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Review JN120: Koharu and Eievui, the Possibilities are Endless!

This was an absolute waste of time. Chloe's storyline has been a complete and utter waste of time, and its worse considering they interrupted the Masters 8 for this. All the Eeveelution promotion and episodes amounted to nothing. I know most of us suspected they'd take this route, but it doesn't change how disappointed I am that they did. Chloe is probably one of the biggest cases of wasted potential I've ever seen.
 
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Guess I’ll be in the minority and say I liked most of Chloe’s focus eps just fine but how they choose to end it? In a episode mostly about Prof Cersie with no satisfying conclusion to her arc and instead just telling us what we already no? Yeah that kinda sucks
 
Well, this just summaries my feelings of Koharu.
She’s not interesting to me. In fact, the random characters that were in her episodes are more engaging than her, as they actually have goals and something to strive for, like Professor Cerise. He grows up, like Clefable, moves on and dedicates his time to a passion, whilst giving the reason he does what he does.

Meanwhile, what does Koharu actually want to do? We’ve spent so many episodes with her, and she feels exactly the same in her core traits. I wouldn’t even say Contests are a destination she wants to be at; it was a one time thing she did that she liked, which is equivalent to Dawn doing Ping-Pong. It doesn’t mean she wants to do it all the time.
Even if you want to give the reason that “it’s about taking your time”, it’s portrayed weakly.
You could probably get the message across stronger if she tried, failed (not necessarily that she loses, but doesn’t have enjoyment), but tries another thing and has success. That shows she doesn’t have to rush as the right thing will soon reveal itself, as it doesn’t have to be the first thing that makes you happy. Instead, you have a plot that has no weight as there’s no urgency to it, so how does the message stick, when in the end, there’s no indication of this paying off?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any of the “Koharu” episodes are bad, they’re just pointless to what Journeys is doing. No matter how good they are, they don’t fit with Journeys as they’re restricted with Koharu not being a main-character, and the main plot doesn’t even allow for the characters to travel and explore all the possibilities without resetting back to Kanto each time. It would have been more fitting in a show that traverses across one region for a few episodes, then another, giving life to each culture and ideas.
Put her in Serena’s shoes, she would come across better than Serena’s character, but Journeys hasn’t allowed that.
 
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Normally, this would just be a harmless, uneventful, ultimately forgettable episode that I would just move on from. But its awkward placement really makes it stand out for the wrong reasons. You know it's bad when you manage to ovetake the Axew episode in terms of crushing the pacing.
 
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Normally, this would just be a harmless, uneventful, ultimately forgettable episode that I would just move on from. But its awkward placement really makes it stand out for the wrong reasons. You know it's bad when you manage to ovetake the Axew episode in terms of crushing the pacing.
PM19 had pacing?

Is that why there's dozens of episodes between PWC and Project Mew progression?
 
Wait. This episode had 8 (yes yes you read this right) animation directors and 2 episode directors.

All of this for an ep where nothing happened and that ultimately amounted to jack.
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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any of the “Koharu” episodes are bad, they’re just pointless to what Journeys is doing. No matter how good they are, they don’t fit with Journeys as they’re restricted with Koharu not being a main-character, and the main plot doesn’t even allow for the characters to travel and explore all the possibilities without resetting back to Kanto each time. It would have been more fitting in a show that traverses across one region for a few episodes, then another, giving life to each culture and ideas.
Put her in Serena’s shoes, she would come across better than Serena’s character, but Journeys hasn’t allowed that.
Sadly that would have required an actual effort that the writers didn’t want to put into this series since they decided that this series should just be bite sized, self contained adventures that you can jump into anywhere without needing to actually watch the show, something Pokémon has never really been about. It’s basically another point among many where they screwed the pooch with this current series which is especially a shame given that this was the 25th anniversary series. You’d really think you’d want to put in your A game for such a thing, yet these writers managed to phone it in worse than any previous series.
 
PM19 had pacing?

Is that why there's dozens of episodes between PWC and Project Mew progression?
Were you expecting a PWC battle every 5 episodes or something? They were paced the same way Gyms were in any previous season.

Project Mew on the other hand the writers admitted to not coming up with the idea until after the first year, and that should have been around from the start to give Go's goal more direction.
 
Were you expecting a PWC battle every 5 episodes or something? They were paced the same way Gyms were in any previous season.
Given that Ash’s Pokémon tended to barely get any appearances or focus episodes unless it was PWC related and Ash’s terrible “losing streak arc” was resolved via offscreen victories…..yes?
 
Were you expecting a PWC battle every 5 episodes or something? They were paced the same way Gyms were in any previous season.
Except the gym-battles weren’t the only things battling-wise. For example, there were rival battles against people like Paul, or episodes where one of Ash’s Pokemon would battle a random CotD to learn a new technique. Of course Contest protagonists had that pleasure too. Even in B&W, we had the battling tournaments in-between.
It stacks up quite a bit to form a battling environment. Of course that’s not all the anime offers, but it seems to be the main attraction in the eyes of previous series.

Here, we only have the PWC, and the occasional random fight against a couple of grunts (where Ash seems to only use Pikachu), which doesn’t account for a lot when they’re over in about thirty seconds. For Goh, he’s only had Project Mew and Legendary encounter episodes to go off with his battling, and that’s separated a lot. With the amount of fillers, where not much battling happens, there’s less of this environment being set here. We’d randomly go about six weeks without any meaning/intense battles.
If anything, it’s a sign this show defiantly needed rivals (not ones like Bea, ones that actually are showed off regularly) from the get-go.
 
There was a lot of speculation previously that Eevee's unstable DNA would lead it to becoming a new Eeeveelution entirely, would those who watched this Ep in Japanese still consider that likely, or is this Eevee going Terastalise, and take all the types etc? Or did it not hint at that either?
 
There was a lot of speculation previously that Eevee's unstable DNA would lead it to becoming a new Eeeveelution entirely, would those who watched this Ep in Japanese still consider that likely, or is this Eevee going Terastalise, and take all the types etc? Or did it not hint at that either?
Clearly it led to nothing. They built up this mystery and went through all these Eeveelution only to push the same tired and worn out "You're perfect the way you are." Storyline we've seen so much.
 
I was probably the person most vocally against this arc concluding with Gigantamax Eevee, but I gotta say that even that would've felt a lot more conclusive and satisfying than this. Heck, this didn't even feel like a "You're perfect just the way you are!" type of ending because even that would've actually brought real closure. Instead Chloe just comes to the exact same conclusion that she came to when her arc began about having many possibilities and what not, meaning that she and Eevee effectively are right back at square one not knowing what to do with their lives. Man, these two were completely wasted. I probably shouldn't be surprised, though, seeing the overall treatment Chloe got, but it doesn't make it sting any less.
 
I just finished watching this episode. When Journeys first started, I liked how they made Chloe seem like someone who was too busy with her day-to-day life to care about Pokémon too much. It would’ve been interesting to see a character who just tries to live a normal life in an abnormal world, and how it would clash with Ash and Goh. Ever since Chloe got Eevee, her entire personality got demolished in favor for advertising the Eeveelutions. It’s just sad, and it truly feels like wasted potential. You can’t really say Chloe is a good character on her own when her biggest moments were just exposition dumping older characters, like Serena and Dawn.

The message of the episode being “I want to learn more about evolution” is both expected and disappointing. Chloe had potential to be one of the best written characters in the show, and I feel like she was in early Journeys. The only other main character that tried the “I don’t have a goal” angle was Serena, and it was done much better with her. If they pushed a narrative with Chloe like “I’m still young and have a lot of time to figure things out”, I could buy into it, but they used Pokémon Evolution as a scrapegoat instead.

There’s also the problem that, due to Chloe’s indecisiveness, the influence of the people she met will be lost to time. For example, Serena told Chloe that she also lacked a dream, and that she worked hard to become a performer in order to give happiness to others. This is a great moment for Serena because it goes alongside her realization in XY113, where she realized Aria gives back to others, while Serena receives help too much. Chloe unfortunately falls into the “receiving” part way too much. Since Chloe keeps taking advice from so many people and never decides on anything specific, she falls into this trap of having little character development, due to not having an influence on those who have helped her. This is the biggest reason on why Chloe is wasted potential.

Overall, this episode was bad. It was really slow paced, I had no reason to care about the old man or Clefairy subplot, and Chloe’s story essentially ends with no closure. I want to say nicer things about Chloe, but I really can’t. Journeys is near its end, and it’s sad that it’s going to be remembered more for bringing back characters like Iris, Dawn, Serena, Gary, and Paul over trying to make its brand new characters worthwhile. It is what it is, I guess.
 
The series isn't over yet and nothing about this episode says Koharu's arc is over. We were assuming this is it because we're so late in the series and Koharu hasn't appeared particularly often but the opening suggests Koharu will meet Hikari again and Hikari happens to live in the same region as the professor who specializes in Pokémon evolution, the exact topic Koharu has developed an interest in.

Setting that aside, Koharu's arc has been entirely about slow-paced character development so I don't know why anyone was surprised by this being a slow-paced character-focused episode. If the series really does end with this being the last Koharu focus episode then I can't say it was the best route for the series to take but I can't say this episode fails to live up to prior Koharu focus episodes and personally, I can still say I've enjoyed every Koharu focus episode. The long break before the semifinals is a production issue, not the fault of this episode. If production had gone well this would have been a single breather episode before the climax of the series.
 

Looks like we do indeed have confirmation at last
You mean that thing we had confirmed 3 years ago when she was introduced as Sakuragi's daughter?

Why was her page only just updated?

Has Stoutland died yet?
 
Please note: The thread is from 2 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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