Pokemon Thread

[CyberCubed]

BW Ash wasn't completely reset, he felt more similar to mid/late Johto Ash though. He obviously battled better in BW than in Kanto, lol. But yeah, it felt like pre-AG Ash unfortunately. And most of his Unova pokemon not evolving did not help and the atrocious league loss killed the last goodwill BW could have had by that point.

And nah, Ash's teams were getting pretty redundant. Even though the pokemon are not all the same, they share similar moves and development. There's a reason XY tried to do something different with two dragons and 3 flying types. So did SM for the most part (even if he still got two starters), because his teams all felt overly the same.

Some of the recent leaks suggest they decided JN to be Ash's finally series around late 2020, which was around the time I believe Iris and Gary were shown in the second JN opening, which was around the point it became obvious old characters were coming back. The biggest flaw with JN was just Ash not rotating in his old pokemon. It's so bizarre to have Ash's final series, and having him beat champions no less, without using some of his strongest old Pokemon like Charizard, Sceptile, Infernape, Greninja, etc. He could have still captured his JN team, but cycled through them. Considering most of his JN pokemon barely got any screentime even in fillers, I have no idea why the writers didn't rotate through his Pokemon. In MPM we go an example of what all of Journey's should of been, Ash just rotating between different old Pokemon off-screen between episodes.

In any case though, Ash being wrapped up was more than overdue, I remember saying it by late 2010/2011 when DP ended and we were in early BW. I'm just glad we finally saw it happen, but of course seeing him again in movies or specials down the road is fine. I still want a TR conclusion and to see Ash use old pokemon in major battles (even briefly) would be fine with me. Also would be cool to see Ash battle champions he didn't get to like Lance, defending his rank like Leon was doing in early JN when he battled Lance and Raihan.

 

[Light Lucario]

BW Ash wasn't completely reset, he felt more similar to mid/late Johto Ash though. He obviously battled better in BW than in Kanto, lol. But yeah, it felt like pre-AG Ash unfortunately. And most of his Unova pokemon not evolving did not help and the atrocious league loss killed the last goodwill BW could have had by that point.

Yeah, while I didn't mind Ash getting a lower rank in the Unova League, the way they did it with Cameron was really awful. I personally think losing to Alain was worse, or at least more frustrating, but losing to a complete idiot did not make fans take kindly to BW Ash.

And nah, Ash's teams were getting pretty redundant. Even though the pokemon are not all the same, they share similar moves and development. There's a reason XY tried to do something different with two dragons and 3 flying types. So did SM for the most part (even if he still got two starters), because his teams all felt overly the same.

The similar moves isn't really an issue when the writers would be limited on what different moves they could use from the games. A lot Pokemon of the same types learn the same kind of moves too. I don't think that XY giving him two Dragons and three Flying types was in response to giving Ash different Pokemon from usual. Goodra only stuck around until his battle with Clemont and did virtually nothing upon returning. Noivern did very little as well. They typically give Ash Pokemon that are popular or that they want to make more popular with merchandise. They aren't really worried about types or their movesets. His teams had similar structures with Pikachu, at least one or two starters, the early route birds and a wild card/late series captures. Despite this similar structure, I wouldn't say that his teams felt overall the same. His AG team still felt distinct from DP since his Pokemon still had different personalities and dynamics with each other. Perhaps it isn't different enough for some fans, but I think it is.

Some of the recent leaks suggest they decided JN to be Ash's finally series around late 2020, which was around the time I believe Iris and Gary were shown in the second JN opening, which was around the point it became obvious old characters were coming back. The biggest flaw with JN was just Ash not rotating in his old pokemon. It's so bizarre to have Ash's final series, and having him beat champions no less, without using some of his strongest old Pokemon like Charizard, Sceptile, Infernape, Greninja, etc. He could have still captured his JN team, but cycled through them. Considering most of his JN pokemon barely got any screentime even in fillers, I have no idea why the writers didn't rotate through his Pokemon. In MPM we go an example of what all of Journey's should of been, Ash just rotating between different old Pokemon off-screen between episodes.

I'd still take those leaks with a grain of salt. I initially believed them about why Ash was replaced, but the more I think about it, the more off it felt to me. It isn't impossible for the writers to have the same kind of opinions about Ash that I've seen fans argue about for years, but it does feel weird. There was a comparison with the Star Wars fanbase that felt, for a lack of a better term, way too western to me. It's the same kind of talking point I'd expect from YouTubers, not people involved with the anime. They also claimed that there was some fallout between Ash and Pikachu's voice actresses and Rica Matsumoto denied that, which is a major shot against the leaks creditbility in my book. Plus, I don't think that there have been much, if any, of the supposed leaks in Japanese, so that does make the quality of the translations more in doubt too. Even if that is true, that would be pretty late in the game to decide on replacing Ash. Journeys had already been airing for a year at that point and only had another year left.

I can't blame them for not rotating his older Pokemon since I'm sure that was to help with production. They were already having production problems with the Master Class tournament, but having new animation for a bunch of different Pokemon certainly would have made it worse. It could have made Ash's victory more satisfying and more believable in a way, but I can see why they didn't go in that direction. It was a lot easier to just have his older Pokemon around in To Be A Pokemon Master as oppoosed to a bunch of battles across Journeys. That being said, with how little screentime and development Ash's Journeys team ended up having, I can't blame fans for wanting him to rely on his reserves. I don't think it would have been practical for production and I can see why they'd still want to give him something new to still market some new Pokemon and mechanics, but plenty of long time fans would have enjoyed seeing him make use of his older Pokemon too.

In any case though, Ash being wrapped up was more than overdue, I remember saying it by late 2010/2011 when DP ended and we were in early BW. I'm just glad we finally saw it happen, but of course seeing him again in movies or specials down the road is fine. I still want a TR conclusion and to see Ash use old pokemon in major battles (even briefly) would be fine with me. Also would be cool to see Ash battle champions he didn't get to like Lance, defending his rank like Leon was doing in early JN when he battled Lance and Raihan.

I don't know if Ash would be that interested in defending his rank. Even at the end of Journeys, he was battling another random nobody. I think he'd just keep traveling around battling more trainers and Pokemon along the way and not really focus on his Championship title all that much. It would be neat to see him battle against characters from Paldea though. Geeta isn't a popular Champion, but it would still be cool to see them battle. It's such a shame that Ash and Nemona didn't meet each other because they would get along so wonderfully.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

I have to wonder why they structured Journeys the way they did, if it wasn’t a farewell series to start with. They spent so little time in the new region that it hardly felt like it was promoting the new game. So much of that series felt like aimless filler, especially due to the absence of gym badges. I don’t feel many of Ash’s battles were memorable either prior to the Masters 8. Other than Bea, a lot of his opponents in Journeys were forgettable.

 

[CyberCubed]

He had 8 major battles in the PWC, which is basically equal to 8 Gym battles, so that's what they structured it as besides the shorter 1 on 1 battles in random eps.

Ash battles:

- Visquez in Vermilion Gym
- Korrina
- Iris
- Bea Round 1
- Bea Round 2
- Volkner
- Bea Round 3
- Marnie
- Drasna
- Raihan

If you count all the Bea battles together, then it's about 8 major battles which is the same as 8 Gym battles. He also battled a guy named Rinto twice to evolve Sirfetch'd, and there was a great fight of Pikachu vs, Meganium early in JN that's actually one of the best battles this series weirdly enough.

I do think they should of had a few more Elite 4 matches before the Masters 8 then, only beating one Elite 4 was really strange. I also would have had old pokemon rotated in by the time he got to the end and the Masters 8.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I think Pokemon Journeys simply stopped promoting the games, or at least isnt as needed as it once was. So they were free to just make it up as they went.

 

[Light Lucario]

I have to wonder why they structured Journeys the way they did, if it wasn’t a farewell series to start with. They spent so little time in the new region that it hardly felt like it was promoting the new game. So much of that series felt like aimless filler, especially due to the absence of gym badges. I don’t feel many of Ash’s battles were memorable either prior to the Masters 8. Other than Bea, a lot of his opponents in Journeys were forgettable.

Yeah, the lack of focus on Galar was extremely disappointing. Even by the end of the series, there were quite a few Galar Pokemon and characters that weren't featured. Not to mention how they adapted the storyline was really lackluster. SM really started this trend of only adapting the game's climax, but they really didn't have much buildup for it. I know that fans typically don't like The Darkest Day storyline, but I thought it was generally fine. One big point for Horizons is that they don't ignore the Paldea characters or new Pokemon. Even with it being another world tour series, or at least started out that way, the marketing still focuses on new Pokemon and they have introduced characters from Scarlet/Violet. I'm not sure how they'll adapt the Area Zero stuff, but they don't ignore new Pokemon and characters in favor of older ones, which does make me happy.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the series felt like aimless filler, but not having the structure of a Gym badge quest for Ash really hurt its pacing. I know that the tourament had four clear rankings for Ash to reach, but it was never clear how getting new points for each victory worked. It never felt as clear as getting eight badges, or at least lacked the clear structure. I agree that the battles weren't too memorable prior to the Master Class. They weren't really bad, but just not really great or outstanding either. Most of them being one-on-one or two-on-two matches probably didn't help matters either.

He had 8 major battles in the PWC, which is basically equal to 8 Gym battles, so that's what they structured it as besides the shorter 1 on 1 battles in random eps.

Ash battles:

- Visquez in Vermilion Gym
- Korrina
- Iris
- Bea Round 1
- Bea Round 2
- Volkner
- Bea Round 3
- Marnie
- Drasna
- Raihan

If you count all the Bea battles together, then it's about 8 major battles which is the same as 8 Gym battles. He also battled a guy named Rinto twice to evolve Sirfetch'd, and there was a great fight of Pikachu vs, Meganium early in JN that's actually one of the best battles this series weirdly enough.

Considering that Bea is nearly half of these battles and his first major battle was against a stand-in for Lt. Surge, I don't think that the notion that these are equal to eight Gym battles work. You can't really introduce a world wide tournament where Ash has to battle multiple different trainers to climb the rank and then give him only eight major battles prior to the Master Class. It feels too at odds with the premise of the World Championships, along with how many people were praising this as a big new step for Ash's journey. They spent way too much time giving Ash one shot opponents to quickly climb up the ranks to make getting to the Great and Ultra League particularly meaningful or impressive for me.

Rinto was barely a step up from his usual one shot opponents, althought I did like how it gave Ash's Sirfetch'd some much needed focus. Pikachu vs. a random Meganium being one of the best battles in the series is really not a good selling point in my opinion. I really did like Ash vs. Volkner though. It's what I think that the World Championship should have been like as a whole. It was a solid battle with some good strategies on both sides and Volkner's inclusion felt natural too. It was for a bit of BD/SP promotion, but he was considered the strongest Sinnoh Gym Leader, so taking part in the tournament made sense. It was also just cool to see him interact with Ash again.

The way that opponents in the Ultra Class were chosen at random also should have been how the World Championships were structured from the start. It would have still tied in easily with the world tour format, make use the franchise's large history of various characters and make getting to the Master Class feel a lot more impressive. It probably wouldn't make the World Championship perfect. The focus and development for Ash's Journeys team and the battle formats still could have been issues, but cutting out the canon fodder in favor of Ash battling against old and new characters from across the world still would have gone a long way to make the tournament a lot better in my opinion.

I do think they should of had a few more Elite 4 matches before the Masters 8 then, only beating one Elite 4 was really strange. I also would have had old pokemon rotated in by the time he got to the end and the Masters 8.

Some Elite 4 members are more popular than others, but they typically don't stand out as much as Gym Leaders, rivals and Champions do. I still think that rotating in older Pokemon for the Master Class would have been too difficult production wise, but I can understnd the appeal for it.

I think Pokemon Journeys simply stopped promoting the games, or at least isnt as needed as it once was. So they were free to just make it up as they went.

It was often considered an anniversary series for the anime, which would be one reason behind all of the returning characters. They still wanted to feature Galar Pokemon to a degree since Goh's Galar starters are among his more recognizable Pokemon and were always featured in promotional artwork, but it's clear that promotion for the new games took a back seat. It's a shame since one of the appeals of the anime in my opinion is getting to see new Pokemon, the new regions and new characers adapted. It's fun to see areas from the games in the anime and seeing how they loosely adapt the games can be interesting. Not really doing that in favor of trips to older regions was disappionting, especially when Ash and Goh were often in Kanto.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

I decided to dig out my DVD’s of the Indigo League. I can tell it’s a show that I only like for the nostalgia. Like if I didn’t see it as a kid I would probably think “well, that’s a good show for kids” and just move on. I do admire how “humble” things were in the beginning.

Also just curious, but did anyone here actually watch Pokemon before it came to Kids WB (when it was in syndication)? I know a lot of younger or more casual fans think Pokemon originated there. I’ve also heard a lot of anecdotal stories about people never seeing it until it came to Kids WB because it was played too early in the morning or during school hours.

I got lucky. In my area it came on the former UPN channel at 3:30. School got out at 3:10 and I lived just down the street. Pokemon was on Kids WB for a few weeks before I realized new episodes were coming.

 

[Antiyonder]

Also just curious, but did anyone here actually watch Pokemon before it came to Kids WB (when it was in syndication)? I know a lot of younger or more casual fans think Pokemon originated there. I’ve also heard a lot of anecdotal stories about people never seeing it until it came to Kids WB because it was played too early in the morning or during school hours.

Mostly during the KidsWB airings, but I caught The Bridge Bike Gang episode at least on UPN February 99.

 

[CyberCubed]

The first season is genuinely good because it was written before they knew the show would go on for literally decades, it was originally planned to end after a year and a half and with the Mewtwo movie. It's only due to how hugely popular Pokemon was that it got extended and then by Johto it was intended to air indefinitely. Of course battles were the weakest part of the first season but the writers were just starting out and trying to figure out things changing the turn-based battling of the games to regular battling, so it can be given some leeway.

The anime goes through ups and downs after that, I basically think the sheer length of all the later sagas makes it difficult to watch every ep unless you're a big fan. Pokemon airing all year round rather than 26 ep cours a year will do that.

 

[Light Lucario]

I decided to dig out my DVD’s of the Indigo League. I can tell it’s a show that I only like for the nostalgia. Like if I didn’t see it as a kid I would probably think “well, that’s a good show for kids” and just move on. I do admire how “humble” things were in the beginning.

I haven't rewatched the Indigo League for a long time, but it is pretty fun. I don't know how well I'd like it without the nostalgia factor or how well it would click with kids today, but it is charming nostalgic fun to see how the anime changed from its beginning. There are some good emotional moments, some solid comedy and fun characters. I do think that the later arcs in the original series are overall better, but the Indigo League arc is still prett fun.

Also just curious, but did anyone here actually watch Pokemon before it came to Kids WB (when it was in syndication)? I know a lot of younger or more casual fans think Pokemon originated there. I’ve also heard a lot of anecdotal stories about people never seeing it until it came to Kids WB because it was played too early in the morning or during school hours.

I got lucky. In my area it came on the former UPN channel at 3:30. School got out at 3:10 and I lived just down the street. Pokemon was on Kids WB for a few weeks before I realized new episodes were coming.

I think I saw some episodes on UPN. The first few episodes I remember watching like Pikachu's Goodbye and The Flame Pokemon-athon, but I don't remember seeing the usual Kids' WB bumpers with them, so those might have been on syndication. Those episodes were also airing in the afternoon, so I could have been able to come home from school early enough to watch them.

The first season is genuinely good because it was written before they knew the show would go on for literally decades, it was originally planned to end after a year and a half and with the Mewtwo movie. It's only due to how hugely popular Pokemon was that it got extended and then by Johto it was intended to air indefinitely. Of course battles were the weakest part of the first season but the writers were just starting out and trying to figure out things changing the turn-based battling of the games to regular battling, so it can be given some leeway.

There was no way they could have known how successful the games would be, so of course they wouldn't have planned it to go on for decades. I don't think that necessarily makes the first season particularly better than most of what came later. If it did end with Ash losing the Indigo League, or possibly winning it if that was changed later on, and the Mewtwo movie, I don't think that the anime would have had quite the long lasting impact that it has. Not just because of Ash being an iconic protagonist, but the anime is such a huge pillar of the franchise, Not having it wouldn't really feel the same. The games would probably still sell like hotcakes, but I do think that something would be missing if they did go in that direction for the anime.

The anime goes through ups and downs after that, I basically think the sheer length of all the later sagas makes it difficult to watch every ep unless you're a big fan. Pokemon airing all year round rather than 26 ep cours a year will do that.

I'm not sure if it would be that difficult. Granted, I'm obviously a big fan, but I also think that most of the later series are still overall fun to watch. Even with how much I dislike BW, I still enjoyed rewatching it years ago and I could understand as to why other fans would enjoy it more. Journeys was always a mixed bag and being Ash's sendoff series soured it quite a bit for me personally, but it still has plenty of good episodes and strengths. They are still long series, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to binge watch through a series if you really like that generation.

 

[CyberCubed]

The issue is when they started stretching sagas out over 3+ years and 150 episodes, with a lot of eps being fillers, it's why so many original fans lost interest in the show or stopped watching. While the later sagas should be at least 100 eps till the leagues, they should of converted the extra time to smaller filler arcs like Orange Islands and Battle Frontier every series. That way you'd at least feel like one part of the story was over but the series could go on till the next games come out.

Even then I still would have changed some things, have Johto maybe be 80-90 eps like Kanto, use the extra 50ish eps for a arc of something else. Hoenn could have been shortened to 100 eps (there's a lot of fillers in the middle that could have been cut), and maybe make a longer Magma/Aqua arc of about 15 eps? Who knows. There's many things they could have done.

 

[Light Lucario]

The issue is when they started stretching sagas out over 3+ years and 150 episodes, with a lot of eps being fillers, it's why so many original fans lost interest in the show or stopped watching. While the later sagas should be at least 100 eps till the leagues, they should of converted the extra time to smaller filler arcs like Orange Islands and Battle Frontier every series. That way you'd at least feel like one part of the story was over but the series could go on till the next games come out.

There are certainly filler episodes in every series, but I don't think that much if you really look at them. DP is the second longest series next to the original one, but it didn't have that many filler episodes, even with a year between Ash's seventh and eighth Gym badges in mind. They had to stretch things out to make each saga last a generation, but aside from Johto, I don't think you really see that much padding. Even the amount of Johto fillers feels pretty understandable when that was their first attempt at making a journey last for years and they were more limited on what they could adapt from the games as well.

I can understand the appeal of wanting shorter arcs to break things up, but I think that the series typically were better when they were focused on one specific journey through an entire generation. DP wouldn't have been nearly as good if they had to cram in a Battle Frontier arc for its last year. Despite having some good episodes and Ash's biggest accomplishment prior to SM, the Battle Frontier arc really weakened AG for me. The arc just crammed in way too much and the pacing was way too fast. By having the journey be set in one region, it allowed for the writers to flesh out the new locations, have time to establish the characters and buildup to storylines. Based on both BW and to a lesser degree the Battle Frontier arc, the anime benefits more from a slower pace than a faster one.

Even then I still would have changed some things, have Johto maybe be 80-90 eps like Kanto, use the extra 50ish eps for a arc of something else. Hoenn could have been shortened to 100 eps (there's a lot of fillers in the middle that could have been cut), and maybe make a longer Magma/Aqua arc of about 15 eps? Who knows. There's many things they could have done.

I don't know what else they could have done in Johto. The Orange Islands exist because they had to wait until G/S were released, but I don't know if they'd be willing to create another anime only region again. They seemed much less interested in that idea going forward. I don't think that they ever went to the Orange Islands in Journeys despite its world tour premise. I would have preferred it if they had extended AG to cover all of Hoenn. I feel like that could have improved some of May's Contest battles and maybe some of Ash's Gym battles. Although, this might have been more difficult with the lack of a main rival for Ash. Giving May two Contest journeys when they were still figuring out how Contests work might not have been the best idea, but it did benefit Dawn's Contest journey in the long run.

I don't know if I could see a Magma/Aqua arc lasting for that long. They had more room to adapt the games' storyline than the first two generations, but they weren't too interested in making use of these evil teams either. Their appearances usually felt unconnected, like they were just hitting the beats of their appearances from the games but not really making their storyline feel whole if that makes any sense. Again, I feel like they learned from this with Team Galactic whose appearances did feel important and they were a major storyline for DP instead of a sidenote. They definitely could have improved how they handled that evil team, especially with how they were defeated. I didn't mind Lance coming in to take Steven's role in the climax. I always thought that was a cool use of continuity and I didn't really see the appeal in Steven until OR/AS anyway.

 

[CyberCubed]

There are certainly filler episodes in every series, but I don't think that much if you really look at them. DP is the second longest series next to the original one, but it didn't have that many filler episodes, even with a year between Ash's seventh and eighth Gym badges in mind. They had to stretch things out to make each saga last a generation, but aside from Johto, I don't think you really see that much padding. Even the amount of Johto fillers feels pretty understandable when that was their first attempt at making a journey last for years and they were more limited on what they could adapt from the games as well.

I can understand the appeal of wanting shorter arcs to break things up, but I think that the series typically were better when they were focused on one specific journey through an entire generation. DP wouldn't have been nearly as good if they had to cram in a Battle Frontier arc for its last year. Despite having some good episodes and Ash's biggest accomplishment prior to SM, the Battle Frontier arc really weakened AG for me. The arc just crammed in way too much and the pacing was way too fast. By having the journey be set in one region, it allowed for the writers to flesh out the new locations, have time to establish the characters and buildup to storylines. Based on both BW and to a lesser degree the Battle Frontier arc, the anime benefits more from a slower pace than a faster one.

Most series just followed the 8 Gym formula, sometimes the female companion had their goal and the regional villain team. When you stop to realize only about 15 episodes are needed to cover each of these aspects (most Gyms are 2ish parts, same for a lot of Contests, with the exception of a few longer ones), and the usual captures eps and a few fillers, you realize each series could have been condensed to about 100 eps.

I don't know what else they could have done in Johto. The Orange Islands exist because they had to wait until G/S were released, but I don't know if they'd be willing to create another anime only region again. They seemed much less interested in that idea going forward. I don't think that they ever went to the Orange Islands in Journeys despite its world tour premise. I would have preferred it if they had extended AG to cover all of Hoenn. I feel like that could have improved some of May's Contest battles and maybe some of Ash's Gym battles. Although, this might have been more difficult with the lack of a main rival for Ash. Giving May two Contest journeys when they were still figuring out how Contests work might not have been the best idea, but it did benefit Dawn's Contest journey in the long run.

I don't know if I could see a Magma/Aqua arc lasting for that long. They had more room to adapt the games' storyline than the first two generations, but they weren't too interested in making use of these evil teams either. Their appearances usually felt unconnected, like they were just hitting the beats of their appearances from the games but not really making their storyline feel whole if that makes any sense. Again, I feel like they learned from this with Team Galactic whose appearances did feel important and they were a major storyline for DP instead of a sidenote. They definitely could have improved how they handled that evil team, especially with how they were defeated. I didn't mind Lance coming in to take Steven's role in the climax. I always thought that was a cool use of continuity and I didn't really see the appeal in Steven until OR/AS anyway.

They could have cut a few more fillers, like did we need two random Spoink fillers instead of 1, some of the water pokemon fillers about Relicanth and Clamperl were really dull, etc. They skipped showing Maxie/Archie getting the orbs from Mt. Pyre or introducing them earlier, the final Magma/Aqua arc should of been a 5-parter like the Team Flare arc was. It would have given them time to do everything. And BF was helped that Ash and May were already established characters and Ash was rotating pokemon. Granted I do wish May kept at least Beautifly with her as I always felt her leaving it behind was a mistake (and the writers did too apparently). But other than that and maybe needed 1 more loss (the contest with Brock should of never happened IMO), there's not much that would be different. All the contests got the same screentime as both (2-parters or 1 part depending on the story), and May was more experienced at the time.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

I think I saw some episodes on UPN. The first few episodes I remember watching like Pikachu's Goodbye and The Flame Pokemon-athon, but I don't remember seeing the usual Kids' WB bumpers with them, so those might have been on syndication. Those episodes were also airing in the afternoon, so I could have been able to come home from school early enough to watch them.

I’m pretty sure the Flame Pokemon-athon was on Kids WB. I don’t think there was any sort of special events for the syndicated set.
EDIT: never mind I thought you were talking about a special event Kids WB did once.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

Kanto starts off rushing through the game, because they didn’t know how successful the show would be. Some of the first badges are only two episodes apart. Then you have a massive gap of 26 episodes, which in real time was almost a year in Japan (due to the Porygon tragedy) and America (due to the transition from syndication to Kids WB and then summer 1999 break), between the battles with Koga and Blaine. The longest gap in Johto is only one episode longer, 27 episodes between the Morty and Chuck battles. Since the scheduling had stabilized after Kanto’s early hiatuses, it was less real life time between those gym battles.

The fillers for most of the show had some use in introducing new Pokemon to the audience. They could be useful for highlighting the Pokemon’s personality in a way the older games couldn’t with small 2D sprites. This is something that I felt Journeys fell short on. A lot of the fillers in Journeys just focused on random old Pokemon we have seen a lot of episodes about before like Slowpoke. Even though the Pokemon of the day often got captured, most of Go’s catches were never given any focus besides the Galar starters.

 

[CyberCubed]

The show can be divided into segments:

Classic era: Kanto/Orange Islands
Continuation of classic era: Johto

New series era: AG and DP (Ash is more experienced, introduced a female companion who does Contests)

Reboot era: BW anime

Action era: XY anime

Slice of life era: SM anime

Final Ash series: Journey's.

 

[Light Lucario]

Most series just followed the 8 Gym formula, sometimes the female companion had their goal and the regional villain team. When you stop to realize only about 15 episodes are needed to cover each of these aspects (most Gyms are 2ish parts, same for a lot of Contests, with the exception of a few longer ones), and the usual captures eps and a few fillers, you realize each series could have been condensed to about 100 eps.

I don't think that condensing each series like that would have necessarily made them significantly better. Not all filler episodes are bad or boring. Some of the best episodes in both the original series and AG would be considered filler. Filler episodes can still be entertaining and provide some time for the characters and the audience to breath. As much as I love DP, if it was only important battles and storylines all the time, I don't think it would work as well. Plus, I still believe that the anime tends to work better with a slower pace than with a faster one. The Battle Frontier had little filler because of how much they had to cram in and that fast pace really made the arc as a whole feel more uneven, if not a bit unsatisfying, for me.

They could have cut a few more fillers, like did we need two random Spoink fillers instead of 1, some of the water pokemon fillers about Relicanth and Clamperl were really dull, etc. They skipped showing Maxie/Archie getting the orbs from Mt. Pyre or introducing them earlier, the final Magma/Aqua arc should of been a 5-parter like the Team Flare arc was. It would have given them time to do everything. And BF was helped that Ash and May were already established characters and Ash was rotating pokemon. Granted I do wish May kept at least Beautifly with her as I always felt her leaving it behind was a mistake (and the writers did too apparently). But other than that and maybe needed 1 more loss (the contest with Brock should of never happened IMO), there's not much that would be different. All the contests got the same screentime as both (2-parters or 1 part depending on the story), and May was more experienced at the time.

There are weak filler episodes too, but I don't know if removing them would magically lead them to create more episodes for Team Magma/Aqua. The Spoink or Water Pokemon filler episodes weren't the reason why we didn't get a final Magma/Aqua arc. We didn't get it because it wasn't treated like a proper storyline. We didn't even learn that they had disbanded until just before the Grand Festival, which is incredibly bad. The Team Flare arc had proper buildup throughout the Mega Evolution specials and the last year of XY. There was a foundation for that climax that felt earned and satisfying. The Magma/Aqua episodes felt disjointed, not really building up to this climax properly, so it wouldn't make sense to make it a five part event. A two part event made sense with how the storyline was handled. Giving them a five part arc instead would have required them to rebuild the storyline from the ground up, not just throw out filler episodes.

Personally, I never a problem with May leaving Beautifly since it already had a lot of screentime during Hoenn. They really shouldn't have given up her Bulbasaur. It had far less screentime, there was more than enough room for both her Bulbasaur and Squirtle and it would have made its brief return as a Venusaur less jarring. May was more experienced at the time, but I think having the cram in a lot of battles within a little over a year just didn't work out in the arc's favor, at least for me. Ash rotating his Pokemon was pretty cool though.

Kanto starts off rushing through the game, because they didn’t know how successful the show would be. Some of the first badges are only two episodes apart. Then you have a massive gap of 26 episodes, which in real time was almost a year in Japan (due to the Porygon tragedy) and America (due to the transition from syndication to Kids WB and then summer 1999 break), between the battles with Koga and Blaine. The longest gap in Johto is only one episode longer, 27 episodes between the Morty and Chuck battles. Since the scheduling had stabilized after Kanto’s early hiatuses, it was less real life time between those gym battles.

The fillers for most of the show had some use in introducing new Pokemon to the audience. They could be useful for highlighting the Pokemon’s personality in a way the older games couldn’t with small 2D sprites. This is something that I felt Journeys fell short on. A lot of the fillers in Journeys just focused on random old Pokemon we have seen a lot of episodes about before like Slowpoke. Even though the Pokemon of the day often got captured, most of Go’s catches were never given any focus besides the Galar starters.

Despite its world tour premise, Journeys really does spend a good chuck of time set in Kanto or focused on older Pokemon. Most of Goh's Pokemon weren't really able to be characters, which is why I didn't really have an issue with their lack of focus. They definitely could have benefit spending more time in Galar showcasing new Pokemon, locations and characters. It's baffling that they didn't even feature all of the Galar Gym Leaders.

The show can be divided into segments:

Classic era: Kanto/Orange Islands
Continuation of classic era: Johto

New series era: AG and DP (Ash is more experienced, introduced a female companion who does Contests)

Reboot era: BW anime

Action era: XY anime

Slice of life era: SM anime

Final Ash series: Journey's.

I think that those are less segments and more so just how you personally describe each series. Not to mention I feel like some of these are a bit misleading. I wouldn't consider all of XY action or all of SM slice of life stuff for example.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

I’m still watching through the first season. One thing that is kind of interesting to me is how some of the most iconic to the early anime characters didn’t appear until a lot later than expected. Like Jigglypuff didn’t appear until the Kids WB episodes. I guess in hindsight it makes sense to me but it’s still surprising. Less extreme was Psyduck who didn’t appear until the last episode of the first DVD set which is weird to me because in my mind he’s like the first Pokémon Misty caught on screen.

 

[entransify]

to respond to an earlier post by @Surreal Kangaroo, I was one of those who watched the show in syndication (also on UPN) at first. i don't remember which episode was my first one, but i got to see like two whole runthroughs of what was dubbed at the time before it switched to Kids WB.

 

[CyberCubed]

Depending what DVD sets you're watching, some eps are skipped. All the eps with Jynx were removed from modern DVDs, but all the Jynx eps are still on the older DVD sets. The banned/skipped eps from Japan are of course not there like the Dratini ep and such. You can probably still watch them online though, you can follow an episode guide to see where they fit in.

Season 1 was more about the adventure and discovering the Pokemon world than battles. Takeshi Shudo, the original director, didn't really care about adapting the games and liked to do wacky adventures exploring the world and problems with adults. It's why the first season is so different than basically the entire rest of the show that comes after it.