As fans, which is more irritating, overexposed or shafted characters? (2024)

Exactly, overexposed.

Piplup I'm looking at you.

What one can come up for the shafted is almost endless. And it's the reason I've grown to prefer that status for most characters in this franchise when it comes to the anime.

Kameinu said:

What one can come up for the shafted is almost endless. And it's the reason I've grown to prefer that status for most characters in this franchise when it comes to the anime.

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Yessss.

The shafted characters are nearly blank slates with only the most basic information filled in: "here's their appearance, name, age, and basic personality. Go crazy."
They haven't had the chance to be royally f*cked up through overexposure, which has the side effect of making them woefully underrated even among the fans.

With overexposed characters, it's kinda hard to give a sh*t. It's like the show is shoving these characters in your face, following them every minute of every hour and telling you to love them. Some go with the flow, some vehemently refuse to.

The bigger issue is that when fan favorites get shafted. I honestly think that there'd be less of a rivalry between fans of the female companions if they appeared more often after the fact, or if the show didn't try as hard to bury them as possible. Old rivals? Tucked away for no reason. How many episodes are there between Ash's mom's cameos?

All this could be avoided if we had more cameos...

agramugl said:

The bigger issue is that when fan favorites get shafted. I honestly think that there'd be less of a rivalry between fans of the female companions if they appeared more often after the fact, or if the show didn't try as hard to bury them as possible. Old rivals? Tucked away for no reason. How many episodes are there between Ash's mom's cameos?

All this could be avoided if we had more cameos...

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What would that have to do with it though? People don't seem to understand that each new saga is suppposed to target a new generation of kids who didn't grow up with previous seasons. That's why each main girl only gets one came return, because there is some holdover from one gen to the next. For example many older fans from the Kanto/Johto days continued to watch into AG with May, and then the kids who started watching in AG continued into DP.

Only very few of us actually following the entire run of the show.

The Fighting Misty said:

agramugl said:

The bigger issue is that when fan favorites get shafted. I honestly think that there'd be less of a rivalry between fans of the female companions if they appeared more often after the fact, or if the show didn't try as hard to bury them as possible. Old rivals? Tucked away for no reason. How many episodes are there between Ash's mom's cameos?

All this could be avoided if we had more cameos...

Click to expand...

What would that have to do with it though? People don't seem to understand that each new saga is suppposed to target a new generation of kids who didn't grow up with previous seasons. That's why each main girl only gets one came return, because there is some holdover from one gen to the next. For example many older fans from the Kanto/Johto days continued to watch into AG with May, and then the kids who started watching in AG continued into DP.

Only very few of us actually following the entire run of the show.

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I understand that to be true, and it makes total sense. Still, in a lot of ways, that's a really, REALLY bad way to structure a series, mainly because it alienates older fans. Sure, less appearances by older characters means that newer viewers won't feel out of the loop, but what about nostalgic teens or adults who want to look back on the series? By refusing to reuse older characters, in a lot of ways, they're dismissing the loyal followers of the series, in some cases even ensuring that they will stop watching. From a marketing standpoint--not to mention a writing standpoint--that's a terrible idea.

Take, for example, Doctor Who. Both Pokemon and Doctor Who are long running shows aimed towards children (Pokemon more so), and both have companions who come and go. However, Doctor Who references lots of older events that were popular. Old characters are referenced regularly (Sarah Jane Smith had multiple spin-offs, for example). Pokemon, on the other hand, has a couple reappearances by the old heroines, then the characters just forget about them, as if they never existed.

Now, let's say you include Misty in a newer episode. Older fans will watch it for the nostalgia, and new fans being introduced to the character might become curious, and watch the older episodes to understand the history of the character. In the end, it just means that more people will watch a good series. What's wrong with that?

Personally, I'll generally take overexposed over shafted. Many may quickly get tired of said character, but an underdeveloped character, due to lack of screentime, would just be a waste of potential.

Unless, of course, said overexposed character's screentime comes at the expense of a shafted character's screentime, which in case, it's just as bad. Or, of course, little is done with the overexposed character's development.

A combination of both. What I mean is, people that have been around for SO LONG, yet so little gets done with them (coughAshandDPBrockcough).

Yankees4life said:

It really depends. Ash is like John Cena, but Dawn is like the Miz. And most of us get sick and tired of those guys. Misty is like Hulk Hogan and lets face it, she's a legend

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Nah, Misty is The Brock

For me Takeshi was overexposed (haves three series of appearances) but I can see why people have put him as shafted. The thing is that he had lots and lots of screen time but most of it, is spent standing around. For me this is as annoying as when a character is forced in your face all the time. It's the same with Iris (at the start of Best Wishes since I haven't watch for ages). It was pretty hard not to notice her on screen and therefore easy to notice just how little she was doing. This makes the characters seem less real and more stilted.

So overexposed even if it isn't 'in your face' overexposed like Potchma is the more annoying to me.

I think it's more annoying for Pokemon rather than humans. Overexposed characters, like Oshawott, Piplup, and Tepig are more annoying since they take away screentime from other more deserving characters; such as Unfezant, Palpitoad, and Stunfisk. I think this was most obvious and greatly executed in the Junior Cup where the Piplup and Oshawott rivalry took away from the screen time of Dawn's other Pokemon.

The result: a useless comeback of a character and underdeveloped Pokemon.

Overexposed for me. It's just painful to see some chars start of so well and go downhill for me.

Good examples are DP Brock and BW TRio, IMO.

Sakuraa said:

I think it's more annoying for Pokemon rather than humans. Overexposed characters, like Oshawott, Piplup, and Tepig are more annoying since they take away screentime from other more deserving characters; such as Unfezant, Palpitoad, and Stunfisk. I think this was most obvious and greatly executed in the Junior Cup where the Piplup and Oshawott rivalry took away from the screen time of Dawn's other Pokemon.

The result: a useless comeback of a character and underdeveloped Pokemon.

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I agree with certain pokemon about being overexposed too, But I rather pokemon than shafted or overexposed human characters any day. Pokémon battle, even though some of them do take a lot of screen time away. However some human characters would just sit there like cardboard paperbacks with nothing to do. Even if they have pokemon or not. That to me is worse than what pokemon is annoying to some.