So, if you’ve been keeping up with the Pokémon anime lately, you’ll know that it’s been going in a vastly different direction than it was for twenty four years. All of this really started with the Sun and Moon seasons. During Ash Ketchum’s time in the Alola region, he lived at Professor Kukui’s lab and attended the Pokémon School. This really shook up the formula because normally Ash would be out traveling the region. I see why they did this however, because in the Sun and Moon games, the way the Alola region works is very different from how other regions are in regards to progression and the Pokémon League. This meant that Ash wouldn’t be able to do his usual traveling to cities to earn gym badges. None of this compares to what we got in Journeys however. In Journeys, Ash meets Goh, an original character and they both become research fellows at the Cerise Laboratory in Vermilion City in the Kanto region. They live at the lab and go out and complete research tasks in just about every region, including Galar, which at the time was the newest region, but strangely was barely relevant and barely visited in Journeys. The whole concept of Ash being rooted down somewhere and popping out of his hole every now and then to go on a small adventure somewhere then returning to that hole really takes away from being able to feel like Ash is truly growing. When he traveled, it felt like he was growing and there was a consistent flow of time because every episode picked up where the previous one left off. Journeys and Horizons don’t really have that because the protagonists are nested in some random laboratory and a weird airship. The original goal of the anime was to flesh out the setting of the newest games and bring those newest games to life in a unique way. I feel like what Journeys and Horizons are doing goes against that because it shines light on every region instead of focusing on the one that currently be the most relevant. Journeys was constantly saying “Why visit Galar, when we can visit Johto, a region which hasn’t been relevant in over twenty years.” Even that wasn’t common because much of Journeys took place in Kanto, which is understandable, as Kanto had been made relevant again recently thanks to the Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee games, but still it’s nightmare. I’m not saying Journeys or Horizons are bad, I’m just saying that the shift in formula didn’t do anything good for the Pokémon anime as a whole. I feel like it would be much more engaging if the anime returned to it’s original formula, but this time it would obviously be Liko traveling, or whoever the hell they decide to make the main protagonist, because now that Ash is gone, who knows what kind of crackpot horse poopoo we’ll be getting in his place. We can only hope it’s good. So far they haven’t screwed it up.
An absolute mess. An awesome mess, but still a mess.
