From what I've read, ratings, in general, seemed to fall across the board during the XY saga, so it's no wonder that the Gen 6 movies bombed. Japanese kids don't care about Pok?mon anymore and are more interested in newer franchises like Yokai Watch. The same formulas the anime's been pushing for 15 years won't work anymore.
Yeah, no kidding. If the movie reaches strike three regarding low turnouts, the writers really SHOULD throw the towel. Though I'm not entirely sure the formula being pushed since AG actually worked to begin with, considering that even back then, the ratings were going down the tube (certainly not getting the ratings enjoyed during Kanto, Orange Islands, or even Johto).
It seems like SM went out of its way to exclude past Gym Leaders, similar to how B2W2's PWT went out of its way to exclude E4 Members. This means getting cameos of seemingly random, minor characters like Grimsley and Anabel (Seriously, she played a minor role in literally one other game before SM -- Were there really that many people clamoring for her to come back?), while popular, iconic characters like Misty, Brock, and the entire Johto cast are ignored.
Yeah, and to have her as a Faller? That's just random.
As I alluded to above, Yokai Watch kicked XY's butt in the ratings in Japan, so TPTB felt like the anime needed to be retooled into a goofy, slice-of-life comedy to bring back the little kiddies. However, from what I've read, SM's ratings are still down, so it doesn't seem to be working at all. Chasing after the fleeting kid demographic just isn't the same winning strategy as it used to be.
Or at least, wasn't as much of a guarantee to get decent ratings as it used to be. I'm not sure I'd call having ratings decrease from a 15 to a 7 would really be called "winning." And yeah, I got that part, but I still think making it more like Emperor's New School was random and unnecessary.
I definitely wish we had seen more things like the Whirl Cup for Misty for participate in. It would've also been nice to see Togepi and Psyduck evolve and become strong battlers (although I know the former isn't a Water type).
Well, to be fair, Togepi's not the type to evolve through battling, so if anything, how Misty handled Togepi is if anything the best way to have it evolve. Fair point regarding Psyduck, unless they decide to pull a Bulbasaur on it and have it be against evolving.
One unintended side-effect of Ash constantly losing is that it makes the Orange League look really weak and pathetic in retrospect. Back when the episodes originally aired, the Orange League was portrayed as a powerful League in its own right, and Ash's victory was meant to be seen as him making progress from his lousy performance in the Indigo Conference. The Orange episodes were also written back when the intent was for Ash's story to end with Johto, likely with him re-challenging the Indigo Conference (since Johto and Kanto had the same League in the games), beating Gary, and coming out as the victor.
Yeah, and that's not even getting into how the Battle Frontier was made to look like a complete joke due to Paul owning Ash's Pikachu's butt twice (the last of which wasn't even with his Torterra, but with Ursaring who compared to Pikachu is a total rookie), not to mention Gary, who by that point was retired from training and deciding to follow his grandpa's footsteps, managing to hand Ash his butt shortly after the win (which, honestly, made AG seem extremely pointless and far closer to being chock-full of fillers than Johto could ever be considered. That, as well as Ash getting the same rank in Hoenn as in Johto, and May being replaced with Dawn just to have the exact same goal as her).
But, since he ended up going on to lose 5 other Leagues afterwards, Ash's victory in Orange looks less like progress and more like Orange just being a weak, easy League compared to the others.
Yeah, agreed there.
They could've also had Misty end up catching and taming the Red Gyarados instead of Lance. It would've better reflected the games, anyways, since the player's the one who catches the Gyarados.
Also agreed there, especially when it would have made for a LOT of character development for Misty.
I also feel that Totodile should've gone to Misty instead of Ash. Giving Ash all three of the Johto Starters was never a good idea anyways (all it did was set them up to be forever overshadowed by his iconic Kanto Starters), and it would've been neat to see Misty train up a Water Starter.
Yeah, and what's worse is that many of them didn't evolve for no stated reason, while the Kanto starters at least had a stated reason for not evolving, or at least implied in the case of Squirtle, not until DP, anyways, and even THERE, Totodile still doesn't evolve. If they at least stated they didn't want to evolve, I could roll with it.
See what I said above about the show trying to chase after the Yokai Watch demo.
I know, but even there, it still seems pointless to just have Ash lose a league they spent a lot of time foreshadowing his win, especially when Alola doesn't have contests, period.
Wow, I didn't realize how incompetent Brock's family was. Yet another reason why he should've been the one to stay gone instead of Misty.
Yeah. Those events in question were depicted in the Chronicles episode "A Family that Battles Together Stays Together" and the AG episode "Grating Spaces", respectively.
If I recall, she also had a Togetic in Stadium 2, which obviously would've been an anime reference.
Yeah, that too.
Misty's anime counterpart is the most famous and popular version of her (enough to where far more people see her as the "original girl" of the franchise than either Kris or Green/Blue/Leaf, who were later additions to the Kanto/Johto games and have had minimal appearances outside of the relatively niche Adventures manga), so it makes sense that GF would rewrite game Misty to be more like her.
Yeah, agreed there, and it's especially notable there since not even Brock got a makeover like that (probably the closest we've got to Brock getting any references to his anime counterpart is that you can trade a Rhyhorn bred to know Thunder Fang to get his Bonsly, a reference to both the pokemon he had in DP and his breeder goal at the time).
If we ever revisit Kanto in a sequel, I'd love to see Misty as an E4 Member (or possibly even Champion). It'd be a nice nod to the dream that her anime counterpart was never given a chance to fulfill.
Fully agreed there, and who knows, maybe that would be the perfect time to have Misty actually come back to the anime and reveal she had been journeying herself.
Admittedly, the fanservice already came pre-packaged with Dawn's game design (Who runs around a cold, mountainous region in a tiny little miniskirt with nothing on underneath?), but that's still no excuse to sexualize a 10 year old.
The anime does give her bloomers at least, but yeah, I agree. There's just no excuse, and quite frankly, I'm surprised Hidaka wasn't fired for those remarks at the very least.
May was arguably even worse since she came with a tougher, more tomboyish look, so it seemed even more awkward for her to get shoved into this passive, girly coordinator role in the anime (and get a
very noticeable chest enlargement... Ew!). If she couldn't be a badge-collecting protagonist, I would've at least rather seen her in her actual game NPC role as a rival to either Ash or Brendan (while Misty would stay as the main female lead of the group).
No kidding about May's chest sizes. I even remember asking myself, especially after hearing May's voice while at the hospital, if I was watching either Pok?mon or Love Hina, and being pretty angry regarding Pok?mon coming closer to Love Hina, which is frankly inappropriate for its audiences (not to mention the Love Hina girls clearly not being good role models for kids at all. And that was BEFORE it solidified to me that the Love Hina girls were domestic abusers, Naru especially.), and I didn't even need Hidaka to realize what they were doing with May when I saw her chest. Before then, I didn't care one way or another about May or that she replaced Misty, until I heard her voice and knew they tried to pull the same stereotype that the Fiorello Fangirls, the Love Hina girls, and the like tried to pull. If they really needed to give her that rack, they should have made her a LOT older, like, I don't know, 16, or maybe 18. At least there, her having that chest would be a bit more understandable. Now, don't get me wrong, having some girliness is okay, such as a motherly nature (in fact, I actually didn't mind Misty and Togepi's interaction as a kid, and quite frankly, she already demonstrated hints at a motherly attitude as early as the first episode where she expressed concern for Pikachu). After all, having a girl act all masculine to the extent of hating feminine elements would be very bad. But having them act exceedingly feminine would also be pretty bad. Misty struck a balance, to be honest, which is probably why I am very loyal to her (that, and the fact that she didn't act like the Fiorello Fangirls in Princess vs. Princess). Oh, and the fact that in one episode, I believe it was Brave the Wave, May actually managed to strip naked and change into a bathing suit in public on the beach (granted, it was offscreen, but it was made pretty obvious such was the case due to Max's panicked reaction as well as her clothes simply being thrown to the ground instead of thrown sky high like most anime tropes of "changing").
On a slightly related note, it's because of the very blatant sexualization of May and Dawn despite their being 10 year olds (as disgusting as that was) that I was willing to buy the official claim about Marie Rose in Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate/Last Round being 18 years old when her age was mentioned on the official site even with her... petite and almost childlike figure. And I was willing to buy the claim about Honoka being 18 via the same source as well. Well, that, and the fact that Kasumi, Ayane, Kokoro, and Eliot had their ages being listed as "unknown" outside Japan as a form of censorship due to their technically being underage, being 17, 16, 17, and 16, respectively. Namely, if Team Ninja truly intended for them to be 10, they would have made it clear on the Japanese site that they were that age, international standards be darned.
This is why I'm one of the few people who actually enjoyed Tracey. Brock's horndog act got old by end of Kanto, and it was tiring to constantly see him drool over the same, identical-looking Joys and Jennys in every episode. Tracey's maturity and respect for women was a breath of fresh air, and bringing Brock back was one of many things that dragged down Johto for me.
Well, I personally never cared one way or another about Tracey. Didn't hate him, didn't like him either (actually, while I did stop watching during the Orange Islands, it wasn't so much that Brock was removed that they changed the opening). But yeah, come to think of it, he didn't act all inappropriate there. At most, he just drew girls, which compared to how Brock acted is very tame. Brock should have acted more like, say, how he acted in Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village, where he, while obviously having feelings for the person running the hidden village, was very subdued about it and even reluctant to mention he had feelings for her.
Hey, if they can find ways to insert a character based on RBY's protagonist (Ash) into every region, then Misty could've certainly been adapted to other regions. Back in the Pok?mania days, she was seen as being nearly as much of a franchise mascot as Ash and Pikachu. Up through the end of Johto, she was the only other character besides them who had been in every episode, after all.
Yeah. It was pretty clearly intended that she was to be the co-star there.
Yeah, I like your idea of Ash being in Hoenn as more of a mentor figure to Brendan rather than the main protagonist. Since the RSE protagonist is said to have moved from Johto to Hoenn, they could've even introduced Brendan in late Johto as a younger boy watching Ash beat Gary at the the Indigo Conference (as I would've ended Johto) and looking up to him as an idol.
Yeah, that works as well, acts as a good connection to the games. The closest we've got to that was with Max, and while I don't necessarily have anything against him, at the same time, his inclusion was ultimately pointless due to his not being old enough to be a trainer (and honestly, of all the characters who came and went, I'd argue he had an even shorter straw drawn on him than Misty, mostly because of the writers stupid insistence since those eyecatchers in AG making clear that Ash will always remain 10 years old).
It's become pretty obvious that the show sees Ash as the stand-in for the male player characters, especially with him even wearing the same outfits as the male PCs from DP onwards. Not only does this mean that the male PCs basically don't exist in the show, but it's likely also the reason why they've mostly been generic, samey-looking Red clones dressed in some combo of red/blue/black since Gen 4. They're clearly being designed based on how well their outfits would look on Ash, as GF probably realizes that Ash will be the one actually promoting the games in the show.
Brendan and Lucas did have cameos in the openings to some films, but yeah, beyond that, they definitely messed up regarding neglecting them.
@Rad Dudesman: Well, to be fair, he did indicate that it could "hopefully" come to fruition in the future, but yeah, reading that, he never explicitly mentioned they'd become a couple.
Though why would Japan be concerned with showing a kiss, anyways? I mean, nothing stopped them from showing a kiss between Snorlax and Meowth, not to mention showing the kiss in Sleeping Beauty in Wake Up Snorlax.
