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Do you think Ash's JN Team is the Worst Team he's ever had?

Is the JN Team the Worst Ash Team?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 46.0%
  • No

    Votes: 27 54.0%

  • Total voters
    50
Maybe not. If his last several matches with Volkner, Bea, and Marnie are any indication for the more difficult fights to come, he's fully capable of pragmatically switching when necessary and battling optimally with his various powerups.
By rotation I mean Ash forgets to bring his other Pokémon along, which is why Sirfetch'd only ever turns up to lose. We could have got a training episode with Sirfetch'd like learning a STAB move that does damage. So no, I wouldn't say most development is done, especially since we never get to see Pokémon interact.
 
The Cerise Institute set-up does lessen the dynamics we tend to see when Ash and his friends are camping out, even the Sun and Moon series showed us the teams in downtime. Nowadays if there's a group shot it's usually because the scene is setting up something, such as exposition on the next destination or unusual behaviour by an individual that will be important to the plot later, like Drizzile being moody.
 
The Cerise Institute set-up does lessen the dynamics we tend to see when Ash and his friends are camping out, even the Sun and Moon series showed us the teams in downtime. Nowadays if there's a group shot it's usually because the scene is setting up something, such as exposition on the next destination or unusual behaviour by an individual that will be important to the plot later, like Drizzile being moody.
What also doesn't help is how we haven't got a single episode of just seeing Ash's Pokémon hang out in the lab. We used to get Oak's lab episodes where we saw his ranch, but not a single episode is dedicated to the Pokémon we're supposed to care about just hanging out. Say what you want about Johto, but we at least got plenty of that.
 
What also doesn't help is how we haven't got a single episode of just seeing Ash's Pokémon hang out in the lab. We used to get Oak's lab episodes where we saw his ranch, but not a single episode is dedicated to the Pokémon we're supposed to care about just hanging out. Say what you want about Johto, but we at least got plenty of that.
What’s even worse is that really any time that we do have any focus on Sakuragi Park and the Pokémon living there, it‘s alway Go’s Pokémon while they completely ignore that Ash’s team
lives there as well.
 
What also doesn't help is how we haven't got a single episode of just seeing Ash's Pokémon hang out in the lab. We used to get Oak's lab episodes where we saw his ranch, but not a single episode is dedicated to the Pokémon we're supposed to care about just hanging out. Say what you want about Johto, but we at least got plenty of that.
I'd swap any of the two in one episodes for an episode that follows Ash's team starting out with downtime and seeing where it goes from there, or another Oak's Lab episode where Ash's reserves are. Heck, the latter could be an opportunity to use Tracey, who's appearances after Orange Islands have been rare at best. We haven't got an Oak's Lab episode set around the pokemon since one or two of the Chronicles episodes, that's four regions worth of teams Ash has stored there (his Alola team stayed in that region) to look at dynamics with. Corphish and Totodile would get along for example.
 
  • Pikachu: Probably the one who fares better but not by much, in battle it's mostly used to showcase gimmicks and steal attention, and doesn't have much of a relationship with other Pokemon.
  • Dragonite: Completed his story of learning Dragon Dance and becoming a formidable Dragonite in 15 minutes. Nowadays it's a reliable powerhouse and transport...But it's role isn't that bad and could be compared to past series' flyers like Noivern or Pigeotto, the problem is that it hasn't had much opportunities to put its motherly personality to use.
  • Lucario: Ugh, where to start. A pampered baby that was praised for bullying other Pokemon after hatching, a "concentration" subplot that went nowhere, an evolution that had nothing to do with friendship, a terrible filler, a convenient aura gimmick that's used for resolving conflicts easily instead of solving the mysteries from DP, an horrendous Mega stone episode resolved with comedy, I could go on...
Thanks a lot for providing extremely useful criticism for my JN rewrite, I have more idea to make Ash‘s Lucario arc now, I am always thinking of him and I am starting to figure out what his personality should be :)
 
There's still Johto. That team is so bottom barrel where the only Pokémon that mattered were the three starters and even then, only one evolved, Tododile was only used in one gym battle as Miltank fodder, Noctowl had no personality and one notable gym battle. Bayleef really is the only one who had anything resembling a character arc. Heracross was ditched early for no reason (God forbid he have a non starter or TR Ballon poper), and Phany came way to late to do anything. Doesn't help half the team started with Kanto holdovers that had to slowly be weeded out and therefore stunted their own growth

The team was so bad Ash completely ditched them for his last Gym battle to bring in his powerhouses because they were to weak to do anything. Imagine if that happened in any other series and how embarrassing that be, the writers literally canonically presented the team as too weak and ineffective in a gym battle where that's usually a time where the team comes together and show all they learned before moving on to the league

Johto team still had the benefit of more screen time and interaction though so that's one thing it has over JN even if that screen time and interactions was mostly fluff
 
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I'd swap any of the two in one episodes for an episode that follows Ash's team starting out with downtime and seeing where it goes from there, or another Oak's Lab episode where Ash's reserves are. Heck, the latter could be an opportunity to use Tracey, who's appearances after Orange Islands have been rare at best. We haven't got an Oak's Lab episode set around the pokemon since one or two of the Chronicles episodes, that's four regions worth of teams Ash has stored there (his Alola team stayed in that region) to look at dynamics with. Corphish and Totodile would get along for example.
It's why I hated Pokémon Sunday or whatever Chronicles was replaced with in Japan.
 
It's why I hated Pokémon Sunday or whatever Chronicles was replaced with in Japan.
They replaced it because the specials never did all that well because Japanese fans really didn't care about seeing Richie, Casey, Misty and Tracey all that much. Japanese kids want to see new Pokemon which back then was new Hoenn pokemon. That's actually why we barely saw anything of Misty after Hoenn all the way till Sun/Moon. Special episodes have never actually been popular.
 
There's still Johto. That team is so bottom barrel where the only Pokémon that mattered were the three starters and even then, only one evolved, Tododile was only used in one gym battle as Miltank fodder, Noctowl had no personality and one notable gym battle. Bayleef really is the only one who had anything resembling a character arc. Heracross was ditched early for no reason (God forbid he have a non starter or TR Ballon poper), and Phany came way to late to do anything. Doesn't help half the team started with Kanto holdovers that had to slowly be weeded out and therefore stunted their own growth

The team was so bad Ash completely ditched them for his last Gym battle to bring in his powerhouses because they were to weak to do anything. Imagine if that happened in any other series and how embarrassing that be, the writers literally canonically presented the team as too weak and ineffective in a gym battle where that's usually a time where the team comes together and show all they learned before moving on to the league

Johto team still had the benefit of more screen time and interaction though so that's one thing it has over JN even if that screen time and interactions was mostly fluff
Johto's team got it bad because they also had to live in the Kanto team's shadow. They even got shafted at times so the Kanto team could shine. I'd say Cyndaquil/Quilava got it pretty good though at least. He had good screentime, a personality, and he consistently got used in gyms. Cyndaquil did have an arc as well regarding how he struggled with igniting his flames in battle. He ultimately got shafted TWICE though, getting shafted so Bulbasaur could shine, then getting screentime robbed by Team Rocket in his first battle as a Quilava...only to tie.
 
Johto's team got it bad because they also had to live in the Kanto team's shadow. They even got shafted at times so the Kanto team could shine. I'd say Cyndaquil/Quilava got it pretty good though at least. He had good screentime, a personality, and he consistently got used in gyms. Cyndaquil did have an arc as well regarding how he struggled with igniting his flames in battle. He ultimately got shafted TWICE though, getting shafted so Bulbasaur could shine, then getting screentime robbed by Team Rocket in his first battle as a Quilava...only to tie.
That part with them shafting it in its first battle as a Quilava so that they could show TRio was just a sin agains writing in general. A Pokémon Ash hadn’t used in 2 generations comes back and evolves and they think that fans would rather see TRio trying to get sales than a Pokémon battle in the Sinnoh League. What were they thinking? Even worse is that that was the only battle it got so we didn’t even get to see it in action. It’s things like that’s why I don’t mind TRio not appearing much these days.
 
They replaced it because the specials never did all that well because Japanese fans really didn't care about seeing Richie, Casey, Misty and Tracey all that much. Japanese kids want to see new Pokemon which back then was new Hoenn pokemon. That's actually why we barely saw anything of Misty after Hoenn all the way till Sun/Moon. Special episodes have never actually been popular.
That's lame. I wish we could get more specials, since I tend to like them more since you see the world more through the eyes of Pokémon and side characters than the main cast for the billionth time. Only talking about CANON anime and not the spinoff new universe specials we get.
 
This is a genuine question I just want your honest opinions

When watching journeys when did you realize or notice that Ash’s Pokemon weren't getting that much development?

For reference
Ash got Dragonite in JN10
Gengar JN16
Riolu JN21
Farfetch’d JN27
Dracovish JN50
currently JN101 about to be JN102

As I noticed that I didn't seen this stance when he caught Dragonite, Gengar, or even Riolu

And imo the more recent episodes are doing development better but for several people it's too late
 
This is a genuine question I just want your honest opinions

When watching journeys when did you realize or notice that Ash’s Pokemon weren't getting that much development?

For reference
Ash got Dragonite in JN10
Gengar JN16
Riolu JN21
Farfetch’d JN27
Dracovish JN50
currently JN101 about to be JN102

As I noticed that I didn't seen this stance when he caught Dragonite, Gengar, or even Riolu

And imo the more recent episodes are doing development better but for several people it's too late
Because it shouldn't take this long for them get development.
 
This is a genuine question I just want your honest opinions

When watching journeys when did you realize or notice that Ash’s Pokemon weren't getting that much development?

For reference
Ash got Dragonite in JN10
Gengar JN16
Riolu JN21
Farfetch’d JN27
Dracovish JN50
currently JN101 about to be JN102

As I noticed that I didn't seen this stance when he caught Dragonite, Gengar, or even Riolu

And imo the more recent episodes are doing development better but for several people it's too late
Barring JN101 and JN102, your references are the episodes when they were caught... Naturally, they would get focus in those episodes, especially if it's their first time being animated.

I'm pretty sure by "development" people are referring to episodes that substantially characterize them outside of the episode they were caught. That your last two references have a 50 episode gap regarding significant character development should tell you something. Granted, there have been episodes inbetween that gap (like Farfetch'd training to be a knight and its battle with Gurdurr)…but they are quite few and far in-between for any new team member not named Lucario relative to the amount of episodes we have.

When's the last time Ash's entire JN party interacted with each other for more than a minute? More than several stills?
 
This is a genuine question I just want your honest opinions

When watching journeys when did you realize or notice that Ash’s Pokemon weren't getting that much development?

For reference
Ash got Dragonite in JN10
Gengar JN16
Riolu JN21
Farfetch’d JN27
Dracovish JN50
currently JN101 about to be JN102

As I noticed that I didn't seen this stance when he caught Dragonite, Gengar, or even Riolu

And imo the more recent episodes are doing development better but for several people it's too late
It took Dracovish 13 episodes to just physically appear again following its debut. That should tell you something right there.
 
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