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Do you think Ash should've used the Pokémon at Oak Lab for Journeys instead of his current team

cjd1207

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In the What would Ash's team be if you wrote Journeys? I wrote this.
If we are going by the journeys format of world traveling I think the Pokémon Ash should used are the ones that he has at Oaks lab. I say this because of the heavy lack of focus his current journeys team has and if they used his older teams they wouldn't need to put much focus on them because they already have a region of experience and development. I also think using his older Pokémon could make some bad decision a bit more palpable like the jump in ranks because who gonna doubt Charizard, Snorlax, Sceptile, Infernape and Krookodile from ripping apart trainers in lower ranks. It also could give redemption to Pokémon who are strong but got screwed because of circumstances like Torterra and Noivern. I also think they could evolve some of Ash mons like Boldore, Pignite, Buizel, Corphish and Bayleef. They also could use the smaller and simple pokemon like Oshawott and Gible on the adventure with Ash so it make it he doesn't only bring Pikachu and I say this because when Riolu evolved into a Lucario it started to show up less and less because I think the animator couldn't draw Lucario consistently.
A good chunk of people thinks the current Journey team is underdeveloped so do you people think the Pokémon Company should've used Pokémon at Oak Lab or not and what are your theories is to why they didn't go with the Pokémon at Oak Lab. Also do you people think that his current team can one day meet your personal standard of a team or are they out of luck in your opinion.
 
Not really. If Ash just used his reserves in place of his current team, I think that wouldn't really address the main problem. It might be a nice treat for long time fans, but new fans or fans who hadn't seen specific series featuring those Pokemon wouldn't really have any more reason to be invested in those Pokemon than in Ash's current team. Not to mention they would be more interested in using his more popular reserves rather than giving attention to his older underdeveloped Pokemon. It would basically be trading in one problem for another without actually fixing anything.

Personally, I'm not as pessimistic about Ash's current team as other fans are, or about Journeys as a whole for that matter now that I think about it. I can understand and agree with the complaints about how they've been handled, but I don't think it's impossible for the writers to handle them better in the future. How likely it is to happen is up for debate, but things could still potentially change down the road.
 
I like his current team and in this point, it is not a good idea calling old pokemons back. New pokemons need more screen time for developing and being more powerful.

However in the future maybe in the last season, it will be good to call them for 6vs6 battles as he did in Sinnoh League. When Ash starts to make more serious battles he can need and use his old aces instead of using same pokemons again and again. He can have a pokemon pool about 15-20 members for challenging strong rivals.

My wish;
Charizard, Bulbasaur, Snorlax, Sceptile, Staraptor, Torterra, Infernape, Krookodile, Talonflame, Hawlucha, Inceneroar, Lycanroc and his current team.
 
I like his current team and in this point, it is not a good idea calling old pokemons back. New pokemons need more screen time for developing and being more powerful.

However in the future maybe in the last season, it will be good to call them for 6vs6 battles as he did in Sinnoh League. When Ash starts to make more serious battles he can need and use his old aces instead of using same pokemons again and again. He can have a pokemon pool about 15-20 members for challenging strong rivals.

My wish;
Charizard, Bulbasaur, Snorlax, Sceptile, Staraptor, Torterra, Infernape, Krookodile, Talonflame, Hawlucha, Inceneroar, Lycanroc and his current team.
I think you missed my point I was saying should they use his Pokémon at Oak Lab at the start of the series and never caught his current team.
 
Not really. If Ash just used his reserves in place of his current team, I think that wouldn't really address the main problem. It might be a nice treat for long time fans, but new fans or fans who hadn't seen specific series featuring those Pokemon wouldn't really have any more reason to be invested in those Pokemon than in Ash's current team. Not to mention they would be more interested in using his more popular reserves rather than giving attention to his older underdeveloped Pokemon. It would basically be trading in one problem for another without actually fixing anything.

Personally, I'm not as pessimistic about Ash's current team as other fans are, or about Journeys as a whole for that matter now that I think about it. I can understand and agree with the complaints about how they've been handled, but I don't think it's impossible for the writers to handle them better in the future. How likely it is to happen is up for debate, but things could still potentially change down the road.
I mean the main problem with his current team is lack of screen time and development if we went with the old Pokémon the Pokémon company could just use the Pokémon app, YouTube or any free streaming to show off the development they have or a quick flashback. I also don't know how popular Ash's current is with new viewer all I know that many people are frustrated with how his current team is used. I also came into this with Goh being the overall new experience that newer viewers could get attached to and Ash being the veteran that the old fans could attached to. I don't necessarily agree with the writer using more popular reserves because a lot of his current team has many popular Pokémon on it and they get lack of screen time and development which kind of gone full circle on my point of why they should use the Pokémon at Oak Lab instead .
 
I mean the main problem with his current team is lack of screen time and development if we went with the old Pokémon the Pokémon company could just use the Pokémon app, YouTube or any free streaming to show off the development they have or a quick flashback. I also don't know how popular Ash's current is with new viewer all I know that many people are frustrated with how his current team is used. I also came into this with Goh being the overall new experience that newer viewers could get attached to and Ash being the veteran that the old fans could attached to. I don't necessarily agree with the writer using more popular reserves because a lot of his current team has many popular Pokémon on it and they get lack of screen time and development which kind of gone full circle on my point of why they should use the Pokémon at Oak Lab instead .
I think that requiring newer fans to watch the older episodes/series in order to become more invested in his reserves would be a bad idea. There are ways of making those older episodes easily available, but I don't think that's a particularly good solution. Watching older episodes shouldn't be a requirement to become invested in any character, let alone for Ash's reserves. A flashback would be enough to explain their histories, but I don't think it would be enough for the audience to care about them that much either.

I know that fans have been frustrated over his current team, but I don't know if the target audience of children feel the same way about it.
 
If the question implies rewriting Journeys from the start, my answer would be "Yes". If Ash is taking his biggest challenges yet it makes the most sense he uses his strongest Pokemon instead of unusually strong newborns who can defeat champions, and the series should not only celebrate its past characters but also Ash's own past as well. He could still catch one or two though, I'd keep Sirfetch'd because it felt like a different kind of prideful Pokemon for Ash, and I'd retcon Gengar as being the same Haunter he had in the past.

The way it is now, I'd say he should use a mix of old and new, for similar reasons. However, of course it implies there should be enough battles so both could get enough battles to shine.
 
I think that requiring newer fans to watch the older episodes/series in order to become more invested in his reserves would be a bad idea. There are ways of making those older episodes easily available, but I don't think that's a particularly good solution. Watching older episodes shouldn't be a requirement to become invested in any character, let alone for Ash's reserves. A flashback would be enough to explain their histories, but I don't think it would be enough for the audience to care about them that much either.

I know that fans have been frustrated over his current team, but I don't know if the target audience of children feel the same way about it.
So if you take the viewers out of the equation and go for your own wants would you go for Oak Lab or stick with his current team
 
So if you take the viewers out of the equation and go for your own wants would you go for Oak Lab or stick with his current team
I'd go with his current team. While I do think that it was a massive mistake to give him so many fully evolved Pokemon relatively early on in the series' run, I think it would be more interesting for his current team to get a bit of the spotlight. As much as fans want to see Ash's reserves, they would be more interested in showcasing Ash's most popular Pokemon like Charizard or Infernape instead of giving some of hi underdeveloped Pokemon a chance to shine.

The idea of using both older and new Pokemon would probably be more ideal for fans and I can understand that, but I don't think that the battles are good or long enough to really make that work. The vast majority of Ash's PWC are one-on-one and only a few of them get to be two-on-two. Combined that with how infrequent Ash's PWC matches are to begin with, I don't think that using both his current team and reserves would really work with the current setup.
 
I'd go with his current team. While I do think that it was a massive mistake to give him so many fully evolved Pokemon relatively early on in the series' run, I think it would be more interesting for his current team to get a bit of the spotlight. As much as fans want to see Ash's reserves, they would be more interested in showcasing Ash's most popular Pokemon like Charizard or Infernape instead of giving some of hi underdeveloped Pokemon a chance to shine.

The idea of using both older and new Pokemon would probably be more ideal for fans and I can understand that, but I don't think that the battles are good or long enough to really make that work. The vast majority of Ash's PWC are one-on-one and only a few of them get to be two-on-two. Combined that with how infrequent Ash's PWC matches are to begin with, I don't think that using both his current team and reserves would really work with the current setup.
While do get the point of using the writers using fan favorites for the PWC I don't see them using them for small adventure like the Goh capturing his Pikachu episode or the Diglett episode in which he could use his smaller unevolved Pokémon for. Also I don't get where you guys are getting the whole combining the two teams at because I think that a horrible idea because the current team would just get even less screen time
 
While do get the point of using the writers using fan favorites for the PWC I don't see them using them for small adventure like the Goh capturing his Pikachu episode or the Diglett episode in which he could use his smaller unevolved Pokémon for. Also I don't get where you guys are getting the whole combining the two teams at because I think that a horrible idea because the current team would just get even less screen time
People have brought up combining his current and older Pokemon before, but I did say that I don't think it would work. I understand why that has come up before since that would ideally appeal to everyone, but I don't think it would work. Not only because of the less screentime issue for his current team that you brought up, but I just don't think that the current structure for PWC would really lend itself to that kind of format. At least with the Battle Frontier, most of Ash's Hoenn Pokemon already got a good amount of attention and I'm pretty sure most of those battles were still three-on-three as well. Aside from the first and last Frontier Brain matches, his reserves didn't dominate those battles either.
 
I think that requiring newer fans to watch the older episodes/series in order to become more invested in his reserves would be a bad idea. There are ways of making those older episodes easily available, but I don't think that's a particularly good solution. Watching older episodes shouldn't be a requirement to become invested in any character, let alone for Ash's reserves. A flashback would be enough to explain their histories, but I don't think it would be enough for the audience to care about them that much either.

I know that fans have been frustrated over his current team, but I don't know if the target audience of children feel the same way about it.
I mean, they could give them 2 focus episodes per Pokémon like the JN team is getting currently and that would be enough for most people going by the reactions here. Just to clarify, I’m talking about a hypothetical scenario where the JN team doesn’t exist.
 
I would've found that boring because his old Pokemon already had chances to appear yes even the ones with horrible battle records. I like Lucario, Dracovish and Gengar so I'm glad Ash is using them instead of using his retired Pokemon instead.
 
There’s negative and positives about this stance.

Of course Ash wouldn’t have been able to use Sirfetch’d or Dracovish if he wasn’t catching any new members, leaving Galar pretty short-handed, but as well as that, a lot of Pokemon would only be getting one appearance to share the spoils, severely confusing new fans, as well as not establishing them well enough to enjoy. For example, what would people gain if they saw Palpitoad for the first time in this series? Not much, as it never had a personality to begin with, but if it turned up one episode, and did one thing, it wouldn’t exactly be a great appearance. Then, if we never saw it again, like Goh’s Pokemon, I doubt anyone would care if Ash’s old Pokemon turned up, just to do practically nothing.

However, there’s the clear opportunities to give chances to Pokemon that we’re wronged in the past, like Palpitoad, or Noivern. Giving them battles would be cool to see, and new fans could see the hype in Infernape and others.
Despite this, the bad outweighs the good here. No fight would be intense if every Pokemon Ash used didn’t have some sort of build-up. Seeing a Pokemon we have barely interacted with fight against a Houndoom in the PWC wouldn’t be intense, as there’s no risk/pride at stake, unlike Infernape v Electivire. For example, Lucario v Grapploct will be intense as there build-up, but I couldn’t imagine Palpitoad v Politoad being of the same level, since we know that plot line won’t go anywhere.
 
Please note: The thread is from 3 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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