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Controversial opinions

I'd be fine with Ash using reserves if this was a Round Robin competition and he'd battle all seven. But he's only facing three and the Journeys team still needs to make up for the lackluster treatment they received during most of the show's run.
That's a big reason why the lack of reserves doesn't bother me. Since he's only battling three opponents and his Journeys team has still gotten minimal screentime compared to most of Ash's other teams, I think throwing in reserves would just make it more of a mess. Granted, the fact that I didn't think that they'd bring in Ash's reserves well before it was confirmed probably helps, but with this setup, I think throwing in more Pokemon would cause more problems.

It would have been the best of both worlds if he mixed and matched. His Journey's team already has had nearly the same amount of battles as Gyms as most previous pokemon have besides Ash's starter. When you remember stuff like Noviern never getting a Gym battle, Goodra only being in 1, Torracat never getting a Kahuna battle, Torkoal only getting 1 Gym, Snorunt only getting 1 Gym where it lost, Totodile only getting 1 Gym where it lost, Noctowl only getting 1 Gym, Gible never getting a Gym, Taillow being treated poorly until it evolved, etc....the way Dracovish/Sirfetch'd are treated is not much different.

If you view Lucario as the way Ash's starters are treated, it basically has a little less focus than a usual starter each series but the same amount of "big" battles.
I don't think most of those comparisons really work. Sure, Torracat didn' get a Kahuna battle, but it still got a good amount of focus througout SM. Same with Goodra, arguably Gible, at least as far as late captures go, and Taillow since it did become one of Ash's main Pokemon of his AG team. Even Torkoal had more presence than Dracovish and Sirfetch'd. I can't really say the same thing for most of Ash's Pokemon in Journeys. The only comparisons that really work are with Ash's Johto Pokemon like Totodile and Noctowl, as well as Noivern, which were pretty underused in general.

That's kind of the big problem with Ash's Journeys team. His Pokemon only get screentime when they battle. We don't see much on-screen training or interactions, which has been a huge issue for most of Journeys' run. They only get screentime if they're being captured, evolving, getting a power up or in a battle. Other Pokemon in other series not getting much battles isn't really the same thing as how Ash's Journeys team has been handled. Like I've said before, this is an issue with how Pokemon in general have been handled in this series, so it isn't exclusive to Ash's team. It might feel more apparent with his team given how people would be cheering if Gengar even had five seconds worth of screentime, but the same applies to pretty much every Pokemon in this series.

It's just sad, to me, that this series with its premise presented a seemingly great opportunity for the reserves to get "one last hurrah," but instead it's been made clear they will never be used in battle again.
I can understand that since getting to see Ash use his older Pokemon against Champions certainly sounds cool and it would potentially make his victories more believable. Although, given how many Pokemon Ash has at this point, it would be kind of difficult to give a lot of them any noteworthy spotlight, especially when they would rather focus more on Ash's cool and marketable Pokemon like Charizard and Greninja before doing anything with his Quilava or Torkoal.
 
I don't think that they could have achieved the same thing with Lance mainly because we already saw Leon defeat him at the start of the series. It was a short one-on-one battle that didn't involve Lance's Charizard, but Leon defeating Lance twice wouldn't have much of an impact even if they were both using Charizard.
I agree it won't have much of an impact, but a rematch between Leon and Lance is still very much on the table, and I don't think the writers are aware that nobody wants to see that. Even Lance's VA said he hoped the rematch would happen, and seeing as how he obviously must have known ahead of time, that could either be seen as foreshadowing or a misdirection. I guess it's irrelevant though, because the special preview seemed to imply that Leon was beating Alain with base Charizard. I find this hilarious and sad.

It would be preferable to have more of a reason to bring back Alain than that, but I'm not sure if Ash defeating Alain in a training match would really create the same kind of excitement as Ash defeating Alain in the tournament proper.
That's true, but I still think a rematch is likely based on how this series has treated nearly all past returns. For Alain of all people to be the only returning rival that Ash doesn't battle (aside from Gary, which is understandable), I'd be convinced they were actively trolling the audience. It would kind of feel like the Serena-gating in JN105, where Ash wasn't allowed to interact with her for more than 10 seconds. Maybe the writers are simply afraid of giving fans something they want too much.

I don't remember how that episode retcon the Battle Frontier.
They just slapped the name onto a random one-off tournament, presumably just to include it in the episode title as part of their early clickbait operation. The tournament itself shared no similarity to either the anime or game versions of the Battle Frontier, although apparently might have been loosely based on the Battle Tent facilities in Emerald. It's a stretch regardless.
 
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I don't think most of those comparisons really work. Sure, Torracat didn' get a Kahuna battle, but it still got a good amount of focus througout SM. Same with Goodra, arguably Gible, at least as far as late captures go, and Taillow since it did become one of Ash's main Pokemon of his AG team. Even Torkoal had more presence than Dracovish and Sirfetch'd. I can't really say the same thing for most of Ash's Pokemon in Journeys. The only comparisons that really work are with Ash's Johto Pokemon like Totodile and Noctowl, as well as Noivern, which were pretty underused in general.
I was strictly talking about battles, but even in the older seasons people would probably be surprised how little major battles Ash's Pokemon get. Or stuff like Grovyle losing embarrassingly to a Luvdisc in Juan's gym, a Gym he should of starred in due to being a grass type. And as I mentioned, Ash's late captures each series like Phanpy, Snorunt, Noviern, Melmetal, Gible, etc. usually never get Gym battles or miss them altogether. So Dracovish/Sirfetch'd are not handled much differently, and Dracovish already has two major battles under its belt.

If you compare where his Journey's team is now to most previous teams, they have almost the same amount of important battles if you view each PWC battle as equivalant to Gyms for older regions. It's just that they don't get as much screentime outside of it for fillers or regular battles against random trainers, and that's the big flaw with them.
 
I was strictly talking about battles, but even in the older seasons people would probably be surprised how little major battles Ash's Pokemon get. Or stuff like Grovyle losing embarrassingly to a Luvdisc in Juan's gym, a Gym he should of starred in due to being a grass type. And as I mentioned, Ash's late captures each series like Phanpy, Snorunt, Noviern, Melmetal, Gible, etc. usually never get Gym battles or miss them altogether. So Dracovish/Sirfetch'd are not handled much differently, and Dracovish already has two major battles under its belt.
The fact that Sirfetch'd and Dracovish aren't late series captures is a pretty big difference though. They could have easily done more with Dracovish given that it was captured relatively early in the series, at least for a sixth Pokemon. Even having two major battles under its belt feels pretty weak with that in mind. It really does feel like a waste of a slot. Yeah, other Pokemon in Ash's previous teams didn't get a lot of major battles either, but that seems kind of irrelevant. It doesn't make how Sirfetch'd or Dracovish were handled any better or more acceptable. It's still bad all around.

If you compare where his Journey's team is now to most previous teams, they have almost the same amount of important battles if you view each PWC battle as equivalant to Gyms for older regions. It's just that they don't get as much screentime outside of it for fillers or regular battles against random trainers, and that's the big flaw with them.
Given how I feel about the PWC battles, comparing them to Gym battles doesn't quite work for me, especially when it's hard to make a good chuck of the PWC matches actually feel important. I agree with how the big problem is that they don't get screetime outside of battles though. Their screentime begins and ends on the battlefield practically. Outside of Lucario and maybe Sirfetch'd, they don't really get much focus and even with those two, they pretty much disappeared after evolving. It isn't just not being featured in filler episodes or battling against regular trainers. It's the lack of interactions between the Pokemon themselves and how they generally don't have a lot to really work with giving them conflicts or storylines.

This is a big reason why I think it was a huge mistake to give Ash fully evolved Pokemon like Dragonite and Gengar. It was cool and unexpected at the time, but aside from learning new moves, there wasn't a lot for the writers to actually do with them, which really compounds with the screentime issue for Pokemon in general for this series. The same pretty much applied to Ash's other Pokemon after they evolved. Giving Ash a fully evolved team, outside of Pikachu of course, roughly halfway through Journeys probably didn't help matters either. His team was already done evolving before he even got to the Hyper Class, so aside from learning new moves and gaining new power ups like Mega Evolutions and Gigantamax, there wasn't much conflict for his Pokemon to overcome. I think it's more satisfying to see Ash's Pokemon evolve over the course of a series as opposed to giving him mostly fully evolved Pokemon right off the bat if Journeys is any indication.
 
The fact that Sirfetch'd and Dracovish aren't late series captures is a pretty big difference though. They could have easily done more with Dracovish given that it was captured relatively early in the series, at least for a sixth Pokemon. Even having two major battles under its belt feels pretty weak with that in mind. It really does feel like a waste of a slot. Yeah, other Pokemon in Ash's previous teams didn't get a lot of major battles either, but that seems kind of irrelevant. It doesn't make how Sirfetch'd or Dracovish were handled any better or more acceptable. It's still bad all around.


Given how I feel about the PWC battles, comparing them to Gym battles doesn't quite work for me, especially when it's hard to make a good chuck of the PWC matches actually feel important. I agree with how the big problem is that they don't get screetime outside of battles though. Their screentime begins and ends on the battlefield practically. Outside of Lucario and maybe Sirfetch'd, they don't really get much focus and even with those two, they pretty much disappeared after evolving. It isn't just not being featured in filler episodes or battling against regular trainers. It's the lack of interactions between the Pokemon themselves and how they generally don't have a lot to really work with giving them conflicts or storylines.

This is a big reason why I think it was a huge mistake to give Ash fully evolved Pokemon like Dragonite and Gengar. It was cool and unexpected at the time, but aside from learning new moves, there wasn't a lot for the writers to actually do with them, which really compounds with the screentime issue for Pokemon in general for this series. The same pretty much applied to Ash's other Pokemon after they evolved. Giving Ash a fully evolved team, outside of Pikachu of course, roughly halfway through Journeys probably didn't help matters either. His team was already done evolving before he even got to the Hyper Class, so aside from learning new moves and gaining new power ups like Mega Evolutions and Gigantamax, there wasn't much conflict for his Pokemon to overcome. I think it's more satisfying to see Ash's Pokemon evolve over the course of a series as opposed to giving him mostly fully evolved Pokemon right off the bat if Journeys is any indication.
My thing is there's more to a Pokemon development than just evolution. I feel like this mindset is why pokemon like talonflame and staraptor basically stopped having a personality and arc after they fully evolved. Gengar could have issues getting over being abandoned and barely trusting ash, Lucario can have an arc trying to control his aura, maybe do an arc with sirfetch chilvarly or something. There so many ways to develop them and it shouldnt stop after they fully evolve
 
I know not a lot of people is going to like my reason but I like Ash's Journeys Team mostly of the fact that this team is first of Ash's mons to defeat a champion and an elite four without using Pikachu and his three (Z-Moves, Mega Evolution & G-Max) gimmicks mind you and those battles involves Dracovish.
 
I would rather call it a missed opportunity than a controversial opinion, but it's the thread with the closest theme that resembles my remark: Pokémon forgetting moves was an interesting concept, but I would have liked it better if Trainers were shown to forget experience, and maybe even reverting back to an younger behavior (Meowth was seen behaving like a regular Meowth), like Ash recovering his early personality. I don't know, I just think it's weird that the only effect on humans is rejuvenation when Pokémon also forgot moves.
 
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Also it sucks that that their development is mostly offscreen but I feel like Ash's Journeys team is testament of his skills as trainer that he managed to get his team with help of course to be capable of defeating elite trainers in a short amount of time.
 
My thing is there's more to a Pokemon development than just evolution. I feel like this mindset is why pokemon like talonflame and staraptor basically stopped having a personality and arc after they fully evolved. Gengar could have issues getting over being abandoned and barely trusting ash, Lucario can have an arc trying to control his aura, maybe do an arc with sirfetch chilvarly or something. There so many ways to develop them and it shouldnt stop after they fully evolve
Oh I agree that they could more to develop them. I just think that making his team fully evolved so quickly limits more of what they can do with them. Given the screentime issue for Pokemon and Journeys being too fast paced for its own good, I'm not surprised that they didn't want to stretch out storylines for his Pokemon longer than a couple of episodes.
 
Eh I had no interest in Ash capturing a Dratini or Gastly. Him capturing them evolved was fine and it made more sense how they could battle especially since Gengar was owned by a previous trainer. He hatched a baby Riolu and caught Farfetched unevolved so they only did it with two pokemon
 
Eh I had no interest in Ash capturing a Dratini or Gastly. Him capturing them evolved was fine and it made more sense how they could battle especially since Gengar was owned by a previous trainer. He hatched a baby Riolu and caught Farfetched unevolved so they only did it with two pokemon
We could count Dracovish too since it is a single stage Pokemon and basically had the same problems of getting fully evolved Pokemon as well. I don't know if they would have been handled that much better as a Dratini or Gastly, mainly because of the screentime issue for Pokemon as a whole in Journeys, but I don't think that giving him fully evolved Pokemon, even if t was just two, was a good idea.
 
I would have preferred Satoshi only using past Aces in the Masters Tournament.

Since this series has utterly failed to give me a reason to care about the current team.
They are a bunch of flat, bland, stereotyped and disjointed Pokemon.

Why should I root for them in the first place?
That is the other reason why I didn't want Satoshi in the Masters 8.
 
Gengar has received a lot of great focus lately that I'm certainly excited to see him against Steven. I also want to see Sirfetch'd get some moment of glory. Dragonite has also been evened out by two losses.

Basically on paper I like his Pokemon personalities, when they do get focus I remember they actually do have well developed personalities. Ash's Dragonite would have been hugging everyone constantly on any previous saga like he did with Clemont
 
That reminds me, I really don't like when the writers use the abandoned pokemon backstory if there not gonna do anything Interesting with it. There was a scene where aliston talks to Gengar and says "you finally found people that care about you" or something like that

Excuse me? Where.was any indication that Gengar was affected by the abandonment past the capture episode??? That could of been a great arc for Gengar. Learning how to trust humans and.ash specifically. Would of been more interesting than max shroom thing. Would of made his connection with the other fire types stronger. But nah he basically gets over it after the episode
 
That's basically what they do with all of them though, besides Chimchar since Paul stuck around.

We never saw Damian again after Ash got Charmander and it was fine till it evolved. Tepig never had any problems and that Shamus guy was only in 1 episode. Gengar also being a ghost and fully evolved pokemon showed it was haunted the lab/house in the beginning of the show, which feels fitting for a ghost pokemon.
 
That's basically what they do with all of them though, besides Chimchar since Paul stuck around.

We never saw Damian again after Ash got Charmander and it was fine till it evolved. Tepig never had any problems and that Shamus guy was only in 1 episode. Gengar also being a ghost and fully evolved pokemon showed it was haunted the lab/house in the beginning of the show, which feels fitting for a ghost pokemon.
Not really. It was shown prior that tepig had insecurities. He seemed to take losses harder than any one of ash BW team.

Yeah that's fitting, but it doesn't seem that affected to the whole abandonment subplot. You can take his old trainer out and just say Gengar just haunts it and nothing will change

I'll give Charmander a pass considering that was the first time they implemented those backstory
 
Not really. It was shown prior that tepig had insecurities. He seemed to take losses harder than any one of ash BW team.

Yeah that's fitting, but it doesn't seem that affected to the whole abandonment subplot. You can take his old trainer out and just say Gengar just haunts it and nothing will change

I'll give Charmander a pass considering that was the first time they implemented those backstory

If you rewatch Gengar's first few episodes, it haunting the lab and the professors house was a direct result of it being abandoned.
 
If you rewatch Gengar's first few episodes, it haunting the lab and the professors house was a direct result of it being abandoned.
Your misunderstanding me. Ik why Gengar was originally there. I'm saying the way Gengar acted, you could just replace his backstory with him just randomly haunting the lab and nothing will change.

They don't indicate he pranks ash and the others because of trauma
They don't say anything about the abandonment after the capture episode

That's why I said if you take out his old trainer, nothing will change
 
Gengar wasn't traumatized though, this is not a case of being left to die like Charmander or abuse like Paul/Chimchar or Tepig.
 
Gengar wasn't traumatized though, this is not a case of being left to die like Charmander or abuse like Paul/Chimchar or Tepig.
Wdym? He was lied to and left alone for years and years. How is that not traumatizing??

Abuse isn't just physical. And just because it doesn't involve death doesn't mean it's not traumatic. The fact that Gengar said Ike.im gonna trust a filthy human_ or whatever pretty much debunks he wasn't traumatized. The issue is that they barely did anything with it
 
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