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Journeys YMMV Trope Editing Suggestions: What Journeys episodes would fit under 'They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot' in regards to Ash catches

KrspaceT

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Hello!


I've been doing some additions to the YMMV page on the series, covering a few things that hadn't been up there before, like the 51 Great Class Still and the stretches of time that paint Goh the worst. I want to add to this with the ever present 'a Pokemon X should have caught argument' (IE stuff like Stantler, Houndour, etc) but with a plot focus.

As I've noticed a few episodes do tease the idea of Ash catching a mon and setting it up, but they don't follow through.

(As an example, Goh talked about Ash earning a Hitmonlee alongside Goh's Hitmonchan and trading them for both. That just....that was said, that wasn't followed up on, etc etc)

Curious for other examples of this in the series beyond two other, less major examples I can think of. By less major I recall the Bug Catching and Collossus ruins teasing Ash doing catches as well, though I do feel they are lesser examples as they weren't necessarily weaker for it and it wasn't set up as well.

I can do the eidt with just the Hitmon example but if there are any other examples that exist I'd like to include them.
 
Ash not catching something isn'r really Journeys' biggest problem nor the source of its missing opportunities, but anyway, here we go Just For Fun:
  • Misdreavus could have been Gengar's best friend or romantic partner (Through writting that I realized that it doesn't need to be in Ash's team to do that...I guess that counts as a missed opportunity).
  • Ditto. Ash would have to calculate correctly where to use it and battles would be very dynamic.
  • Maybe Slowking? It could pass along its hat to do some mind control. They would have to rewritte the gag to actually be funny though.
  • Sobble. See every other Journeys thread for the details.
  • Flygon may look similar to Dragonite, but it would be interesting to see Sandstorm used in battles, and specially how it can harm an ally.
  • Marshtomp. It would be interesting to see Ash handle its lack of moisture and numbness. Besides it's awesome.
  • Alolan Ninetales. It would add a delicate touch to his team, its personality could be a mix of Snowy and Lycanroc.
  • Fallinks. Ash could care more about their individuality and how to work as a team for battles.
 
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I would just caution the substance of what you're going to add to the edit. To me, 'They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/Catch' would be on the level of May and Swablu; nothing less. She clearly bonded with it during the episode, helped it fly, took care of it like her own Pokémon, and even brought out her Poke Ball for a capture (not to mention tearing up when it flew away with its flock); she really should have gotten it - that was a waste.

On the contrary, someone saying "Hey, you should catch that Pokémon!" in a one-off line that doesn't go anywhere, doesn't really feel like a waste in comparison. I know Journeys hasn't been everyone's cup of tea, but we don't want to reach for shortcomings so to speak either.
 
They wasted SEVERAL perfectly good plots in Sinnoh:
1. What if Torterra didn't lose every battle and actually was the MVP against Volkner.
2. What if Piplup DIDN'T bully Cyndaquil when it was newly hatched and actually showed maturity by acting like a big brother.
3. What if Torterra swallowed the Energy Ball instead of using it only as a Grotle then passing it off to Dawn for Mamoswine to use. This way it may have won against Bertha.
 
I would just caution the substance of what you're going to add to the edit. To me, 'They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/Catch' would be on the level of May and Swablu; nothing less. She clearly bonded with it during the episode, helped it fly, took care of it like her own Pokémon, and even brought out her Poke Ball for a capture (not to mention tearing up when it flew away with its flock); she really should have gotten it - that was a waste.

On the contrary, someone saying "Hey, you should catch that Pokémon!" in a one-off line that doesn't go anywhere, doesn't really feel like a waste in comparison. I know Journeys hasn't been everyone's cup of tea, but we don't want to reach for shortcomings so to speak either.
Also, I feel like there needs to be some degree of viewer consensus for a missed opportunity capture to count since that implies everyone could see the capture being an easy conclusion to an episode which never happened, and to be fair, most of the listed examples in the general YMMV page happen to be ones I've seen people complain about, so they're for the most part great examples. Anything listed from Journeys should be the same, and tbh I have not seen any "wasted potential" captures in Journeys for Ash. The closest we've gotten to that was Sobble and Grookey being given to Goh instead of Ash, but that's not really a straight example (not to mention that TV Tropes does mention those already). If I were to split hairs, I'd say the only missed potential capture for Journeys that fits the required criteria would be Chloe not catching Galarian Ponyta.
 
Whatever the fuck the writers did with Drizzile was definitely a Perfectly good plot wasted
Because they wanted Inteleon in the show as fast as they could once they realized it was popular. I know everybody's said it already, but it's true. It's funny, I always liked Inteleon the best out of the three, and when Sword and Shield first came out, I seem to recall Inteleon getting a lot of crap because it looked "too humanoid" or "it's not Cinderace," etc. But then all of a sudden people in (Japan?) are like, hey y'know? Inteleon's pretty cool after all! Aaand then just like that presto Sobble-Drizzile-Inteleon. Coincidence? Not a chance. I mean, Pokemon's no strangers to haing popular Pokemon feature in the anime, but they usually handle it much better than whatever the hell the Inteleon thing was.
 
In regards to Ash's Journey's catches specifically, only Sobble jumps to mind, given the YMMV section's requirement for some significant level of fan consensus- Sobble was frequently advertised in a way that implied it'd go to Ash if I remember right, and many people were disappointed to see Goh capture it instead.

....potentially Grookey too, I suppose.

I also think I've seen a few people saying that Ash's Gengar should've been the Haunter from the Sabrina ep in OS, but I don't know that that's significant enough to put on the YMMV page.

But neither of these are really the situation you're looking for I don't think.
 
Because they wanted Inteleon in the show as fast as they could once they realized it was popular. I know everybody's said it already, but it's true. It's funny, I always liked Inteleon the best out of the three, and when Sword and Shield first came out, I seem to recall Inteleon getting a lot of crap because it looked "too humanoid" or "it's not Cinderace," etc. But then all of a sudden people in (Japan?) are like, hey y'know? Inteleon's pretty cool after all! Aaand then just like that presto Sobble-Drizzile-Inteleon. Coincidence? Not a chance. I mean, Pokemon's no strangers to haing popular Pokemon feature in the anime, but they usually handle it much better than whatever the hell the Inteleon thing was.
I hate Inteleon because of how skinny it is.
 
I hate Inteleon because of how skinny it is.
The anime sorta fixes that (at least it's thicker than Gou by any rate)
20210827_142437.jpg
 
Because they wanted Inteleon in the show as fast as they could once they realized it was popular. I know everybody's said it already, but it's true. It's funny, I always liked Inteleon the best out of the three, and when Sword and Shield first came out, I seem to recall Inteleon getting a lot of crap because it looked "too humanoid" or "it's not Cinderace," etc. But then all of a sudden people in (Japan?) are like, hey y'know? Inteleon's pretty cool after all! Aaand then just like that presto Sobble-Drizzile-Inteleon. Coincidence? Not a chance. I mean, Pokemon's no strangers to haing popular Pokemon feature in the anime, but they usually handle it much better than whatever the hell the Inteleon thing was.
It's also interesting because the JPN fandom had the complete opposite reaction from the Western side

They didn't seem to care about Drizzile being gone so soon and literally had a field day once Inteleon showed up which resulted in Inteleon trending on Jpn twitter for 14 hours straight

Which is also probably why Journeys will sadly continue to keep rushing through evolutions as long as they can get to it's most popular stage :cautious:
 
Ash's fighting style revolves around being unpredictable and attacking from weird angles, yet they didn't give him the soccer player who could bank pyro balls off things to attack from blind spots, on top of potentially having the ability for its type to change to match its moves, further adding to its weird battle style, which would've allowed for some fun PWC matches later down the line.
 
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