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What are your Top 10 Least Favorite Episodes of Journeys and Why?

Rainbow-Rain

Rainbow-Rain

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We've all complained about this series and it's almost reaching towards its End, I'd like to know what are people's least favorite Pokémon Journeys episodes? :unsure:
And please tell me WHY they are your least favorite episodes


For Me, My personal Least Favorites are:


10.) JN59 Yeah I'm sorry but the way Grookey was captured was not it. They could've gone another way than making TRio look much worse than they needed to (Pokémon Reform School?).
And Grookey really had no reason given for WHY it's so attached to Goh in such a short amount of time. Sure he's only just met Trio, but give him about 20 minutes with Trio and he'll have known them for just as long as he's known Goh

9.) JN78. Yeah this one pains me since it's a focus episode of my favourite Galar Starter but yeah it's not a good one when you put it in context. The sad part about it is that it WOULD'VE been a great episode if it had been a One-Shot story. But in the context of Journeys as a whole, Drizzile needed more focus time and actually doing something before evolution

8.) JN26. I'm sorry but I found the Magikarp segment just annoying. The Slowking part was funny tho

7.) JN94. Why did we need a whole ass episode focused on Pinsir and Heracross' romance?

6.) JN66. Why did we need a whole ass episode focused on Goh's Flabebe?

5.) JN70. I hate James' Morpeko. That is all.

4.) JN58. If you couldn't tell by now, I'm not a fan of the 2-in1 episodes. Tho I did like seeing all the Turtle Pokemon in the Turtwig vs Chewtle segment

3.) JN41. This was so boring. The Marshtomps were idiots and the TRio segment was such slog to get through

2.) JN30. They did Pikachu's character so fucking dirty with this episode. Really? Getting Jealous over a baby Riolu? That's not the Pika I know.
It'd be my most hated episode if not for the scenes with Deliah to help save the episode

1.) JN80. Blue Pokemaniacs. Yeah you probably saw this one coming but what the hell was this? There was nothing redeemable about this episode. The Blue Maniacs are creepy as hell, Goh caught a Shiny for no reason, The Popplio line got wasted on this crapfest for some creepy Human/Pokemon flirtatious interactions, you can remove the main characters from this shit and nothing would change, Hell they didn't even have the common sense to utilize Lucario and Inteleon here (not that they would've saved this episode but still...)


(Dis)Honorable Mention: JN53.
I don't hate this because Goh caught Suicune. I hate because they made Suicune look like an absolute chump and it was nothing more than a cheap plot device to get Goh into Project Mew. As my favorite Gen 2 Legendary, it deserved better treatment than that. Blah
 
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i don't think i have a full on top 10 since i stopped watching journeys like 50 episodes in, but JN016 was the ORIGINAL warning sign imo. the way we got an entire episode building up to this fucked up and evil gengar, only for them to just go "oh no it's lonely :[" was just... INFURIATING. JN006 was also a whole load of Nothing Fucking Happening but it was at the very least early enough in the series that's like "eh maybe this'll get better". i think i almost watched blue pokemaniacs because it seemed stupid enough to maybe be fun, and then i didn't. thank god i didn't, apparently!

i'll say this again, gou catching a legendary could've been sick if 1. it wasn't GOT DAMN SUICUNE AGAIN!! PLEASE TPC JUST LET ME SEE MY FUNNY LIGHTNING CAT :[ and 2. apparently suicune like barely shows up. i think it'd be funny if gou was just riding around on a goddamn legendary like this is fuckin pokemon ranger guardian signs. also from what i've heard on this episode, the stuff that happened with suicune.. doesn't seem new exactly? like we already saw a legendary getting it's ass kicked by mere poachers in sun/moon, the only difference is suicune just decided to be besties with gou and is honestly.. a much smaller scale legendary than goddamn KYOGRE. i think in the end water legendaries might just be lame as hell.
 
Rainbow-Rain said:
2.) JN30. They did Pikachu's character so fucking dirty with this episode. Really? Getting Jealous over a baby Riolu? That's not the Pika I know.
It'd be my most hated episode if not for the scenes with Deliah to help save the episode

1.) JN80. Blue Pokemaniacs. Yeah you probably saw this one coming but what the hell was this? There was nothing redeemable about this episode. The Blue Maniacs are creepy as hell, Goh caught a Shiny for no reason, The Popplio line got wasted on this crapfest for some creepy Human/Pokemon flirtatious interactions, you can remove the main characters from this shit and nothing would change, Hell they didn't even have the common sense to utilize Lucario and Inteleon here (not that they would've saved this episode but still...)
Click to expand...

This post really triggered me the urge to watch the episodes highlighted above. I didn't know that Goh had captured a Shiny Pokémon, such capture, however, was certainly worthy of a good episode
 
I have stayed commited and watched every Journeys episode so far. As I’m currently rewatching XY right now and I’m going to start XY094 later today (XYZ episodes), I have to say that I’m enjoying XY way more than I have been with Journeys throughout its run. But that’s not the point of the thread. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Journeys has a LOT of bad episodes, and that is very disappointing. Here’s my bottom 10:

#10 - JN036
This is a Goh focused episode, but the beginning of it shows that Ash is currently on a losing streak. Ash regressed from the Great Class to the Normal Class, and this is one of the only times in Journeys where they shoehorn a “depression arc” for Ash. How does this get resolved? By turning Goh into an AMAZING trainer despite still being relatively new. He uses some Ash-like strategies against a wild Flygon and catches it. While that doesn’t sound bad on paper, there was no foreshadowing prior to this episode that he was skilled enough to understand and utilize Ash’s strategies in this episode. They made Goh seem like an expert just to cheer up Ash and make him realize that he can do better than he currently has been. It just rubs me the wrong way.

#9 - JN061
This is a filler episode about Plusle and Minun. The plot of the episode starts off interestingly enough, with Plusle trainer suffering an injury and the Minun trainer having to borrow his Plusle, but the episode doesn’t really get better throughout. There’s also a LOT of Tauros in this episode for some reason. Ash and Goh help out the Plusle trainer throughout the episode, but then we find out that Team Rocket has been stirring up trouble. Interestingly enough, this leads to one of the rare times that Ash sees through one of Team Rocket’s disguises. This is the only time it has happened in Journeys so far, but Team Rocket using disguises in Journeys is already surprisingly rare in itself. Overall, this is just a below average filler episode, and it’s pretty forgetable. I can’t remember some of the finer details about it myself.

#8 - JN058
One of the consistantly bad two-in-one episodes. The first half of this one focuses on Gulpin. For some reason, the Gatcha machine has a ton of Gulpin Pokéballs in it. The Gulpin also stick to litterally everything they touch, which was never established at any other point in the show where Gulpin appeared in the anime. The conflict of this segment is just idiotic. The turtle Pokémon race segment afterwards just drags on and has no real payoff either. The joke is based on the fact that turtles are supposed to be slow at races, like in the classic tale “The Tortoise and the Hare”. However, since all of the racers are turtles, they’re all slow. And then Team Rocket’s Chewtle wins by default because some guy took all of the other turtles with him. What a waste of time.

#7 - JN067
This is a moronic filler episode about Pikachu being arrested for stealing electricity. First of all, how do the writers get bored enough to make a plot about something that Pikachu would obviously never do? Aside from that, we just see Ash run from house to house trying to find answers. Eventually, we learn that Team Rocket’s Morpeko is cussing the problems in the episode. Team Rocket drive away with Morpeko, and the barebones plot of this episode just gets dragged on and on with no payoff. Really irratating filler episode, and another reason to not like Morpeko in Journeys.

#6 - JN041
This is one of the dumb two-in-one episodes. All of them are bad, but I think this is the worst one. Team Rocket dubbing over Pikachu to understand its thoughts is incredibly stupid when you consider how Meowth can just translate anything a Pokémon says. I guess they want Jessie and James to understand Pikachu better, but it’s just complete nonsense that leads to nothing. The Marshtomp segment is even worse. It’s a moronic plot of a Marshtomp being stuck in the ground, and Ash and Goh spend the entire segment to get it out. When they do, more Marshtomp are stuck in the ground, leaving the episode with no payoff. Just a waste of time all around.

#5 - JN078
Possibly the most undeserved evolution for a main character’s Pokémon ever. After largely being off-screen for the good part of 14-ish episodes, we learn only in this episode that Drizzile has been training “off-screen”. Somehow, that is enough for it to evolve all the way into Intellion? Are you kidding me? It’s almost like the writers hated Drizzile and just wanted to pretend that it evolve straight from Sobble to Intellion. It absolutely disgusts me. The episode itself also has this weird CotD as a villain who steals Professor Cerise’s data… because he admires him? And the CotD doesn’t learn any harsh lessons for it? Hogwash.

#4 - JN081
Finally, another main character catches a shiny Pokémon! This is such a big accomplishment for Goh, catching a shiny Volto- oh wait, we’re just going to brush that aside in the first 30 seconds of the episode? And Goh doesn’t send out shiny Voltorb at any point later in the episode? What?! Undermining such a huge milestone is already bad in itself, but it’s even worse in that its followed by a compete nothing plot. Ash, Goh, and Chloe do nothing throughout the entire episode, and it’s driven by these CotDs that we have no reason to care about. There’s no clear cut story, just a bunch of nonsense about Pokémon that happen to be blue. And… you’re telling me that Goh’s shiny Voltorb plays no part in the episode after its captured? Yeah, this is a terrible episode.

#3 - JN030
This episode betrays Pikachu’s entire characterization for no payoff whatsoever. In theory, this should be an interesting episode, and I can see why people would like it. However, I hate it. Pikachu really got jelous over Riolu, really? Riolu is an unevolved Pokémon and needed training, of course Ash would want to focus on it at the moment. Pikachu getting the impression that Ash doesn’t care about him anymore just because he’s focusing on a newer team recruit is disgustingly out of character. Pikachu is just extremely unlikeable in this episode, and this episode only. It’s definitely one of the worst Pikachu episodes in the entire show. The only nice part is the scene with Delia singing to Pikachu, but Pikachu going to Delia for consulting is something it never had to do before for any reason. This episode just left a really bad taste in my mouth that never went away.

#2 - JN097
Atrocious episode. I would put this in my bottom five episodes of the entire anime. We only get Ash and Goh in this episode, and the conflict of Goh wanting to catch a Galarian Slowpoke gets resolved in the first minute of the episode. The rest of the episode is completely nonsensical. For some reason, the writers thought it would be absolutely hilarious to make a full version of the Slowpoke segment from JN026, and it’s just pure pain. Dumb conflicts between the Kanto variants and Galarian variants, plus crap like rapping “YO! HEY! YO! HEY!” for five minutes, make this episode borderline unwatchable. This was the only Journeys episode that made me want to quit it in the first few minutes, but I stayed committed to my goal of watching every Journeys episode and suffered for it. This episode isn’t even so bad it’s good, it’s just flat out terrible. Skip this one even if you plan on watching every other episode, it’s not worth the pain.

#1 - JN053
Goh. Catches. Suicune. That is all. While I don’t actually think this is the worst episode of Journeys, this episode will be remembered forever for tainting how easy it is to catch a legendary Pokémon, as well as how Goh caught one before Ash did. The episodes I listed before this one are objectively worse to watch, but this episode has the worst effect on the anime as a whole out of all of the episodes on this list. That is why I have it at number one. This is a controversial episode that will stand the test of time among the most controversial moments in the entire show, alongside moments like Ash’s Pikachu losing to Trip’s Snivy in BW001, and Ash’s Greninja losing to Alain’s Charizard in the Kalos League.
 
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I'm sure this list will be updated after I watch Netflix' upcoming batch but I'll give it a shot. From worst to...less worst:
  1. Take My Thief! Please!: Instead of developing James and Morpeko's bond, they put the latter in random adventures that show how obxionous it is, and expect us to care. And forgiving your abuser after it gives you a single candy is okay, right? It's impossible TR developed Stockholm Syndrome...
  2. An Adventure of Mega Proportions!: Hey, it's a parody of tropes that were common in XY! How fun. Oh wait, was I supposed to take it seriously? As real Lucario and Ash development?
  3. Kicking It from Here Into Tomorrow!: A lame reason for learning a move, Goh being a terrible trainer and not apologizing, and an undeserved evolution.
  4. A Crackling Raid Battle!: A Raid battle that looks promising but turns into the Goh Show within seconds, and also has Ash acting like a 4 year old.
  5. Finding a Legend!: A very boring way to tackle the Ho-Oh legends.
  6. How Are You Gonna Keep 'Em Off of the Farm?: A familiar but interesting premise, that becomes very boring and anticlimatic as time goes on.
  7. Splash, Dash, and Smash for the Crown! Slowking's Crowning!: I learnt from Arrested Development that absurdity is only funny when the characters take it seriously and when it doesn't break the rules of the world. That...didn't happen here.
  8. A Close Call... Practically!: Another wasted premise, which goes in very predictable way and who doesn't take advantage of its locations.
  9. VS Kibana! Battle for Masters Eight!!: Even if you hate Raihan and love Lucario, you have to admit this was below average.
  10. Grabbing the Brass Ring!: Two decent premises but with terrible pacing. But at least it was fun how the stories came together.
 
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I wouldn't necessarily say that the Dawn return episodes were the worst but out of all the episodes I watched (skipped a lot tbh) they were the most disappointing.

There were so many things they could have done with Dawn. Contests with Serena and Chole, showing off Hisuian forms, maybe even a whole arc in Hisui, showing off the new outfits from BDSP...
 
Nicolas721 said:
I'm sure this list will be updated after I watch Netflix' upcoming batch but I'll give it a shot. From worst to...less worst:
  1. Take My Thief! Please!: Instead of developing James and Morpeko's bond, they put the latter in random adventures that show how obxionous it is, and expect us to care. And forgiving your abuser after it gives you a single candy is okay, right? It's impossible TR developed Stockholm Syndrome...
  2. An Adventure of Mega Proportions!: Hey, it's a parody of tropes that were common in XY! How fun. Oh wait, was I supposed to take it seriously? As real Lucario and Ash development?
  3. Kicking It from Here Into Tomorrow!: A lame reason for learning a move, Goh being a terrible trainer and not apologizing, and an undeserved evolution.
  4. A Crackling Raid Battle!: A Raid battle that looks promising but turns into the Goh Show within seconds, and also has Ash acting like a 4 year old.
  5. Finding a Legend!: A very boring way to tackle the Ho-Oh legends.
  6. How Are You Gonna Keep 'Em Off of the Farm?: A familiar but interesting premise, that becomes very boring and anticlimatic as time goes on.
  7. Splash, Dash, and Smash for the Crown! Slowking's Crowning!: I learnt from Arrested Development that absurdity is only funny when the characters take it seriously and when it doesn't break the rules of the world. That...didn't happen here.
  8. A Close Call... Practically!: Another wasted premise, which goes in very predictable way and who doesn't take advantage of its locations.
  9. VS Kibana! Battle for Masters Eight!!: Even if you hate Raihan and love Lucario, you have to admit this was below average.
  10. Grabbing the Brass Ring!: Two decent premises but with terrible pacing. But at least it was fun how the stories came together.
Click to expand...
Detective Drizzile! definitely makes it to Top 4. It renders Sobble/Drizzile's character arc meaningless by ignoring its previously established problems and has a lot of contrived plot points that only work for that episode.

The Blue Pokemaniacs...wasn't that bad. Some of the writing was boring and repetitive but it had decent humor and as a fan of blue was aesthetically very pleasing.

Leon vs Alain...I'm still processing it.
 
JN30 used to be seen as an unproblematic episode in my eyes, but now I see how much it reeks of bad writing. Pikachu was never jealous of Ash’s other Pokémon, so why is it acting like that now? The only time I sided with Pikachu in that episode was when Ash called it lazy (& I didn’t blame Pikachu for shocking Ash at that time). Other than that, I don’t feel bad for it at all.

I love Journeys as a season, but now I’m beginning to see why people are saying that it has bad writing.
 
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Rainbow-Rain said:
(Dis)Honorable Mention: JN53.
I don't hate this because Goh caught Suicune. I hate because they made Suicune look like an absolute chump and it was nothing more than a cheap plot device to get Goh into Project Mew. As my favorite Gen 2 Legendary, it deserved better treatment than that. Blah
Click to expand...
My HC is that Suicune only allowed Goh to capture it so that no-one else can bother it.
 
Idk abt the exact order but
10) Ep 9
9) Ep 8
8) Ep 115
7) Ep 78
6) Ep 59
5) Ep 73
4) Ep 81
3) Ep 41
2) Ep 97
1) Ep 30

Ep 8/9 felt so misleading with Ho-Oh/Dawn and Brock, 115 rushed Alain's battle for no good reason, 78 and 59 could've been good but had poor execution (78 also needed more buildup), 73-97 were boring af and I have no idea what they were doing with 30
 
Episodes 9, 19, 24, 41, 52, 58, 61, 67, and 81

These are all essentially filler episodes
It's not just because they're filler as I think there are enjoyable filler episodes in JN

But for me they were completely forgettable, had no impact on me, or just not interesting
 
Here's my top 10 worst, plus a short statement for why I probably hate them.
JN009: Clickbait episode that focuses around a character i never cared about.
JN122: Leon vs Alain, but it's somehow ten times worse
JN095: TriO returns, only to have a clickbaity breakup that just didn't work.
JN026: Two-in one episodes suck, but this one was barely tolerable.
JN058: Two-in-one that is still shit in general.
JN048: How NOT to do a Brick Joke: The Episode
JN097: Did we need a two-parter for the JN026 slowpoke segment that's somehow even worse?
JN059: The episode that introduced the worst character in Journeys
JN120: A terrible conclusion to an underused character and proof the writers hate Chloe.
JN041: The proof that two-in-one episodes don't work.
JN081: The perfect demonstration on how to make an episode of the lowest quality.
 
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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