Pokemon Journeys: Thoughts So Far

[Hidden Mew]

In order to make the PWC more engaging, I think it would need to be reworked from the ground up. The idea of Ash being able to have official battles to help increase his rank whenever he goes sounds good in theory given the world tour gimmick of the series, but it is a hard double edge sword. There is no buildup to these matches. They just happen, last for a few minutes and then they move onto the main plot of the episode. They've done this with Ash getting Riolu, along with Pikachu being jealous of Riolu. Riolu vs. Electabuzz is my new go to example as to why the PWC is not really good. That was one of the weakest battles I've seen in quite some time and yet I'm supposed to think Ash is getting closer to battling Leon after a pathetic two minute one-on-one battle like that one.

I honestly don't think that the writers consider this as a bigger step for Ash. Not only because of how it's handled, but almost all of the battles being one-on-one makes me think that they just wanted Ash to have a goal where they could go through battles relatively fast and easily. It would tie in with Journeys being way too fast paced for its own good, especially when I think that fast pace is the root cause of a lot of its major problems.

If they really wanted the PWC to be considered this huge step forward for Ash, then I think that they should have gone all out with it. Have Ash battle against Gym Leaders across different regions instead of just any random one shot trainer. It would still benefit from the world tour aspect, but Ash would be working towards specific Gym Leaders instead of just any one shot characters off the street. He could battle against Gym Leaders he never faced before, as well as maybe including the Sinnoh Frontier Brains for kicks. Don't just potentially save major opponents for the Great and Hyper rank battles. Make it clear from the start that the PWC is a big deal and not just because of the ultimate prize of battling Leon. Make the battles longer too since one-on-one battles really aren't a good indication of a trainer's strength. But unfortunately, I don't think that they'd be capable of doing this. Not only because of Journeys' fast pace, but also because I don't think that the anime would bring back older characters that regularly. Journeys is much more willing and able to bring back older characters than the past few series have been, but they still space it out. They even had a stand-in for Lt. Surge instead of bringing him back as Ash's first PWC opponent. I don't see them making older characters return being that regular either.

Despite all of this, I still like Journeys. I often wonder if binge watching the series helps to make it more enjoyable for me than it would be if I was watching it weekly too. This is just why I don't like the PWC, why I think it is pretty overhyped among fans and why I don't think it's going to magically get better. Even when Ash gets to the higher ranks, they could easily still find ways for him to battle mostly one-shot trainers instead of more impressive trainers. Not to mention a lot of these problems are just part of the structure of the goal, which doesn't seem likely to disappear as he gets further along in the tournament. If Ash vs. Korrina was the standard kind of PWC battle instead of the first good one, then I'd probably be way more into it. As it is, it really feels like they took the Club Battle tournament from BW, stretched it out to be Ash's goal for a whole series and try to make it look more impressive with battling Leon as the big prize and none of that works for me at all.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

The PWC is horrible I was never super excited for it even when it was 1st introduced because it sounded hooky to me but darn the writers have really dropped the ball. It needs to have more importance than just an occasional major battle every dozen episodes and a few minor skirmishes in between. Also Ash could use another rival in order to make the higher tiers more interesting.

 

[DarkraiKnight]

tournament. If Ash vs. Korrina was the standard kind of PWC battle instead of the first good one

How was Ash vs Visquez bad? Great animation, excellent choreography, brilliant strategies, and a heaping dosage of continuity. It’s a 100/10 battle in my book.

 

[Hidden Mew]

How was Ash vs Visquez bad? Great animation, excellent choreography, brilliant strategies, and a heaping dosage of continuity. It’s a 100/10 battle in my book.

The fact that they had to create a stand-in for Lt. Surge automatically brings the battle down for me. Lt. Surge wasn't one of my favorite Gym leaders or anything like that, but it just made the battle feel a bit lazy in that regard. It also didn't help that they were trying a bit too hard to hype up Visquez. That is admittedly more than what most of Ash's PWC opponents get, but it still felt a bit too hollow knowing that they seemingly didn't want to use Lt. Surge for that battle and made up a new character just for Ash to defeat, which is what has happened for nearly all of his other PWC matches too. Ash battling against more Kanto Pokemon also didn't really help make the battle interesting to me. That would have been the case if he had battled Lt. Surge too, but at least Ash getting to battle a Gym Leader he hadn't seen since the original series would have been interesting. It's kind of weird that they didn't bring Lt. Surge back when they randomly bring Chuck back too.

The battle itself was okay, but it just didn't really leave a good first impression on the PWC for me. Battling against Kanto Pokemon when there are other new Pokemon the anime could have showcased instead just made it so boring as a first match. Korrina didn't have any Galar Pokemon either, but at least the battle did show how she had improved since XY and it felt natural to bring her back so soon after Ash got his own Riolu. It wasn't a bad battle per say, but I don't think I'd call it good either.

 

[Islander Princess]

It's getting to the point where I feel really burnt out by the series (not even BW could accomplish this despite it still being worse although Journeys could eventually give it a run for it's money if it ain't careful) and as such couldn't really care about most episodes nowadays asides from character returns and PWC stuff (which again, the poor execution card rears it's ugly head once more).

This actually sums up how I feel about everything as well. Fortunately for me at least, I'm not burned out enough where I want to totally give up on the series (which I was guilty of during XY) but I no longer look forward to new episodes every week the way I did during SM. For the three years of SM's run, I could usually guarantee I'd be interested in the upcoming episode, even if it was something as simple as them doing a school assignment or playing a sport with their Pokémon. The whole series was just so whimsical and the characters had great chemistry, not to mention the terrific world building and that series' ability to balance more serious storylines (Stoutland, Mallow's mother, etc.) with the lighthearted ones.

Now, with Journeys, I'm seeing a lot of instances where a lot of episodes sound boring to me, or episodes that I'm actually looking forward to ultimately end up being disappointing. Every once in a while, an episode that I wasn't initially excited about will surprise me, but it's not super common. I feel like in SM, I might have been a little disappointed in maybe 1 out of every 5 episodes. Now, it feels more like 3 or even 4 out of 5 episodes end up being a letdown.

The character returns and Chloe are really the two big things that are keeping me invested in Journeys. Those have so far definitely been the series' strong points, and I'm still interested to see where they go. I want to be more invested in the PWC, but it's hard given how it's been handled so far. After all, it's pretty hard to hype yourself up when a majority of the battles are 3-5 minute scenes in episodes that are otherwise totally unrelated to the tournament as an entity.

I will say that I have been having a decent amount of fun watching the dub, but I think a large part of it is because since I already know what's going to happen, there's not really any particular disappointment or letdown for me since I know what to expect. Yes, the boring episodes are still boring, but at least dub wise I'm not finding it a chore to watch one episode a week. I've already fallen off the wagon on subs for the most part (unless it's one of those episodes I'm really interested in).

 

[DynamicFusion]

Looks like according to a tweet Gary's Voice Actor put out yesterday, they just finished recording the Gary Return Episode. So it'll probably air sometime in Late March or Early April.

"I met Rica, after a long time!"


View: https://twitter.com/konbumirin/status/1360241081858756608

 

[GrookeyFan77]

Gary returns near? If Ash catches Grookey it better defeat Blastoise.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Looks like according to a tweet Gary's Voice Actor put out yesterday, they just finished recording the Gary Return Episode. So it'll probably air sometime in Late March or Early April.

"I met Rica, after a long time!"


View: https://twitter.com/konbumirin/status/1360241081858756608

Well that’s at least something to look forward to. Please don’t ruin this for us Journeys

 

[GrookeyFan77]

Please don’t ruin this for us Journeys

Did somebody want Goh to be the focus with Ash and Gary doing nothing? Ok!

 

[DynamicFusion]

inb4 the episode is actually Goh Vs Gary

 

[GrookeyFan77]

inb4 the episode is actually Goh Vs Gary

Goh defeats Gary even though Gary should be stronger.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Goh defeats Gary even though Gary should be stronger.

And Gary is overly impressed by Go’s goal just like everyone sans Mewtwo.

 

[GrookeyFan77]

And Gary is overly impressed by Go’s goal just like everyone sans Mewtwo.

And Ash does nothing other than a flasback for ''NoStAlGa''.

 

[Colt]

Satoshi:shigeru!
Shigeru:satoshi hope u been doing well
And u r gou isnt it? I ve heard bout u a lot
Gou:explains his dream and shigeru is impressed
To be contd.

Our hero gou has gained one more friend and will earn more while ash will b used as nostalgia bait

hope they dont mess satoshi's chsracter and is a goh free ep just as tokio was for gou

 

[BNSF1995]

I'll tell you my thoughts: Goh is a Mary Sue. He catches pretty much every Pokemon he comes across, and his only purpose is to shill Pokemon GO like it's a real Pokemon game. Did they use the anime to shill Gale of Darkness or Trozei? Bottom line: there are certain side games that don't translate well to the anime. The Ranger games and Snap are fine, but GO has such abstract concepts that just don't work in the anime.

If you ask me, Journeys should've been a full-on Sword & Shield anime returning to the classic formula. Have Ash travel Galar with Hop and either Gloria or Serena wearing Gloria's default outfit. But no, the anime staff doesn't seem to know what they want Journeys to be. Do they want it to be a celebration of Pokemon's rich legacy? A "best-of" series? An advertisement for Sword & Shield and GO? Or have they completely stopped caring at this point and are just collecting paychecks?

There's so much you could do with the anime in Galar, but instead, they made the events of Sword & Shield a bunch of multi-episode arcs, and that's it. Ash isn't challenging the Galar League, but this Pokemon World Championship. That would be an interesting idea if they brought back old characters like Gary, Harrison, Paul, Trip, Stephan, Tierno, and other past rivals of Ash. But no, we're stuck with poorly-utilized Galar gym leaders (though if it had to be anyone, Bea was a good choice), and suspiciously similar substitutes of past characters.

In closing, Journeys needs to shape up or ship out. I think splitting the anime into two distinct shows could work. Journeys could focus on Goh and Chloe travelling the world, while Ash could be in a Sword & Shield anime to promote the game and its DLCs. Because really, the DLCs are full of storytelling potential. Again, Ash could travel Galar with Hop and either Gloria or Serena wearing Gloria's default outfit. Ash could challenge the Galar League and take part in those awesome battles in packed stadiums, Hop could do Hop stuff, and Serena could enter Contests, which could open up a return appearance by May and Dawn, as well as other past coordinators like Drew, Harley, Solidad, and Zoey, maybe even Miette and Shauna if they also make the jump to Contests.

 

[JinksChow]

Sorry for the thread bump, but I found an excerpt of an interview with Shoji Yonemura which may shed some light on the way Ash was developed in Pokemon JN.

Apparently in the above excerpt, Yonemura states that characters which have already been developed are harder to write for, which is why he tends to "weaken" them in order to develop them again.

(I cannot read Japanese outside of Kanji, so I would really appreciate it if a member who understands Japanese can give us a better translation of the above excerpt)

Finally, while Yonemura is pretty contentious among older fans of series which he had been a major staff (Smile Precure, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider DECADE, maybe Pokemon JN), he is also credited for bringing in new fans for these series as well.

 

[Colt]

Sorry for the thread bump, but I found an excerpt of an interview with Shoji Yonemura which may shed some light on the way Ash was developed in Pokemon JN.

Apparently in the above excerpt, Yonemura states that characters which have already been developed are harder to write for, which is why he tends to "weaken" them in order to develop them again.

(I cannot read Japanese outside of Kanji, so I would really appreciate it if a member who understands Japanese can give us a better translation of the above excerpt)

Finally, while Yonemura is pretty contentious among older fans of series which he had been a major staff (Smile Precure, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider DECADE, maybe Pokemon JN), he is also credited for bringing in new fans for these series as well.

Here is the translation from dephender.

"As far as Satoshi's battles as a Pokémon Trainer are concerned, Pocket Monsters XY gave me the impression that he had matured a lot. This made it difficult to create new dramatic story arcs for him, but since Satoshi is such a straightforward person, he has this aspect to him where he sometimes forgets things he's already learned from experience. When this happens, we have Go comment on how "THIS is what Satoshi is ACTUALLY like" or "THIS is what Satoshi always says", etc. This makes Satoshi a boy who still has a lot of room to grow. He's someone who always continues to strive towards his goal, and you could even say that if he didn't do this, he wouldn't BE Satoshi. Our job as writers is to find ways to make this happen"

 

[Craiden]

Where did you find Dephender's translation?

 

[Colt]

Where did you find Dephender's translation?

From him

 

[Craiden]

Ok, but I just heard from someone who found this that he doesn't know where this page comes from, is that true, or do you guys know that?