Probably because a lot of Journeys can be summed up with the following:I don't understand.
I should be excited for this.
It's a 2-Parter and it has Dawn and Cynthia in large roles
I should be excited for this.
I should be feeling hyped.
But.... I can't. I just can't feel hyped for this
And the worst part is that I can't even understand why?
Honestly, the series that handled it the best was Sun and Moon. It handled the "parallel world" trope better than XY had in that it actually presented a parallel WORLD, not just a parallel world in that "its the same world but the characters are different". That's honestly rare to see in media because every parallel world concept I've seen mainly focuses on the parallels of characters, and unless its done for a reason(e.g a character confronting his past when he sees the road he could have gone down in his parallel self), it doesn't really serve a real purpose in the narrative. In Sun and Moon, the entire two-parter where Ash went to that parallel world actually felt relevant to its narrative because not only did it help the world-building of Alola, but it also looked into Ash's character. Simple question: when have we seen Ash act homesick before? It's pretty telling that the answer is from that two-parter and it really deserves more love than it gets. (I swear, I could write an essay on those two episodes alone...)
Those two episodes were the best of SM because Ash actually acted consistently serious and there was no comedy, and the story was intriguing.
Would still be nice since these cameos are also aimed at people who grew up with DP and are used to Ash and Dawn interacting. Not to mention in-universe it's been a long time since Dawn and Ash saw each other too since Unova prior to these cameos. I don't remember the writers going out of their way not to have Ash interact with a main girl in any past cameo arc
Yea, it would honestly be sad if, with her partner out of the picture, the writers still pretend that he’s her only Pokémon.
So what if they had that much together, it’s a reunion of old friends. One thing that’s generally looked forward to when it comes to a reunion is the characters that are reuniting interacting and showing how they’ve grown since being apart. Sure they can have Dawn interact with Go and Koharu, but they shouldn’t just cut any dynamic between her and Ash. You wouldn’t go to a reunion of some old friends and never interact in any meaningful way while most of the interaction is with the friend you brought. Like look at Sun and Moon’s reunion with Misty and Brock; they got interaction with the classmates, but it didn’t come at the expense of their interaction with Ash. The same should be the case here.
I mean, that never stopped the other returning characters from having screen time with Ash? A major part of a returning character, returning is the reunion aspect.
Brock was important during DP. He just is more associated with the Kanto era, since that's where he debuted.
Brock was mentioned a couple of times during the Dakrai/Cresselia arc, with Dawn crediting him for her knowledge of using herbal medicine. The writers definitely didn't forget his role as a travelling companion in DP. He simply hasn't appeared in the Sinnoh mini-arcs yet because there's no real reason for him to do so. As Finnish mentioned, Brock's mainly associated with Kanto, so having him randomly appear in mini-arcs that are clearly meant to be Gen 4 advertisements would feel kinda weird.
