Controversial opinions

[Sai]

I think the writers are just against any female character trying Gyms because it steps too much on Ash's toes. Even when we have girls more focused on battling like Iris it's independent of Ash's Gyms. It would explain why we went 25 years without anyone doing Gyms to date.

 

[DawningWinds]

I think the writers are just against any female character trying Gyms because it steps too much on Ash's toes. Even when we have girls more focused on battling like Iris it's independent of Ash's Gyms. It would explain why we went 25 years without anyone doing Gyms to date.

Iris also didn't exist in a region that explicitly had two distinct gym circuits; yeah Iris doing gyms would've been kinda awkward because we woulda been watching Ash battle a gym leader and then Iris immediately battle the same gym leader pretty much every time most likely and that would probably feel repetitive. But in a Galar-based anime if Gloria did the minor league while Ash did the major league they'd be battling different gyms; so this wouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

Honestly that looks awful. Can't comprehend why anyone think Gloria on the cast with no goal would be a good thing.

And yet that STILL looks 1000x better than we got

And if they could come up with Project Mew for Goh then I'm SURE they could've come up with some kind of Anime exclusive goal for Gloria

 

[Sai]

And yet that STILL looks 1000x better than we got

And if they could come up with Project Mew for Goh then I'm SURE they could've come up with some kind of Anime exclusive goal for Gloria

Looking at pieces of art with Gloria cooking doesn't give me any confidence it's better than anything. Fanart can make anything look exciting.

 

[Hidden Mew]

There's no side quests in the Sword/Shield games. If Ash does Gyms what is she to do?

They didn't have sidequests in X/Y either, but they still had Serena and created a goal for her. Granted, I still think that Showcases are terrible and were handled poorly too, so it's not the best example of an anime exclusive goal. My point is that they could have potentially given Gloria an anime exclusive goal. The lack of a sidequest doesn't necessarily mean that they can't use the playable female lead or that she'd end up doing nothing.

Also even if Gloria was a main character the chance of her doing Gyms when May/Dawn/Serena didn't was zero. She would have Eevee and most likely have similar development Koharu did as the main girl

I don't know about that. It's possible that Gloria could have still gotten an Eevee. Even without a new Eeveelution on the horizon, the popularity of Eevee and becoming more of a secondary mascot for the franchise still might have made them want to give someone on the main cast an Eevee. But I have serious doubts that Gloria would have had similar development as Chloe has, in large part because Gloria would actually be a main character and would get more consistent focus/screentime than Chloe has. They could have given Gloria a similar issue of not knowing what goal she wanted to do, but I don't think that would be dragged out nearly as much as it has been for Chloe. Even Serena found her goal by the end of XY's first year.

I think the writers are just against any female character trying Gyms because it steps too much on Ash's toes. Even when we have girls more focused on battling like Iris it's independent of Ash's Gyms. It would explain why we went 25 years without anyone doing Gyms to date.

I think that the problem has more to do with how going through each Gym at least twice would be repetitive. The idea of having a prominent female trainer doing Gyms sounds cool, but going through Gym matches multiple times in a row, especially if Ash or the female character loses, would get old really fast and the pacing would be terrible. Despite Iris' goal requiring her to battle frequently, she honestly wasn't really into training her Pokemon or giving them more battling experience. She'd battle in those Club tournaments, but she really wasn't shown to be that interested in battling more often. I couldn't really see Iris taking the time to battle each Gym Leader after Ash did in BW given her personality and team members in mind.

As much as I do like the idea of a more traditional Galar journey, I don't think it would have been perfect or even necessarily better than Journeys. It would have been able to showcase new Pokemon, characters and location much more often than Journeys has, which definitely would have been nice, but it still would have had its own fair share of problems. I think fans tend to put this ideal version of what a traditional Galar series could have been on a pedestal just because of the issues people have with Journeys. I can understand that, especially when push comes to shove I would have preferred a more traditional Galar journey, or at least have Journeys set in Galar, but I don't think it's fair to say that fanart is so much better than what we have now. As a side note, while I do like that set of fanart, Ash really does not look good in a red coat.

 

[Sai]

I agree with all of that and good points. A lot of people have this idealized version of Galar in their minds and I don't think Gloria would have been treated any more a battler than the last few girls. Due to Eevee's prominence I do think she would have gotten one though, and since Koharu wouldn't have existed I do think she would have had her development just on the main cast.

 

[Rainbow-Rain]

There is also one very important thing that people tend to forget about:

Considering that Gloria is an MC in the games, It is a 100% guarantee that she would've gotten a Galar Starter

May, Dawn, and Serena all got Starters of their corresponding regions (Even Marina/Kris and Lyra got Starters) so it's most definitely certain that Gloria would've gotten either Sobble, Scorbunny, or Grookey

So even if Gloria HAD gotten an Eevee, it would've taken a backseat to her Starter because unlike Yamper who got tossed to the wayside as soon as Chloe's Eevee arrived, they would've never been allowed to pull that shit on a STARTER

 

[SlyGecko]

Unlike most people, I don't want Gloria as a main character if journeys was a sword and shield anime. Sonia on the other hand I would of loved to see be a main character. It would be a change of pace. Have an older female travel with Ash to look out for him like a big sister instead of a girl around Ash's age.

 

[DawningWinds]

Unlike most people, I don't want Gloria as a main character if journeys was a sword and shield anime. Sonia on the other hand I would of loved to see be a main character. It would be a change of pace. Have an older female travel with Ash to look out for him like a big sister instead of a girl around Ash's age.

Sonia could be an interesting companion character, I agree; we've had Brock fill an older sibling type role in the cast before so I don't see why this isn't something that could happen again, and Sonia would probably be a good fit for it; they could probably adapt her focus on studying Galar's myths relatively easily as well.
My main thing is that there should be some sort of female representation in the main cast for sure, and she really oughta be doing something.

 

[ripplefieldz]

Today I will remind you all about what we could've had

View attachment 158093

bold of you to assume they would've let hop in the main trio and not chosen some fuckoff random gym leader for that spot instead, to my knowledge dp is the only series that handled it's game rival well (bw got close but they kind of. forgot cheren) i say this as if i don't have my own hypothetical galar series that not only has hop in the main trio but also sonia. sorry gloria ig i just don't give two shits about the player characters

 

[Blob]

Keep in mind most of this would have had to been planned out in 2016 before any DLC existed. So most other Gym leaders didn't exist back then and the other characters are rivals. The writers had to swap out Wallace for Juan and Drayden for Roxie because new games changed their original plans. The writers never know when a saga is planned what will change in sequels or DLC a few years later as we've seen.

Also even if Gloria was a main character the chance of her doing Gyms when May/Dawn/Serena didn't was zero. She would have Eevee and most likely have similar development Koharu did as the main girl

I mean the IoA DLC content could have been added to the anime once Gloria had about 3 badges and since they don't need to reveal who's a Gym Leader right away, they could have had an IoA arc that lasted for 8 episodes that revealed the two minor league Gym Leaders there. The CT DLC could have also had two minor league GLs with Peony and Peonia.

Major league:
Milo
Nessa
Kabu
Bea
Opal
Melony
Piers
Raihan

Minor league:
Allister
Gordie
Marnie
Avery
Klara
Bede
Peonia
Peony

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Sonia even could have been a great main character. I think you could show her going through doing her research on Galar's history and even add in the infamous Swordward and Shielbert as antagonists for her.

 

[Eitarou]

They have Avery and Klara as givens for minor league gym leaders, and could probably use whichever of Bea/Allister and Gordie/Melony they didn't usd in the major league for minor league gym leaders; so they'd only have to introduce about four new characters assuming minor league requires eight badges, which isn't too bad, and it'd let them show off all the version exclusive gym leaders in battles.

The point of the Minor League is that's for Gym Leaders who lose too many times and are considered too weak to be part of the Gym Challenge. It's "league" as in "division or section", not something people go on a quest for.

 

[DawningWinds]

The point of the Minor League is that's for Gym Leaders who lose too many times and are considered too weak to be part of the Gym Challenge. It's "league" as in "division or section", not something people go on a quest for.

Not necessarily? Like yes the gym leaders there aren't as strong but that doesn't necessarily mean trainers don't challenge the gyms? It's just probably less of a big deal and not gated as strictly.

 

[Weddingbells]

Honestly gloria or the new female companion can hopefully get a ranger goal.

 

[DawningWinds]

Honestly gloria or the new female companion can hopefully get a ranger goal.

A ranger goal would be fun; I'm kinda surprised they didn't ever do that back in the gens the ranger games came out in; a ranger companion would definitely stand out from other companions if done well.

 

[Weddingbells]

A ranger goal would be fun; I'm kinda surprised they didn't ever do that back in the gens the ranger games came out in; a ranger companion would definitely stand out from other companions if done well.

Exactly! It's a perfect battle oriented goal (nothing wrong with non battle goals tho) and it would work so well for the anime. Maybe the final battle for the companion can be Giovanni

This may be unpopular but so many people see ash battling Giovanni like it was build up, but was it really? I think he only met Giovanni once, in BW. (If not it's only a few times). Other than that the most he deals with are Jessie ,James and Meowth where he blast them off and doesn't even think about them. He never really is concerned with taking down TR organization like Red is in the manga and games. So might as well give that to a companion like a ranger

Please don't forget them pokemon company lol

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

You know, now that I think about it, does Serena interacting with Ash automatically have to mean Amourshipping? I'm saying this because I just think it's silly that some people tend to assume that Ash and Serena interacting in any capacity automatically means it's shipping bait. Yeah, sure, the shippers themselves might turn it into that, but it really isn't? Like, Ash genuinely thinks of Serena as a close friend and she does the same. Just because she has a crush on him doesn't change that fact.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I'd argue that Serena's return in Journeys is probably among the best. Its because its shown that she's grown as a character and there really is more to her than Amourshipping. Her interactions with Ash had no hint of the crush. It was mostly great to see you again, keep doing your best. It was still satisfying to see. You can tell her solo journey has changed her even more since XY. She's significantly more confident and you see she's made progress, and it helps that Braixen has evolved and her Pokemon have new moves. While I can see more to her than Amourshipping through her journey in XY, I hope this recent episode can show people there's more to her than her crush on Ash.

 

[Sai]

Serena and Iris both advanced the most since we last saw them with progression and new pokemon. Now their characters feel complete with fully evolved Braxien and Axew and towards their goals.. Dawn would have been behind them if she had a new evolution but but still does Contests off-screen. Brock is a full fledged doctor now and has a Blissey and also has gotten powerful at battling again with the Mega evolution. Bonnie/Clemont's return was great too and the Alola cast have been treated well so far, they just need to do something with Lillie in the next return which I'm sure they will anyway.