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Anime & Manga General Discussion

To be fair, unlike Tracey, she's not really a main character.
That doesn't really make it any better. If anything, that makes the problem worse. Journeys not having a prominent female lead has always been such a terrible and odd choice to me. When your only young female character showed up as much as Tracey, who was only part of the cast for a small arc as opposed to a whole series, then that's a huge red flag. I'm not surprised that Chloe has shown up so rarely, but it is such a shame. Not even becoming a trainer with a popular Pokemon like Eevee as her partner really gave her much of a boost in screentime. Limiting her focus episodes to meeting Eevee evolutions, while kind of fitting with her relationship with Eevee, prevented them from doing enough with Chloe. She really should have become a proper main character and joined Ash and Goh way more often after becoming a trainer.
 
Also remember in a lot of the earlier episodes Koharu would only appear for like 2 minutes of an episode and that's it, so technically she's even in less full episodes overall if you don't count that.

Overall though there really wasn't much to do with a female lead. With Ash doing battles and Go doing the Pokemon Go-esque stuff, Koharu would either have to do contests again (which we saw an episode of with Serena), or well...nothing else. The writers in 25 years worth of time have never let one of Ash's female companions do the Gym quest to get badges, so they basically don't see that as an option.
 
Also remember in a lot of the earlier episodes Koharu would only appear for like 2 minutes of an episode and that's it, so technically she's even in less full episodes overall if you don't count that.

Overall though there really wasn't much to do with a female lead. With Ash doing battles and Go doing the Pokemon Go-esque stuff, Koharu would either have to do contests again (which we saw an episode of with Serena), or well...nothing else. The writers in 25 years worth of time have never let one of Ash's female companions do the Gym quest to get badges, so they basically don't see that as an option.
Goh is barely even the pokemon go stuff now. His captures have reduced by a significant amount. Most likely because the staff knew that kind of goal doesn't work in the anime
 
Goh is barely even the pokemon go stuff now. His captures have reduced by a significant amount. Most likely because the staff knew that kind of goal doesn't work in the anime
It has been 12 episodes or so since he last went on a real pointless catching spree. I still think they never should have even taken the original direction they did for Goh. It just doesn't work.
 
Overall though there really wasn't much to do with a female lead. With Ash doing battles and Go doing the Pokemon Go-esque stuff, Koharu would either have to do contests again (which we saw an episode of with Serena), or well...nothing else. The writers in 25 years worth of time have never let one of Ash's female companions do the Gym quest to get badges, so they basically don't see that as an option.
I don't think that the issue was that there wasn't much to do with a female lead when they easily could have incorporated Chloe more than they did. If she wants to figure out what path she wants to take with Eevee, actually seeing more of the world and trying out different goals, not just have it limited to meeting Eevee evolutions and their trainers, could have gone a long way to make her more fleshed out and part of the main cast. As much as I would have loved to see Contests return in the anime, I don't think that would have worked for Chloe, if only because she would need to capture more Pokemon and battle more often. Gyms also wouldn't be an option for the same reasons. Not to mention it would have been way too late to start either kind of quest for Chloe by the time she became a trainer. They didn't let the female companions do Gyms before because two main characters battling the same Gym Leader would have required at least two battles for eight Gyms, which would have been repetitive and made the pacing worse.

I think that they just weren't interested with doing more with Chloe than they needed to. I really like the dynamic between Ash and Goh. They have a good friendship, but including Chloe into the mix really wouldn't have hurt. Saying that there wasn't much for a female lead to do just comes off as a weak excuse for how poorly Chloe has been handled. I can't help but think about that one scene in the current version of the opening theme where Ash and Goh are heading out while Chloe is back at the lab. The boys being allowed to go on cool adventures while the token girl stays home to do nothing with her cute marketable starter still annoys me to say the least. Hopefully, that wasn't the implication they were going for, but given how Chole has been handled, I have my doubts about that.

As for Goh, he really wasn't doing a lot of Pokemon Go-esque stuff. I'm sure that this is referring to his capture sprees and how he captures Pokemon in general, but I always thought that fans over exaggerated how much promotion Pokemon Go had in this series. Aside from his name and his capturing method, which isn't even exclusive to Pokemon Go at this point anymore, Goh didn't really come off promoting Pokemon Go all that much.
 
You can really see how the episode list drops when each gen only became 3 years. Also sad to think May probably would have been in as many eps as Dawn if she got to come back when ORAS did in 2014 and again in Journey's.

- I don't know if these episodes are counting the specials. If so, she had the same amount of appearances as Dawn, before Pokémon Journeys. Which is quite neat, Lol.
 
I don't think that the issue was that there wasn't much to do with a female lead when they easily could have incorporated Chloe more than they did.
Gee. It isn't like the beloved, OG female companion/lead didn't have an active goal and was largely along for the ride for three sag- Oh wait.
 
Honestly, the fact that Chloe's entire subplot is about finding a path in life means that properly making her part of the main cast at least as soon as she got her dang Eevee and have her travel would've been great for her development because she'd actually get to experience the many possible options first-hand. But Journeys is so unreasonably enamoured with its dual-protagonist-no-girls-allowed setup that a lot of her potential was wasted.
 
Misty's goal wasn't really established until Master Quest. Until then, she just acted as a tutor character for Ash.
That's not really true on both accounts. Misty's goal was established much earlier than Master Quest. She definitely talked about being a Water Pokemon Master during Kanto. They didn't really give her much to do for that goal until the Whirl Cup, but that isn't the same thing as not establishing her goal until Master Quest. I also wouldn't say that she acted like a tutor character for Ash for most of the original series. I think that would only apply to the Kanto portion of the series at most. Ash didn't really need a tutor character, much less two of them, by the time Johto started.
 
That's not really true on both accounts. Misty's goal was established much earlier than Master Quest. She definitely talked about being a Water Pokemon Master during Kanto. They didn't really give her much to do for that goal until the Whirl Cup, but that isn't the same thing as not establishing her goal until Master Quest. I also wouldn't say that she acted like a tutor character for Ash for most of the original series. I think that would only apply to the Kanto portion of the series at most. Ash didn't really need a tutor character, much less two of them, by the time Johto started.

Yeah i agree. And i feel like thats also partially the reason Misty left and Brock stayed instead of the reverse. Misty's role and goal pretty much ended at that point, while Brock serving as a mentor for Ash, but also May and Dawn, had much greater purpose, as he didn't intervene with the new girl PC in the games. But that mentor role also reached a conclusion when Ash defeated Paul and Brock realized that he could chase his own goal at that point, because there wasn't really anything left that he could teach Ash.

Still... Paul returning in Journeys aside... i feel like Brock returning in that fashion instead, having captured the three aces of the Champion (Or just borrowed Gyarados from Misty), would have been more satisfying, as in: The mentor is coming back for one final lesson.
 
Koharu actually only got 5 Eevee episodes:

  • Vaporeon ep
  • Umbreon/Espeon were together
  • Glaceon ep
  • Leafeon ep (Erika)
  • Jolteon/Flareon were together
  • Sylveon (Serena)

And since the Serena ep was also a cameo ep, technically they only made 5 Eevee eps that were filler-ish. Although the Vaporeon ep also had some focus for Dracovish (it was the first time it appeared since being captured), and the Leafeon ep also brought back Erika.
 
Misty's goal wasn't really established until Master Quest. Until then, she just acted as a tutor character for Ash.
HM already addressed how these points aren't accurate, so I won't belabor them. I will say that the point of my earlier jest (that I think people may have missed barring HM) that you commented on is that the argument of Chloe not having a goal or an active goal is not an excuse as to why she couldn't be featured in episodes with Ash and Go. We've had female companions with passive goals be present in an entire saga and Serena infamously took around a fourth of her saga before she decided on something tangible (and she still appeared and got to do things in the interim). You don't have to have a goal to be allowed to be present.
 
Not to mention, being present would be far better for Chloe's development than it was for Serena because unlike Serena, who basically just wanted to not be a Rhyhorn Racer, Chloe (or at least her Eevee) actually does want to explore a little bit of everything. And even if she didn't, just seeing firsthand the many paths the Pokemon world has to offer would still be enough for her to develop subtly in the background. Honestly, if she does ever come to a decision at the end it would've been significantly less jarring if she'd been part of Ash and Goh's adventure more.
 
Not super relevant to the discussion at hand, but I want to point out that Misty's "Water Pokemon Master" goal only existed in the dub prior to the Orange Islands arc. For over 90 episodes, she really didn't have a stated goal (other than shaking Ash down for a new bike).

Information courtesy of @Dogasu.
 
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Not super relevant to the discussion at hand, but I want to point out that Misty's "Water Pokemon Master" goal only existed in the dub until the Orange Islands arc. For over 90 episodes, she really didn't have a stated goal (other than shaking Ash down for a new bike).

Information courtesy of @Dogasu.
That is surprising. I don't think I knew that before. Although, that would probably be another reason why they thought that Misty had the weakest reason for being part of the main cast when they were deciding on who to replace for AG.

I finally saw Dawn's first two parter for the series and one of my takeaways was it made the decision to not have Chloe travel more frequently even more mind boggling. I wasn't expecting her to show up for every trip with Ash and Goh, but she enjoyed seeing some new sights in Sinnoh and her friendship with Dawn was handled well. It felt strange to have her involved with a two parter and travel on her own for the first time only for Chloe to still be primarily at home while the boys have cool fun adventures together afterwards. My other new takeaway is that setting up Chloe to see a Contest only for that to not happen was such a cruel tease. I get why that didn't happen when the point was for Chloe to enjoy the sights and travels along the way, but that does fall a bit flat when she barely gets any noteworthy attention. Not to mention it still feels like such a shame to not see a proper Contest in the anime.
 
Well Koharu does technically compete in a contest, even if there's no battle round. I do hope Koharu/Dawn meet up one more time, especially now that she met Serena too, she can also tell Dawn about Serena and Contest Lives.
 
Well Koharu does technically compete in a contest, even if there's no battle round. I do hope Koharu/Dawn meet up one more time, especially now that she met Serena too, she can also tell Dawn about Serena and Contest Lives.
I was referring to a proper Contest, not the Contest Lives that Serena takes part in. It just seems like a shame to showcase Serena's Contest Live and not show what Contests Dawn takes part in too.
 
I can see three options for Chloe's final career choice:

  • Contests: Would be repetitive but it's the only one that has received some buildup.
  • Connoisseur: If the writers do an extensive check of possible careers they could stumble upon this one and consider it, as it's a very neutral (as in, doesn't lean solely to battling or catching) career that focuses on what the series likes best and what Chloe herself saw during her eeveelution quest: Pokemon & people relationships. Also, it could be a reason for Cilan to appear.
  • None/All: The most disappointing one if you ask me, as it would make her arc extremely redundant, she already learnt she could take her time deciding back on JN011, but after Lana's line in the Alola episode it seems very likely. Chloe saying she wants to keep trying all professions forever would be sightly better but it would still be a cop out.
 
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