Anime & Manga General Discussion

[Imtnt]

It’s honestly way too late to do a Galar spinoff and I still don’t personally see any benefit to the Journeys formula that was adopted these past few years, but to each their own. No worries!

I just hope Paldea and the Paldean Pokémon are represented well this time around and not treated like an afterthought. I may sound silly saying this but I firmly believe that each mainline region has something to offer and has no business being sidelined like Galar was in Journeys.

I agree, I was thinking about the potential realy.. sure it is too late and they made a short special for Arceus.. Just maybe because the COVID they had to leave out a spinoff/specials for Galar region. It could be something they panned and couldn't deliver due to the unfamilier situation.

Whatever Galarian exp Ash got, it wasnt enough. It is even worse if we compare how quick he got Gmax in compare to the ages it took to master Mega or even to get Z moves work.

Still I do like the option in general to make JNs where Ash is visiting again places and friends from multiple regions in as he helps a proffesor to gain more information about pokemon without catching them all.. sure it wasn't in the end what we got from JN...

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Ash is here!

 

[Hidden Mew]

Quick question - did all the Galar gym leaders make it on screen in the end? I sort of lost the thread entirely…

Sadly no. I honestly forgot about them featuring Allister, so I thought that they only had half of the Gym Leaders. We might get cameos from the rest of the Galar Gym Leaders during Ash vs. Leon, but that's if we're lucky. The fact that Ash only battled Bea and Raihan is just such a waste and honestly a huge reason why I hated the PWC from the start. Instead of battling against new characters with new Pokemon, they had Ash battle against random one shot characters with older Pokemon. It made the tournament feel boring and unimpressive and despite what improvements they did with it later on, I don't think the PWC ever recovered from that bad first impression for me.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

Sadly no. I honestly forgot about them featuring Allister, so I thought that they only had half of the Gym Leaders. We might get cameos from the rest of the Galar Gym Leaders during Ash vs. Leon, but that's if we're lucky. The fact that Ash only battled Bea and Raihan is just such a waste and honestly a huge reason why I hated the PWC from the start. Instead of battling against new characters with new Pokemon, they had Ash battle against random one shot characters with older Pokemon. It made the tournament feel boring and unimpressive and despite what improvements they did with it later on, I don't think the PWC ever recovered from that bad first impression for me.

This. And I see a lot of people thinking Journeys made up for this issue with the later reappearances of older characters, but the tournament was horribly handled for 3/4 of the series. I still don’t get why this was a format they chose to pursue in a supposed episodic season.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I still don’t get why this was a format they chose to pursue in a supposed episodic season.

They wanted to celebrate the franchise's long history by paying tribute to every generation so far and not just the newest one.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

They wanted to celebrate the franchise's long history by paying tribute to every generation so far and not just the newest one.

But why do this format in lieu of a season promoting the latest game release?

I could understand with a movie or standalone spin-off (the idea of doing a PWC tournament in a 24- or 52-episode special actually sounds really cool when you think about how it could be focused just on that plot aspect without any of the other issues that I think have plagued Journeys. You’d still be able to incorporate all of the fanservicey cameos and callbacks to older characters, as well as include use of Ash’s reserves with maybe some of them even evolving).

I just personally don’t find the celebration explanation as a strong enough reason to pivot into dedicating 3 years of a show for an anniversary series. And to be quite frank, until late last year, Journeys never felt like a proper anniversary show. There were few and far between callbacks to the older seasons for the first 3/4 of the show. Most early episodes were focused on Go’s catching goal or random slice of life mishaps. It took a long time for the anime to even put focus on the tournament and even that felt uneven and inconsistent. So many things happening off-screen? Training team members off-screen? Why? What’s the justification for that?

And mind you, I actually like Go as a character, and think his personality and insecurities would have been amazing to explore throughout the series, but that never happened. Chloe should have been in the main cast and never sidelined. There is zero reason in the world that we don’t have a female lead in Pokémon in the year 2022. The anime has actually regressed in that aspect.

But I’m ranting at this point and I don’t mean this as a direct attack or you personally or what you like about the series. There are strong points in Journeys, but I just feel like the flaws are way too obvious, hence making it my least favorite series in the anime.

 

[Hidden Mew]

They wanted to celebrate the franchise's long history by paying tribute to every generation so far and not just the newest one.

I've seen this rationale used before and I understand it to a point given the focus on returning characters. However, I still find it to be a bit lacking since I don't think that the series did a particularly good job with paying tribute to every generation. Even with traveling to other regions, most of the locations felt pretty generic and they spent far too much time in Kanto. Aside from maybe the character return episodes, it doesn't really come off as celebrating the franchise's history. Plus, they did not really pay tribute to the newest generation. They barely went to Galar, Ash met only a few of the Gym Leaders, only battled two of them and a ton of characters and Pokemon from the games never even appeared. It was treated like an afterthought, which shouldn't have been the case if their goal was to pay tribute to every generation up to this point.

If they really wanted to honor every generation, they really should have gone for a balance between the older ones and the newest one, but they didn't even try to do that.

 

[Imtnt]

If they really wanted to honor every generation, they really should have gone for a balance between the older ones and the newest one, but they didn't even try to do that.

It bothers me we saw some main characters from sm, xy, bw.. but from other seasons way less..

I just personally don’t find the celebration explanation as a strong enough reason to pivot into dedicating 3 years of a show for an anniversary series. And to be quite frank, until late last year, Journeys never felt like a proper anniversary show. There were few and far between callbacks to the older seasons for the first 3/4 of the show. Most early episodes were focused on Go’s catching goal or random slice of life mishaps. It took a long time for the anime to even put focus on the tournament and even that felt uneven and inconsistent. So many things happening off-screen? Training team members off-screen? Why? What’s the justification for that?

To be fair, most of the time I though it is both celebration and goobye from Ash as a protagonist... it could explain much, even the lack of screen time for Ash in order to focus on Goh for whatever cruel reason the writer wanted..

But now.. I just think it was a bad written season that had a bad order of events..

 

[JinksChow]

Behold! Ash's frequent plot armours in Pokemon JN, as explained by Pokemon Masters EX!

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Behold! Ash's frequent plot armours in Pokemon JN, as explained by Pokemon Masters EX!

That’s stupid. Just like Ash.

 

[jbmasta]

But why do this format in lieu of a season promoting the latest game release?

I could understand with a movie or standalone spin-off (the idea of doing a PWC tournament in a 24- or 52-episode special actually sounds really cool when you think about how it could be focused just on that plot aspect without any of the other issues that I think have plagued Journeys. You’d still be able to incorporate all of the fanservicey cameos and callbacks to older characters, as well as include use of Ash’s reserves with maybe some of them even evolving).

They could have had their cake and eaten it by setting the Cerise Institute in Galar with Sonia as a regular character. It still allows for the world tour aspect of visiting past regions yet allows Galar as a region to be showcased. Sonia could have been the female companion, investigating things with Ash and Goh joining her and having her arc being how she becomes a Professor.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Ash's Masters EX battle theme has been revealed.

 

[Eitarou]

Journeys' world tour issue is a clear cut case of "trying to focus on a dozen things only leads to focusing on nothing in particular". It's no different than Goh having nearly a hundred captures that mostly never see use. This is a fairly common writing fumble and it's a shame they did it twice in one show.

 

[Enzo]

Journeys' world tour issue is a clear cut case of "trying to focus on a dozen things only leads to focusing on nothing in particular". It's no different than Goh having nearly a hundred captures that mostly never see use. This is a fairly common writing fumble and it's a shame they did it twice in one show.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: JN's ultimate death was it's ambition. It tried to do too much, juggle too many balls at once, and all of them fell down on it's head one by one.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

 

[jjliang]

How many Generation VIII Pokemon do you think are probably going to be given either the Togetic treatment or perhaps even the Klang treatment? And how come Klang still hasn't shown up in the main series anime yet?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

And how come Klang still hasn't shown up in the main series anime yet?

Probably because it's not really that notable or well-known Pokémon.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

How many Generation VIII Pokemon do you think are probably going to be given either the Togetic treatment or perhaps even the Klang treatment? And how come Klang still hasn't shown up in the main series anime yet?

When we have less than 10 episodes, a good chunk of Gen VIII Pokemon are unfortunately gonna get this treatment.

 

[jjliang]

What does it mean whenever a Pokemon is given either the Togetic treatment or the Klang treatment?

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

What does it mean whenever a Pokemon is given either the Togetic treatment or the Klang treatment?

It means they've barely appeared in the anime (Togetic has had just two appearances total, while Klang's had three.)