Battle in disadvantage

Rothometapratis

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    • Seen Jan 1, 2017
    I'm tired of seeing the pokemon with the disadvantage win in the anime. It's called DISadvantage for a reason. It's very common. Are any of you annoyed by that like me?
     
    No. Pokemon winning battles in anime despite type disadvantages is a testament on how strong the Pokemon is. Tobias' Darkrai defeated a trainer's Machamp despite the disadvantage to show how incredibly strong it was. Trip's Serperior defeated Burgundy's Darmanitan despite the disadvantage mainly because the writers wanted to emphasize that Trip was pursuing power in the Pokemon Junior World Tournament.
     
    Hiroshi Sotomura said:
    I hope we're talking about the same series, because they've been fairly faithful with types and abilities and their effects in battle for quite a while now. There's the once-in-a-blue-moon random hit, but it's not really that common.
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    Well, I'm talking about the seasons till Unova that I've watched.

    PlatinumDude said:
    No. Pokemon winning battles in anime despite type disadvantages is a testament on how strong the Pokemon is. Tobias' Darkrai defeated a trainer's Machamp despite the disadvantage to show how incredibly strong it was. Trip's Serperior defeated Burgundy's Darmanitan despite the disadvantage mainly because the writers wanted to emphasize that Trip was pursuing power in the Pokemon Junior World Tournament.
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    The fact that it happens so often, proves that they win too often even when the pokemon are pretty even powerfull.
     
    Last edited:
    The problem with your argument is that you're not taking a few things into consideration. Levels don't exist in the anime, so it's not outright obvious that one Pokémon is significantly powerful enough to overcome type disadvantages. Similar to how you would normally assume an unevolved Pokémon would be at a disadvantage to an evolved one, but clearly that's not always the case.

    Second is strategy. The anime is much more dynamic than the games and usually makes good use of speed/evasiveness and little tricks to overcome disadvantages. A supereffective attack isn't much good if it doesn't hit, right? And if the disadvantaged Pokémon can run circles around the one with the advantage, the latter will get tired out and be open for hits that may not be as effective, but do have an effect.

    Type-effectiveness is often taken into consideration by writers and explicitly by trainers in-show. Moves are shown to be highly effective or not very effective. But in the anime, the way you show that you are one of the best trainers out there is by overcoming such disadvantages. It's rare that an anime trainer can just power through something and ignore disadvantage- the strategy is all-important.
     
    EternallyAnna said:
    The problem with your argument is that you're not taking a few things into consideration. Levels don't exist in the anime, so it's not outright obvious that one Pokémon is significantly powerful enough to overcome type disadvantages. Similar to how you would normally assume an unevolved Pokémon would be at a disadvantage to an evolved one, but clearly that's not always the case.

    Second is strategy. The anime is much more dynamic than the games and usually makes good use of speed/evasiveness and little tricks to overcome disadvantages. A supereffective attack isn't much good if it doesn't hit, right? And if the disadvantaged Pokémon can run circles around the one with the advantage, the latter will get tired out and be open for hits that may not be as effective, but do have an effect.

    Type-effectiveness is often taken into consideration by writers and explicitly by trainers in-show. Moves are shown to be highly effective or not very effective. But in the anime, the way you show that you are one of the best trainers out there is by overcoming such disadvantages. It's rare that an anime trainer can just power through something and ignore disadvantage- the strategy is all-important.
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    The fact that it happens so often, proves that they win too often even when the pokemon are pretty even powerfull.
     
    No, the fact that they win so often proves that the main battle strategy in the anime is not type advantage or power, but innovative tactics. Typing is only one factor of many in a battle. Though it is highly exploited in-game, the anime shows us a more real-time, "living" example of the world where the factors that are not really used in-game are exposed. In that world, type disadvantages are considered carefully, but often a trainer is either stuck in a disadvantageous situation or chooses type disadvantage in order to exploit another factor.

    Let me repeat: anime battles are not largely focused on type advantages. They are focused on innovative strategy.
     
    EternallyAnna said:
    No, the fact that they win so often proves that the main battle strategy in the anime is not type advantage or power, but innovative tactics. Typing is only one factor of many in a battle. Though it is highly exploited in-game, the anime shows us a more real-time, "living" example of the world where the factors that are not really used in-game are exposed. In that world, type disadvantages are considered carefully, but often a trainer is either stuck in a disadvantageous situation or chooses type disadvantage in order to exploit another factor.

    Let me repeat: anime battles are not largely focused on type advantages. They are focused on innovative strategy.
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    You don't get it. And it's not easy for me to explain cause english isn't my native language, but I will try.
    Even if, innovative tactics were the main battle strategy the type advantages would still made a difference in favor of the pokemon with the advantage. Even a small one. But that's not happening. The pokemon with the disadvantage seems to win the most times. I guess that's happening, because the writers want to show that innovative tactics, as you said, are a major factor and exalt Ash in our eyes. The same argument is valid for the level difference too. The type advantages would still make a difference too.
    If, you still don't get it I could try to explain it to you with numbers.
     
    Excuse your presumptuousness, I understand what you are saying perfectly. You are the one not understanding or not willing to take this into consideration. Type advantages do make a difference, yes. The anime does not ignore them. Trainers consider them carefully and often explicitly. But many times Pokémon are straight up powerful enough to overcome type disadvantage. Often, tactics win out against brute force. The anime brings the game world to life, and in that creates a place where there are many more ways to win a battle than relying on type advantage. You say that the type-disadvantage Pokémon wins most of the time- I don't see that. More often I see unevolved winning against evolved, small and cute prevailing over big and tough. Most of the type matchups in the anime aren't actually super effective vs not very effective; they are more often normal effectiveness with the occasional surprise super effective move.

    One last time. The anime's thing is tactics and innovation. It's easier to show that when the 'disadvantaged' Pokémon (for whatever reason- type, speed, power) wins against the 'advantageous' Pokémon in an epic battle a la Blastoise vs Charizard. Or even having the advantaged Pokémon struggle to defeat one with a disadvantage a la Pikachu vs Excadrill. The anime is much more dynamic than just type advantages. While they do have a significant effect on the battles and the trainer's choices, they are not something that characters rely on.
     
    You make it sound like it's nearly impossible to win if your Pokemon has a type-disadvantage. Truth is, it's not even that uncommon in-game, just look at all the people who are doing (and completing) mono-type challenges. They are bound to have the disadvantage at some point, and they still prevail, even in difficult matches against Gym Leaders for example. You can overcome a type disadvantage with levels, and/or in case it's a flat battle, like in the PWT for example, where all the Pokemon are set to the same level, with IVs and EVs, which are the things that bring realism to the games. And since that is exactly what the anime is trying to portray, i.e. a more realistic version of the game, I guess then, Ash's Pikachu has great IVs and was very well EV trained {XD}

    Not to mention the more unorthodox battle styles that differ from the game and again, add realism to the anime. By this I mean the way Pokemon can use the opponents attack to counterattack, or the way they dodge attacks -- imagine how much more boring a battle would be in the anime if every Pokemon would wait for the opponent's attack to hit. Sometimes they even make attacks land even when in-game it would have no effect -- I'm remembering Pikachu hitting a Rhydon's horn with an Electric attack. Bottom line, type disadvantages do not work the same way in the anime as they do in-game.
     
    Seeing trainers win against disadventaged matches in the anime makes me wish there was an episode of Ash trying to beat a trainer, who is obsessed with type advantages, physical/special moves and base stats, by using his Pokemon who suffer from type disadvantage, but he ends up losing due to the trainer using his knowledge on type advantages. I also want this trainer to be recurring and represent the viewers who are sick of Ash's illogical strategies, game wise. I would say that the only reason will a Pokemon beats one Pokemon that it's weak to is justifiable if it learned a move that's SE against it.
     
    Rothometapratis said:
    Sure, I'm just saying that I noticed that pokemon in disadvantage win more than I would like.
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    Outside of a few "Ash-hax" moments throughout the series, it's typically a 1 in 10 chance the Pokemon with the type-disadvantage wins, and it's usually because the Pokemon is either stronger/healthier (the one with the type-advantage typically has already been in to face another Pokemon) or the trainer is using more innovative tactics,.

    I'm not feeling up to doing an actual statistics count on the outcome of each individual Pokemon head-to-head matchup throughout all the seasons, but I'd guess that the 1 in 10 ratio holds true for the majority of the series. You're welcome to go through each and every episode and tally them up if you want. :P

    tl;dr: Showing off strategy and more dynamic battling is crucial in the anime, but type disadvantages typically only win 1 out of 10 times, to my recollection.
     
    Anyone who has played the games knows that a pokemon's level can have a larger impact on the battle than just type matchups. Although it's true that the anime rarely ever brings up levels, it's explicitly mentioned that pokemon can win through their strength despite the bad matchup. Pitting the protagonist in a disadvantage scenario is their way of raising the stakes, for the hero to defy the odds.

    Fun fact: The team Ash used to challenge Candice's ice gym was Grotle, Staraptor, Gliscor, and Chimchar. Being backed into a corner where you have no choice but to put your faith into a bad matchup is one thing. Walking into a battle nilly-willy without discussing type matchups is another. -__-
     
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