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Controversial opinions

True, I'd rather it just appears. Winning or losing is another matter entirely.

It’s sickening to me that these days it’s too much to expect just an appearance from one of Ash's Pokemon, and it actually doing something other than existing is relegated to a focus episode robotic checklist. If we go by the series' episodic logic that viewers jump in to view at random episodes, it’s literally possible for there to be an audience that doesn’t even know Dracovish exists because they missed one episode. It’s arguably on par with Palpitoad.

I didn’t anticipate a series where all of Ash's Pokemon (sans MAYBE Lucario because I know at least one person on here will have an issue with me saying "all”) would be borderline treated like Palpitoad and that isn’t even an exaggeration.
I have been thinking about this for a while.

Like, in any other series, we wouldn't even blink if one of Ash's mons appeared onscreen. It was just a normal, everyday thing. Now we cheer with just the idea of one of them appearing. Not even having arcs, or battles, or funny or sad moments. Just appearing.

I vividly remember people in both here, other forums, YouTube, Twitter and etc getting all happy and pratically vibrating with excitement and talking about just the fact that Ash's Gengar showed up in the Grookey ep. For 5 seconds, and then promptly disappeared and was not seen again for the rest of the episode. It didn't battled, or anything. It literally just had an cameo.

You wanna know what? The fact that we are getting happy and anxiously waiting for the bare minumun, the most basics of things, like Ash literally battling, or one of his Pokemon just showing up onscreen... Heck, guys, even Lucario hasn't had a battle since the Suicune episode, and barely appeared after evolving. It's last major battle was in JN046. The Mewtwo episode.

The fact that we are expecting such a basic thing form the series/writers,,, that's sad.
 
I have been thinking about this for a while.

Like, in any other series, we wouldn't even blink if one of Ash's mons appeared onscreen. It was just a normal, everyday thing. Now we cheer with just the idea of one of them appearing. Not even having arcs, or battles, or funny or sad moments. Just appearing.

I vividly remember people in both here, other forums, YouTube, Twitter and etc getting all happy and pratically vibrating with excitement and talking about just the fact that Ash's Gengar showed up in the Grookey ep. For 5 seconds, and then promptly disappeared and was not seen again for the rest of the episode. It didn't battled, or anything. It literally just had an cameo.

You wanna know what? The fact that we are getting happy and anxiously waiting for the bare minumun, the most basics of things, like Ash literally battling, or one of his Pokemon just showing up onscreen... Heck, guys, even Lucario hasn't had a battle since the Suicune episode, and barely appeared after evolving. It's last major battle was in JN046. The Mewtwo episode.

The fact that we are expecting such a basic thing form the series/writers,,, that's sad.
For an idea, looking at a XY example in Ash’s first double battle againsf Sawyer. He casually sends out Frogadier and Hawlucha, two pokemon with comfortable amounts of screentime, they kick ass and then battle gets interrupted. Bummer, but they have other chances to shine. Overall, pretty mild.

Now imagine the people’s reaction if Gengar and Dracovish were sent out in a double battle. And imagine further if it got interrupted. This gives a clear idea of how low Journeys is when it comes to Ash’s team.
 
You can’t blame people for not having a positive outlook seeing that it’s literally possible for someone to not even realise that someone on the main cast even has a Dracovish.
Goh's Arctozolt isn't a thing either (as in it hasn't shown up at all since it's debut) which makes me wonder why Goh even caught that.
 
Goh's Arctozolt isn't a thing either (as in it hasn't shown up at all since it's debut) which makes me wonder why Goh even caught that.
Relax, its one of Goh's Pokemon, I don't think we're really meant to care. After all, doesn't he have a ton of Pokemon who haven't appeared since being caught, some of which that don't even have an ounce of personality?

And man, reading all this really made me realize just how all over the place this series is. Pokemon going long periods of time with no appearances, how Ash and Goh's goals are being handled and the world tour aspect of it being poorly. Firstly most of the time they're in Kanto(I don't know who's braindead idea it was not to have the main base in Galar) and when they ARE in another region there's not much, if anything at all, to differentiate it. I haven't seen the episode but I know that when they went to Castelia City after Skwovet one that eating contest it was incredibly empty.

But one of the worst aspect, in my opinion, is the fact that barely nay of these Pokemon seem to interact with each other. How in the flying frick do they screw that up when they only have two trainers, with Chloe only occasionally tagging along? Sun and Moon had a much bigger cast but we saw plenty of interacts, hell there was an entire episode dedicated to everyone switching Pokemon for day. As someone who liked the Unvoa series, though I know it has its faults, at least it got this part done well. The friendship between Sraggy and Axew, the rivalry between Emolga and Snivy come to mind. Yeah, Unfezant and Palpitoad got the short end of the stick when compared to the others, but at least it wasn't this bad.

With the way Journeys is being handled, I gotta wonder if people'll start labeling it as the worst series.
 
since this is the controversial opinions thread and we're kinda discussing it im gonna be that person who says that best wishes is CURRENTLY better than journeys. best wishes was kinda strung together with scotch tape, glue, and a prayer but i feel that despite the bigger flaws in the series best wishes had some showings of some actually enjoyable aspects, and its a pretty solid series if you pretend os-dp didnt exist. from the cozy relationship of the unova gang, how everyone had their own rival which was a super awesome idea, all the cool battle club/tournament arcs...... and something that i never thought id say i MISS in a pokemon series, an actual plot/story with a clear end goal and seeing those mysterious creatures called pocket monsters. everyone and their pokemon was packed with personality and fun!! only now should we be realizing that best wishes isnt the trash we made it out to be because it succeeds at being a good POKEMON series (and thats a controversial opinion in itself. double controversial opinion in one post!!)

of course note how i said CURRENTLY at the beginning of my post before you say "journeys isnt finished stop judging things so fast" because im very aware we're (maybe) halfway through this series. things can change, and i REALLY hope they do........ but man im slowly losing my sanity watching this anime fall from its former grace
 
Dracovish still has plenty of time to redeem itself.
what about all that time wasted on disconnected fillers and episodic plots that could have been utilized on better things? halfway through the series, there's no sign of improvement

no other series has had all these failings after 60 episodes or so as much as Journeys has. not even BW imo
 
In DP, I can get behind Brock's Croagunk developing a rivalry with Saturn's Toxicroak. What I can't really get behind is the way how Croagunk final defeated Toxicroak: by attacking it just as it was emerging from its Poké Ball and didn't even have a chance to defend itself or counterattack. That tactic seems kind of underhanded/unfair to me.
 
I have to say, coming back to the XY/XYZ thing, gosh I hate that version of Ash.

As someone who loves Ash, that guy just doesn't even feels like Ash to me. It's like,,, they tried to make him so more ''mature'' and ''cOoL'' that they ended up with somebody who resembles Ash in some moments but is not him.

Okay, at the end of the day, it is Ash. He does has his selfless, heartfelt and goofy moments, but he seems so devoited of any sort of emotion, and feels so mechanical, espcially in battles, that it makes it harder for me to enjoy him in that series. He is not more ''mature'' as people say: he just doesn't emotes or reacts to stuff as much. I think that it stems from that notion that seriousness=maturity that a lot of people have.
 
Going back to Journeys' general lack of interactions between the MC Pokemon for a bit... one odd thing I noticed is that if we were to go by the openings alone, one would think there's some rather compelling dynamics in there: Riolu and Farfetch'd were billed as rival/sparring partners by the openings, but all that ever amounted to was one single battle where the latter was utterly trounced by the former, effectively cementing that Farfetch'd was in no way Riolu's equal. Then flash-forward to Riolu's evolution and now we have the openings treating it and Goh's Cinderace as rivals, which to be fair has been showcased a little better than Anubis Doggo's former supposed rivalry, what with both evolving at the same time and getting to play an important role in stopping the same apocalyptic catastrophe, both getting to battle against Mewtwo, and they did have one whole episode where they got stuck together and got into wacky hijinks. But it's been quite a while since either Lucario or Cinderace has even appeared, let alone interacted with one another.

Granted, Journeys still has quite a long way to go and might yet make up for this, but it's still pretty jarring how even the supposed main dynamic duo of the MC Pokemon hasn't had much to show for it.
 
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In DP, I can get behind Brock's Croagunk developing a rivalry with Saturn's Toxicroak. What I can't really get behind is the way how Croagunk final defeated Toxicroak: by attacking it just as it was emerging from its Poké Ball and didn't even have a chance to defend itself or counterattack. That tactic seems kind of underhanded/unfair to me.
One of the line's schtick's is dirty, under-handed fighting though haha.
 
I get your point about taking out Toxicroak, but in a real fight to protect the world from a criminal organization the only rule is "Don't lose."
Yeah, tbh, I actually kinda like the way Croagunk defeated Toxicroak because of that: usually when a hero and a villain have a rivalry, the hero will be all "let's have a fair and honorable fight" ...even though the entire world is at stake and literally everyone will die if they lose, so really it makes zero sense for the hero to needlessly handicap themselves, not ask for assistance, or use whatever advantage they can get. Whenever this "let's have a fair fight" thing is done, it actually makes the hero come off as kind of a jerk when you really think about it, because it comes across at though the hero's effectively prioritizing their own pride over the lives of the people they supposedly care about.
 
Yeah, tbh, I actually kinda like the way Croagunk defeated Toxicroak because of that: usually when a hero and a villain have a rivalry, the hero will be all "let's have a fair and honorable fight" ...even though the entire world is at stake and literally everyone will die if they lose, so really it makes zero sense for the hero to needlessly handicap themselves, not ask for assistance, or use whatever advantage they can get. Whenever this "let's have a fair fight" thing is done, it actually makes the hero come off as kind of a jerk when you really think about it, because it comes across at though the hero's effectively prioritizing their own pride over the lives of the people they supposedly care about.
I really appreciated Ash just throwing his whole party at Lysandre for this reason.
 
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