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December 24th: PM2019 092 - Gangar Does Its Best! The Road to Kyodaimax!!

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AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
The reactions here are the exact opposite of what I expected to see. This fanbase, oof amirite?
Let's not kid ourselves here. Waiting over a whole year for a favorite to finally win at something is not fixing an issue but rather stalling for an answer for almost no reason other than to make the rest of the team look far better in comparison.

...Made worse when that waiting had an abysmal number of serious battles with low amounts of Pokemon in them.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
Let's not kid ourselves here. Waiting over a whole year for a favorite to finally win at something is not fixing an issue but rather stalling for an answer for almost no reason other than to make the rest of the team look far better in comparison.

...Made worse when that waiting had an abysmal number of serious battles with low amounts of Pokemon in them.
Right but after spending nearly the entire year making jokes or complaining about Gengar’s screentime or it’s performance in battles, you’d think the revelation of a potential mini arc for it akin to Ash’s other captures this season, would attract a more enthusiastic reaction.

And at the same time it’s not like we haven’t waited far longer for other Pokémon of Ash’s, not even including other’s of the main cast. We knew this was coming, and we have a whole nother year worth of even more potential showings for it. We’d have to agree to disagree on your point.
 
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We’re really supposed to celebrate a character getting the bare minimum with character focused episodes? I mean it’s cool it’s getting something besides being knocked out but this shouldn’t be some grand revelation 76 episodes later
Probably the perfect encapsulation of how I feel.
It’s at 42 episodes. It was caught in the first episode of this year and the most it has gotten was beating Iris’s Dragonite.
Rookie numbers then...Though to be fair to Gengar, I think it did more in 42 or so episodes after it's introduction comparatively with Dracovish. The Ash vs Visquez battle is still my favorite from Journeys.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
Right but after spending nearly the entire year making jokes or complaining about Gengar’s screentime or it’s performance in battles, you’d think the revelation of a potential mini arc for it akin to Ash’s other captures this season, would attract a more enthusiastic reaction.
This move is not healing an injury but rather attempting to heal a deep scar. The damage was already done.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
This move is not healing an injury but rather attempting to heal a deep scar. The damage was already done.
Like I said, we’d have to agree to disagree on that point. Would you still be saying the same thing if for some reason the next dozen or so Ash focused episodes have to do with Gengar? Or would it still be too little too late?

I can’t get behind that way of thinking because it’s a little too pessimistic for my taste. I enjoyed Farfetch’d’s mini arc, I enjoyed Lucario’s mini arc, I enjoyed Dragonite’s development in Iris’ episode, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna enjoy Gengar’s
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
Would you still be saying the same thing if for some reason the next dozen or so Ash focused episodes have to do with Gengar? Or would it still be too little too late?
In that hypothetical scenario, it would cause a whole slew of problems...mainly because it's rather too late for any Pokemon (other than Lucario) to have a total of 12 focus episodes this late into the saga, and even if it got 12 new episodes for itself, it would look extremely awkward and rather forced when it's gotten very little importance to stand out as a battler (or even a useful recurring Pokemon). There's also the fact that it simply doesn't have that level of importance.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
In that hypothetical scenario, it would cause a whole slew of problems...mainly because it's rather too late for any Pokemon (other than Lucario) to have a total of 12 focus episodes this late into the saga, and even if it got 12 new episodes for itself, it would look extremely awkward and rather forced when it's gotten very little importance to stand out as a battler (or even a useful recurring Pokemon). There's also the fact that it simply doesn't have that level of importance.
This dictation on what’s significant to you guys and what isn’t is so jarring lol. It’s never too late for any of Ash’s Pokémon to get some development, especially when this saga Ash is shown training as much as he did in SM, which is not a lot.

Group interactions, learning new moves, personality display, or even just training for the next gimmick Ash’ll use, we need all of that because we simply don’t get enough of it. It can’t be forced if literally nothing else is happening in the story lol! There are no subplots happening, all that’s happening is the overarching Project Mew and PWC stories which come and go, so there needs to be stuff taking place in between those episodes.

In all honesty, these reactions sound more like complaining for the sake of. After a few appearances spread out over 2021, and a decent performance in Volkner’s battle, Gengar is now getting the spotlight totally on it. There’s still an entire year+(?) of the show left, 3 more major battles for Ash in his current Class, and no other major story arcs on the horizon that could take away its spotlight, so there’s more than enough time left for anything. So again I ask, what exactly is the problem?
 

BlazingAsh

Well-Known Member
People on this forum for more than a year: Give us Gengar focus! We want Gengar focus! It hasn't had any focus in forever!

People on this forum now: Ugh, Gengar focus. How stupid. Too late and episode is an immediate skip.
Moral of the story: you can never please everyone. People are going to be pissed no matter what you do.
 

Teravolt

cilan lives forever in my heart
if we don’t get Allister in this episode, i am going to riot.

#justiceforali

ok i’m going to go now
 

mehmeh1

Not thinking twice!
if we don’t get Allister in this episode, i am going to riot.

#justiceforali

ok i’m going to go now
t h e d r e a m i s d e a d
 
This dictation on what’s significant to you guys and what isn’t is so jarring lol. It’s never too late for any of Ash’s Pokémon to get some development, especially when this saga Ash is shown training as much as he did in SM, which is not a lot.

Group interactions, learning new moves, personality display, or even just training for the next gimmick Ash’ll use, we need all of that because we simply don’t get enough of it. It can’t be forced if literally nothing else is happening in the story lol! There are no subplots happening, all that’s happening is the overarching Project Mew and PWC stories which come and go, so there needs to be stuff taking place in between those episodes.

In all honesty, these reactions sound more like complaining for the sake of. After a few appearances spread out over 2021, and a decent performance in Volkner’s battle, Gengar is now getting the spotlight totally on it. There’s still an entire year+(?) of the show left, 3 more major battles for Ash in his current Class, and no other major story arcs on the horizon that could take away its spotlight, so there’s more than enough time left for anything. So again I ask, what exactly is the problem?
I think what Chris was getting at is that Journeys is structurally unsound.

Of course, I guess conceptually it's never too late for anything, but the fundamental problems that are the core of Journeys have already unfortunately weakened many of the potential story arcs that Journeys may have in store for the future. It's already happened for me with Lucario's mini-arc for example. The PWC is basically a persistent long-form version of it. Though even despite those long-form problems, it's not like Journeys consistently handles mini-arcs well when they do happen anyway, which also feeds into its problems.

I definitely don't think the skepticism and overall exasperation people have is unwarranted at all. The weak foundation Journeys has laid out begets these types of reactions. It's simply much harder to course correct this far into the series and people are inherently going to be skeptical of the execution based on what Journeys has already done. A lot of what you mentioned in your second paragraph are great things that I'm sure everyone would love to see, but they haven't happened yet and because they haven't happened, it's hurt both the perception of Journeys for the future in delivering those things and more importantly, hurt the ability for Journeys to execute well anyway.

To give a more concrete idea of what I'm talking about, I think a lot of people would be more excited for this " mini-arc " if Gengar had existed in any meaningful way prior for 76 or so episodes. I certainly would be.

I understand that you're more optimistic than a lot of us, although I'm unsure of what Journeys has done recently to warrant such optimism, but I think that's basically the key disagreement here which is what you already mentioned.
 
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AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
I'm torn here because I'm happy that Gengar is finally doing something but at the same time, with the writers treatment of him, they might make him lose or who knows how many others things so I'm nervous.
A focus for it means it will win.

Outside of it, though? It's competing against Pikachu, Dragonite, and Lucario, who will most likely take the wins from it, Sirfetch'd, and Dracovish if any combination is in a very important battle. The ideal would be the three less popular having a 3-on-3 for themselves, but Ash is never letting at least Pikachu sit a battle out with more than one Pokemon.
 

Rohanator

Well-Known Member
Can we call this a record between capture to actual focus episode (battles don't count I'm talking character focus)?

Not to be to cynical, I'm glad it's happening but it's still pretty embarrassing it took this long like I straight up given up hope
Some Mons NEVER get true character focus after their captures, like most OS Mons, Torkoal, BW reserves and kinda Meltan but whatever that was late. And then there's the cases like Torterra, Scraggy and Noivern where they just kinda stop getting any relevance as characters OR battlers for no reason making the earlier focus feel like it didn't even matter.

Screentime scarcity sucks but to me it feels like PM has a more solid plan for each Mon at least and if it goes the way I expect it'll be more satisfying to me in the end, especially on rewatch.

It really is a weird "can't have it both ways" thing with the anime often though lol, like it seems to me that because Mons like Torkoal and Torterra had more casual appearances the writers just kinda forgot or didn't feel the need to give them much actual spotlight while here they won't utilize a Mon often but at least seem conscious that they need to make it up with something that's actually good. Oh well praise Alola
 

Panky..

Discord: Panky..#9281
People on this forum for more than a year: Give us Gengar focus! We want Gengar focus! It hasn't had any focus in forever!

People on this forum now: Ugh, Gengar focus. How stupid. Too late and episode is an immediate skip.
Or maybe you could not resort to a demeaning generalization, and actually read every comment individually?
The reactions here are the exact opposite of what I expected to see. This fanbase, oof amirite?
In all honesty, these reactions sound more like complaining for the sake of.
Same as above.

The problems I personally have with this have nothing to do with "Gengar getting focus" and "complaining for the sake of it", more so other factors. This 2-parter seems more like a showcase of a gimmick, with Gengar being thrown a bone as a pitiful coincidence, rather than true-blue-genuine development and focus for Gengar. It also doesn't help that Pokemon development is restricted to obligatory focus episodes (which, mind you, Gengar hasn't even gotten even a single one of more than a year and a half since its capture) instead of being spread out and being organic over time. It's even more sad that Pokemon appearances outside those episodes are being treated as some sort of big celebratory moments when this would have been the norm in past series.

Moving on, it's not even actual proof that Gengar won't continue to be mistreated narratively after this 2-parter, just look what happened to Sirfetch'd even after it had a decent mini-arc + evolution. Furthermore, after the last major PWC related mini-arc being botched with all sorts of pacing and narrative decisions that affected its overall quality, the skepticism for this 2-parter only increases even more, not even counting the complete lack of build-up to it.
 
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santiagus

I watched Pokemon anime for 20 freaking years
Screentime scarcity sucks but to me it feels like PM has a more solid plan for each Mon at least and if it goes the way I expect it'll be more satisfying to me in the end, especially on rewatch.

The lack of Buildup with all these situations makes all of this feel forced. And buildup could take only 30 seconds of an episode by how example showing Gengar worried about loosing.
 
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Deleted member 384931

Guest
I dont feel it. It should have happend 50 episodes ago. So what it will use it two or three times?
 
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Deleted member 384931

Guest
Remember the long haired female silhouette that was shown for ash’s upcoming hyper class opponents? What if she appears here or in the previous episode with her gengar?
I hope so. But never say never
 
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