Question about acquiring Pokemon in the Anime

[poke07]

The whole premise of Pokemon is that you weaken them first and then catch them with a Pokeball. This was made very clear not only in the games, but also early on in the TV series.

With that said, why does the TV show feature so little of this?? I'd love to see someone truly find a wild pokemon, weaken it in an intense battle, and then capture it.

Instead, the writers like to have pokemon naturally gravitate to the trainers or something otherwise...why do you the writers avoid having characters actually catch pokemon the real way?

 

[Cybersai]

Because most of the time they have Ash befriend the Pokemon before he actually captures it. Same for everyone else, really.

 

[Iteru]

Yeah, the animé doesn't usually treat the Pokémon as a bunch of mindless pixels.

Plus giving them some interaction before the capture means that you get to see their personality.

 

[Piplup]

The whole premise of Pokemon is that you

Befreind them, think of them as family, friends and partners, do what's best for them... not running around throwing balls at every creature you see
Also, we still get lots of battle-and-catch stuff like with Buizel or even Buneary who agreed to join still had Dawn battle and catch it "the right way"

 

[Somari]

I'd rather see them befriend a Pokemon than catch it. It's far more interesting and well-done.

And like said before, Pokemon is about friendship. It's not catching every Pokemon you see.

 

[pharaohyami5000]

I agree in all aspects. However, I also believe claiming the Pokemon via battle, instead of having it accept you automatically, means you are worthy of having that Pokemon. Besides, it's another good way to know what the Pokemon's strengths and weaknesses are before you catch it. Befriending it or just given to me isn't enough for me to fully accept that I'm the Pokemon's trainer.

 

[Piplup]

Let's go over the list of the main characters' Poké in DP:

Ash:
Starly - battled and caught "the right way"
Turtwig - same
Chimchar - joined from its own will
Buizel - obtained in a trade, thoguh initially Ash DID battle him and it DID go into Ash's ball but the capture failed
Gligar - joined from its own will
Gible - same
I think it's a nice balance that only goes a little towards the "befriend" way, which SHOULD be the main way cause of the reasons explained in previous posts

Dawn:
Piplup - given to her as her first Poké
Buneary - agreed to join yet still had a battle and caught "the right way"
Pachirisu - had a battle and caught "the right way", released and then joined again from its own will
Buizel - battled and caught "the right way"
Aipom - obtained in a trade
Swinub - joined from its own will
Cyndaquil - hatched from an egg that Dawn won by winning a battle
Togekiss - given to Dawn
Mostly friend way, but also some caught "the right way"

Brock:
Croagunk - joined from its own will
Happiny - hatched from an egg that Brock fairly won

So there have been a few "right way" captures in DP... even if the most were the "befriend them" way

 

[PDL]

There is also the pesky fact that Pokémon are supposed to be characters in their own right and go through character development just like the human characters.

Having Ash and his human friends just randomly capture every monster they see would only fill up the cast with so many that the writers wouldn't know what to do with them all. It leads to situations like Ash's Primape. The episode where it was captured was fun to watch and was character development for Ash. But the writers had no idea what to do with it. So they decided to let it go after a few episodes.