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Journeys should have focused on reserves instead of giving Ash a new team

Leonhart

Imagineer
While I think that his reserve Pokemon should've appeared more often in bigger roles, I don't agree with the notion that Satoshi [Ash] should've focused on them completely while not capturing any new Pokemon in this series. On that note, I think he should've captured more Gen VIII species.

3.We already have Goh catching a lot of pokemons every episode which means there's little need for Ash to fulfill that role
I disagree since one of the biggest complaints fans have had about Gou is that his captures happen too quickly, and that most of his Pokemon haven't even been developed.
 

Celebitwo

Celebi Clone
I agree. It really does feel like the current series is the finale. They can't really go back to having Ash just doing the League Championships and I'm not sure where they can go after having a tournament with him against various Champions. He presumably will reach the final against Leon, whether he wins is the narrative bit I can't figure out (if yes, then the series is over).

After 25 years, an ending does make sense although the only thing against that reasoning is the ongoing multimedia franchise. Maybe they reboot it with a new lead? But if it is the last hurrah for Ash then it is majorly disappointing that squad members like Greninja, Charizard, Bulbasaur, Sceptile, Heracross etc didn't get anything more than cameos.
 
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Trillion

Well-Known Member
i agree. don't get me wrong, i like his journey's team. but i think they would have been more universally liked [and it would have made more sense] if this was a team assembled for something like a gym challenge run. but the fact that these rookies are defeating champion-level pokemon is what a lot of people have a problem with

for me the ideal structure would have been something like this:

1) normal class: snivy, oshawott, scraggy, totodile, gible, etc
2) super class: bayleef, quilava, pignite, boldore, glalie, etc
3) hyper class: snorlax, gliscor, staraptor, hawlucha, heracross, etc
4) master class: charizard, sceptile, infernape, greninja [if possible], lycanroc, etc

to me this just makes more sense and would make the pwc as a whole more realistic. if they want to give ash new pokemon- have a few of the unevolved and mid-stage pokemon evolve. give some of these pokemon a chance to shine since some of them didn't really have the opportunity to do so in their own series
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
I actually think that it should have been both. Seeing Ash not catch anything at all? That's boring and not every Pokemon he owns has to/needs to evolve. Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Buizel for example are just fine the way they are. I loved seeing Ash capture older Pokemon and I'd have wanted to see him capture Galar Pokemon regardless of the fact.

Like in my fanfic, I gave him new Pokemon such as Latias, Gardevoir, Gengar, Tyranitar, Inteleon, Slowpoke and Urshifu. But his reserves also come into play like he got Mega Stones for Charizard(Y), Sceptile and a few others. Pidgeot and Primeape rejoined. And Pokemon like Gible evolved into Garchomp and Oshawott became a Hisuian Samurott. I made sure there was a balance of new and old cause that's how I think Pokemon should handle it.
 
I actually think that it should have been both. Seeing Ash not catch anything at all? That's boring and not every Pokemon he owns has to/needs to evolve. Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Buizel for example are just fine the way they are. I loved seeing Ash capture older Pokemon and I'd have wanted to see him capture Galar Pokemon regardless of the fact.

Like in my fanfic, I gave him new Pokemon such as Latias, Gardevoir, Gengar, Tyranitar, Inteleon, Slowpoke and Urshifu. But his reserves also come into play like he got Mega Stones for Charizard(Y), Sceptile and a few others. Pidgeot and Primeape rejoined. And Pokemon like Gible evolved into Garchomp and Oshawott became a Hisuian Samurott. I made sure there was a balance of new and old cause that's how I think Pokemon should handle it.
Where’s your fanfic?
 

Kameinu

Arooo!
R O T A T I O N

Journeys had the perfect set up for him to catch a few newbies to train up mixed with veterans coming into the roster from time to time. Trains newbies like Riolu, Farfetch’d and Dracovish with the old guard. Brings back unfulfilled veterans like Gible and Oshawott and evolves them(DP/PLA advertisement BTW). Win, win on multiple fronts. Develop new guys, develop old guys, bring out the old power houses.

But how, 25 years later, the anime screws up pacing and still prefers just churning out forgettable COTDs over tapping into the vast library of characters already available, I will never understand.
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
Nah, those reserves already have their moments. I rather to have them pass the torch to the new team since the latter have fresh backstories that make me care more about the new team.
 

PaperCutVictim

Well-Known Member
I think his new team makes sense (mostly; Dracovish was not a pokemon I would've ever thought Ash would have), but considering this is the biggest tournament he's ever been in, there should have been mix and matching with his team. The reserves need not step aside for the new blood, and the new blood need not be outshined by his reserves. I feel like there's plenty of room for both, especially if he had the idea to bring up his reserves early. Of course, the problem is that there's no way all of them will get their moment; even if Ash doesn't make lots of captures per season, that's a big cast to go through.

Actually, to be quite honest, I'm surprised Ash's Charizard at least didn't make a return to his team as a rotating member. Though, to be fair, he missed the Charizard shilling in XY too, so yeah.
 
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GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
R O T A T I O N

Journeys had the perfect set up for him to catch a few newbies to train up mixed with veterans coming into the roster from time to time. Trains newbies like Riolu, Farfetch’d and Dracovish with the old guard. Brings back unfulfilled veterans like Gible and Oshawott and evolves them(DP/PLA advertisement BTW). Win, win on multiple fronts. Develop new guys, develop old guys, bring out the old power houses.

But how, 25 years later, the anime screws up pacing and still prefers just churning out forgettable COTDs over tapping into the vast library of characters already available, I will never understand.
I think the issue is that Journeys wasted the first 2 years of its run with doing absolutely nothing and thus having to show the Ultra Class, Masters Tournament, Project Mew and Chloe‘s “arc“ in the span of one year. Additionally, for the first time the traveling companion had as much of a presence as Ash, meaning we had even less time for training and battles. There was no time for a large scale rotation or training arc.

And in the last year they probably realized that if they include reserves in the Ultra Class, the JN team will have no battles prior to the Masters Tournament, which would make any victory appear even more ridiculous than it already is. On the flip side, not including reserves on the Ultra Class and them just defeating champion level Pokemon in the Masters Tournament would also contradict their previous achievements, besides Greninja who was conveniently written out.

They were stuck between a rock and a hard place and opted for giving the new members the chance to shine. I think if they had the chance to go back in time and start new, they would immediately have Ash use reserves in addition to new captures to circumvent this issue.
 

johno1995

Well-Known Member
A mix of new and old would've been the most ideal, honestly. I'm sorry Lucario, Dragonite, Gengar, but in my eyes the series would've been better giving Galar 'mons a time to shine while rotating in and out old Pokemon as "mentors" for his newbies. Introduce Ash as someone who's traveled the world and collected Pokemon from everywhere, so new audience members aren't completely thrown for a loop. It would've just made more sense and really used more of the potential that this series had as a "world tour".
 

lolipiece

Pictured: what browsing Serebii does to a person
Staff member
Moderator
If you said this 80-ish episodes ago, I would've hard disagreed. Little did I know it would take a year, sometimes two, for some of Ash's Pokemon to get more than a crumb of screentime that isn't battle-related. I'd be fine if, say, Infernape only mostly battled because it already finished its arc years ago. Plus, it'd be a chance for more neglected 'mons to get redemption.
 

TurboAceK

Active Member
If I view it as a regular series, no
Would be like asking for reserves instead in every series past Kanto, would feel weird and somewhat disrespectful to the current team

If I view it as an anniversary and/or farewell for Ash series, sure
Take full advantage of the 20 something battles to have more Pokemon have their time to shine


I however don't see journeys as a celebratory series, they made the journeys idea to have less restriction on environments and characters hence character returns and to initially show every pokemon (which they abandoned after the first season or first 1/3 1/4 of journeys)

But due to the anniversaries, the Gen 4 remakes, and etc it feels more celebratory than it actually is
so my answer is no Ash should not use reserves
 

bmw9413

Well-Known Member
Agree 100% I honestly think Ash's Journeys team is the absolute WORST. And most random combination. They have no substance and haven't been battling long enough to even compete. They should have used all his previous Pokemon (and Greninja and Alola team) if this is his last series.
 

SkyBlaze9125

Well-Known Member
My Ash’s Journey Team would mix Pokémon from all regions!

World: Pikachu

Kanto: Gengar

Johto: Tyranitar

Hoenn: Flygon

Sinnoh: Lucario

Unova: Sigilyph

Kalos: Trevenant

Alola: Alolan Dugtrio

Galar: Dracovish
 

Ash Ketchum!

Pokemon Trainer
Kanto Battle Frontier arc already laid the foundation on how to bring back old Pokemon without taking away from new ones. Why couldn't they have done that here?

They could've easily cycled through his old mons and done some interesting things with them. When was the last time we saw a Muk or Torterra fight on camera, vs the 1000th time of a Metagross?
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
i wouldn't have enjoyed it either if Ash had only used his older pokemon the entire saga, but we didn't know how the PWC was going to play out at first, sure it would've been cool to see Ash use his reserves, but I feel at this point it's too little too late.

the hyper class would've been the time to do it imo, since the first two classes he pretty much blitzed with only Bea causing him to struggle but he rebounded quickly, even so it didn't come to pass.

then again the last time Ash used reserves at a moment's notice (The sinnoh league) only 4 of the returnee's were able to secure wins, Quilava came back and evolved...but all it got for that was a draw, and everyone else got beaten senseless or didn't get shown fighting, so it only leads me to wonder if it was necessary overall.

Because reserves are a mixed bag in their own way, cause even if they were used again, who's to say they would be used in ways that those who want them to be will be so?

let me use Torterra as an example, if it came back only to fail yet again just to soften up an enemy for someone else, would those who wanted it back be ok with that? Cause that's a possibility, just because something could return doesn't automatically mean it's going to succeed, and could end up looking worse in usage than it was initially before Ash oaked it like Swellow vs Latios.

Plus let's say that scenario happened and the set up was for one of his current team members, that would only make things worse.

Then again this show's never been perfect, it can never appease everyone.
 
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