different ace.

Maybe not so much the hype itself, but more specifically the quirk of Charizard marketing being so heavily reliant on Charizard stomping down on every other Pokemon to make it look better. Notice how in Origins it wasn't enough for Charizard to be Red's strongest Pokemon, it also had to be literally the only competent Pokemon on Red's team, and then every prominent Charizard since then similarly has to be treated as the single most badass thing to walk the planet to the point that every other Pokemon looks like a useless wimp by comparison, what with Alain's Mega Charizard X spending the entirety of its screentime steamrolling over every other Mega in existence (and to rub salt into this point's wound, a lot of Megas have their sole anime appearance be getting curbstomped by Alain's Uberzard, which is definitely not fun for their fans) and the guy didn't even need to use his full team until he faced Ash. Leon is a similar case to Alain except he lacks the edgelord factor and, to his credit, he and his Charizard are actually less prominent than Alain and his were, so we don't have to witness cases of "Charizard superiority" as often. The way the games hype his Charizard more than makes up for this, though, as you wouldn't even know that he even has a full team until he actually uses it on you in the final battle.

Now, let's look back at the actual very first prominent Charizard in the franchise: Ash's. Even to this day, he's probably still very popular even among people who've gotten sick of his species. Why is that? Well, because Ash's Charizard, unlike Red's, Alain's, and Leon's, didn't eclipse the rest of Ash's Pokemon to the point that they were effectively deadweight filler: they were all allowed to get awesome moments, wins, and meaningful contributions. And it's annoying that with every modern Charizard there's this weird need to make it the only competent thing for miles around: Red's Charizard would have still gotten plenty of hype just by virtue of it being Red's ace and getting the shiny new Mega transformation, but apparently Origin's writers felt they couldn't risk the slightest chance of anyone potentially eclipsing it despite the fact that the freaking Mega alone would have already made that all but impossible, so the rest of Red's Pokemon get portrayed as useless chumps.

So yeah, I think that if Charizard as a species had been handled more like Ash's was, it likely wouldn't have become the polarizing figure that it is today. Notice how none of the other hyper-popular and mascot-ish Pokemon get anywhere near the amount of scorn that Charizard does despite being every bit as prominent: it's because unlike Charizard, they don't feel the need to make every other species look worse at their expense. I certainly haven't seen any Gengar-centric marketing that makes every other Ghost-type suck for example, for example. Nor does Lucario get presented as the greatest Fighting-type to walk the earth just because it can wield Aura. Heck, even Pikachu doesn't treat Raichu as badly as Charizard does literally everyone else these days.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

It would have made more sense as well, rather than Haxninja tanking three Frenzy Plants.

And then losing to one Blast Burn.

Then again Sawyers Sceptile isn’t that good compared to MCX

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Maybe not so much the hype itself, but more specifically the quirk of Charizard marketing being so heavily reliant on Charizard stomping down on every other Pokemon to make it look better. Notice how in Origins it wasn't enough for Charizard to be Red's strongest Pokemon, it also had to be literally the only competent Pokemon on Red's team, and then every prominent Charizard since then similarly has to be treated as the single most badass thing to walk the planet to the point that every other Pokemon looks like a useless wimp by comparison, what with Alain's Mega Charizard X spending the entirety of its screentime steamrolling over every other Mega in existence (and to rub salt into this point's wound, a lot of Megas have their sole anime appearance be getting curbstomped by Alain's Uberzard, which is definitely not fun for their fans) and the guy didn't even need to use his full team until he faced Ash. Leon is a similar case to Alain except he lacks the edgelord factor and, to his credit, he and his Charizard are actually less prominent than Alain and his were, so we don't have to witness cases of "Charizard superiority" as often. The way the games hype his Charizard more than makes up for this, though, as you wouldn't even know that he even has a full team until he actually uses it on you in the final battle.

Now, let's look back at the actual very first prominent Charizard in the franchise: Ash's. Even to this day, he's probably still very popular even among people who've gotten sick of his species. Why is that? Well, because Ash's Charizard, unlike Red's, Alain's, and Leon's, didn't eclipse the rest of Ash's Pokemon to the point that they were effectively deadweight filler: they were all allowed to get awesome moments, wins, and meaningful contributions. And it's annoying that with every modern Charizard there's this weird need to make it the only competent thing for miles around: Red's Charizard would have still gotten plenty of hype just by virtue of it being Red's ace and getting the shiny new Mega transformation, but apparently Origin's writers felt they couldn't risk the slightest chance of anyone potentially eclipsing it despite the fact that the freaking Mega alone would have already made that all but impossible, so the rest of Red's Pokemon get portrayed as useless chumps.

So yeah, I think that if Charizard as a species had been handled more like Ash's was, it likely wouldn't have become the polarizing figure that it is today. Notice how none of the other hyper-popular and mascot-ish Pokemon get anywhere near the amount of scorn that Charizard does despite being every bit as prominent: it's because unlike Charizard, they don't feel the need to make every other species look worse at their expense. I certainly haven't seen any Gengar-centric marketing that makes every other Ghost-type suck for example, for example. Nor does Lucario get presented as the greatest Fighting-type to walk the earth just because it can wield Aura. Heck, even Pikachu doesn't treat Raichu as badly as Charizard does literally everyone else these days.

Thus literally reminds me of Sun and Moon doing something very similar with Incineroar when it, Decidueye and Primarina debuted in the Anime

Gotta love how the Anime just had to shit on 2 Alola Starters just to make one look superior.

InB4 "But it was Kukui's Incineroar! They needed to hype it up and make it look stronger."

OK but why did Decidueye and Primarina have to be the ones getting thrown under a bus to hype up Incineroar?

Not help by the fact that Decidueye and Primarina were treated abysmally in the Anime in general.

Primarina got one of the most brutal beat downs in the Anime's history thanks to Guzma's Golisopod

Do I even NEED to spell out how shitty Decidueye got treated in the Anime?

It's currently the only Final Stage Starter in the Anime (not counting Rillaboom yet) that hasn't been shown defeating a single Pokemon onscreen.
And to rub more salt in the wound, it got defeated in the most humiliating way by its own Base Stage

Sorry for the rant but this still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to this day.
(Coming from someone who likes Incineroar)

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

So on the topic of Ash-Greninja, a user on Serebii posted this about why Ash-Greninja isn’t as strong as most people say it is and this is what I’ve been trying to say.

“I don't think Ash-Greninja is nearly as powerful as many people claim he is. When all is said and done, he has no real big feats to his name, especially in normal form, unlike Ash's other GPICSS team members. Peakachu, Charizard, and Sceptile have beaten Legendary Pokémon without major power enhancements. Snorlax always took down at least one opposing Pokémon before falling. Infernape has Blaze but is no slouch in normal form, either. The things is Ash-Greninja has no feats in normal form so we have no real base level to judge him. As for other feats, one can poke a lot of holes into his supposed feats, such as forcing Diantha's Mega Gardevoir to take him seriously and even put it in trouble in a battle.

For the holes in the feats, with the aforementioned battle against Mega Gardevoir, we don't know how powerful a Champion Diantha really is. When we see Cynthia or Steven, we see on screen that they are quite powerful. They have clear feats that show that they are deserving of the title and that their "secondary" jobs also involve their Pokémon. Diantha is a movie actress; and that is possibly her primary job. I didn't get the same vibe from her that I get from seeing Cynthia or Steven (note that I also don't get the same vibe from champions like Alder, either). Also, Ash-Greninja, while not in perfect form, did look to have a perfect form (no water veil, if I remember correctly), so his power may have spiked for that particular battle. And there is also the fact that the battle was no finished since Ash fainted, and we saw that despite being in trouble, a Pokémon is not necessarily out, as Alain's Mega Charizard X showed.

As for the battle against Wulfric, we had already seen Abomasnow get beaten in normal form by Ash's Hawlucha, a Pokémon that not generally seen as one of Ash's stronger Pokémon. So if Abomasnow lost to him, who's to say that Mega Abomasnow was all that powerful, either? The same thing with Sawyer's Mega Sceptile. Sawyer may have been a strategic genius, and his team performed far above their strength level, but in the end, I got the impression that his Pokémon were just not all that strong and he was the main reason why his team got so far in the Kalos League. Sawyer simply over-performed due to his genius and his penchant to learn from previous battles.

But when Ash-Greninja had the chance to get that really solid feat of beating a proven strong Pokémon, possibly one on a Legendary level, he fell flat. Alain's Mega Charizard X was not fresh at all when he faced Ash-Greninja, having taken at least one (possibly two) super effective Thunderbolts and a Quick Attack before facing off against Ash-Greninja. All Greninja had faced was the remains of a Weavile that had taken a Bide to the face and had one-hit KOed Goodra so Ash-Greninja clearly had the edge in terms of having suffered less damage than Charizard when they battled. And in the end, that battle was not all that close. Ash-Greninja was KOed while Alain's Mega Charizard X merely stumbled before catching his footing and recovering.

All in all, I do still think that Ash-Greninja is in Ash's top 6 in power. However, I would not necessarily put him at the top and say that he's stronger than Ash's Charizard or Peakachu just yet. He just doesn't have the actual feats to show that he's above them just yet, and a new form that's supposed to be like Mega Evolution isn't enough for me to put him above them just yet.“

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

This may sound jarring, but just because you dislike certain elements of a show or find the writing and actual quality of it to be bad doesn't mean you cannot enjoy it. Especially for Pokemon, which is a franchise generated towards children. We can criticise it, but that doesn't mean we can't love it because it is "objectively bad" or has "bad writing". I criticize XY a lot-like, a lot, a lot-but I don't hate it, as one of my recent comments has shown: I actually do love the show. In contrast, I hate a lot of elements from Journeys, but some things aren't even a matter of bad writing: I just simply don't like it or it doesn't appeal to me.

I say this because I just got reminded of that really obnoxious portion of the fandom who takes one or a few people's opinions and pretend they hate the entirety of a show simple because they criticise one single element to it. Call someone out for hating on the SM artstyle to a toxic degree? Oh, you MUST be a Serena hater! And this is an actual thing I've seen by the way. You like Iris? You MUST like BW! You don't like the snowball scene in XY between Ash and Serena! "TOXIC MISTY STAN!!!"

Yes, these are actual examples and I have many more from multiple different other people. It's not exclusive to Pokemon, I know, but it's still so bizarre to me to see people assuming that someone hates something overall just because they have strong negative feelings over one thing.

 

[Unireon]

In all previous series there had been elements that I didn't like or quietly hated....
However; I remained on board until the end, except for two weeks after the Kalos League Final as I needed to vent.

The matter is when the things that you dislike surpasses the ones you may like.....
At the end that makes it bad to you, since who would want to watch something to seethe or grow frustrated.
I ended up leaving because I cannot find enjoyment in the anime anymore.
May still rewatch past series though. That includes even BW, which I can like despite its many flaws.

Most people that label others of something are at fault as well.
Although, I have never found any logic in their arguments.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

In all previous series there had been elements that I didn't like or quietly hated....
However; I remained on board until the end, except for two weeks after the Kalos League Final as I needed to vent.

The matter is when the things that you dislike surpasses the ones you may like.....
At the end that makes it bad to you, since who would want to watch something to seethe or grow frustrated.
I ended up leaving because I cannot find enjoyment in the anime anymore.
May still rewatch past series though. That includes even BW, which I can like despite its many flaws.

Most people that label others of something are at fault as well.
Although, I have never found any logic in their arguments.

You don’t watch JN then how do you get news on the anime? From here

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Yes, these are actual examples and I have many more from multiple different other people. It's not exclusive to Pokemon, I know, but it's still so bizarre to me to see people assuming that someone hates something overall just because they have strong negative feelings over one thing.

Sadly, polarization like that happens everywhere. You position yourself ever so slightly against something, there’ll always be some idiot that assumes you’re all the way down the other end of the spectrum. Narrow minded individuals can’t consider that you aren’t as radical in your opinions as they are.