What is your biggest complaint about the Pokemon series?

[Cybersai]

I don't see why Johto needed to go on for 3 seasons, either. Johto should have, at most, been 100 episodes. Kanto for reference was 83 episodes, but combine that an Orange together and it came out to around 130.

What should have happened is Johto been only 100 eps, then the 50 eps afterward before AG would have been converted to another filler arc like Orange Islands.

I think there would be a lot less complaining if it didn't take Ash 3 years to finish Johto. He could have done it much quicker, and the extra time before Hoenn started could have been another short-type filler arc like Orange Islands or Battle Frontier were...where Ash enters some smaller challenge before the next arc.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Well, I don't know about that. I don't really see how they could've made Johto go by faster. Isn't Johto a larger region than Kanto in both the games and anime? I'm asking because I have no clue, lol.

If Johto is a much larger region than Kanto, of course it would take Ash and his friends a long time to travel and visit every town and every gym. And then, if you include the anime-only places, that would definitely make Johto a large region. So yeah, I can see why it took Ash a long time to travel the Johto region.

Personally, I think the length of time it took Ash to complete his Johto journey was very reasonable, in my opinion.

 

[Adamant]

I think there would be a lot less complaining if it didn't take Ash 3 years to finish Johto. He could have done it much quicker, and the extra time before Hoenn started could have been another short-type filler arc like Orange Islands or Battle Frontier were...where Ash enters some smaller challenge before the next arc.

Probably, but it's pretty obvious they wanted to avoid doing such a filler arc and focus on the actual game they were promoting instead. The Orange arc only existed because the show got extended from "it'll last roughly a year" to "just keep writing episodes until we say stop", and the writers had to stall in some way. The Orange arc felt like it was just walking around in circles killing time, and it's not something the writers would want to repeat.

As for Jouto, it definitely improved on Kanto in many ways, specifically addressing two big issues the original arc had - the poorly choreographed battles and the lack of personality in the actual Pokemon. While it's true the show went somewhat on auto-pilot, and many of the episodes resorted to a rather tired "the group meets a character with a pokemon who has a specific problem, they help solve it, and beat up the Rockets and their robot along the way". This plot wasn't used thaaat often, though, and most of the individual episodes, when taken on their own rather than taken as a set by people counting on their fingers the number of episodes since the last gym, were for the most part pretty enjoyable.

A lot of the Jouto hate is mostly blind hate stemming from people remembering themselves sitting there as ten year olds wanting Satoshi to reach the next gym already.

 

[Musashi]

Little did we know the writing of Johto would not be anything like Kanto's. And now we know the main reason for that is Takeshi Shudo couldn't do with the anime what he wanted like he did in the first season.

He didn't get to do what he wanted to do in Kanto. Nothing about the show went the way he wanted from Day 1.

And that right there is my biggest complaint about the series. None of the writers get to do what they want because the show has to revolve around the game's timetable, not their own.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

Johto has to be if you ask me one of most underrated sagas in fandom with problem being that they focus only on bad sides, overlooking good ones.

With all its flaws Johto had many good things done right.
-Ash traveling companions(Brock and Misty) got more screen time or battling they they had in Kanto getting some good development.
- gym battles and battling in general was improved for most part becoming more detailed and deep compared to previous regions.
-interaction and chemistry between main group was on its height feeling like group of friends which know each other for a long time.Ash got some good progression as character and trainer showing signs of maturity not rushing so much with "head through the wall"like he used to using strategy in battles.
And Misty with help of her friends starting to mature as character learning how to be patient keeping her explosive rage more under control with other parts of her personality like spunk,kindness,competitive fire etc and so on coming out more on surface.
Brock got some great development as breeder too utilizing his knowledge in many notable situations(like when he helped young Stantler,when he competed with Suzie in breeder contest etc)
-There is also pokemon league at end of Johto which was one of highlights of this region definitely.

Also im not sure if others noticed but Master Quest compared to 4th season got vastly improved seeming like anime was put in higher speed.
All of a sudden we received several great arcs like Whirl Islands,Red Gyarados arc,Lugia arc,Larvitar arc with fillers being toned down.On top of that Johto league was fantastic.

 

[mint]

I just really don't like how Ash is still 10 and pikachu's power is reset after every region, like when it lost against Shooti's snivy. Yes, pikachu couldn't use electric attacks but it was still able to defeat Volkner's electivire with only iron tail back in DP. For unova seems like Ash got reset too especially when he was trying to catch pidove in the beginning. I also don't like how some parts of the anime like the arcs (any story that requires more than 1 ep to cover) are entertaining but most of the other episodes aren't that great and seem more like fillers. But I do think the arc episodes are good and the development for chimchar/Paul and Dawn's "spin" move in DP were interesting. Plus the animation is getting better every time, the animation for BW just blew me away (except for the fact that I'm starting to notice they reuse the same clips for moves which is getting a bit annoying). Regardless, I'm probably going to still watch the anime no matter how bad it gets just because I'm a pokemon fantard xD

 

[garrison-san]

Are you saying you hated *how* they were released or just that they were released? I hope you mean the former since I know you know what happens to characters who stick around for too long - as you yourself often remind everyone.

What I don't understand is why they kept Bulbasaur around for so long but Oak'd Heracross.

 

[Shinneth]

Clearly Johto was a mess when it came to the Pokemon. The Kanto Pokemon had such strong, established characters that there was probably reasonable hesitance to axe them from the show to make room for a Gen II Pokemon that might or might not have as strong of a character, for fear of ratings dropping and all that.

What I really hated about Johto is that is really broke down into a basic formula that stretched out for years; way beyond what we were used to back when we watched Kanto. Some of the same elements were present, but with Kanto it wasn't as obvious because of the faster paces and shorter length of the series.

In Johto's case, a good chunk of it was filler of "Ash helps CotD for no reason whatsoever and the problem is dull and not engaging and the resolution is blah and in the end, nothing gets accomplished for Ash & Co.". Obviously that was not the case for all of Johto because of certain arcs (please, no one tell me to re-watch the series)

I remember liking Sailor Moon a lot less by its third season because it fell into the exact same formula, whereas the previous two seasons were shorter and felt less filler-y, and even their fillers felt like they held some sort of relevance, such as Kanto's.

Still, it's sensible why a lot of us didn't like Johto. Though Hoenn and Sinnoh had similar formulas, the writers were able to learn from the mistakes they made in Johto in order to make better use of the Pokemon they were representing and how to make the sagas less filler-y by adding a second quest alongside Ash's. But before all of that, we were used to how Kanto did things; I definitely was, and that's why I ditched Pokemon when I watched the Johto saga and only got back into the series after I found that it got a lot less boring by the new series.

Though BW is making me regress... but that's besides the point. tl;dr: there were perfectly sound reasons why Johto is considered the black sheep of the anime.

 

[matt0044]

I remember liking Sailor Moon a lot less by its third season because it fell into the exact same formula, whereas the previous two seasons were shorter and felt less filler-y, and even their fillers felt like they held some sort of relevance, such as Kanto's.

Though BW is making me regress... but that's besides the point. tl;dr: there were perfectly sound reasons why Johto is considered the black sheep of the anime.

Weird, because I like the S series of the Sailor Moon Anime because of its dark tone at times.

Also, I don't get why they didn't include Silver and plan for Ash to face Giovanni eventually. That'd at least help make the show interesting and give TR closure. Plus, Ash and Silver team up against Giovanni would be EPIC! Oh well, a fan can always dream.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

What I don't understand is why they kept Bulbasaur around for so long but Oak'd Heracross.

Me neither, especially considering Bulbasaur never even did much of anything and became redundant once Ash got Chikorita/Bayleef.

 

[Shinneth]

Weird, because I like the S series of the Sailor Moon Anime because of its dark tone at times.

I will say that I did start liking Sailor Moon S once it got to the good stuff that was particularly dark, but the first half - barring some exceptional scenes - were just blah. I think they changed the animation director or something too, because the characters just looked totally off for both the third and fourth seasons...

...erm, anyway, you brought up a good point. If Johto had Silver and a plot more faithful to the GSC games (seeing as that's what AG and DP followed to a degree), then it'd certainly be more enjoyable. But I think the most we got was, uh... the red Gyarados?

 

[Afrojisiac-19]

But wait? How wasn't Johto faithful to the GSC games?

You had the dancing instructor/principal of the pokemon trainer's school in Violet City, and he appeared in the anime
There was the episode that focused on DJ Mary from the Radio Tower.
They even included a brief shot of the Battle Tower in Goldenrod.
The Bug Catching Contest was included in an episode.
Euscine from the games (crystal) and his passion for Suicune.
Jasmine's Story arc with Amphy and having to go to Cianwood to get medicine
Clair and the Dragon's Den Arc
The Red Gyarados and Lance's involvement to stop TR's plans

I can't think of much from the games that wasn't applied to the anime, unless it's the Ilex forest, or rival Silver, or something else...but let me know cause I may have forgotten something...

 

[Cybersai]

No Silver was the big one, he really should have been used.

 

[matt0044]

No Silver was the big one, he really should have been used.

Yeah, he would've been the best rival ever.

 

[Betsy]

...Why is Ash still 10 after all these years? He should've grown up by now.

 

[Afrojisiac-19]

No Silver was the big one, he really should have been used.

OK, well it's been almost a decade since those episodes aired, isn't it time to let it go?

Besides, aside from him, there's not much else from the games that the writers didn't forget to include as many have said Johto's journey took about 3 years, and it was about 150 episodes if I'm not mistaken...Basically, the writers managed to touch on majority of the game plots, so...IDK what the problem is...

 

[Owain]

...Why is Ash still 10 after all these years? He should've grown up by now.

he's a cartoon character, Deal with it.

 

[Kuki]

1) The change in VAs
2) No Misty return since AG, except in photos
3) No May side story
4) Ash still having no father seen
5) Unova's isolation killing return of Ritchie

 

[Owain]

1)5) Unova's isolation killing return of Ritchie

not really, if they want, they could make up a plethora of reasons for his return

 

[Kuki]

not really, if they want, they could make up a plethora of reasons for his return

OK, it may not be a total killing, but a severe-chance slimmer