@@vaporterra It's sad because they had 136 or so episodes and didn't really capitalize on its potential except for these few episodes. We could have had the Lillie episode level of quality for so so many more episodes but don't. The pacing and story is so disjointed that the only few great parts of the show is following up on what the previous show did which had that cohesion.
I think chloe had a good potential but they wasted it. My biggest problem with her is her relationship with Ash. Chloe have referered him as a friend multiple times but they never interact or talk. Its always akward when theyre together
Omg so that wasnt just me who imagined that? Like did they ever interact once without anyone else there besides their intial encounter? Like tbh, I felt like Chloe always saw Ash as some dude Goh hung out with!
@@namesdontmattergaming2756 they only interact when they are alone😭 and i always feel like its so akward😅 remember the bdsp special? But another thing which makes me furious is that off screen it was said that chloe yelled at Ash for neglecting pikachu! We needed that scene😭 This was definetly also a desperate attempt to make Ash and chloe closer. But the fact it was off screen shows How much they dont care about them😅
Like Zac said: It's not about the destination, it's about the journey...a journey that nearly became a LOST CAUSE if it weren't for the positives countering the negatives.
Journey's not _that_ bad, but for Ash's last adventure, it's definitely very disappointing that we didn't get stuff like Ash rematching the trainers that defeated him in the league, or the run back against those trainers including champions like Cynthia with past pokemon like Infernape and Greninja. We could've had the ultimate Ash team every fan has battle board and dreamt up from their childhood.
Black and White was definitely worse At least when journeys did something right, it more than made up for the trash parts, which was more often than black and white did
@@eljordinio7647 Damn, am I the only one who actually liked the BW anime, I mean sure it has its flaws but I think its pretty good. Who knows maybe the fandom will change like they did for the games, or maybe its just false hope I'm grabbing onto, either way all the seasons of Pokemon for me were great, call me a die hard fan, but each and every region in the anime for me had something special going for it. 😅
@@Ditto.007 some people have changed, even Zac, after the Black and White review, some have not, and some are so arrogant about BW and can't stand (fairly justified) disdain toward the anime that they'll even call it an amazing series and gloat whenever unova gets any props and something like XY gets disrespected If people like black and white, more power to u, but getting arrogant about an inferior series and how it's "top tier" when it overall wasn't, doesn't help anything and is just gonna cause more conflict. Especially since some stuff isn't worth defending. Like the unova league being a disgrace, ash acting like an idiot half the time, a certain female companion who constantly insulted him every chance she got until she chilled out in journeys, a mostly inferior team plasma arc to what we were supposed to get, and the filler that was the decolore islands. Aside from Clair showing up and Kalos teasing, it was a waste of time. Only Stellar part of unova in most people's eyes is all four of the games
@@eljordinio7647 BW actually was a more focused series, the group was much better, Iris was a competent and funny trainer while Chloe is Nothing, Cilan was quirky and an expert of a lot of things while still a good battler, everyone got a rival, everyone got to fight each other's rivals, Ash vs Brycen, Roxie and Stephan literally blows most JN fights including like over half the "Master" 8 matches, and things like Meloetta Arc and N Arc were good plots with a lot of epic and cool moments while JN gave us... 2 episodes long Darkest Day and the worthless Project Mew.
@@tomasstargamer6308 Ur right about most of those things. The Meloetta arc was great, the battles u mentioned were also great and I actually enjoyed Cilan. Even the tournament arcs we got before the league were great to watch and Dawn came back. That stuff I'm not disputing. But aside from that, not really much else was great Iris was great in journeys but that's about it while the N Arc.... was just meh at best. N was good on his own but he wasn't enough to save his arc. The original team plasma special looked way more promising than what they ended up giving us. We could have had a similar climax with them to the original black and white, or even black and white 2 games but we don't even get that. Instead it's just some overused mind control device which Pikachu can somehow fight but reshiram cannot and, idk it just wasn't the best
I honestly think these five points could have made journeys GREAT 1. Introduce project mew since the start 2. Have goh catch less pokemon, and have those pokemon be somewhat developed. He needed a solid six pokemon team (Cinderace, Intellion, Grookey, Scizor, Flygon and Golurk) 3. Team Rocket should have had an arc in the show where they wanted to quit team rocket and have Ash and Goh help them fight back against Giovanni 4. Have Goh research his Pokémon more in the park, thus adding more to his character while focused episodes on the Pokémon he has in the park. This is the best opportunity to explore the craziest dex entries from the games in the anime. 5. Have Goh have fewer instances of random catching of multiple Pokémon during any episode, and have focused episodes where he forms an emotional bond before catching or spends the episode to battle before catching. He does have these episodes (Flygon, Cubone, Sobble and absol)
Agreed there My ideas would be 1. Have goh just catch six to ten Pokemon and literally nothing else so we could actually get attached to them 2. Make project mew relevant from the beginning and not F up the climax 3. Show every single world coronation series fight in the anime so ash's progress stays consistent 4. Get rid of the cursed filler and episodic aspects entirely 5. Give ash's team more screentime so they feel more relevant like they did in Sun and Moon 6. The Masters 8 Tournament needed a serious change up. Keep Iris vs Cynthia but change the other matchups. Have Leon fight Steven without the humiliation part, have Ash fight Lance if he wasn't going to fight Alain, and have Alain lose with dignity to Diantha 6. Get the production issues with journeys fixed asap so as not to ruin the climax. I was beyond excusing it once the tournament began 7. Make Chloe find her own goal instead of defying her destiny and make that cursed Eevee of hers evolve or gigantamax 8. For Ash's team, if ur gonna give him more of a team from around the world, I'd change it up a bit. Dragonite and Lucario can stay, but also give him Volcarona, Espeon (the eeveelutions that fits him the most) and Rilaboom for the other three spots. Or just give him a Galar team. For instance, add Corvinknight, Inteleon (which I think definitely fits Ash), Grimmsnarl, Urshifu (so he can finally have a Legendary) and Frosmoth (it could work) and ur good to go 9. Either do Aim to Be Mid properly, i.e let ash catch Latias, rematch rivals he should have beaten like Alain, end the vine problem Greninja is facing, not disrespect ash by making him lose his last battle onscreen without getting a win to make up for it, make more use of older companions, etc. Or don't give us this filler epilogue at all
3 does make sense because it’s 25 years of Team Rocket trying to catch Pikachu and fails over and over again. At this point, they should probably reconsider their goals and thinking catching Pikachu doesn’t worth their time since they are not pure evil villains, Giovanni is. They should secretly defect from Team Rocket and quietly quit Team Rocket, and then Giovanni will say “Fine, I will do it myself.” And launch full-blown scheme to capture Pikachu, Team Rocket or FORMER Team Rocket sides with Ash for a bit, then after the big battle, Former Team Rocket and Ash confront Giovanni and Police Joy or someone arresting Giovanni, then Former Team Rocket and Ash decides to settle this once and for all, if they are defeated, then Former Team Rocket will never catch Pikachu ever again, and they will leave them at peace at last. To make this much more amazing that every single Team Rocket’s old Pokèmon will join them in the epic final battle between them. TL:DR Team Rocket should settled things with Ash and defeat Giovanni
Journeys was definitely a wild ride. It had a lot of missed opportunities like Ash not bringing back older mons to interact with his Journeys team more often, wrapping up loose ends, focusing on Galar, or development to bring characters' arcs to a satisfactory conclusion. I'm not going to lie, a lot of the series just didn't work out well because they didn't take full advantage of the around the world concept and didn't plan ahead to flesh out plotlines like Chloe's, Project Mew, or Ash's early PWC run. Instead we got stuff like...blue pokemaniacs. But for what it was, it celebrated so much of the anime's history by bringing back a lot of older characters we wouldn't have ever gotten to see otherwise! Without it, we might have never gotten to see PEAK with Ash vs Leon in the biggest battle we've ever seen in the entire anime Journeys is a series about appreciating how we get to our destination - from the smaller things in life like spending time with your friends to support them to the trials and tribulations we go through until we finally climb our way to the top. Not all of it is good, and we'll fail sometimes, but that's what makes success even sweeter when we finally attain it.
"The destination wouldn't matter if the journey didn't happen." So for all the big W's and L's the series or the anime as a whole had, they deserve to be worth remembering by...
Because Sword and Shield made Charizard even more popular with Leon and so making him the final obstacle was inevitably going to do that. Charizard was Leon’s first as Pikachu is to Ash.
We really can't blame May and Max too much for not returning. May's Japanese VA has a disease that makes it hard for her to speak, even though they could give May a different VA in Japan no matter how faithful they are to the voice actors. Care more for the fans! Max couldn't return cause he's tied too much to May.
I honestly feel like Chloe was a lost cause from the start,because if she didn’t become a researcher like her dad and became a performer people would still be unhappy with that cause of how often it happens to pokegirls.and I also feel that battling would not really fit her
Journeys deserves major credit for making people actually like Iris. That's not something to scoff at when you consider how many people hated her before that
Even tho Journey's has some ups and downs, I like the series yeah I know it weird overall but it's sad to know that this is Ash and Pikachu last time in the anime. Thank you Ash and Pikachu for everything!
What I hoped would happen in Aim to be a Pokémon master is that Giovani would have Team Rocket (All of them, not just the trio) attack Oak's lab and try to steal all of Ash's pokemon. Since Ash is now the world champion Giovani would see profit in his Pokemon. Then they would be able to steal some of them, and kidnap Ash it the process and take him to their HQ. And who knows, maybe all of that would make the Jessie, James and Meowth have a change of heart and finally turn on Team Rocket and help and rescue his pokemon.
jn had so much room to be the best series. sucks it couldnt be more than it is. i feel like it started getting better a quarter in the series and his pokemon started getting major development.
I hate how they screwed up Mewtwo. They could've have a two parter where the first part is the adventure to him, then part 2 can be a full 20 minute battle.
Though the mewtwo episode was definitely rushed I don't mind it You can't really do much with two as a character without going into fanon territory (aka mewtwo tumblr-) and it'll cause a lot of chaos for those that do try to stay with the canon
Journeys was a pretty good series in Pokémon. It had some ups and downs, but overall, it was nice to see some old companions and characters to this series and a perfect send off to Ash's journey In the end, I enjoyed it
A while back I got to meet Jason Griffith and he he said recording these last couple of episodes was kinda emotional because of it being the last time he’ll get to voice Cilan.
Going From XY anime to Sun and Moon anime felt like taking a nice vacation after taking on THE BUSY SEASON at work. Which makes absolute sense given how intense the XY anime was, how structured it was, how mature Ash was, how insane the finale was. We needed a bit of a cool down....Meanwhile going from Sun and Moon anime to Journeys anime felt like going on an extended vacation, and getting more lost than Leon would in Sword and Shield. I should note, it isn't all bad. It certainly had some high moments. And in the end, it doesn't even matter because Ash Ketchum now has that WORLD CHAMP DIFFERENCE BABY.
Sun and Moon anime was a good anime , once you got used to the animation it got better and better , from ultra adventures for me I loved it , but I agree they should have put the old animation for journeys and put the same ash from xy a much mature person compared to what we saw in journeys it felt right after he learnt so much from all those journeys but nothing we can do about it now , but still enjoyed journeys.
Great review zac, felt like you were one of the few that could look at the series with a critical view instead of being blinded by nostalgia or salty hatred. Now waiting for the top 10 journeys' battles!
Some that would have to make the list are Ash vs Raihan Ash vs Volkner Ash vs Visquez Ash vs Iris Iris vs Cynthia Ash vs Cynthia And of course Ash vs Leon
What I missed from Ash is his training after everytime he lost a gym battle, he tries to create a new strategy and really hypes me up if it succeeds in the battle. The one thing for me that will really make him the Pokemon Master is if he defeats Tobias and Mewtwo. I also pity Team Rocket since they have never beaten Ash at least once, and that they were the de facto companions of Ash from the very beginning.
Can you please do a massive video ranking all eight Pokemon anime series from worst to best? I feel like that would be a great way to conclude your reviews of the “Ash Ketchum Era.” You could also do a top 20 Pokemon anime episodes or top 20 Pokemon anime moments.
The Best way to end the Pokémon anime would be a battle between Ash and Giovanni, to defeat the entire Rocket Organization, with the support of the masters eight and an ultimate Team that you mentioned before.
Why would that be satisfying? Ash has absolutely no connections with Giovanni. Why have a story end where the hero defeats a villain he's unfamiliar with?
Chloe what a garbage companion. I miss early journeys Chloe where she was sassy and she always had Yamper with her, then she caught Eevee and became an pokégirl with another Eevee but worse. Her Eevee doesn't evolve I thought the anime was gonna show Gmax Eevee, but no just unnecessary filler journeys moment...
And then she wound up going Nowhere with either her dream or Eevee(not even explaining why it can’t evolve) Or, going into research. The thing she complained about people assuming she would do when she was sassy She’s either Nothing, or Worse than nothing
That filler introduction had me rolling! Good change over! I do agree with everything you said here. There was so much wasted opportunity in the final run for ash and filler was not needed it made the whole series feel rushed and boring
The two in ones didn’t take advantage of the format to show the same time period or sequence of events from the POVs of two characters or sets of characters, which could have spiced it up and made rewatching more rewarding to spot where the two stories intersected. Instead it was used for the comic relief storylines that couldn’t be stretched over 22 minutes (and to be honest barely got to 11 minutes worth of material).
in regards to May, Ive always wanted to know if she won the johto grand festival or not, remember in her return in diamond & pearl she was shown to have 3 johto ribbons, i know her voice actress was unable to come back but heres an idea: they couldve had Norman return as one of Ash's world coronation series opponents(pre master class), I think Max mentioned during advanced that Norman is strong enough to be an elite four member so it wouldve fit perfectly and from there he could've mentioned May and her endeavors
I think you did a really good job of summing the series up. It’s frustrating, I could rant and rant about all the things Journeys did terribly, and yet I can gush about so much that I absolutely loved and never thought we’d ever see. The big draw backs for me are lack of cohesion between episodes and lack of development for Ash, and Goh’s, Pokémon - when I’m thinking of how to improve the series, it amounts to addressing those two things. The failings of Journeys made me grow to appreciate BW more - I still think Journeys is better but I think it’s funny how that worked out. But, yeah, good review Zac - you said pretty much everything I would have said
I must confess in the matter of this series: I really detest Pokémon Journey, and honestly, I don't think I can handle watching this because: A). I don't agree with how the character Goh is portrayed in the series, especially with him catching way too many Pokémon which is very insulting. Even if he does have some redeeming qualities, it will never change the fact that I despise his presence. B). It's a shame to know that Chloe Cerise did had a potential to be a solid character in her own rights, but sadly at the end of the day, her story was cut tragically short with not much character development arc. C). I can not agree or even accept some of the Pokémon Ash catches, simply because it doesn't make any sense or (in my opinion) come off as questionable. Finally, the idea of the whole series being episodic with some unwanted fillers feels frustratingly counterproductive, and as for those promises of Ash having a rematch with some of his rivals that he lost to especially Tobias? What rematches against his rivals? All in all, I have no desire to ever watch it's series on Netflix (can't stand that video streaming service) and I'm not really interested on ever giving the new protagonist and their new Pokémon a chance in Pokémon Horizon.
@@eljordinio7647 Any avid anime fan can tell you that not all shows are about the plot. Some exist solely to present interesting concepts or enjoyable characters. Pokémon is one of those anime.
@@gamestation2690 because the last 3/4 of Journey’s was about the World Coronation Tournament and instead it was spent with Goh dicking around for pkmn he could care less for. They were just another pkmn to check off and eventually forget unless they were region variants or galar starters.
I enjoyed Journeys for the most part, but one thing I can't forgive is how little they covered Galar. It was my favorite recent region and I was looking forward to see Ash traveling around and meeting all the new pokemon and people. But Galar barely had any real time to shine!
Journeys definitely had a lot of ups and downs, sometimes more controversial than others mainly because episodic storytelling can work but at times the overall direction and structure was very perplexing to where it can’t really decide to focus on a story or not; even the battles in Journeys are a mixed bag if you compare the previous few seasons beforehand because while half of them are very good for the most part, the latter was left to be desired from a an narrative perspective and sometimes poorly paced, not to mention that SpongeBob’s earliest seasons started out strong but eventually made more questionable choices and controversial choices in the modern era alongside the fact as someone who used to watch SpongeBob, what Zac said is sadly the truth at times and the thing is I don’t mind episodic but the execution is a double-edged sword for me and I really enjoyed it despite the flaws and controversies!!! 🥲😏
@@ashelygordon669in this case being episodic didn't work. Especially when it came to plot points like ash's progression in the world coronation series or his loss to Bea
Pokémon Journeys is an interesting series to analyze. It may have a lot of lows, but it’s highs are too great to dismiss it and all in all the series turned out well. There was some great fan service, the concept’s great, and I actually liked the new characters I give it a 7/10 overall, heavily flawed but good overall
Same. The bad is so bad but when it's good, it can really make up for it, like how Ash vs Leon made up for most of the masters eight tournament being trash
👍 Fanservice/Continuity (when made it right) 👍 Yuki Hayashi 👍 Some good battles 👍 Unpredictability 👍 Some decent small arcs 👎 Way too episodic 👎 Way too fillery 👎 Shallow fanservice 👎 Choppy powerscaling 👎 Lack of screentime and interactions in Ash's team 👎 Subpar animation 👎 The way Legendary/Mythical are handled 👎 Huge missed oportunities overall - No reserves being the biggest of them 👎 Goh (everything about him. A co-protagonist shouldn't exist in Ash's final season)
One of my biggest issues is the fact that Ash’s Pokémon in journeys got a few episodes of development and then were shafted unless they needed to battle. Except Lucario, and Pikachu of course. Like Dragonite, it was his first catch! Then it got like two main battles before doing nothing until getting swept by Rihan and his Flygon.
One of my favorite things about this series was the chemistry between Ash and Goh. Sure they had opposite personalities, but I couldn’t get over how most people hated Goh due to his way of catching Pokemon.
I can’t be the only one who was expecting Chloe’s Eevee not evolving to be because it was going to Gigantamax. It seemed so obvious. Nope. It was SIDEQUEST MATERIAL. Bummer.
That "no destination line" is basically my feelings about the whole Pokemon anime. This is why I stopped caring. I had no high hopes for this anime anymore because it's a merchandise driven show that panders more to kids not meant to be taken seriously at All, and I wish more people would realize this.
The sun and moon anime even though it was childish sometimes still aimed to a mature audience in a lot of episodes, this anime feels like it was made for kids.
I swear in the new series if they have Goh or Chloe before Ash and do the same thing about meeting Ash with him being the world Champion and everything and hype it up then have him show up out of nowhere I’m so down 😞
One thing to notice is that people expected ash to bring his old mons back in the masters 8 but from the view of the writers, if they did Ash VS Alain then everyone wanted to see the rematch of Greninja and MCX. But if they did so they had to do it in every battle. Some people would be disappointed as the mons they wanted to see might not appear and would be angry. The point also was to highlight Ash's journeys Mons. Hope people understand what I mean. Peace. Great vid btw.
You should've covered the part where Pidgeot returned. I know it was just a short cameo appearance. But it's an iconic moment in my opinion. The best return of any Ash's Pokémon
Pokémon Journeys was a episodic mess, but it was still a joy of a ride watching episodes daily (expect Aim to be a Pokémon Master and the many breaks between The Masters 8). I expected much more with the returning companions and Pokémon, it was still cool seeing them return. Although I wasn't there to see Ash's journey start, it was still a fun journey following Ash and Pikachu, and it's sad to see him go. Ash's chapter is finished, but let's hope that the next series does him justice with the next characters being his predecessors as the new and fresh protagonists.
24:40, It's not all bro. How can you forget Arbok and Wheezing bro? They are OGs. I literally cried so much as a kid when I saw that episode. And still to this day get emotional rewatching it.
I've known you from childhood well into adulthood. Through ups and downs. I will cherish the lesson of never giving up. I will miss you terribly, Team Rocket
@@carterryans they did But thzg was over 20 years ago Banned for something Pikachu did + the evolutions of Porygon are also banned for never even appearing in the first place
I think they could've just easily made a Porygon episode without the strobe effect years later to show they adapted their animation style to be safer and also show that they learned from their mistake. It's not like burying the incident under the rug would make the internet forget about the problem anyways.
Honestly they could've done this had the series start with Ash traveling through galar and facing each gym for the galar league meet go in episode 2 or 3 to introduce the project mew and have Chloe travel along side them. Once Ash finished the galar league he hears about the pwc league like battle frontier compete in that whilst still having episodic episodes
Another great review as always bro! This series definitely was mixed with super highs and super lows. But overall very enjoyable despite the controversies and at times awful decisions. I liked, the emotion in the series was strong, but definitely had poor writing imo.
Looking back, I really wish they’d removed most of the filler and instead of aim to be a Pokémon master, they waited a while and made a final season for Ash instead, one pretty much designed to go out on possibly an even bigger bang than the masters 8, and that’s team rainbow rocket Like, come on, you can’t tell me that doesn’t have potential. The first couple episodes would explore Ash’s life as world monarch, and have him questioning what being a Pokémon master means, have Ash go to other regions to stop evil team leaders he’s seen before and their legendary Pokémon (while he questions wtf is going on), finally have a proper confrontation with Giovanni, maybe the main team Rocket trio finally quits for good and conclude a redemption arc? And tie up some loose ends with some episodes in between I know that’s kind of a big ask, but I genuinely think they could’ve done that, it would go to show just how far Ash has come and just how powerful he is now. That’d be pretty fire
Yeah.... The character was just as much as a problem as how it was handled. If THIS was going to be how they handled the catching aspect, they should have left the whole catch them all aspect out
I don't care what you anyone says. Chloe is a better companion than goh ever will be. Not only did Goh abandon Ash when he was needed the most, but he also didn't even attempt to catch Mew, which was his main goal. He went from playing pokemon go in nearly every episode to not even doing much in the project Mew. Worst companion in Pokemon history. Fight me
I wish Ash's Pokémon had their spinoff series, as well as his companions... Like another Chronicles. That way, a lot of those characters can get more proper development away from Ash and even some potential closure. Heck, I even wrote two fan-fics that can relate to such these kind of stories. It would be fascinating to see the possibilities of who all could return.
I'm wondering if we get to see Gary come forth more as a new main character with spot light and get to know history about oak and his family. Delve into everyone's blood lines going back to the old Giovanni being every colors baby Daddy.
I'm good with burning down about at least 80-85% of this series and the rest in needing heavy renovations. And dropping Goh from a main protagonist to very minor recurring character at best to not existing preferably. To also nerfing Leon hard, like a steel toed boot to the nuts hard, definitely one of the worst champions I've seen. I also feel the whole show could have ended with DP or preferably XY in winning either league as I see it.
I love how they showed Pikachu avoiding Ancient Power by using a modified version of Rock Tomb Climb that he used against Grant's Onix during his travels through Kalos during the final fight against Leon's Charizard in the Masters 8 Tournament Finals.
Pokemon journeys have a lot potential but a lot of things that happens with this series cause it miss opportunity this series could have. The understaff at OLM and them doing 9 show's at the same time did show the production of journeys. Blame on the OLM highers up for that one, when they moved most of the staff to different show's. covid 19 screwed everything over for production time. Episodic storytelling because that stupid Sunday timeslot and they could've stop that after moving to Friday slot. But nope that didn't help either due by exces or main director. It didn't help that they rushing trying getting journeys done before SV game's launched on Nov ( which at the end SV game's were best fast selling switch game for 3 day's which they didn't need the anime to promote it on the same day as the game's launched at all.) (Until tears of the kingdom could likely beat Pokemon SV weekend launched) Which they may gotten more time to finish up journeys and APM. Started working on horizon series.
What if the proper conclusion for Ash is saved for a movie? We can have a 2 hour movie where Ash meets Liko and discovers that the roots of the vines attacking Kalos are in either Area Zero or one of the DLCs. We can even have a cool scene where Ash Greninja returns with Zygarde.
Journeys was a lot of fun, but I just wish that they actually explored Galar and all the new characters and Pokémon. Sword and Shield had tons of wasted potential that would have made Journeys so much better, like adding Hop's character arc and introducing Bede and Marnie early on.
Of terms of how NOT to write an ending, the ending does a good job of that. For instance we waited for 26 years…26…..YEARS for Ash’s dad. We even got the alternate timeline with his dad as a focus…..and we never found out?!?!?!?!? This is NOT okay and a big FU to the fans. This is just one of the MANY issues I have with it.
No dude, most fans didn't wait for that at all because it is entirely irrelevant in the big picture. It also would have caused controvesy regardless because 25yrs of various fan theories have cemented themselves in people's minds. His dad wasn't mentioned a single time in those 25yrs in the main timeline so no idea why you thought he would ever be a part of it.
I'm still gonna put it above black and white. At least when journeys did things right, it more than made up for its shortcomings Something BW failed at
Journeys is my 5th favorite of the Pokemon sagas. Below DP, SM, XY, and AG, and above OG (Kanto/Orange), BW, and GS (Johto). I await the day GS and AG are english subbed (and get the 3 unaired episodes by sheer luck), so I can revisit the Pocket Monsters series. Until then, I'm going to rewatch your League and Pokemon saga reviews, Zac. Have a damn good one, everyone.
COVID really put a damper on the series overall, but if this was gonna be his last journey, they should’ve absolutely pulled out all the stops. All his old pokes. All his companions old rivals. An actual climb up the ranks and not that bs where he ranked down then back up off screen. The list goes on. The gist is we should’ve seen EVERYTHING.
This is how I would write Aim to be a Pokémon master. Gary asks ash what it means to be a PM. Ash doesn’t know and oak approaches him. he says that he has people that he wants him to see. Red and blue. Pokémon masters. I hoped this series would try to introduce them. Ash try’s to challenge red but he rejects him. So the group explores and ash learns what it means to be a master. Ash truly bonds with Pokémon. But their is one more thing. To be a master you have to be strong as well. All of ash’s companions come to watch his final battle. He battles red and it’s a draw. Red says that ash is a master but ash doesn’t want to stop traveling. So ash gets a new outfit similar to his old ones and taking inspiration from reds. And that’s how I would write the end of ash’s story. Him still traveling the world with him and pikachu.
Pokémon Journeys is a series that had so much potential to be the very best, only for it to end up being the most lackluster one with a few good moments. Like Journeys being episodic at the beginning because of the time slot is understandable, but once it got into a better one, they still decide to be episodic. It took until episode 37 for Ash to meet his old friends again, who were from Alola, the last series. It took until episode 65 for another old character to return. You can tell the writers had some good ideas but they never lived up to their full potential. For example, Goh wanting to capture every Pokémon was their idea for why Ash and Goh would travel between the 8 regions, but it never felt like Goh was any closer to capturing Mew. It wasn't until episode 68 that Goh actually had a way to progress towards his goal, with Project Mew, but that also never lived up to its full potential. Chloe not knowing what she wanted to do was a good idea for a character arc, but I think the issue was the writers didn't even know what she wanted to do either. Once she got Eevee, I think the basic idea was for Chloe to Gigantamax Eevee, but I don't think they knew how to get her there. I think her arc was cut short and they just scrap it, making her entire character arc pointless as it never got a proper ending. The World Coronation Series was their way for Ash to battle old characters from the previous series and to battle the new Galar Gym Leaders. Ash only ended up battling 4 Galar Gym Leaders, Bea, Opal, Marnie, and Raihan. They could have had Ash battle more Galar Gym Leaders, but they rather had Ash battle nobodies. Ash's rematches weren't that much better, he only had 3 rematches with Korrina, Iris, and Volkner. I think fans would have rather had Ash rematch people he lost to like Flint or Alain, instead of characters we already seen Ash defeat. It was also the perfect time for Ash to use his old Pokémon to battle against Trainers across the world, but instead he used a team that barley had any development that wasn't named Lucario. Finally their is Galar. I have no idea why Cerise Laboratory wasn't located in Galar. At least if it was there, we would have seen more Galar Pokémon and characters, but nope, we have stick with same old Kanto. Before I watch the series, I thought Goh and Chloe were from Galar, especially because they showed Goh with Scorbunny, and Chloe with Yamper. Ash also barely used Gigantamax in battle. It wasn't until episode 99 where Ash finally used Gigantamax again in battle since episode 13. That is so bad, especially because it's main gimmick of Gen 8 and they gave Pikachu a Gigantamax form only for Ash to use it twice in the whole series. At the end of the day, I'm just disappointed at the missed potential of Pokémon Journeys. Here's hoping Pokémon Horizons can learn from the mistakes of Pokémon Journeys.
This was the first series I watched from week to week, I mean I was only 9 when it came out in 2020 but I still loved the show, it was a perfect ending to the best anime ever, I recently just watched every Pokémon episode and I think it’s fair to say he truly became the best like no one ever was, I’m sad his journey is over but Don’t be sad because it’s over, be happy because it happened Goodbye Ash
Pokemon Journeys was truly the Pokemon anime saga of all time
Not the best, that's debatable at best.
@@UnwantedGhost1 read the comment again
can anyone please let me know how to watch pokemon master 8 tournament, i mean where can i eatch thise all battles any website link or app?
@@rohankaranjkar2813 Pokemon animepisodes
@@stevensanchez8061 website name?
It's kinda sad when one of the best episode in Journeys is the conclusion to Lillie's story from Sun and Moon. That is a 10 out of 10 episode.
Definitely
It’s not sad, they are the same writers😂
How is that sad though? We can give credit where it’s due
@@vaporterra It's sad because they had 136 or so episodes and didn't really capitalize on its potential except for these few episodes. We could have had the Lillie episode level of quality for so so many more episodes but don't. The pacing and story is so disjointed that the only few great parts of the show is following up on what the previous show did which had that cohesion.
@@goldmemberpb eh still better than black and white
I think chloe had a good potential but they wasted it. My biggest problem with her is her relationship with Ash. Chloe have referered him as a friend multiple times but they never interact or talk. Its always akward when theyre together
Omg so that wasnt just me who imagined that? Like did they ever interact once without anyone else there besides their intial encounter? Like tbh, I felt like Chloe always saw Ash as some dude Goh hung out with!
Yeah she straight hated him.
@@namesdontmattergaming2756 they only interact when they are alone😭 and i always feel like its so akward😅 remember the bdsp special? But another thing which makes me furious is that off screen it was said that chloe yelled at Ash for neglecting pikachu! We needed that scene😭 This was definetly also a desperate attempt to make Ash and chloe closer. But the fact it was off screen shows How much they dont care about them😅
She was mostly an annoying brat in the beginning and barely improved from there besides being nicer to ash
Like Zac said: It's not about the destination, it's about the journey...a journey that nearly became a LOST CAUSE if it weren't for the positives countering the negatives.
Yup
I did chuckle at his "Cause this Journey had no destination". Man, true words come from this saga.
Journey's not _that_ bad, but for Ash's last adventure, it's definitely very disappointing that we didn't get stuff like Ash rematching the trainers that defeated him in the league, or the run back against those trainers including champions like Cynthia with past pokemon like Infernape and Greninja.
We could've had the ultimate Ash team every fan has battle board and dreamt up from their childhood.
Black and White was definitely worse
At least when journeys did something right, it more than made up for the trash parts, which was more often than black and white did
@@eljordinio7647 Damn, am I the only one who actually liked the BW anime, I mean sure it has its flaws but I think its pretty good. Who knows maybe the fandom will change like they did for the games, or maybe its just false hope I'm grabbing onto, either way all the seasons of Pokemon for me were great, call me a die hard fan, but each and every region in the anime for me had something special going for it. 😅
@@Ditto.007 some people have changed, even Zac, after the Black and White review, some have not, and some are so arrogant about BW and can't stand (fairly justified) disdain toward the anime that they'll even call it an amazing series and gloat whenever unova gets any props and something like XY gets disrespected
If people like black and white, more power to u, but getting arrogant about an inferior series and how it's "top tier" when it overall wasn't, doesn't help anything and is just gonna cause more conflict. Especially since some stuff isn't worth defending. Like the unova league being a disgrace, ash acting like an idiot half the time, a certain female companion who constantly insulted him every chance she got until she chilled out in journeys, a mostly inferior team plasma arc to what we were supposed to get, and the filler that was the decolore islands. Aside from Clair showing up and Kalos teasing, it was a waste of time.
Only Stellar part of unova in most people's eyes is all four of the games
@@eljordinio7647 BW actually was a more focused series, the group was much better, Iris was a competent and funny trainer while Chloe is Nothing, Cilan was quirky and an expert of a lot of things while still a good battler, everyone got a rival, everyone got to fight each other's rivals, Ash vs Brycen, Roxie and Stephan literally blows most JN fights including like over half the "Master" 8 matches, and things like Meloetta Arc and N Arc were good plots with a lot of epic and cool moments while JN gave us... 2 episodes long Darkest Day and the worthless Project Mew.
@@tomasstargamer6308 Ur right about most of those things. The Meloetta arc was great, the battles u mentioned were also great and I actually enjoyed Cilan. Even the tournament arcs we got before the league were great to watch and Dawn came back. That stuff I'm not disputing. But aside from that, not really much else was great
Iris was great in journeys but that's about it while the N Arc.... was just meh at best. N was good on his own but he wasn't enough to save his arc. The original team plasma special looked way more promising than what they ended up giving us. We could have had a similar climax with them to the original black and white, or even black and white 2 games but we don't even get that. Instead it's just some overused mind control device which Pikachu can somehow fight but reshiram cannot and, idk it just wasn't the best
I honestly think these five points could have made journeys GREAT
1. Introduce project mew since the start
2. Have goh catch less pokemon, and have those pokemon be somewhat developed. He needed a solid six pokemon team (Cinderace, Intellion, Grookey, Scizor, Flygon and Golurk)
3. Team Rocket should have had an arc in the show where they wanted to quit team rocket and have Ash and Goh help them fight back against Giovanni
4. Have Goh research his Pokémon more in the park, thus adding more to his character while focused episodes on the Pokémon he has in the park. This is the best opportunity to explore the craziest dex entries from the games in the anime.
5. Have Goh have fewer instances of random catching of multiple Pokémon during any episode, and have focused episodes where he forms an emotional bond before catching or spends the episode to battle before catching. He does have these episodes (Flygon, Cubone, Sobble and absol)
I really wanted to see number 3 😔
Funny that 4 out of 5 of these are about Goh.
I'd honestly replace Flygon with his Raichu. I LOVED his Raichu
Agreed there
My ideas would be
1. Have goh just catch six to ten Pokemon and literally nothing else so we could actually get attached to them
2. Make project mew relevant from the beginning and not F up the climax
3. Show every single world coronation series fight in the anime so ash's progress stays consistent
4. Get rid of the cursed filler and episodic aspects entirely
5. Give ash's team more screentime so they feel more relevant like they did in Sun and Moon
6. The Masters 8 Tournament needed a serious change up. Keep Iris vs Cynthia but change the other matchups. Have Leon fight Steven without the humiliation part, have Ash fight Lance if he wasn't going to fight Alain, and have Alain lose with dignity to Diantha
6. Get the production issues with journeys fixed asap so as not to ruin the climax. I was beyond excusing it once the tournament began
7. Make Chloe find her own goal instead of defying her destiny and make that cursed Eevee of hers evolve or gigantamax
8. For Ash's team, if ur gonna give him more of a team from around the world, I'd change it up a bit. Dragonite and Lucario can stay, but also give him Volcarona, Espeon (the eeveelutions that fits him the most) and Rilaboom for the other three spots.
Or just give him a Galar team. For instance, add Corvinknight, Inteleon (which I think definitely fits Ash), Grimmsnarl, Urshifu (so he can finally have a Legendary) and Frosmoth (it could work) and ur good to go
9. Either do Aim to Be Mid properly, i.e let ash catch Latias, rematch rivals he should have beaten like Alain, end the vine problem Greninja is facing, not disrespect ash by making him lose his last battle onscreen without getting a win to make up for it, make more use of older companions, etc. Or don't give us this filler epilogue at all
3 does make sense because it’s 25 years of Team Rocket trying to catch Pikachu and fails over and over again. At this point, they should probably reconsider their goals and thinking catching Pikachu doesn’t worth their time since they are not pure evil villains, Giovanni is. They should secretly defect from Team Rocket and quietly quit Team Rocket, and then Giovanni will say “Fine, I will do it myself.” And launch full-blown scheme to capture Pikachu, Team Rocket or FORMER Team Rocket sides with Ash for a bit, then after the big battle, Former Team Rocket and Ash confront Giovanni and Police Joy or someone arresting Giovanni, then Former Team Rocket and Ash decides to settle this once and for all, if they are defeated, then Former Team Rocket will never catch Pikachu ever again, and they will leave them at peace at last. To make this much more amazing that every single Team Rocket’s old Pokèmon will join them in the epic final battle between them.
TL:DR
Team Rocket should settled things with Ash and defeat Giovanni
The time has come.
Is this an April fool's day joke?
It’s for the best, I know it…
Execute Order 66
@@anthonyrufino9271 what's that?
Is this gonna be an April fools prank?
Journeys was definitely a wild ride. It had a lot of missed opportunities like Ash not bringing back older mons to interact with his Journeys team more often, wrapping up loose ends, focusing on Galar, or development to bring characters' arcs to a satisfactory conclusion. I'm not going to lie, a lot of the series just didn't work out well because they didn't take full advantage of the around the world concept and didn't plan ahead to flesh out plotlines like Chloe's, Project Mew, or Ash's early PWC run. Instead we got stuff like...blue pokemaniacs. But for what it was, it celebrated so much of the anime's history by bringing back a lot of older characters we wouldn't have ever gotten to see otherwise! Without it, we might have never gotten to see PEAK with Ash vs Leon in the biggest battle we've ever seen in the entire anime
Journeys is a series about appreciating how we get to our destination - from the smaller things in life like spending time with your friends to support them to the trials and tribulations we go through until we finally climb our way to the top. Not all of it is good, and we'll fail sometimes, but that's what makes success even sweeter when we finally attain it.
Or catching an eevee
TLDR:, journeys
is a rollercoaster
Yes it was. It had a lot to do with the production and the way the animators just rushed the series I feel like.
Stupid Gou midoriya toxic stan fan is here
"The destination wouldn't matter if the journey didn't happen." So for all the big W's and L's the series or the anime as a whole had, they deserve to be worth remembering by...
True
Bot fondly & not.
But Aim to pokemon master is a big fat L.
@@surajvinod1567 I wouldn't really call it that...
not worth your memory at all
25 years and almost a thousand Pokémon later, the final climatic battle still came down to Game Freak's golden boys, Pikachu and Charizard..
Yup
Because Sword and Shield made Charizard even more popular with Leon and so making him the final obstacle was inevitably going to do that. Charizard was Leon’s first as Pikachu is to Ash.
It's also a callback to Ash's first ever Pokemon league loss where his Charizard refused to battle Ritchie's Pikachu, costing Ash the win.
@@DarkEclipse23 its more like they gave Charizard to leon so he will be popular
As it should be
I can never forgive them for giving us little to none of Serena, May and Max
Agreed
Serena was there on a episode where she was training cloe and at last met ash
@@sahilshetty2659 that was for less than a minute. It's simply unacceptable.
We really can't blame May and Max too much for not returning. May's Japanese VA has a disease that makes it hard for her to speak, even though they could give May a different VA in Japan no matter how faithful they are to the voice actors. Care more for the fans!
Max couldn't return cause he's tied too much to May.
Serena and Ash have less than a minute. Interaction with sucks cause she's one of my favorite characters and my favorite love interest for ash
I honestly feel like Chloe was a lost cause from the start,because if she didn’t become a researcher like her dad and became a performer people would still be unhappy with that cause of how often it happens to pokegirls.and I also feel that battling would not really fit her
Yup. Lost cause is bang on accurate
They could’ve gone the Green route of her just doing something that involved none of them.
@@DarkEclipse23 what do you mean by that 🧐
@@zash1233 I think he meant her going the gym route and getting badges because to be honest we needed a companion of ash to have gym battles
Pokemon Journeys was very mixed series
but for me I manage to enjoy it when it was good.
Goodbye to Ash and Pickchu ❤ Hope to see you again someday!
Journeys deserves major credit for making people actually like Iris. That's not something to scoff at when you consider how many people hated her before that
She gained some respect from me when she was revealed to be champ
I never hated Iris.
One of the only good stuff from Journeys
@@poppie267Same I also never hated Cilan either.
Even tho Journey's has some ups and downs, I like the series yeah I know it weird overall but it's sad to know that this is Ash and Pikachu last time in the anime. Thank you Ash and Pikachu for everything!
I appreciate it when it was airing now I appreciate it more now that it ended.
What I hoped would happen in Aim to be a Pokémon master is that Giovani would have Team Rocket (All of them, not just the trio) attack Oak's lab and try to steal all of Ash's pokemon. Since Ash is now the world champion Giovani would see profit in his Pokemon. Then they would be able to steal some of them, and kidnap Ash it the process and take him to their HQ. And who knows, maybe all of that would make the Jessie, James and Meowth have a change of heart and finally turn on Team Rocket and help and rescue his pokemon.
Maybe there’s the aim to get great feeling?
“A new one on the horizon” I see what you did there Zac
Funny thing is that I wrote that in the script before the nname of the new series got revealed 😂
@@Zactoshi wtaf
can anyone please let me know how to watch pokemon master 8 tournament, i mean where can i eatch thise all battles any website link or app?
@@rohankaranjkar2813 it’s this little website you may never have heard of. It’s a relatively unknown site called…
RUclips
@@rohankaranjkar2813do you have netflix? And if not, wcostream but I'd recommend an adblocker
jn had so much room to be the best series. sucks it couldnt be more than it is. i feel like it started getting better a quarter in the series and his pokemon started getting major development.
I hate how they screwed up Mewtwo. They could've have a two parter where the first part is the adventure to him, then part 2 can be a full 20 minute battle.
Though the mewtwo episode was definitely rushed I don't mind it
You can't really do much with two as a character without going into fanon territory (aka mewtwo tumblr-) and it'll cause a lot of chaos for those that do try to stay with the canon
The journeys ends today ❤
Hi
Why would you say that
@@School31258 true
can anyone please let me know how to watch pokemon master 8 tournament, i mean where can i eatch thise all battles any website link or app?
Hoping it's not an April fools joke
Update: glad it's not an April fools joke
So I would get fooled second april 🤣🤭
It definitely is
Hah remember when we thought the 10 year words or less pokemon episode review was an April fools joke!
People who forget about the fact that the Pokémon anime premiered on April first
Journeys was a pretty good series in Pokémon. It had some ups and downs, but overall, it was nice to see some old companions and characters to this series and a perfect send off to Ash's journey
In the end, I enjoyed it
Stupid Gou midoriya toxic stan fan is here
can anyone please let me know how to watch pokemon master 8 tournament, i mean where can i eatch thise all battles any website link or app?
@@rohankaranjkar2813 just go to 9anime KissAnime
Let's just pretend Aim To Be Mid never happened
They did ash dirty. They had every power to make journeys or aim to be a Pokémon master the best series. Their laziness making the series bad
The series at least showed that Ash's journey is still far from over. So we hope to see him return as guest star in future series.
A while back I got to meet Jason Griffith and he he said recording these last couple of episodes was kinda emotional because of it being the last time he’ll get to voice Cilan.
Going From XY anime to Sun and Moon anime felt like taking a nice vacation after taking on THE BUSY SEASON at work.
Which makes absolute sense given how intense the XY anime was, how structured it was, how mature Ash was, how insane the finale was. We needed a bit of a cool down....Meanwhile going from Sun and Moon anime to Journeys anime felt like going on an extended vacation, and getting more lost than Leon would in Sword and Shield. I should note, it isn't all bad. It certainly had some high moments. And in the end, it doesn't even matter because Ash Ketchum now has that WORLD CHAMP DIFFERENCE BABY.
Tbf it really didnt it felt good having a older ash with good story and but then sun and Moon came it felt like a reboot and more Goofy
Sun and Moon anime was a good anime , once you got used to the animation it got better and better , from ultra adventures for me I loved it , but I agree they should have put the old animation for journeys and put the same ash from xy a much mature person compared to what we saw in journeys it felt right after he learnt so much from all those journeys but nothing we can do about it now , but still enjoyed journeys.
Rip Ash Ketchum Hope To See Him Pikachu & All His Pokémon One Day
Let's hope so
I hope they come back in Horizons as guest star from time to time
Ain’t no way they don’t have an Ash cameo somewhere in the next series.
Maybe at the end lol
Red in Mt. Silver type beat
Great review zac, felt like you were one of the few that could look at the series with a critical view instead of being blinded by nostalgia or salty hatred. Now waiting for the top 10 journeys' battles!
Some that would have to make the list are
Ash vs Raihan
Ash vs Volkner
Ash vs Visquez
Ash vs Iris
Iris vs Cynthia
Ash vs Cynthia
And of course Ash vs Leon
@@eljordinio7647 i really liked ash vs korrina animation wise. He could also do top 10 worst half of the pwc would make the list lol
@@nonamehero5570 Leon vs Alain and Leon vs Diantha would definitely make the worst list. Bruh, the disrespect to Kalos and XY was real
What I missed from Ash is his training after everytime he lost a gym battle, he tries to create a new strategy and really hypes me up if it succeeds in the battle. The one thing for me that will really make him the Pokemon Master is if he defeats Tobias and Mewtwo. I also pity Team Rocket since they have never beaten Ash at least once, and that they were the de facto companions of Ash from the very beginning.
Can you please do a massive video ranking all eight Pokemon anime series from worst to best? I feel like that would be a great way to conclude your reviews of the “Ash Ketchum Era.” You could also do a top 20 Pokemon anime episodes or top 20 Pokemon anime moments.
The Best way to end the Pokémon anime would be a battle between Ash and Giovanni, to defeat the entire Rocket Organization, with the support of the masters eight and an ultimate Team that you mentioned before.
Why would that be satisfying? Ash has absolutely no connections with Giovanni. Why have a story end where the hero defeats a villain he's unfamiliar with?
@@gamestation2690 Because Is the ultimate villain of the anime since the begginnig.
@@javierxuluc5159 Sure, WE know much about him, but Ash doesn't! They have nothing to do with each other!
@@javierxuluc5159 Besides, that was already covered with Red in the games and the manga. No need for the anime to retread that ground
@@javierxuluc5159 Go watch Pokémon Live if you want to see it happen.
Chloe what a garbage companion. I miss early journeys Chloe where she was sassy and she always had Yamper with her, then she caught Eevee and became an pokégirl with another Eevee but worse. Her Eevee doesn't evolve I thought the anime was gonna show Gmax Eevee, but no just unnecessary filler journeys moment...
And I thought Iris was bad. She at least got some redemption in Journeys
Chloe was practically a lost cause
And then she wound up going Nowhere with either her dream or Eevee(not even explaining why it can’t evolve)
Or, going into research. The thing she complained about people assuming she would do when she was sassy
She’s either Nothing, or Worse than nothing
That filler introduction had me rolling! Good change over! I do agree with everything you said here. There was so much wasted opportunity in the final run for ash and filler was not needed it made the whole series feel rushed and boring
They had so much potential with Aim To Be A Master. The fact they didn't use it to properly wrap up Ash's story is quite sad
The predictions of the fans were way better than the actual episodes.
And insulting
The literal point is that his story won't wrap up as it is in his nature to keep going always. We just won't see it any more.
@@jaymckeown7601 it's no excuse
The two in ones didn’t take advantage of the format to show the same time period or sequence of events from the POVs of two characters or sets of characters, which could have spiced it up and made rewatching more rewarding to spot where the two stories intersected. Instead it was used for the comic relief storylines that couldn’t be stretched over 22 minutes (and to be honest barely got to 11 minutes worth of material).
in regards to May, Ive always wanted to know if she won the johto grand festival or not, remember in her return in diamond & pearl she was shown to have 3 johto ribbons, i know her voice actress was unable to come back but heres an idea:
they couldve had Norman return as one of Ash's world coronation series opponents(pre master class), I think Max mentioned during advanced that Norman is strong enough to be an elite four member so it wouldve fit perfectly and from there he could've mentioned May and her endeavors
That wouldve made more sense as Norman was the first hoenn gym leader to battle.
I sure hope she did
@@DarkEclipse23such a missed opportunity
I think you did a really good job of summing the series up.
It’s frustrating, I could rant and rant about all the things Journeys did terribly, and yet I can gush about so much that I absolutely loved and never thought we’d ever see.
The big draw backs for me are lack of cohesion between episodes and lack of development for Ash, and Goh’s, Pokémon - when I’m thinking of how to improve the series, it amounts to addressing those two things.
The failings of Journeys made me grow to appreciate BW more - I still think Journeys is better but I think it’s funny how that worked out.
But, yeah, good review Zac - you said pretty much everything I would have said
I must confess in the matter of this series: I really detest Pokémon Journey, and honestly, I don't think I can handle watching this because: A). I don't agree with how the character Goh is portrayed in the series, especially with him catching way too many Pokémon which is very insulting. Even if he does have some redeeming qualities, it will never change the fact that I despise his presence. B). It's a shame to know that Chloe Cerise did had a potential to be a solid character in her own rights, but sadly at the end of the day, her story was cut tragically short with not much character development arc. C). I can not agree or even accept some of the Pokémon Ash catches, simply because it doesn't make any sense or (in my opinion) come off as questionable. Finally, the idea of the whole series being episodic with some unwanted fillers feels frustratingly counterproductive, and as for those promises of Ash having a rematch with some of his rivals that he lost to especially Tobias? What rematches against his rivals? All in all, I have no desire to ever watch it's series on Netflix (can't stand that video streaming service) and I'm not really interested on ever giving the new protagonist and their new Pokémon a chance in Pokémon Horizon.
Just because Journeys Was terrible doesn't means that every Pokemon series is bad, Pokemon Horizons is really good
@@Seivilonstupid toxic gou midoriya stan fans is here
The series is definitely not for everyone, but I did enjoy it from time to time! Wish it didn't have as much filler as it did in the beginning tho 😭
What exactly qualifies a Pokémon episode as being "filler," if the whole point of the series is about having fun on an endless journey?
Yeah
@@gamestation2690 if the episodes are not important or interesting to watch, they are basically filler
People only care about plot, hype and action
@@eljordinio7647 Any avid anime fan can tell you that not all shows are about the plot. Some exist solely to present interesting concepts or enjoyable characters. Pokémon is one of those anime.
@@gamestation2690 because the last 3/4 of Journey’s was about the World Coronation Tournament and instead it was spent with Goh dicking around for pkmn he could care less for. They were just another pkmn to check off and eventually forget unless they were region variants or galar starters.
I enjoyed Journeys for the most part, but one thing I can't forgive is how little they covered Galar. It was my favorite recent region and I was looking forward to see Ash traveling around and meeting all the new pokemon and people. But Galar barely had any real time to shine!
Journeys definitely had a lot of ups and downs, sometimes more controversial than others mainly because episodic storytelling can work but at times the overall direction and structure was very perplexing to where it can’t really decide to focus on a story or not; even the battles in Journeys are a mixed bag if you compare the previous few seasons beforehand because while half of them are very good for the most part, the latter was left to be desired from a an narrative perspective and sometimes poorly paced, not to mention that SpongeBob’s earliest seasons started out strong but eventually made more questionable choices and controversial choices in the modern era alongside the fact as someone who used to watch SpongeBob, what Zac said is sadly the truth at times and the thing is I don’t mind episodic but the execution is a double-edged sword for me and I really enjoyed it despite the flaws and controversies!!! 🥲😏
@@ashelygordon669 stupid Gou midoriya toxic stan fan is here
Yeah how they handled Galar was beyond unacceptable
@@ashelygordon669in this case being episodic didn't work. Especially when it came to plot points like ash's progression in the world coronation series or his loss to Bea
@@ashelygordon669shut up gou midoriya stan fans
Pokémon Journeys is an interesting series to analyze. It may have a lot of lows, but it’s highs are too great to dismiss it and all in all the series turned out well. There was some great fan service, the concept’s great, and I actually liked the new characters
I give it a 7/10 overall, heavily flawed but good overall
Same. The bad is so bad but when it's good, it can really make up for it, like how Ash vs Leon made up for most of the masters eight tournament being trash
Stupid Gou midoriya toxic stan fan is here
👍 Fanservice/Continuity (when made it right)
👍 Yuki Hayashi
👍 Some good battles
👍 Unpredictability
👍 Some decent small arcs
👎 Way too episodic
👎 Way too fillery
👎 Shallow fanservice
👎 Choppy powerscaling
👎 Lack of screentime and interactions in Ash's team
👎 Subpar animation
👎 The way Legendary/Mythical are handled
👎 Huge missed oportunities overall - No reserves being the biggest of them
👎 Goh (everything about him. A co-protagonist shouldn't exist in Ash's final season)
One of my biggest issues is the fact that Ash’s Pokémon in journeys got a few episodes of development and then were shafted unless they needed to battle. Except Lucario, and Pikachu of course. Like Dragonite, it was his first catch! Then it got like two main battles before doing nothing until getting swept by Rihan and his Flygon.
One of my favorite things about this series was the chemistry between Ash and Goh. Sure they had opposite personalities, but I couldn’t get over how most people hated Goh due to his way of catching Pokemon.
Have you ever played a single Pokemon game? Then only you'll able to know how annoying goh is
Goh turned catching into collecting which is unacceptable in the context of the anime
We had a good run...
Now it's time for a new adventure.
I can’t be the only one who was expecting Chloe’s Eevee not evolving to be because it was going to Gigantamax. It seemed so obvious. Nope. It was SIDEQUEST MATERIAL. Bummer.
That "no destination line" is basically my feelings about the whole Pokemon anime. This is why I stopped caring. I had no high hopes for this anime anymore because it's a merchandise driven show that panders more to kids not meant to be taken seriously at All, and I wish more people would realize this.
The sun and moon anime even though it was childish sometimes still aimed to a mature audience in a lot of episodes, this anime feels like it was made for kids.
I swear in the new series if they have Goh or Chloe before Ash and do the same thing about meeting Ash with him being the world Champion and everything and hype it up then have him show up out of nowhere I’m so down 😞
6/10
One thing to notice is that people expected ash to bring his old mons back in the masters 8 but from the view of the writers, if they did Ash VS Alain then everyone wanted to see the rematch of Greninja and MCX. But if they did so they had to do it in every battle. Some people would be disappointed as the mons they wanted to see might not appear and would be angry. The point also was to highlight Ash's journeys Mons. Hope people understand what I mean. Peace. Great vid btw.
You should've covered the part where Pidgeot returned. I know it was just a short cameo appearance. But it's an iconic moment in my opinion. The best return of any Ash's Pokémon
ruclips.net/video/QFjuyS71npo/видео.html
To be frank, the episodic nature really hinder a lot of the pokemon interactions for ash and his team, which didn't help them at all
Big time
Pokémon Journeys was a episodic mess, but it was still a joy of a ride watching episodes daily (expect Aim to be a Pokémon Master and the many breaks between The Masters 8). I expected much more with the returning companions and Pokémon, it was still cool seeing them return. Although I wasn't there to see Ash's journey start, it was still a fun journey following Ash and Pikachu, and it's sad to see him go. Ash's chapter is finished, but let's hope that the next series does him justice with the next characters being his predecessors as the new and fresh protagonists.
If you think less and just chill and enjoy the journey, it is a good series.
I'll watch a better shonen if I want an intense/perfect story
24:40, It's not all bro. How can you forget Arbok and Wheezing bro? They are OGs. I literally cried so much as a kid when I saw that episode. And still to this day get emotional rewatching it.
They were released but still acknowledged.
What should've happened is the episode with Ash's losing steak before the Goh Pikachu episode, then have the rematch with Bea after.
I've known you from childhood well into adulthood. Through ups and downs. I will cherish the lesson of never giving up. I will miss you terribly, Team Rocket
another missed opportunity with Goh
bringing Porygon back to the anime...
there is even some great fanart out there with this idea
I think they banned porygon from the anime
@@carterryans they did
But thzg was over 20 years ago
Banned for something Pikachu did
+ the evolutions of Porygon are also banned for never even appearing in the first place
I think they could've just easily made a Porygon episode without the strobe effect years later to show they adapted their animation style to be safer and also show that they learned from their mistake. It's not like burying the incident under the rug would make the internet forget about the problem anyways.
28:42 I know this is a complete coincidence but as soon as you said this I got an ad that started with a toilet being flushed LMAOOO
I miss ash I used to watch the Pokémon anime on RUclips and my love really grew for it I hope we see ash again one day in the future 😢
Honestly they could've done this had the series start with Ash traveling through galar and facing each gym for the galar league meet go in episode 2 or 3 to introduce the project mew and have Chloe travel along side them. Once Ash finished the galar league he hears about the pwc league like battle frontier compete in that whilst still having episodic episodes
So ye complain that the series was rushed and then say the way to fix it is to add several seasons' more content to it? Oh boy....
Another great review as always bro! This series definitely was mixed with super highs and super lows. But overall very enjoyable despite the controversies and at times awful decisions. I liked, the emotion in the series was strong, but definitely had poor writing imo.
Thanks my bro 😁
@@Zactoshi of course man!😁
@@ChampionBlaze I only rewatch journeys for the good parts but u made an excellent point
Looking back, I really wish they’d removed most of the filler and instead of aim to be a Pokémon master, they waited a while and made a final season for Ash instead, one pretty much designed to go out on possibly an even bigger bang than the masters 8, and that’s team rainbow rocket
Like, come on, you can’t tell me that doesn’t have potential. The first couple episodes would explore Ash’s life as world monarch, and have him questioning what being a Pokémon master means, have Ash go to other regions to stop evil team leaders he’s seen before and their legendary Pokémon (while he questions wtf is going on), finally have a proper confrontation with Giovanni, maybe the main team Rocket trio finally quits for good and conclude a redemption arc? And tie up some loose ends with some episodes in between
I know that’s kind of a big ask, but I genuinely think they could’ve done that, it would go to show just how far Ash has come and just how powerful he is now. That’d be pretty fire
The problem with Goh wasn't his character. The problem was his development. The way he caught most Pokémon were rushed.
Yeah but still like him
At least he was voiced by Zeno Robinson in the dub.
What was that the Kalos League?
Yeah.... The character was just as much as a problem as how it was handled. If THIS was going to be how they handled the catching aspect, they should have left the whole catch them all aspect out
@@LeoEmber stupid Gou midoriya toxic stan fan is here
I don't care what you anyone says. Chloe is a better companion than goh ever will be. Not only did Goh abandon Ash when he was needed the most, but he also didn't even attempt to catch Mew, which was his main goal. He went from playing pokemon go in nearly every episode to not even doing much in the project Mew. Worst companion in Pokemon history. Fight me
I wish Ash's Pokémon had their spinoff series, as well as his companions... Like another Chronicles. That way, a lot of those characters can get more proper development away from Ash and even some potential closure. Heck, I even wrote two fan-fics that can relate to such these kind of stories. It would be fascinating to see the possibilities of who all could return.
I'm wondering if we get to see Gary come forth more as a new main character with spot light and get to know history about oak and his family. Delve into everyone's blood lines going back to the old Giovanni being every colors baby Daddy.
I wonder if universe merging everything would make it implode with crazy time lines. Would be fun writing for it.
I'm good with burning down about at least 80-85% of this series and the rest in needing heavy renovations.
And dropping Goh from a main protagonist to very minor recurring character at best to not existing preferably. To also nerfing Leon hard, like a steel toed boot to the nuts hard, definitely one of the worst champions I've seen.
I also feel the whole show could have ended with DP or preferably XY in winning either league as I see it.
17:41 that is very ironic.
Ash's last name is "Ketchum" yet he isn't aiming to "Ketchum all". Ash is more focused on battling and defeating everyone.
A new series on the horizon. Pokémon Horizons 😂
I love how they showed Pikachu avoiding Ancient Power by using a modified version of Rock Tomb Climb that he used against Grant's Onix during his travels through Kalos during the final fight against Leon's Charizard in the Masters 8 Tournament Finals.
I mainly grew up with Indigo, Best Wishes, and XY, but I'll miss this show.
P.S. Liko is NOT Ash's daughter.
Pokemon journeys have a lot potential but a lot of things that happens with this series cause it miss opportunity this series could have.
The understaff at OLM and them doing 9 show's at the same time did show the production of journeys. Blame on the OLM highers up for that one, when they moved most of the staff to different show's.
covid 19 screwed everything over for production time.
Episodic storytelling because that stupid Sunday timeslot and they could've stop that after moving to Friday slot. But nope that didn't help either due by exces or main director.
It didn't help that they rushing trying getting journeys done before SV game's launched on Nov ( which at the end SV game's were best fast selling switch game for 3 day's which they didn't need the anime to promote it on the same day as the game's launched at all.) (Until tears of the kingdom could likely beat Pokemon SV weekend launched) Which they may gotten more time to finish up journeys and APM. Started working on horizon series.
Agreed
Best girl Dawn 💙
The reason this video was uploaded today is because pokemon journeys is a -joke-
What if the proper conclusion for Ash is saved for a movie? We can have a 2 hour movie where Ash meets Liko and discovers that the roots of the vines attacking Kalos are in either Area Zero or one of the DLCs. We can even have a cool scene where Ash Greninja returns with Zygarde.
This is the proper conclusion!😂
That would cool
@@zg468 not really
@King Gane Ruler Paldea and Kalos are far far away regions from each other
You have to be extremely naive to believe this would ever happen lmao
Journeys was a lot of fun, but I just wish that they actually explored Galar and all the new characters and Pokémon. Sword and Shield had tons of wasted potential that would have made Journeys so much better, like adding Hop's character arc and introducing Bede and Marnie early on.
Videos uploaded on April Fools Day are always a gamble.
I heartily agree with the 2 in 1 episodes being more like silly antics with Spongebob and Patrick -_- ...
Pokemon journeys sucks
One of the biggest problems of Pokemon is battles being won/lost off screen to get through the episodes faster
That’s because more time was dedicated to Goh dicking around.
I do hope that Ash makes some sort of cameo and reference.
“Aim to be mid” 💀
I enjoyed it, despite its many, *many* flaws! 🥰
Stupid toxic gou midoriya stan fans is here
I should NOT have taken a sip of water at 8:05
Of terms of how NOT to write an ending, the ending does a good job of that. For instance we waited for 26 years…26…..YEARS for Ash’s dad. We even got the alternate timeline with his dad as a focus…..and we never found out?!?!?!?!? This is NOT okay and a big FU to the fans. This is just one of the MANY issues I have with it.
No dude, most fans didn't wait for that at all because it is entirely irrelevant in the big picture. It also would have caused controvesy regardless because 25yrs of various fan theories have cemented themselves in people's minds. His dad wasn't mentioned a single time in those 25yrs in the main timeline so no idea why you thought he would ever be a part of it.
3:33 yeah that’s why I decided to remove this element from the journeys anime while I’m doing my rewrite of it
Journeys has its moments, but its flaws really dragged it down for me, especially when it came to the episodic nature, Goh, and Galar's treatment.
I'm still gonna put it above black and white. At least when journeys did things right, it more than made up for its shortcomings
Something BW failed at
Journeys is my 5th favorite of the Pokemon sagas. Below DP, SM, XY, and AG, and above OG (Kanto/Orange), BW, and GS (Johto). I await the day GS and AG are english subbed (and get the 3 unaired episodes by sheer luck), so I can revisit the Pocket Monsters series. Until then, I'm going to rewatch your League and Pokemon saga reviews, Zac. Have a damn good one, everyone.
Didn’t Jessie catch chewtle too?
It became a gacha mon
If only she did
COVID really put a damper on the series overall, but if this was gonna be his last journey, they should’ve absolutely pulled out all the stops. All his old pokes. All his companions old rivals. An actual climb up the ranks and not that bs where he ranked down then back up off screen. The list goes on. The gist is we should’ve seen EVERYTHING.
Journeys had the amazing ideas, but executed them extremely poorly. 😐
I love how everyone's lamenting Ash's departure and no one could care less about Goh
Cos goh is trash 🗑️
@@eljordinio7647 ucuiy. Goh is better and awesome. Paul is evil and trash
Cos Paul is trash 🗑
Even though Ash, Goh, and Chloe was controversial, at least as a trio, I really like their interactions together.
This is how I would write Aim to be a Pokémon master. Gary asks ash what it means to be a PM. Ash doesn’t know and oak approaches him. he says that he has people that he wants him to see. Red and blue. Pokémon masters. I hoped this series would try to introduce them. Ash try’s to challenge red but he rejects him. So the group explores and ash learns what it means to be a master. Ash truly bonds with Pokémon. But their is one more thing. To be a master you have to be strong as well. All of ash’s companions come to watch his final battle. He battles red and it’s a draw. Red says that ash is a master but ash doesn’t want to stop traveling. So ash gets a new outfit similar to his old ones and taking inspiration from reds. And that’s how I would write the end of ash’s story. Him still traveling the world with him and pikachu.
Pokémon Journeys is a series that had so much potential to be the very best, only for it to end up being the most lackluster one with a few good moments.
Like Journeys being episodic at the beginning because of the time slot is understandable, but once it got into a better one, they still decide to be episodic. It took until episode 37 for Ash to meet his old friends again, who were from Alola, the last series. It took until episode 65 for another old character to return.
You can tell the writers had some good ideas but they never lived up to their full potential. For example, Goh wanting to capture every Pokémon was their idea for why Ash and Goh would travel between the 8 regions, but it never felt like Goh was any closer to capturing Mew. It wasn't until episode 68 that Goh actually had a way to progress towards his goal, with Project Mew, but that also never lived up to its full potential.
Chloe not knowing what she wanted to do was a good idea for a character arc, but I think the issue was the writers didn't even know what she wanted to do either. Once she got Eevee, I think the basic idea was for Chloe to Gigantamax Eevee, but I don't think they knew how to get her there. I think her arc was cut short and they just scrap it, making her entire character arc pointless as it never got a proper ending.
The World Coronation Series was their way for Ash to battle old characters from the previous series and to battle the new Galar Gym Leaders. Ash only ended up battling 4 Galar Gym Leaders, Bea, Opal, Marnie, and Raihan. They could have had Ash battle more Galar Gym Leaders, but they rather had Ash battle nobodies. Ash's rematches weren't that much better, he only had 3 rematches with Korrina, Iris, and Volkner. I think fans would have rather had Ash rematch people he lost to like Flint or Alain, instead of characters we already seen Ash defeat. It was also the perfect time for Ash to use his old Pokémon to battle against Trainers across the world, but instead he used a team that barley had any development that wasn't named Lucario.
Finally their is Galar. I have no idea why Cerise Laboratory wasn't located in Galar. At least if it was there, we would have seen more Galar Pokémon and characters, but nope, we have stick with same old Kanto. Before I watch the series, I thought Goh and Chloe were from Galar, especially because they showed Goh with Scorbunny, and Chloe with Yamper. Ash also barely used Gigantamax in battle. It wasn't until episode 99 where Ash finally used Gigantamax again in battle since episode 13. That is so bad, especially because it's main gimmick of Gen 8 and they gave Pikachu a Gigantamax form only for Ash to use it twice in the whole series.
At the end of the day, I'm just disappointed at the missed potential of Pokémon Journeys. Here's hoping Pokémon Horizons can learn from the mistakes of Pokémon Journeys.
Koharu not knowing what to do, it's the same story from Serena in xy, but took like 3x the episodes to still get nowhere
@@dragonmaster3030at least Serena found what she wanted to do. Chloe failed
This was the first series I watched from week to week, I mean I was only 9 when it came out in 2020 but I still loved the show, it was a perfect ending to the best anime ever, I recently just watched every Pokémon episode and I think it’s fair to say he truly became the best like no one ever was, I’m sad his journey is over but
Don’t be sad because it’s over, be happy because it happened
Goodbye Ash
Wait so if ash's journey is over
*NO MORE TORKOAL!*
Good riddance to that sorry excuse for a Pokemon
@@eljordinio7647 I wasn't happy about it.
@@SphealthatMunches say what?
@@eljordinio7647 I'm not happy I don't get to see torkoal anymore.
@@SphealthatMunches what's to like? It was a crybaby and constantly lost in battle. For that, it deserves to be thrown out like garbage 🗑️
32:50 Does this mean he can FINALLY stop asking that question when a character doesn’t end up catching a Pokémon?
Journeys is decent at best. The 3rd worst series