Pokémon Anime Missed Opportunities 

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Just to clerefy In XY we did get a character retuning kinda we got cilan meeting Clermont in a special after the series was over (it was never dubed thought)

they could of made a tv movie or arc were team rainbow rocket invade and they captured all of ash friends and he had to unite with his old rivals from alternate worlds and team rocket to save the world they could have done it after the alola league and it could celebrate the 20 anniversary instead of doing Pokemon journeys also we could have got a sword and shield anime

@Xernecraft yup

Jessie and james in ep. 13 s.1

Exactly

What connection (didn't watch Sun&Moon)

@@matthewroberts198 I think it was during the episodes where ash and his friends went into the ultra wormhole and team rocket came to attack. The problem is they never clarified the connection. It was just Giovanni talking to nanu for something I don't remember. It seemed very interesting but they never explained it.

@@balrajsingh470 it was shown before that when team rocket was trying to get a z ring.

@@balrajsingh470 Giovanni was asking Nanu for information about “The Blinding One” aka Necrozma. And I too desperately want to know why Nanu is willing to assist the leader of an evil organization. Wasn’t he originally part of the International Police like he was in the games?

Pain.

Oof

@@Zactoshi my disappoint was immeasurable and my day was ruined

@@Zactoshi which path

Spain without the S

Agreed

Fax

They got that from Nintendo

thay might have started to listen since thay finaly gave TR morpeko hitting the gacha machine might be gone

Kinda unacceptable

Tho without any super effective moves, it wouldn't have much chance at beating Umbreon.

@@eljordinio7647 would prefer her with Glaceon.

@@k2basior I can see that.

@@eljordinio7647 Never stop Pikachu lol

@@k2basior yeah cos apparently she seems to b an ice type specialist

Tbh it’s kinda refreshing to not have every Pokémon owned by a main character be fully evolved because I feel the anime should be a departure from the video games in that sense. It gives every species of Pokémon a chance to shine rather than just the fully evolved forms.

And Rowlet never fully evolving despite the sneaky and stealthy battle style which fits really well with decidueye

@@vaporterra it's still not always good tho as Pokemon like Totodile, gible, and Oshawott left much to b desired battle wise and Pokemon like them along with Snivy rowlet, Squirtle, corphish and scraggy have so much potential that ended up just wasted

@@vaporterra yet they let ash's Kalos team fully evolve

@@eljordinio7647 I’m fine with that because at least they gave rowlet a reason not to evolve like they did with Bulbasaur

Ooh, yeah. That would've been great (not just because I am an Ash x Anabel shipper), but that would've been a great return. If they can bring Claire back in BW, why not give Anabel, a popular Frontier Brain some love

The anime has a linear timeline unlike the games though, so they'd have to invent a completely new alternate Anabel which would make the story hit a lot less hard

@@JakeSmith-mq5dc i love anabel it's cute the last time we see her when she say: ❤️ash doesn't sense her feeling ❤️

That's actually a good question

Another missed opportunity.

Let me guess, it changed its mind again on what it wants to be, went from fighting in gyms, to being in contests, to playing ping pong, to now being a idk, ambipom model?

@@PatZalatoris ambipom seems pretty indecisive. She can't seem to find a passion and stick with it

true

Not to mention, he could've lost by Virgil's Eevee evolving into Sylveon to tease X and Y.

wikiuser92 fax I was thinking the same

I would have been even satisfied if Ash and Trip had a full battle, where ash would be in top 8, then after defeating Serperior, Ash would make it in Top 4

Cameron may be an idiot at times but he shown he can battle lol don't underestimate him I agree though I wanted to see Ash & virgil battle heck hopefully pokemon journeys shows this to us then instead

@@maganhassan2627 Cameron doesn't deserve any sort of praise, I'll have you know. He survived only because of dumb luck and a Riolu/Lucario that was far stronger than it should've been. He was an irredeemable idiot, plain and simple.

Ya but there was no ash in that episode

That’s the league that Ash should have won Tobias had no reason to be there it was the writers excuse not to let Ash win the league

@@sooners2037 Disagree, he was skilled in DP, not strong exactly, he never felt E4 level till late XY and then late SM. DP established that you face the Elite 4 after winning the league, so you need to be E4 level to win the league, Ash just wasnt there.

I dont see where. The Battle Frontier in AG worked because there was no main rival. In DP it would have been overshadowed by the Ash and Paul rivalry if it came before the league or overshadow it if it came after. Not to mention, Paul's power based training style was because of Brandon, so there was direct competition with Kanto BF. The best thing they could have done is make Ash beat quite a lot of random CotDs to up his win ratio and give Torterra a win.

when they mentioned the battle frontier, I thought it might also have been cool if they didn't do the gym challenge for ash since he just came from beating Brandon he could have gone into Sinnoh battle frontier immediately. they should then still find a way to incorporate the gym challenge though.

@@aryamansinha6608 Sceptile, Charizard, Infernape, Pikachu, Heracross, Snorlax could have easily won the league and probably the first 2 elite four members

Man so true if we get the anime adaptation of the manga it would be so op and ony of the few wishes of my life will be fulfilled

*YES*

Oh… you mean having the Pokémon anime be more like the manga instead, like LITERALLY EVERY OTHER ANIME FRANCHISE OUT THERE!!!!!

@@pokevonforretress3761 what he is trying to say is to create another animal series base on the pokemon adventure manga, almost like twightlight wing and origin

No not this again, it's not going to work

Should've been the semi-finals. Then Ash at least made some progression. Instead of like getting destroyed in the semi's (in sinnoh) he would now have a close loss, where it would come to both their last pokémon. But yeah losing to a guy who only brought 5 pokémon to the quaters it is! :D

People would’ve been less salty if Ash lost to Virgil than Cameron.

@@vaporterraFacts at least it would of made sense

Yeah that was stupid. Like there was no point of having Virgil if ash wasn't even going to battle him Almost everyone else who was introduced for the league got to battle ash at some point (barring some of his rivals who lost to someone else like Barry, Trevor, Tierno or Bianca)

@@vaporterra yeah cos Virgil has more experience and unlike Cameron, is NOT a complete idiot

Agreed, the whole reserch fellow situation is reason enough to have gou and ash go out to do expedition arcs for professor Sakuragi to balance the filler and story episodes. Also, the professor needs some development. Instead we only see him the first few minutes in an episode telling ash and gou what to do and never seen again. What is his research/goal? At this point in sun and moon professor kukui was really well developed around episode 70.

True but ash wasn't there to meet him and it's sad

Yeah Cilan met Brock but they never realized that they had a mutual friend, and so they’ve never actually known each other.

@@Exonorm27 they didn't even introduce themselves

@@Exonorm27 That was a unova special, there referring to the special where Cilan meets Clemont and Bonnie

You mean an OVA

It could be one of those Pokemon after a victory or when it reunites with ash ,Tackles him

@@bloojay133_GVO Idk why they didn't give him rhydon! He is literally the first pokemon named.

@@WildWeavile This Rhyperior could be the rival to Snorlax

U do know Rhyperior can't evolve without trading tho right?

@@WildWeavile plus it would have provided some nice coverage on Ash's team

Agreed!

@@Aleximo for real its role shouldve been swapped with luxray

@@alolanlana nah Luxray was cool tho

Heck, imagine if each commanded both legendary dragons of unova. Ash could totally command Zekrom and N Reshiram, with ash's dragon winning

@@eljordinio7647 it should be the other way around N focused on ideals while your protagonist in b/w games wanted to seek the truth

@@nazeersadek6705 shame Reshiram wasn't the one with electric powers otherwise IT could have been the one to nerf Pikachu during his first battle in unova

@@eljordinio7647 well they could have done something like N heard about Ash following his heroics in Sinnoh and asked Zekrom to nerf his Pikachu 😝

@@nazeersadek6705 I disagree N had ideals, yeah, but he was always questioning his own ideals and yours by battling you time and time again rather than strictly following Ghetsis's plan because he wanted to know the truth As the player however you're not playing detective and trying to find the truth, you're challenging him and fighting for your ideals, telling him that pokemon & humans can live peacefully together and that pokemon trainers arent inherently evil

I loved Pokemon Chronicles. At the very least it should’ve been a thing for like 10-20 episodes every series.

That would've given us so much world building and lore to work with right there. At the very least provide us some stronger closure after friends and rivals finish their business with Ash, like what about Paul? How did his rematch with Brandon go? DId he run into Zoey and Candice in Snowpoint City and did they watch? Was Paul confronted by Maylene for a rematch when he returned home to Velistone City (we never even seen Paul in his own hometown with Reji at all)? We could seen May, Dawn, Serena, Iris starting their solo journeys without the gang like we did with Misty and even had some follow up episodes after that. (BW and SM casts are big enough to have a few stories of their own) During XY there are ORAS plot points not even vaguely addressed like Zinnia a Dragon Trainer in Hoenn that could've been the center of an ORAS plot for Iris to deal with, or Lissia a top class Coordinator for May to compete with on a grander stage. It also could've been interesting if Max actually started his own journey with Misty acting as his traveling mentor since it was almost alluded to with their episodes. You literally could put in the inbetween episodes where Brock goes home to the Gym, or when he meets Cilan, or Cilan meeting Clemont and Bonnie, Dawn's Cyndaquil evolving, etc within these episodes.

Would it be too late for that now?

@@jaycomplexkidrandle1889 I don’t know 🤷 man.

@@vaporterra They have enough material for 65 more episodes.

Also, they don't even mention that he's a champion throughout Journeys. At all.

Yeah they could have built up that final a lot more. XY has very little connections to past series as a result it feels very disconnected.

@@jaycomplexkidrandle1889 Because he's not. Winning a league and becoming Champion are two different things.

@@DarthSanguine now that you've said that, I see what you mean. Otherwise we'd be talking about Tobias instead of Cynthia a lot more for one.

@@DarthSanguine he is a champion

That would only cause continuity errors - Sirius and Lysander are dead, Aqua Magma and Plasma leaders are arrested. Its probably a good thing that they didnt do it.

@@aryamansinha6608 yeah but they could have the other evil teams leaders and maybe at the end they all work together to plan to find where Sirius and Lysander are

@@greatobikili4858 That's a bit too much, given that all the rest are in jails. An arc like that would only cause continuity errors and not showing continuity isnt a good thing. The games can pull it off as they dont have to worry about continuity, they anime works in a different manner and the storyline here is much more important to keep in mind. Just because something would be cool, doesnt mean it should hurt the plot. Case in point - the JN Mewtwo episode

@@aryamansinha6608 oh okay

@@aryamansinha6608 other universe? In game team rainbow rocket is from a universe where they succeeds, colress even said that they from differented universe

Hopefully it will happen later in Journeys

Palpitoad deserved so much better. It seemed really good in battles.

@@castform7Yup the fact it lost to a poisoned zebsrika was embarrassing

@@craigpeoples9883 technically it tied with it

If not that, then Ash vs. Tobias would've been a great fit for the finals.

@@jaycomplexkidrandle1889 except it would still b a mostly one sided sweep, which was humiliating and unfair for ash

If would be finals then if he wins he will stop participating in leagues nad if he loses then it would be huge dissatisfaction for fans. We would not have Tobias also

@@nitishmedi1711 if he wins he would keep going to other regions because Ash won the Alola league and is still going. Also I have yet to meet a single person, who likes Tobias🤣

@@ThePeachTube he won that's why he is living kanto or else he would be particularly in galar Pokemon league

Doesn't count. It was a special that we didn't get in English, and it was after ash had left

Nah. If any of Ash's unova Pokémon should've evolved more, it was Snivy.

Boldore evolves through trade so if he was going to have a gigalith he’d have to trade it with someone and back

@@DJ-bf9rs Yeah. And I personally don't see that happening.

@@bigboi5016 I don't get where the Oshawott evolution rumor even comes from. There's zero evidence supporting it. But yeah, it was a tragedy we lost that two-parter. The second part even had top tier staff working on it.

Another missed oportunity, Ash and Go evolving their boldores by trading with each other

Yea pain for dub watchers like me

You are right about that part!

@@BooBop1987 I think they originally had planned that but dropped it for Gliscor

but.. in sun and moon. he got a garchomp

@@marcsebastianramos1162 as a riding pokemon

Most wanted Ash to lose to Virgil & his Eeveelution Team instead of Cameron, although Best Wishes was just terribly written. Ash met him & Team Eevee right before the Unova League with it being normal practice for the character to defeat him to be introduced at that point (Harrison & Tyson) or during the league itself (Ritchie & Tobias) prior to Unova.

Why do you put spaces in front of your commas?

They really should revisit that in the series sometime, even if they just say "Oh, yeah, that GS ball was empty!"

Doesn't Ash tie with May on his first try, though?

@@Drave_Jr. A tie doesn't count.

@@ferrellkang4954 and it wasn't an official contest

And Sobble

Grookey personality perfectly suits Ash but anime have to give everything to that Goh

Technically only Will and Karen are absent from the Johto E4 in the main anime, since Koga, Bruno, and Lance all make an appearance. The only unfair one of the bunch being Koga since it was before he was an E4.

Yes! Agreed!

And Chloe

Because Pokémon tends to market Eevee towards female trainers since Eevee is cute and fluffy.

@@sooners2037 and serena

@@thatman666 I mainly wonder, of all the female companions in alola, why Lana? Why not Lillie or Mallow?

@@Alpha-nj8gn Because those two got their own cute Pokémon at the time being Vulpix and Shaymin respectively.

Nah I think they've made it pretty clear that ash isn't the only main character of this show instead he is fullfilling the role of that mentor that Brock, Tracy, cilas ,and professor kukui played in their respective gen series this not getting any of the gen 8 starter instead he's getting an op team tht should be good enough to win the championship

Dragonite, gengar, lucario, sirfetch'd Pikachu and another looks like a great team if he's aiming for championship maybe he gets both of them get a version of urshifu

Would you want it to stay a eevee or evolve into something else

@@craigpeoples9883 evolve of course. Unless a Pokemon has a legit and good reason not to evolve (like Pikachu, Bulbasaur piplup and snowy cos they don't want to, or Chloe's Eevee because she can't), they should not under any circumstances be kept from evolving period

Well, at first I wanted it to evolve into an Espeon or something else, but now I’d rather have it as an Eevee.

@@eljordinio7647What should it become I'd go for Vaporeon since he has no water type but I don't see Ash using a stone

@@craigpeoples9883 he used an item on gliscor, so it's not exactly impossible to use a stone on eevee

Yeah I mean ash lost against mega sceptile and losing against mega Charizard was the biggest let down by greeninja

@@kratiksolanki9894 Ash Greninja won against mega sceptile

@@rakhimitra8689 ya i meant that winning against a grass dragon type and losing to a fire dragon type doesn'take sense

@@kratiksolanki9894 Yeah, like how the heck does A *FREAKING WATER TYPE* win against a *GRASS* type and not a *FIRE* type

@@kratiksolanki9894 Yeah, like how the heck does A *FREAKING WATER TYPE* win against a *GRASS* type and not a *FIRE* type

No that was James. He was dressed up as Jessie because she was sick. It was Jessie’s third ribbon

If items were used in the anime, then Ash would have spammed using potions in the Pokemon league like we do!

I think items are a weird one. If Pokemon were to hold items, they would just be holding them or have them on their back or something. If trainers had items, then what would be stopping gym leaders from calling back their Pokemon to heal them, somewhat ruining the pace of the battle. I think items other than Megas, Z-Moves and Dynamax being used is a cool idea, but think it wouldn't be as great with it's execution.

abilities were used starting in Hoenn, when they were CREATED. they didn't exist prior to gen 3. Top of my head, Ash's Grovyle used Overgrow in the battle with Norman, and Tyson's Hairyama was described by Brock as "it has a layer of fat so thick that fire and ice attacks only do half the damage they should"

Are you a boy

Yeah, the idea of a world tour is interesting, but in exchange we barely focus on the current region.

I agree 100%

@@mariak5096 What makes it worse is that 80% of the time, it's spent in Kanto.

Agreed, that pokemon would have suited him better!

They could’ve reused dialogue from diamond and pearl because May’s Japanese voice actor has a bad condition with her throat which is why may only makes non speaking cameos

I know. I really liked her, she’s adorable. It felt they were setting her up to be Ash’s third rival (after Gary and Ritchie). But no. She and Ritchie got a few Pokémon Chronicles episodes and then it was sayonara forever.

Just read pokemon adventures if you want a direct adaptation of the games

I just want it to end, it's on such a rough identity crisis right now.

That would be awesome! :O

Yeah if goodra could fully evolve quickly what stopped gible?

😂 😂 😂 Some Gat Damn Acknowledgement

Poor Ash

@@joskalnunez381 in fairness, I do not think the current Ash cares. I totally believe our currant Aang Ash is the braggart classic Ash was. But at some point Gou is going to be completely blindsided. Its less punchy now that he easy nabbed all those legendries and the rival he SHOULD be having with Jessie is never going to happen.

I would really like to see Team Rocket trail Ash to Unova again in Journeys, where they would remember their heists like the subway one, and be like "Wow, we were really serious with that one! Maybe too serious...!"

Agreed realistically Ash should have gotten all 10 of Unova's Badges. The Unova Anime should have gone to Opelucid City for at least 3 Episodes before going to Virbank City. Best Wishes was poorly written from the beginning, & Iris suffers from it.