Johto=/=Battle Frontier?

[Fez the Mysfit Elf]

For a time now, I've been curious about this. As most of you know, the average Pokemon fan hated the Johto saga with a passion, yet they loved the Battle Frontier episodes. Why? From what I've heard, Johto seemed to be hated because it was nothing more then a Kanto rehash. But, isn't that pretty much what BF was? There was really no difference between the Battle Frontier and the Advanced series, so why does everyone love it so? What where the differences? There really wasn't enough difference to put it in a different boat as Johto. Was it May that made the difference? Did fans really not care that they were watching the same thing for another season, just so long as their favorite heroine was there? Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

 

[dark trainer]

johto was about three times the lenghth of battle frontier and most people like battle frontier because it had may in it

 

[jolteonjak]

To me, Johto was about 85% filler and 15% action.

I personally don't care about a Ledian's flight pattern or dancing Bellossom. I want to see more battling...whether its with other trainers or gym leaders.

Battle Frontier is perfect because the percentages above are probably reversed.

 

[Super-Staff]

Battle Frontier has better filler from what I've seen of it. Johto's was just boring with the exception of a couple episodes here and there.

BF also had interesting characters like Harley, that spiced some episodes up quite a bit, adding some humor. There was also some character development in the Contest episodes and there were a few others that focused on the Pokemon that I enjoyed (the episode with Ash's Grovyle evolving into Sceptile comes to my mind).

 

[CyberCubed]

Battle Frontier had excellent Brain battles, the Contest arc was excellent, (especially with how much Harley appeared), Ash had an almost fully evolved team for once, (which a lot of people liked), and many of the fillers were good too.

Add the fact in that there was only like 5 episodes between each Brain match, (and one of those always happened to be a Contest), there was hardly any filler at all after the original Noland/Greta gap.

Ash also used old Pokemon from Oaks and the Battle Pyramid had him losing to the same guy three times.

There was a LOT to like in this saga. I remember how excited everyone was as the episodes were airing in Japan.

 

[Legendary Raikou]

Early Early Jhoto was the best out of it, later Jhoto episodes were boringish. Battle Frontier just has better action in it right now than Jhoto didn't until the end.

 

[Jorah]

Johto's fillers were really boring (except the odd one here and there) and since Johto was practically made up of fillers it made it into an ultra boring series. I didn't even like the gym battles a lot, especially Falkner's. The only one's I did like was Whitney, Bugsy and Claire's (I loved the episodes with Claire in). Most of BF's fillers are interesting and exciting, the only one I didn't like so much is Three Jynx and a baby, but even then it was OK. And the Frontier Brains battles have been really good so far.

 

[Fez the Mysfit Elf]

johto was about three times the lenghth of battle frontier and most people like battle frontier because it had may in it

So in other words, a rehash is perfectly alright so long as it has your favorite character in it?

Battle Frontier has better filler from what I've seen of it. Johto's was just boring with the exception of a couple episodes here and there.

Why? What was so different avout the two seasons fillers? Last I checked, they were both equely pointless, only BF was a bit more cliche.

BF also had interesting characters like Harley, that spiced some episodes up quite a bit, adding some humor. There was also some character development in the Contest episodes and there were a few others that focused on the Pokemon that I enjoyed (the episode with Ash's Grovyle evolving into Sceptile comes to my mind).

So Harley is enough to make an entire season great? From the episodes I saw, all he did was the exact same thing every episode. How is he any better then Gary was?

And the character development in the contests were hardly there at all. It was pretty much the same thing as Ash in his Johto gyms, only with May.

Battle Frontier had excellent Brain battles, the Contest arc was excellent, (especially with how much Harley appeared), Ash had an almost fully evolved team for once, (which a lot of people liked), and many of the fillers were good too.

How were the Brains any different from the regular gym leaders? I personaly saw absolutely no difference between the two, except that the Brains were held in higher light.

And how was this contest arc different from the last one? I've seen several contest episodes from BF, and not once did they appear any different. It was really like Hoenn had never ended.

Add the fact in that there was only like 5 episodes between each Brain match, (and one of those always happened to be a Contest), there was hardly any filler at all after the original Noland/Greta gap.

So basically the fandome doesn't mind a complete rehash, just so long as there are no filler episodes? But the filler episodes were what mark the series apart from each other! If Johto didn't have any fillers, it would be exactly like Kanto, and if BF didn't have any fillers, it would be exactly the same as Hoenn.

 

[CaptainBrain]

So Harley is enough to make an entire season great? From the episodes I saw, all he did was the exact same thing every episode. How is he any better then Gary was?

Harley has purple hair! And besides that, Gary's voice got on my nerves.

 

[Outlawz]

Im probably the only person who likes johto but thats just me, I thought it was pretty good.

 

[SUBRICK]

I like the battle frontier more as well, but not because that's what the majority likes more. I just thought that Johto dragged on and on. with nothing more than introducing new pokemon, gym battles, and that's pretty much it. Aside from the casual good episodes (perhaps the water conference thing and Ho-oh tower storyline) it was a bad, and somewhat long season.

Battle frontier had a faster pace in terms of storyline, chatacter development, and brain encounters. They were also more enjoyable because these brains had personalities and a lot of Ash's old pokemon were used. You cannot tell me that Ash's battle between whithney mas more exciting than the one between the old frontier brain dude (or any other brain for that matter). The only bad part to battle frontier was that they couldve had encounters with old filler characters like the samurai dude or old pokemon like pidgeot and butterfree. Plus, having some gay dude annoying the sh*t out of a 10 year old girl is priceless.

 

[pokemaster 13]

I like the battle frontier more as well, but not because that's what the majority likes more. I just thought that Johto dragged on and on. with nothing more than introducing new pokemon, gym battles, and that's pretty much it. Aside from the casual good episodes (perhaps the water conference thing and Ho-oh tower storyline) it was a bad, and somewhat long season.

Battle frontier had a faster pace in terms of storyline, chatacter development, and brain encounters. They were also more enjoyable because these brains had personalities and a lot of Ash's old pokemon were used. You cannot tell me that Ash's battle between whithney mas more exciting than the one between the old frontier brain dude (or any other brain for that matter). The only bad part to battle frontier was that they couldve had encounters with old filler characters like the samurai dude or old pokemon like pidgeot and butterfree. Plus, having some gay dude annoying the sh*t out of a 10 year old girl is priceless.

or have some of the old gym leaders come back for a episode or two.

 

[HoennMaster]

Battle Frontier is not a rehash. Just because it is in Kanto makes it a rehash? It a journey, just like OI, Johto, and Hoenn. Johto has too many boring fillers, Battle Frontier didn't.

 

[n@nd0]

I think jhoto has a relation with Sinnoh region

 

[Encyclopika]

Personally, I liked BF much better than Johto because is wasn't so boring. We didn't JUST have Ash's battles to look forward to (and by that time (Johto), I had had enough of gyms).
We had another arc on top of the Brain arc - May's Contests - in which were all very nicely done, interesting, and had large amounts of May interacting with Drew and Harley - two very interesting characters.
Ash's team was actually evolved and it was believable that they were winning battles. =P
The fillers were also great in their own right - something important happened in most of them and if not, they were still interesting, especially after the half-way mark.
Unfortunately for Johto, it just had nothingness to it and every filler was barely memorable. =\ Too many things were beyond stale. It was the saga that killed Misty and it almost killed Pokemon for me too. I had stopped watching it halfway through. ^^;

 

[Yamato-san]

Personally, I liked BF much better than Johto because is wasn't so boring. We didn't JUST have Ash's battles to look forward to (and by that time (Johto), I had had enough of gyms).

were you starting to depreciate the gyms because Kantou pretty much crapped on them? I ask, because Jouto probably improved on gym battles a thousandfold from the early days.

Ash's team was actually evolved and it was believable that they were winning battles. =P

his wins in Jouto were believable as well. Sure, he had a mostly unevolved team at the time, but at least they weren't getting one-hit KOs with the most simple-minded of strategies (again, I refer to Kantou).

Not to say I'm not disagreeing that Jouto was the inferior saga, in fact, after looking at this thread, I'm wondering how the hell Fez could be so friggin' blind and not see that there're a LOT more differences than just Haruka's presence (like the severe lack of fillers, actually getting somewhere in terms of plot faster, and more time spent on developing the characters and their Pokemon rather than let them stagnate for a hundred episodes). But really, the gym battles (and the occasional trainer battle) were definitely one of the better parts of that horribly dragged out saga, and even though Advanced Generation's battles blow almost everything before it out of the water, Jouto's battles are nontheless worthy of mention (especially seeing how much of a huge step up they were from Kantou).

 

[Korobooshi Kojiro]

Battle Frontier is a Johto rehash????????

Dude, it has great fillers (and not alot of them at that), awesome battles, awesome contests, HARLEY, and was better then Johto like...in every way possible besides relation to the games and KAnto references.

 

[HoennMaster]

Battle Frontier is a Johto rehash????????

So I'm not the only one baffled by that?

Battle Frontier > Johto.

 

[GabsterTJC]

Stop making fun of Johto Journeys! It had Misty and the fillers were really great! What about the episodes with Ash catching his pokemon or the one with Brock and Susie? Those were good! The Whirl CUp was the best! Misty was great. Who can forget that Lance made his first debut there? Johto was one of the best.

 

[CyberCubed]

LOL @ Lance.

Do you ever NOT talk about the guy?