Since Journies only really gives Lucario and Dragonite to extend a lot of screentime, I’ve looked back at past series:
Kanto: Obviously too much to go into detail here, but anything that wasn’t the starters were immediately Oak’d or released. But the show just started so I’ll give them a pass here since they didn’t know how long it would go on.
Johto: Heracross and Phanpy don’t even get a Gym battle. Heracross leaves too early although it gets to some back later. Totodile and Noctowl only get 1 Gym battle. His team doesn’t get to evolve besides Chikorita.
Hoenn: Torkoal only gets 1 Gym and is abandoned after the league besides a Brandon battle. Glalie is permanently Oak’d after the league.
Sinnoh: Once Turtwig started evolving it was all downhill for it. Gible really came too late to make much impact outside the league match. Gliscor gets left behind mid-series.
BW: Again outside the starters everything else was treated like an afterthought with Palpitoad getting the worst treatment overall. The starters don’t get to evolve. Scraggy never amounted to anything.
XY: Goodra leaves mid-series just to get ties in the league. Noviern comes too late in the series and also doesn’t get much more than ties.
SM: Poipole is released and only comes back for Kukui. Meltan is also only really there for the tail end of the series.
Man looking at what I just typed, I’ve come to the realization like 70% of Ash’s Pokémon as a whole have very little screentime or memorable wins in the series. This has been a problem going on through all 20 years of the anime.
Kanto: Obviously too much to go into detail here, but anything that wasn’t the starters were immediately Oak’d or released. But the show just started so I’ll give them a pass here since they didn’t know how long it would go on.
Johto: Heracross and Phanpy don’t even get a Gym battle. Heracross leaves too early although it gets to some back later. Totodile and Noctowl only get 1 Gym battle. His team doesn’t get to evolve besides Chikorita.
Hoenn: Torkoal only gets 1 Gym and is abandoned after the league besides a Brandon battle. Glalie is permanently Oak’d after the league.
Sinnoh: Once Turtwig started evolving it was all downhill for it. Gible really came too late to make much impact outside the league match. Gliscor gets left behind mid-series.
BW: Again outside the starters everything else was treated like an afterthought with Palpitoad getting the worst treatment overall. The starters don’t get to evolve. Scraggy never amounted to anything.
XY: Goodra leaves mid-series just to get ties in the league. Noviern comes too late in the series and also doesn’t get much more than ties.
SM: Poipole is released and only comes back for Kukui. Meltan is also only really there for the tail end of the series.
Man looking at what I just typed, I’ve come to the realization like 70% of Ash’s Pokémon as a whole have very little screentime or memorable wins in the series. This has been a problem going on through all 20 years of the anime.