Best Wishes! and Double Standards...

[Detective Benny]

Here's a list of double standards for this series of the anime:

"Lilia (Iris) gets handed a Dragoran (Dragonite)!"

So Lucia (Dawn) didn't get handed a Togekiss or a speed-evolving Quiekel (Swinub)? Maike (May) didn't get handed an overpowered Schiggy (Squirtle) and Evoli (Eevee)? And Misty didn't get handed a Togepi even though she did NOTHING to deserve it? A case can even be made for Ash getting handed a Tauboga (Pidgeotto). Also, didn't most of Ash's Pokemon just follow him?

"Benny (Cilan/Dent(o)) gets no development and is too fanservicey!"

Yes, he did. His time to shine was in the first half, while Lilia's was in the next half. Rocko got no development and no one complains about him as much. All he did was flirt and cook! And how is he more "Fanservicey" than some of the other characters I can name (Lucia, Maike, Misty)?

"Ash regressed in BW when he was improving before!"

Because losing to a Karpador (Magikarp), struggling with a little girl's Voltilamm (Mareep), and "tying" with an Elekid (Ash saw it as a loss) is considered progress, right? People also say he's "back to his original strength" in XY, but a Scoppel (Bunnelby) that somebody just caught was kicking his ass before Team Rocket interfered, and let's not even bring up that he lost to them until Froxy (Froakie) popped up.

"The humor in it is not funny!"

Not only is this wrong, but this applies to some of the other sagas too. Enton (Psyduck) stopped being funny when they kept relying on the headache gag to win, and by the Ash vs Misty battle in that Johto water tournament, it was just awful. Rocko getting dragged away stopped being funny after just a few times, his flirting was never funny, and do I even need to get started on Team Rocket? And that's only Johto; I haven't even gotten started on the others!

"Lilia calls him a little kid too much, she should respect him!"

Yet no one says anything about Lucia's "No need to worry"? Also, one of the first things Paul said about him in the first Ash vs Paul battle was, "You talk like a little kid." Also he called him "pathetic" a lot of times! Also, TR calls him "twerp" - which is an insult - in almost every episode, but no one cares. And why should she respect him when he's only shown her idiocy? Many say that she would be put in her place by DP Ash, but he wasn't all that mature either.

"Team Rocket are boring and robotic!"

People seem to be under the impression that serious is the same as robotic. How do people act at work? Exactly.

Also, TR did the same thing over and over again when "funny", and no one called them robotic.

"The rivals were badly written!"

Other than them not getting closure, I disagree. Everyone loves Paul but he wasn't "well written" or even good. All the writers did was take the GS rival and combine his worst traits into one. That's NOT character. Drew was just boring, especially in his first appearances where he was just green haired Gary but a little less calm. Tobias was a generic "champion" with legendary Pokemon even though that goes against everything Pokemon has stood for, Kenny was boring and only served to be Lucia's childhood friend. See the problem? Most rivals prior to BW are either lamer versions of already existing characters or generic.

"Ottaro was so lame, he was just a marketing tool!"

What about Lucia's Plinfa (Pochama)? Or Misty's Togepi before it evolved in AG, long after Misty left? Or even Enton for that matter?

"Ash didn't evolve enough Pokemon!"

The series has shown that evolution isn't everything. In every other series, at least one Pokemon remained unevolved.

"The movies are just about legendaries fighting!"

All of DP's movies except for the last one involve legendary Pokemon battling in some way. And it's not like it was the main focus of the plot.

"The opening for Episode N had Glurak fighting Reshiram but it never happened!"

What about Panferno (Infernape) VS. Entei from one of the DP openings? Or the legendary birds all together? Or Bamelin (Buizel) VS. Darkrai from the same intro? When did those happen? Many people argue that BW fed us "false promises", especially with the "Let's Join Hands" ending, but one of the DP openings showed Misty but she didn't appear, and the Japanese Adventures in the Orange Islands intro showed some of the rivals of Kanto, but they never showed up, either.

"There's too much stock footage!"

That's when I'm convinced you haven't watched any other series. Every series has stock footage, even XY just replace speed line backgrounds with the environment.

"Ash's Pokemon team is shafted!"

So is Ash's team of Froxy (Froakie), Dartiri (Fletchling), and Pikachu in XY, even though there's only THREE of them, as opposed to BW's ten. In Johto, Skaraborn (Heracross) was shafted. I can go on, but I won't.

"His Pokemon are all bland except Palpitoad (Mebrana)!"

Describe Tauros, Kingler, or Sleimok (Muk). Or Karnimani (Totodile) outside of dancing. Feurigel (Cyndaquil) also didn't have much to it other than its initial problem of taking a while to get its flames going. Noctuh (Noctowl) had some personality in its debut episode but then in every other appearance, it became just Team Rocket balloon popper #2.

"Ash had to use a full team to beat three of Mica's Pokemon!"

He had to use three Pokemon to beat two of Lino's (Grant's) in XY. And in Johto, he had to use three of his Pokemon just to beat Whitney's (Bianka's) ONE Miltank. What's the difference? Oh, yeah, in BW, there was buildup to Mica being this awesome gym leader, and Ash wanted to use three as well, but Mica insisted on her rules. In Johto, there was nothing like that, Bianka just made it easier for him after she beat him the first time. In XY, no buildup either, just Lino explaining his ruleset and Ash agreeing without hesitation.

"But what about the time he lost to an idiot with 5 Pokemon?"

Morrison almost beat him with 4 Pokemon (remember that his first two Pokemon lost without any fight-back), reducing it to 4 vs 6 in Ash's favor.

"Trip is a ripoff of Paul!"

Did any of you watch past the first episode? He becomes his own character a few episodes in. And if Diaz (Trip) really is a ripoff... what does that make Paul? Paul himself is a ripoff of the GS Rival. Seriously. They just combined his worst traits to make Paul. That's not character.

"Ash is such an idiot in Best Wishes!, he was smarter then and is smarter now."

"The Geckarbor and Their Home" (AG007): Ash tries to catch a Geckarbor without first weakening it, Maike even calls him out on it.
"Stubborn as a Pokemon" (DP006): After he consults the Pokedex about Damhirplex (Stantler) and its hypnosis powers, guess what he does after another one pops up? Looks...
"A Blustery Santalune Gym Battle!" (XY005): Even though he fought on ice fields at least once every region, he has so much trouble with this one, and I'm not even going to start on the over-dramatic scene that followed it.

"The Einall (Unova) League sucked!"

I'm not going to really argue this one seeing as it left much to be desired in comparison to the other tournaments of BW. But Hoenn's League was unremarkable. It had good battles but without any rivals besides Morrison and Tyson, there was no real reason to invest in it so having good battles won no points for me. Kanto's League was good in the beginning but sucked when Ash vs. Richie was announced. Sinnoh's League had Tobias. Johto's was actually pretty good and only got better so I'd say that's the best one.

 

[Lizardo]

The inevitable reality of fandom (or life in general, really) is that people are going to find ways to justify errors in what they like and justify their criticism of what they don't like. I don't think you're any stranger to that, and I know I'm not either. And when you get right down to it, that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. There's no rule that says we have to be 100% consistent in what we choose to enjoy.

That said, I find that at least some of these "double standards" suffer from the fact that you're either trying to group critics of Best Wishes into a single hivemind - and assuming that what one doesn't like, everyone doesn't like - or that some of the comparisons you're making aren't really the same situation or are missing some vital context or are misunderstanding the nature of the complaint. Another issue I draw here is that in many cases, you're not exactly showing why we should be thinking differently about Best Wishes. Trying to tear down the rest of the anime franchise isn't going to make BW look any better.

When I'm not at work, I'll try and address the individual points you've made because I think it makes for a good discussion. I hope that you'll at least try to see where some of the complaints are coming from.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

I'll try to comment what I can on the issue, and I haven't exactly watched much of BW so its not much I can offer on (although I will mention I was pretty ticked at how pathetically Ash lost against Trip and the League outcome):

Here's a list of double standards for this series of the anime:

"Lilia (Iris) gets handed a Dragoran (Dragonite)!"

So Lucia (Dawn) didn't get handed a Togekiss or a speed-evolving Quiekel (Swinub)? Maike (May) didn't get handed an overpowered Schiggy (Squirtle) and Evoli (Eevee)? And Misty didn't get handed a Togepi even though she did NOTHING to deserve it? A case can even be made for Ash getting handed a Tauboga (Pidgeotto). Also, didn't most of Ash's Pokemon just follow him?

I'll agree with you on Dawn, and to some extent Squirtle and Eevee. However, to be fair to Misty, Togepi imprinted on her, so it's not like she'd have much of a choice either way. In the animal kingdom, generally, if a newborn animal such as a gosling sees someone, it automatically views them as its mother, regardless of whether the person or animal actually did anything to deserve it. Heck, the Baby Metroid from Metroid II: Return of Samus imprinted on Samus, despite the fact that she not only did literally nothing to deserve it, but she in fact was responsible for murdering its true mother, the Queen Metroid. Also, at least in Kanto, only three of Ash's Pokémon actually "followed" him (Charizard, Squirtle, and technically Haunter [since Sabrina and Ash both stated that Haunter was the latter's Pokémon in both the Japanese and English versions of the rematch episode, he counts]), as Pidgeotto, Butterfree and even Bulbasaur he caught fair and square, oh, and Krabby, Primeape the 30 tauros, and Muk as well.

"Benny (Cilan/Dent(o)) gets no development and is too fanservicey!"

Yes, he did. His time to shine was in the first half, while Lilia's was in the next half. Rocko got no development and no one complains about him as much. All he did was flirt and cook! And how is he more "Fanservicey" than some of the other characters I can name (Lucia, Maike, Misty)?

I wouldn't necessarily say Misty's "fanservicey" (May got a lot more fanservice than Misty, and in a more crass manner not to mention), though I do agree with you on Brock. Heck, even in Johto, he did little for his actual goal, despite Johto actually introducing Pokémon Breeding.

"Ash regressed in BW when he was improving before!"

Because losing to a Karpador (Magikarp), struggling with a little girl's Voltilamm (Mareep), and "tying" with an Elekid (Ash saw it as a loss) is considered progress, right? People also say he's "back to his original strength" in XY, but a Scoppel (Bunnelby) that somebody just caught was kicking his ass before Team Rocket interfered, and let's not even bring up that he lost to them until Froxy (Froakie) popped up.

At least the Elekid was implied to have been a veteran of at least one region before Sinnoh, and at least it wasn't literally starting out. Ash lost against a kid who was literally just out the door of Unova's lab and starting out. I guess I'll agree with you on Bunnelby, though.

"Team Rocket are boring and robotic!"

People seem to be under the impression that serious is the same as robotic. How do people act at work? Exactly.

Also, TR did the same thing over and over again when "funny", and no one called them robotic.

To be honest, I wasn't happy with Team Rocket either pre-BW or during BW, for varying reasons. If they want a comic relief villain, fine, but that doesn't mean you should not make them a threat. I can name plenty of villains who were comical and yet at the same time a genuine threat: The Joker, Kefka Palazzo, even Bowser)

"Trip is a ripoff of Paul!"

Did any of you watch past the first episode? He becomes his own character a few episodes in. And if Diaz (Trip) really is a ripoff... what does that make Paul? Paul himself is a ripoff of the GS Rival. Seriously. They just combined his worst traits to make Paul. That's not character.

I won't comment on whether he's a ripoff of Paul or not, but I will mention that at least Paul actually had a lot of experience in Pokémon Training by Sinnoh, having already completed the four main regions. Having Trip basically beat Ash easily when the latter was far more experienced than him (heck, Trip was literally just starting his journey when he fought Ash, being his first battle) should not have happened at all. That's my main gripe (and BTW, Trip being a rookie automatically means he's not a ripoff of Paul since Paul was not a rookie at all).

"Ash is such an idiot in Best Wishes!, he was smarter then and is smarter now."

"The Geckarbor and Their Home" (AG007): Ash tries to catch a Geckarbor without first weakening it, Maike even calls him out on it.
"Stubborn as a Pokemon" (DP006): After he consults the Pokedex about Damhirplex (Stantler) and its hypnosis powers, guess what he does after another one pops up? Looks...
"A Blustery Santalune Gym Battle!" (XY005): Even though he fought on ice fields at least once every region, he has so much trouble with this one, and I'm not even going to start on the over-dramatic scene that followed it.

Maybe, but can you cite instances where Ash literally mistook a human female for a Pokémon like how he mixed up Iris for an Axnew (and BTW, they don't even look alike), even when they look absolutely nothing alike at all? That alone made even Kanto-era Ash seem smarter than Ash (and that's saying something considering some of the mistakes he made during that time).

"The Einall (Unova) League sucked!"

I'm not going to really argue this one seeing as it left much to be desired in comparison to the other tournaments of BW. But Hoenn's League was unremarkable. It had good battles but without any rivals besides Morrison and Tyson, there was no real reason to invest in it so having good battles won no points for me. Kanto's League was good in the beginning but sucked when Ash vs. Richie was announced. Sinnoh's League had Tobias. Johto's was actually pretty good and only got better so I'd say that's the best one.

I agree with you regarding Hoenn's League, and in fact I actually consider it second worst compared to the Unova League (the only reason I don't consider it the absolute worst is because unlike Unova, Ash at least didn't decrease in rank, though then again, he never gained a rank either). Plus, sometimes I wonder if there's even a point to AG when you literally could skip it and not even miss much thanks to Ash staying at Top 8. Johto may have been considered a bad region due to its length, but at least Ash actually increased in rank and got better than before, not to mention actually lost honorably and with his full abilities (the only reason why he lost against Ritchie in Kanto was because Team Rocket basically made him late for the match, forcing him to use up most of his team and wasn't even able to have time to rest up), so that made the wait worth it by a significant degree. Not to mention, at least Sinnoh and Johto actually had Ash increasing in rank. Unova just made Ash look terrible with his loss. I can accept him losing as long as he's at least proven he's actually gotten stronger by increasing in rank, but if he doesn't increase in rank at all, or worse, decreases in rank, that reflects badly on Ash.

 

[Lizardo]

Here's a list of double standards for this series of the anime:

Your second, eighth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, and seventeenth points either don't really interest me enough to reply to them or I actually agree with them. But as for the others:

"Lilia (Iris) gets handed a Dragoran (Dragonite)!"

So Lucia (Dawn) didn't get handed a Togekiss or a speed-evolving Quiekel (Swinub)? Maike (May) didn't get handed an overpowered Schiggy (Squirtle) and Evoli (Eevee)?

Yes, Hikari was handed a Togekiss and it was just as irritating then as it was when Iris got Kairyu. In some respects it was worse because whereas Iris at least bonded with Kairyu beforehand, Togekiss was just given to Hikari for no good reason. The same would go for Haruka's Zenigame and Eievui, who are really the perfect examples of one of the big things I couldn't stand about Advanced Generation: the convenient plot twists and dues ex machina designed to push Haruka and Satoshi past whatever Contest or Gym battle they needed to get past without them doing much to truly earn it. But that still doesn't change the issue surrounding Kairyu, or that people had a valid reason not to like Kairyu moving Iris past Langley and Hikari in their tournament. The one Grand Festival battle Togekiss participated in, it lost.

And Misty didn't get handed a Togepi even though she did NOTHING to deserve it? A case can even be made for Ash getting handed a Tauboga (Pidgeotto). Also, didn't most of Ash's Pokemon just follow him?

I don't see how these compare. Satoshi caught Pigeon fairly, and neither it nor any of the other Pokémon that followed him were capable of pulling off the kind of feats Kairyu was when Iris first caught it.

"Ash regressed in BW when he was improving before!"

Because losing to a Karpador (Magikarp), struggling with a little girl's Voltilamm (Mareep), and "tying" with an Elekid (Ash saw it as a loss) is considered progress, right? People also say he's "back to his original strength" in XY, but a Scoppel (Bunnelby) that somebody just caught was kicking his ass before Team Rocket interfered, and let's not even bring up that he lost to them until Froxy (Froakie) popped up.

I assume you're primarily talking about Satoshi losing to Shooti at the beginning of that show. The problem, as far as I could tell, wasn't that Satoshi lost to a new rival. Had Shooti been someone who had demonstrated that he had some practical experience beforehand or had bonded with Tsutarja, I personally wouldn't have seen it any different than Satoshi losing to any other trainer. And everyone you mentioned above had at least one or the other, sometimes both. Shinji and the Koiking COTD had spent enough time with their Pokémon that they were able to develop a battle style with them, and they and Citron had at least an equal amount of experience with Satoshi so that they knew what they were doing. Shooti had no visible experience to call on, and no clear bond with Tsutarja that would explain why they were in sync. And the ultimate point, none of them ended up beating him. At least, not as decisively as Shooti did.

There's also the fact that Satoshi was able to demonstrate a measure in skill in those battles. He surprised Shinji, who earlier had the upper hand, and managed to ultimately fight him to a draw/close battle - it was meant to be ambiguous. During the battle, the writers made a point of having Hikari mention that both Satoshi and Shinji were strong. Eureka and Citron were clearly impressed by the way Satoshi and Pikachu worked together. The first two Shooti battles didn't have that balancing element to it, which left a very poor impression of Satoshi in general.

"The humor in it is not funny!"

Not only is this wrong, but this applies to some of the other sagas too.

Humor is really subjective and depends on a few different factors, so people aren't "wrong" for not finding BW funny. Millions find Adam Sandler films hilarious, I think they're garbage. I also didn't find most of BW's gags funny, either.

"Lilia calls him a little kid too much, she should respect him!"

Yet no one says anything about Lucia's "No need to worry"? Also, one of the first things Paul said about him in the first Ash vs Paul battle was, "You talk like a little kid." Also he called him "pathetic" a lot of times! Also, TR calls him "twerp" - which is an insult - in almost every episode, but no one cares.

The Rockets and Shinji are antagonists, not friends of Satoshi who one would think would support him. Not that I have a problem with Iris calling Satoshi a kid, he is one and so is she, but there is a difference between her and them. You'd be better off comparing Iris to Kasumi, who's treated Satoshi far worse in the past yet their friendship is never disputed (nor should it be).

And why should she respect him when he's only shown her idiocy? Many say that she would be put in her place by DP Ash, but he wasn't all that mature either.

It's all about how you balance it. Satoshi is a kid, even in Diamond & Pearl. He's supposed to be. But while he often got opportunities there to show that he could demonstrate maturity if he needed to, such as when he had to comfort Hikozaru. I think it's the relative lack of such moments in BW that leads to that perception.

"Team Rocket are boring and robotic!"

People seem to be under the impression that serious is the same as robotic. How do people act at work? Exactly.

Also, TR did the same thing over and over again when "funny", and no one called them robotic.

I have no idea where you work or what the culture is like there, but in my experience acting robotic is a great way to get passed over. No matter what you do, an enjoyable personality is important. I think the problem with the Rockets wasn't so much that BW took them in a more serious direction, but that in doing so they erased the personalities that had made them fun (to their fans) beforehand. Sometimes, yes, their regular personas would come through but up until Da! that was rather inconsistent. I'm not a Rocket Gang fan in general, but I can definitely see where the people who liked them would have a problem.

"The rivals were badly written!"

Other than them not getting closure, I disagree. Everyone loves Paul but he wasn't "well written" or even good. All the writers did was take the GS rival and combine his worst traits into one. That's NOT character.

Not getting closure is a great example of why calling them poor written is a very valid criticism. One can also add to this the fact that Satoshi, Iris, and Dent's rivalries with Shooti, Langley, and (especially) Cabernet didn't really end up amounting to anything. There was no reason given as to why Satoshi and Shooti were even rivals in the first place.

Whatever you want to think of Shinji, and I'm not here to argue about that, the writers did at least that much with him. The primary issue dividing Shinji and Satoshi was laid down in their first meeting together, and remained the consistent running theme in each of their encounters. Shinji was given a motivation for why he thought as he did and why he and Satoshi would have a problem with each other that would believably lead to multiple battles, and even force a change of opinion in the both of them by the end of that show. The writers also found different ways to use their rivalry: from battles to tag teams to competing through Gym battles or PokéRingers to having Shinji effect the plot peripherally to going out of their way to present Shinji as a character with just as much experience as Satoshi.

It's up to you whether or not you were entertained by Shinji or his rivalry with Satoshi, but this represents far more of an effort put into him than they did with Shooti or any other rival in BW.

I also wouldn't call Shinji a ripoff of Silver. While they do share similarities, their motivations and their dynamics with their primary rivals are much different. Whereas Silver was entirely in the wrong Shinji, as Satoshi eventually learns, wasn't. Your description fits Shigeru during the OS far better. Up until the point where he randomly decides to become a researcher, Shigeru was basically just the Gen. 1 rival in anime form.

Drew was just boring, especially in his first appearances where he was just green haired Gary but a little less calm. Tobias was a generic "champion" with legendary Pokemon even though that goes against everything Pokemon has stood for, Kenny was boring and only served to be Lucia's childhood friend. See the problem? Most rivals prior to BW are either lamer versions of already existing characters or generic.

And Shooti and Langley are your generic arrogant rivals. Bel is a ripoff of Jun. Kotetsu is your average "scatterbrained" character. Kenyan is almost like Masamune, only with an irritating running gag. Virgil is no different than Hiroshi, Hazuki, or Tetsuya as the League rival.

When you get right down to it, BW's rivals aren't any more original than Shigeru, Shuu, Harley, Shinji, Jun, Nozomi, Kengo, Urara, and Musalina. But whatever you may think of them individually Shuu, Shinji, and Nozomi had reasons for the positions they filled as rivals and made a positive impact on the characters they feuded with (and, in the case of the former two, vice versa). Meanwhile Harley, Jun, Urara, and Musalina were just plain entertaining as secondary rivals. I like most of BW's rival cast, the only ones I didn't like were Shooti and Kotetsu, but they weren't much as rivals.

They were entertaining characters, however. I'll say that.

"Ash didn't evolve enough Pokemon!"

The series has shown that evolution isn't everything. In every other series, at least one Pokemon remained unevolved.

I also agree with this. But if "evolution isn't everything" then I don't understand why you criticized Satoshi earlier for having had trouble with Eleking or Koiking.

"Ash's Pokemon team is shafted!"

So is Ash's team of Froxy (Froakie), Dartiri (Fletchling), and Pikachu in XY, even though there's only THREE of them, as opposed to BW's ten. In Johto, Skaraborn (Heracross) was shafted. I can go on, but I won't.

Each show has at least one Pokémon that could have used more chances to shine. The issue here is that whereas AG and DP had about two or three between the both of them, BW had about five.

"Ash had to use a full team to beat three of Mica's Pokemon!"

He had to use three Pokemon to beat two of Lino's (Grant's) in XY. And in Johto, he had to use three of his Pokemon just to beat Whitney's (Bianka's) ONE Miltank. What's the difference?

I'll readily agree that there isn't one in your Jouto example, and I dislike that battle too, but you honestly can't see the difference between having an advantage of three Pokémon against one? I also think that the fact that Homika was the final Gym Leader, the battle where you're supposed to see Satoshi as being ready for the League, plays a part here too. It's one thing to fail to fairly beat one Gym Leader in the middle of a series when he and his team are still growing stronger, but right at the very end?

"But what about the time he lost to an idiot with 5 Pokemon?"

Morrison almost beat him with 4 Pokemon (remember that his first two Pokemon lost without any fight-back), reducing it to 4 vs 6 in Ash's favor.

I'm afraid I don't see the similarities here. Masamune's problem was that he was afraid to fight Satoshi, not that he was inept. Kotetsu, despite being good in battle, really didn't know what he was doing. He thought he only needed seven badges to qualify for the Isshu League, he didn't know he had to actually register for the thing, and he didn't realize a full battle necessitated six Pokémon. Even for a franchise that essentially starts over with each new show, it's rather difficult to believe Satoshi could go from fighting and knocking out two legendaries in a previous League semifinal to losing to someone like Kotetsu in the quarterfinals one League later. Masamune knew enough about what he was doing to realize what a full battle was and he didn't beat Satoshi, which essentially renders this comparison moot.

"Ash is such an idiot in Best Wishes!, he was smarter then and is smarter now."

"The Geckarbor and Their Home" (AG007): Ash tries to catch a Geckarbor without first weakening it, Maike even calls him out on it.
"Stubborn as a Pokemon" (DP006): After he consults the Pokedex about Damhirplex (Stantler) and its hypnosis powers, guess what he does after another one pops up? Looks...
"A Blustery Santalune Gym Battle!" (XY005): Even though he fought on ice fields at least once every region, he has so much trouble with this one, and I'm not even going to start on the over-dramatic scene that followed it.

Again, I think the issue here is about balance more than anything. Satoshi is not and never was supposed to be an especially smart person, and that's actually something I like about him, but he is supposed to be capable of demonstrating remarkable talent for innovation and creativity during battle (see: Satoshi vs. Melissa). And it's that particular talent of his that I missed out on a lot during Best Wishes amidst episodes like Raimon Gym, which is what I imagine is what gives some people the impression that he got dumber. I don't think Satoshi was meant to be any smarter or dumber than he's been before, the writers just didn't do a good job of balancing his less-than-intelligent moments with moments that demonstrate he actually can strategize well.

"The Einall (Unova) League sucked!"

I'm not going to really argue this one seeing as it left much to be desired in comparison to the other tournaments of BW. But Hoenn's League was unremarkable. It had good battles but without any rivals besides Morrison and Tyson, there was no real reason to invest in it so having good battles won no points for me. Kanto's League was good in the beginning but sucked when Ash vs. Richie was announced. Sinnoh's League had Tobias. Johto's was actually pretty good and only got better so I'd say that's the best one.

None of the other Leagues concluded the biggest rivalry in a lazy one-on-one opening battle, followed up on that by wasting one of the six episodes allotted to the tournament with unrelated filler about Kibago, and had the main character lose to a character who didn't realize a "full battle" meant using a team of six Pokémon, and finished in a position lower than what he ended up with in the League previous. That's not to say that the other Leagues are perfect, none of them are, but none of them were quite as bad as that one.

If there's anything I take away from this, it's not that OS, AG, DP, and XY don't have their flaws. They certainly do. But just because they have problems doesn't mean one should excuse the things that went wrong with BW, especially since whereas you had to jump across four different shows to try and find the so-called double standards all of those complaints (and more) can be found with this one show. That should explain right there why there are fans who had a problem with BW when it was airing. I have nothing against people enjoying Best Wishes and I hope I don't come off that way, and it did do some things that I liked, but that doesn't mean that many of the complaints placed against it aren't valid.

 

[Famon]

Here's a list of double standards for this series of the anime:

"Lilia (Iris) gets handed a Dragoran (Dragonite)!"

So Lucia (Dawn) didn't get handed a Togekiss or a speed-evolving Quiekel (Swinub)? Maike (May) didn't get handed an overpowered Schiggy (Squirtle) and Evoli (Eevee)? And Misty didn't get handed a Togepi even though she did NOTHING to deserve it? A case can even be made for Ash getting handed a Tauboga (Pidgeotto). Also, didn't most of Ash's Pokemon just follow him?

"Benny (Cilan/Dent(o)) gets no development and is too fanservicey!"

Yes, he did. His time to shine was in the first half, while Lilia's was in the next half. Rocko got no development and no one complains about him as much. All he did was flirt and cook! And how is he more "Fanservicey" than some of the other characters I can name (Lucia, Maike, Misty)?

"Ash regressed in BW when he was improving before!"

Because losing to a Karpador (Magikarp), struggling with a little girl's Voltilamm (Mareep), and "tying" with an Elekid (Ash saw it as a loss) is considered progress, right? People also say he's "back to his original strength" in XY, but a Scoppel (Bunnelby) that somebody just caught was kicking his ass before Team Rocket interfered, and let's not even bring up that he lost to them until Froxy (Froakie) popped up.

"The humor in it is not funny!"

Not only is this wrong, but this applies to some of the other sagas too. Enton (Psyduck) stopped being funny when they kept relying on the headache gag to win, and by the Ash vs Misty battle in that Johto water tournament, it was just awful. Rocko getting dragged away stopped being funny after just a few times, his flirting was never funny, and do I even need to get started on Team Rocket? And that's only Johto; I haven't even gotten started on the others!

"Lilia calls him a little kid too much, she should respect him!"

Yet no one says anything about Lucia's "No need to worry"? Also, one of the first things Paul said about him in the first Ash vs Paul battle was, "You talk like a little kid." Also he called him "pathetic" a lot of times! Also, TR calls him "twerp" - which is an insult - in almost every episode, but no one cares. And why should she respect him when he's only shown her idiocy? Many say that she would be put in her place by DP Ash, but he wasn't all that mature either.

"Team Rocket are boring and robotic!"

People seem to be under the impression that serious is the same as robotic. How do people act at work? Exactly.

Also, TR did the same thing over and over again when "funny", and no one called them robotic.

"The rivals were badly written!"

Other than them not getting closure, I disagree. Everyone loves Paul but he wasn't "well written" or even good. All the writers did was take the GS rival and combine his worst traits into one. That's NOT character. Drew was just boring, especially in his first appearances where he was just green haired Gary but a little less calm. Tobias was a generic "champion" with legendary Pokemon even though that goes against everything Pokemon has stood for, Kenny was boring and only served to be Lucia's childhood friend. See the problem? Most rivals prior to BW are either lamer versions of already existing characters or generic.

"Ottaro was so lame, he was just a marketing tool!"

What about Lucia's Plinfa (Pochama)? Or Misty's Togepi before it evolved in AG, long after Misty left? Or even Enton for that matter?

"Ash didn't evolve enough Pokemon!"

The series has shown that evolution isn't everything. In every other series, at least one Pokemon remained unevolved.

"The movies are just about legendaries fighting!"

All of DP's movies except for the last one involve legendary Pokemon battling in some way. And it's not like it was the main focus of the plot.

"The opening for Episode N had Glurak fighting Reshiram but it never happened!"

What about Panferno (Infernape) VS. Entei from one of the DP openings? Or the legendary birds all together? Or Bamelin (Buizel) VS. Darkrai from the same intro? When did those happen? Many people argue that BW fed us "false promises", especially with the "Let's Join Hands" ending, but one of the DP openings showed Misty but she didn't appear, and the Japanese Adventures in the Orange Islands intro showed some of the rivals of Kanto, but they never showed up, either.

"There's too much stock footage!"

That's when I'm convinced you haven't watched any other series. Every series has stock footage, even XY just replace speed line backgrounds with the environment.

"Ash's Pokemon team is shafted!"

So is Ash's team of Froxy (Froakie), Dartiri (Fletchling), and Pikachu in XY, even though there's only THREE of them, as opposed to BW's ten. In Johto, Skaraborn (Heracross) was shafted. I can go on, but I won't.

"His Pokemon are all bland except Palpitoad (Mebrana)!"

Describe Tauros, Kingler, or Sleimok (Muk). Or Karnimani (Totodile) outside of dancing. Feurigel (Cyndaquil) also didn't have much to it other than its initial problem of taking a while to get its flames going. Noctuh (Noctowl) had some personality in its debut episode but then in every other appearance, it became just Team Rocket balloon popper #2.

"Ash had to use a full team to beat three of Mica's Pokemon!"

He had to use three Pokemon to beat two of Lino's (Grant's) in XY. And in Johto, he had to use three of his Pokemon just to beat Whitney's (Bianka's) ONE Miltank. What's the difference? Oh, yeah, in BW, there was buildup to Mica being this awesome gym leader, and Ash wanted to use three as well, but Mica insisted on her rules. In Johto, there was nothing like that, Bianka just made it easier for him after she beat him the first time. In XY, no buildup either, just Lino explaining his ruleset and Ash agreeing without hesitation.

"But what about the time he lost to an idiot with 5 Pokemon?"

Morrison almost beat him with 4 Pokemon (remember that his first two Pokemon lost without any fight-back), reducing it to 4 vs 6 in Ash's favor.

"Trip is a ripoff of Paul!"

Did any of you watch past the first episode? He becomes his own character a few episodes in. And if Diaz (Trip) really is a ripoff... what does that make Paul? Paul himself is a ripoff of the GS Rival. Seriously. They just combined his worst traits to make Paul. That's not character.

"Ash is such an idiot in Best Wishes!, he was smarter then and is smarter now."

"The Geckarbor and Their Home" (AG007): Ash tries to catch a Geckarbor without first weakening it, Maike even calls him out on it.
"Stubborn as a Pokemon" (DP006): After he consults the Pokedex about Damhirplex (Stantler) and its hypnosis powers, guess what he does after another one pops up? Looks...
"A Blustery Santalune Gym Battle!" (XY005): Even though he fought on ice fields at least once every region, he has so much trouble with this one, and I'm not even going to start on the over-dramatic scene that followed it.

"The Einall (Unova) League sucked!"

I'm not going to really argue this one seeing as it left much to be desired in comparison to the other tournaments of BW. But Hoenn's League was unremarkable. It had good battles but without any rivals besides Morrison and Tyson, there was no real reason to invest in it so having good battles won no points for me. Kanto's League was good in the beginning but sucked when Ash vs. Richie was announced. Sinnoh's League had Tobias. Johto's was actually pretty good and only got better so I'd say that's the best one.

- You seriously compareing Manaswine and Squtal with a Dragonite.
Also Dawn reciced Tokekiss after she manage to get her 5th rebbion. Also A Tokekiss nowhere near a Dragontie .
Dragonite is a near legendary pokemon that took down All Ash's Pokemon in Orange League until Pikachu beat him by Luck . Foe those who didn't played the game back then , Dragonite was a Leagendary Pokemon .
It goes nowhere near a Tokekiss which Dawn got after reciceing all her development as coordinator.
Unlike Iris , Who got a free Dragonite without any Development ! Just because she has magical Power , A competent writer would have gave her a Bagon who tries to fly by jumping off and evolved it all the way to a Salamence at the end of the series.

-Cilan always treaated as an Unbeatable Connisseur who defeat every connisseur in his way .
Tell me ,were there any connisseur who beaten cilan at battling & testing ???
Hack , Even Ash wasn't treated as invincible as him .
No matter which rival challenge him , He beat them so easily !

- First of all

Make a comment after watching the series !!!!

Because Ash & Pikachu didn't lose to Magikarp ! The battle was unfinished .
Plus it was against The World Strongest Magikarp raised by a Experience Trainer who's out to Prove "Evolution doesn't mean better and Any Pokemon can be strong if they are traied hard enough'
It totally different then Ash being defeated by a total newbie who reached paul level in 3 month .
Also Ash had hard time dealing with Clemont's Bunnelby but he didn't lose !
Ash actually used Bunnelby own fighting ability against it and hit bunnelby with close range Electro Ball before the match was stooped .
Plus , Clemont is experience Gym-leader ! A experience trainer can use the new Pokemon much efficiently then a Rookie .

- Here the main reason why Iris's Kid comment waas annoying
1) Ash fall from a Tree , What a Kid !
2) Ash chose wrong Pokemon , What a Kid
3) Cilan being crazy about train , What a Kid
4)Bianca being clumsy again , What a Kid

That Why her Kid catphrase sucked ! Truth is , Nobody gives a dam care about Iris respecting Ash.
The problem is , Every single hilarious moment , Her reaction is the same ! She will make a face and say What a Kid.
Seriously , Doesn't she know any other reaction expect "What a Kid".
Misty was popular because her reaction to every hilarious moment was random and unpredictable. She was deliver various punchline that made the series hilarious.
But Iris just keep One sentence over & over.
Plus ,who's Iris to decide who a kid or not ! She herself act like a Kid and someone should have point it out !
Ash & Cilan could have point that out at the cross-dressing episode.

- The rival were bad-written compare to DP series !
Any rival could have been better then a complete rookie or an idiot .
For example , A Tsundere Tough Female rival .
she obviously much better idea then the trash call Trip considering Pokemon Anime didn't have a single tough female Challenger around Ash's age.
Most female challenger around Ash"s age are ether a comic relief Or a Rookie.
PS : Challenger are those type of trainer who collect Gym Badge to compete in the Pokemon League.

- Also , If Ash is overpowered and he has a even overp[owered rival that it will make the series more interesting & exciting because people loves the clash between 2 overpowered character.
Example , Death Note !
Death note had the most briliant Protagonist named Light with the most Powerful mass-murder weapon.
So what the Arthur Did ?
He created the most briliant detective L to clash against Light.
And the series got popular cause people loved the The Cat & mouse fight between Light & L !
Also In Dragonball Z , When Goku become the strongest man in earth , The show brought enemy from another plannet like the Sayan & Freeza . And When Goku become the stronest man in Uniserve , The show brought enemy from the future .
The how Competion are created .

Honestly , You think BW series was fine because to you Pokemon is child service Catoon with no contiunity like "Dragon Tales"
But Pokemon is a Anime with "Contiuity" which purpose is to sell merchandise.
That make it different then Dragon Tales

 

[Kid Sonic]

Unova is just terrible on all accords. It's also part of the reason why I'm now handling Kalos with a grain of salt.

The only things I did like about this region were Team Rocket (up until the aborted arc and the FillerFestSuck Islands) and Keldeo.

 

[Detective Benny]

That said, I find that at least some of these "double standards" suffer from the fact that you're either trying to group critics of Best Wishes into a single hivemind - and assuming that what one doesn't like, everyone doesn't like - or that some of the comparisons you're making aren't really the same situation or are missing some vital context or are misunderstanding the nature of the complaint. Another issue I draw here is that in many cases, you're not exactly showing why we should be thinking differently about Best Wishes. Trying to tear down the rest of the anime franchise isn't going to make BW look any better.

This isn't meant to group everyone into a hivemind, all it is, is taking complaints - valid or not - and seeing how they apply to other series. You're right about your last sentence, but then shouldn't some people stop trying to bring down the BW series to make other series look better? I'm not trying to tear down any other series (well except maybe XY...)

Heck, the Baby Metroid from Metroid II: Return of Samus imprinted on Samus, despite the fact that she not only did literally nothing to deserve it, but she in fact was responsible for murdering its true mother, the Queen Metroid. Also, at least in Kanto, only three of Ash's Pokémon actually "followed" him (Charizard, Squirtle, and technically Haunter [since Sabrina and Ash both stated that Haunter was the latter's Pokémon in both the Japanese and English versions of the rematch episode, he counts]), as Pidgeotto, Butterfree and even Bulbasaur he caught fair and square, oh, and Krabby, Primeape the 30 tauros, and Muk as well.

It can still be considered a slap in the face considering she did nothing to earn it. "...three of Ash's Pokemon..." Could be a hand-out.

At least the Elekid was implied to have been a veteran of at least one region before Sinnoh, and at least it wasn't literally starting out. Ash lost against a kid who was literally just out the door of Unova's lab and starting out. I guess I'll agree with you on Bunnelby, though.

I won't comment on whether he's a ripoff of Paul or not, but I will mention that at least Paul actually had a lot of experience in Pokémon Training by Sinnoh, having already completed the four main regions. Having Trip basically beat Ash easily when the latter was far more experienced than him (heck, Trip was literally just starting his journey when he fought Ash, being his first battle) should not have happened at all. That's my main gripe (and BTW, Trip being a rookie automatically means he's not a ripoff of Paul since Paul was not a rookie at all).

He didn't go through OI or beat the BF, so Ash still trumps him experience-wise. As for Ash getting beat by a rookie, his Pikachu lost its electric powers.

Maybe, but can you cite instances where Ash literally mistook a human female for a Pokémon like how he mixed up Iris for an Axnew

He couldn't even see her full body, and who's to say it couldn't be holding an item, wearing something on its head, etc.? If he saw her full body and still thought she was a Pokemon then I would agree.

I don't see how these compare. Satoshi caught Pigeon fairly, and neither it nor any of the other Pokémon that followed him were capable of pulling off the kind of feats Kairyu was when Iris first caught it.

At the time he caught it, it was pretty strong, and it was a Stage 1 Pokemon.

And everyone you mentioned above had at least one or the other, sometimes both. Shinji and the Koiking COTD had spent enough time with their Pokémon that they were able to develop a battle style with them, and they and Citron had at least an equal amount of experience with Satoshi so that they knew what they were doing. Shooti had no visible experience to call on, and no clear bond with Tsutarja that would explain why they were in sync. And the ultimate point, none of them ended up beating him. At least, not as decisively as Shooti did.

I'm pretty sure the Voltilamm/Mareep trainer had neither, though. True, they didn't beat him but he still shouldn't have even struggled.

Humor is really subjective and depends on a few different factors, so people aren't "wrong" for not finding BW funny. Millions find Adam Sandler films hilarious, I think they're garbage. I also didn't find most of BW's gags funny, either.

Of course no one has to find it funny. What I really meant is that people say it relies on tired gags when it's not the only series to do so.

The Rockets and Shinji are antagonists, not friends of Satoshi who one would think would support him. ... I think it's the relative lack of such moments in BW that leads to that perception.

I'll admit I kind of went off track for this entry, not much to say here.

I have no idea where you work or what the culture is like there, but in my experience acting robotic is a great way to get passed over. No matter what you do, an enjoyable personality is important. I think the problem with the Rockets wasn't so much that BW took them in a more serious direction, but that in doing so they erased the personalities that had made them fun (to their fans) beforehand. Sometimes, yes, their regular personas would come through but up until Da! that was rather inconsistent. I'm not a Rocket Gang fan in general, but I can definitely see where the people who liked them would have a problem.

I don't work or have a job. I somehow doubt the TR of pre-BW would secure a job, especially not how they were in D&P. This is probably more of addressing a complaint than a double standard, but in XY, the writers have tried to portray them as both "serious" and "funny" but haven't excelled in either so they're more "robotic" than BW TR ever was. They're not even their exaggerated selves of the recent pre-BW seasons, just generic grunts.

Not getting closure is a great example of why calling them poor written is a very valid criticism. One can also add to this the fact that Satoshi, Iris, and Dent's rivalries with Shooti, Langley, and (especially) Cabernet didn't really end up amounting to anything. There was no reason given as to why Satoshi and Shooti were even rivals in the first place.

Yes, it is, but there are other contributing factors that go into a "badly written" rival. Who knows, maybe this will be remedied if they ever decide to bring back Chronicles. Diaz/Trip's rivalry with Ash was poor as said in your last sentence but his character and storyline involving Lauro/Alder was great.

Aside from not being portrayed as in the wrong, how was he any better than the GS Rival? And he may be not a direct ripoff, but they did take all of his worst traits and then there you go, you have Paul.

I also agree with this. But if "evolution isn't everything" then I don't understand why you criticized Satoshi earlier for having had trouble with Eleking or Koiking.

The latter is known as the weakest Pokemon so it's embarrassing no matter what. Elekid's battle wasn't bad for it being not evolved, it was bad because Ash should have had more experience.

I'm afraid I don't see the similarities here. Masamune's problem was that he was afraid to fight Satoshi, not that he was inept. Kotetsu, despite being good in battle, really didn't know what he was doing.

Carsten was a complete idiot, but in battle, none of that really matters. I understand why people complain about him but some people bring it up only because Ash lost to a team of 5, even though he almost lost to 4 in AG. True, Morrison didn't beat him, but he very well could have if he gave it his all in the beginning.

Ash still has creativity in battles, see Ash vs. Sandro/Brycen.

None of the other Leagues concluded the biggest rivalry in a lazy one-on-one opening battle, followed up on that by wasting one of the six episodes allotted to the tournament with unrelated filler about Kibago, and had the main character lose to a character who didn't realize a "full battle" meant using a team of six Pokémon, and finished in a position lower than what he ended up with in the League previous. That's not to say that the other Leagues are perfect, none of them are, but none of them were quite as bad as that one.

The Einall/Unova league also didn't have a legendary user hijack it at the last minute (which is worse than anything BW has done), or pad it out with useless Team Rocket scenes. Ash's rank regression seems disappointing until you realize it was Top 128 in BW and Top 64 in D&P - he fought the same amount of battles to get where he was in both series.

If there's anything I take away from this, it's not that OS, AG, DP, and XY don't have their flaws. They certainly do. But just because they have problems doesn't mean one should excuse the things that went wrong with BW, especially since whereas you had to jump across four different shows to try and find the so-called double standards all of those complaints (and more) can be found with this one show. That should explain right there why there are fans who had a problem with BW when it was airing. I have nothing against people enjoying Best Wishes and I hope I don't come off that way, and it did do some things that I liked, but that doesn't mean that many of the complaints placed against it aren't valid.

Maybe BW has more flaws but I don't really think that makes it worse. Which is better, a piece of "art" given to you by a young relative or a generic art piece? The latter might be better but the former is more special. Never said any of these weren't valid on some level, otherwise they wouldn't be "double standards", although some of them I don't understand.

Dragonite is a near legendary pokemon that took down All Ash's Pokemon in Orange League until Pikachu beat him by Luck . Foe those who didn't played the game back then , Dragonite was a Leagendary Pokemon .

Key words: BACK THEN and WAS.

Unlike Iris , Who got a free Dragonite without any Development !

How in any way was Lucia/Dawn developed aside from not crying anymore and sharpening her skills?

Just because she has magical Power , A competent writer would have gave her a Bagon who tries to fly by jumping off and evolved it all the way to a Salamence at the end of the series.

Why does it have to be one particular Pokemon? Also, that's a cliche fanfic idea.

-Cilan always treaated as an Unbeatable Connisseur who defeat every connisseur in his way .
Tell me ,were there any connisseur who beaten cilan at battling & testing ???
Hack , Even Ash wasn't treated as invincible as him .
No matter which rival challenge him , He beat them so easily !

I don't see what that really has to do with any of the points I made.

Make a comment after watching the series !!!!

How about you watch Best Wishes! before talking crap about it?

Because Ash & Pikachu didn't lose to Magikarp ! The battle was unfinished .
Plus it was against The World Strongest Magikarp raised by a Experience Trainer who's out to Prove "Evolution doesn't mean better and Any Pokemon can be strong if they are traied hard enough'

I say lose because... it's a Karpador/Magikarp.

It totally different then Ash being defeated by a total newbie who reached paul level in 3 month .
Also Ash had hard time dealing with Clemont's Bunnelby but he didn't lose !

Where did it say three months passed? Also, Pikachu's electricity got taken away as said before.
He shouldn't have struggled, at all.

Ash actually used Bunnelby own fighting ability against it and hit bunnelby with close range Electro Ball before the match was stooped .

Any other attack could probably have gotten results, wasn't impressed.

- Here the main reason why Iris's Kid comment waas annoying
That Why her Kid catphrase sucked ! Truth is , Nobody gives a dam care about Iris respecting Ash.
...
One sentence over & over

If you don't care about her respecting Ash, why don't you have a problem with other catchphrases?

Plus ,who's Iris to decide who a kid or not ! She herself act like a Kid and someone should have point it out !
Ash & Cilan could have point that out at the cross-dressing episode.

Yes, she does act like one. Your point?

- The rival were bad-written compare to DP series !

D&P rivals were poor.

For example , A Tsundere Tough Female rival .

Would have been better than Paul.

- Also , If Ash is overpowered and he has a even overp[owered rival that it will make the series more interesting & exciting because people loves the clash between 2 overpowered character.
...
The how Competion are created .

What works for one series may not work for another.

Honestly , You think BW series was fine because to you Pokemon is child service Catoon with no contiunity like "Dragon Tales"
But Pokemon is a Anime with "Contiuity" which purpose is to sell merchandise.
That make it different then Dragon Tales

Nice self-projection.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

It can still be considered a slap in the face considering she did nothing to earn it. "...three of Ash's Pokemon..." Could be a hand-out.

Not really, because if you've witnessed how certain types of birds interact with people, it's not really a slap in the face at all. I mean, is imprinting a slap in the face to the mother Goose who raised it as an egg if the bird was found by someone who literally was just passing by and first saw said someone?

And three Pokémon is still less than the 33 Pokémon he did caught in a fair battle.

He didn't go through OI or beat the BF, so Ash still trumps him experience-wise. As for Ash getting beat by a rookie, his Pikachu lost its electric powers.

Okay, first of all, Pikachu has more than just his electric powers to beat his opponents. Remember Iron Tail, Quick Attack, or Agility? That is not an excuse ESPECIALLY considering that even without his electric abilities Pikachu still would have been strong enough to beat Trip.

And as far as Paul, he still wasn't someone who was literally just starting out, so he still had far better chances of actually beating Ash than Trip did, that's mathematically proven.

He couldn't even see her full body, and who's to say it couldn't be holding an item, wearing something on its head, etc.? If he saw her full body and still thought she was a Pokemon then I would agree.

Couldn't even see her full body...? Are you kidding me?! Even if I didn't see her full body, I'd know from her mane of hair, her human like arms, her face not to mention that she was definitely not an Axew. Even if I only saw half of her body it was obvious she was not one because Axew are tiny, roughly Pikachu's size, in fact.

The latter is known as the weakest Pokemon so it's embarrassing no matter what. Elekid's battle wasn't bad for it being not evolved, it was bad because Ash should have had more experience.

I do somewhat agree with you there, but at least Paul countered his strategy there. Unfortunately, having Trip OHKO Pikachu when he was literally just starting out is worse, regardless of what you may claim (and please don't use Zekrom as an excuse, because Pikachu has Iron Tail and other attacks that AREN'T electric-type attacks and thus shouldn't have a problem).

The Einall/Unova league also didn't have a legendary user hijack it at the last minute (which is worse than anything BW has done), or pad it out with useless Team Rocket scenes. Ash's rank regression seems disappointing until you realize it was Top 128 in BW and Top 64 in D&P - he fought the same amount of battles to get where he was in both series.

At least Ash actually progressed in DP. BW had him regressing in rank.

Maybe BW has more flaws but I don't really think that makes it worse. Which is better, a piece of "art" given to you by a young relative or a generic art piece? The latter might be better but the former is more special. Never said any of these weren't valid on some level, otherwise they wouldn't be "double standards", although some of them I don't understand.

Unfortunately, BW's flaws actually proved detrimental to the series.

Key words: BACK THEN and WAS.

Yeah, and it's still considered a Pseudolegendary Pokémon today.

I say lose because... it's a Karpador/Magikarp.

Yeah, and they also made clear that it was meant to be stronger than the usual Magikarp anyways.

Where did it say three months passed? Also, Pikachu's electricity got taken away as said before.
He shouldn't have struggled, at all.

Again, Pikachu losing its electricity is no excuse especially when it has moves that have absolutely nothing to do with electricity (such as Iron Tail, for example) and thus would not have been impacted with Zekrom's electric blackout.

D&P rivals were poor.

At least DP's rivals weren't total rookies, unlike BW's.

What works for one series may not work for another.

Those series are of the same genre as Pokémon. Heck, Dragon Ball even largely dealt with a tournament arc just as Pokémon does.

Nice self-projection.

Actually, no, it's not. The anime does reference the results Ash got in the leagues, the Pokémon he has acquired, even to some extent past events (such as James arranged marriage with Jessiebelle and even Brock's mom), so that means it does in fact have continuity.

 

[Detective Benny]

And three Pokémon is still less than the 33 Pokémon he did caught in a fair battle.

We're talking about those that did follow him, though.

Okay, first of all, Pikachu has more than just his electric powers to beat his opponents. Remember Iron Tail, Quick Attack, or Agility? That is not an excuse ESPECIALLY considering that even without his electric abilities Pikachu still would have been strong enough to beat Trip.

He got tired out each time he called for an electric attack.

At least Ash actually progressed in DP. BW had him regressing in rank.

You don't think beating the BF and then making Top 4 in Sinnoh is considered a "regression"?

Yeah, and it's still considered a Pseudolegendary Pokémon today.

In the games.

Yeah, and they also made clear that it was meant to be stronger than the usual Magikarp anyways.

They could have proved that WITHOUT making Ash lose. Why not give it to Lucia/Dawn who was just starting out?

Unfortunately, BW's flaws actually proved detrimental to the series.

Don't see your point here.

At least DP's rivals weren't total rookies, unlike BW's.

"All" of BW's rivals are total rookies?

Those series are of the same genre as Pokémon. Heck, Dragon Ball even largely dealt with a tournament arc just as Pokémon does.

That doesn't mean anything.

Actually, no, it's not. The anime does reference the results Ash got in the leagues, the Pokémon he has acquired, even to some extent past events (such as James arranged marriage with Jessiebelle and even Brock's mom), so that means it does in fact have continuity.

Every series has continuity. I was referring to the Dragon Tales thing.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

We're talking about those that did follow him, though.

Yeah, and it was still minor anyways, not really something to complain about.

He got tired out each time he called for an electric attack.

And again, he had access to attacks that WEREN'T electric attacks at all (Iron Tail is a Steel-Type attack), so that's not an excuse, period.

You don't think beating the BF and then making Top 4 in Sinnoh is considered a "regression"?

The problem is that most times the Anime treats anything that isn't a league to be unimportant. I'm not particularly happy with the fact that Ash easily lost to Paul relatively speaking, especially after effectively OHKOing a Regice, but I realize this is pretty much how the Anime handles things, and besides, at least Ash actually increased in rank in DP after AG and Johto, which is definitely something considering that, Battle Frontier aside, he didn't advance at all in AG.

In the games.

In the Anime and even the Manga as well. Heck it's considered that on Bulbapedia as well.

They could have proved that WITHOUT making Ash lose. Why not give it to Lucia/Dawn who was just starting out?

1. Dawn is a Coordinator, so giving her a magikarp is not actually going to do anything regarding proving strength (especially when Coordinating and Training are two entirely different things). 2. Having it fight against Team Rocket isn't going to be a real proof of strength either, especially when they are considered pathetic not just by the fanbase, but even in-universe. 3. Since Brock rarely even battles, and is pretty much weak even with his experience, he can't have it either, nor can he fight it. So really, having Ash fight against it is the only logical way to demonstrate it.

Don't see your point here.

Basically, having Ash do worse in BW than he did in DP (and you have to admit, losing to a Legendary or not, at least he actually increased in rank, which was far better than AG, where he stayed at the same rank as he did in Johto), and having Ash lose against what was very obviously a trainer who was literally out the door for his first region is a very bad thing that proved detrimental to the series.

"All" of BW's rivals are total rookies?

Fine, probably Trip only.

That doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, actually, it does. It's one thing if we were to compare Pokémon to, say, Love Hina, but Dragon Ball and the other franchises did have tournament arc just like Pokémon, so if the formula worked for those franchises, it most certainly applies to Pokémon as well.

Every series has continuity. I was referring to the Dragon Tales thing.

Not every series. The Looney Toons cartoons have no continuity between them, and Teletubbies, Dragon Tales, and the like don't either. Heck, Final Fantasy doesn't have ANY continuity between its installments, being completely separate games despite the roman numerals between them. The closest they got to actually gaining continuity is Dissidia, where all the representatives of the games interacted with each other.

 

[Wobbu]

On the topic of Ash's first battle with Trip, I'm going to chime in that Ash had no idea that Pikachu wasn't able to use its Electric attacks. Pikachu did have attacks of other types, but Ash obviously didn't notice the effects in time. Also, for all we know, Zekrom could've weakened Pikachu's attack and defense in general.

Everyone has different standards for the show. Many people disliked the events that occurred in Best Wishes, but it doesn't mean that the series wasn't enjoyable to everyone. Each series stood out in some aspects and failed with others, and Best Wishes happened to stand out with things that aren't really cared for as much as the things it failed on. Whether or not Ash improved in the league, or whether or not Ash's rivals were rookies, or any other factor, that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the show. The episodes were still fun to watch, the animation quality was amazing to look at, and the plethora of characters was a good change of pace. Besides, there's nothing we can do about it now that the series is over, so why complain about what it should have been rather than enjoy it for what it was? Same thing applies to all older series.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

On the topic of Ash's first battle with Trip, I'm going to chime in that Ash had no idea that Pikachu wasn't able to use its Electric attacks. Pikachu did have attacks of other types, but Ash obviously didn't notice the effects in time. Also, for all we know, Zekrom could've weakened Pikachu's attack and defense in general.

What do you mean he didn't know?! Didn't he deal with Team Rocket beforehand and got his butt handed to them under similar circumstances?

 

[Lizardo]

At the time he caught it, it was pretty strong, and it was a Stage 1 Pokemon.

I honestly never got the impression that Pigeon was any stronger than the other Pokémon Satoshi had.

I'm pretty sure the Voltilamm/Mareep trainer had neither, though. True, they didn't beat him but he still shouldn't have even struggled.

I don't remember that episode, but even taking that into account there's a difference between a forgettable one-time COTD who lost and a recurring rival who was clearly meant to be better.

Of course no one has to find it funny. What I really meant is that people say it relies on tired gags when it's not the only series to do so.

In that much, I will agree with you.

I don't work or have a job. I somehow doubt the TR of pre-BW would secure a job, especially not how they were in D&P.

Actually, they had several. And they excelled in most of them. ;)

And sorry, I don't know if I was clear enough. I can get that the writers wanted to go in a more serious direction with the Rockets, and that's fine. But they didn't need to erase their personalities to do it, and I can get why people who liked them would have such a problem. Aside from those rare moments that started popping up later on in BW, they were pretty dull. But again, I was never much of a Rocket Gang fan in general.

Yes, it is, but there are other contributing factors that go into a "badly written" rival.

When it comes to BW's rivals, I think most of them (excepting Shooti and Kotetsu) were entertaining characters with a fun concept behind them that just never panned out. And it really goes far beyond just not getting actual conclusions, though that's definitely a significant flaw. Take Cabernet, for example. She was one of my favorite characters coming out of BW, and I loved that for once we had a rivalry where the rival was the one trying to catch up to the main character. But once you get past that, there's nothing there. Cabernet doesn't show Dent anything, Dent doesn't really show her much, their rivalry hits the same beats over and over, and there's no resolution to any of it. It's that kind of thing that goes on throughout all the rivals in BW, and that's what makes them badly written to me.

Who knows, maybe this will be remedied if they ever decide to bring back Chronicles. Diaz/Trip's rivalry with Ash was poor as said in your last sentence but his character and storyline involving Lauro/Alder was great.

We'll have agree to disagree on that. I thought Shooti in general was boring, especially in comparison both to Shinji and to the other characters (Langley, Cabernet, Bel, Kenyan, etc.) who surrounded him. But if you liked it, then more power to you. I don't want to try to change your opinion.

Aside from not being portrayed as in the wrong, how was he any better than the GS Rival? And he may be not a direct ripoff, but they did take all of his worst traits and then there you go, you have Paul.

This is more appropriate for another thread discussing Shinji. I don't want to go off-topic.

The latter is known as the weakest Pokemon so it's embarrassing no matter what. Elekid's battle wasn't bad for it being not evolved, it was bad because Ash should have had more experience.

But the episode was about proving exactly that kind of statement wrong, that Koiking can be strong if properly raised. And Elekid had experience, as did Shinji. Both were capable of coming up with their own strategies and techniques. Shooti and Tsujarta had none at all. These are not the same situations as each other.

Carsten was a complete idiot, but in battle, none of that really matters.

It's not that he wasn't smart, it's that he had very little of an idea what to do at a Pokémon League. We're talking about a guy who thought an Isshu League would take place in another region, who didn't understand he had to register for it, and didn't really know what a full battle was. Satoshi isn't a smart person, either, but stuff like this is really hard to take seriously.

I understand why people complain about him but some people bring it up only because Ash lost to a team of 5, even though he almost lost to 4 in AG. True, Morrison didn't beat him, but he very well could have if he gave it his all in the beginning.

But that doesn't really change anything with Kotetsu, whose problems go way beyond just that he had five Pokémon. It's a lot easier to take Masamune seriously as someone who could defeat Satoshi. He knew what he was doing, Kotetsu didn't.

The Einall/Unova league also didn't have a legendary user hijack it at the last minute (which is worse than anything BW has done), or pad it out with useless Team Rocket scenes.

I think Satoshi losing to an eventual champion with legendaries who was strong enough to beat everyone else with just one Pokémon comes off a lot better than Satoshi losing to a guy who doesn't even realize what a full battle is, so I'll have to disagree here. That's not to say Takuto was my ideal way of wrapping up the league, but I don't see how he's any worse than Kotetsu. I also don't see how the Rockets are any worse than devoting one of only six episodes allotted to the League to an unnecessary Kibago plot. I don't often care for their scenes either, but despite them the Jouto and Sinnoh Leagues managed two to get in two full battles and the Houen League managed to fit in three, whereas the Isshu League had only one.

Ash's rank regression seems disappointing until you realize it was Top 128 in BW and Top 64 in D&P - he fought the same amount of battles to get where he was in both series.

At the end of the Sinnoh League, the writers go out of their way to have Takeshi make the point that it was the first time that Satoshi had ever hit the semifinals. The message is rather clear that this was a sort of accomplishment the character had made, because he never got that far in the three previous Leagues. Even if Satoshi didn't win, Takeshi's words are meant to give off the impression that he's getting closer. So while I get what you're saying, and I think you raise a good point, it's frustrating to have even that much taken away and not seriously addressed. Satoshi's rank isn't random, it's chosen by the writers and they could easily have had him repeat the same standing he received in the previous League and nothing else would have changed. Of course, if the rest of the league been better I would have been able to overlook that.

Maybe BW has more flaws but I don't really think that makes it worse. Which is better, a piece of "art" given to you by a young relative or a generic art piece? The latter might be better but the former is more special.

I guess I could get that. But we're not comparing a child's drawing to that of a professional artist, we're comparing a franchise that's more or less been handled by the same group of people. A group of people who get paid to do this. The standards are different in this scenario. I also don't think BW is any more or less "special" than the rest of the franchise. It does some things differently, but so do the rest of the shows.

Never said any of these weren't valid on some level, otherwise they wouldn't be "double standards", although some of them I don't understand.

To be fair, some of the criticisms thrown at Best Wishes do smack of a double standard (the point you raised about Mijumaru comes to my mind here). The fact, and this ties into my first post, is that fans have an way of holding some products to standards they would never hold their preferred product to. That's just inevitable and it's not something that's unique to BW at all.

But in some of the examples you're using here, these really aren't cases of double standards. In fact they're flaws that people are absolutely right to complain about BW for, because the franchise has shown it can do much better. If you still enjoy Best Wishes and those issues don't bother you, that's fine, but understand that others have a right to criticize it.

Everyone has different standards for the show. Many people disliked the events that occurred in Best Wishes, but it doesn't mean that the series wasn't enjoyable to everyone. Each series stood out in some aspects and failed with others, and Best Wishes happened to stand out with things that aren't really cared for as much as the things it failed on. Whether or not Ash improved in the league, or whether or not Ash's rivals were rookies, or any other factor, that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the show. The episodes were still fun to watch, the animation quality was amazing to look at, and the plethora of characters was a good change of pace. Besides, there's nothing we can do about it now that the series is over, so why complain about what it should have been rather than enjoy it for what it was? Same thing applies to all older series.

I'm really over Best Wishes in general. It still doesn't appeal to me, but I don't have as much of a problem with it as I used to, and I have nothing against people who do enjoy it. I don't want to try to change anyone's opinion here.

But I do enjoy discussing and comparing the series, judging their pros and cons, and evaluating what works and what doesn't about them. And it's a lot easier to do when they've wrapped up, everything's all said and done, and there's no chance that future episodes can change my perceptions on what's going on. I don't think there's anything wrong with discussing the flaws in Best Wishes, it's just a part of being a fan of this franchise.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

I honestly never got the impression that Pigeon was any stronger than the other Pokémon Satoshi had.

Other than Caterpie at that time, though even that was because it had a type advantage.

Actually, they had several. And they excelled in most of them. ;)

And sorry, I don't know if I was clear enough. I can get that the writers wanted to go in a more serious direction with the Rockets, and that's fine. But they didn't need to erase their personalities to do it, and I can get why people who liked them would have such a problem. Aside from those rare moments that started popping up later on in BW, they were pretty dull. But again, I was never much of a Rocket Gang fan in general.

Agreed, and I also wasn't particularly happy with how they handled the whole Team Rocket arc in BW, either, largely because they didn't even do that good of a job.

It's not that he wasn't smart, it's that he had very little of an idea what to do at a Pokémon League. We're talking about a guy who thought an Isshu League would take place in another region, who didn't understand he had to register for it, and didn't really know what a full battle was. Satoshi isn't a smart person, either, but stuff like this is really hard to take seriously.

Yeah, and even Kanto League Ash, heck, even BW Ash who was even dumber than Kanto League Ash, was still smart enough to know the Unova League (heck, any of the regional leagues) took place in the same region, knew he had to register for it, and knew what a full battle was.

But that doesn't really change anything with Kotetsu, whose problems go way beyond just that he had five Pokémon. It's a lot easier to take Masamune seriously as someone who could defeat Satoshi. He knew what he was doing, Kotetsu didn't.

Yeah, at least Morrison/Tyson actually knew what they were doing. The BW challenger didn't.

I think Satoshi losing to an eventual champion with legendaries who was strong enough to beat everyone else with just one Pokémon comes off a lot better than Satoshi losing to a guy who doesn't even realize what a full battle is, so I'll have to disagree here. That's not to say Takuto was my ideal way of wrapping up the league, but I don't see how he's any worse than Kotetsu. I also don't see how the Rockets are any worse than devoting one of only six episodes allotted to the League to an unnecessary Kibago plot. I don't often care for their scenes either, but despite them the Jouto and Sinnoh Leagues managed two to get in two full battles and the Houen League managed to fit in three, whereas the Isshu League had only one.

Yeah, and the Johto and Sinnoh leagues, unlike AG or BW, actually showed Ash improving in his skills by advancing in rank. I was pretty miffed by the whole bit about Ash losing to that Legendary-wielding trainer due to it conflicting with Ash beating Regice in Battle Frontier, but at least the guy was shown to be pretty good and knowing exactly what he was doing. BW was worse off thanks to having Ash lose against someone who was a total idiot in various ways, as well as getting an even worse rank than before (probably the only silver lining is that it at least means we know Ash will have participated in the league and thus isn't skippable, unlike AG's reusing Johto's Top 8 bit, meaning the entire show was skippable for that reason).

I guess I could get that. But we're not comparing a child's drawing to that of a professional artist, we're comparing a franchise that's more or less been handled by the same group of people. A group of people who get paid to do this. The standards are different in this scenario. I also don't think BW is any more or less "special" than the rest of the franchise. It does some things differently, but so do the rest of the shows.

Yeah, and besides, I doubt most people, especially when the show makes very clear he is to become a Pokémon Master and DP strongly implied it involved beating the regional champion and E4, would take too kindly at Ash not only losing the league, but also getting an even worse rank than before, which is the biggest problem with BW, and I fear this will be to Pokémon what the Villains Arc and possibly the Redemption Arc was to Heroes (ie, the killing blow to the Anime), and the Anime already made various mistakes since Johto.

 

[Wobbu]

But I do enjoy discussing and comparing the series, judging their pros and cons, and evaluating what works and what doesn't about them. And it's a lot easier to do when they've wrapped up, everything's all said and done, and there's no chance that future episodes can change my perceptions on what's going on. I don't think there's anything wrong with discussing the flaws in Best Wishes, it's just a part of being a fan of this franchise.

And there's nothing wrong with discussing and comparing each series. It's just that a lot of times (but not always), when it comes to discussing Best Wishes, most people don't look at the positives and instead point out everything they found wrong with the series. It's fine to point out what you didn't like, but I honestly don't see how the series could not have brought any sort of entertainment or enjoyment to anyone.

 

[Famon]

I have heard that DragonBall GT was so Bad that the Arthur declare it to be an Alternate Dimension.
I also Heard rumor that Digimon Adventure 02 will be a Non-canon in New Digimon Adventure 03 series.
So I wonder if its possible for BW Series to be Non-canon ! Atleast that would explain another ''Friendly'' Mewtwo.

A Lot of People Were Angry about Original Mewtwo Been Written Off in BW Series ! Original Mewtwo may have caused A Genocide by killing All the Team Rocket Scientist and tried to replace Real Living Being with Clone But He was still Loved More then the New "'friendly'' Mewtwo.

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

I have heard that DragonBall GT was so Bad that the Arthur declare it to be an Alternate Dimension.
I also Heard rumor that Digimon Adventure 02 will be a Non-canon in New Digimon Adventure 03 series.
So I wonder if its possible for BW Series to be Non-canon ! Atleast that would explain another ''Friendly'' Mewtwo.

A Lot of People Were Angry about Original Mewtwo Been Written Off in BW Series ! Original Mewtwo may have caused A Genocide by killing All the Team Rocket Scientist and tried to replace Real Living Being with Clone But He was still Loved More then the New "'friendly'' Mewtwo.

Actually, I'm not sure Akira Toriyama actually declared GT to be an alternate dimension. He certainly claimed Dragonball Evolution to be such however (heck, that trashy movie's the reason why we've got Battle of the Gods, the first DBZ movie in over a decade).

I do agree with you regarding Mewtwo. What's worse is that the writers flat out lied to their audiences by claiming it was indeed the same Mewtwo as the one from the original series when it wasn't. Had they been honest from the get-go that it's not the same Mewtwo, the hate would probably have been half as much as it is now.

If the Kalos league has Ash being Top 4 instead of Top 8, and it's repeatedly mentioned so as to leave no room for error, then we can safely say the writers are pretending that region never happened.

 

[Detective Benny]

What's worse is that the writers flat out lied to their audiences by claiming it was indeed the same Mewtwo as the one from the original series when it wasn't.

When did they tell us it was the same Mewtwo?

 

[weedle_mchairybug]

When did they tell us it was the same Mewtwo?

Kunihiko Yuyama stated it on the official website for the film, even stating that Mewtwo changed after travelling the world after the events of Mewtwo Returns.

 

[Piks]

Spoiler:

I'll try to comment what I can on the issue, and I haven't exactly watched much of BW so its not much I can offer on (although I will mention I was pretty ticked at how pathetically Ash lost against Trip and the League outcome):



I'll agree with you on Dawn, and to some extent Squirtle and Eevee. However, to be fair to Misty, Togepi imprinted on her, so it's not like she'd have much of a choice either way. In the animal kingdom, generally, if a newborn animal such as a gosling sees someone, it automatically views them as its mother, regardless of whether the person or animal actually did anything to deserve it. Heck, the Baby Metroid from Metroid II: Return of Samus imprinted on Samus, despite the fact that she not only did literally nothing to deserve it, but she in fact was responsible for murdering its true mother, the Queen Metroid. Also, at least in Kanto, only three of Ash's Pokémon actually "followed" him (Charizard, Squirtle, and technically Haunter [since Sabrina and Ash both stated that Haunter was the latter's Pokémon in both the Japanese and English versions of the rematch episode, he counts]), as Pidgeotto, Butterfree and even Bulbasaur he caught fair and square, oh, and Krabby, Primeape the 30 tauros, and Muk as well.



I wouldn't necessarily say Misty's "fanservicey" (May got a lot more fanservice than Misty, and in a more crass manner not to mention), though I do agree with you on Brock. Heck, even in Johto, he did little for his actual goal, despite Johto actually introducing Pokémon Breeding.



At least the Elekid was implied to have been a veteran of at least one region before Sinnoh, and at least it wasn't literally starting out. Ash lost against a kid who was literally just out the door of Unova's lab and starting out. I guess I'll agree with you on Bunnelby, though.



To be honest, I wasn't happy with Team Rocket either pre-BW or during BW, for varying reasons. If they want a comic relief villain, fine, but that doesn't mean you should not make them a threat. I can name plenty of villains who were comical and yet at the same time a genuine threat: The Joker, Kefka Palazzo, even Bowser)



I won't comment on whether he's a ripoff of Paul or not, but I will mention that at least Paul actually had a lot of experience in Pokémon Training by Sinnoh, having already completed the four main regions. Having Trip basically beat Ash easily when the latter was far more experienced than him (heck, Trip was literally just starting his journey when he fought Ash, being his first battle) should not have happened at all. That's my main gripe (and BTW, Trip being a rookie automatically means he's not a ripoff of Paul since Paul was not a rookie at all).



Maybe, but can you cite instances where Ash literally mistook a human female for a Pokémon like how he mixed up Iris for an Axnew (and BTW, they don't even look alike), even when they look absolutely nothing alike at all? That alone made even Kanto-era Ash seem smarter than Ash (and that's saying something considering some of the mistakes he made during that time).



I agree with you regarding Hoenn's League, and in fact I actually consider it second worst compared to the Unova League (the only reason I don't consider it the absolute worst is because unlike Unova, Ash at least didn't decrease in rank, though then again, he never gained a rank either). Plus, sometimes I wonder if there's even a point to AG when you literally could skip it and not even miss much thanks to Ash staying at Top 8. Johto may have been considered a bad region due to its length, but at least Ash actually increased in rank and got better than before, not to mention actually lost honorably and with his full abilities (the only reason why he lost against Ritchie in Kanto was because Team Rocket basically made him late for the match, forcing him to use up most of his team and wasn't even able to have time to rest up), so that made the wait worth it by a significant degree. Not to mention, at least Sinnoh and Johto actually had Ash increasing in rank. Unova just made Ash look terrible with his loss. I can accept him losing as long as he's at least proven he's actually gotten stronger by increasing in rank, but if he doesn't increase in rank at all, or worse, decreases in rank, that reflects badly on Ash.

Your second, eighth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, and seventeenth points either don't really interest me enough to reply to them or I actually agree with them. But as for the others:



Yes, Hikari was handed a Togekiss and it was just as irritating then as it was when Iris got Kairyu. In some respects it was worse because whereas Iris at least bonded with Kairyu beforehand, Togekiss was just given to Hikari for no good reason. The same would go for Haruka's Zenigame and Eievui, who are really the perfect examples of one of the big things I couldn't stand about Advanced Generation: the convenient plot twists and dues ex machina designed to push Haruka and Satoshi past whatever Contest or Gym battle they needed to get past without them doing much to truly earn it. But that still doesn't change the issue surrounding Kairyu, or that people had a valid reason not to like Kairyu moving Iris past Langley and Hikari in their tournament. The one Grand Festival battle Togekiss participated in, it lost.



I don't see how these compare. Satoshi caught Pigeon fairly, and neither it nor any of the other Pokémon that followed him were capable of pulling off the kind of feats Kairyu was when Iris first caught it.



I assume you're primarily talking about Satoshi losing to Shooti at the beginning of that show. The problem, as far as I could tell, wasn't that Satoshi lost to a new rival. Had Shooti been someone who had demonstrated that he had some practical experience beforehand or had bonded with Tsutarja, I personally wouldn't have seen it any different than Satoshi losing to any other trainer. And everyone you mentioned above had at least one or the other, sometimes both. Shinji and the Koiking COTD had spent enough time with their Pokémon that they were able to develop a battle style with them, and they and Citron had at least an equal amount of experience with Satoshi so that they knew what they were doing. Shooti had no visible experience to call on, and no clear bond with Tsutarja that would explain why they were in sync. And the ultimate point, none of them ended up beating him. At least, not as decisively as Shooti did.

There's also the fact that Satoshi was able to demonstrate a measure in skill in those battles. He surprised Shinji, who earlier had the upper hand, and managed to ultimately fight him to a draw/close battle - it was meant to be ambiguous. During the battle, the writers made a point of having Hikari mention that both Satoshi and Shinji were strong. Eureka and Citron were clearly impressed by the way Satoshi and Pikachu worked together. The first two Shooti battles didn't have that balancing element to it, which left a very poor impression of Satoshi in general.



Humor is really subjective and depends on a few different factors, so people aren't "wrong" for not finding BW funny. Millions find Adam Sandler films hilarious, I think they're garbage. I also didn't find most of BW's gags funny, either.



The Rockets and Shinji are antagonists, not friends of Satoshi who one would think would support him. Not that I have a problem with Iris calling Satoshi a kid, he is one and so is she, but there is a difference between her and them. You'd be better off comparing Iris to Kasumi, who's treated Satoshi far worse in the past yet their friendship is never disputed (nor should it be).



It's all about how you balance it. Satoshi is a kid, even in Diamond & Pearl. He's supposed to be. But while he often got opportunities there to show that he could demonstrate maturity if he needed to, such as when he had to comfort Hikozaru. I think it's the relative lack of such moments in BW that leads to that perception.



I have no idea where you work or what the culture is like there, but in my experience acting robotic is a great way to get passed over. No matter what you do, an enjoyable personality is important. I think the problem with the Rockets wasn't so much that BW took them in a more serious direction, but that in doing so they erased the personalities that had made them fun (to their fans) beforehand. Sometimes, yes, their regular personas would come through but up until Da! that was rather inconsistent. I'm not a Rocket Gang fan in general, but I can definitely see where the people who liked them would have a problem.



Not getting closure is a great example of why calling them poor written is a very valid criticism. One can also add to this the fact that Satoshi, Iris, and Dent's rivalries with Shooti, Langley, and (especially) Cabernet didn't really end up amounting to anything. There was no reason given as to why Satoshi and Shooti were even rivals in the first place.

Whatever you want to think of Shinji, and I'm not here to argue about that, the writers did at least that much with him. The primary issue dividing Shinji and Satoshi was laid down in their first meeting together, and remained the consistent running theme in each of their encounters. Shinji was given a motivation for why he thought as he did and why he and Satoshi would have a problem with each other that would believably lead to multiple battles, and even force a change of opinion in the both of them by the end of that show. The writers also found different ways to use their rivalry: from battles to tag teams to competing through Gym battles or PokéRingers to having Shinji effect the plot peripherally to going out of their way to present Shinji as a character with just as much experience as Satoshi.

It's up to you whether or not you were entertained by Shinji or his rivalry with Satoshi, but this represents far more of an effort put into him than they did with Shooti or any other rival in BW.

I also wouldn't call Shinji a ripoff of Silver. While they do share similarities, their motivations and their dynamics with their primary rivals are much different. Whereas Silver was entirely in the wrong Shinji, as Satoshi eventually learns, wasn't. Your description fits Shigeru during the OS far better. Up until the point where he randomly decides to become a researcher, Shigeru was basically just the Gen. 1 rival in anime form.



And Shooti and Langley are your generic arrogant rivals. Bel is a ripoff of Jun. Kotetsu is your average "scatterbrained" character. Kenyan is almost like Masamune, only with an irritating running gag. Virgil is no different than Hiroshi, Hazuki, or Tetsuya as the League rival.

When you get right down to it, BW's rivals aren't any more original than Shigeru, Shuu, Harley, Shinji, Jun, Nozomi, Kengo, Urara, and Musalina. But whatever you may think of them individually Shuu, Shinji, and Nozomi had reasons for the positions they filled as rivals and made a positive impact on the characters they feuded with (and, in the case of the former two, vice versa). Meanwhile Harley, Jun, Urara, and Musalina were just plain entertaining as secondary rivals. I like most of BW's rival cast, the only ones I didn't like were Shooti and Kotetsu, but they weren't much as rivals.

They were entertaining characters, however. I'll say that.



I also agree with this. But if "evolution isn't everything" then I don't understand why you criticized Satoshi earlier for having had trouble with Eleking or Koiking.



Each show has at least one Pokémon that could have used more chances to shine. The issue here is that whereas AG and DP had about two or three between the both of them, BW had about five.



I'll readily agree that there isn't one in your Jouto example, and I dislike that battle too, but you honestly can't see the difference between having an advantage of three Pokémon against one? I also think that the fact that Homika was the final Gym Leader, the battle where you're supposed to see Satoshi as being ready for the League, plays a part here too. It's one thing to fail to fairly beat one Gym Leader in the middle of a series when he and his team are still growing stronger, but right at the very end?



I'm afraid I don't see the similarities here. Masamune's problem was that he was afraid to fight Satoshi, not that he was inept. Kotetsu, despite being good in battle, really didn't know what he was doing. He thought he only needed seven badges to qualify for the Isshu League, he didn't know he had to actually register for the thing, and he didn't realize a full battle necessitated six Pokémon. Even for a franchise that essentially starts over with each new show, it's rather difficult to believe Satoshi could go from fighting and knocking out two legendaries in a previous League semifinal to losing to someone like Kotetsu in the quarterfinals one League later. Masamune knew enough about what he was doing to realize what a full battle was and he didn't beat Satoshi, which essentially renders this comparison moot.



Again, I think the issue here is about balance more than anything. Satoshi is not and never was supposed to be an especially smart person, and that's actually something I like about him, but he is supposed to be capable of demonstrating remarkable talent for innovation and creativity during battle (see: Satoshi vs. Melissa). And it's that particular talent of his that I missed out on a lot during Best Wishes amidst episodes like Raimon Gym, which is what I imagine is what gives some people the impression that he got dumber. I don't think Satoshi was meant to be any smarter or dumber than he's been before, the writers just didn't do a good job of balancing his less-than-intelligent moments with moments that demonstrate he actually can strategize well.



None of the other Leagues concluded the biggest rivalry in a lazy one-on-one opening battle, followed up on that by wasting one of the six episodes allotted to the tournament with unrelated filler about Kibago, and had the main character lose to a character who didn't realize a "full battle" meant using a team of six Pokémon, and finished in a position lower than what he ended up with in the League previous. That's not to say that the other Leagues are perfect, none of them are, but none of them were quite as bad as that one.

If there's anything I take away from this, it's not that OS, AG, DP, and XY don't have their flaws. They certainly do. But just because they have problems doesn't mean one should excuse the things that went wrong with BW, especially since whereas you had to jump across four different shows to try and find the so-called double standards all of those complaints (and more) can be found with this one show. That should explain right there why there are fans who had a problem with BW when it was airing. I have nothing against people enjoying Best Wishes and I hope I don't come off that way, and it did do some things that I liked, but that doesn't mean that many of the complaints placed against it aren't valid.

Actually, I'm not sure Akira Toriyama actually declared GT to be an alternate dimension. He certainly claimed Dragonball Evolution to be such however (heck, that trashy movie's the reason why we've got Battle of the Gods, the first DBZ movie in over a decade).

I do agree with you regarding Mewtwo. What's worse is that the writers flat out lied to their audiences by claiming it was indeed the same Mewtwo as the one from the original series when it wasn't. Had they been honest from the get-go that it's not the same Mewtwo, the hate would probably have been half as much as it is now.

If the Kalos league has Ash being Top 4 instead of Top 8, and it's repeatedly mentioned so as to leave no room for error, then we can safely say the writers are pretending that region never happened.

BW is canon and it will always be canon, the only series that can even be consider non canon is DP and this BW bashing really do needs to stop, if Ash makes it to the top 2 in the Kalos League and not the top 4 then Kalos can be seen as a much better improvement over sinnoh.
To be honest Hoenn was the first worst Pokemon League of the anime despite how good the battles were, Sinnoh was the second worst Pokemon League even though Ash made it to the top 4, that's still not a lot to say he improved a whole lot in Sinnoh, Unova comes in Third for being the worst Pokemon League and even though he did made it to the top 8 again, atleast it does shows that BW Ash was still a smart advance Pokemon trainer.