Story threads from the Pokémon anime that people feel were wasted, went nowhere, or could have had more time dedicated to them.
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In General
- Many lament that, despite being the most iconic villainous team, the greater Team Rocket organization largely sits in the background to instead focus on Jessie, James, and Meowth's antics while trying to steal Pikachu. Made even more retroactively painful in that latter teams would be given proper story lines and actual menace. Pokémon the Series: Black & White would give them a more serious plotline, though to mixed results in the execution.
- The 20th anniversary specials featuring Brock and Misty's return were generally well-regarded, though many had issues with the fact that the episodes almost exclusively focused on the Kanto era of the anime, with anything after that either being referenced only briefly or, in the case of BW and XY, not at all. Fans of the later seasons were disappointed by this, feeling that the big anniversary celebration should probably have given more attention to celebrating the entire franchise, rather than just Gen 1.
- Ash expressed interest in the Black & White and XY eras the desire to catch a Dunsparce for whatever odd reason. Why he's interested in Dunsparce specifically is never explained, and he ends up never catching one.
- The lack of variety in Ash's Pokémon captures quite often makes his overall teams feel predictable. In most regions Ash only captures five Pokémon to complement Pikachu (so as never to go over the party-of-six limit), which usually includes at least one starter and a regional bird, never any Psychic or Electric types (or Fairy types from Kalos onwards) and if he captures more than that he doesn't rotate his team, with whoever the writers deem less important being left at the lab or elsewhere for training. Only in Unova does Ash actually make an attempt at rotating his team which falls flat since none of the starters ever rotate off, meaning that he's only picking and choosing to fill the last two slots - one of which is later permanently filled by Charizard when he returns. The Journeys team was initially hailed as it seemed to finally be breaking the trends, only for Ash once again to capture no more than five new Pokémon and completely ignore all of his previous captures.note
- And as a supplementary point, the lack of focus given to Ash's companion's Pokémon, since May and Dawn are the only companions to travel with a full party (with Clemont being the only companion from XY onwards to have more than three, since Goh never constructed a full travelling party), and other companion party members are generally ignored in favor of Ash's team.
Seasons
Original Series
- Ash's Kanto badge quest is considered by many to be a mess due to the fans believing that he only legitimately earned the Thunder, Soul, and Volcano Badges through battle. The other badges (known within the fandom as "pity badges") were only earned through Ash performing a good deed, or in the Earth Badge's case, winning against the Team Rocket trio. How Ash earned the Marsh Badge in particular was huge wasted potential as Sabrina's episodes build up for a glorious rematch only for it to not happen because the Haunter that Ash brought along made her laugh to the point of not being able to battle. The result is his Kanto squad not getting many opportunities to truly show off before the league, which just makes it look like Ash hadn't been properly training his Pokémon. Overall, it makes the fact that Ash achieved as high as Top-16 at the Indigo league all the more lucky that he somehow managed to get that far with such an underutilized Pokémon team.
- After Ash catches Krabby he’s informed that catching a Pokémon with a full party will automatically send them to Professor Oak but he can rotate his team anytime he wants when using the Pokédex. Despite this ability giving Ash the potential to switch his Pokémon team whenever and wherever he wants (something that wouldn’t be possible to do in the games until the release of Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! in 2018), Ash never makes the use of this ability throughout his Indigo Leauge travels. Instead, Ash's party would always consist of Pikachu, Pidgeotto, The Kanto Starters, and a single Guest-Star Party Member that would either be Put on a Bus after a few episodes or get sent to Oak's lab immediately after capture, with Ash’s sixth slot often being unused. Even in the Orange Islands and Johto League, Ash would keep a consistent team regardless of how many Pokemon he had on hand, with anybody sent to Oak's lab getting seldomly used. It would take until the Johto League Conference for Ash to make proper use of Team Rotation, with Unova being the only region where he’d rotate his team throughout his entire journey.
- One issue that people have always had with Charmeleon/Charizard's disobedience arc is that there was never a reason provided as to why it started disobeying Ash after evolving. This has led to a lot of Alternative Character Interpretation from fans trying to explain what caused the disobedience. Some of the more popular theories include the following: 1) Charmeleon lost respect for Ash after being called out to purposefully lose to a Paras in EP044, 2) its evolution caused to adopt Damian's behavior, or 3) because Ash was just a rookie at the time, its constant disobedience was because it wanted Ash to finally grow a backbone and become a better trainer.
- The Indigo Plateau Conference suffered a lot from not actually getting to see much battling. Ash's 2nd and 3rd matches were rushed within the span of just one episode to the point that several Pokémon between Ash and his tournament opponents were already defeated off-screen. This is due to a lot of the episode's content being spent on Filler where Ash and the gang are just running around searching for a Pokémon center in the middle of the night; leaving very little time for Ash's tournament matches. A similar problem happens with the Top-16 match against Ritchie where a majority of the episode is spent on Ash fighting off the Team Rocket trio; leaving just the tail end of the episode to cram in the entire Ash vs. Ritchie battle. Finally, Ash never gets to face against Gary, with their rivalry not reaching a resolution until the Johto League.
- Bill's sole episode has him yearning to meet a giant Dragonite again, rather than having some fun with the gene splicing segment from the games. A nod to this is given at the beginning of the episode, but it's just Bill wearing a costume instead of actually being turned into a Pokémon.
- Celadon City is the largest city in the games, but while this is hinted at when Ash and the group arrive, they spent all of one episode in there, just to get Ash's next badge, then leave. To make matters worse, many of the next few episodes all take place in a made-up city near Celadon instead of being in Celadon itself.
- The Seafoam Islands never actually appear in the anime. 4Kids attempted to mitigate this by changing one of the islands the group visits in late Kanto to the Seafoam Islands, but even then, it still has no connection to how it's depicted in the games.
- EP091, "Bye Bye Psyduck," is viewed by some as a missed opportunity when it comes to developing Misty's goal of being a Water-type master. Especially since said episode was centered around Misty and her Psyduck, which the latter up to this point was mostly just a Joke Character. This could have been the point where Misty actually comes around to realizing that she needs to start to properly train her Psyduck rather than always getting annoyed by its incompetence outside of whenever it's got a headache to pull off its Psychic abilities, yet it ended up just being a huge misunderstanding plot where Misty thought a wild womanizer Golduck was her evolved Psyduck. Not to mention that the episode's whole idea of hinting at Psyduck's evolution being just around the corner was its own wasted idea that never went anywhere.
- EP098, "A Way Off Day Off," hinted at a potential rivalry brewing between Ash's Charizard and Tracey's Scyther. However, the rivalry doesn't appear in any future episodes.
- No example is more infamous than the G.S. Ball. Ash obtains it during the Orange Islands, it gets a lot of foreshadowing throughout the arc and halfway through Johto... Then it gets dropped off to Kurt, never to be seen again. This was mainly because part of the plot was adapted into a movie, but all the focus made it virtually impossible to forget about it.
- Some of the special Johto Poké Balls that Kurt provided for the original gang were left untouched after handing them 3 Fast Balls, 2 Lure Balls, and 1 Heavy Ball. Brock used a Fast Ball to catch a Pineco while Ash and Misty used the 2 Lure Balls to catch Totodile and Corsola respectively. On the other hand, Ash and Misty never used their Fast Balls for anything while Brock never used his Heavy Ball.
- Ash obtains a Sun Stone for winning the Bug Catching Contest. Perhaps this is hinting that somewhere down the line, Ash will capture a Gloom or Sunkern to perform a stone evolution? Nope. It turned out that the Sun Stone gets wasted in a Filler episode on a wild Sunkern that never appears again.
- The 'Ash gets turned into a Pikachu' episode. The main hook of the episode doesn't happen until the very tail end of it, Ash goes to play with Pikachu and the group's other Pokemon... And that's it. End of episode. Made arguably worse in that the writers didn't forget about it in the next episode, as the very next episode has the potion that changed him wearing off and him turning back into a human at the very start of it.
- Since Gary's Umbreon (as an Eevee) was the only one of his Pokémon Ash had battled prior to the Johto League, it would only seem natural that he and Pikachu would get to rematch it at some point. Oddly, both Pikachu and Umbreon were benched for Ash and Gary's league battle despite being the Signature Mons of their trainers up to that point. In fact, to this day Pikachu has never once defeated any of Gary's Pokémon, with their only battle after the original series being a loss to Gary's Electivire.
Advanced Generation
- Considering that Hoenn has the most ocean/water of any regionnote and plenty of Water-Type Pokémon, it's a shame that Misty, aspiring Water Pokémon Master that she was, had to be Put on a Bus before Ash went to Hoenn.
- AG008 shows off Ash's Treecko training at a waterfall to strengthen its Pound attack on a rock for a rematch against a Seviper that eventually gets caught by Jessie. Said training could have been an opportunity to upgrade Treecko with a new move, such as replacing Pound with the higher powered Slam attack, yet the training ends up being just a different method of using the basic Pound attack.
- AG065, "Gulpin it Down," really missed an opportunity for Brock's Heavy Ball to finally come into play. The episode has one of Professor Jacuzzi's experiments accidentally enlarging a Gulpin. Said professor ends up failing to catch the Gulpin in a normal Poké Ball, which Nurse Joy then provides him a Heavy Ball to catch it since Gulpin becoming large really increased its total weight. In the end, it will leave some viewers wondering why a random Heavy Ball was used rather than finally giving Brock's Heavy Ball a purpose.
- The Battle Frontier arc ultimately did very little with its Kanto setting, with the group almost never revisiting characters or locations from the original series; the season could have remained in Hoenn and it would’ve had practically no effect on the overarching narrative. Some have noted that the anime missed an opportunity here to have the Battle Frontier set on the Sevii Islands for Ash and the gang to explore as the whole point of the Battle Frontier arc was to advertise Gen III's Emerald and FireRed/LeafGreen games at the same time, yet the anime producers completely glossed over it.
- In the final episode of AG Ash reassures a distraught Max by saying they’ll meet again and promising to battle the latter when he’s old enough to be a trainer. Soon after this episode aired however, the anime would fully embrace the Not Allowed to Grow Up mentality, with Ash’s age even getting a Retcon in Unova to say he’s still 10, ensuring the two will never get to battle. The fact this would be Max’s final speaking role pours more salt into the wound.
- Making matters even worse for Max fans is that he never properly came back for the little Ralts he had so famously saved in Do I Hear a Ralts? like he promised to when he began his own Pokémon journey. More or less breaking said promise, meaning we don't get to see Pikachu and Ralts battling together or against each other.
- A common complaint about Advance is that the ending of the Team Magma/Aqua plotline felt rather anticlimactic despite involving the clash of both Groudon and Kyogre (that in the games is said that such fight would have apocalyptic consequences), with a very short, not very dynamic battle that is concluded in a single episode. Even more, the fact that both of them fought each other yet Rayquaza didn't appear to stop their battle as in canon also made the whole plot more disappointing to some fans.
Diamond and Pearl
- The training arc for Ash's Turtwig had a lot of missed potential due to the grass-turtle developing strategies that went nowhere once it evolved. Grotle's eating its own Energy Ball power-up was quickly dropped after Dawn's Mamoswine started doing a similar power-up strategy eating its own Ice Shard, and Grotle/Torterra only successfully used its tanking strategy once against Candice's Sneasel before going on to lose every subsequent fight. He suffered Badass Decay so bad that the only thing the Pokémon is ever known for these days is the horrible win/loss record it ended up with outside of battles against the Team Rocket trio. What's particularly disappointing about Turtwig's journey is that it was the first time that Ash had to adapt to using the slow tank strategy compared to his Pokémon usually relying on speed and dishing out damage quickly, yet the constant loses just made it look like Ash failed at figuring out how this strategy works.
- Dawn's development with her battle-hungry Buizel that was touched upon in "An Elite Meet and Greet" was pretty much thrown out the window when the writers decided to have her trade Buizel away for Ash's Aipom.
- Despite Gary being brought back for sporadic appearances in DP, he and Paul never meet, wasting the opportunity to have Ash’s two greatest rivals interact or even face off in battle.
- Paul never encounters Hunter J or Team Galactic. As much of a jerk as Paul is, it's unlikely even he would have any tolerance for those as vile as Sinnoh's Arc Villains, and their sheer competence would not make ignoring them a likely option either. Such a situation would be a chance for a more serious Enemy Mine where unlike the Hearthome Tournament, Paul has to cooperate with Ash for the greater good, and could also serve to build the continuously growing respect between the two rivals. Sadly, the closest the series comes to this is Paul's Electabuzz being used to battle against Team Galactic in "Enter Galactic!", albeit under the care of Paul's brother Reggie.
- DP103 hinted at the idea of finally giving Meowth a new move in Night Slash, yet it's never brought up again due to him claiming that the move was too scary. The latter part alone could have been a bit of an arc for Meowth to work towards getting over said fear, but alas, nothing came of it.
- Ash's Buizel learning how to pull off the unique 'Ice Aqua Jet' technique ended up being quite underutilized. The prime example being that Sinnoh has an Ice-type gym leader, yet Buizel ended up sitting that match out.
- There's a small group of people out there who feel that Paul battling Ash with an entirely new team apart from Electivirenote for their 6v6 league match was a bit of missed potential as it resulted in only Infernape getting closure against his former trainer, and finally coming out on top in his rivalry with Electivire. Ash's Torterra in particular never got to redeem himself from losing to Paul's Honchkrow twice, and wasn't even able to defeat a single Pokémon of Paul's league team. Paul not using his own Torterra also meant that Ash never got another shot at beating the Pokémon that Paul chose as his starter.
- The story surrounding Paul's Gliscor, a Pokémon who was once the leader of a flock of Gligar before it was caught by Paul in DP064. Afterwards, one of said flock's Gligar was eventually caught by Ash, which gives these two Pokémon a connection that could potentially be developed throughout the saga. A later Ash vs. Paul battle in DP081 even has Gliscor and Gligar dueling where Ash's Gligar gets absolutely demolished. Almost as if it's building up to Gligar needing to train up and overcome the Gliscor who once ruled over it. While Gligar does eventually get stronger to the point of evolving into a Gliscor of its own, it ends up never getting a chance to battle Paul's Gliscor again. This is because other than a brief cameo in DP100, Paul's Gliscor ends up completely disappearing from the story.
Best Wishes
- Zekrom's lightning zapping Pikachu at the start of the series to the point of Pikachu not being able to use its electric moves had a lot of potential regarding its purpose. Why was Zekrom there? Did Zekrom sap Pikachu of its energy because it needed the electricity for something? Does this mean that Pikachu has permanently lost the ability to use Thunderbolt and Volt Tackle to the point of needing to learn new moves? Whatever the case was, it didn't matter since Zekrom's lightning just randomly zaps Pikachu again to restore the latter's electric moves in the very next episode. Why Zekrom was there, or why Pikachu was zapped, is never truly delved into, due to the fact that Zekrom never appears again. Thus, making the whole event come off as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
- The backstory of Ash's Snivy was ripe for some interesting storytelling as Snivy was said to have outright abandoned her original trainer for being unworthy. Unfortunately, the Unova series never delves any deeper into this plot-point even if this point did get brought up a few times.
- The fired Meowth arc where he travels around with Ash and the gang for several episodes had the potential to completely turn the series on its head. What would the series have been like had Meowth actually moved on from Team Rocket? How would Meowth have acted if he actually was caught by Iris? Would his loyalty to Jessie and James come into question if he came to enjoy his time with the gang, or was caught under the ownership of another trainer? So many intriguing ideas come to mind regarding this plotline, but in the end, it turned out that Meowth was just faking it to trap the gang in a glorified 2-part Team Rocket scheme.
- Ash's way of adventuring and his relationship to his Pokémon would have made him the ultimate foil to what N thinks is the average trainer and would have punched more holes in his logic even more so then Hilbert or Hilda (the Pokémon Black and White protagonists) ever could. Not to mention the ideological battle between Ash and King Plasma N would most likely have been the greatest highlight of the entire series. Instead, N and Team Plasma are already in their Black 2/White 2 selves.
- This also connects in to the Team Rocket vs Team Plasma two-parter. After having had the build-up to it, the episodes were postponed after the 2011 earthquake and ultimately never aired, with most of its plot threads dead-ending, its animation recycled into later episodes, and the next time Team Plasma were seen would be post-Black and White 2 nearly a hundred episodes later. While the plotline of those episodes would later emerge, it's still unknown what direction the whole region would have taken if its original plot were allowed to continue.
- Ash being able to capture more than five additional Pokémon and using the ability to rotate his team opens up a whole load of new possibilities, adapting team composition and allowing his Pokémon to work together in different ways. In the end most of those possibilities just fizzled out because most of the time Ash just used the starters and especially Oshawott, none of whom ever left his team, something that got worse when Charizard returned since (including Pikachu) Ash was essentially running a team composed of five starters and one slot-filler.
- The Vertress Conference. Sure, 20 of the characters are identified, with several of them showing up in previous episodes like the Club tournaments. This is the most of any season other than the later Sun and Moon. However, the Vertress Conference has the least amount of episodes in between, with only six (103-108), albeit 5 if the filler episode (105) doesn't count. The main rivals, Trip and Bianca, see very little screentime. While it is great to see Stephan to get a decent limelight episode with Ash, the conference was overshadowed by Cameron's attention. Very little was seen with Virgil other than him beating Cameron nearly off-screen 6-3. The rest of the other known characters weren't shown in battle. Compared to the previous conferences, viewers believed that the writers didn't have much else to write about and thought that it was justified with the 3 tournament arc fillers that preceded the conference.
XY
- Despite being the main selling point of the Pokémon X and Y games, neither Ash, nor any of his companions, receive a Mega Ring/Key Stone. Instead, Ash gets a unique Bond-Greninja evolution as a replacement for learning how to mega evolve while the Mega Evolutions are given to other major characters like Alain, Sawyer and Sycamore. This comes off as a missed opportunity to some when Ash owns several Pokémon that can Mega Evolve, such as Charizard, Heracross, Sceptile, and Glalie. This was finally somewhat rectified in the Pokémon Journeys series where Ash learns how to Mega Evolve his Lucario.
- Detractors of Serena and/or Pokémon Showcases believe that the various Red Herring careers towards Serena's eventual goal would've been more interesting than what she eventually picked, with Sky Battles being the most commonly cited option. This is due to Sky Battles being an actual mechanic from the games, unlike Pokémon Showcases, and would've offered something more unique than what Pokémon Showcases provide (which tend to be seen as Pokémon Contests without battles). Serena never pointed out anything she didn't like about the career, and it would have allowed her to participate in battles more often, alleviating many complaints about her character. The fact that Y, Serena's counterpart in Pokémon Adventures, is a Sky Trainer only adds more fuel to the fire.
- Some feel that the early rounds of the Lumiose Conference were rushed immensely. So rushed that the tournament was already at the Semifinals by the start of the arc's 3rd episode. It was especially bad for Ash's battles where the viewers got to see none of his earlier tournament battles apart from a brief Top-64 moment against Astrid where Ash's Bond-Greninja easily defeats her Altaria. The skipping of the early rounds also resulted in a lot of people feeling that some of Ash's Pokémon, like Goodra and Noivern, got screwed over due to their lackluster showings in Ash's 6v6 matches against Sawyer and Alain when there was more than enough opportunity to show them off in the earlier rounds beforehand to justify them being used as the fall-guys in the final two matches. The early round rushing also had an effect on the other participants, such as the hype surrounding a potentially awesome battle between Trevor's Mega Charizard Y vs. Alain's Mega Charizard X, yet due to the rushed nature of the league's early rounds, the battle only lasted for about a minute with Trevor's Mega Charizard Y basically getting curb-stomped.
- Ash and Team Rocket never make any references to their encounter with Steven Stone back in AG. While there was more pressing matters by the time they met Steven in person, Ash and Team Rocket indicate throughout the show (particularly with Jessie’s several fantasies about marrying Steven) they only know Steven by reputation, as if they had never met him before.
Sun & Moon
- While the newly established school setting received a ton of backlash upon its reveal, some fans saw some potential in the new type of setting that would justify its inclusion. Unfortunately, the school ended up being a rather unimportant backdrop in the grand scheme of things, mostly serving as a way to keep Ash in Melemele rather than part of the story in its own right, only rarely seeing lessons as more than a backdrop element.
- In SM041 many fans were displeased that Charjabug was in a go-cart race rather than the trainers themselves. It would have been fun to see some actual Wacky Racing.
- Considering how Ash-Greninja was implemented into the Pokémon Sun and Moon games, many wanted Ash's Greninja to return to his team at some point in the Sun and Moon anime. This didn't happen, needless to say.
- For once, Team Rocket gets access to some really good weapons; a powerful Pokémon in Mimikyu that can match Pikachu, and even the region's power-up gimmick by having a Z-Move of their own. However, they end up going underused most of the time. They only actually use their Z-Move against the twerps a couple of times, even when the situation would be ideal, and most of Mimikyu's spats with Pikachu are hindered by Bewear's constant interruptions. Besides that, they are often stuck in the usual rut of Curbstomp Battles with only the occasional Not So Harmless moment, which is especially glaring when half the protagonists are very low on battle experience.
Journeys
Due to the nature of the Journeys series being an amalgamation of all the regions that Ash traveled through along with the Galar region of the newest Pokémon Sword and Shield games, it's a common assessment amongst many fans that it was all way too ambitious for it's own good, which left many storylines feeling severely underdeveloped.
- While Ash not catching Pokémon is a frequent case of wasting a character, Journeys at several points had set up clear interest to have Ash catch additional Pokémon, but did not follow up on it and thus contributed to the occasional periods of feeling like Goh was getting the lions' share of the spotlight.
- In JN006 and JN014, Ash had expressed interest in catching Pokémon alongside Goh, but only Goh captured any during this episode despite no real showing of why Ash couldn't.
- In JN034, Goh expressed an interest in having Ash receive the Hitmon Pokémon that Goh did not choose as to trade it with Goh to have both registered to his Pokédex. This was a clear set up for Ash to obtain a Hitmonlee to match Goh's Hitmonchan and to advanced Goh's own goals, but it wasn't followed up on, with the excuse that Ash would need to heal Farfetch'd and Riolu after their loss to Bea being mitigated by the Karate Master requiring the same healing before his own match with Goh.
- The whole idea of Ash finally catching some Pokémon that aren't of the current generation appeared to have been dropped completely after obtaining Dragonite (JN010), Gengar (JN016), and Riolu (JN021), which were all fairly early in the series... until it turned out that, once again, Ash wasn't going to catch any more five Pokémon to complement Pikachu, with the remaining two being Galarian Farfetch'd and Dracovish, and that these would be his last captures full stop with his protagonist retirement at the end of Journeys.
- JN001 started off with the neat idea of finally showing the backstory of Ash's Pikachu where it was a Pichu that was adopted into a Kangaskhan family. 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 fact that Pikachu's adoptive family never reappears in the present of any episodes in Journeys for a potential family reunion doesn't help either.
- JN003 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.
- JN037 serves as the Alolan reunion episode, which was well-received for the most part. However, many fans complained that Chloe didn't get to enjoy it or that it was just one episode with the only reason Ash and Goh are getting there are for an Alolan Exeggutor. Ash being the Alola League Champion isn't even brought up.
- While Wallace's appearance in JN105 was generally well received for being pretty funny, some fans inevitably wished that his battle with Ash had actually been it's own episode as part of the World Coronation Series, especially given the lack of Hoenn representation in the PWC, and Journeys in general, thus far.
- Ash has never been addressed as the Champion of Alola during the World Coronation Series, to the displeasure of fans. Many fans were delighted for Ash to have finally won a regional tournament and become a champion, but were rather disappointed when this was never brought up, especially during the battle against Iris as Unova Champion, the first Alola revisit, and his introduction to the Masters Eight.
- Despite Pokémon Sword and Shield being part of the latest generation going on at the same time as Journeys, there's a lot of fans out there who feel that the Galar region was severely under-represented.
- JN042 to JN045 for example serves as a 4-part adaptation of games' Darkest Day storyline, which left some fans disappointed that it wasn't going to be a straighter adaptation of the game's plot. Especially given that it takes a few elements (most notably the Tournament Arc-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 when previous arcs based on the game plots tended to last an entire season.
- While most Sword and Shield fans were willing to accept Ash not battling all of the Galar Gym Leaders given the world tournament format, they've been far less forgiving over the fact that as of the time of Ash's battle against Raihan, a grand total of half of them (Milo, Kabu, Gordie, Melony and Nessa) hadn't appeared in the anime AT ALL, and the odds of them each getting a focus episode looking increasingly unlikely given the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet fast approaching, basically bringing the long-standing concerns of Galar being under-focused compared to the previous regions to a boiling point. Kabu finally does get to appear in the anime in Pokémon Horizons: The Series...which started airing after Ash retired as protagonist.
- The same went for Generation VIII Pokémon. As of JN115, around 30 Galar Pokémon - roughly a third of those introduced in the generation - have yet to make any appearance at all, with many of those who do make appearances relegated to background cameos, and that's not mentioning the Hisuian Pokémon from Pokémon Legends: Arceus that hadn't been announced prior to the four-episode special.
- The various mechanics of the previous three series are all featured in the series by Ash and others to much fan interest and excitement, but also a variety of issues held by many fans in regards to their implementation.
- Dynamax and Gigantamax, the feature mechanic of the eight generation, is notably rarely featured and is seen as being Out of Focus by many. For perspective, Netflix's first six batches of episodes, only the first, second, and fourth batches feature the mechanic being used. Many fans wish that Dynamax was more frequently used.
- While Ash's battle with Bea featuring Mega Lucario was well received by fans, many fans feel like Journeys could have done a lot more to build up Ash's interest in obtaining Mega Evolution, as many perceive him as having decided to seek it out on a whim instead of tying it in more directly into his rivalry with Bea or the World Coronation Series in general. Many fans were also disappointed at the lack of a arc of mastering the power akin to Korrina's own arc, feeling like the series could have used a training arc in general and a call back to Korrina's own arc would have been a good way of including it.
- Z-Moves are in a similar but less extreme version of the boat Mega Evolution is: while fans were happy to see them back, fans perceived Ash's return to them being done entirely based on an off screen whim instead of him deciding to bring it back for an explicit reason, and these fans point towards the preceding episode to the Volkner fight where Z-moves were heavily featured as a perfectly good place for Ash to make the decision to use his Z-ring in the World Coronation Series instead of just having him wearing it the following episode with no explanation to his thought process of doing so.
- Ash's participation in the World Coronation Series. It's pretty much a universal agreement that Journeys only scratched the surface at showing off the potential that such a massive global tournament had.
- Ash just straight up not using any of his Pokémon reserves from all his previous regional journeys for this tournament is viewed as a huge missed opportunity as it would have fit in with the whole idea of Journeys showing off the many different regions of the world by utilizing Ash's large variety of Pokémon from Gen I to VII. It particularly ticked people off when his Infernape was hyped up for a return in JN068, yet it ended up being just a one-off appearance to briefly fight a wild Moltres.
- JN051 had the Great Class Still Image Montage
◊; a brief image at the start of the episode that was supposed to show that Ash had already ascended through the World Coronation ranks due to many offscreen battles. Very few fans found this a satisfying means of having Ash's rank rise, and was widely seen as the writers coming up with an excuse to avoid showing several minor Ash battles. - JN065 had the Upcoming Opponents Silhouette◊. The front two are really obvious being Volkner (far left) and Bea (far right). Both of which Ash does get to have World Coronation battles with. However, the 3 trainers in the back are left a complete mystery by the time Ash makes it into the Masters Eight, which has left some fans feeling jipped that they went about theorizing who the 3 mystery trainers are for nothing.
- While the global tournament was well received for appearing as Ash's greatest challenge yet, by the time of the Masters Eight it became disappointing for a number of fans that all of Ash's major battles except for one, were against either Fighting, Electric or Dragon specialists (specifically 2 Electric, 4 Fighting, and 3 Dragon), alongside an inherited tendency from Sun and Moon for mirror matches between Ash's final Pokémon against his opponent's, either in mechanic or type. This made it feel like less of a world tournament when Ash faced less types than a standard Gym challenge.
- Adding on to the previous point, the actual line-up of characters Ash battled in the world Championships left much to be desired for many fans. From the Normal and Great classes, Ash battled a total of two characters from previous series (Korrina and Iris) and one Sword and Shield Gym Leader (Bea), with most of his other matches (Half of them being brief 1v1 battles) being against characters of the day. The Ultra class followed with only 5 matches, being Volkner, Bea again, Marnie, Drasna and Raihan. Long time fans that were hoping for Ash to have rematches with characters from past series that he'd never beaten before, such as his previous league rivals (Sans Alain, who made it to the Masters 8) and old elite four members were less than pleased that all of his opponents from old series were characters he'd already won against before, while fans of Sword and Shield were disappointed that only three out of a total of TEN of the Galar Gym leaders and one out of three rival characters from the games made the cut, making Journeys the first time since Kanto Ash didn't battle at least a whole 8 of the gym leaders from the concurrent generation's new region. And on top of all that, none of Ash's opponents even included game-originating characters from Johto, Hoenn, Alola or even KANTO of all regions. All in all, by the time Ash finally entered the Master Class, a sizeable portion of the fandom were left feeling underwhelmed by the execution of the tournament, feeling that it did a poor job living up to it's premise as a world-spanning tournament.
- No matter how the die is tossed, many felt that a standard tournament format for the Masters 8 was going to end up leaving many potentially interesting battles wasted. The marketing preview of the Masters 8's first battles had already gotten some flack for having Alain and Leon battle in the first round, which means Alain and Ash won't have the highly-desired rematch as Leon is guaranteed to stay undefeated until he battles Ash. Many viewers also find Steven Stone to be an odd choice for Ash's first battle as they barely have any interactions and the battle won't carry much weight to it. There are also those who believe that no matter what the matchups are, there will be interesting battles with Ash that will be left unexplored. An example is Lance, who was thought to be one of his possible opponents.
- Chloe's storyline is filled with a lot of missed potential.
- Despite being her father's Pokemon, Yamper showed a strong bond and loyalty with Chloe to the point of only accepting battle commands from her. After Yamper helps find Eevee in (JN049), he gets no focus for another 60 episodes. This is even more baffling because it was Yamper who played a key role in helping Chloe get over her initial ambivalence of Pokémon.
- The 55th episode is set up to look as if Chloe would catch a Galarian Ponyta she meets in Glimwood Tangle, but it runs away back to the forest with only a passing mention by Opal thirty episodes later.
- Once Chloe obtained Eevee, any focus on her development and goal in life was lost in favor of developing her Eevee that's struggling to decide what to evolve into. Even the ending of her goal seemed more like a simplistic learning more on evolution.
- JN087 is an episode that mostly centers around Chloe interacting with a One-Shot Character who owns a Glaceon. Some people were left disappointed that May was not brought back considering that she herself has a Glaceon.note
- While Serena's return in JN105 was well-received, many fans were hopeful she would get another appearance where she would compete in a contest against Dawn, which had long been one of the biggest fan-requests. They never ended up meeting, as that episode ended up being Serena's only speaking appearance in Journeys
- Also, while they literally see each other and likely later learned each other's names, Serena never interacted with Goh due to how the episode was structured and it being her only major appearance, which some fans lamented could have been a cool exploration of how people look up to Ash differently.
- The show later avoided doing this again by briefly showing Goh and Misty interacting after he had parted ways with Ash and to tease her upcoming reunion with him, but this only made the above sting more to some that it didn't get rectified like that.
- Also, while they literally see each other and likely later learned each other's names, Serena never interacted with Goh due to how the episode was structured and it being her only major appearance, which some fans lamented could have been a cool exploration of how people look up to Ash differently.
- The Hisui arc could've been a cool way to integrate the old regional forms into some of the characters, such as giving Dawn a Hisuian Typholosion which would've been a major Throw the Dog a Bone for someone who has made no progress in her interims. Or give Ash a Hisuian Samurott which would've resolved the issue of Ash's many underwhelming Pokémon in Unova. Or better yet they could’ve given Ash a Hisuian Zoroark which would’ve been Fandom Rejoicing to see Ash finally catch a Zoroark. Ultimately the promotion for Pokémon Legends: Arceus was done in a four-part special with little continuity to the main series, the only Hisuian Pokémon that appeared were Wyrdeer, Basculegion, Braviary and Growlithe - notably all four of which were revealed in the same prerelease trailer - and only in a fantasy scene with no indication that Hisuian forms still existed in the present day.
- When it came time for Ash's final match in The Masters Eight Tournament, the only people who came to see him were Dawn and Chloe, as Goh had already left for Project Mew, with none of his other previous companions coming to watch, instead watching the event on live TV through silent cameos. It would have been the perfect opportunity to get them all under one roof and wrap things up for all of them, especially considering that this would be Ash's final big match before his retirement as the lead. Instead, their cameos are brief, far away from their friend, and (except Misty, Brock, Cilan, and Tracey) their final appearances in the anime ever.
- At its core, Aim To Be A Pokémon had everything it needed to be the ultimate send-off to Ash as the lead protagonist: Brock and Misty would rejoin him on his travels, he would start bringing back all of his old Pokémon after years of them sitting at Oak's Lab, and he would go about seeing the world fresh off his victory against Leon and becoming World Monarch. However, none of this farewell was followed up in a way that satisfied fans; much of the show dedicated itself to being a throwback to The Original Series by mostly being Filler episodes designed to tonally and spiritually homage the first few seasons and little else. By the end of it, Ash only got to reunite with Squirtle and Lapras while only adding Pidgeot back to his team and no one else (not even Primeape, who hadn't been seen outside of flashbacks for 25 years), many of said Pokémon who did come back got little to do aside from being involved in the plot of the various episodes, Ash never got to reunite with any of his other companions besides Cilan and Tracey, any potential follow through of him and Misty or Serena taking up a relationship that was previously teased never happened, and even the split-up of Team Rocket was undone within a few episodes, leaving them to continue following him until the end of time rather than Ash finally defeating Giovanni and disbanding the group for good. Worst yet, the series ends with Ash not becoming a Pokémon Master like the title implied, let alone rarely being acknowledged as the World Monarch, leaving things far too open ended for what was supposed to be his farewell. While it's likely that there are plans for Ash's story to continue—either as a movienote or to have him guest star on Pokémon Horizons: The Series—the end result left fans disappointed that, unlike other "farewells" such as Star Trek: Picard Season 3 or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, he wasn't given proper closure.
- Team Rocket in particular is a major sticking note. In Episode 9, they get into a major fight and break up, left working a menial cafeteria job that's taking a toll on them. You would think after so long, this would be the tipping point that convinces them, "Hey, it's not worth stealing Pikachu when all it's done is make you so miserable", right? Nope! They get back together again two episodes later, deciding it's worth trying to take Pikachu even if they never succeed. Naturally, fans weren't happy that the infamous trio never learned their lesson that Being Evil Sucks, and would rather waste their lives in this endless game of chase than truly accomplish something meaningful.
