Unpopular opinions

Indeed, though as I said if they went with Steven X Wallace I don't think anyone would have a problem (though they are hot guys). Actually, speaking of N, that reminds me of the Ferris Wheel "dates" which reminds me of the "gay" Hiker date the boy has (though it's more played for laughs, especially in BW2 when the same Hiker is a date for the girl and he's sad that the BW boy is no longer around to take ferris wheel rides with him). There's also the changed ferris wheel date the boy has, there's a Nurse date which is eventually revealed to be trans in the Japanese version.
mmh that's actually interesting about the trans part, also unrelated but what are your thoughts on pokeshipping? i'm personally not even a fan os shipping but idj when it comes to Pokemon it always seems to be a sensitive or diplomatic topic
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
mmh that's actually interesting about the trans part, also unrelated but what are your thoughts on pokeshipping? i'm personally not even a fan os shipping but idj when it comes to Pokemon it always seems to be a sensitive or diplomatic topic
I support Pokeshipping but only in a loose sense, I understand the show isn't about romance plus Ash and his pals are kids so even if there was romance what could they really do? The show is about the Pokemon and the battles & adventures with Pokemon. It's why I find what they tried to do with Serena both sad and funny, they make her a romantic interest who's essentially a pop idol (Showcases were usually more about the trainer than the Pokemon) and changing Ash to be more "competent" than he usually is. But then next saga, well...


And Pokeshipping has nothing to do with why I'm upset they seemingly are trying to rewrite the beginning of the Pokemon anime with the recent movie. That more has to do with them blatantly ignoring the show's history (and many would argue the beginning seasons of the Pokemon anime was one of the better parts of the series) all for the sake of trying to create more marketable characters by following what's trendy and popular.
 
also off topic but, the anime needs a reboot, in the sense that ash needs the boot lol
No offense, but I don't really think this is an unpopular opinion? I've seen a ton of people say that Ash needs to go. Which brings me to an unpopular opinion that I've had stewing in my head for a while...

I like Ash. I understand why people are tired of him, and I agree that the Pokemon anime should try experimenting with having other protagonists, but I've always liked Ash and it lowkey upsets me to see him get hated on. Almost every time Ash gets hate, it tends to be the same tired arguments (him not winning a league, him being reset at the beginning of every region, him not having caught every single Pokemon, etc), which I blame more on the writing than on Ash as a character. I'm sick of people comparing him to Red and talking about how much better Red is, especially since Red is just our self insert who, when you take the time to think about it, has less achievements than Ash. I think people put way too much focus on Ash not winning a league and act like he's a failure for that. Hell, I've seen people say that he isn't a good role model for shit like that, to which I disagree. I actually think Ash is a great role model for kids. Ash may get "reset" at the beginning of each region, but some things that never change about Ash are his kindness, empathy, perseverance, bravery, love for people close to him/pokemon, optimism, and willingness to help others. Idk how any of those traits makes a character a bad role model. Overall, I think Ash is a good character, but not really a three dimensional one who is unfortunately bogged down by poor writing choices and has overstayed his welcome. I still like him though, and I'm on his defense squad.

Side note, I agree with stan soojung, Pokemon needs more lgbt representation. And I'm not talking about little hints that's mostly used on npcs or only briefly touched on, I want an openly non-straight character or relationship in Pokemon. It might wishful thinking, Pokemon showing an openly lgbt character is a ballsy move, but I'm certain the people who work on Pokemon are aware of their wide appeal with many demographics, and they definitely know that not everyone who plays Pokemon is a child. I think they take some pride in being able to appeal to everyone, so Pokemon including more open lgbt representation seems like a logical step to take. I wouldn't be surprised if it took a couple years to happen though.
 
Last edited:
also this flew right past my head as i'm sure it did with most people


sooo apparently this dialogue is insinuating that this girl was originally a boy who transitioned from male to female here is why and i quote,
"The reason that this dialogue is important is because Black Belts are an exclusively male trainer class, while the Beauty trainer class is exclusively female. This means that this NPC canonically transitioned from Male to Female, making her the most open and progressive character that Pokemon has introduced."

this what a black belt normally looks like

so this quite interesting to me, just though i would drop this by lol
 
I loved that part myself! Sure, it was a minor character and hidden away as one of the many random trainers you could fight in the Battle Maison, but it's something. It's nice. I think in the Japanese text they also use male-specific honorifics in regards to the Black Belt to brush away any doubt that they're trans.
Not to mention that in Japanese, the text supposedly says something about modern science being amazing, making it even more obvious
 
also this flew right past my head as i'm sure it did with most people


sooo apparently this dialogue is insinuating that this girl was originally a boy who transitioned from male to female here is why and i quote,
"The reason that this dialogue is important is because Black Belts are an exclusively male trainer class, while the Beauty trainer class is exclusively female. This means that this NPC canonically transitioned from Male to Female, making her the most open and progressive character that Pokemon has introduced."

this what a black belt normally looks like

so this quite interesting to me, just though i would drop this by lol
I am most surprised that reference was kept considering similar references in Gen V were removed in non-Japanese versions.

Makes me wonder if the translation team never got what that meant, and thought there were female Black Belts.
 
I think people put way too much focus on Ash not winning a league and act like he's a failure for that.
It would be the same if someone else was the protagonist. It has nothing to do with Ash and more to do with the idea that if Ash wins a league that represents a "high point" and how can they have him go down from there? Or something like that. Is it dumb that he can't win a league? Sure, but it's not "his" fault, if that makes sense.
 
It would be the same if someone else was the protagonist. It has nothing to do with Ash and more to do with the idea that if Ash wins a league that represents a "high point" and how can they have him go down from there? Or something like that. Is it dumb that he can't win a league? Sure, but it's not "his" fault, if that makes sense.
I know that it'd be the same with any other protagonist. But Ash is the protagonist, so I only brought him up. I mean that there are people who treat it like it's Ash's fault by saying he's a "bad trainer" and I'm like...no he's not, it's just bad writing lol. If it has nothing to do with Ash then people shouldn't take it out on Ash, they should take it out on the writers who write Ash like that because they gotta stick to the status quo. But for some people, it definitely has everything to do with Ash, and that's who my post is directed towards.
 
My problem with Ash isn't even that he keeps losing the league in and of itself (though there are a mess of problems with that in its own right), it's that they never allow the character to mature in any sense. I don't just mean the "lol eternally 10" thing, Ash never feels like a more capable or fulfilled character by the time the next season starts, because they have to make him the noob again to re-experience all the early game trappings and recreate the games again, and it's reductive to the concept of writing a character: your character should change in some way as the story progresses. Whether physically, socially, or mentally, they should be in a different place when your story progresses from one point to the next. This is one credit I give to the Battle Frontier Season: Since all the facilities were "equal" in challenge and didn't have a fixed order to follow from the games, Ash was allowed to simply bring his A-Game to all of them, and it felt less like ditching his development because he brought back old team members rather than catching new ones to then ditch next season.

Here's the glaring question: If you take away the informed abilities/accomplishments like the plaques and trophy for Orange Islands, does Ash's character reflect the idea that he's grown from a previous one? I feel the answer to that tends to be no, Ash always has to meet the new rival, have trouble with him, bring only his Pikachu, etc. You can honestly watch the regions in any order and bar the occasional reference in a one-off episode with a Character of the Day, nothing about the character's makes it an issue. There's no development to be missed going from Johto to Sinnoh to Hoenn because after the Indigo League, Ash stopped developing any further despite that being one out of 7 regions spanning close to 20 seasons now.

I know the comparison is tired, but this is why the manga does better with its stories. It introduces Gold instead of having to reset Red, so you don't feel like the last story's progression was forgotten about.
 
Oh, I wasn't talking about manga Red (I have very little knowledge of the Pokemon manga, I've only read the Yellow chapter). I was talking about game Red.

I've stated that I agree that Ash has overstayed his welcome and needs to be let go. I have no issue with people who want the Pokemon anime to stop following Ash. I have no issue with people who don't like that Ash has remained mostly stagnant as a character (though I do think it is a bit of a stretch to say he learned absolutely nothing on his journey), or are sick of essentially the same stories with very little continuity, etc. I myself have stopped watching the anime because of that stupid need to stick to the status quo. My issue was, once again, people who say things like, Ash is bad role model or a failure of a trainer even though he really doesn't do much wrong. It's when people act like Ash is somehow awful at what he does even though Ash is overall fine at it, he just tends to be a victim of the writing. That's what I'm trying to say.
 
Here is another one lolol i just keep em coming

i if ash and when ash gets the boot, i really hope the main protagonist won't be deemed as age 10. here's why:
  1. to me at least, sometimes there is a scene in the anime which i really like, but then boom and i remember that ash is 10 and it's kinda ruined for me.
  2. it limits the plotline, yes pokemon is a "kids" game and while yes gamefreak does try and include everyone, i've been longing for a dark or more serious anime / game for a long long long long, long time.
off topic but everyone >>> serena have a nice night
 
My problem with Ash isn't even that he keeps losing the league in and of itself (though there are a mess of problems with that in its own right), it's that they never allow the character to mature in any sense. I don't just mean the "lol eternally 10" thing, Ash never feels like a more capable or fulfilled character by the time the next season starts, because they have to make him the noob again to re-experience all the early game trappings and recreate the games again, and it's reductive to the concept of writing a character: your character should change in some way as the story progresses. Whether physically, socially, or mentally, they should be in a different place when your story progresses from one point to the next. This is one credit I give to the Battle Frontier Season: Since all the facilities were "equal" in challenge and didn't have a fixed order to follow from the games, Ash was allowed to simply bring his A-Game to all of them, and it felt less like ditching his development because he brought back old team members rather than catching new ones to then ditch next season.

Here's the glaring question: If you take away the informed abilities/accomplishments like the plaques and trophy for Orange Islands, does Ash's character reflect the idea that he's grown from a previous one? I feel the answer to that tends to be no, Ash always has to meet the new rival, have trouble with him, bring only his Pikachu, etc. You can honestly watch the regions in any order and bar the occasional reference in a one-off episode with a Character of the Day, nothing about the character's makes it an issue. There's no development to be missed going from Johto to Sinnoh to Hoenn because after the Indigo League, Ash stopped developing any further despite that being one out of 7 regions spanning close to 20 seasons now.

I know the comparison is tired, but this is why the manga does better with its stories. It introduces Gold instead of having to reset Red, so you don't feel like the last story's progression was forgotten about.
Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but that's not going to happen.

The issue is, is that you're confusing TV and other mediums like Film, and their purpose. When crafting a classical story, it's the generic arc. You get a protagonist (or some variant on the main charterer), they get a call to action, they get stronger, and then they accomplish the goal and remove the call to action (of course, it's more complex than that, but :P). Most stories follow that cycle, whether it's a classic like the Odyssey, or something modern like Harry Potter.

Mediums like movies or books are designed to do this. You go to watch or read a movie/book, and you come away satisfied after reading a story. You don't need to come back and do it again, and there's no need for you to become invested in the charterers. The plot is self-contained. Thus, in these stories, the characters can change drastically, beacuse you were introduced to them in the same sitting in which you began viewing the medium. There's no need for you to understand what has happened prior in order to understand what is happening now, because all change has happened during the same sitting.

TV however, has a vested interest in forcing you to come back. Unless you're binge watching, you have to have multiple sittings in which to enjoy the content. Thus, if anything major changes, such as if a character started becoming hyper aggressive beacuse their friend died, it's going to turn off new and returning viewers. If you're a returning viewer, the character you've invested time and effort into becoming attached to is no longer the same charterer. That can be a major issue for people who might miss an episode or two, beacuse you've lost their interest. Similarly, new viewers are going to have a hard time understanding and becoming attached to characters if they're dynamic, beacuse you need to understand the prior context if you want to understand the story. You can't just sit down and watch and episode, and still understand pretty much everything that is going on.

This is why most TV producers design their shows mostly to be contained stories, with a handful of longer arcs. They want people to keep coming back, and for people to be able to watch an episode whenever they have time and still understand everything. If can't keep viewership up, then they get canceled, where as a film doesn't have to worry about people not watching their content for the long term. Except for minor cosmetic changes, say Ash catches Hawlucha, or Finn gets a new arm, TV writers are not going to risk major changes unless they're assured large constant viewership (like TWD or GOT).

This is why the Pokemon anime is composed of self-contained stories. Kids aren't going to give that consistent viewership, they're far more likely to watch a random episode every once in a while. Thus, Ash cannot be more dynamic than cosmetic changes. And while this TV story style is alright, the longer it runs the more stale it gets (just look at the Simpsons *shudder*). Pokemon hasn't quite gotten that bad, but it's getting there.

The best option is, as people above have suggested, is to end Ash and start up a new lineage. However, the issue being, is that doing that is going to hurt the viewer base even further. It won't be the slow decline that's ongoing, but rather a sharp drop, which is going to net TPC far less money than if they just let things drag out. So, we're never going to get a more dynamic Ash, beacuse beating a dead horse and following the go to story method is far more lucrative.
 
While this isn't exactly wrong I'd like adding anime usually likes following a plot through the series, and only slice-of-life and a few classic shows like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan are episodic. People probably dislike the Pokémon anime not going anywhere because it's getting compared to your average shounen where the hero saves the day multiple times and keeps getting progressively more badass, not with something like The Simpsons for example.
 

Codraroll

Cod Mod
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Moderator
The Pokémon Anime's main purpose is to advertise the franchise to potential customers - kids who haven't played the games, or have only played them a little. That is why they always need a newbie in focus, so the concepts of Pokémon (most prominently, of the core series games) can be introduced to him. Ash's purpose is to be a young and inexperienced trainer who learns things as the series progresses. But he can never become experienced, since they need to keep introducing him (and by extension, the viewers) to the basics of the franchise. Hence why he always acts like he has never seen anything before. They are assuming that the viewers haven't, and Ash is a stand-in for the potential customer.

Also, Ash is the marketable face of the franchise. He's got a catchy name (literally) and the Pokémon mascot by his side. Hence why they won't switch him out or turn him into a mentor character for a new newbie of the season. Building up a brand for a new main character would be a bother, and there's no need to swap out Ash in their eyes. He's a well-known character.

So yeah. Put bluntly, the Anime is not for us. It's for the kids who haven't been watching it for more than a season, tops. TPC probably assume that for every viewer who gets tired of the show and stops watching, a new one will take their place. It's a show meant to be watched until you've bought a Pokémon game and learned its concepts yourself. It might not win them any awards for writing or direction, but it sure lets them sell a lot of Pokémon games, and in the long run, that is the most profitable thing it can do.
 
Again this isn't exactly wrong, but the thing is Japan isn't like Western countries where they make a character like Superman or Asterix big and then milk them for years and years; rathey they're more about keeping things fresh and introducing new casts. Digimon, Pretty Cure, Super Sentai, Aikatsu, and many more have done this before. New characters mean more toys you can make after all, and you can ocasionally bring back the old cast and rake in nostalgia points. The closest to the exception has been PriPara and even that after a minor scare did exactly what Pokémon fans want: turn the original lead into a mentor for newbies.

Ash isn't marketable, because nobody cares about him one bit. He's convenient if anything because you already have the Pokémon for marketing new toys instead and thus reusing the already made character over and over is much easier. Notice how Pokémon Special/Adventures actually does the hero switch thing and is popular and beloved.

Why yes, the anime is for kids. That doesn't mean they have to annoy older fans. You gain nothing from making a subset from your fanbase angry.
 
I don't think Ash actually makes a fair portion of the fanbase angry, though.
I think being in an internet forum like this puts us in a bit of a bubble somehow. We think we represent a significant portion of the fanbase and that our concerns and arguments are generally shared throughout that portion. But the thing is... we're not. We're just a few nerds on the internet. The general older fan isn't going to care about Ash or at worst will dislike him and quickly move on to buying Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon.
Our dislike for Ash isn't significant or a threat to the viewerbase and money TPCi makes as we're just a small corner of the fandom tucked away on a small corner of the internet. There may be a few other corners like us, certainly; and the odd youtube commenter every once in a while, but it's nowhere near large enough to prompt Game Freak or anyone else in charge to take our criticisms seriously as if we actually matter to them in any way. If all of us here stopped giving our money to GF, it wouldn't even make a dent for them.

... I'm sure that sounds a bit nihilistic and maybe even a bit rude, but I suppose that can count as an unpopular opinion too. That what we're saying isn't necessarily popular or matters to GF/TPCi. We're a tiny percentage of the fandom and we should probably be more aware of that.
 
That's fair. Ultimately, as annoying as it can be, Pokemon isn't for us. Ash isn't a character that was meant to grow up with us. But that reminds me if something. Aren't the Pokemon anime's ratings dying? I believe it started around BW, maybe even DP, but the Pokemon anime just wasn't performing like it used to. Of course, this could have nothing to do with the show itself and more to do with things like streaming sites being more readily available and whatnot. That said, I wouldn't be too surprised if the retool the Pokemon anime got when it transitioned to SM was a ploy to attract more viewers.

In the end, I'm kind of torn because I agree with kurona and codraroll about the anime not being for us, but as a long time Pokemon fan, I also agree with zettairyouiki because I wanna see the Pokemon anime be good. Idk it's complicated. I don't even care about making the anime more geared towards older audiences. Let kids keep the current anime. I just think that the rotating protagonists approach could be good for the anime, it could potentially keep older viewers interested while still bringing in new viewers and I'm not-so-lowkey tired of people shitting on Ash

Alternatively, just give the older audiences an anime seperate from the current one so that none of us focus on the original anymore.
 
While this isn't exactly wrong I'd like adding anime usually likes following a plot through the series, and only slice-of-life and a few classic shows like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan are episodic. People probably dislike the Pokémon anime not going anywhere because it's getting compared to your average shounen where the hero saves the day multiple times and keeps getting progressively more badass, not with something like The Simpsons for example.
Well you have to understand the difference in culture and background, to understand why anime is far different from Western cartoons.

Most Anime, unlike Western TV shows which are green light on the basis of a pilot, are created by the reception of the manga. If your manga has a good enough critical reception and high enough sales, it might get a season of anime produced for it. However, it's far more complicated than that.

Getting a manga to that point is like "trial by fire", except the fire is the literal core of the sun. I won't go into full detail, beacuse it's a super complicated process, but here's a short synopsis. You and potentially (if you're lucky) another person draw a manga chapter, you go to an editor in a manga magazine like Shonen Jump, and they decide if they're willing to publish it. They'll force you to keep editing it, until it meets the magazine's standards. Then, they publish it once in the magazine. If it doesn't break at least the top 10, it's probably going to get cut (most newcomers are). The manga has to consistently top the chart for most of its run, and usually has to win fan polls. All the time, the artist has to pen and ink an entire chapter every week, get their editor to suggest changes, make changes, then publish. Most of the time, quality falls off, and the manga fails.

If the manga survives and gets enough votes, it gets released as a stand-alone manga. If sales are good enough for it, then it might have a chance at being published as an anime. Of course, there are variations on this, some, like OPM, started off as webcomics and were eventually able to survive. Others get a major studio to create it, usually beacuse they know they have consumer hype around it to make it successful enough. However, this is very rare.

Anime has to survive far more than Western TV. As a result, the creators and producers know that they'll have their readers/viewers support (at least for a short while) to create more diverse stories, beacuse if it wasn't going to be good enough for sales, it would have died long ago. Furthermore, anime can tackle darker and more complex themes, beacuse the platform does not exclude age (and does not necessarily carry with it the negative connotations as it does in western countries, though this is changing). They don't have to "dumb-it-down" for the kiddies.

Pokemon and other anime based upon existing franchises don't have to survive this trial by fire, because the fundamental difference is what their vision is. The Pokemon anime exists not to tell a good story, but to increase revenue for TPC. Furthermore, it needed to be designed to appeal to a wide array of kid audiences across the globe (especially in the U.S.). As such, the Pokemon anime follows more standard television tropes, and does not really seek to create anything too complex. It's not really comparable to other anime, beacuse it's not an anime, it's an offspring of a economic powerhouse franchise that just wants more money.
 
Gen 6 was actually the most positive twist in Pokemon in awhile with adding new things that changed the game, the meta and everything.

Gen 1 was a terrible game filled with too many bugs to actually be deemed enjoyable and is only good in a nostalgic view.

Banning baton pass and having LC Uber as a tier are both dumb but I also enjoy the policy of if everything is broken, then nothing is broken lmao.
 
I've said this before, but I find it really silly when people criticise the Gen 1 games for being 'buggy'. It's not like Sonic 06 where you're running into glitches left and right; you're not clipping through walls every few seconds or pressing Ice Beam only for Thundershock to come out instead. Aside from a very few minor things like the Focus Energy bug, you only end up running into glitches and bugs when you actively know about them and go after them. If you're playing Gen 1 to actually play the game rather than seeing if you can summon MissingNo. or find Mew by doing a very specific list of things you would never have thought to do unless you'd actually looked at the code or the internet, then Red and Blue are only as glitchy as Black and White.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 6)

Top