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- #81
It's okay to be attached to the idea that "you befriend a Pokemon and then catch it", but that is not the norm. It's about time the anime acknowledged that... again. It's also quite obvious that a Pokemon won't stay inside a Poke Ball unless it is willing to do so, so the psycopath claims are nonsense (especially when Go only use those Poke Balls temporarily to transfer the Pokemon to a park they can choose to leave at any time).
I thought that was the norm within the anime though. Yes, characters, including Ash, have made captures without bonding with the Pokemon in question first, but for the most part, capturing a Pokemon was generally treated as a big deal. That's one reason why a new capture would often be the main focus of an episode. They would want to establish the Pokemon's own personality traits and show a connection between the Pokemon and one of the main cast members so the audience could be more invested in this new Pokemon. Removing the bonding element completely from most of Gou's captures, if not just reducing it too much because of how many Pokemon he captures, can make it feel too shallow or at least prevent the audience from feeling invested in his new Pokemon. Why should the audience care about Dewgong if there is no noteworthy connection between it and Gou? Not to mention having so many Pokemon would make it harder for any of them to stand out personality wise.
Citation needed.
The Pokemon are officially bound to their Pokeballs and can’t simply leave on their own accord as far as we know. The Lab’s a place to store Pokemon, much like Oak’s ranch stores Ash’s Pokemon without them being able to leave randomly.
I think that was the case for Ash's Snivy. We never got enough information on its past or what its previous trainer was like, but I think that it had left its trainer by its own choice. Froakie also didn't want to be with any of the trainers that chose it before Ash came along. Although, in that case, the trainers always brought it back to Professor Sycamore's lab instead of Froakie leaving them. These may still be kind of rare cases, but it does imply that Pokemon aren't forced to stay with trainers that they really don't like or don't respect.
If it bothers you, okay. That's your problem at this point.
Or people have different opinions on this issue because of how they interpret the writing. Opinions are subjective, so I don't think it's fair to be dismissive like "That's your problem" as a response. Obviously, this applies to everyone too.
Your lives would be a lot easier if you just accepted that Go's Pokemon (aside from Scorbunny and possibly Scyther) are meant to showcase their species every now and then. They aren't Go's best buddies, but they aren't held prisoner, either. Citation needed if you think otherwise.
I don't really like the notion that Gou is capturing Pokemon primarily to showcase their species every now and then. I know that there's his goal about capturing Mew as well, but that just makes it feel more shallow to me. I don't think that his Pokemon are prisoners or anything like that, but this kind of ties into the real root of the problem for me. There is just no reason to be invested in almost any of Gou's Pokemon if they're just there to remind the audience that certain Pokemon species exist, they don't have any memorable personality traits or noticeable bonds with Gou. To be fair, it would be hard to make these Pokemon instantly standout when Gou seems to be catching Pokemon in nearly every episode fairly easy for the most part, but again, that's kind of the problem. There might be more of a narrative point to Gou catching a bunch of Pokemon down the road, but it does sound like the opposite of how the anime has generally treated captures over the past couple of decades, so I can't really blame people for being upset about it.