>>44336415Do you not get the little recurring gag where Pikachu is eager to battle somebody, but Ash tells him to go on standby so his other Pokemon who got stronger can shine? It happens a lot. We overlook it because it's so damn minor. This is the first time where Pikachu is being cucked out by a *single* Pokemon, too. Usually Ash has an entire team, and Pikachu knows that when the other Pokemon on that team train, it is shared among an entire group of six or seven Pokemon. Bear in mind that Pikachu hadn't had a proper battle since Riolu hatched.
This is what Pikachu was subject to:
>The day of Riolu's hatching >The day after>Going to Hoenn with Goh and Raboot for two days >Two days at the research lab (the first instance of Riolu training on-screen; probably was done even before this given how much more obedient it was around Ash) >A day (plus the flight to and from Sinnoh) of being in the Sinnoh region to research the giant Magikarp that Goh would later caught>A day (plus the flight to and from Kalos) of being in Shalour City for the Battle Festa; Pikachu battles here against random scrubs, and he sits out completely on the one match that Ash was most interested in (over Gengar nonetheless) >A few weeks training Goh's Magikarp for the jump competition; Riolu was training before that even more >A day on Slowking's Island (may have been even before that) >Two days of being in Galar (plus the flight to and from Galar), more Riolu training, Riolu got so strong it learned a few new moves and can defeat a powerful Galarian Farfetch'd>More training (with Riolu) for a few days in the Yamper episode >And now two days (the first day where Riolu trained itself the entire day, and Pikachu was ignored all the way through because Ash misunderstood what he wanted) of Pikachu being jealous Imagine being cucked for a month or two over a single Pokemon. It's been so long that Riolu went from being distant towards Ash at first, to actually bonding with him.
