History YMMV / PokemonJourneysTheSeries

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: [[spoiler:Iris has been a BaseBreakingCharacter for many fans due to acting like an annoying brat towards Ash (especially with the catchphrase, "You're such a kid") and not really advancing her Dragon Master goal during the ''Black & White'' series, especially with Axew never evolving despite showcasing a desire to. Her return in Journeys, however, is much better received by those same fans mainly thanks to her mellowing out her {{tsundere}} aspects (with her catchphrase treated as a playful tease rather than harsh berating) and advancing significantly advancing her goal by becoming the new Unova Champion AND finally evolving Axew all the way to a Haxorus.]]

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: [[spoiler:Iris has been a BaseBreakingCharacter for many fans due to acting like annoying brat towards Ash (especially with the catchphrase, "You're such a kid") and not really advancing her Dragon Master goal during the ''Black & White'' series, especially with Axew never evolving despite showcasing a desire to. Her return in Journeys, however, is much better received by those same fans mainly thanks to her mellowing out her {{tsundere}} aspects (with her catchphrase treated as a playful tease rather than harsh berating) and advancing significantly advancing her goal by becoming the new Unova Champion AND finally evolving Axew all the way to a Haxorus.]]

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: [[spoiler:Iris has been a BaseBreakingCharacter for many fans due to acting like annoying brat towards Ash (especially with the catchphrase, "You're such a kid") and not really advancing her Dragon Master goal during the ''Black & White'' series, especially with Axew never evolving despite showcasing a desire to. Her return in Journeys, however, is much better received by those same fans mainly thanks to her mellowing out her {{tsundere}} aspects (with her catchphrase treated as a playful tease rather than critique) and advancing significantly advancing her goal by becoming the new Unova Champion AND finally evolving Axew all the way to a Haxorus.]]

* ReplacementScrappy: Fans of [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Hop]] have seen Goh as a weaker replacement for him, as Hop has yet to appear in the main anime and Goh essentially took his role during the Darkest Day arc.

** Goh capturing an Uber Legendary in Eternatus. This has not been done in the series by ''any'' character.

* BrokenBase:
** Good for continuing to try new things, fixing many problems people had with ''Sun and Moon'', allowing Ash to catch several highly requested fan favorites (especially [[spoiler:a Riolu]]), having interesting character development (particularly with Goh), and the region-hopping premise opening up several possibilities previous regional series couldn't take advantage of, or bad for [[RetCanon pulling elements from the divisive]] ''VideoGame/PokemonGO'' (Goh as a character and the egg redesigns being the most controversial), breaking several staples of the series, Goh's perceived status as a SpotlightStealingSquad, several pacing problems including a ProlongedPrologue (with Ash only getting his own goal for the season in "The Climb to Be the Very Best," the ''thirteenth'' episode), and the consequent lower attention given to Galar due to having to share screentime with the previous seven mainline regions.
** Similar to Alola's situation, whether Goh should be allowed to catch Legendaries and Mythicals became debated the moment his goal was established. Some believed it was only natural that his goal would lead him to start targeting Legendaries sooner or later and feel it would show how he grew as a trainer. Those against it believed that, similar to Alola, Goh having Legendaries and Mythicals would diminish their value and that they wouldn't be used often. Detractors of Goh in particular also felt it would only add to Goh's overexposure in the series. This debate flared up considerably on multiple occasions; [[spoiler:when Goh caught Eternatus (but didn't keep it), when he narrowly failed to capture Zapdos, and when he succeeded in catching Suicune]].
** The debate if Goh counts as a SpotlightStealingSquad or not. Defenders of Goh will point out that his goal (to capture all the Pokémon) requires more time to develop than Ash's rank increase, and that Goh's captures do not eat up a ton of screentime. Detractors point out how Goh's goal tends to drive the plots of more episodes than the other characters, and that there are never Ash (or Chloe) moments in episodes that are dedicated to him the same way that he ''always'' gets capture scenes in their episodes.
*** Goh's capture of specific Pokémon species. Either fans consider it a chance to give a wider variety of Pokémon focus, or they consider it a waste because Goh doesn't battle or consistently use them. Some particular flare-up choices include Aerodactyl and Flygon, both popular mons from their respective debut generations. Most heated of all are the Galar starters: while Scorbunny was of no controversy, Sobble and ''especially'' Grookey going to Goh instead of Ash fueled many calls of them being ''wasted'' and of Goh stealing more attention from Ash. This complaint is known to be found on both sides of the Pacific, with Japanese fans also being upset about Grookey in particular (to a point calling Goh a ''thief'' was known). However, others think that the mons' personalities work better with Goh than Ash and generally think the series in general is bad with character focus and thus they'd have spotlight issues regardless of who captures them.

** A number of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' fans were disappointed when it was revealed that this series wouldn't be a straighter adaptation of the game's plot, especially given that it takes a few elements (most notably the TournamentArc-style Pokémon League) from the anime. This also led to pretty much ''everything'' having to do with the games' plot getting condensed into ''four episodes'', while previous arcs based on the game plots tended to last ''an entire season''.

** Similar to Alola's situation, whether Goh should be allowed to catch legendaries and mythicals became debated the moment his goal was established. Some believed it was only natural that his goal would lead him to start targeting legendaries sooner or later and feel it would show how he grew as a trainer. Those against it believed that, similar to Alola, Goh having legendaries/mythicals would diminish their value and that they wouldn't be used often. Detractors of Goh in particular also felt it would only add to Goh's overexposure in the series. This debate flared up considerably on multiple occasions; [[spoiler:when Goh caught Eternatus (but didn't keep it), when he narrowly failed to capture Zapdos, and when he succeeded in catching Suicune]].

** The 2021 New Years trailer surprised people by revealing an appearance of [[spoiler:Wikstrom, the Steel-type master of the Kalos Elite Four]], as an opponent for Ash. This was not a highly expected character due to [[spoiler: Wikstrom never having appeared properly in the series beyond a very brief cameo in the opening segment of the Diancie movie, not to mention being a fairly minor character from ''X and Y'' that didn't get particular focus during or after Generation VI]].

* AssPull: The reveal in "Legend? Go! Friends? Go!" and "Serving Up the Flute Cup" that Delia's housekeeper Mr. Mime was actually one of Ash's Pokémon the entire time is viewed as this by some people. Since the show never once hinted at it being under Ash's ownership up to this point except for very obscure pieces of Japanese promotion (notably, he wasn’t in the picture of all Ash’s Pokémon residing in Pallet taken at the end of the BW series), the fanbase always assumed that "[[InUniverseNickname Mimey]]" either stayed a wild Mr. Mime or was caught by Delia.

** Good for continuing to try new things, fixing many problems people had with ''Sun and Moon'', allowing Ash to catch several highly requested fan favorites (especially [[spoiler:a Riolu]]), having interesting character development (particularly with Goh), and the region-hopping premise opening up several possibilities previous regional series couldn't take advantage of, or bad for [[RetCanon pulling elements from the divisive]] VideoGame/PokemonGO (Goh as a character and the egg redesigns being the most controversial), breaking several staples of the series, Goh's perceived status as a SpotlightStealingSquad, several pacing problems including a ProlongedPrologue (with Ash only getting his own goal for the season in "The Climb to Be the Very Best," the ''thirteenth'' episode), and the consequent lower attention given to Galar due to having to share screentime with the previous seven mainline regions.

** Ash's capture of [[spoiler:Dracovish]] took many by surprise, not just because Ash never caught a [[spoiler:Fossil]] Pokémon before or already had a [[spoiler:Dragon]] Type on his team, but also because said Pokémon is just a ''really'' unconventional choice for Ash, in general.

** The debate if Goh counts as a SpotlightStealingSquad or not. Defenders of Goh will point out that his goals (to capture all the Pokemon) requires more time to develop than Ash's rank increase and that his captures do not eat up a ton of screentime. Detractors point out how Goh's goals tend to drive the plots of more episodes than the other characters and that there are never Ash (or Chloe) moments in episodes that are dedicated to him the same way that he always gets capture scenes in their episodes.
*** Goh's capture of specific Pokemon species. Either fans consider it a chance to give a wider variety of Pokemon focus, or they consider it a waste because Goh doesn't battle or consistently use them. Some particular flare-up choices include Aerodactyl and Flygon. Most heated of all are the Galar starters: while Scorbunny was of no controversy Sobble and ''especially'' Grookey going to Goh instead of Ash fueled many calls of them being 'wasted' and of Goh stealing more attention from Ash. This complaint is known to be found on both sides of the Pacific with Japanese fans being upset about Grookey in particular (to a point calling Goh a ''thief'' was known). However others think that the mons personalities work better with Goh than Ash and generally think the series in general is bad with character focus and thus they'd have spotlight issues regardless of who captures them.

** A number of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' fans were disappointed when it was revealed that this series wouldn't be a straighter adaptation of the game's plot, especially given that it takes a few elements (most notably the TournamentArc-style Pokémon League) from the anime. This also led to pretty much everything having to do with the games' plot getting condensed into ''four episodes'', while previous arcs based on the game plots tended to last an entire season.

** A number of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' were disappointed when it was revealed that this series wouldn't be a straighter adaptation of the game's plot, especially given that it takes a few elements (most notably the TournamentArc-style Pokémon League) from the anime. This also led to pretty much everything having to do with the games' plot getting condensed into ''four episodes'', while previous arcs based on the game plots tended to last an entire season.

* AssPull: The reveal in ''Pokémon Journeys'' that Delia's housekeeper Mr. Mime was actually one of Ash's Pokémon this entire time is viewed as this by some people. Since the show never once hinted at it being under Ash's ownership up to this point except for very obscure pieces of Japanese promotion (notably, he wasn’t in the picture of all Ash’s Pokémon residing in Pallet taken at the end of the BW series), the fanbase always assumed that "[[InUniverseNickname Mimey]]" either stayed a wild Mr. Mime, or was caught by Delia.

** ''Pokémon Journeys'' can be seen as continuing the BreakingOldTrends approach ''Sun & Moon'' began while fixing some of the biggest gripes people had with ''Sun and Moon''. The first teaser announcement confirmed right off the bat that the series would be visiting ''every'' region, not just Galar, further shaking up the show's formula while putting the focus back on adventure after some fans felt turned off by the focus on slice of life and wacky hijinks of the Alola series. The art style was also tweaked after the major backlash the ''Sun and Moon'' artstyle got (especially for [[YouDontLookLikeYou what it did to Ash]]), meeting the original style and the animation-friendly ''SM'' style in the middle, with Ash himself more resembling his better received ''The Power of Us'' look.
** On another note, one of the major complaints of ''Sun and Moon'' was that the Pokémon School, in spite of being the big hook of the season, was [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot fairly underutilized]] with very few plots related to it or time spent focusing on the lessons, making it seem more like an excuse to keep Ash stuck in Melemele than a core part of the show, alongside never giving a straight reason for why Ash choose to enroll and baffling old fans about why a veteran trainer would need to go to school now, especially with Ash's wanderlust being an important part of his character. ''Pokémon Journeys'' fixes this by making Ash a research fellow for a Pokémon Laboratory and ensuring that the region-hopping premise is due to Ash's work for it, making it a proactive part of the show alongside showing clearly why Ash got the job in the second episode. The new role has also been better received by the fandom for feeling more in-tune with Ash's characterization.
** Another complaint of the ''Sun and Moon'' series that caused the BrokenBase surrounding it was that the stationary setting, while seen as a breath of fresh air by a part of the fanbase, ultimately led to the pacing of the series feeling arbitrary (as explained under ArcFatigue) due to a milestone-based progression not fitting too well with an Ash that mostly stays still in one place. ''Pokémon Journeys'' fixes it by having Ash's goal for the season be qualifications to the Pokémon World Championships to face the current World Champion Leon, replacing the typical badge quest with a ranking system where the majority of battles lead to progress, replacing the milestone-based progression with a progressive grind that allows for Ash to move closer to his goal at a faster pace, alongside removing traveling as a necessity and ensuring Ash doesn't need to constantly travel to Galar to improve his ranking. Alongside Goh catching several Pokémon at a fast pace as part of his goal and the generally lower number of cast members, this allows the Generation VIII series to have a constant feeling of progress after everything is established.
* PanderingToTheBase: In this series, Ash catches a Gengar and a Riolu, (both highly-requested Pokémon for him to catch), the series travels across all regions and brings back ''many'' old faces, some that haven't made appearances in over a decade.

** Ash's first three captures in ''Pokémon Journeys'', Dragonite, Gengar, and Riolu. The former two get this for being [[BreakingOldTrends fully evolved from the start]] while the latter two were [[PanderingToTheBase highly requested]] Pokemon for him to catch for years. The later capture of Farfetch'd was a surprise to fans for different reasons: Farfetch'd was only advertised ahead of time as a minor feature of an episode focusing on Leon and Raihan and viewership found the capture a pleasant surprise.
** Ash and Go already facing off the main villains of their respective games and winning at the earliest episode possible. Rose And Oleana introduced themselves as villains in JN044 and lost at JN045. Usually, the main villain arcs would be concluded near the end of the series or left in a cliffhanger. Here? All done before the 50th episode.
** Goh capturing an Uber Legendary, Eternatus. This has not been done in the series by any character.
* SlowPacedBeginning: This is also a criticism usually levied to the initial stretch of ''Journeys'' series episodes, particularly the ones making up the first batch uploaded on Netflix. The first six episodes effectively make up a CharacterDevelopment arc for new companion and coprotagonist [[BaseBreakingCharacter Goh]], with Ash relegated in a more supporting role for its duration down to not having a clear goal for himself. The following episodes were dedicated to a first taste of the region-hopping series premise that were mostly seen as unremarkable, while giving little idea of what the show intended to do with its premise and cast, not helped by how the show didn't seem to want to embrace continuity in spite of going back to known locations beyond small nods. After the Leon introduction arc, however, things got much better as Ash obtained his own goal in taking part in the World Coronation Series (a global tournament to crown the implicit strongest trainer in the world), alongside making him more involved in the plot with several new captures and major battles, alongside allowing for more [[TheBusCameBack old character returns]] (such as [[spoiler:Korrina]]) and [[ContinuityNod continuity]] while delving deeper into Goh's backstory and further development, with the common sentiment being that the show improves from that point on.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: While ''Journeys''' incorporation of ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' elements has been somewhat controversial (especially in regards to how Goh is handled), the fact that Eggs were changed from having unique designs to being only the generic colors and shades seen in ''Go'' and to a degree the main series games was one of the worst-received results of this by a part of the fanbase, as it was one of the better received elements of the Anime that had been consistent for more than two decades before the Generation VIII Anime.

** The 1st episode of ''Pokémon Journeys'' started off with the neat idea of finally showing the backstory of Ash's Pikachu. Unfortunately, the episode ended up being viewed as a missed opportunity for not answering some of the more intriguing questions people have surrounding Pikachu's past, such as how he was captured by Professor Oak, or why Pikachu had a strong dislike of humans the day he was given to Ash.
** The 3rd episode of ''Pokémon Journeys'' brings back the Bulbasaur-line evolution phenomena that was seen way back in [=EP051=] of the original series, "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden." Only this time around, the Ivysaur are getting ready to evolve into Venusaur. The fact Ash's Bulbasaur wasn't somehow involved this time around after being the focus of the prior episode is seen as a missed opportunity for some fans since it seemed like a perfect set-up to bring back an old favorite, and possibly add a bit more to Bulbasaur's 'not wanting to evolve' plotline, such as perhaps having Bulbasaur come to a decision that it's finally ready to evolve into Ivysaur.
* UnexpectedCharacter: ''Journeys'' quickly made this one of it's staples, becoming well-known for bringing in many unexpected characters.
** Ash's first capture being a [[spoiler:Dragonite]] came out of left field for most fans for several reasons. [[spoiler:Not only did it mark the first time since Gligar that Ash has caught a Pokémon not native of the current generation as part of his main team, it was also his first capture of a fully-evolved Pokémon since Noctowl, and a pseudo-legendary to boot. Getting such a Pokémon as his first series capture instead of a starter or a regional bird was something few predicted]].
** Korrina and her Lucario. Of all of Ash's friends who people had been expecting to return, she certainly wasn't high on the list, as while her arc had its fans, she was still ultimately a minor character in the XY series compared to Ash's companions and rivals. Additionally, Mega Evolution had been removed from ''Sword and Shield'', making her and Mega Lucario's return an even bigger surprise.

** The 2021 new years trailer surprised people by revealing an appearance of [[spoiler:Wikstrom the Steel-type master of the Kalos Elite Four]] as an opponent for Ash. This was not a highly expected character due to [[spoiler: never having appeared properly in the series beyond a very brief cameo in the opening segment of the Diancie movie, not to mention being a fairly minor character from ''X and Y'' that didn't get particular focus during or after Generation VI]].
** [[spoiler:Gary Oak and Iris' confirmed reappearances in the third opening. Despite Gary's iconic status, it had been more than a decade since he'd appeared outside of non-speaking cameos. Iris' appearance came even further out of left field, as most fans expected the XY companions would be the next to reappear, especially since ''Journeys'' up to this point had only featured returning characters and callbacks from the original series, ''XY'', and ''Sun and Moon'' (The exception being Matori, who had appeared in every series since her debut anyway)]]

** Ash's capture of [[spoiler:Dracovish]] took many by surprise, not just because Ash never caught a [[spoiler:Fossil]] Pokémon before or already had a [[spoiler:Dragon]] Type on his team, but also because said Pokémon is just a ''really'' unconventional choice for Ash, in general.
%%*UnfortunateImplications: Episode 11 has a scene where Chloe's class is questioned what their future plans are. The first person who speaks up is a boy who answers "My life is a work in progress". When Chloe goes next, ''everyone'' decides to speak up for her and saying she ''has'' to be into Pokémon, portraying it as a DoubleStandard scene that boys don't get pressure to be forced into roles while girls have to. Especially since they're talking about her following her ''father's'' footsteps. Not helping is that Chloe gets less and less focus throughout the first season (with a total of ''four'' focus episodes out of '''48'''.)

%%*UnfortunateImplications: Episode 11 has a scene where Chloe's class is questioned what their future plans are. The first person who speaks up is a boy who answers "My life is a work in progress". When Chloe goes next, ''everyone'' decides to speak up for her, portraying it as a DoubleStandard scene that boys don't get pressure to forced into roles while girls have to. Not helping is that Chloe gets less and less focus throughout the first season (with a total of ''four'' focus episodes out of '''48'''.)

** Ash's capture of [[spoiler:Dracovish]] took many by surprise, not just because Ash never caught a [[spoiler:Fossil]] Pokémon before or already had a [[spoiler:Dragon]] Type on his team, but also because said Pokémon is just a ''really'' unconventional choice for Ash, in general.

** Ash and Go already facing off the main villains of their respective games and winning at the earliest episode possible. Rose And Oleana introduced themselves as villains in JN044 and lost at JN045. Usually, the main villain arcs would be concluded near the end of the series or left in a cliffhanger.

* ShockingMoments: Ash's first three captures in ''Pokémon Journeys'', Dragonite, Gengar, and Riolu. The former two get this for being [[BreakingOldTrends fully evolved from the start]] while the latter two were [[PanderingToTheBase highly requested]] Pokemon for him to catch for years. The later capture of Farfetch'd was a surprise to fans for different reasons: Farfetch'd was only advertised ahead of time as a minor feature of an episode focusing on Leon and Raihan and viewership found the capture a pleasant surprise.

* TheyChangedItNowItSuck: While ''Journeys''' incorporation of ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' elements has been somewhat controversial (especially in regards to how Goh is handled), the fact that Eggs were changed from having unique designs to being only the generic colors and shades seen in ''Go'' and to a degree the main series games was one of the worst-received results of this by a part of the fanbase, as it was one of the better received elements of the Anime that had been consistent for more than two decades before the Generation VIII Anime.