Pokémon Journeys: The Series

Before I get started, This is going to be a sort of conclusion to the Pokemon review series I have been doing for the past few years. now. By doing so, I might reference previous reviews, especially the Sun and Moon one, since Journeys follows that series, Some ideas presented in that review are going to be referenced in this one. When I started writing this review, I didn’t plan to include any breaks, but as I progressed, I realized it was worth adding breaks here and there for the reader. since I’m going to pour my thoughts in the purest way in this review,this review became longer the more I thought about it, both before and after writing. thus, this became my most ambitious review to date. so while the review was written in one breath and on the same note,, if you feel the need for a breather or a stop between here and then, I put up to 8 parts stops to make the reading easier to come back to. so while the optimal way is to read this review in one go, I realize that won’t be ideal for many people. Now, let’s begin. Part 1 - How should Pokemon anime translate the games? Pokemon as an anime, rather than just one product in a larger franchise, it has gone in many different directions in its presentation and story, despite not being very different at its core. It’s all going down by the source of the franchise and the anime that centered around it - the Pokemon games. At their core, the games have two main aspects working together - one aspect is the adventure, the travel across a big region in the Pokemon world. the other is the battle aspect, beating the Gyms and the Pokemon League. and the way both are working is quite harmonic and send the fantasy of the setting. One cannot simply play the game while ignoring the other aspect - to keep going forward, adventuring and seeing every Pokemon you can find, one must battle the Gyms to move forward. all the same to become the very best in the region of the game, one must find the best Pokemon he can, and this requiring adventuring and exploring the world. the way to translate this feeling to the anime, had gone a long way through the seasons and the series. seeing how this translation from the game changed through the seasons is important to us in this review, to analyze what brought Journeys a great change in this translation. the first series, the OG, the Kanto and the Johto series, had definitely took the translation of the game to an extreme edge. “what is the core idea of the games”, the writers might had asked, and they came with the idea that the adventure and the coming of age is the important aspect the game had featured. and so the first series had presented much more adventure/coming of age content. most of the gyms aren’t even presented as a Pokemon battle that must be conquered, but as an obstacle for Ash to win over. the battles were more to make the adventure engaging, but less then progressing the plot. the Johto arc had started to change that a little, the balance between the adventure and the action had maybe gave more emphasis for proper Gym battles, but rather the less the emphasis on adventure was still crucial part o it. in a way if the Indigo League arc was more about Ash coming of age, the Orange Isles and the Johto arc was about how his character is dealing with different kind of cases. pay notice I haven’t done any criticizing here. to come and say the altitude of the first series on the adventure aspect had been a mistake, is wrong. the first series had a charm of it’s own thanks to the adventure theme the writers wanted to emphasis. and this charm came to a test when the series continues. when the Hoen arc and the DP arcs came around, the balance between adventure and battle come more closely to how you would think the games might translate. the issue was less “how to translate” and more how to build the characters around the translation. Ash gone a big change through the Hoen arc, emphasis around the battles and action were added, yet there was a lack of struggle in the story, mostly due the action genre requiring a rival that the Hoen arc was lack of, it was done to not lose the adventure vibes I believe. this is where the DP series definitely moved to the more action genre introducing Paul as a main rival to Ash. this change also marked the point where the anime balanced much better the translation of adventure and battle from the games. the adventure is still inside the content, but the action is huge part of it. you don’t necessarily play the games just for the battles, but without them the game is lacking competition and struggle. yet when you translate the story of the game into anime, DP writes down the story as more of an action story than an adventure story, while the adventure is still necessary to keep going on. if you will come back to the early review here, you will see that this is touching what I wrote about the game battle aspect - the adventure is necessary to keep going up ranks in the games. this aspect takes DP greatly into account making the action as the center. while the OG series takes the other opposite - the adventure aspect takes the battles as a mean to progress in the world, thus changing Gyms stories drastically. where the Hoen arc takes sort of balance between those. and this is comes in full opposite in the Black and White series. whereas OG series went above and beyond the adventure genre, the BW series takes the battle and the action as first priority. the adventure is there, but it’s takes much dominant rule than anything. almost every character have a rival and a route to becoming their own best in the battling aspect. BW translates the game in an extreme way toward action. all this is of course hasn’t done just because, there was clear purpose in the writing team to make every series unique. there’s a limit and imagination of how much you can do (pay notice here) with a single character and a single format of journey. the journey across a region to collect badges and go the league repetition is working well in the games, because games needs those sort of gameplay loop in order to keep their DNA. but as an anime story, there’s a limitation on how much you can tell the same format in the same way. the deep intention of how much the translation of the game changed from the OG series definitely was to differ each arc and season from each other. yet, this writing style and the limitation of single main character the writers putted themself in kinda get exhausted over the years. and its seems very carefully over Pokemon XY. the writers clearly wanted something fresh in the take of the Pokemon anime, so they went in a more coherent continuous story progression style. it’s clear from the characters like Serena and the like, that the writers wanted to put little more mature and seriousness in a more continuous shounen story style, while going back to the DP translation of the games for more action yet adventurous genre than what BW was to fit this style of writing. and yet I couldn’t bear to notice that in Pokemon XY, despite making a good coherent storytelling, there’s hiding sort of exhaustion toward the format the anime limited it in. the XY series used it well, but the change in Pokemon Sun and Moon was clearly done to try a different style of format of the anime. if you read my Pokemon Sun and Moon review, I wrote in that one that the change of the Pokemon formula was done by the game map structure, rather than the gameplay structure. because while the game changed its gameplay somewhat, it wasn’t an extreme change to the journey structure. yet the anime writing team saw this as an opportunity to give the anime a different vibe and style. Pokemon was always episodic, but there was always sort of progress in the journey to match the game progression. SM took the episodic way to a more centered and grounded style. Ash have a main hub now, and from there he might go to different occasions, but always return to the hub when the episode is ending. SM took out the progressing journey style completely in order to space out the tiresome journey of the anime, and made the storytelling less straightforward and more occasional. in relating to the so far analyzation, Pokemon SM went away with how the Pokemon anime translated the game. so far it was very tight with the game progress and journey. SM went with a different translation in order to refresh things up. this translation is not in the games per se, but to not getting too tight with the same format, the anime had took a dive into different realm of translation. not literal or ever intended translation, and not even spin-off one. in term with the SM games, the anime did a good job translating the themes and the atmosphere of Alola, but it wasn’t a direct translation of the game, but a different take to tell the story of the game. this change at the SM, was an interesting take to say the least but without any faults (as I expressed in my SM review). yet through this analyzation I can definitely see what made the writers change the view on the anime. the OG Pokemon journey style that got most of the series was good, but the more you rely on it, the more limitation you put around your writing, the more focused on this narrative loses the creativity mind of the writer. the change to SM maybe wasn’t the best per se, as it still made a lot of trial and error over the episodes story (as I noted in my SM review), but the change was refreshing that they told themself to put this format into another go. … Part 2 - Ash Character Development and Limitations this is but one route that led to Pokemon Journeys to be paved into. the 2nd is, as hinted through this careful analyzation, is Ash character. Ash had definitely became the series mascot, but as with the translation of the game had changed, so the limitation of the character. the games managed to always get away with the MC because, despite the player hasn’t changed, and so his knowledge in the gameplay mechanics, but the MC always changed with the game and is a new one. Ash on the other hand hasn’t been replaced for more than 20 years. this of course, led to plot conveniences in order to balance Ash’s team. he always excused this, but for every region he went over a reset for his team to not make him overpowered. you could say that this translation from the game is the player experience - the more Ash travels, despite reseting his team, he still learns new ways and built his own style. this of course wasn’t always true, because BW had made sort of reset for his character. yet a single character have it limits, and the fact the he gets to each region to beat the local league sure puts the fence over how much he should be developed, and how much he should be stronger. the anime sort of had a solution for this in the form of his final league results - toward DP he climbed more and more in the numbers, in DP he made it to the last 4, and in XY he got to the finale (albeit he went back in BW inbetween). if this is the progression the anime made to a single character over more than 10 years of anime, then the next time he must be a champion. and that’s what happened in SM. what next then? should he go back to the roots of simple league now that he finally won a league? or in fact, how much development should Ash get until his idea is extorted? you see Ash started as the vision the writers saw of the character in the first games. obviously Pokemon anime is one that depended not just on the game but also the success of the anime and the franchise as a whole. they obviously never planned his conclusion or his development over the ongoing series. while he had changed through the writing to become more a mature and in some series even as a mentor figure, he never developed beyond his own goals and limitation. I think this is ultimately led the writing team to devise it - Ash ultimate end in the Pokemon series. so together with the previous point about his character progression (Ash becoming a champion, what’s next) they devised his last celebrated story in the anime as - Pokemon Journeys. … Part 3 - Setting and Inspiration for Pokemon Journeys all what I had wrote until now, is the big prologue for what I came to write - the translation from the games to anime, the Ash development and his grand finale, is all about what I’m going to write here. as said the writers found the way in Pokemon SM how to structure a journey over episodic form that is not limited to certain progression. while in the game, the main story have been told through the progression of the player, the story of the game in the anime came to light in more casual way. there wasn’t a lead nor build up to it, the writers had chosen that the time for the games story to happen, and it did. since there isn’t a journey, there’s also not a pressure to filler the way into the league, it happens in much more natural setting. in other words, instead of limiting themself, the writers had created and environment where they could choose where how and when for things to happen and evolve, rather than forcing themself into a format, they took the liberty to make their own pace and storytelling. this style of writing copied straight away to the new series, but with much more grandiose setting than SM was, called Pokemon Journeys. and on the way they also took the inspiration and ideas from the new modern games at the time to make it happen. first of all they needed a setting. same as with SM local Pokemon school setting, the writers needed a setting fitting to a Pokemon world, where Ash and the characters can get to various kind of stories. where and when are the stories happens doesn’t matter as long as the setting allows them. this resulted in Ash going back to Kanto (the location of OG series), where he meets Prof. Cerise, a Pokemon Professor. Ash is recruited to help him in various cases and events and investigate. from here he doesn’t even limited to the Kanto region settings, he can goes every where in the world - Johto, Hoen, Sinnoh Unova Kalos, you name it. Cerise lab is the main hub of the series. but of course setting alone are nice, but there’s need some setting for Ash becoming a Pokemon Master as always isn’t it? it used to be the Pokemon League, the Gym Leaders, what now? also Ash cannot do this all by his own, he needs team mates and such. not just to help him in need, but to variate the story. here comes where the writing starts taking several games ideas at the same time, either adapting them, taking inspiration from them, or even tell a different, new take, then what the games actually meant. the main new game at the time was Pokemon Sword and Shield, that supposedly the anime needed to adapt, is the main inspiration for Ash new challenge. the league in Sword and Shield is competitive, soccer/football inspired by, with huge arenas and very sportive spirit. this clearly inspired the writers the World Coronation Series, an international tournament, where trainers around the world competiting to become the world very best. in this setting, each battle ranks you up in the score much like a gym leader, raising to the top slowly by any win. this inspiration is very clear from the fact that the world Champion is Leon, which was also the Galar Champion, is standing on top of the World Coronation Series, making himself the new target and rival of Ash, both with new characters - from the Galar region Gym Leaders and such - or even old characters to celebrate the Pokemon series. but on that later. the 2nd game that took the world by surprise, was Pokemon Go. this mobile game had reawakened the passion of Pokemon around the world, thousand of people been charmed by it, either new fans or old. the mere fact of traveling around the world with your mobile to seek Pokemon had the same adventure spirit from the games and the anime. from this game we rise to a new main character named Goh. and notice that I say “new main character”, because unlike previous teammate he have a story and ambitious of his own. rather than just stick to Ash in all costs, he have his own main story and ultimate goal - to catch the Mythical Pokemon Mew, and for that purpose he’s going to catch as many as Pokemon as he can, improving his catching skills, and in time to join an association that aims to catch Mew. now here’s where comes somewhat my big prologue to explain the smart move in separating two different storylines for two different goals. earlier I said that the game have two different aspects combined into one journey - adventure and battle. in Pokemon Journey Ash is taking the straight forward battle route - to become the world champion. while Goh taking the adventure route - which is catching Pokemon and take various adventure plots. this doesn’t end here mind you, after all we need a female character to add the mix. here we have Chloe, and despite being little more side character than Goh, she still have her own separate story line. that its source is kinda unexpected, but interesting. you see, Chloe doesn’t know what to do with herself in the grand world of Pokemon, she kind of the average character in the grand scheme of the series. she quickly befriend an Evee, a special kind of Evee that don’t know what he wants to evolve to. yeah you see the same kind of characteristic here don’t you? much like Evee don’t know to which evolution line to take, so Chloe as well. Chloe storyline is to find her own Evee the way he wants, while traveling with Ash and Goh to various places and get to know Evee’s evolution. the idea of this story may come at original at first, but my guess is that it’s idea is taken from the Lets Go games. quick background elaboration: the Lets Go games - Lets Go Pikachu and Lets Go Evee, are a modernize remake of Pokemon Yellow, that originally were based on Ash travels in the anime. the main character in Yellow would get a Pikachu that doesn’t want to evolve, much like Ash’s. the Lets Go games modernize that game to Lets Go Pikachu, gives it a sister game like always - Lets Go Evee, with the added twist that catching is inspired by Pokemon Go game where you can catch by throwing the Pokeball literally with the motion controls. while in the Pikachu game the player gets Pikachu that can’t evolve, much like in the original game, in the Evee game the player gets Evee that don’t want to evolve. the twist in both versions comes where you can teach Pikachu moves he cannot normally learns. while Evee gets to learn moves by his evolution types. this leads the idea of Chloe’s Evee, as he goes and learns his various type of his evolutions, as he have curious potential of every Eveelution. which is the main lead of Chloe character. now the writing for each of those characters varies. Ash, since he’s now competes in the grand World Coronation Series, continues his mature characteristic. which I don’t feel the need to explain why it’s good. Goh on the while becomes a good friend of Ash. and while I get why he were made in a certain way, I never got attached to him too much. Chloe have a charming way of her own, and while she’s not the best female character, she does steals the show from time to time, better than Goh in my opinion. … Part 4 - Celebration of the Pokemon Series now, of course that these character with this kind of unique setting needs to be bloom in a certain way. and as said, Ash and Goh are recruited to Cerise Lab to help investigate various stories. those stories occurring around the world. here is where the series takes the opportunity , that since it’s going to be Ash final round , to celebrate the series certain aspects and characters. as said the characters aren’t limited to the same setting as before, but capable of going through Kanto to all the regions all the way to the new region Galar. encountering the new Pokemon species is one thing, telling the story of the new Sword and Shield game, but also revisits old places from previous arcs, old characters either in an occasional story or a World Coronation Series, and might even some old Pokemon. the series goes far and wide for those, taking plots across the series, either to renew those plots or even finish them as they never ended in their own series (not the GS ball though). the series doesn’t do that for the sake of nostalgia mind you (we will talk about nostalgia in the next review of the sequel series), it does this as I said to celebrate Ash’s biggest adventures he had, and in a way to retrospect his final hurray in the series. this also applies to Team Rocket. the writers ditched their old ways in Journeys, now they are taking a Pelliper sort of gimmick and having fun playing with various types of Pokemon instead limiting themself into certain team that was always dedicated to them. this leads to a various fun scenarios that we never saw Team Rocket having before, and gives us good chance to see them in different kind of situation, right before parting away from them too. despite showing all these writing decisions as smart, this doesn’t mean its all great and equal. as every Pokemon season there’s ups and downs. the premise and the writing of the series does make it unique above all the other, altogether it doesn’t means there are no flawed stories down the road. it does make it frustrating sometimes, as the series kinda goes back some of the misses SM did. sometimes Journeys manages to surprise even itself with some crazy ideas (the Slowpoke episode for example is a treasure) that previous seasons couldn’t have done without breaking their premise and structure. despite criticizing, on Pokemon Journeys favor I would say that, it uses the full potential the writers brought to it, and managed to create a truly unique series to finish Ash journeys. … Part 5 - Finalize SM Art Style I find this a good place to also finish a line of thought that came to me straight from my SM review that continued to XY review (my XY review had been written after SM review), that here I’m finally being able to conclude. whle in my SM review I praised how the studio tried to modernize the Pokemon art, in the XY review I returned criticizing [the SM series] to ruin the proportion of some character. I did mention in SM that it has own vibe (my own words: “The truth is, after a couple of episodes you start to get why they chose this “light” art”) and that it has the greatest art of the series. but it was very humbling the truth about it. I’m not saying it was a lie, but seeing SM episodes nowadays after watching Journeys, its art is a little… disturbing. and even then I mentioned it was before coming to Journeys series. in my XY on the other hand I praised it art that despite being square compare to SM, it doesn’t mean its bad as it at least kept the proportions, unlike SM. this all leads to the fact that in Journeys the animators learned their lessons. they took SM art style and perfected it. at one hand Ash looks childish the same as SM, but he have much more rounder and modernize look that SM Ash would be blushing. while I don’t care for childish Ash looking despite being pretty mature in the anime (its a kodomo anime after all, it fits its hero will be a kid), it does ruin when they design previous character to be more mature. I’m trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so I will just hint that a certain unique character had designed to look older than Ash look, despite being the same age. in those occasions I had wished that Ash designs would match, but in the end studios have their priorities on the character models I guess. it does important to bring out that the studio did had its own difficulties. which despite the animation had a great potential, it gave its most potential only when it was utmost important. I’m trying not to criticizing it though, because that’s reality for you. just keep this note in your mind. … Part 6 - Humble Endings 1 to continue from this point to end this review, lets pull one of the threads I had made earlier. as said, Pokemon had been a series where the writers didn’t exactly planned Ash journey or his end all along from the very mere start. pretty much like any other series with high popularity, you don’t really know where the journey will take the characters, so the writers just have to keep the good work on a high popular series and play with it. as I elaborated and will elaborate, Journeys is a product of the writers thinking of a way to continue the series with a fresh mind, and also ending Ash journey in the same note. yet despite that, Goh and Chloe storylines clearly hadn’t been thought well through the end. while I said earlier the series uses it’s full potential of its unique style it created, it didn’t planned well too far through the characters arc. I can understand the note Chloe story ended on, since her storyline is a much more a side story compare to the other two, so it can be excused. plus it fitted her character. Goh on the other hand got a bitter end that, despite resembling Ash’s ending through the Pokemon anime seasons, it doesn’t give too much hope for his character forward. this is not to say that Goh storyline was perfect from start to end. in fact his storyline does suffer from inconsistent here and there, but was overall a pretty joyful arc despite kinda awful character. but his end in the series unfortunately feeling unpolished. Ash on the other hand, got the golden cake here. and as the main character that Journeys had been made into finishing, he gets all the polish he gets from start to finish. his team is clearly had been planned by writers that read the fans opinions, and made the strongest team he ever had, as fans claims the “dream team”. his storyline leads into the one of the best finale of any Pokemon series. and despite being spoiled long time before ending the series whom Ash going to battle, the writing of those battle are one of a kind that shows how thoughtful the writing had been - despite being a series that disconnected itself from the game, those battles were written in the complex mechanics of the games. making them the best battles in the anime to be written thanks to that. Ash ending in Journeys is worth one, and unlike the other characters around, you can clearly see the love and care the writers had invested in him over the years. from the get beginning of the Journeys through the very end, Ash is getting all the love and care from the writers to be the very best that no one ever was. … Part 7 - Humble Endings 2 Finishing my threads I opened in the beginning of this long review, the writers didn’t just led the Pokemon series for Journeys for nothing. as a writer I know it can be limiting to be working on the same note for more than 20 years, even the games had sort of a breakthrough with the Legends to refresh the games. looking in retrospect, ending Ash adventures in Journeys is one that was unavoidable. as said earlier, Ash promoted more and more in the leagues, final 8 in Hoen, final 4 in DP, finals in XY and becoming a champion in SM. truthfully I don’t think it was planned at all. also you could potentially continue Ash even further. yet, every idea has it limit. as much as I love Ash as a character and as a mascot of the Pokemon franchise, he did reached his potential quite a while ago in DP and XY. stretching idea too far and it becomes a mere cash machine for the sake of being cash machine. a good franchise maybe needs to be stable for the sake of it, and Pokemon IS THE BIGGEST FRANCHISE IN THE WORLD right now. but innovation are needed to move forward, to innovate, to not being stuck on the same place. Pokemon had ended Ash sake not for the sake of getting rid of him, but in sake of taking the next best idea for the franchise. Part 8 - Humble Beginnings and the next best idea for the franchise is going with new ideas, new faces, new looks. Pokemon is often criticized, both game and anime for being too safe. but Pokemon anime had to take a different take in order to refresh stuff. the Pokemon Horizons anime is already been aired for a while, and apart from randomly watching the first episode, I haven’t seriously began watching it, but it does have the fresh look the Pokemon anime had needed for a long time. this is not an ending for Ash just for the end of it, it’s an humble ending to take a new humble start. because, sometimes to move forward, you need to move backward and realize what blocks you moving up two steps ahead and not just one step. the writers had done the best thing they thought for the series here. and so it ends here. both the anime an my Pokemon review series. yet I know there’s a sequel mini series that continues Ash journey a little bit longer, I feel that series is fitting more for the hardcore anime fans that followed all along from 1998 rather than newcomers. BUT, I will elaborate this in its own unique review. despite saying I finished the Pokemon review series, it was for the main series. BUT there’s still some of the sequel series such as XYZ that I need to write its review into, and more. after all, there is the new Pokemon Horizons series, and it will get its own review too one day! hopefully... so, thanks for reading and to be continue!

Pokemon has been an incredibly big part of my life and especially so during my childhood. I would wake up in the early hours of the morning and plant my backside right in front of our family TV, anticipating another new episode of Pokemon, wondering what new species I'll witness next. I would play my Gameboy Color that I got for Christmas in 1999 along with Pokemon Gold, under my blanket during bedtime, hiding it away from my parents as I relentlessly played it through the night. I would nag and nag at my Grandma the following year to buy me Pokemon Red, which wasseemingly still on the shelves for sale, and eventually got what I so desired. I would collect Pokemon Trading cards, trade and battle with friends, buy figurines, I would eat, sleep and breathe Pokemon. Suffice to say, I was very addicted. Twenty plus years later, I am caught up with the latest installment of the Pokemon anime, and while I still check out the newest games, I have only ever played through Gens 6-9 once over. Personally, it just doesn't hit the same. The previous series, Pokemon Sun and Moon was a highly controversial anime that split the fanbase with it's newly non linear story line and a lack of gyms, Pokemon Journeys follows suit as Ash does not travel a single region, collecting badges along the way. This was very refreshing to see after so many years, something different than the bog standard story and I enjoyed the change. Ash's homebase is in Pallet Town, Kanto, at the Sakuragi Institute where he works as a research assistant alongside new companion Goh, and travels to different regions investigating or simply observing Pokemon. We can't talk about Ash and not talk about Goh, another controversial thing about this series. Goh is quite simply the co main character for the first half of the show, an energetic, emotional and sometimes naïve boy who's goal is to capture Mew. He spends all his time capturing anything he sees, wanting Mew to be the last Pokemon left for his Pokedex. A lot of people didn't like Goh stealing the limelight from Ash and also absolutely abhor some of the decisions made from the creators when it came to what Pokemon he captures (he's just doing what every little kid did, capture every single damn Pokemon). Purists. I had no problem with it and hoped to see more. His character develops as he deepens his bonds with his main Pokemon and finds courage in battle, something he lacked. Another recurring character is Koharu, this seasons Misty, May, etc. She's a lot more laid back and her screen time or importance isn't as great as previous heroines, but she also gets some nice development. Struggling with an identity crisis, and the pressure of having a Pokemon Professor as a Father, she grew up not liking Pokemon at all, or at least indifferent to them. A chance meeting with an Eevee who cannot evolve leads to a significant relationship, and they both help each other understand their own predicaments and grow from it. Now we have Ash. He's mostly along for the ride until the latter half of the show where the World Championships arc is in the forefront of the narrative. This arc is by far the most interesting arc of them all and has many older characters making small cameos and comebacks from time to time, quite a bit of fanservice for us older fans. Ash's team is absolutely stacked in terms of popular Pokemon and even strength wise as well. There are many things to like and dislike about Ash's battles and his Pokemon this time around... Strengths: - The useage of abilities and in game mechanics and tactics are comfortably the best I've ever seen them used in a Pokemon series so far. A lot of first time plays as far as I'm aware. - A lot of switching in and out Pokemon from Ash's rivals. - Sublime soundtracks for stand out Pokemon. Weaknesses: - A complete lack of simple dodging, something that used to be a common occurrence. - A lack of a sense of hard, episode to episode training, it never felt that Ash's team was the best it's ever been. - Which in turn garnered a bit of disbelief as to who he was facing often times. - Some Pokemon didn't really get their dues. Look, it's something different. I'm well aware that this will definitely not be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed the ride and am excited for what's to come in the near future. There's already a few brilliant shorter series out there, released in the last 3-4 years, what I would give to a TV show in similar quality.

This series was something that as I returned to just because of the nostalgia bit. Told myself I would watch the finale, the same way I swore in grade school I would watch Naruto, Bleach, One Piece to the very end. (Of course, that doesn't imply any obligation towards movies, spin-offs, legacies and so on.) What could I say, other than the fact that I enjoyed one or two battles and reunions, there isn't much of that nostalgia brought back in here. The show oscillates between couple fillers, couple interesting episodes, but this gamble actually killed some expected interactions, some reunions got lost in thefiller spectrum of events, training for relevant battles sometimes is expected to be imagined, the alternative stories struggle to make a point or to become relevant, and some characters are so empty of their nostalgic originality that it's depressing to watch. Other than the fact that the show is ridiculous as it always was (what can you do, that's the risk of the job), some fights are decent enough, some bonding moments are heartwarming and you're happy that everyone's happy and almost everything stays the same even after the end. Maybe they do a better job to close the curtain in the next short series about Ash, who knows? Overall, on one hand I am thankful that I got to see the end, on another it was pretty much no difference if I didn't. Thank you, Pokemon, for that reunion that I expected at the end, that made my day, but it wasn't enough for the whole impression. No thank you for the new side stories, fillers and redundant dialogues, zero real character development on the humans, and arguably on the Pokemons too, since getting new moves isn't relevant to character development in almost any way. It's a company. This it how it makes money. The previous seasons are almost no different. But take a look back at the first few seasons, and you will see a huge difference. Just stop getting it mediocre scores or better because of the nostalgia bait. It incentivizes it to create further crap content, and you are directly responsible for it. 3/10 with huge efforts and bound by nostalgia, otherwise 1/10.

I actually ended up watching this season all the way through twice. Which ended up being a good thing, because it really hit different the second time around. I wasn't that impressed with it during my first watch-through. What really made the difference was that, going into it the second time, I was already aware that this would be Ash's farewell season. That gave me a different opinion on the way Journeys is structured. So to get some of the initially negative things out of the way first... Pokemon Journeys can feel pretty disjointed at times. The idea of Ash and Goh being research fellowsand going on a different adventure-- visiting a different region each time-- every episode or so sounds fun. And it was at times. But I've mentioned countless times before that I'm not really one for episodic storytelling. I miss the long continuous journey through a region. Now I'm a little torn about this aspect. On the one hand, I can really appreciate the opportunity it afforded them-- to go back and revisit all the people Ash had traveled with before. That helped contribute to a really beautiful sendoff. On the other, I can't help feeling that, because it had to share the season with all the other places in the Pokemon world, the Galar region wasn't really done justice in Pokemon Journeys. That was another big thing that changed for me. The first time around, I hadn't played Sword/Shield yet. The second time, I was already familiar with this region. But I'm a big believer in an adaptation being able to stand alone. I don't feel like you should have to play the games to feel like you got the full experience. And the first time around, I felt little to no connection to the episodes that went into the main storyline of the game with Eternatus and the Darkest Day. We'd just spent too little time in Galar up until that point. It definitely clicked better the second time, but I'm standing by my 'blind' opinion of that particular flaw. But aside from that one aspect, I really have nothing but praise for this season. Particularly, Journeys crafted some of the best characters Pokemon has ever seen. Chloe's story was a little weak, but Goh really impressed me. I can't remember another time a Pokemon character's backstory held such a clear influence over who that person grew up to be. There is such a clear pipeline from: Lonely kid whose parents didn't have time for him, so he comforted himself with solitary research... to Know-it-all kid who couldn't make friends and learned to get defensive and combative at the slightest hint of judgment after the first few bad experiences. It really makes his character growth-- watching him make his very first friend in Ash and becoming the open, well-adjusted person he is today-- kind of beautiful. Especially because you really get to watch him grow over time. It is by no means effortless. I loved the little details they threw in along the way-- how awkward and on edge he'd get the first few times he met some of Ash's older friends, having to acknowledge that other people had a claim on his new friend too. For a character I initially found annoying, it was really great. Similarly, there was a lot of depth to Leon. Even not having as much time to explore him, that's one place I felt the anime did one-up the game. I loved the episode where he spent one-on-one time with Ash and revealed that, as much as he loved being champion, that stress of being known as 'unbeatable' was starting to get to him. I don't feel like it's talked about enough that the Galar region's presentation of the Pokemon League is a very modern one. Its stars are celebrities in an age of social media. Their fans are constantly watching. They never get a break. There's this really great little scene, when our heroes first meet Sonia and she's talking about how she grew up with Leon and watched him become the star he is today. It's this still-shot of a much younger Leon, surrounded by adults aiming to capitalize on his early success, and just looking totally overwhelmed, almost fearful even. A picture is worth a thousand words, indeed. That really tells the whole story, right there. Which all goes towards making it so satisfying to see him hand over the crown at the end. Those last few minutes of the Pikachu v. Charizard battle genuinely gave me chills. And overall, I think this was the best tournament arc Pokemon ever had. I don't think there's ever been another League where I felt connected to all of the competitors and everyone felt like real competition. Pokemon Journeys got off to a questionable start but bloomed into something beautiful by the end. I thought I was ready to say goodbye to Ash years ago. Now I'm sad to see him go.