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Was the original intent of Johto to make a second Kanto?

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CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
I am still trying to figure out to this day what the original intent of the Johto saga was. They got rid of Tracey and brought back Brock, reuniting the original trio. Gary was also kept as the rival, but that was expected as Ash didn't beat him yet.

No new ideas were brought into the series, Ash's Johto team wound up not breaking any new ground for the series, and the show wound up going on for 3 years instead of only 1 like Kanto.

Did Johto suffer because it tried to be another Kanto, only with far less memorable episodes and too long and drawn out with filler?
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
Well I don't think there was much to go on.

Look at the actual Johto games. The plot sucks so there wasn't much to adapt (not that the writers did much to adopt TRs actual plot from Gen I, but I digress). So it pretty much left the writers on their own.

Johto was largely see as a direct sequel to Kanto, in the games as the anime. I think they were trying to strike magic twice, and it backfired. With the reliance on Pokemon from Kanto, and then suddenly ditching them to use the Johto Pokemon, and then going back to mostly Kanto for the League, and then ditching eVERYONE at the end, it just didn't end well. Not to mention the, at best, minor progression on Brock and Misty's goals.
 

An00bis

Wicked Witch
It was to showcase Johto Pokemon, which they did.

Anything else is entirely over-thinking it.
 

Haunter ゴースト

Well-Known Member
Its a good question really, but it truly is difficult to decide.

No point lying saying no new things at all were introduced since there was, but yes the series did lack a lot of exclusives from the G/S games.

If the GS Ball plot went ahead I think that would have affected a lot on the saga for the better, considering it's arc was supposed to take up a vast majority of it with an interesting Celebi story.
Instead this was replaced with fillers sigh.
It also hinted that Suicune may have been tied up in the arc too since Ash often saw it a few times until the 4th Movie was introduced.

I think the Larvitar arc had a much bigger plot in mind which may have been scrapped too, it's plot was over and done with in no time.

If anything Johto did give Ash his milestone of beating Gary.

To me the best things we got out of Johto was just having the original crew members, Pokemon teams and the occasional good story arc (Lugia and League) for nostalgic memory.
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
It was to showcase Johto Pokemon, which they did.

Anything else is entirely over-thinking it.

Well on the surface every saga just advertises what games have just come out. It's what actually happens in them that set them apart.

I am just curious as to why the original trio was reunited instead of introducing another new character. I remember when Sakura wanted to travel with the group how interesting having 4 people might be and two girls, but it was not meant to be.

Now it just seems like the original trio was reunited for no reason, since this trio was never reunited again in any arc afterward.
 

Haunter ゴースト

Well-Known Member
Truth is though really, the writers were still in the early days of producing the anime so getting to understand the anime's do's and dont's was a big task.

They realised they gained nothing from having the same things again and again, hence why they had Ash start fresh and have Misty depart with Hoenn.

Im glad they kept Brock for sure, but I don't actually know what made them keep him.

Obviously ever since they keep refreshing each Saga in someway with new characters and another fresh start.

If you picture the OS as any other anime series, you can class Ash Misty and Brock as them actually being the main cast of the show altogether at that point, unfortunately since the show consists of the same things, battling gyms travelling the region etc, a new change of crew for different personalities is apparently what the writers needed.

This is what has diverted the show so much from how it used to be if you ask me.
Of course it's the same thing, but the feeling of the show now is a lot different.
 

ShinyCharyZard

Too old for your rubbish..
Johto was meant to be an equally successful sequel, which despite what anyone says about it sucking, it did exactly what it was meant to do.. otherwise the anime would've just ended there and then wouldn't it..

The only reason the original trio was reunited was because everyone raged about Brock being replaced and really disliked Tracey. I liked him. So they panicked and brought back the character they knew had a large fanbase already.
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
The initial fad of the series ended around early and mid Johto, which is why the 3 Johto movies did so poorly in the box office, causing them to never put another movie in thearters for a decade.

It seems to me as if Johto gave people the illusion that the original trio was important. I think this is why some people don't understand why it was never reunited again afterward, it was never meant to.

All Johto serves as a reminder of now is why the show kept changing after it ended to better suit the series.
 

An00bis

Wicked Witch
I am just curious as to why the original trio was reunited instead of introducing another new character.

... you know why.

Brock was kicked out for sensitivity issues. When the writers realized that people weren't as culturally sensitive as they thought they brought him back. They wanted to keep things the way they were but they also didn't want to isolate the series from people who may be racially sensitive.

Johto was a continuation of the original story much like the Generation II games were a continuation of the Generation I games. It just didn't work out the way they planned due to poor writing decisions at the time.
 

Nekaku

Well-Known Member
I don't get all the hate for Johto. It had fillers but so did DP. Funny thing is the two most hated series re in even numbered gens.
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
I don't think people are saying that, I think people want to understand *why* the Johto saga was written the way it was.

I believe the idea was to make Johto similar to Kanto than Orange Islands, but since the writing style had changed so much by then it wound up feeling like an entirely different type of show.

I think it's the people who say Johto was just like Kanto are mistaken, as the two sagas are nothing alike despite using the same main cast.
 

Nikkoru_91

Vappy Trainer~
Fillers are just something folks have to deal with. :eek: Almost all long-run Anime ends up having a few to fill in gaps during production of the main plot. I actually enjoyed several parts of the Johto series. I can look back on it fairly fondly. And I never got why everyone hated Tracey(maybe because he wasn't Brock?).


But I digress! I think previous posters are correct- Johto was the way it was because it was a direct attempt to recreate the success of season 1.
 

GetOutOfBox

Original Series Fan
The initial fad of the series ended around early and mid Johto, which is why the 3 Johto movies did so poorly in the box office, causing them to never put another movie in thearters for a decade.

The movies always did bad in the box office. There has not been one Pokemon movie released outside of Japan that did not get horrible reviews by critics. The first few movies were financially succesful, since a lot of kids still attended. The reason others have been less successful/got direct-to-dvd releases is because the fad wore itself out by then. Pokemon was only really super-popular until Gold/Silver, after G/S the franchise began waning until it lost "fad-status".

It seems to me as if Johto gave people the illusion that the original trio was important. I think this is why some people don't understand why it was never reunited again afterward, it was never meant to.

All Johto serves as a reminder of now is why the show kept changing after it ended to better suit the series.

Not sure exactly what you mean :p
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
The movies always did bad in the box office.

The first two movies did very well in the U.S. box office. The Entei/Unown movie showed a clear decline causing the 4th and 5th movies to only get limited releases.

I think you can look up the total sales on boxofficemojo or some other site.

Not sure exactly what you mean :p

I am basically asking, why was Johto basically what it was, instead of being a clear new take on the show much like AG, DP and Best Wishes turned out like?

It honestly seemed like Johto was an experiment to reunite the original trio, and then after that they decided it wasn't working so they revamped the series entirely and went from there.
 

CupidKirby

Well-Known Member
Maybe they didn't come up with the idea to revamp yet. I mean, even though OI was filler and there were no new Pokemon, aside from Tracey it was basically just a continuation of Kanto just as Johto was. Hence why they're all categorized as "Original Series".
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
Maybe they didn't come up with the idea to revamp yet. I mean, even though OI was filler and there were no new Pokemon, aside from Tracey it was basically just a continuation of Kanto just as Johto was. Hence why they're all categorized as "Original Series".

Well even so, Johto was called, "A whole new world" when it began airing. Even if it technically wasn't a new series, it was pretty obviously billed as this new and different arc in Pokemon especially back in 2001 when it started.

But I agree. It also gives people the illusion that Misty stayed for two series when she really didn't.
 

CupidKirby

Well-Known Member
You really don't like Misty do you? xD
I guess we could say she stayed for two 'generations' of pokemon.

You could tell that Pokemon by the 2001-2003 point were pretty desperate to become godly popular again. And with BW...I really don't know what they're doing with that one.
 

CyberCubed

Yeah, ok!
I guess we could say she stayed for two 'generations' of pokemon.

Well that is true.

You could tell that Pokemon by the 2001-2003 point were pretty desperate to become godly popular again. And with BW...I really don't know what they're doing with that one.

So I guess the idea was to reunite the original trio, and try to make the show more like Kanto? Orange Islands had a very different feel to it not just because of Tracey, but also because of the surfing on Lapras to different islands.

Then as Johto was progressing, it became obvious that arc wasn't really recapturing the Kanto magic as the writing style had changed for the series back then. So the writers revamped and rebooted the show AGAIN, which wound up being the AG series, and then from then on they decided to do the same thing to refresh the series every time a new generation started.
 

CupidKirby

Well-Known Member
Then as Johto was progressing, it became obvious that arc wasn't really recapturing the Kanto magic as the writing style had changed for the series back then. So the writers revamped and rebooted the show AGAIN, which wound up being the AG series, and then from then on they decided to do the same thing to refresh the series every time a new generation started.

Which is good if you absolutely despise one of the characters but kinda sucks if you like them. The amount of episodes between each revamp seems to be getting shorter and shorter...I hope that trend doesn't continue because then I really think Pokemon's going to go down the drain. No point watching it if they change the characters every 30 eps.

Unless you really like Ash I mean.
 
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