SerGoldenhandtheJust
Deluded Dreamer
So, there's been a negative outlook in the anipoke fandom recently, moreso than usual. Even I have kinda fit into that cynical attitude ever since the suicune episode, coz those plot points really confirmed my worst fears of Journeys, even twitter recently experienced a hate surge after 3 prominent anipoke youtubers kinda overreacted on that 2 in one episode being revealed. Anyway considering that imo the criticisms recently are deserved, instead of doing a whole list all positive things of journeys to combat the cynical attitudes, Id rather open a more specific discussion on how Journeys could improve on its 2 criticisms, so that in the end its a more coherent and good series people love, like what happened with SM. I never could have imagined SM would be my fav series when its second year started, so Journeys deserves its fair chance too. Refrain from replying to the thread if you just wanna complain, this is for how journeys can improve to become a better series, not for you to just hate on it.
Ill start this thread with my opinion:
1) Proper Screentime for Mons
They really need to make more episodes for mons, especially ash's to get more fleshed out. For example, Gengar was initially loved coz of its prankster personality, something the anime alludes Ash's gengar has but never properly shows it. Imagine a proper Ash's team gets lost episode for journeys. Ash journeys team lineup is so freaking sick, A wannabe stoic lucario, a caring and loving but insanely strong dragonite, a prankster gengar, an aloof dracovish, a narcisstic show off knight sirfetchd (This is me guessing how Sirfetchd would be, even right now it has a great personality as a rogue street samurai farfetch'd), the ever responsible but also sometimes immature pikachu. Not only is this a STRONG team, it has such interesting personalities that dont get to shine. Like just imagine all these personalities bouncing off each other as they try and work together, fighting and eventually bonding. SM was so incredible with team dynamic so Journeys shouldnt be missing this.
Another episode idea is Ash taking all his mons on a solo training exercise, where mishaps happen and all. The mons training together in more then just opening sequences of episodes, Ash trying to calm and control his team, and giving us an actual reason to accept that this team has been sufficiently trained to be the team capable of beating Elite 4s, champions and the World Champion Leon himself.
2) Goh's storyline
Arguably the factor most responsible for Pokemon Journeys controversies, Goh has been a mixed bag. I mentioned how I want him to have had more development episodes before he caught suicune but considering that episode already happened, thats a moot point. Goh is pretty much an expert in his goal by now, so how can he be redeemed? Well first of all, the slow pace he has had recently with catching mons? KEEP THAT. 99 percent of his mons from now on should be captured by battling and not too many at once in an episode. I get there are first stage mons that dont really need that but atleast make the only throwing a ball thing fun, whether it be through meming it, Goh applying different curves to the ball, or, HOPEFULLY, actually using different balls for different situations now. Besides this, remember the Golurk goes berserk while cascoon try to evolve episode? The first episode after the hiatus? More of that as it helps give cute mon interactions while also giving Goh mons more time to shine. Also like how he recently used Raichu and Exeggutor in the Suicune episode, have him use more of his wide arsenal of mons from time to time. Put him in new scenarios in episodes like how SM did with Ash so Goh's personality can be more expanded on from time to time. Let him struggle more, not necessairly in just his goal, but make him more flawed from time to time. Also stop baiting his captures the way you did with sobble, and let him take the backseat more often.
3)More Chloe Action
Chloe has been a pretty unique character, a breath of fresh air in the anipoke 1K+ series. They have been incredibly building her up while not making her feel like fodder like they did with serena for the beginning episodes of XY by making Chloe a side character whos now being promoted slowly to a main companion role. The writers have been handling her pretty well, so now, the main thing is that they need to start delivering on the buildup. More episodes with just Chloe going pokemon are cool after all and bearing and enjoying Ash and Goh more would end up feeling stale. Deliver on the buildup, it honestly doesnt even have to be her picking up a major goal like contests or some ****, it can be relatively simple but also something that makes it seem like she has a focus on something and is making an impact on that field. The Ponyta episode looks to be finally delivering on that buildup so fingers crossed for that!
4) Respecting Ash's Legacy and PWC
This is a major point. Ash is the face of the anime and a character everyone grew up with and many watch the anime coz they are invested in his character. That isnt to say only Ash should get focus, no. But that doesnt mean he should be sidelined which he kinda has been since the 30s of Pokemon Journeys episodes. I stand by that the design for Ash this season is great and that his personality is the best of SM and XY ash combined. Ash's goal is such an amazing concept, like a worldwide pokemon battling series with rankings, as if its a sport season. How exciting is that? How amazing it is in raising the stakes after Ash won a league after 20 years, an amazing way to advance Ash much further. So imagine how frustrating it is to see such a concept that ash fans clamored more, be discarded so badly. Heck they proved PWC episodes could be great, ep51, the farfetch'd vs gurdurr one. Those are the types of PWC episodes I need more spread out for the series rather than appearing once in every 20 episodes. And not at the cost of offscreen advancement. Ash getting back to super class should have been onscreen. him getting to 400 rank should have been better built up. If they handle it better from now, nothing is ruined, the PWC can still go down as an satisfying goal. Also reduce offscreen training too, please journeys. Heck if not like ep51, let it be like ep20, with the Meganium vs Pikachu battle, it was good! Heck even the short battles like kricketina kylie (koromi) or that tauros dude would work if its with his other mons as well. Such battles spread out, with important battles like korrina, bea, upcoming wikstrom, possibly iris gary and who knows what else, will redeem it. I firmly believe Ash can still be properly developed further, if only the writers had such faith, which is surprising that they dont considering SM accomplished making Ash develop more in many ways.
5) Improving World Tour aspect by adding arcs in regions besides Galar.
This is important. Unpopular opinion, the staying in vermillion stuff doesnt bother me as much. I dont see it as kanto pandering considering its just for setting when u wanna have character based episodes. However, when they do travel to other regions, it needs to be more balanced (shoutout to unova, kalos and alola is understandable but unova is royally being screwed) and instead of them just being episodic, they need to do arcs. Instead of it just being for the pokemon, do it for the region itself and the lore it has. Imagine a Hoenn arc of a few episodes where Ash and Goh team up with latias and latios in a soaring esque adventure to deal with legendary problems in the region. Imagine a sinnoh arc of a few episodes where the mythologies come crashing as Arceus appears, a unova arc where they team up with N to investigate Kyurem and its relation to Zekrom and Reshiram, a kalos arc where Alain (whos searching for mega stones) teams up with Ash to investigate the tie ins of mega stones with Xerneas and Yveltal. An alola arc where Ash defends his title from hau to give him redemption, the aether family being reunited, etc. Imagine having Giovanni arcs again with TR, or tournament arcs like Wallace cup where we can see May dawn Serena or the driftveil PWT which was referenced in Journeys, where Ash can defeat Lance.
In the end, journeys really has so much potential thanks to its setting. The continuity aspect so far has been really good, continue that. Imagine when Ash faces Leon, the announcer does a description for Ash similar to what he got when he faced Tucker in BF series, hes accomplished so much more since then. Ash having a cape too with sponsorships considering his rise in popularity thanks to his feats, battling leon with both old and new mons, and when he wins we get cameos, heck even stills would do the trick, of all his companions watching him on the screen, maybe even a few rivals, his other reserves back at Oak, as he goes up and gets the trophy, becoming the very best, like no one ever was. That thing alone would make so many love Journeys. Have Ash face ppl like Cynthia in the top 8 instead of just Bea and Raihan please, have Ash defeat elite 4s in the hyper class. Journeys honestly still has the potential to be top tier imo. Lemme know your thoughts!
Ill start this thread with my opinion:
1) Proper Screentime for Mons
They really need to make more episodes for mons, especially ash's to get more fleshed out. For example, Gengar was initially loved coz of its prankster personality, something the anime alludes Ash's gengar has but never properly shows it. Imagine a proper Ash's team gets lost episode for journeys. Ash journeys team lineup is so freaking sick, A wannabe stoic lucario, a caring and loving but insanely strong dragonite, a prankster gengar, an aloof dracovish, a narcisstic show off knight sirfetchd (This is me guessing how Sirfetchd would be, even right now it has a great personality as a rogue street samurai farfetch'd), the ever responsible but also sometimes immature pikachu. Not only is this a STRONG team, it has such interesting personalities that dont get to shine. Like just imagine all these personalities bouncing off each other as they try and work together, fighting and eventually bonding. SM was so incredible with team dynamic so Journeys shouldnt be missing this.
Another episode idea is Ash taking all his mons on a solo training exercise, where mishaps happen and all. The mons training together in more then just opening sequences of episodes, Ash trying to calm and control his team, and giving us an actual reason to accept that this team has been sufficiently trained to be the team capable of beating Elite 4s, champions and the World Champion Leon himself.
2) Goh's storyline
Arguably the factor most responsible for Pokemon Journeys controversies, Goh has been a mixed bag. I mentioned how I want him to have had more development episodes before he caught suicune but considering that episode already happened, thats a moot point. Goh is pretty much an expert in his goal by now, so how can he be redeemed? Well first of all, the slow pace he has had recently with catching mons? KEEP THAT. 99 percent of his mons from now on should be captured by battling and not too many at once in an episode. I get there are first stage mons that dont really need that but atleast make the only throwing a ball thing fun, whether it be through meming it, Goh applying different curves to the ball, or, HOPEFULLY, actually using different balls for different situations now. Besides this, remember the Golurk goes berserk while cascoon try to evolve episode? The first episode after the hiatus? More of that as it helps give cute mon interactions while also giving Goh mons more time to shine. Also like how he recently used Raichu and Exeggutor in the Suicune episode, have him use more of his wide arsenal of mons from time to time. Put him in new scenarios in episodes like how SM did with Ash so Goh's personality can be more expanded on from time to time. Let him struggle more, not necessairly in just his goal, but make him more flawed from time to time. Also stop baiting his captures the way you did with sobble, and let him take the backseat more often.
3)More Chloe Action
Chloe has been a pretty unique character, a breath of fresh air in the anipoke 1K+ series. They have been incredibly building her up while not making her feel like fodder like they did with serena for the beginning episodes of XY by making Chloe a side character whos now being promoted slowly to a main companion role. The writers have been handling her pretty well, so now, the main thing is that they need to start delivering on the buildup. More episodes with just Chloe going pokemon are cool after all and bearing and enjoying Ash and Goh more would end up feeling stale. Deliver on the buildup, it honestly doesnt even have to be her picking up a major goal like contests or some ****, it can be relatively simple but also something that makes it seem like she has a focus on something and is making an impact on that field. The Ponyta episode looks to be finally delivering on that buildup so fingers crossed for that!
4) Respecting Ash's Legacy and PWC
This is a major point. Ash is the face of the anime and a character everyone grew up with and many watch the anime coz they are invested in his character. That isnt to say only Ash should get focus, no. But that doesnt mean he should be sidelined which he kinda has been since the 30s of Pokemon Journeys episodes. I stand by that the design for Ash this season is great and that his personality is the best of SM and XY ash combined. Ash's goal is such an amazing concept, like a worldwide pokemon battling series with rankings, as if its a sport season. How exciting is that? How amazing it is in raising the stakes after Ash won a league after 20 years, an amazing way to advance Ash much further. So imagine how frustrating it is to see such a concept that ash fans clamored more, be discarded so badly. Heck they proved PWC episodes could be great, ep51, the farfetch'd vs gurdurr one. Those are the types of PWC episodes I need more spread out for the series rather than appearing once in every 20 episodes. And not at the cost of offscreen advancement. Ash getting back to super class should have been onscreen. him getting to 400 rank should have been better built up. If they handle it better from now, nothing is ruined, the PWC can still go down as an satisfying goal. Also reduce offscreen training too, please journeys. Heck if not like ep51, let it be like ep20, with the Meganium vs Pikachu battle, it was good! Heck even the short battles like kricketina kylie (koromi) or that tauros dude would work if its with his other mons as well. Such battles spread out, with important battles like korrina, bea, upcoming wikstrom, possibly iris gary and who knows what else, will redeem it. I firmly believe Ash can still be properly developed further, if only the writers had such faith, which is surprising that they dont considering SM accomplished making Ash develop more in many ways.
5) Improving World Tour aspect by adding arcs in regions besides Galar.
This is important. Unpopular opinion, the staying in vermillion stuff doesnt bother me as much. I dont see it as kanto pandering considering its just for setting when u wanna have character based episodes. However, when they do travel to other regions, it needs to be more balanced (shoutout to unova, kalos and alola is understandable but unova is royally being screwed) and instead of them just being episodic, they need to do arcs. Instead of it just being for the pokemon, do it for the region itself and the lore it has. Imagine a Hoenn arc of a few episodes where Ash and Goh team up with latias and latios in a soaring esque adventure to deal with legendary problems in the region. Imagine a sinnoh arc of a few episodes where the mythologies come crashing as Arceus appears, a unova arc where they team up with N to investigate Kyurem and its relation to Zekrom and Reshiram, a kalos arc where Alain (whos searching for mega stones) teams up with Ash to investigate the tie ins of mega stones with Xerneas and Yveltal. An alola arc where Ash defends his title from hau to give him redemption, the aether family being reunited, etc. Imagine having Giovanni arcs again with TR, or tournament arcs like Wallace cup where we can see May dawn Serena or the driftveil PWT which was referenced in Journeys, where Ash can defeat Lance.
In the end, journeys really has so much potential thanks to its setting. The continuity aspect so far has been really good, continue that. Imagine when Ash faces Leon, the announcer does a description for Ash similar to what he got when he faced Tucker in BF series, hes accomplished so much more since then. Ash having a cape too with sponsorships considering his rise in popularity thanks to his feats, battling leon with both old and new mons, and when he wins we get cameos, heck even stills would do the trick, of all his companions watching him on the screen, maybe even a few rivals, his other reserves back at Oak, as he goes up and gets the trophy, becoming the very best, like no one ever was. That thing alone would make so many love Journeys. Have Ash face ppl like Cynthia in the top 8 instead of just Bea and Raihan please, have Ash defeat elite 4s in the hyper class. Journeys honestly still has the potential to be top tier imo. Lemme know your thoughts!