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Pokemon Journeys: Thoughts So Far

Personally, I always found this complaint about Goh getting more focus than Ash to be overblown. Granted, I haven't even caught up with the current batch of episodes on Netflix yet, so I obviously can't judge on how it has been handled more currently, but considering that people were complaining about Ash being treated like a secondary character since pretty much the start of the series, I just don't think that the issue is nearly that bad. Based on what I've seen, Ash still gets attention and doesn't feel like he's pushed on the sideline in favor of more Goh focused episodes and plots. It comes off more like an exaggeration due to how people don't like Goh more than anything else to me.
 
Colt said:
then defend both of them why only 1
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Because he needs defending. I defend Ash when he needs it.
Colt said:
thats just blatantly false ....... ash just said a line or two but goh carried on the episode just for reminding his dream.(start=exegguter of goh and end=dream of goh)
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No. The start of the Episode features Ash reuniting with Kukui and his Pokemon and met the baby. Goh did nothing until The forest part.
 
BlazingPyro77 said:
Because he needs defending. I defend Ash when he needs it.

No. The start of the Episode features Ash reuniting with Kukui and his Pokemon and met the baby. Goh did nothing until The forest part.
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Umm, Goh also met Kukui and Ash's Pokemon
 
Hidden Mew said:
Personally, I always found this complaint about Goh getting more focus than Ash to be overblown. Granted, I haven't even caught up with the current batch of episodes on Netflix yet, so I obviously can't judge on how it has been handled more currently, but considering that people were complaining about Ash being treated like a secondary character since pretty much the start of the series, I just don't think that the issue is nearly that bad. Based on what I've seen, Ash still gets attention and doesn't feel like he's pushed on the sideline in favor of more Goh focused episodes and plots. It comes off more like an exaggeration due to how people don't like Goh more than anything else to me.
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I wouldn’t really call it overblown personally. The fact that multiple people in different sects of the fandom have noticed it, there’s definitely something there. I don’t remember which episode but Panky made a rundown of episodes to that point with focus of Ash, Go, both and other characters and compared it to that same point within DP, the last time that the anime had run the style of duel protagonists (even if not officially). The results showed that Journeys is a lot more lopsided in its focus, screwing far more towards Go than Ash while DP was much closer to even. It’s something that I hope they course correct especially now that we’re over 50 episodes in.
 
Kurolegacy said:
I wouldn’t really call it overblown personally. The fact that multiple people in different sects of the fandom have noticed it, there’s definitely something there. I don’t remember which episode but Panky made a rundown of episodes to that point with focus of Ash, Go, both and other characters and compared it to that same point within DP, the last time that the anime had run the style of duel protagonists (even if not officially). The results showed that Journeys is a lot more lopsided in its focus, screwing far more towards Go than Ash while DP was much closer to even. It’s something that I hope they course correct especially now that we’re over 50 episodes in.
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The reason I say it's overblown is because people have been complaining about Ash being pushed to the sidelines since around the time Goh started to catch Pokemon. It's been a frequent complaint for a long time and even going by those first twelve episodes, I didn't really see a problem, certainly not to the point where Ash felt like a side character in his own series. Multiple people sharing the same opinion doesn't necessarily make it true either, especially when I'm not the only one who feels this way about the issue either. I just don't think it's as major of a problem as other people make it out to be.

Now I do agree that DP handled the co-protagonist concept a lot better, but that's less due to the screentime shared between Ash and Dawn and more so because Dawn had a more defined role as a co-protagonist than Goh does. Goh feels like he's the co-protagonist mainly because there's no one else in the main cast besides Ash as opposed to having a major storyline on the level of Dawn's Contest arc.
 
Hidden Mew said:
The reason I say it's overblown is because people have been complaining about Ash being pushed to the sidelines since around the time Goh started to catch Pokemon. It's been a frequent complaint for a long time and even going by those first twelve episodes, I didn't really see a problem, certainly not to the point where Ash felt like a side character in his own series.
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While those early episodes split the focus pretty evenly in a vacuum, it didn't feel like they were being treated evenly overall. Goh's story and goal were being built up in the first 7 episodes while Ash stayed stagnant. Sure, Goh's quick captures didn't take up a lot of time, but when they happen in almost every episode, the imbalance starts to show. Episodes where Ash got focus, Goh also got focus. Episodes where Goh got focus, Ash stayed on the sidelines. It took until episode 10 to have a purely Ash focused episode, and even then, we spent the first part watching Goh catch Dewgong. There were clear reasons to complain about it back then, and there still are now.
 
DP has Hikari's name alongside Satoshi's in the text at the start of all their openings.
So; the Dual Protagonist schtick was proclaimed right there from the beginning, in Japan.
They had around the same amount of focus episodes, while their own goals were given proper screentime and development.
The moments when they doubted themselves or were in the pit felt believable.

Journeys has sidelined Satoshi, I won't say in favour of Gou, but they did.
His goal, the PWC, vanished for so many episodes that I even forgot what it was a few weeks ago.
His 'funk' and losing streak after being defeated by Saito was horribly writting, that should've lasted several episodes at least.
And if they wanted to solve it right away, they could've showed us more depth of his issues.
They even resorted to show us a montage of battles, that happened offscreen, to justify his climbing in ranks.
 
Evstike said:
While those early episodes split the focus pretty evenly in a vacuum, it didn't feel like they were being treated evenly overall. Goh's story and goal were being built up in the first 7 episodes while Ash stayed stagnant. Sure, Goh's quick captures didn't take up a lot of time, but when they happen in almost every episode, the imbalance starts to show. Episodes where Ash got focus, Goh also got focus. Episodes where Goh got focus, Ash stayed on the sidelines. It took until episode 10 to have a purely Ash focused episode, and even then, we spent the first part watching Goh catch Dewgong. There were clear reasons to complain about it back then, and there still are now.
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I could understand the issue of Ash's story being stagnant a bit more if it wasn't right after SM. They established the Island Challenge early on, but it quickly fell into the background to the point where I thought that they were going to drop it multiple times. One of my issues with SM was a lack of a clear goal for Ash, which was jarring after every other series up to that point had a clear goal from the start. Being upset that Ash didn't have a goal for about twelve episodes seems way too minor by comparison. Admittedly, it would be hard for me to understand that issue completely given that I knew about the PWC before watching the dub, while other fans had to wait a couple of months to learn about, but it still just feels like making a mountain out of a molehill. Goh getting two minutes or so to captur a Dewgong in the middle of an Ash focused episode is really not a big deal, especially when Ash did not come off like he was a supporting character in those early episodes.

If you like Ash, find the PWC interesting and/or don't like Goh, then I understand that seeing him get focus would be annoying. I just think a lot of complaints about this feel overblown. I'm not saying that there aren't any legit complaints about this issue. I just don't think it's as big of a problem as other people do.
 
I feel like a big bulk of people making over-the-top complaints about Goh's screentime are the ones who just really hate him for reasons I can't fully comprehend. Like, it's totally fine if Goh isn't someone's favorite character, or they just flat out don't like him, but there's a lot of people who act like he's killed a Pokémon on screen or something and it just...doesn't track.

For me, personally, I do feel that the focus on Ash has kind of been off this series. I also love Ash though (as in he's my favorite character) so that doesn't really help in my case (and this is with Ash. If we really want to discuss a lack of focus, then I feel the worst for the Team Rocket fans because that's the real lack of focus in this series.) Honestly, the biggest problem I have when it comes to the comparative focus between Ash and Goh is the anime's instance that they're "dual protagonists." I feel like if that had never been stated, you'd probably hear less complaints, or at least people not making such a big deal of it. After all, Goh is the new character. He needs screentime, he needs opportunity to develop and to work on his goal. That all makes perfect sense. But I think it's that "dual protagonist" label that kind of throws a lot of people off, because very often it really doesn't feel like Ash and Goh are shouldering the spotlight quite as equally.

I will be curious to see how it feels that the focus is being handled now that we're going to be seeing Chloe more often. I definitely feel like it will be an improvement over what we've gotten so far. After all, the writers are usually working with a group of at least three (and, in this case, we're coming off of the series' biggest main cast yet in SM.) With Chloe added to the mix, I wouldn't be surprised if things start to balance out a little more and people won't feel quite so strongly that Goh is getting too much of the focus.
 
I updated my list. JN053 was focused on Gou, as expected.
Gou carried out the plot by himself; some of his Pokemon got the spotlight.

But why did they put Satoshi in that one.....
It felt like everything would have been the same if he wasn't there.
Satoshi didn't add anything, not even making a mention to his past encounters with Suicune.
Despite them being in Johto and the animation making a homage, or at least looking similar, to its first appearance.
 
Islander Princess said:
I feel like a big bulk of people making over-the-top complaints about Goh's screentime are the ones who just really hate him for reasons I can't fully comprehend. Like, it's totally fine if Goh isn't someone's favorite character, or they just flat out don't like him, but there's a lot of people who act like he's killed a Pokémon on screen or something and it just...doesn't track.
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I don't hate him myself (I have basically no feelings on him whatsoever at this point, though I tend to naturally snark and cynicism during my downer periods so I probably come across as harsh at times) but I understand why he draws so much criticism; he gives off the impression that compared to other main characters he's living a charmed life. Things seem to go very easily for him and he's advancing ludicrously fast compared to past protagonists. It's less about him as a person, and more of him as a character.
Although at this point looking at how the PWC has been handled I think that's a Journeys issue more than a Gou one, though Ash gets a bit of a pass because he's already paid so many dues and taken so many lumps in previous series'.

In fact I think there's room to argue some previous protagonists (especially Ash) have had their developments overly slow. I think there's potentially a fascinating discussion on character growth and pacing there, but this thread isn't the place for it.
 
it feels like if goh happens to visit prof. Oak's lab then he can just throw balls in air and then catch most of ash's pokemon and then leave the ball there and say "sorry ash, i did it by mistake so i am leaving these pokeballs here"
 
I had my reservations about Goh ever since he started catching more Pokémon than Ash in a shorter amount of time, with seemingly less effort, but I was willing to accept it, because most of them were the sort of Pokémon I couldn't really picture Ash having anyway. It didn't really start to get on my nerves until the Eternatus episode, but even then I sort of let it slide because catching Eternatus is something you're supposed to do in the games, and Goh didn't get to keep it.
But then we got the Suicune episode. And that was when I decided, No, Goh, you are a terrible character. As I've said before, the fact that he's caught a Legendary Pokémon isn't the problem. Ash has already done that (and yes, for the record, I do consider Mythical Pokémon to be a subset of Legendary Pokémon). But there's still a world of difference between Meltan and Suicune. With Meltan, we got to bond with it and get to know it as a character before Ash caught it. Nothing of the sort happened with Suicune.

I've always felt sort of uneasy about Goh's whole "catch as many Pokémon as I can" shtick, but Suicune's capture really drives the point home. At 53 episodes into his own journey, Ash had caught nine Pokémon, including one that he had released. By that same point since his own debut Goh has caught over seventy, including TWO LEGENDARIES. Goh feels less like a legitimate character at this point, and more like something out of a badly-written fanfic.
 
El Squibbonator said:
I had my reservations about Goh ever since he started catching more Pokémon than Ash in a shorter amount of time, with seemingly less effort, but I was willing to accept it, because most of them were the sort of Pokémon I couldn't really picture Ash having anyway. It didn't really start to get on my nerves until the Eternatus episode, but even then I sort of let it slide because catching Eternatus is something you're supposed to do in the games, and Goh didn't get to keep it.
But then we got the Suicune episode. And that was when I decided, No, Goh, you are a terrible character. As I've said before, the fact that he's caught a Legendary Pokémon isn't the problem. Ash has already done that (and yes, for the record, I do consider Mythical Pokémon to be a subset of Legendary Pokémon). But there's still a world of difference between Meltan and Suicune. With Meltan, we got to bond with it and get to know it as a character before Ash caught it. Nothing of the sort happened with Suicune.
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As far as Eternatus goes, I think that could be given a pass. Not only because it was a necessity, but I believe he still needed Ash's help to do it and like you said, he didn't keep it. I'm not really sure about the audience getting to bond with Meltan before Ash caught it. The main selling point of its capture episode was its friendship with Rowlet. Maybe that would be enough time for the audience to be invested in it, but most people were still happy over Ash catching a Legendary Pokemon more than anything else. I can't compare it with how Goh captures Suicune yet, but I don't think Meltan had that much characterization going on, or at least that wasn't really what stood out about the episode.

El Squibbonator said:
I've always felt sort of uneasy about Goh's whole "catch as many Pokémon as I can" shtick, but Suicune's capture really drives the point home. At 53 episodes into his own journey, Ash had caught nine Pokémon, including one that he had released. By that same point since his own debut Goh has caught over seventy, including TWO LEGENDARIES. Goh feels less like a legitimate character at this point, and more like something out of a badly-written fanfic.
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On one hand, I understand how the contrast between Ash and Goh's beginning is jarring. Goh does capture Pokemon too easily. Even if they want to mimic the Go style capture method, he should really struggle with it a lot more since it often takes me multiple tries to capture most Pokemon in that app. But at the same time, I think claiming that he's less of a legitimate character is a bit much. It certainly isn't the worst description of Goh I've seen, but whether or not you like how he has been handled doesn't change that he is a legitimate character. Granted, that is part of my problem with the complaints on Goh in general. While there are legit and understandable issues people have with him, the complaints often come down as over exaggerations or just plain excessive.
 
Daren said:
I don't hate him myself (I have basically no feelings on him whatsoever at this point, though I tend to naturally snark and cynicism during my downer periods so I probably come across as harsh at times) but I understand why he draws so much criticism; he gives off the impression that compared to other main characters he's living a charmed life. Things seem to go very easily for him and he's advancing ludicrously fast compared to past protagonists. It's less about him as a person, and more of him as a character.
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But see, that's totally fair criticism! And I don't necessarily disagree. Is Goh one of my all time favorite characters? No. Do I think his writing has been handled very well? No. But there are definitely some fans out there who get really aggressive in terms of their hatred for Goh and it's just a lot. I'm all for character critique, like what you just gave me. It's more so when people try to claim that Goh is singlehandedly "ruining the anime" or like he's personally offended them in some way that I think is super bizarre. It reminds me a lot of what Iris went through/still tends to go through, but somehow with even more vitriol.

Daren said:
Although at this point looking at how the PWC has been handled I think that's a Journeys issue more than a Gou one
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I also agree with this. I think a lot of fans just instantly blame Goh because it's A) easier for them to do and B) because of the polarization of his character we've already discussed. At the end of the day, it's up to the writers to decide who they want episodes to center around and how they want the different characters to develop. Like I said, I do sometimes feel that Goh does get more attention than Ash, but I'm not going to turn around and pin it directly on Goh and blame him for that. He's not a real person. Ultimately, the writers have to find a way to better balance the focus between their characters. Let's see how that goes now with Chloe sticking around more often.
 
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