DP191 sure hyped up the concept of Ash vs Cynthia. It is definitely a hyped moment for long term fans.
And that would be fine if it was written well and it wasn't. It doesn't matter how good or bold your idea is if the execution is awful.
I think that's underselling them a bit. BW and XY Gym battles were pretty noticeably different, in large part because most of the XY Gym battles were actually good. It isn't like every Gym Quest is that identical either. I didn't really see them as just having slight tweaks here and there at least. It isn't like you've seen one Gym badge quest, you've seen them all. Even with the formula in mind, Ash was still battling new characters with brand new Pokemon and using his own new Pokemon. I think that was more enough to make every Gym quest feel distinct instead of just the same old story six times. Considering that the DP Gym battles got quite a bit of praise back in the day, it's also a bit hard for me to see the Gym formula being old hat back then too.
To be fair, aside from the original series and BW, they were much more willing to evolve Ash's starters, even if it took awhile for them to become fully evolved. He nearly had a fully evolved team in DP and aside from obviously Pikachu, all of his Pokemon evolved in XY, so Ash hasn't relied on a team of mostly unevolved Pokemon for quite some time. I never really had a problem with Ash beating Gym Leaders with his starters, regional bird and two other Pokemon before. His teams aren't really identical despite that setup in mind. They still have more distinct personalities/roles and storylines to make them all come off as pretty unique. I don't think people really had that much of a problem with Ash often getting at least one starter or the regional bird. People definitely would have loved to see Ash with a Corviknight and people still wanted him to get one of the Galar starters too, so I don't think that people really have that much of an issue with his team being more formulaic before. Not to mention having the freedom to catch any Pokemon hasn't really helped his Journeys team.
I really disagree. We would still get some potentially good battles against new characters, flesh out the region/Gym Leaders and give Ash new Pokemon to actually train, as opposed to giving him mostly fully evolved Pokemon right off the bat. Obviously, it isn't a guarantee since not all of the Gym battles or even whole badge quests were good, but I think that there's more potential to make them good and engaging than you're giving them credit for. Sure, we know that Ash is going to get all eight badge, but the anime has always emphasized the journey moreso than the destination. Seeing the journey, how well he trains his new Pokemon and how good the battles are more important. I would probably understand this issue more if I was one of the fans who was always upset with Ash losing, but sinc I stopped caring about that ages ago and just enjoy the ride itself, it kind of falls flat for me. If the PWC is any indication, it doesn't give me much hope for Ash's future goals to be engaging if they aren't interested in going back to the Gym badge quest either.
I'm not sure how well the experiment of doing different things really works out though. I'm definitely not nearly as upset about Journeys as a lot of other people here are. I have my fair share of issues with it, the PWC probably being one of the biggest ones if I'm being honest, but I generally like it and I think that some of the complaints can get out of hand. However, I don't think that this world tour gimmick really works. It doesn't really make use of older or newer regions effectively when they feel just kind of boring. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have to do the Gym badge quest. They could just have a reason for Ash to stay in the newest region to flesh it out, much like what happened with Alola and depending on the execution, that could work. Honestly, they really should have had Journeys set in Galar instead of Kanto since that could have helped it out in the long run.
The execution isn't awful, though. Journeys does plenty of things well and its weaknesses are no bigger than what I've seen from Pokemon before. But even putting aside the writing quality, I don't follow the logic that experimenting is only okay if you do it well. Taking risks on something different is only the way for anything to progress.
That bold part is exactly how I feel, actually. What you describe - new characters and Pokemon and such - are superficial changes. They don't alter the trajectory or outcome of the story. They don't force Ash to approach things any differently to how he normally would. For example, Ash loses to Roark in DP, does some extra training to learn a new strategy, goes back and wins. He then loses to Viola in XY, does some extra training to learn a new strategy, goes back and wins. Different characters and Pokemon, but what's actually changed? The stories are identical. OS is the only series to do anything interesting with its badge quest while the rest play it completely straight.
This is a large misconception I keep seeing in the fandom.
Oh geeze a lot to unpack here. Frankly I sometimes question how people can watch and keep up with a anime like Pokémon with so many repeated plot structures, conflicts and character arcs and act like because things have a similar outcome (the two instances provided are like 7 years apart in air dates ANYWAY) they have no merit. The saying "It's about the journey not the destination" matters a lot in a anime like Pokémon it just comes with the territory with a show with over 1000 episodes, like what do you expect by that point?
I wouldn't really consider new character and Pokemon as superficial changes. Those are new characters effectively and would have different strategies. The storylines of both of those Gym battles are similar, but I think that's just looking at them from the surface level. The reason Ash lost to Roark was significantly different than why he lost to Viola and his training method for the rematch was different too. Not to mention the spinning dodge was further developed later on into the Counter Shield strategy. The basic outcome is the same and if you're more interested in that, then the differences may not matter, but those differences exist and it helps to make the Gym battles still feel distinct enough from each other, at least in my opinion.
I figured that Ash, Pikachu and Team Rocket were kept around in large part because of how iconic they are. I understand that they would also be recognizable to older fans too, but I think that they would have stayed regardless. I'm also not sure about keeping people like us engaged is a significant part of their strategy. Returning characters showing up would naturally have more meaning for long time fans than most of the kids watching, but my thought process has always been that if they cared about what long time fans wanted out of the anime, the anime would have become significantly different ages ago.
This extends to the whole franchise; Masuda said the games are not targeted specifically towards kids but so everyone can play them, and a lot of GameFreak's modern strategy clearly leans in that direction; the increased focus on competitive multiplayer and large amounts of Kanto focus are pretty clearly not aimed at a ten year old whose first Pokémon game is Shield.
Honestly, although Kanto had some issues I'm willing to cut the OG quest a lot of slack for having by far the most meaningful character development for the series' main leads (Ash and Pikachu) and the only league defeat that led to long-term character development and a satisfying follow-up where he resolves to do better and actually does by finally regaining Charizard's trust and winning the Orange League (which was a great battle).
This sort of thing is more common in general than you'd think, where something targeted at younger audiences brings back older characters and concepts either because the writers/designs like them or to get some mileage out of the periphery of veterans.
This is a bizarre take. Every saga after Johto has experimented with something new. Johto for the most part aside from doing more proper Gym battles was the only saga that didn't experiment much. You sound like you're 20 years late with this argument. AG was the most experimental saga at the time it debuted.
