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ăă±ăăăąăłăčăżăŒ(2019)
136
TV
Finished Airing
Nov 17, 2019 to Dec 16, 2022
On a new day in the Kanto region, Satoshi gets invited by Professor Yukinari Ookido over to Professor Sakuragi's lab-opening ceremony in Vermillion City. During the ceremonial speech, Professor Sakuragi receives an alert of a possibly rare PokĂ©mon appearing in Vermillion City's harbor, leading Satoshi and the other trainers to rush to the area in hopes of finding the mysterious PokĂ©mon. At the harbor, they find Lugiaâa Legendary PokĂ©monâengaged in combat with other trainers. Noticing the other trainers' tactics, Satoshi has his partner, Pikachu, strike Lugia with a Thunderbolt attack. Unfazed, Lugia flees, but not before Satoshi determinedly leaps onto its back. To Satoshi's surprise, he meets another boy, Gou, who leapt onto Lugia's back as well. The two ride on Lugia's back as it brings them along on a bizarre adventure across the seas. As it lets the two back on the ground, Satoshi and Gou bid their farewells to Lugia and return to Sakuragi Institute. Impressed by Gou's findings and Satoshi's insight taken during their encounter, Sakuragi requests for the duo to be his new research partners. And so the duo's journey begins, traveling across multiple regions to meet many new PokĂ©monâincluding ones that have the ability to Gigantamax! [Written by MAL Rewrite]
7.2/10
Average Review Score
60%
Recommend It
10
Reviews Worldwide
Does "fanservice" make a show automatically great? (This review does not include the 'Mezase Pokemon Master' miniseries) What I liked about "Pokemon (2019)" / "Pokemon Journeys": (+) Unpredictability (any story anywhere makes you wonder what comes next) (+) New world-scale Pokémon battle ranking system with all gimmicks (+) Continuity and fanservice (it remembers the past) (+) Yuki Hayashi was one of my top requests to make Pokémon OSTs (+) Some battles worth a look (vs Volkner, vs Bea, vs Cynthia, vs Leon) (+) Some nice little self-contained arcs and some of the best episodes in the show (mostly thanks to continuity)Even as someone who has followed this show for 20 years, I'll try to patiently explain why Ash's last season is one of my least favorites and whether I would still recommend it or not. 1. Formula / World-building / Fillers / Legendary 2. Goh / GO / Project Mew 3. Ash / Ash's Team / PWC 4. Chloe / Team Rocket 5. Fanservice / References & Callbacks 6. Conclusion / Recommendation _____________________________________________________________________ 1. Formula / World-building / Fillers / Legendary TL;DR - The "open world" format was an interesting new setup that many fans have been asking for for a long time and it definitely feels refreshing, but the seeming lack of planning brought a lot of pacing and world-building issues. 1.1. Journeys is finally showcasing off the world of Pokémon, which is what the series is supposed to be about, and it looks like a decent job when it transports us to some of the postcard locations, but even then Kanto is probably shown more times than all of the other regions combined, which may be an issue in itself. The new Galar region that we should know better didn't get enough attention and many of its characters and locations were shown hastily or not shown at all (like half of the gym leaders). They could easily have Sakuragi institute in Galar, replace the legendary birds with the galarian versions, train Ash with Leon's master, replace some Project Mew member with Peony and so on. In the later parts of the series, it seemed like they realized that the generation was ending without showing many Galarian Pokémon and then desperately started stuffing more than a dozen debuts into a single episode to make up for it. 1.2. About that, maybe one of the most noticeable mistakes they made with this new formula is how they try to cram practically everything into one to two episodes when it would be better to have a multi episode arc. The more episodic and less directed nature of Journeys, with little use of very effective narrative devices like build-up and foreshadowing, makes for a dragging experience when you don't feel the same sense of progress and fluidity as in the pre-Alola regions and this also affects the way we experience worldbuilding: traveling on foot and camping between towns, you really get a sense of scale in the region and feel like you're on an adventure with the traveling group, but now Ash and Goh quickly jump from one region to another from one episode to the next, barely giving us time to feel that we're in a distant and different place from the previous one, and even casually meeting the TRio on the other side of the world. For a series called "Journeys" that encompasses all regions, it's ironic how the Pokémon world has never felt so small. 1.3. Now this might be a hot take: fillers are actually a good thing. Filler is supposed to give insight into the daily lives of the Pokemon trainers, where Pokemon can develop, show more of their personality with fun interactions, or even learn new moves. We've seen in previous series that MC's Pokémon often shine during filler while still provided more interesting ideas for scenarios for the traveling group, and even Sun/Moon had so many of them but yet it was mostly entertaining and successful especially because of the character moments (in addition to fitting the theme of the season and its region). However, I usually notice that Journeys fillers don't really say anything. There are lots of food contests, random races, weird rap battles, boring COTD's, tiresome two-parter comedy episodes, but all without much use with writers not even trying to fix the lack of screen time of Ash's Pokémon. 1.4. Despite being a commercial series and having made mistakes with Legendary/Mythical Pokémon in the past, the writers still have done a noble job maintaining the proper sense of rarity. When they weren't chased by rich and powerful organizations & people with broad resources and knowledge, they were usually only seen captured by powerful and mysterious Trainers or under unique and special contexts with some fair development. In Journeys however, we see 2-3 'Legendary encounters' almost every month with some episodes cramming 5 to 7 Legends into it. There are novices easily locating and catching with just a regular Poké Ball and a can-do attitude; characters having 3-4 Legendary with them; kids casually pulling one from their pocket out of nowhere etc; and of course, the infamous EP053 - one of my worst Pokemon episodes of all time - in which a fan-favorite one was featured intensely weak and incompetent to inexplicably let himself be part of a kid's collection at the end (they even made a part 2 in which the majestic Pokémon reappears only to clean up Grimer's waste in a stream; yes, that's how low Legendary has come). What would Takeshi Shudo - who literally got depressed when they simply 'gender-swapped' another beloved legend from Johto - think about this? (which now two kids climbed onto the back of it just for the sake of riding it) These creatures are suppose to be a fundamental segment of the mystique of the Pokémon world that keeps kids dreaming and seeking the unknown, now they're something so expositive and merchandising that I wonder why producers even bother calling them by that name. All the magic is gone. 1.5. Goh's story and Ash's battles feel like two completely separate direction teams that have nothing to do with each other, which makes the season just aimless and random - there's a prevailing sense of lack of overall storyline. This becomes less noticeable in the last third of the series as Ash approaches his climax, but for majority of the season the anime staff seemingly struggled with the dual protagonist story formula not knowing how to suitably balance screen time between Ash and Goh while still trying to find space for Chloe. __________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Goh / GO / Project Mew TL;DR - Goh/Go is the most controversial companion Ash has ever had for reasons already talked to death. A gary stu rookie trainer with inconsistent skills and personality who follows his own special set of rules in the universe, while making it feel like Ash's PWC goal and his team's development are frequently taking the backseat for Goh's casual adventures. 2.1. Worldbuilding. As is known, battling and weakening or befriending the Pokémon in order to catch it somehow does not apply to Goh who's not only filling the Pokédex but getting a ton of special treatment. The goal of catching Pokemon could be a useful show for kids if it talks about the types of pokeballs and the different ways to catch a Pokemon, but instead he just throws a pokeball and the mon is all his, which it makes a large number of his accomplishments feel handed to him on a silver platter without any impact or entertainment. I know how they want to make the anime familiar to the crowd that got into Pokémon through GO to capitalize on the audience, but there just downright bending the long-established in-universe rules set up for the anime for one singular character are a different thing. The fact that Ash, who embodies the older audience and took 20 years to start getting bigger stuff, is always there by his side, not only shows a certain contempt for the demographic that played Pokémon long before GO became a thing, it makes the worldbuilding random and confusing. Goh had so many powerhouses still in the beginning of his adventure, even Alphas and Legendaries (!), what would happen if he decides to join the PWC for instance? If they were in such a rush to make Goh an Ash's equal, couldn't they introduce him as a mid tier Trainer at the very least? 2.2. Personality. This slips a little more into subjective territory, but the inconsistencies seem glaring: while the idea is great, his "shyness" only pops up when it's convenient. He is suppose to be an introverted boy with no friends and got a good contrasting characterization to Ash in EP003, but this was promptly thrown out the window to show a newcomer who is competent at everything he does to the point of even outshining Ash in battle skills progression (as in EP036). Since he was younger, he's been a know-it-all who draws attention to himself and can allure any antisocial Pokémon with literally just a look. Writers seem to have also tried to make Goh seem brave and confident to kids audience but he came to look a bit petulant and pretentious instead, as when he insolently pointed a Poké Ball at Mewtwo's face or drew the entire cast's attention to himself in a self-absorbed speech in the first Ash's return to Alola. They also made overdramatic conflicts like Flabébé and Drizzle so we can sympathize with him better but it still feels forced since it's not a clear part of any ongoing development. Only in the last third of the series do writers try to deconstruct his Mary Sue status by showing him the way he was supposed to be in the beginning, though that ended up just making his character's inconsistency easier to point out (as in EP102 in which he suddenly becomes selfish and uncooperative when he never had that problem posed by the script before - only mishandlings - just to force "development" at the end of it). Regina (EP087) was an antisocial kid much better written in 1 episode than Goh in over 100. 2.3. Concept. There's a reason they never went "Gotta Catch 'Em All" with Ash: it doesn't work. If the MC catches all the different Pokémon he sees, the sheer volume of them makes it impossible to have enough time to focus or develop each one of them. One of the major themes and appeal of the anime is how Pokémon are characters themselves or valued companions, not tools, but Goh has stored all but three of his captures in a lab without ever getting to know them well. They're not his friends, they're just part of his collection. Writing staff tried to fix this by doing stories about Goh "bonding" with some Pokemon, but this is still innocuous because 1) they're still ignoring the vast majority of the other catches, 2) keeps consuming the Ash's much more interesting screen time with stories that do feel fillery, and 3) we pretty much never see these Pokemon again doing anything interesting anyway. There are so many damaging aspects about the goal of "Catch 'Em All" (which is kinda a discarded western slogan): it means eventually becoming literally a God-level Trainer; it lessens the thrill fans used to feel about captures by becoming so common and easy matter; makes the character's identity lost since the Pokémon is the expression of its Trainer; etc. (in addition to being ironic to happen precisely in the generation of Dexit). This all makes sense from a gameplay perspective where the protagonist is you, but for an anime adaptation that's supposed to be the portrayal of living in the Pokemon world, rejecting this concept was probably one of the best OLM/TVTokyo's decisions ever. 2.4. Project Mew. It gave Goh a plot structure for his goal paralleling Ash's and brought some solidly written and entertaining episodes as far as adventure and exploration can go, but unfortunately it came too late. Writers didn't tell us anything about the new characters, they took too long to remind us that Goh is indeed in a competition, they hard-nerfed Ash in it, the missions don't have any clear correlation to Mew, and it has such an anticlimactic conclusion that the only reason I didn't find this arc a waste of time was Gary. On top of that, it was more of a Legendary showcase to make them feel more like prizes waiting to be caught and less like extremely rare and strong living mystical beings. Now that Goh will simply leave the show with his goal at 10% after all the damage the production has done through him, you really wonder what was the point of introducing a character like this into Ash's final season in the first place. __________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Ash / Ash's Team / PWC TL;DR - Mostly due to the previously mentioned issues, Ash and the most important campaign of his life are sidelined for a sizable part of the season which gives rise to serious development and powerscaling problems, lack of interactions and rivalries, and huge missed opportunities. 3.1. Profile. Ash spends the first half of the season often being overshadowed by a rookie companion when he should be more like a mentor figure to him, which doesn't help his status as still being the fairly strong Trainer from Sun & Moon despite his current design and personality doesn't sell that impression. Unfortunately, his success in the Manalo Conference is his only previous feat mentioned and Ash is never properly treated as a League Champion until 100+ episodes later. 3.2. Difficulty. Although the writers got it wrong by making any Trainer allowed to register for PWC/WCS (World Championships) instead of giving worthy value to Ash's history, the underrated Vs Visquez battle set up the difficulty level of the Championships very well; however, Ash's battles to make up for his early losing streak started to take place against random opponents off-screen taking the weight off each victory and making progress seem unimportant. Even when Ash starts to face stronger and familiar faces, the matches still feel weightless as they are almost all 1v1 or 2v2 in addition of happening in an isolated way after long gaps with unrelated episodes (where Ash barely mentions PWC as if he isn't interested or engaged at all). Furthermore, Ash's progression through the ranks was so fast that he jumps thousands to hundreds to dozens of positions with just the occasional quick match without ever suffering a single loss, which makes it feel like his skills isn't really being tested. And speaking of being proven, where have all the rivals been? Ash had many of them even in Alola but in the world ranking he only has Bea who barely appears? They could easily make Volkner, Marnie, Raihan and a ton of other options be recurring rivals interacting with each other based on the Class he's in but pretty much all of Ash's competitors look more like NPCs that he will predictably beat on the first try than real challengers with their own dreams and development. 3.3. Powerscaling. This has to be one of my main annoyances with this season: how did Ash's newly captured team manage to defeat the world's most powerful Trainers and their longlife partners with just a few 'months' of training? I can see how Ash would be an Elite-level Trainer at this point of the show, but the Pokemon he uses is a different story. Even though it's an inexperienced team, they've all somehow able to reach the Elite Four degree with very insulated arcs (when theres actually one), a few official battles, mostly off-screen training, and as a result, Ash's victories feel like the most ridiculous plot armor ever seen on the series. Dracovish's resilience is aberrantly inconsistent and it just beat a Champion-level mon in its first battle ever knowing only Water Gun until a few episodes earlier. Lucario is basically still a baby Pokémon and was able to beat a well-trained Gmax Machamp without practice his newly acquired Mega Evolution even once, literally one-shotting a Champ-level Trainer's Gmax ace without even using Mega boost (!), and even taking down the two greatest Sinnoh Champion's threats, and this was the Pokemon with the highest screentime among the new ones. Remember when Ash used to try some of his strongest partners at the time against an Elite and was completely humiliated? He didn't even scratch Flint's Infernape using Pikachu + two Pokemon that were already strong before they were caught (just like Gengar and Sirfetch'd - what makes these special?). All that godlike aura Elite Trainers used to have is gone thanks to JN team making them look like just the usual gym challenges, with Drasna and Raihan being the worst cases alongside Wallace who has literally become a joke. I know 'powerscaling' has never been this anime's forte, but since Ash is in his last and most important hooray, it's fair to expect the writing staff to be more careful in this regard in such a special competition. On top of that, we rarely see them interacting with each other or with other characters throughout the season to build some genuine bonding and empathy with the audience like we see happening with other Ash teams, and the writers still have the daring to make them win major battles with literally the power of friendship - a friendship that was never really shown. Alola Team felt like a family; JN's team look like battle bots. I just couldn't ever root for these new Ash Pokemon and their success never felt earned to me. Pikachu was the saving grace. 3.4. Rotations. Sadly, Ash hasn't used any of his reserves at any point in the World, Global, All-Region, Biggest Competition. Using the old Pokémon from the start of the championships not only would it automatically create the emotional connection with the older audience that they failed to do with Gengar and Dragonite, it would also make the power curve more organic and believable. Need to do Gen 4 propaganda? Bring back Infernape, Torterra, Buizel. Need to advertise Gen 8? Dynamax Melmetal, Kingler, Snorlax. This event should represent much more the culmination of all of Ash's past adventures than just "the Gen 8 thing", so making teams with his older partners would be very symbolic and a pleasing gift to fans. This was the unparalleled waste of the season. 3.5. Battles. If you don't care about things like powerscaling and plot convenience, some great battles can be found here, but never expect the dynamic animation of XY's heydays. The animation is more stationary, angles and camera are static and there is a strange practical absence of evasive movements this season. I know about the production hell OLM has been through over the last few years and therefore I tend to cut them some slack. What really bothers me is the lack of emotional weight in the battles. Without the heartfelt conflicts, clash of dreams, rivalries (even between Pokémon), as we saw in other seasons, there is no soul in the fights. They're just fights. 3.6. Masters Tournament. The greatest tournament of all time... or it should be. Atsuhiro Tomioka (writer) really nailed the presentation of each Champion's battle style, wrote many references to combos and move effects from the games, and gave Pikachu due spotlight on every round. The staff also granted the necessary attention to Vs Cynthia and Vs Leon matches, the latter being perhaps the biggest and best battle in the show from a technical point of view, as well as delivering some surprises during battles with some unexpected highlights for secondary Pokemon like Spiritomb and Rillaboom. Unfortunately they missed a few key elements and really brought the experience down: It's literally a showdown between Champions but the choreography is constantly slow and unpolished making the battles feel actually turn-based; There are no rivalries between Pokémon like we've seen in Leagues; They made Leon way too superior to other Champions, and the lack of significant buildup within the confines of Journeys itself for all matchups except the Monarch vs Ash made the results too predictable; Alain was brought back only to make the Worf Effect barely interacting with Ash; Champion's aces never felt menacing enough; etc. Most matchups lack energy and intensity and just look like exhibition battles for fanservice, and with such an easy and quick climb through the ranks utilizing a freshly caught team, Ash seems out-of-place among the greatest Champions in the franchise (it was particularly painful to see Cynthia being beaten by this team and specifically by a baby Pokémon). We know it's only fair that Ash becomes the very best after so many years, but from a short-term perspective it felt undeserved. The event to decide who is the best Trainer should have easily been the utmost challenge test of his character and for the most part felt like a side story without any strong sense of hype or competitiveness. At very least, the ending was so well done that maybe it made up for all the plot armor Ash putted on to get where he got. __________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Chloe / Team Rocket Chloe/Koharu's personality has a very well written, flowing and authentic evolution, but her arc about not having a clear goal is just not interesting at all. She rarely interacts with Ash, and at the end of the day she was just a walking advertisement for Eeveelution. As for Team Rocket, the charisma of the Pokemon they bond with are the only element I really like about them and writers took that away with Rocket Gachat. The rest of the core cast was irrelevant to me. 5. Fanservice / References & Callbacks The main selling point of the season is a pretty mixed bag. Ash and the other previous characters look younger than ever and because they haven't grown up a bit with their audience most of the redone flashbacks and callbacks don't pack as much emotional punch as they should. Writing staff have delivered things fans have been asking for for years but it feels so mechanical, insincere, and in contrast to the rest of the season, like they were just doing it because they're being ordered by executives to sell a product and not out of passion and understanding of the material, that as a result much of the fanservice feels hollow and surface level (many returns are just used to serve as springboards for new characters they haven't worked successfully on to make us care about). As an example, Dawn got 8 episodes for Gen 4 merchandise and her first proper interaction with Ash was only at the very end of the eighth (their trademark high-five), and while she has changed virtually nothing since D/P, Iris with only two appearances got one of the most massive buffs in the whole show with the power of off-screen (twice!). Sure, we also have the bright side of the picture: they found the perfect balance with Gary and Serena (except for the long-awaited reunion scene with Ash I guess) and they put so much genuine heart into the episode about the comeback of a certain memorable rival from Diamond & Pearl as well as into Sun & Moon's two-part conclusion that both are a must-watch for any fan of these series. Also, even though the cameos during the final tournament are just thrown at our face, the last 10 minutes of Pikachu displays what might be the greatest fanservice moment in Anipoké history. __________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Conclusion / Recommendation Pokémon Journeys lack soul. It feels corporate - like it's decided by a board of executive rather than by a team of writers and a director, where they just throw in what would be the most marketable material without really delving into it from an in-universe perspective; misdirected - like it doesn't know its own identity for trying to be a fanservice season, a GO ad and a Gen 8 showcase all at the same time; alongside a lot of missed opportunities. When we see Ash singing to Pikachu, being celebrated by Alola people, or slowly remembering Greninja at the sight of a Frogadier, we can recognize that there's still soul somewhere there, desperately trying to untie itself from the corporate shackles and show its full potential. You can argue "It is just a commercial show for kids", which is fair enough, but again, I wouldn't be writing all this if appealing and pleasing older audiences wasn't part of the very purpose of the season. TL;DR - 'Pokémon (2019)' is all about chasing "hype", so I still recommend this show to fans who just want to "see" things happening (Ash with mega evolution, Ash becoming the very best, protagonist catching everything, old characters showing up, etc.) but don't care all that much about the "how" (powerscaling, worldbuilding, development, interactions, rivalries). And I also recommend it for the kids in your family, if you have any. It's still Pokémon nonetheless. NOTE - At the time of this review, the "Mezase Pokemon Master" sequel miniseries is yet to air and looks like it will be the true final tribute to Ash that this season should've been entirely about, so let's hope they don't waste the last moments of the end of this era. (My apologies for the lack of synthesis skills, but if you like to talk more critically about Pokemon I'm sure you've read everything.) Thanks for reading.
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 didnât plan to include any breaks, but as I progressed, I realized it was worth adding breaks here and there for the reader. since Iâm 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 wonât be ideal for many people. Now, letâs 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. Itâs 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. âwhat is the core idea of the gamesâ, 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 arenât 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 havenât 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 itâs 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 âhow to translateâ 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 donât 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 itâs 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 hasnât done just because, there was clear purpose in the writing team to make every series unique. thereâs 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, thereâs 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. itâs 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 couldnât bear to notice that in Pokemon XY, despite making a good coherent storytelling, thereâs 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 wasnât 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 wasnât 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 wasnât 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 hasnât 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 hasnât been replaced for more than 20 years. this of course, led to plot conveniences in order to balance Ashâs 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 wasnât 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 thatâs 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, whatâs 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 Iâm 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 wasnât 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 isnât a journey, thereâs 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 doesnât 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 doesnât 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 thereâs need some setting for Ash becoming a Pokemon Master as always isnât 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 ânew main characterâ, 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 heâs 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 hereâs 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 doesnât 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 doesnât 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 donât know what he wants to evolve to. yeah you see the same kind of characteristic here donât you? much like Evee donât 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 Eveeâs evolution. the idea of this story may come at original at first, but my guess is that itâs 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 doesnât want to evolve, much like Ashâs. 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 canât evolve, much like in the original game, in the Evee game the player gets Evee that donât 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 Chloeâs 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 heâs now competes in the grand World Coronation Series, continues his mature characteristic. which I donât feel the need to explain why itâs 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 sheâs 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 itâs going to be Ash final round , to celebrate the series certain aspects and characters. as said the characters arenât 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 doesnât 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 Ashâs 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 doesnât mean its all great and equal. as every Pokemon season thereâs ups and downs. the premise and the writing of the series does make it unique above all the other, altogether it doesnât 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 couldnât 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 Iâm 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: âThe truth is, after a couple of episodes you start to get why they chose this âlightâ artâ) and that it has the greatest art of the series. but it was very humbling the truth about it. Iâm 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 doesnât 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 donât 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. Iâm 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. Iâm trying not to criticizing it though, because thatâs 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 didnât exactly planned Ash journey or his end all along from the very mere start. pretty much like any other series with high popularity, you donât 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 hadnât been thought well through the end. while I said earlier the series uses itâs full potential of its unique style it created, it didnât 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 Ashâs ending through the Pokemon anime seasons, it doesnât 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 âdream teamâ. 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 didnât 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 donât 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 havenât 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, itâs 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 thereâs 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 thereâs 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 naĂŻve 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.