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The great Reserve debate

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desdar300

Well-Known Member
So as we all know Pokemon Journeys is a series where Ash is going to be taking on some of the world's greatest trainers from the video games with his main goal being the unbeatable Leon.
However in the midst of people deciding what captures he should get I've been thinking that perhaps this more than any other series from the past is the one where he should bring back Reserves.
These Pokemon have been with Ash for a long time now and it would be great to have special moments with them since they helped Ash get to where he is today.
The staff have made it clear that Ash is likely not going to catch even a fraction of the Pokemon that go has so why not actually bring back some of his older Pokemon to act as generational Representatives?
Off the top of my head I can already think of something like Oshawott or Gible and this would be a way to tie up any loose ends with these guys while still giving fans a dose of fanservice.

So what do you guys think?
Just stick to capturing new Pokemon that he's never gotten or should they focus on some of those old heads but never really got there time in the Sun?
 

Red and Blue

Well-Known Member
He will probably start to use reserves eventually. His Kanto starter trio were on a few posters and the website
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
I think this is the best setup to bring the reserves back but I'm not holding my breath they will do that.
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
Jesus the first year hasnt even ended yet, be patient. I wouldnt want his reserves to return anyway right now, his new mons deserve the focus. With alola companions confirmed to be returning most probably his alolan mons will return too. Besides that i just want him to have an episode set in pallet town once and for him to use some mons for some hyper class battles or his two masterclass battles before Leon. For Leon his team should be Journeys mons
 

desdar300

Well-Known Member
Jesus the first year hasnt even ended yet, be patient. I wouldnt want his reserves to return anyway right now, his new mons deserve the focus. With alola companions confirmed to be returning most probably his alolan mons will return too. Besides that i just want him to have an episode set in pallet town once and for him to use some mons for some hyper class battles or his two masterclass battles before Leon. For Leon his team should be Journeys mons
The thread was made to be long-term rather than me just wanting it immediately.
I just feel that personally considering the basis bringing them back would make a lot of sense overall
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
We'll probably see them further on when Ash gets to face more powerful opponents and have bigger fights, though I wouldn't be surprised if the ones not at Oak's came in earlier like the Alola team
I hope all of them get to fight at least once, even if he uses them against some random scrub I'd like to see all of his Pokemon get at least one battle in while the newer Pokemon retain some of the higher focus due to this being their series. I'm not in a rush to see them, it's better if they're saved for the final year that way Lucario, Sirfetch, Gengar, Dragonite, and everyone else had plenty of time to themselves
 

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
This series' whole premise was nostalgia bait in the first place but then they provided fake nostalgia in the form of endless Kanto mons (i'm counting farfetchd as a kanto mon despite it being a galar form) for Ash instead of real nostalgia in showing his older Pokemon.
 

ShadowForce720

Well-Known Member
This series' whole premise was nostalgia bait in the first place but then they provided fake nostalgia in the form of endless Kanto mons (i'm counting farfetchd as a kanto mon despite it being a galar form) for Ash instead of real nostalgia in showing his older Pokemon.

Except you can’t find it in Kanto, and it didn’t exist before gen 8 so I fail to see how Galarian Farfetch’d counts a Kanto mon.
 

LucasMV

Well-Known Member
I think this is what could make or break the series, for me at least.

It would make absolutely zero sense from Ash's point of view NOT to bring back any of his reserves back at all for the entire duration of his time going through the Super, Hyper and finally Master classes. He brought them back for his toughest challenge yet, the Battle Frontier. The PWC on it's later stages should make the Battle Frontier look easy in comparison. He shouldn't even hesitate to call his reserves once the competition gets really tough.

From the writers point of view, it also would be so much more meaningful to have Ash defeat E4 and Champion level trainers and become number 1 using all the strongest pokemon he caught since the start of his journey, through every series in this 25 years time span, than Ash doing it with just his most recent captures and ignoring the old ones entirely.

Doing that would only make sense if the writers want to avoid confusing the newer audience that doesn't know about Ash's past pokemon. But if they make that choice, it would make Ash's biggest win ever feel cheap and disconnected with the rest of the series.

So, my hopes? Ash's Alola pokemon will show up when he goes to Alola and that will slowly but surely open the possibilities for all the reserves to come back for tough PWC battles later on.
My fear? They'll ignore the reserves entirely to favor the newer audiences and ruin what could otherwise be the greatest series yet.
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
Things that I would like even though it's not going to happen:

1. Pokemon that can evolve should probably evolve fairly early in the episode and then spend the rest of the episode focusing on its new form even competing in a PWC that barely raises Ash's rank so like by three spots. So from 949 to 946. The exception would be Quilava which should get some cool training in and some great screen time maybe even a PWC and then evolve and then continue to a presence for a few episodes.

Pokemon that I want to see evolve the most: Gible, Quilava, Totodile, Snivy, Palpitoad

2. Pokemon that need the screen time more like Typhlosion should definitely necessitate a few more episodes. After all Typhlosion has gotten the raw deal and could use more appearances. My only issue which I don't care is that its ANOTHER fully evolved fire starter, but in fairness it is Ash's only pure fire starter, since he didn't get Scorbunny.

3. If Ash will get Garchomp, I'll want Gible to evolve really quickly and then Ash uses Gabite for like 10 or so episodes and then have it evolve into Garchomp.

4. Pokemon that need screen time that can show up for a single PWC battle are where they at least beat a Pokemon: Kingler/Muk (1st generation), Donphan (2nd generation), Glalie/Torkoal (3rd Generation), Torterra (4th generation), Unfezant (5th generation), Noivern (6th generation), nothing for 7th generation for reasons I'll get to.

*NOTE* As you noticed the Pokemon I listed were NOT the most important Pokemon. I chose Pokemon I felt like got robbed the most, and would just be good to show off at least one massive victory. Major players will be different.

5. Reserves that need to participate in strong past generation battlers (including rivals): Charizard/Snorlax (1st Generation), Potential Typhlosion or Heracross (2nd Generation), Sceptile (3rd Generation), Infernape (4th Generation), Krookodile (5th generation), Greninja (6th generation), Incineroar / Melmetal (7th generation)

6. Pokemon that would be nice to get some battles or just really good appearances but aren't super important to me: Bulbasaur/Squirtle/Tauros (1st Generation), Bayleef/Noctowl (2nd Generation), Swellow (3rd generation), Staraptor/Buizel/Gliscor (4th generation), Oshawott/Scraggy/Leavanny (5th generation), Hawlucha (6th generation), Lycnaroc/Rowlett (7th generation).

Now if you noticed I really kind of left Boldore out (and other more meaningless Pokemon but Boldore does stand out). Look I would love for Boldore to come back and evolve into Gigalith. I don't know of anyone who prefers Boldore to Gigalith but I'm sure someone does, but I really want Gigalith. But I left it out because I just do not see it happening. Unless they want to introduce an anime only concept of evolving trade Pokemon without needing to trade.

My fear? They'll ignore the reserves entirely to favor the newer audiences and ruin what could otherwise be the greatest series yet.

If they do ignore reserves completely and I mean completely not even bringing back Gible and fully evolving it for example. Then there would be no reason WHY they shouldn't have Ash catch a lot.

At a certain point it's going to be annoying seeing Pikachu, Dragonite, Gengar, Lucario, Sirfetch'd, "Rillaboom" being used in EVERY single battle of the PWC including potential battles against Paul, Tobias, etc, etc.

So Ash might need 12 new captures to justify not using reserves. So he has around 2 team compositions well actually he only need 10 captures since Pikachu will take a slot. But I think 12 would be nice.
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
Honestly if they don't come back, that'd make Ash becoming the 'World Champion' underwhelming. Where's Charizard, Infernape, Greninja, Snorlax, Krookodile, Lycanroc, etc?

I don't get the negativity, there was never a reason to bring back reserves for the League. They only did so in DP, in BW his old Pokemon would have easily overshadowed his new Pokemon. In XY, the League was barely even focused around him and he'd have completely destroyed every single opponent in Alola if he had Charizard with him. This is more like Battle Frontier where he can use his old Pokemon but they're taking the time to give him new Pokemon first like the obligatory Galar Pokemon and popular Pokemon they couldn't the first go around due to him being restricted to current gen only until now

Plus there's the whole situation of making Ash not feel like a god this early on, seeing him just sweep his way to the top 100 would be utterly boring.
 
For the long term, yes, I feel like Ash should start bringing back his reserves. I feel like it makes sense since this is the Pokemon World Championships, where his goal is to beat the (current) strongest trainer, Leon. I really loved it when he brought his reserves back for his tougher challenges, such as in the Battle Frontier and during the Sinnoh Pokemon League. But for the time being, I feel like his current Journeys team should get more focus so that his reserves don't end up overshadowing them. Others may disagree, but I think they did this pretty well when he brought his reserves back for the Sinnoh League.

Them not wanting Ash's previous Pokemon to overshadow his current team is probably the reason why we haven't seen any of them yet. We're still pretty early on in the series, and don't even know what his sixth Pokemon will be.

Either way, they're making beating Leon to be his toughest challenge yet. - The man changes his Charizard's moveset depending on who he battles, that's scary. (Especially since Charizards are always seen as being super strong in the anime for whatever reason...)
 

thedarkdragon11

P4P Elite
Seeing how "rushed" his current captures are being developed and pushed into being fully evolved, I believe Ash will soon use them in rotation in order to survive the Hyper Class up to the time he'll be taking on Leon... So, he'll use his reserves along with his current team, and probably the likes of Greninja or even Lapras, once he reaches Top 100 and facing E4 tier trainers... The only time after that which he will use solely his JN captures (+ Pikachu) in rotation would be when he takes on Leon and possibly Raihan (and other Galar GLs)... Yes, I expect around 8-10 captures in this series and some reserves would evolve in the process...
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I've always said that his older Pokemon that are at Okido-hakase's lab aren't owed anything. Even if some of them didn't get to shine in their respective sagas as much as some viewers wanted, I personally don't see redemption as being necessary just because the writers did what they always do, which is picking favorites and developing those over the less popular Pokemon. It's not fair but it's the reality of the series, just like there are bound to be some Pokemon among Satoshi's current team that probably won't get as much screen-time as Pikachu and Lucario for instance.
 

Pkjoan

Pokemon Master
I think the best way to do this is what BF did and not rush it like Sinnoh. Once Ash reaches the upper Hyper Class or low Master Class he should lose consecutively some battles to realize that his current team is not enough. That way they can bring back some of his old Pokemon, develop them, have a couple of episode traveling with them so you can bond them with the new Pokemon and then evolve them properly if necessary. Once he reaches the final stages of the Master Class, you call the heavy hitters.

Of course, this would require having an episode to bring back his Pokemon currently off the lab, like Greninja.

It's already been confirmed that this series is not only for Gen 8 but future Generations so they can have some episodes where he rotates his team. That way he can evolve the Pokemon that need to evolve without making it feel rushed.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
Until there’s any significant hint at their return, I find any claim of “he’ll eventually use his reserves” to be purely assuming and wishful thinking. I’m not personally anxiously awaiting for something to show up but it’d be disappointing that they’ve shown characters from past series but not his Pokémon. At least acknowledge them as you’re in Kanto most of the time anyway. My preference for this season would’ve been Gen 8 mons and his reserves instead of retreading just to promote popular Pokémon.
This series' whole premise was nostalgia bait in the first place but then they provided fake nostalgia in the form of endless Kanto mons (i'm counting farfetchd as a kanto mon despite it being a galar form) for Ash instead of real nostalgia in showing his older Pokemon.
Agreed especially on the highlighted part
 
I think the best way to do this is what BF did and not rush it like Sinnoh. Once Ash reaches the upper Hyper Class or low Master Class he should lose consecutively some battles to realize that his current team is not enough. That way they can bring back some of his old Pokemon, develop them, have a couple of episode traveling with them so you can bond them with the new Pokemon and then evolve them properly if necessary. Once he reaches the final stages of the Master Class, you call the heavy hitters.

Of course, this would require having an episode to bring back his Pokemon currently off the lab, like Greninja.

It's already been confirmed that this series is not only for Gen 8 but future Generations so they can have some episodes where he rotates his team. That way he can evolve the Pokemon that need to evolve without making it feel rushed.
Really? Where was this confirmed?

That means that the chances of Ash using reserves eventually are a bit higher.
 

Applecorp

Well-Known Member
I think we'll get to see some of Ash's Pokemon from the lab but maybe not until the end of Journeys when Ash has to fight champions including Leon.

For now he's better off working with his current team and making them stronger for the battles ahead.
 

Origamiking

New Member
Seeing Bea use Hawlucha or Go get Heracross in the previous ep....it feels less likely for Ash's old pokemon to be used. It seems like the writers are content with showing old popular Ash pokemon through other characters.
 
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