Something about Pokemon
Rewatched a few episodes of the very first season of Pokemon. While doing this, I realized there's something that always bothered me, and I just need to get this out of my system nao Ò^Ó°
I hate how in the Pokemon series they always depicted evolution as something negative, especially when evolutionary stones were involved.
I hope they wanted to go more into the "the Pokemon has to be ready and shouldn't be forced" direction. But the way they stressed how the Pokemon would "never be the same" and all made it seem like a horrible thing to let your Pokemon evolve.
Look at Ash! He didn't evolve a single Pokemon he owned throughout the first season. The only one that did was Charmander, and when it became Charmeleon it started ignoring him, and with Charizard it felt like it almost hated him!
The worst offender is Pikachu though. I know Pokemon is a status quo series and I never wanted or expected Ash's Pikachu to become a Raichu. But the way they approached the matter everytime the topic of Pikachu's possible evolution was brought up always made it seem like evolving your Pokemon meant you don't trust them, like you are breaking its pride, forcing it to become something else against their will.
This would be all very ok, if there had been a few episodes bringing up positive aspects of evolution, too.
But instead they made it look like every sane Pokemon would prefer to stay the way it is. Every single time the topic of evolution was addressed, it was made clear that you never ever should even THINK about letting your Pokemon evolve forcing your poor Pokemon to become something else. Just look at episodes like #014 "Electric Shock Showdown", #40 "The Battling Eevee Brothers" (Brock didn't even ASK Vulpix whether it liked to evolve, he just said "I don't wanna force it."), #051 "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden" or #068 "Make Room for Gloom".
As a child, it caused me serius issues about training my Pokemon and letting them become stronger. My biggest problem though was the fact that one of my favourite Pokemon always has been Raichu. I always was afraid it'd become completely different, not recognize me anymore, or even hate me.
Up until today I always hesitate when about to give my Pikachu a thunderstone.
But this is ridiculous. This game/show is all about training little monsters and their evolution! Is it so wrong to be proud when your cute little Totodile becomes a strong, awesome Feraligatr? :C
Now I have to admit I never watched the Japanese version, but I can't imagine it was depicted much differently there, because the plots of some episodes basically built around the sentiment of "NEVER LET YOUR POKEMON EVOLVE!"
What were they thinking?
/Pokemon is srs bsnz.
I hate how in the Pokemon series they always depicted evolution as something negative, especially when evolutionary stones were involved.
I hope they wanted to go more into the "the Pokemon has to be ready and shouldn't be forced" direction. But the way they stressed how the Pokemon would "never be the same" and all made it seem like a horrible thing to let your Pokemon evolve.
Look at Ash! He didn't evolve a single Pokemon he owned throughout the first season. The only one that did was Charmander, and when it became Charmeleon it started ignoring him, and with Charizard it felt like it almost hated him!
The worst offender is Pikachu though. I know Pokemon is a status quo series and I never wanted or expected Ash's Pikachu to become a Raichu. But the way they approached the matter everytime the topic of Pikachu's possible evolution was brought up always made it seem like evolving your Pokemon meant you don't trust them, like you are breaking its pride, forcing it to become something else against their will.
This would be all very ok, if there had been a few episodes bringing up positive aspects of evolution, too.
But instead they made it look like every sane Pokemon would prefer to stay the way it is. Every single time the topic of evolution was addressed, it was made clear that you never ever should even THINK about letting your Pokemon evolve forcing your poor Pokemon to become something else. Just look at episodes like #014 "Electric Shock Showdown", #40 "The Battling Eevee Brothers" (Brock didn't even ASK Vulpix whether it liked to evolve, he just said "I don't wanna force it."), #051 "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden" or #068 "Make Room for Gloom".
As a child, it caused me serius issues about training my Pokemon and letting them become stronger. My biggest problem though was the fact that one of my favourite Pokemon always has been Raichu. I always was afraid it'd become completely different, not recognize me anymore, or even hate me.
Up until today I always hesitate when about to give my Pikachu a thunderstone.
But this is ridiculous. This game/show is all about training little monsters and their evolution! Is it so wrong to be proud when your cute little Totodile becomes a strong, awesome Feraligatr? :C
Now I have to admit I never watched the Japanese version, but I can't imagine it was depicted much differently there, because the plots of some episodes basically built around the sentiment of "NEVER LET YOUR POKEMON EVOLVE!"
What were they thinking?
/Pokemon is srs bsnz.