Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria / YMMV

Accidental Aesop:
- Just saying you've changed for the better isn't enough to convince some people it's true, you gotta look back at what you've done and own up to it. Chloe spends a good deal of the story telling people she's changed and she's a better person, but people take her statements with cautious optimism at best, outright skepticism at worst, as the last story has given then more than enough reason not to take her words at face value. It's only when the "interview" with Vox and Dahlia happens and she not only looks back at how petty she was, but asks for forgiveness do people finally believe her change to be genuine.
- Even if you're a better person now and are trying to atone for your mistakes, if you do something to either willingly or personally hurt someone, you will be Forgiven, but Not Forgotten. Chloe has to deal with the fact people aren't willing to shove all her actions in Blossoming Trail and their consequences under the rug, and Lexi's managed with utmost caution after his horrible treatment of Goh early in the story.
Alternative Character Interpretation: See here.
Angst Aversion: The story takes place immediately after Blossoming Trail, which had a pretty big case of this on it's own, and it follows Goh after has been thoroughly lambasted to kingdom come and reduced to a husk of his former self, while the other side has Chloe come to terms with the fact that her actions have hurt a lot of people, the pity party is over, and she has to face the consequences lest she loses what little goodwill she has left. While things get better much earlier and far faster than the previous story, some people are still wary of diving into this story.
Ass Pull:
- The reveal Kurune and Ikuo never went to any parent-teacher conferences is already a tough pill to swallow unless these were very few, but the fact they missed them and nobody tried to tell them about it is practically this trope, since even an incompetent school like Vermillion City's would at least try to contact the parents themselves to see if something was wrong besides work schedules.
- Likewise, the later reveal that Ikuo and Camille didn't really need to work as much as they did comes across as this. Not only was it not foreshadowed, but the reason given for it (that they wanted to be ready for the future) is incredibly flimsy, and given the timeline this was revealed, it comes across as the story kicking Goh in the teeth after putting some effort into undoing Blossoming Trail's horrific abuse of him.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "The Darkest Day" features a cameo from Professor Sycamore from Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus who gives Oleana some advice before disappearing. It comes right out of nowhere, and while it's implied to be the result of dimensional instability and more answers will be provided in the other work, it still comes off as rather sudden.
Catharsis Factor:
- After watching Chloe effectively be indirectly responsible for destroying Goh's life, seeing Ikuo slap her in the face and then make her see the message she wrote to spite Goh is immensely satisfying.
- Goh not only snapping back at someone for once after the last story shot down every attempt of him to do so, but also have the recipient be Lexi, who up until that point had treated Goh rather poorly. Even better, Lexi's attempt to turn the tables in his favor causes One-One to confirm the snapping actually helped Goh, which gets the paper shapeshifter to get his act together.
- Also Goh himself finally explains to Chloe what he REALLY intended when he recorded her battle with Ash and blamed her for not having a dream, and then tearfully demanding her why the hell she didn't trust him and if she really thought of him that poorly. This is also conjoined with Vox and Dahila airing out ALL of Chloe’s dirty laundry out to the Train, making the denizens realize just how petty and cruel she used to be.
Continuity Lockout:
- It's a sequel work, so this is kind of expected, but the moment in the montage of what everybody's doing on the Train, on the Cyan Desert Car, is a notable example: unless you've been refreshing your mind, you're unlikely to know who the heck Miraj is.^note
- Unless one was actively reading Knight of the Orange Lily, you're wondering who the heck London is.^note The Intermission even notes that it's mostly about catching people up with Knight of the Orange Lily.
Even Better Sequel: Blossoming Trail was seen as fine with some people, but it became heavily controversial due to several writing decisions. Voyage of Wisteria is generally seen as an improvement not only because it works to fix several of those issues (and not backtracking on it like Court of Cyclamen), but also giving a lot more nuance to a situation that was painted as a clear cut Black-and-White Morality deal with a dash of Protagonist-Centered Morality.
Harsher in Hindsight: See here.
Informed Wrongness: See here.
Just Here for Godzilla: Like its predecessor, Wisteria attracts fans who are there either for the Pokemon side, or the Infinity Train side, and not both.
No Yay: Lexi/Chloe has become this for some. Not only does the former treat Goh, the main protagonist, like trash under the belief it's what the latter needed, but a later revelation that he's an adult in "book years" retroactively makes it so that, From a Certain Point of View, he's an adult crushing on a little girl.
Squick: The Reveal that Lexi is 20 years old in "book years" retroactively turns his growing infatuation with Chloe into something very disturbing, in part because he's essentially an adult crushing on a ten year old girl.
Shocking Moments: The Hazbin Car reveals what happened to Grace: she was stabbed in the stomach by Ogami while pleading for her life and how she wanted to be noticed.
Take That, Scrappy!:
- Parker gets a well deserved dressing down by Chloe early in Wisteria, and has his role greatly reduced into a very minor character.
- For people that hated Chloe for being a largely ungrateful, spoiled brat, they also get a MASSIVE Catharsis Factor when the girl is forced to confront just how spoiled and cruel she was towards Goh in the Darkest Day chapters, courtesy of Dahlia and Vox. Goh himself even gets to call out Chloe for what she has done, tearfully telling her how much she had victimized him, and asking her if he really was a terrible friend to her, to which Chloe is forced to admit that SHE was the bad friend, not him.
Tough Act to Follow: This story came right off the heels of Blossoming Trail, which was an insane adventure from start to end. To say this story had a lot to live up to would be an understatement. If nothing else, the series attracts a lot less controversy than its predecessor.
Trapped by Mountain Lions: There's a brief subplot later in the story where Ash gets transformed into a Pikachu, also known as Ashachu. Besides providing some funny moments during the tenser parts of the story, it ultimately does little to actually advance or develop the characters involved.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- Despite it being mentioned a couple times that Paul London invites the Denizens to hunt down the remaining Apex members, we don't really see any Denizens doing that for the remainder of the story: at most we see one Apex kid being used as a living duct tape to stop a Car from malfunctioning, but besides that, nothing. Paul London also doesn't get any comeuppance beyond being called out over his behavior and being forced to accept that The Apex weren't as evil as he proclaimed they were.
- Despite the massive ramifications that unleashing Chloe's dirty laundry upon the Infinity Train should do, the most we get out of it is a brief comment from Lexi about how many Denizens are disappointed to learn the truth, without even being shown a scene of Denizens reacting like that.
Unexpected Character: Professor Sycamore from Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus appears to give Oleana advice during the Darkest Day arc.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Lexi before the events of "The Deep Jungle Car". His grief over losing Chloe should make him sympathetic and somewhat balance out the bad things he does, but the things in question include snarling at a girl playing Chloe, nearly mauling a Denizen because they got something wrong about her, and constantly acting like an asshole to Goh over a Facedex post nobody cares about anymore. And while he isn't meant to be sympathetic when he and Goh have their argument since Goh's number went down but trying to paint it as a case of Both Sides Have a Point, he is still unsympathetic for different reasons due to coming across as petty, vindictive, hypocritical, and self-centered Jerkass by not only snapping at Goh over what he did for the millionth time, but changing the subject every time Goh manages to counter his claims.

YMMV / Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria

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