It's odd, isn't it? It seems a lot of people liked Tabitha a lot, which I'm actually quite pleased about. But when it comes down to it, you're right: it's not a matter of him being redesigned, it's that there was no point to it.
I don't know if its because they liked the character, or just because they saw a big loss of potential..
But, my own reasons for being upset about it are kinda simple really. He's the only villain character that uses a migthyena and didn't actually ever had it faint against Ash in the anime, even though he fought him, he actually "won" his battles.. Plus, he kept saying cheesy one liners as if he was terminator or something, and looked kinda ballsy/badass/insane at times..
If you want to see for yourself, re-watch the advance generation anime, well only the episodes featuring team magma. Or you can try to look up "Team Magma Story" on vimeo I think..
Spheal of Approval was kinda cool, and A Three Team Scheme was interesting as well, though, the translator messed up and came up with a couple of weird names for characters and items.. Namely the orbs, and Tabitha and Shelly.
Tabitha. He looks completely different.
Shelly. They couldn't keep her awesome red/pinkish hair?
Ikr. I'm more bothered by her not keeping her red hair than any of the other changes...I loved the red hair on her...and it was curly too...now it's just straight black hair...
Seriously, the red hair looked awesome! :D
Tabitha - I have no idea what they could possibly be thinking for what they did to Tabitha if thats even him, why did they make him a quirky, pudgy and so goofy looking? The new design doesnt at all seem to resemble him at all and hard to defend without any comparison to reasons possible. Its not the fact that he looks different that disturbs me, its the fact they completely changed his character to suit an even lesser irrelevant archtypical stereotype I've never heard of. His name doesnt even sound scary with his image anymore, just ackward. I hate when they make fat characters just for the gimmick of humour like this.. but on a greater shame, I can't take fat characters seriously as villains. They just never are.
Shelly - I don't really have a problem with her appearance beyond the justifiable fact that she doesnt look destinguishable as Shelly anymore. I like the clothes but not her hair or her pose. I cant even tell what type of character she is supposed to be now except that she looks almost exactly like Dahila makes it even harder to determine who she actually is if I didnt know. But from her appearance she looks like one of those drunk, flirty characters who doesnt take themselves seriously and I'd hate for her to be reduced to that type of character.
Yeah, its him.. His japanese name is Homura(
ホムラ ), and the name under his namesake reads Homura..
If he turns out into yet another "omg fat people are funny" goofy comic relief character, I doubt they'll get much sympathy from quite a few people, me included..
Shelly looks like a tekken character now.. The red hair was probably the thing that struck me the most about the character.. Too bad they flushed those.. Which is just plain silly..
Especially since they don't seem to have any issues giving pretty much any hair colors to anyone, like purple, blue, green, etc..