10 worst Pokémon Anime Characters

Samurai was pretty bad. A one episode filler. Somewhat a caricature of a Ronin.
 
... there's thousands of characters in this show. I can barely even keep track of ten of them that aren't main characters.

But Max was a very obnoxious little brother. Other than that, I really don't feel like looking up the thousands of cod to pick nine others.
 
In order:

1. Iris. Iris is a colossal waste of space and of all of Ash's travelling companions, she is by far the one with the least amount of meaningful and consistent growth as a character. The writers can't quite seem to decide whether they want her to be a strong/good trainer or not, despite the fact that she's a Champion in the latest series...a position she didn't seem to do anything to justify or deserve? Or was even relevant to her stated goals as a character? Couple that with her infuriating attitude and ear-piercing voice...Iris is easily the worst character in the entire anime.
2. Max. Max is a very close second. I'm not a fan of little kids generally, but Max takes that to a whole new level by being a male version of Hermione Granger. It seems like his sole purpose is to annoy.
3. Cameron. Another trainer with a Lucario ace who comes out of nowhere to knock Ash out of the Unova League, despite being so scatterbrained he didn't even have enough Pokemon to compete. I'm generally not a fan of these one-note, one-off characters who are designed solely to make sure Ash doesn't win a league - asides Tobias, and that only because he had two Legendaries and having Ash defeat TWO was an achievement in itself - but Cameron was by far the worst of these.
4. Leon. He has about as much personality in the anime as he does in the games. Which is to say, none. Try and sell him as the strongest trainer as much as you want, if he doesn't have the personality to back it up, it's pointless.
5. Sophocles. He's the only one of Ash's Alola companions I don't like, because he...kinda doesn't have a point. Everyone else has a clearly defined goal, a meaningful character arc, and a pretty nice resolution to that. Sophocles is just kinda there.
6. Doctor Proctor. Oh boy, he's aged badly...
7. Drew. Drew is "narcissistic personality disorder" personified. I mean, Harley is too, but Harley cosplays as a Cacturne and despite his nastier side, he's just outrageously flamboyant and I adore him. Drew is just an obnoxious brat.
8. Trip. Trip was...Ash's rival version of Drew. Then there was the whole Snivy beating Pikachu incident...sheesh, the Unova arc was such a bad time.
9. Burgundy. She's just kinda...rude for no reason. There are a few recurring side characters like that - Ursula springs to mind too - but she just seemed...much worse than the others. I think mainly because she was just rude for the sake of being rude; Ursula at least had a reason to be hostile. Burgundy just never let up.
10. Those three Team Skull grunts who just would not stop appearing. My GOD, give it a rest.
 
To be honest, I can't name ten Pokémon characters that are the worst in the anime. I would try though. In no particular order:

1. Ash Ketchum – As much as I hate to say, Ash probably might be one of the worst characters in the anime, if not THE worst. Despite being the main character, for much of the existence of the anime, Ash has been a horrible Pokémon trainer. It took him over 20 years to finally win a championship in a region that was actually featured in the games and not in a filler arc. I honestly believe that the Pokémon anime should have had Ash win the first Pokémon League, much like Red in the games, and then abandoned Ash as the central character after the first season and focused on new protagonists during each generation. Instead, we had to watch a character for years that was really only good for blasting off Team Rocket instead of winning where it counts because he always either made stupid decisions or refused to fully-evolve his Pokémon and make them stronger.

2. Paul – Paul was a character that didn't have any redeeming qualities. He was just an arrogant rival of Ash that had a very bad attitude and constantly mistreated his own Pokémon.

3. Tracey – Ash's main male traveling companion and friend from the Orange Island arc that replaced Brock for some reason. He was the wrong character to replace Brock, as he was super boring and brought nothing to the table, not in terms of entertaining the viewer or as a trainer or whatever he was.

4. Damien – A one-off character in one of the earliest episodes where he abandoned his Charmander and left it to die. Because of that, he didn't have any redeeming qualities either, much like Paul. Thankfully, Ash rescued Charmander and raised it to become the Charizard that we all know and love.

5. Keldeo – In Pokémon the Movie: Kyurem vs. the Sword of Justice, Keldeo was so annoying, stubborn, and obnoxious to the point where I was rooting for Kyurem to keep kicking his butt.

6. Hoopa – In Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, Hoopa was probably the most annoying character ever.

7. Colress – My issue with Colress isn't that he was a bad character, but rather how much the anime portrayed him as different to his video game character. In the video games, he was more of a person that wanted to study the extent of a Pokémon's power, even if he had to use unscrupulous means to do it, such as by joining Team Plasma because they allowed him to study. Despite that, he was still a relatively respectful person. In the anime however, he was your typical overly evil "take over the world" villain, which I felt cheated the character.

8. Tobias – He was, for some reason, allowed to enter the Pokémon League tournament with several legendary Pokémon while seemingly no other character, at the time at least, was allowed to have any legendary Pokémon. I just felt his character was created to give Ash another cheap obstacle for winning the title he deserved.

If I can think of two more characters, I would update this list.
 
So. It is hard to choose 10 out of all the characters there are. A few have already been named and I will got into a bit more detail for those.

Cilan - He was useless. He barely caught any pokemon. Barely added anything to the show. And was just annoying with his connoisseuring and food puns. He has a terrible design. And I just do not like in him the least. At of all main characters, he is probably my most hated.

Goh - While he is ok. How they write is character is so annoying. He has caught multiple legends and got credit for catching Suicune which should have been a pokemon Ash caught given his history with Suicune. He also got credit for Eternitus which both Ash and Goh caught. He also caught a Flygon which once again should have been a pokemon that Ash got. He catches every pokemon without trouble. And he doesn't care about his pokemon. I think he would have been a good character if they hadn't wanted to make him a Pokemon Go rep.

Iris - I used to hate Iris as much as others, but I do not dislike her as much as I once did. I think it is unfair she became a Champion with her team. Though this is probably because of BW2 games. I think she was a good rival. But to be a dragon master.... she was not at all. She should have caught every dragon they came across. Even the shiny Druddigon she encountered with Clair should have went to her.

Tobias - I'll be honest. I don't mind him. It showed how strong Ash was to be the only trainer to have defeated one of his pokemon. I also think he should have had more pokemon and gave Ash more spotlight. But the fact is, he was a Legendary Trainer which I don't like to begin with.

Every non major one off character in the original series. I hated almost all of the voice acting for all of them. It was also obvious when Brock, Misty, Meowth, Oak and all of them were voice acting for other characters. They were fine as their main character, but their voice acting suffered. Almost all non major character had some weird accent that was just off for them.

Not all of them though. I know Dublica and Casey both I enjoyed, but they were a bit more than one off characters since they would later return. Their voice acting was better and just their attitudes and joy the brought to each episode they were in was nice.
 
Dawn said:
In order:

1. Iris. Iris is a colossal waste of space and of all of Ash's travelling companions, she is by far the one with the least amount of meaningful and consistent growth as a character. The writers can't quite seem to decide whether they want her to be a strong/good trainer or not, despite the fact that she's a Champion in the latest series...a position she didn't seem to do anything to justify or deserve? Or was even relevant to her stated goals as a character? Couple that with her infuriating attitude and ear-piercing voice...Iris is easily the worst character in the entire anime.
2. Max. Max is a very close second. I'm not a fan of little kids generally, but Max takes that to a whole new level by being a male version of Hermione Granger. It seems like his sole purpose is to annoy.
3. Cameron. Another trainer with a Lucario ace who comes out of nowhere to knock Ash out of the Unova League, despite being so scatterbrained he didn't even have enough Pokemon to compete. I'm generally not a fan of these one-note, one-off characters who are designed solely to make sure Ash doesn't win a league - asides Tobias, and that only because he had two Legendaries and having Ash defeat TWO was an achievement in itself - but Cameron was by far the worst of these.
4. Leon. He has about as much personality in the anime as he does in the games. Which is to say, none. Try and sell him as the strongest trainer as much as you want, if he doesn't have the personality to back it up, it's pointless.
5. Sophocles. He's the only one of Ash's Alola companions I don't like, because he...kinda doesn't have a point. Everyone else has a clearly defined goal, a meaningful character arc, and a pretty nice resolution to that. Sophocles is just kinda there.
6. Doctor Proctor. Oh boy, he's aged badly...
7. Drew. Drew is "narcissistic personality disorder" personified. I mean, Harley is too, but Harley cosplays as a Cacturne and despite his nastier side, he's just outrageously flamboyant and I adore him. Drew is just an obnoxious brat.
8. Trip. Trip was...Ash's rival version of Drew. Then there was the whole Snivy beating Pikachu incident...sheesh, the Unova arc was such a bad time.
9. Burgundy. She's just kinda...rude for no reason. There are a few recurring side characters like that - Ursula springs to mind too - but she just seemed...much worse than the others. I think mainly because she was just rude for the sake of being rude; Ursula at least had a reason to be hostile. Burgundy just never let up.
10. Those three Team Skull grunts who just would not stop appearing. My GOD, give it a rest.
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I totally respect your opinion but how did Ursula have a reason to be hostile. The only thing I could gather was that she lost in the Wallace Cup.
 
MusicalMeloetta said:
I totally respect your opinion but how did Ursula have a reason to be hostile. The only thing I could gather was that she lost in the Wallace Cup.
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I was thinking of Dawn's reaction to her Plusle and Minun, mostly. I mean, I'm not making excuses for Ursula's behaviour - she's jealous, petty, and after Dawn apologised and explained her reason for freaking out she should have moved past that, and their rivalry seemed a lot more contrived and excessively hostile than, say, Ash and Paul - but she had more character development than Burgundy did, who was just rude and obnoxious right out the door and it was never really explained why, or expanded upon. That was basically her entire character.
 
Dawn said:
I was thinking of Dawn's reaction to her Plusle and Minun, mostly. I mean, I'm not making excuses for Ursula's behaviour - she's jealous, petty, and after Dawn apologised and explained her reason for freaking out she should have moved past that, and their rivalry seemed a lot more contrived and excessively hostile than, say, Ash and Paul - but she had more character development than Burgundy did, who was just rude and obnoxious right out the door and it was never really explained why, or expanded upon. That was basically her entire character.
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Oh okay I see what you are saying and I do agree that Burgundy's character development was all over the place like how during the end of the Club Battle, she finally seemed to be on respectful terms with Cilan, But when she reappeared during the Clubsplosion, she was back acting like a Maniac towards Cilan. And I think the reason for her being Hostile was because she lost to Cilan and she thinks he insulted one of her Pokémon.
 
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