Pokemon Journeys: Thoughts So Far

[skiittylalis]

If Pokémon Journeys stays more or less like it is now, what will the legacy of the series be? Will it be remembered as the "new Johto", since many critics think the series relies too much on fillers?

probably how you could describe the series now: wonderful concepts, absolutely terrible execution of said concepts

 

[RetroPokeFan]

I think that the issue is less on filler and more on how Journeys is too fast paced for its own good.

"Quick, smash the fast forward button on every episode's plot or else the kids will have their brains melting away."

"Ummm, shouldn't we spend a little more time on some of these plots? And maybe build things up too?"

"Just do it."

 

[swiftgallade46]

I don’t think there’s any one answer. Everyone will remember it differently because everyone has different opinions on it.

 

[Ricbolog]

I think that the issue is less on filler and more on how Journeys is too fast paced for its own good. There are a lot of episodes that would benefit from being two parters or having more setup, so that isn't something unique for Iris or potentially Gary's returns. I still wouldn't be surprised if they designed the PWC at least in part so that they could get through battles as quickly as possible. The fact that Ash hasn't had anything more than two-on-two battles for his matches is pretty telling in my opinion. This could also be due to the episodic nature, but I think that the fast pace of the series is more of the problem here.

Besides all that, I haven't really noticed that many filler episodes. Journeys certainly has them, but it doesn't seem it has significantly more filler compared to most of the other series.

Good analysis. BTW, I don't think most Johto fillers were inherently bad. I've recently watched Pokémon the Series: Gold and Silver for the first time and I thought a lot of them were good. But I understeand people might have had bigger hopes on Journeys based on its potential. And it's different watching an entire series in row rather than follow a weekly show.

probably how you could describe the series now: wonderful concepts, absolutely terrible execution of said concepts

That's why I said "IF Pokémon Journeys stays more or less like it is now". It might change in the future and the perception of the entire series would change too, which would be different than the perception of, let's say, the first 48 episodes that make up the 23th dub season.

 

[skiittylalis]

That's why I said "IF Pokémon Journeys stays more or less like it is now". It might change in the future and the perception of the entire series would change too, which would be different than the perception of, let's say, the firt 48 episodes that make up the 23th dub season.

hmm, maybe in this case i can see it being a mix of johto and best wishes?? theres a Lot of issues with journeys like johto but like bw it has a following among some people (and its controversial as all hell lol). but its all subjective i guess

 

[Sobblelelle]

That's why I said "IF Pokémon Journeys stays more or less like it is now". It might change in the future and the perception of the entire series would change too, which would be different than the perception of, let's say, the firt 48 episodes that make up the 23th dub season.

I think that if you want some indication of how the series would be viewed if it stayed exactly the same as it currently is through its run, you just need to look at the opinions that viewers currently have. Opinions may mellow out over time, but current thoughts would likely be the best indicator if the scenario you propose has all episodes play out like the ones so far. That said, certain concerns are already showing signs of being addressed, the lack of conflict for Goh with the upcoming PM plotline and rivals, the lack of old characters returning with Volkner and the HC tease, and Ash's old pokemon with the Oaks lab visit and Infernape battle. There already seems to be allot of change going forward, so I doubt current episodes give a accurate indicator of what the series legacy would be.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

So far, to me Journeys is the most "average" series in the Pokemon anime in that I don't think its lows have been as low as the lows of past series, but on the flipside its highs aren't anywhere near the highs of past series either. This includes BW, which is still my least favorite saga, but even it had some really great moments at this point in time that Journeys has yet to have.

And Journeys' bad tendency to rush through or underfocus on the stuff that would help get it closer to the level of the best parts of past sagas really isn't helping: Ash has his most unique team yet and it's chock-full of fan favorites and/or Pokemon everyone wanted him to catch! Oops, we're not going to give them the focus they deserve. Ash is competing in a huge tournament to decide the strongest trainer in the freaking world! Oops, most of his battles are going to be offscreen, and that one time he regressed in placement that could have easily been an entire arc is fixed offscreen as well without fanfare.

Also, the way the Ash's team is handled is especially concerning to me, because unlike past sagas, where each one could have several sub-plots or character arcs going on at once without clashing with each other, Journeys has this weird "one character gets all, everyone else gets nothing" approach to development and screentime: when Ash caught Riolu, for a while it was the only one of Ash's Pokemon allowed to be important until it evolved and then after the Darkest Day arc was finished its appearances got heavily reduced. Farfetch'd got its own mini arc of mastering its leek, but before that it did absolutely nothing of note besides jobbing against Bea, and once it evolved into Sirfetch'd it's been shunted into Backgroundland yet again. Dracovish is still relatively new and has thankfully gotten a couple of good appearances recently, but it's still worth noting that it took a long time for its mere existence to be acknowledged. Dragonite is okay, but it's only ever really allowed to be relevant during battles against high level trainers. And Gengar? What even is a Gengar? The way Riolu/Lucario and Farfetch'd/Sirfetch'd were handled is especially weird, because we were led to believe that they'd be rivals and help each other grow due to the openings, which I feel could have been very cool and interesting, but the only thing to come out of that dynamic was Farfecth'd being Riolu's punching bag for a few episodes, and then they never interacted with each other again. Heck, Riolu's evolution into Lucario could have even been framed as the catalyst for Farfetch'd frustration at its lack of strength; make it so that the bird feels like it's falling behind its rival. Thant's just one example.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

I sometimes have to Search up when Gengar battled for the last time. Can you believe JN065 is the first time we see Lucario (a freaking popular mon) in 12 episodes.

 

[puddleths]

Go's goal is at the forefront while being accomplished in obscenely boring fashion without any payoff. I'd say the series could be better.

 

[SonansuMan]

I wanted to give this series more time to potentially develop itself and wait until it came around the halfway point to start judging it more in depth, and so far.. most of the series flaws are still present.

Maybe I'm too used to Sun and Moon's structuring but it feels like Journeys just doesn't really retain most of the things I liked about the last series and the new things it did bring to the table while exciting, still aren't executed in a way that delivers on that excitement. The PWC? Treated like an after thought. Returning characters? Only for one episode. Gacha machine? Handled pretty boring so far and wasn't worth replacing actual party members. How did we go from Tyranitar and Gyarados to Houndour and Poochyena?

One thing I will praise so far is how for the first and only other time since DP they've been able to consistently develop the co-protagonist, but apparently they had to strip away screentime from the rest of the cast to do so. Many of the Pokemon in this series, especially Ash's team are super underutilized and for some reason are only obligated to appear if A: the episode is specifically catered around them battling or 2: to show a brief 5 seconds of them to remind the audience they exist during PWC episodes and then disappear until A. Even then, unless you're Pikachu you're lucky to get 3 battles in a year! We are nearly 70 episodes in and even Meowth has been in more fights than Gengar lol

Overall, I feel like individually a lot of the episodes in this series have been pretty enjoyable but as a whole this series struggles from a lot of things that could be redeemed so easily. I'm still optimistic things could change later down the line with the new schedule change and new director, but so far I'm not seeing it

 

[Gligarman]

What I like about the show is that it still contains the high energy and fluid animation of the Sun and Moon. My gripe at the moment though is the fact that Satoshi's team is strangely getting the short end of the stick throughout this series. I also don't like the fact that they seem to find lots of joy in showcasing all of the Pokémon we can't get in Gen 8.

 

[Enzo]

I have been thinking to myself about my true current feelings to this series as a whole for the past couple of days.

You know, I did made this promise to myself that I would let it run for a while before coming to an more thougth out opinion, and since, seeing how the series is not over yet and we don't have an date to when it's gonna actually end, if we go by the fact that most of the past series ran for roughly 3 years, I actually ran the math and came to the realization that, if it indeed lasts 3 years, we are literally in the middle of it. Like, literally. Count the dates and you will see I'm right.

So, huh. Well, pratically every flaw this show has is still present with little to no indication the writers want to fix them. But in all honesty, I think I realized what's my biggest gripe with Journeys. I don't know if this is exactly the best wording for this, but I just hate how without consequences this thing is. I guess I own everybody an explanation, correct? I also don't know if I will be able to truly express what I'm feeling, so bear with me here please lol.

Also, spoiler tags to make it easier to read.

Spoiler

It's just that... stuff just happens in this series. In every other, you could just feel that whatever happened was amounting to something, but I strangely don't feel that in this one. Take the POTD episodes that got translated to ''Goh's Pokémon episodes''. For example, the Raichu episode. An cute, fun one that presented an new Pokéon for Goh that actually had an personality (!) and that actually had an good focus episode. Then it ended, spent a lot of them without appearing, had an 5 seconds cameo in the Suicune ep and then promptly disappeared without a trace. And she actually even got lucky to have an cameo and an role after, since Pokémon such as Cubone and Aerodactyl had episodes for themselves and vanished after it. (seriously, did Cubone even appeared after it's ep?). Even Suicune, whose ep will go down in history as one of the most controversial episodes of this anime no doubt, poofed after the ep ended and wasn't even mentioned ever since.

And Ash's PWC goal too. My guys, the main goal of one of the protagonists got the off-screen treatment 3 times already in the spam of 66 episodes. that's not normal. At all. There's no excuse for this. Gengar hasn't battled in God knows how long. Lucario, the Pokémon we all thought would be Ash's ace, had it's last battle in ep 53 and wasn't even the focus of it. Rinto only showed up for 2 eps and went away. I actually thought the anime would give up on Bea since it took this long for even her shadow to appear. Iris only got one episode.

And that's what I mean about this series being without consequences. Why exactly do I have to invest myself into those eps? I'm not saying most of them are innherently bad, I actually get entertained by most, but... ugh. Why do I have to care for one of Goh's Pokémon if it's just not gonna appear at all after it's episode? Why do I have to get so hyped for just seeing one of Ash's Pokémon even having an cameo? An cameo and promptly disappear again? Characters not being allowed to have an bigger impact?

Spoiler

I think what hurt this series the most is this stupid episodic format. Look at JN68: there's Ash revisiting his reserves in Oak's lab, Infernape reappearing and battling Moltres, Gary coming back, and Project Mew being introduced will happen in a singular episode. That's enough for at least an small, 4 eps arc. But hey, we have to see Grookey and Eevee walking around town and getting in those super fun wacky adventures in JN69, right? This series has this way of making a lot start, happen and end in a singular episode and then shove fillers down our throats immediatly after.

It's so bizarre when you stop to think this one through. If they wanna speedrun through the juicy stuff, you would think they would use the extra time to actually do interesting stuff. But what's the deal here? Why rush through so much and give us fillers? Because A) The eps seem inconsequential since they have little to absolute no payoff and B) We get all those dumb eps that are also not gonna amount to anything?

To finish, I still don't have an absolute veredict since hey, it's not over yet. But I'm definitely not enjoying it.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

I dont understand JNs pacing at all. It is so confusing and weird. Sometimes I feel like JN reaches Jothos amount of filler (It wont be as bad as Jotho tho).

 

[Enzo]

You know, after giving it even more thought, I came to some conclusions about this episodic format. But in order to properly explain it, I will use one of my favorite shows which happens to be in this format: Miraculous Ladybug.

Disclaimer: I understand that it's slightly off topic, but I promise it's an good example for my points. Also, don't worry, I won't give any spoilers for those who watch it or are interested in the show. So for those reasons, I will put it in an spoiler box.

Spoiler

Miraculous Ladybug, for those who don't know, is an french cartoon that revolves around the lifes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, who aided by their magical jewels, the Ladybug earrings and the Black Cat ring, are able to transform into the superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir, who use their powers to fight against Hawkmoth, big villain and the user of the Butterfly Miraculous.

So, the thing is that every Miraculous is based off an different concept and thus has different special abilities. The Butterfly Miraculous is the jewel of Transmission, which grants the user the special power called Akumatization. In this process, he senses somebody's negative emotions and creates an Akuma, which is an black butterfly that enters an object that the target holds and grants them superpowers. But since he's evil, instead of creating superheroes, he creates supervillains in order to help him achieve his goal, so our duo fights the villain in order to revert the transformation and save the day.

The deal is that the series is written in an episodic format because each episode is focused on an different Akuatized villain, in an ''Monster of the Week'' fashion. But what I want to get at, you may ask? Simple. While in an episodic format, the show doesn't sacrifices development and things have purpose. This is the part where saying the spoilers would make my point even easier to understand, but as you can tell I'm held back from actually saying them, so oh well lol.

In the last episode of season 1, ''Volpina'', we are introduced to an character that has an major role going forward. In season 2, at least 2 separate incidents had gigantic proprotions and had even bigger impacts on the narrative. One was so big, that coupled with more repercutions in season 3 and 4, culminated in such an well writen moment that the entire status quo of the series imploded. And while this last one may sound bad, it wasn't. It served to open so many windows and doors and had such an gut-punching emotional delivery, but it wouldn't have worked if wasn't carefully planned years before.

Where I'm trying to get at, is that, while in an episodic format, Miraculous managed to make use of the seeds it planted and is having an excelent harvest. Which unfortunately, I don't really think that is happening with Journeys.

Most episodes in JN feel inconsequential to a point. Most of the stuff that happens occurs in these ''bubbles'' that feel too self contained for their own good. There's this thing where the writers are so deseperate to start and finish stuff as quickly as possible and they started to choke on it. I personally don't feel that a lot in this show has repercutions and actually amounts to a lot of stuff. I have dived in in more detail in my other comment above, so feel free to check it out.

In summary, this is a series that was very poorly planned imo. Especially when there's examples of shows in this exact same narrative format that manages to deliver satifactory results.

 

[P_S_B]

I will say one thing for the episodic nature and that's that I can watch specific episodes that interest me while skipping those that don't and not really lose anything. That being said, viewers skipping your show is not something you want to be striving for and I hope the advertisers realize that.

 

[Reborn Talonflame]

Fillers always have the potential to be good, just look at the Eating Contest where Greedant beat Morpeko; a fun episode that provides nice moments with the characters, including TR.

Journeys, over the course of displaying fillers, has completely butchered them. Most notably, some fillers are extremely dull in their concept (Diglett, Psyduck, Plusle & Minun episodes, most of the half-episodes), one was just plain dumb (Pikachu Leaving), some are so predictable that it’s not even remotely engaging to watch (Lucario and Cinderace, Diglett, Plusle & Minun, Absol, Feebas), and others don’t even have action. Granted, you don’t need action to be entertaining, because dialogue can represent a lot, again, point in case the Eating Contest, but a lot of them needed something to spark the flair.

The only fillers I consider good are the Eating Contest and the Ditto one. I’m not kidding, the rest are average, or complete trash.

 

[swiftgallade46]

In all honesty, it gets hard to see it like that when you could achieve virtually the same result by interacting with it in it's natural habitat. If anything, Ash and all of his past companion did the same thing but better in their travels.

Yes, he was shown on screen interacting with his Pokémon, but when said Pokémon only appears in a singular episode (that is: if it's lucky enough to get one) and promptly disappear after it (Cubone, Aerodactyl, Swkoovet, etc.) or if they are even luckier to have an cameo afterwards (Raichu), it does gets hard to truly get invested imo, specially knowing that all of those others won't be getting anything.

And I don't know, I get that that's the reason the show gave to us, but I feel that's a bit weak. Not only because most of his Pokémon vanish or become background ornaments, but because as I said, they did pratically the same thing with Ash and his other friends for years and achieved better results in a more fun and engaging way.

I think it’s been pretty well-established even if not by Goh himself that catching is far more insightful and meaningful than just studying in the wild. Part of my point was just that Goh has supported this as well even if not as best as we’d like.

To me, it just makes sense. I don’t find it to be weak reasoning, because I do see the connection between Mew containing the DNA of all Pokémon and Goh wanting to learn more about all Pokémon by catching them to lead up to Mew. The concept that catching a Pokémon helps you learn more about it has never been shaky in my opinion.

It’s understandably difficult if not impossible to show him learning about every single one of his captures on screen, which is something that’s unfortunate, but I do like the instances we’ve gotten so far.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I keep forgetting this thread is so busy or even exists. Oh, well...

This includes BW, which is still my least favorite saga, but even it had some really great moments at this point in time that Journeys has yet to have.

All I can ever think of while remembering the good bits BW had, I can only think of the potential that was missed because of unfortunately timed real life events. And I can think of several standout moments that Journeys has already had.

 

[Enzo]

I think it’s been pretty well-established even if not by Goh himself that catching is far more insightful and meaningful than just studying in the wild. Part of my point was just that Goh has supported this as well even if not as best as we’d like.

To me, it just makes sense. I don’t find it to be weak reasoning, because I do see the connection between Mew containing the DNA of all Pokémon and Goh wanting to learn more about all Pokémon by catching them to lead up to Mew. The concept that catching a Pokémon helps you learn more about it has never been shaky in my opinion.

It’s understandably difficult if not impossible to show him learning about every single one of his captures on screen, which is something that’s unfortunate, but I do like the instances we’ve gotten so far.

Okay, just wanna leave here that I got so confused until I realized you changed the thread lol.

I mean, I know, it's not unreasonable to link these two together. I get the whole ''Mew has the DNA of every Pokémon'' is common basic lore ever since gen 1. But the thing is that like, capturing Mew is one thing and capturing every Pokémon is another.

Like, okay. Let's say that one day he manages to capture every (or at least nearly every) Pokémon in existence. Then what? Mew is just gonna appear in a cloud of smoke and let itself get captured? Because the whole thing that links these two separate goals is that he's capturing all of those Pokémon with the intent to use them to get to Mew. (Which, now that I think about it, it's also why people call his captures ''another crossed out name on the checklist'', cuz virtually speaking, the National Dex is a checklist in this context.) But how, exactly?

Why the need to physically capture every Pokémon in existence to understand them? Really, theres not a lot of justification for that. Why couldn't he just study them in their natural living places instead of a glass dome that houses an artificial and limited version of their natural habitats? Because let's be frank: while I get that this is not the best way to put it, that's what the Lab is. Like, factually is.

And even the whole ''I will study every Pokémon that I capture!" thing also falls flat when you see that he doesn't does that often, at least not in the place it matters the most: on screen.

 

[Yuukii]

I can't think of a single thing that stands out to me in Journeys. Every time they try to do something special, the execution is so horrible that I'd rather have a filler that week instead. The only two episodes that I somewhat enjoyed were #61 and #63. 61 had everyone act in-character for once, and Team Rocket finally got a proper appearance. 63 had Pokemon interactions and gave focus to everyone even though it was a Koharu episode. Problem is, the reasons why I liked both of these episodes were because of things we'd get in almost every episode in every previous series. It feels like it's taking away things we took for granted and reselling them for special occasions.