Pokemon Thread

[Light Lucario]

A lot of people find the shiny Lucario lame because we just had Ash's Lucario all throughout JN. If they wanted to promote Mega's again in Horizons, they could have given Roy any of the other Mega's we barely see in the anime. Instead they're using Mega Lucario AGAIN, which is boring.

Hell they could of given him a Mega Alakazam, or Mega Slowbro, or Mega Absol, or something we hadn't seen too much.

I don't think that they would have chosen something like Mega Alakazam or Mega Slowbro over Mega Lucario. From a marketing perspective, I can't blame them for going with Lucario. It is a popular Pokemon, it's been featured in the anime with every series since DP with pretty noteworthy episodes or roles and it's probably one of the more popular Mega Pokemon too. The only other Mega Pokemon I could have seen them giving Roy would have been Mega Charizard X or maybe even Mega Charizard Y and they're probably saving that for Friede whenever he shows back up instead. Mega Absol would have been cool, but I don't think it's nearly as marketable as Lucario.

I do think going for Mega Lucario right after we had it featured pretty prominently in Journeys doesn't do it any favors. Even with making it more distinct by making it Shiny, I don't know if it would be that much different from Ash's Lucario. If Roy gets it as a Shiny Riolu, then its evolution could be rushed just so we can get to Mega Lucario sooner and if he gets it as a Lucario instead, then that could feel like giving him a powerful Pokemon on a silver plate.

 

[LinusFan303]

Nice to get a new series, will be interesting to see where it goes. I do like they try different things, in between going back to their nostalgia, Ghost Game was fun.

 

[zoombie]

Time skip, selfishly on my part it opens things up for shipping. I have noticed of late they have been developing a rivalry of Roy and Coral, at least from Coral's prospective, it could be one sided like Cilain and Burgandy.

I wonder if Roy and Coral will develop some form of relationship. At least it is age appropriate unlike the Liko and Armethio ship.

 

[AlwaysInTheZone]

A lot of people find the shiny Lucario lame because we just had Ash's Lucario all throughout JN. If they wanted to promote Mega's again in Horizons, they could have given Roy any of the other Mega's we barely see in the anime. Instead they're using Mega Lucario AGAIN, which is boring.

Hell they could of given him a Mega Alakazam, or Mega Slowbro, or Mega Absol, or something we hadn't seen too much.

I've wanted to see a Mega Slowbro in the anime for so long

 

[CyberCubed]

It's kind of sad most of Ash's series was the same for most of its run and now Horizons is the most plot driven the anime has ever been with twists and turns and well done villains and developed protagonists. It's the kind of show I would have wanted decades ago when I was a teen growing up watching the show. Granted Horizons isn't perfect, but it's a step in the direction it should of gone.

Thinking about, it most of Ash's series is mediocre or hasn't aged well. Kanto/Orange are great but of course the battles were the weakest of the series due to the writers not really being sure how to write battles yet. Johto needed to be 10 times shorter, as the good eps it does have is overshadowed by all the boring episodes. AG is now just fairly average, inbetween the extremes of all the other sagas. DP was mostly good, but hit by pacing problems. BW had a forced reboot and some really weird/questionable writing decisions. XY was solid, but re-treaded a lot of the previous series and the fillers were so-so. SM was fine for what it was, but would have worked better without Ash. And JN was just a mixed bag.

Thinking about it, Ash's series has 1,200+ eps overall, and only like half of those episodes are even good. Granted imagine if they did a "Dragon Ball Kai" cut of Pokemon, only keeping the best fillers of each series and the most important eps, and that would ease some of the problems. Granted Ash losing leagues for 20 years wouldn't be helped.

 

[Light Lucario]

It's kind of sad most of Ash's series was the same for most of its run and now Horizons is the most plot driven the anime has ever been with twists and turns and well done villains and developed protagonists. It's the kind of show I would have wanted decades ago when I was a teen growing up watching the show. Granted Horizons isn't perfect, but it's a step in the direction it should of gone.

Again, I can't really compare it to Horizons, although I do think it sounds like you're hyping it up a bit too much here, but I wouldn't say that the anime was mostly the same beforehand. It wasn't like you've seen one Pokemon series you've seen them all prior to Horizons or even SM. Each series still felt distinct, still had different characters, group dynamics and storylines to make them stand out. They were formulaic sure, but that isn't the same thing as being the same. You wouldn't get the same experience watching an episode of AG with BW for example. Maybe that still wasn't different enough since Ash was still losing Leagues and starting over with a fresh team each series, but I still think it was different enough for what the anime is and it was still enjoyable.

Thinking about, it most of Ash's series is mediocre or hasn't aged well. Kanto/Orange are great but of course the battles were the weakest of the series due to the writers not really being sure how to write battles yet. Johto needed to be 10 times shorter, as the good eps it does have is overshadowed by all the boring episodes. AG is now just fairly average, inbetween the extremes of all the other sagas. DP was mostly good, but hit by pacing problems. BW had a forced reboot and some really weird/questionable writing decisions. XY was solid, but re-treaded a lot of the previous series and the fillers were so-so. SM was fine for what it was, but would have worked better without Ash. And JN was just a mixed bag.

I heavily disagree. I still enjoy each series. Even BW was more enjoyable when I rewatched it a few years ago despite being my least favorite series. The Pokemon anime is a big source of comfort for me, so just getting to see Ash, Pikachu and his friends going on adventures to see new regions and Pokemon is still fun. That isn't to say that they're absolutely flawless. I have major issues with just about every series, but to say that they have been mostly mediocre or haven't aged well is doing a pretty big disservice to them. It certainly feels a bit too harsh to me at least.

Considering how much you've put May on a pedestal, I'm kind of surprised that you're calling AG average. Admittedly, I can understand that more when other series have bigger highs than it, but the series itself was still enjoyable and had plenty of good moments in spite of its problems. I still think dismissing XY as retreading stuff from previous series isn't quite fair, or at least I don't think that would be an issue for the actual target demographic. I still don't see how SM would have worked better without Ash. It would be a different series without Ash and Team Rocket.

Thinking about it, Ash's series has 1,200+ eps overall, and only like half of those episodes are even good. Granted imagine if they did a "Dragon Ball Kai" cut of Pokemon, only keeping the best fillers of each series and the most important eps, and that would ease some of the problems. Granted Ash losing leagues for 20 years wouldn't be helped.

If you really think that only half of those episodes were good, I genuinely don't understand why you've watched the anime as long as you have. Even when most of these series were airing, you kept saying that this was going to be Ash's last series pretty much until it happened. I'm not saying that you or anyone else has to like every episode or anything like that, but if so little of the series actually is good in your opinion, then I think that's a big sign that the anime just isn't for you anymore and hasn't been for a long time. It's certainly a huge sign that you're about three decades outside of the target demographic too.

A Dragon Ball Kai cut of Pokemon keeping the best filler episodes would be contradictory since the point of DB Kai was to trim down the filler from the original series to make it more manga accurate. It also just wouldn't make sense to do something like that for Pokemon when they're rather focus on promoting the newest games instead of trimming down older series. Besides, fans could easily do that themselves by just choosing which episodes to watch instead. That's what episode guides made by fans typically do. Granted, I've never been a fan of those since the Internet has really misused the term filler to the point where they don't see anything not directly to the main plot as important or noteworthy, but my point is that people can just skip around older series to see what episodes they'd want instead.

 

[CyberCubed]

Well I'm just speaking in general, even the older seasons of the anime had its flaws that we talked about when those series originally aired.

I think Horizons, or a show similar to it, should of happened like 15 years ago. This is exactly what they should of always done, give us new heroes and more important real competent villains and a story arc. Since Horizons doesn't follow the games, we don't know what's going to happen week after week. With Ash's series, we always knew he would go for the 8 badges of the region and the league, so we pretty much knew what each saga would do for the most part. That and with Team Rocket around, we knew each episode had to follow that same formula. Now it's no longer the case.

Ash's story was already 13 years old by the time we got to the end of DP, so if it ended there it would have been fine (just with Ash winning the league), but as an alternative a better written BW leading into XY would have been fine too, but even by then the show was pushing it. Ash having 9 different female companions is kind of absurd when you think about it, every series a new female lead would be introduced and it just made the show feel like it was treading water. I still remember the days people couldn't let go of Misty or Brock, imagine telling them the show went on without either of them for decades.

The Sun/Moon series already feels like a new series/reboot, you could of just made it about the same SM cast, or make some new original male character (similar to Roy I guess?) for that series for them to interact with. Journey's would have been something else entirely obviously if Ash wasn't there. Between that and most of the original fanbase already losing interest in the show by mid-Johto, or later, it makes it obvious the show was never intended to keep the same audience anyway.

 

[Light Lucario]

Well I'm just speaking in general, even the older seasons of the anime had its flaws that we talked about when those series originally aired.

I think Horizons, or a show similar to it, should of happened like 15 years ago. This is exactly what they should of always done, give us new heroes and more important real competent villains and a story arc. Since Horizons doesn't follow the games, we don't know what's going to happen week after week. With Ash's series, we always knew he would go for the 8 badges of the region and the league, so we pretty much knew what each saga would do for the most part. That and with Team Rocket around, we knew each episode had to follow that same formula. Now it's no longer the case.

While the older series were more focused on adapting the games, they were always a loose adaptation at best. Plenty of key characters from the games never appeared in the anime like Silver or Wally or were heavily altered in the anime like Bianca, Cheren and the XY rivals. Not to mention the anime had storylines and subplots unrelated to the games. I can see why having a completely original storyline could help to make the anime more unpredictable, but having at most the basic outline of the games' storyline didn't make the anime a one-to-one adaptation of the games before either.

Sure, we knew that Ash would go for eight badges and get to the League, but given that he was traveling with new characters, was battling against new characters with new Pokemon and had new Pokemon, I don't think that was an issue. Like I said before, it wasn't like you've seen one Pokemon episode you've seen them all. The anime was formulaic, but that doesn't mean that nothing ever changed or that every series was the same until Horizons.

Ash's story was already 13 years old by the time we got to the end of DP, so if it ended there it would have been fine (just with Ash winning the league), but as an alternative a better written BW leading into XY would have been fine too, but even by then the show was pushing it. Ash having 9 different female companions is kind of absurd when you think about it, every series a new female lead would be introduced and it just made the show feel like it was treading water. I still remember the days people couldn't let go of Misty or Brock, imagine telling them the show went on without either of them for decades.

Of course you had to bring up Misty fans again. I don't think that introducing new female leads made the show feel like it was treading on water. They each still felt pretty distinct with their personalities and storylines. May and Dawn had the same goal, but both their character development and personalities were pretty different. Even Iris wasn't just Misty 2.0 despite the writers trying to mimic that dynamic with her and Ash. Introducing new characters for Ash to travel with helped to keep the anime fresh in my opinion. The writers got to introduce new characters for different group dynamics and storylines every few years. It's a big reason why I didn't see the need to replace Ash when they already would shake up the status quo with a new series every three years.

The Sun/Moon series already feels like a new series/reboot, you could of just made it about the same SM cast, or make some new original male character (similar to Roy I guess?) for that series for them to interact with. Journey's would have been something else entirely obviously if Ash wasn't there. Between that and most of the original fanbase already losing interest in the show by mid-Johto, or later, it makes it obvious the show was never intended to keep the same audience anyway.

Not really. Aside from its different artstyle, there wasn't anything about SM that felt like it could have been a reboot. I think that you really underplay the impact of Ash's role in the series. He couldn't be easily replaced by just a new original male character and have everything play out the same. It would be a completely different series. Same with Journeys.

I don't think that the writers were ever thinking of keeping the same audience from the original series. It was pretty clear that the anime has always been aimed at kids. They're not trying to keep the twenty or thirty something adults invested in the anime. They're trying to appeal to kids. Each series is designed with basically the notion that some kids will fall out of the anime while new kids will come in every few years.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

I haven’t seen Horizons yet so I can’t really weigh in on whether it works better or worse than the old Ash formula. They probably could have just kept doing a soft reboot each generation with new characters and a slightly different Ash design with different clothes, height, etc. I’ve compared it to Doctor Who in that every few years there is a new version of the Doctor, with new female companions, in a new quirky outfit (like the celery stick in the 5th doctor’s lapel or the 4th doctor’s giant scarf). No one would want the Doctor outright replaced as main character, with another Time Lord, but it’s also acknowledged that the character has to evolve and have different personalities in different generations. In general there isn’t a huge need to have closure for a show like Pokemon. Ash can stay young forever just like Bart Simpson or almost any other cartoon character. Yes, it defies logic, but this is a common convention in long running fiction. You know, the Justice Society are still active superheroes even though they should be 100 if we assumed real time passage. So yeah, they could’ve kept doing Ash stories forever if they wanted, giving a refresh every time a new game came out so people have good jumping on points. This formula won’t seem repetitive to children, even if adults get bored with it. And new generations of kids are always getting into Pokemon. It has a very strong staying power, and part of that is the anime keeps it in people’s mind year round even when they’ve beaten the newest game and moved on.

The problem they ran into was that Ash kept doing better in the leagues (other than Unova, where they had him do worse than before) and eventually won one, in Alola. Alola didn’t even have a league tradition so they could have easily avoided going back to the season ending leagues and keep Ash from definitively winning. Once he won the masters 8, it really seemed like he had reached the top of the world and the end of his journey. In some ways it taking so long made the ending more satisfying. I thought that tournament had a lot of great battles and I like that the dub didn’t waste our time with all the recap episodes. But when all was said and done I felt the end of Journeys was a bigger *jumping off* point with Ash’s journey ending than a jumping on point with a new protagonist’s beginning. I could be strung along for the nostalgia of Team Rocket and Ash, but I don’t have any particular stakes in the new show yet. I imagine I will give it a watch at some point, maybe when it is fully dubbed, but we do have to remember it has very big shoes to fill. Ash and Pikachu will always be the face of the franchise to the vast majority of people who have watched the show. Only people who specifically seek out the newest season of Pokemon on streaming know the new characters. Ash’s adventures were widely shown on tv on numerous channels for around 20 years.

 

[CyberCubed]

The truth is Ash's character shouldn't have really lasted 26 years. I looked through the archives of forums from 2003-2010 on Pokemon forums when all of us original fans were teens or close to the target audience than we are now, and even back then people thought Ash was around too long and thought his character should end. And that's when Hoenn and DP were airing! And everyone was complaining about Brock's constant stale returns. (Brock also should of left a lot earlier than he did)

It's only when BW amplified the flaws of keeping Ash around tenfold that it lessened the complaints from what came before. XY did feel like it was supposed to be a "return to form," but the lack of continuity to past sagas for the most part made it feel standalone. And as I said, once they changed Ash's design drastically with SM...you might as well just use a new character. I still liked the SM anime, but it would have worked just fine without Ash. They had 5 SM characters + Kukui and they would have been the same cast.

 

[Light Lucario]

The truth is Ash's character shouldn't have really lasted 26 years. I looked through the archives of forums from 2003-2010 on Pokemon forums when all of us original fans were teens or close to the target audience than we are now, and even back then people thought Ash was around too long and thought his character should end. And that's when Hoenn and DP were airing! And everyone was complaining about Brock's constant stale returns. (Brock also should of left a lot earlier than he did)

People had been speculating on Ash leaving as early as Johto. People were asking if every series was going to be Ash's last as the main character. However, that was still from people well outside the target demographic. The show isn't aimed at teenagers or fans of the original series. The show is and always has been aimed at kids. Teenagers are closer to the target demographic than adults in their twenties or thirties, but it's still not the audience of the show. I don't think that people complaining on forums is really proof that Ash should have been replaced sooner, especially when plenty of people also didn't have an issue with Ash being the lead for so long. I'm certainly not the only one who felt that way.

If they really put stock in what teenagers and adults thought about the anime, they wouldn't have waited twenty years to replace Ash given how long that was a talking point of the anime. They probably would have replaced him in DP if that was a priority for them, but it's pretty clear that they are not writing the anime for older fans. They are writing it for kids first and foremost.

It's only when BW amplified the flaws of keeping Ash around tenfold that it lessened the complaints from what came before. XY did feel like it was supposed to be a "return to form," but the lack of continuity to past sagas for the most part made it feel standalone. And as I said, once they changed Ash's design drastically with SM...you might as well just use a new character. I still liked the SM anime, but it would have worked just fine without Ash. They had 5 SM characters + Kukui and they would have been the same cast.

Again, Ash's personality in SM was not so drastically different that you could have replaced him with a new character. The character dynamics would have been different, especially with Ash's Alolan family. Each series is already pretty stand alone, but the lack of references in XY was still pretty unusual.

 

[CyberCubed]

So I just finished catching up on all 89 eps of Horizons that aired in Japan with the sub, and I have to say, this is the best the Pokemon anime has ever been. The show has a real plot, the main cast develops, we have the best villains ever in the regular series (outside of some of the movies), and the main characters and adult characters are all likeable. It also does a good job also advertising Paldea and its Pokemon/Gym leaders while not ignoring most of them like JN did with Galar, so even the current games still get featured.

This is the kind of show I wanted when I was a kid/teen over 20 years ago. While I do think the high points of Ash's series are still better as a whole (the comedy of Kanto, some of the best battles or rivalries in DP, XY or some parts of SM), I think Horizons is better than like 80% of Ash's series already. And we're only halfway through, Horizons has another year or two left and we have no idea how it ends yet.

I just can't get over it. What I also like is there's hardly any filler, or "real" filler like Ash's series would have, as almost every episode is important and leads to something else. There are only like...maybe 5-6 fillers out of 89 episodes so far, it's insane how almost every episode is important.

If I were to rank every series as a whole in order from best to worst:

Horizons
Kanto/Orange Islands
DP
XY
AG
SM
Journey's
Johto
BW

Granted the last 3 are pretty interchangeable, same with the top 3. Pokemon is finally good again.

 

[colomb]

While XY had the best art style, animation, and action sequences overall, I would say Horizons is the best overall, though that isn't saying much. The biggest issue would be the pacing; things that could be fleshed out better such as Lucius and Gibeon's past friendship and how they acquired their Pokemon, and a couple of moments were outright off-screened, while still having some unnecessary episodes, especially in the 2nd arc where a number of episodes weren't written by the core writers. The kids don't have very many Pokemon but still rely almost entirely on just their starters is another glaring issue. So the show could benefit from some tweaking here and there.

 

[Light Lucario]

So I just finished catching up on all 89 eps of Horizons that aired in Japan with the sub, and I have to say, this is the best the Pokemon anime has ever been. The show has a real plot, the main cast develops, we have the best villains ever in the regular series (outside of some of the movies), and the main characters and adult characters are all likeable. It also does a good job also advertising Paldea and its Pokemon/Gym leaders while not ignoring most of them like JN did with Galar, so even the current games still get featured.

This is the kind of show I wanted when I was a kid/teen over 20 years ago. While I do think the high points of Ash's series are still better as a whole (the comedy of Kanto, some of the best battles or rivalries in DP, XY or some parts of SM), I think Horizons is better than like 80% of Ash's series already. And we're only halfway through, Horizons has another year or two left and we have no idea how it ends yet.

I can't compare Horizons with the previous series yet, but this is really over hyping it. The term recency bias comes to mind. I'm sure that there are plenty of good things about Horizons and I'm fairly certain I'll like aspects of it at least, but to say that it's better than the past twenty years or so of anime series really feels like putting it on too much of a pedestal. That's why it feels like you're praising it more so because it's different rather than its own qualities. I am still glad that they're not ignoring the characters and Pokemon of Paldea. That was huge issue with Journeys and I'm glad that they're seemingly not repeating that mistake.

I'm not sure how they'll tackle the Area Zero storyline though. It makes more sense to promote Legends Z-A since that's the more recent game, but I really like going through Area Zero and I'd like to see the anime still tackle that storyline. I'm not sure how well they could adapt it. They haven't had a great track record for adapting only the climax of main series storyline for the past couple of series and without doing more with Arven, a lot of the emotional weight of that storyline just doesn't exist. They still have time to do something with it. I suspect that Horizons has another year left since they'd want to do something different once the tenth generation games come out next year.

I just can't get over it. What I also like is there's hardly any filler, or "real" filler like Ash's series would have, as almost every episode is important and leads to something else. There are only like...maybe 5-6 fillers out of 89 episodes so far, it's insane how almost every episode is important.

If I were to rank every series as a whole in order from best to worst:

Horizons
Kanto/Orange Islands
DP
XY
AG
SM
Journey's
Johto
BW

Granted the last 3 are pretty interchangeable, same with the top 3. Pokemon is finally good again.

Johto isn't a separate series though. It's still part of the original series just like the Orange Islands, so it doesn't make sense to treat it as if it is a brand new series. Treating your opinion as fact is always so annoying. The Pokemon anime has been good before Horizons and despite Journeys being mostly a mixed bag for me, I wouldn't say it was a bad or that the anime hasn't been good in years.

 

[colomb]

I can't compare Horizons with the previous series yet, but this is really over hyping it. The term recency bias comes to mind.

For many, years of mostly forest filler, one-off characters, comedic villain antics (having them recite a motto every episode is just insulting) isn't difficult to top, though of course not everyone is of the same opinion.

 

[Light Lucario]

For many, years of mostly forest filler, one-off characters, comedic villain antics (having them recite a motto every episode is just insulting) isn't difficult to top, though of course not everyone is of the same opinion.

I don't think that's a fair or accurate description of what older series were like. Aside from the original series, I don't think that would really apply to most Pokemon anime. Team Rocket haven't even appeared in every episode since BW, which was over ten years ago. I think people assume that there's a lot of filler in the Pokemon anime, but I don't think that is true. Every series has filler episodes of course, but it isn't a large portion of each series. Even being in forests never really bothered me. They were still running into different Pokemon, still in different regions and there was different group dynamics with the different cast, so complaining about episodes being set in forests just sound like a nitpick. I think that the anime had been relying less on one off characters for awhile. They still show up of course, but not as much as in earlier series. Much like fillers, using one shot characters isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

I never had an issue with Team Rocket being comedic. It fit with the light hearted tone of the anime. Reciting their motto was something established right from the start and was part of the charm, even if some of the mottoes they made in later series weren't as good, Having more serious villains to contrast them often worked, but I didn't think that they needed to be more serious themselves. They tried a more serious Team Rocket trio in BW and it was largely unpopular with fans. Admittedly, I don't think that the dub dialogue does Team Rocket any favors, especially once TPCI took over.

 

[colomb]

I don't think that's a fair or accurate description of what older series were like. Aside from the original series, I don't think that would really apply to most Pokemon anime. Team Rocket haven't even appeared in every episode since BW, which was over ten years ago. I think people assume that there's a lot of filler in the Pokemon anime, but I don't think that is true. Every series has filler episodes of course, but it isn't a large portion of each series. Even being in forests never really bothered me. They were still running into different Pokemon, still in different regions and there was different group dynamics with the different cast, so complaining about episodes being set in forests just sound like a nitpick. I think that the anime had been relying less on one off characters for awhile. They still show up of course, but not as much as in earlier series. Much like fillers, using one shot characters isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

I never had an issue with Team Rocket being comedic. It fit with the light hearted tone of the anime. Reciting their motto was something established right from the start and was part of the charm, even if some of the mottoes they made in later series weren't as good, Having more serious villains to contrast them often worked, but I didn't think that they needed to be more serious themselves. They tried a more serious Team Rocket trio in BW and it was largely unpopular with fans. Admittedly, I don't think that the dub dialogue does Team Rocket any favors, especially once TPCI took over.

What I mentioned were just some of the more common issues with the show overall, not an exhaustive list of criticisms, but you've probably heard it all before. BW and Journeys for example, may not have shoehorned the TRio into episodes as often but they unfortunately made up for it in other ways which the fandom has discussed to death.

Things like comedic villains aren't bad in small doses, but primarily relying on them to generate conflict even semi-regularly is just too formulaic even for a kids show.

To each their own, but many would agree that while the show had its moments, it was lacking in too many areas too often.

 

[CyberCubed]

I'm genuinely surprised myself how good Horizons is. They put a lot of effort into it because they wanted to make sure the first series without Ash was a success. It actually has a real plot and the entire main cast and villains are really well developed. There are a few flaws here and there with how some of the pokemon are handled on the cast, but overall I'm quite pleased. Of course again, i'm watching the sub, which is always better than the modern dubs, so it may not have the same impact if you watch the dub.

It's like when Misty was removed after Johto. Back in 2002 people had no idea if the anime could be a success without the original trio or Misty. So the writers put a lot of effort into May and (back then) she was the most focused on companion of the series, so she successfully replaced Misty and it convinced the writers not to bring Misty back to the cast, and then paved the way for all the female leads who came after like Dawn, etc. This is what Horizons is, Ash has been "replaced" but they put a lot of effort into Horizons as a whole so the entire series feels exciting compared to what came before.

It's also funny because none of the current cast feel like "Ash replacements" but their own characters, I remember people being concerned if Ash ever left they'd replace him with a kid who was very similar...but that hasn't been the case. Liko, Roy and Dot are the 3 leads as well as Friede to an extent, so none of it feels like Ash 2.0. I'm also a little shocked they did make a main girl the lead for once, if you told me 10 years ago we'd have a female lead (Liko) over a male lead in pokemon I'd be surprised. Roy is basically like what Go was to Ash, but Liko is still more important whereas Roy is a bit secondary.

 

[Light Lucario]

What I mentioned were just some of the more common issues with the show overall, not an exhaustive list of criticisms, but you've probably heard it all before. BW and Journeys for example, may not have shoehorned the TRio into episodes as often but they unfortunately made up for it in other ways which the fandom has discussed to death.

Even as far as common issues with the show, it feels a bit too inaccurate to me. Or at least it comes off as cherry picking for me.

Things like comedic villains aren't bad in small doses, but primarily relying on them to generate conflict even semi-regularly is just too formulaic even for a kids show.

To each their own, but many would agree that while the show had its moments, it was lacking in too many areas too often.

I disagree about the comedic villains. It's hard for me to see it as such an issue given the general tone and formulaic format of the anime. I'm not saying that the anime didn't have problems before Horizons. I could go for days about all of my issues with BW and to a lesser degree Journeys for example. I probably would disagree with some of the more common complaints people had. I never wanted Ash to be replaced despite it being a major talking point among fans for decades.

I'm genuinely surprised myself how good Horizons is. They put a lot of effort into it because they wanted to make sure the first series without Ash was a success. It actually has a real plot and the entire main cast and villains are really well developed. There are a few flaws here and there with how some of the pokemon are handled on the cast, but overall I'm quite pleased. Of course again, i'm watching the sub, which is always better than the modern dubs, so it may not have the same impact if you watch the dub.

It's like when Misty was removed after Johto. Back in 2002 people had no idea if the anime could be a success without the original trio or Misty. So the writers put a lot of effort into May and (back then) she was the most focused on companion of the series, so she successfully replaced Misty and it convinced the writers not to bring Misty back to the cast, and then paved the way for all the female leads who came after like Dawn, etc. This is what Horizons is, Ash has been "replaced" but they put a lot of effort into Horizons as a whole so the entire series feels exciting compared to what came before.

I still don't understand your obsession with Misty. I don't think that many people thought that Misty's departure would make the anime significantly less successful, especially when we already had a different trio for one arc in the original series. I'm not saying that people didn't say stuff like that. I remember the backlash to Misty's departure. I was checking through Pokemon forums back in the day too. I'm saying that the people who actually believed that Misty was key for the anime's continued success were probably a vocal minority of fans.

I also think that's really over hyping May. I like May and her storyline in AG is still good, but I think that's a pretty huge assumption that May convinced them to not bring Misty back to the cast. That's already assuming that bringing Misty back was even on the table, which we don't know for sure. I guess it isn't impossible given what happened with Brock, but that's still an assumption and a pretty unlikely one too. Misty was replaced in part because she had the least justification for being in the cast compared to everyone else. I don't think May not being well received would have necessarily change that or make them think that Misty had to be brought back. The fact that it's easier to promote new games with characters and Pokemon from said games would have given them more of a reason to keep adding new female leads too. It just sounds like you want to give more weight and importance to May than I think there actually was in her storyline and role in AG.

 

[CyberCubed]

I still don't understand your obsession with Misty. I don't think that many people thought that Misty's departure would make the anime significantly less successful, especially when we already had a different trio for one arc in the original series. I'm not saying that people didn't say stuff like that. I remember the backlash to Misty's departure. I was checking through Pokemon forums back in the day too. I'm saying that the people who actually believed that Misty was key for the anime's continued success were probably a vocal minority of fans.

I also think that's really over hyping May. I like May and her storyline in AG is still good, but I think that's a pretty huge assumption that May convinced them to not bring Misty back to the cast. That's already assuming that bringing Misty back was even on the table, which we don't know for sure. I guess it isn't impossible given what happened with Brock, but that's still an assumption and a pretty unlikely one too. Misty was replaced in part because she had the least justification for being in the cast compared to everyone else. I don't think May not being well received would have necessarily change that or make them think that Misty had to be brought back. The fact that it's easier to promote new games with characters and Pokemon from said games would have given them more of a reason to keep adding new female leads too. It just sounds like you want to give more weight and importance to May than I think there actually was in her storyline and role in AG.

Because we're looking back in hindsight in 20/20. Just like we saw the Brock/Tracey thing reversed, they would have very obviously done the same thing with Misty. For example if May wasn't received well or if say the contests bombed, the writers would have viewed removing Misty was a mistake, and she probably would have returned as soon as the Hoenn saga ended with May/Max leaving. And then by the time DP began, they may not have brought Dawn in because they would have thought bringing in the female lead from the games wouldn't work.

I always thought it was rather obvious Misty's very early permanent departure from the show, especially compared to how long Brock stayed, was due to how May was received. We're looking at this now in the far flung future of 2025, but you have to think of the mindset of the year 2002/2003 when this was airing, back then nobody knew how the show would be received or if people would take a liking to a new female. As you said, some people actually were very reluctant to May at first, so we had no idea what was going to happen. It's why I consider May replacing Misty to be the most important character replacement of the animes entire history, because it's what flat out convinced the writers to move on from the original trio and paved the way for all the female companions or groups that came in after. We definitely would not be seeing constant new female companions if it weren't for what May did first.