This Week in Anime
How does Pokémon Journeys: The Series Measure Up?
by Michelle Liu & Nicholas Dupree,
Ash's decades-long journey to be a Pokémon Master gets a little change-up with the addition of brand-new co-protagonist Goh. After the non-stop hilarity of Sun & Moon, how does Pokémon Journeys: The Series measure up?
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
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Micchy
So Nick, I imagine you're also getting a tired of being cooped up all day when you're not on the frontlines in the Corona Wars. Well, I've got the perfect thing to shake things up: get in loser, we're going Pokémon hunting in the great outdoors, far away from the rest of human civilization—
OK we'd still be within six feet of each other piled into a clown car like that but it's a step up I think.
So Nick, I imagine you're also getting a tired of being cooped up all day when you're not on the frontlines in the Corona Wars. Well, I've got the perfect thing to shake things up: get in loser, we're going Pokémon hunting in the great outdoors, far away from the rest of human civilization—
OK we'd still be within six feet of each other piled into a clown car like that but it's a step up I think.
Nick
Either way right about now I am very, very open for some escapist nostalgia, so hell yeah let's go become POKEMON MASTERS.
...as soon as I fix my sleeping schedule.
Until then, thankfully I don't have to get up in the mornings on a Saturday to catch new episodes of Pokémon. Now the new series can just drop arbitrarily onto the net thanks to this little bit of cursed imagery.
Either way right about now I am very, very open for some escapist nostalgia, so hell yeah let's go become POKEMON MASTERS.
...as soon as I fix my sleeping schedule.
Until then, thankfully I don't have to get up in the mornings on a Saturday to catch new episodes of Pokémon. Now the new series can just drop arbitrarily onto the net thanks to this little bit of cursed imagery.
But yeah, today we're covering (the first six episodes of) Pokémon: Journeys! The latest season of Pokémon that kinda sorta operates as a soft reboot of the franchise for new kids. Which I think you technically qualify as?
Yeah lol, I was vaguely aware of Pokémon growing up, but otherwise the only experience I have with the franchise is the copy of Pokémon Sword I have sitting in a box somewhere that's probably still in its packaging. To me Pokémon means Ryan Reynolds (?), surprised Pikachu face, and this upside-down Psyduck.
To be honest you don't really need much more than that. Pokémon as a franchise is so long in the tooth and broadly aimed that unless you really REALLY want to, you don't need to know much to jump into any new series or game. For the anime all you need to know is
a) Ash
b) Pikachu
c) Team Rocket
d) lots of monsters to make friends with
a) Ash
b) Pikachu
c) Team Rocket
d) lots of monsters to make friends with
Some of them very cute. Just look at this adorable little ball of fluff. It loves you.
It'll also troll this piss out of you.
Look, Scorbunny just likes rolling around in filth and sticking it to the man. I respect this lil furball's mission.
Ah that's right, Journeys doesn't just have Ash as its protagonist this season. Along with the eternal 10-year-old we now have Scorbunny and his eventual partner, Goh, a precious dork if ever there was one.
Gotta say, it's a good move to give Ash an even dweebier rival/partner to bounce off of. Instead of one dumbass, now we've got two! And Goh's definitely the kind of co-protagonist you want to protect with your life. Someone save this awkward mess of a child from himself.
My only complaint about Goh isn't even his fault: Netflix only offers the dubbed version of this show, and that means I'm missing out on my boy Daiki Yamashita wig out over Pokémon.
Deku 2.0 or no, Goh's just the absolute sweetest. Though considering his literal "gotta catch 'em all!" attitude to Pokémon training I'm now imagining him trying to set a 100% speedrun world record and I'm not sure if I like that thought.
Kid's nothing if not ambitious. His life's goal from the age of like, 4, is to find and control one of the most powerful and mysterious forces on the face of the earth after all.
For reference: this is kind of like saying you want to invent perpetual energy for your elementary school science fair.
For reference: this is kind of like saying you want to invent perpetual energy for your elementary school science fair.
But Goh is, after all, a 10-year-old, and despite his aspirations not even he's immune to the cute little bunny creeping its way into his heart.
Speaking of creeping into his heart...
Okay I wasn't gonna say it but if we're going there, Ash and Goh are very much boyfriends in the "I can't believe I like this huge frickin idiot" kind of way.
Look if weirdos on the internet can spend 20+ years arguing about which girl Ash should date then I can say Goh and Ash should hold hands in the season finale. But outside of blushing, Ash and Goh make surprisingly solid co-leads. The formula for ages has been to stick Ash in a group with at least 2 more "responsible" personalities so he can play the fool, but now he's kind of taken on a loose mentor role to get newbie Goh up to speed. Which is funny considering he's still too stupid to understand bread.
Ash and Goh have one brain cell between the two of them and have to take turns using it, it's true.
Probably not a great sign when the street urchin rabbit is the smartest one of the crew so far.
Not that Scorbunny's all that put together in the first place. They're all trying their best though!
Scorbunny successfully ran a gang of Mes to steal food from children, which is more than any of our other leads.
It feels weird to say that the smug bunny who can say one word is the best character in the show, but Scorbunny's brief arc with the Nickit gang actually got me a little. Here's this little furball who could just do its own thing and move on with life but stopped to take care of a bunch of strays anyway. He's loyal in a way that's not quite animal, hesitating to leave his de facto family to follow a new trainer, but the Nickits pick him up and toss him onto the train anyway because they understand unconditional love better than most adults in this here world.
It's actually pretty common for the 'mons in the anime to be standout characters. While there have been some memorable human companions with their own arcs in the show, Ash himself is kind of required to be static. He can grow and change some across a series, but once we hit the reset button ever 3 years or so he has to go back to being an energetic dummy.
Such is the fate of being eternally 10 years old! Ash has been 10 about as long as I've been alive, now that I think of it.
And that's where there's a bit of a disconnect for me. I've long since accepted that Ash is just as much an ageless mascot as Pikachu, but with Journeys' extended focus on older regions and early-generation Pokémon, it makes for some weird feelings of discontinuity. Like Ash, you should already be copiously familiar with a Lugia. You worked with one to literally save the world from climate change 20 years ago!
That's definitely less of a problem if you're new to the series like me or most kids who'd be watching it for the first time! Like I know Bulbasaur is gen 1 but I don't get the jarring experience of seeing the old presented like it's brand new. Though I wonder what the point of introducing kids to first-generation Pokémon is - do they still appear in games?
Oh the Gen1 Pokémon definitely do. It's to the point where new games now get new "forms" of the old ones to fill out their Pokedex. Meowth now comes in Regular, Dark, Extra Large, and Baja Blast.
Oh, so it's like how gacha games put out a billion versions of Saber with different sized boobs! Targeting the completionists out there who HAVE to get every single bug in their Critterpedia.
Dear Gamefreak: Please do not make a Summer Gardevoir, we have enough perverts in the fandom already. Though funny you mention that, since the actual Pokémon Gatcha game's already doing this too:
But I could spend hours talking about the ways this IP finds new, horrific ways to mine money from every facet of society. It's not like the actual anime has a gacha sys-
But I could spend hours talking about the ways this IP finds new, horrific ways to mine money from every facet of society. It's not like the actual anime has a gacha sys-
Jessie and James are just broke millennials, man. They're like thirty in a lousy job market and have a minor gambling problem, not that different from the rest of us. At least they make sure to emphasize that gacha is evil and definitely not for good Zoomers.
Still it's a real raw deal that their boss doesn't just make them pay to use Pokémon but to GAMBLE for Pokémon. Truly there is no evil to which Giovanni will not stop.
Pull back the curtains and it turns out Giovanni is just 3 gacha game company execs in a trench coat. This is the villain we deserve in 2020.
Really my biggest complaint about this small PokéSample we've tasted is that Team Rocket only shows up once. These are the real stars of the show you guys!
I can only hope we get more of their failtastic antics in the episodes to come. Team Rocket is the fabulous team of losers that imo defines Pokémon. They've got their own roll call and catch phrases and everything, how dare they not be in like every episode?
Like I barely know anything about Pokémon but even I know Team Rocket is an irreplaceable part of the thing.
Like I barely know anything about Pokémon but even I know Team Rocket is an irreplaceable part of the thing.
Don't make this a lie, Journeys.
That aside the only other thing I really want Journeys to do is start expanding its horizons. Now that Goh's got the hang of catching Pokémon it'd be neat to see these kids just run wild to different edges of the franchise's world. More episodes like fighting Big Boi here, plz.
That aside the only other thing I really want Journeys to do is start expanding its horizons. Now that Goh's got the hang of catching Pokémon it'd be neat to see these kids just run wild to different edges of the franchise's world. More episodes like fighting Big Boi here, plz.
I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun. I don't really know what's the norm for Pokémon and what's more out-there, but I certainly welcome more episodes about Rider kicking big chunguses.
Pokémon is one of those properties that's kind of comforting in its reliability. It rarely challenges or surprises, but it also rarely disappoints because it just doesn't change that much. Though I will say I really dig the art style of Journeys. It's not as drastic a shift as Sun & Moon was, but by god it makes for some fun faces.
In a series where the characters get owned as often as these kids do, that's definitely a strength! If we're talking neat style choices though I wish it'd stuck with the nature documentary shtick of the first episode just a little longer. Really channel that David Attenborough, y'know?
Oh I almost forgot we finally got an origin story for Pikachu! Talk about biding your time but by god if it wasn't adorable.
Pikachu's origin story is worthy of its own viral Instagram story about unlikely interspecies friendships. Imagine instead of Kangaskhans, Pikachu was raised by wolves or some shit. Would definitely involve a lot more butt-sniffing, I think.
You'll have to watch the Sun & Moon anime for that matchup I think.
So much lore to catch up on! It's a little overwhelming to look at how much Pokémon there is, but luckily Journeys is a perfectly friendly starting point for the uninitiated. It's not world-shattering by any means, but it's a solid piece of entertainment if you're 10 years old or part of the nostalgia crowd. My primary takeaway is that Scorbunny is extremely cute and for sure my starter if I ever get around to playing SwSh.
We'll make you into a Pokémon Master yet, Micchy.
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