#hgss chapter

Why does Lance need 10 capes?

Colored the Johto trio as thanks for my follower count on instagram. I drew the background using pixel art.

Well, in all the remake arcs, I liked seeing the Dexholders being a little older - closer to my age, and a bit more mature. My favorite thing about FRLG is undoubtedly the subplot with Silver and Giovanni (I’m a sucker for familial bonds and conflicts). My favorite thing about HGSS is...pretty much everything with Crystal; she’s really great in that arc. My favorite thing about ORAS is...well, this is kind of an unpopular opinion, I feel, but I honestly really liked Zinnia and how she was used. She’s not exactly a sympathetic antagonist, like she was in the games, but she’s still has some valid concerns and you can kinda understand where she’s coming from, even if you don’t agree with what she’s doing about it (kinda like Lysandre and the rest of Team Flare in XY).

As for what I hate about them...that’s easy. In FRLG, the whole Deoxys thing is just...no. How they were created, their connection to Red, the two different entities and trying to remember which one is which...it’s just too contrived in my opinion. Plus, then there’s the Deoxys that appears for like 2 panels in ORAS - is that Entity One? Entity Two? A different Deoxys altogether? Who knows? Who cares? Kusaka doesn’t.

In HGSS, the pacing of the arc just feels off. We get two chapters of just Gold screwing around at the Pokéathlon, and then everything else from there is important plot point after important plot point. The quality of those plot points is also debatable, but quality aside, it’s just...so rushed. Like, for example, Silver gets the location of all the Plates from Morty and then he just...gets wild Sneasel and Weavile to retrieve them for him? And like, they kinda set up the idea that Arceus is gonna be the “final boss” of the arc and then...Suddenly Arceus. I know why it was rushed, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me.

In ORAS, it’s Archie and Maxie. I can accept that they were sent to the Distortion World instead of dying. I can accept the convoluted explanation for how they learned about Primal Reversion and Mega Evolution. I can accept how their personalities switched. What I can’t accept, however, is why the hell Kusaka went through all the trouble to bring them back and explain the reason for their being there and then make them disappear right before the final battle so that Blaise and Amber have to take control of the Primals! If you’re going to pull so many strings to make a character come back from the dead, use them to their fullest potential before you kill them off again! Instead, they just seem like a total waste of everyone’s time and energy - the fans who read and theorized about them, and the characters who had to deal with them.