Welcome, trainer!
This shrine is dedicated to my favorite Pokémon anime saga. Here I explain why I love it so much, its highlights, issues, my affection with it, favorite trivia and resources. There're spoilers, you were warned.
last updated: 2023/12/27
Quick access: What is it? • Plot • Highlights • Issues • My bond
What is it?
Pokémon Journeys: The Series (Japanese: ポケットモンスター Pocket Monsters) is the seventh series of the Pokémon anime and the last with Ash Ketchum as protagonist. It's based on the events of the games "Pokémon Sword" and "Pokémon Shield", but much less compared to previous seasons. It aired between November 17, 2019 to March 24, 2023 in Japan and June 12, 2020 to September 8, 2023 in United States.
Source: Bulbapedia
Plot
After the end of the Alola League, which Ash won, he decides to travel the world. Before that, he attends the opening of the Cerise Laboratory in Vermilion City. There he meets Goh, a boy that wants to complete his Pokédex. Both become Professor Cerise's researchers and start a journey across all the regions, meeting old friends, making new ones, discovering new Pokémon and climbing the World Coronation Series.
Highlights
Pokémon Journeys brought massive fanservice, with elements fans asked for years to come. All his traveling friends from the past reappear, he visits his old Pokémon on screen (both from Professor Oak's Laboratory and Professor Kukui's House) and reunite with Pokémon released in the past.
And Ash's strong. Very strong. Besides looking like a new soft reboot, the boy takes the frontline as the experient trainer and defeat a Gyarados and a Tyranitar with only Pikachu right in JN003. He builds a strong team, training and evolving his Pokémon. He catches a Dragonite in JN010, and captures Pokémon that he "has a debt" like Gengar and Riolu.
Not just that, but the boy has a great balance between seriousness and charisma, mixing the best of his two previous seasons, without the charm of a door like XY nor the childish drawing stroke a la Yo-kai Watch from Sun and Moon.
Issues
Sadly, nothing is perfect. The major problem of Journeys were the multiple hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and internal OLM problems. Add that to the unnecessary amount of fillers and they got no time to execute all their plans: some character returns felt lost and rushed; Ash's old Pokémon appeared few times, missing the oportunity for development and use in battles; some arcs felt choked and poorly developed; a lot of cool things happened offscreen and various recaps were made.
These pauses not only rushed ongoing plans, but deprived us of interesting arcs and events that were planned. They will be addressed in the next section.
Scrapped ideas
It's easy noticeable that a lot of content was scrapped from Pokémon Journeys. Look at Goh: he's a clear reference to Pokémon GO players. In JN003, the boys climb a Gym under construction in Vermilion, which format is exactly like a Pokémon GO Gym. However, it's never shown again in the rest of the series.
The third Japanese opening of Pokémon Journeys centers around an Ash, Goh and Chloe trip with Leon, on a car that looks like a Charizard. They pass a mountain that looks like Mount Coronet with lots of Dynamax Pokémon - even Team Rocket's Meowth is Dynamaxed! However, nothing like that happens in the anime.
This one is just a personal theory, but in my thoughts it seems right: Goh was going to be the next anime's protagonist. It doesn't make sense to me to create a new character that shares protagonism with your old and well defined protagonist, and has an expensive voice actor, to simply throw it away in the next season. The boys's duality was a smooth way to present Ash's departure as main character after 25 years.
However, thanks to the hiatus, there was no longer enough time to develop the character. Things got stuck, Goh wasn't explored like he deserved and some people didn't liked him. Thanks to the backslash, they decided it wasn't a good idea to continue their plan, and something different had to be made.
Pokémon Horizons is live, Goh is not present and Ash's departure wasn't the smoothest.
My bond
Besides being a recent event, Journeys feel like a nostalgic childhood anime for me. It sure has its problems, but it doesn't take out its real shine: they listened to the fans and they tried, and they did great things despite its flaws! We got answers for old questions, great moments and full stop for old arcs.
I didn't expect they would finish Mohn's story, it was amazing! And they basically confirmed that Ash's bond with Greninja has something to do with Aura. Despite not the way I wanted, seeing Ash battle against great trainers like Raihan, Steven and Cynthia was incredible, and his final battle again Leon was breathtaking.
Pokémon Journeys will always represent a good part of my life, that woke up very early and even missed classes to watch the original Japanese airing live. I watched a good chunk of it with a friend, and I'll never forget these moments. The series finished with a taste of wanting more.
Trivia, resources
In development.