Poll: Which region was Ash's team handled best?

I couldn't find this thread otherwise, and if it exists elsewhere, please move it or lock it.

So I've been thinking lately, which region handled Ash's Pokémon best? Each had it's ups and downs.

For example Kanto, which gave a lot of focus to Ash's Pokémon, but only focused on a select few, like Charizard, and Bulbasaur. Then there was Johto, which gave more spread out focus, but overall less than Kanto. And there was Hoenn, where the writers gave most of Ash's Pokémon good focus while maintaining a reasonable amount of Pokémon. Then came Sinnoh, where Ash did not catch as many Pokémon as in the other regions, but overall gave all of them better focus, than, say, Johto. And of course, we have Unova, where Ash is catching many Pokémon, but only develops a few.

So what do you think? Which region did the writers handle Ash's team best?

Sinnoh. The only problem was Torterra evolved for no reason. It's final form has no wins outside of TR.

Moved to the Live Caster as this is a Contest-hall style thread.

Remember to indicate the reasons for your selections, everyone or else you may get Pointless Post infracted~

Hoenn. Not really counting the battle frontier but most of the generation the entire focus (minus pikachu) was on his hoenn team. Even the pokemon league were all them. They also seemed to be the most together team, and it looked that way when he was training with them in the beginning of the league. They all received some pretty good attention and character development as well. I am glad he gave my favourite hoenn pokes of his (swellow, corphish) the spotlight for the battle dome frontier battle.

Sinnoh was handled well besides Chimchar/Infernape eating up a lot of the spotlight.
Hoenn was handled well besides the fact that they all had terrible movesets.

Sinnoh. All of his team members, except maybe Gible, got good development. And even if Gible didn't receive any real development, it was decently showcased.

Also the return of the reserves was handled decently. If anything was wrong with that aspect was the whole Tobias thing.

I also said Sinnoh. Not only did a lot of them get a lot of attention, but most of them also had good characterization. (Staraptor and Torterra being the least there, although admittedly, Torterra only got gimped once he evoed) His Hoenn team may be more accomplished in how much they had to battle, but less of them did get to shine overall. Torkoal in particular seemed left out most of the time, but I may be remembering things wrong there.

Sinnoh. Overall it got a little better each region, except for Johto where Ash's pokemon were a mix of Kanto and Johto. Didn't really have a set team for Johto and I think the newer pokemon suffered from it. The only negative about Sinnoh was of course Infernape taking a lot of the attention away from the other pokemon, but even with that the others got decent development and had a chance to shine in their own right. The League was handled really well and was an opportunity that the writers used to the fullest, by taking the time to shine some light on a few of Ash's older pokemon. Hoenn is a close 2nd, because besides Pikachu every pokemon that was focused on was a pokemon Ash had caught in Hoenn. They got a lot of screentime during the region and the league and I think his team was recieved the attention they deserved. (Except for Torkoal)

You can't beat Sinnoh in that respect. Ash's Infernape is obviously one that stands out due to it's connection with Paul, however, each Pokémon received development at some point. Whereas in the past, there would always be a team member neglected - with Sinnoh, I can't recall a single one being neglected.

Sinnoh for sure. i say, look to the others! Kanto team was a so so, since we barely have them showing some signs of emotional development beside pikachu, charizard and, at last, bulbasaur. Pidgeot was shafted. Squirtle just got something to do by the OI.

Johto team started better, but, again, with noctowl's personality turning into blank, cyndaquil being the most used on gyms didn't help totodile and bayleef. And phanpy came too late.

Houenn is my second favorite team. Saddly, torkoal was the weak point, because it's a cool pokemon which got the worst treatment.

Sinnoh team had its problems (like gliscor and torterra's terrible battle records), but, overall, it was the best team, personality, development and charisma. Even gible. Pikachu, I have to say, was there just because... it's pikachu.

Ehh, kind of hard to say. This has always been a glaring problem with the show, imo. They have a bad habit of piling a lot of attention onto one pokemon, have another 1 or 2 as backup (one of which is usually Pikachu), and leaving the remaining guys in the dust.

Sinnoh did well with this, but was largely inconsistant. It would almost always be a case of a pokemon being used frequently, before suddenly being ignored for the duration, or vice versa. Looking at it in hindsight, it kind of evens things out, but when actually following along with the show as it aired, it tended to be really jarring.

In terms of being consistant about it, I suppose AG was the closest to giving all his 'mons balanced screentime. Initially it was really lopsided, with Taillow being ignored while Treeko and (ugh) Pikachu were the only two Ash had to rely on. When Corphish came along, things steadily got better, and then came to it's peak once Swellow evolved. If you're willing to say the extensive Ice Beam training and league matches from Snorunt/Glalie were good enough, the only real casualty in the long run was Torkoal.

I think Sinnoh proves that Ash should get no more than 5-6 pokemon a region. In Sinnoh they *almost* got it right, but as said Torterra happened too late and Gible of course was a late capture. It really bugs me about Torterra though, the only evolution to not amount to anything.

Hoenn would have been close to perfect if only Torkoal wasn't treated like crap every time it was used. I would have liked Snorunt a bit earlier too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

I think Sinnoh proves that Ash should get no more than 5-6 pokemon a region. In Sinnoh they *almost* got it right, but as said Torterra happened too late and Gible of course was a late capture. It really bugs me about Torterra though, the only evolution to not amount to anything.

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Torterra isn't the only victim of poor balance within Satoshi's team.
Buizel was terribly ignored in Sinnoh's later half, Gliscor was shoved off the team before it could really shine, while Gible only got one ( albeit very good) win in the whole series ( plus its training grew tired pretty quickly, which is a shame due to Gible's awesome character ), Muku.hawk had big shoes to fill after Oosubame ( just like Shooti after Shinji :p ) and didn't really get enough screentime either. As awesome as Infernape was it stared in Gym 5,7 and 8, beat 2 out of 3 Pokémon in the 7ths gym AND was the key in beating Shinji, so it had more than enough screentime in my eyes.
Pikachu thankfully took a backseat in DP though.

Buizel still got plenty of focus. It didn't matter it was toned down a bit. Used in most of the Gyms and outside in fillers.

Gliscor got the best treatment of a 6th slot pokemon in the series, it lasted for nearly 100 episodes. Gible also didn't fair badly either for being so late.

Sure, Buizel got a decent focus until the middle, but so did Turtwig. Buizel's last gym battle in which it did anything besides being the fall-guy was DP 102. Almost 90 episodes before the series' ending. The pacing was the problem with the DP team. Buizel and Turtwig recieved a good treatment early on but kinda faded into the shadows after DP's halfpoint. It just was worse with Turtwig because it evolved twice and still got shafted.

And while Gliscor had the bonus of being caught early it never did much battling in its saga which is a shame. Sure, it has been around for almost 100 episodes, but it was mostly the comic-relief character at the sidelines ( not that I didn't love those scene, but even those were kinda rare when you look back). For example: Why did Gliscor have to be the fall guy in the 7th gym?

Nya, that's crying over spilled milk I guess. ^^