YMMV / The Road to be a Pokemon Master

• Broken Base:
  • The story's treatment of Misty. There are those who don't mind, and there are those who are turned off by it, feeling like the author is bashing her. Amusingly, the author hadn't believed he was bashing Misty, and actually lists her as one of his favorite characters from the anime.
  • Johto chapter 16: either you agree with Gary completely, you think he was completely out of line, or you think Gary had a point but delivered it wrong. No consensus, and a lot of strong opinions.
  • Johto chapter 35: Easily one of the most divisive chapters yet. Many readers felt that the whole Macy/Ash/Serena Love Triangle was pointless and contributed to nothing. Some feel Ash should have been firm with Macy from the start and told her straight up to go away instead of being a doormat and letting her be mean to everyone. Others feel his reactions were realistic but that he unfairly blamed Serena for part of it, despite knowing that Serena's anger was completely justified, considering the way Macy treated her the whole time. Others feel that Serena could have handled things better on her end, but many agree that Fanatic shouldn't have tried to portray Serena's concerns about Macy as just her being petty and jealous and have everyone jump on her about it when her concerns were completely valid. Nobody even tried to console her or support her through it, which most reviewers feel should have happened.
• Even Better Sequel: The Kanto and Orange Islands Arcs had a pretty good reception, however, the Johto Arc blows them out of the water.
• Funny Moments: The Running Gag where every single Mudkip that May encounters fires Water Gun at her face. Even a freshly hatched baby Mudkip gets in on it!
• Heartwarming Moments: Any time the story focuses on Ash and Serena's relationship. Underscored by how much of a woobie both of them are in this story.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One major Canon Foreigner in the fic is Ash's Dragonite. Come the Sword & Shield anime, Ash has caught a Dragonite in-canon.
  • Sword & Shield continues this trend by having Ash catch a Gengar.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The Spearow who attacked Ash and Serena at the beginning of the story, which later returns as a Fearow. It's an extremely miserable bird who just wants have friends and somebody to love. It has its wish granted when Serena offers to be its trainer.
  • The Team Rocket Trio are also this in Johto. They might still be villains, but after going from one hardship to another, you'd wish something good happened to them.
• Moment of Awesome: Ash winning the Silver Conference. Because you know you wanted to see it happening.
• The Scrappy: Macy is universally hated by fans of this fic, mostly because she's an annoying Clingy Jealous Girl who constantly harasses Serena, acts like a complete brat to everyone, is constantly going after Ash despite knowing he has a girlfriend, and is poorly written in general. She does get better over the course of the fic, but some feel she was too Easily Forgiven.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Ash's Chikorita ends hooking up with his Totodile.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The GS Ball finally opening in Johto chapter 59, revealing Celebi inside. And then Giovanni shows up and catches it with a Master Ball.
  • Topped by Chapter 65 in which Ho-Oh tells Ash that Serena will turn evil and cause The End of the World as We Know It.
• Unexpected Character:
  • According to the reviews, absolutely nobody expected Archie, Shelly and Maxie to show up in the Whirl Islands.
  • Out of all the Pokémon Fanatic could have chosen for Silver, no one expected a Shuckle. In the same vein no one expected it to be so brutal as a battler.
  • The mysterious and dangerous individual Red is investigating in Kalos? Tobias. Yeah, absolutely nobody saw that coming.
  • Many readers were surprised to see Clemont and Bonnie in Mauville City working for Wattson.
  • A lot of readers were also surprised to see that Flannery owned a Fletchinder.
• The Woobie: Poor, poor Ash and Serena. Between drama related to their respective families, becoming the target of a criminal syndicate, becing close to lose their lives multiple times, their own Pokemon going through quite a lot of hardships, being haunted by visions of horrible futures (especially Serena), and supernatural powers that they are more of a hassle than an asset due their inability to control them...well, it's a good thing they do have each other. And THEN The Reveal of Chapter 65 happens in which Ash learns that Serena is the reincarnation of an ancient king that tried to destroy humanity centuries ago, and she's destined to finish his job.
  • May becomes one in Hoenn chapter 19. Harley pretends to be nice to her as a way to manipulate her into trusting him, teaches her a Pokemon contest trick, then outright plagiarizes it for his own use. Later, when May attempts to pull off her own performance, Dustox's Gust attack isn't able to get the String Shot artwork off the wall, and the whole thing blows up in her face. It's really sad to see her so downtrodden after what she went through, and Drew's well meaning but terse and blunt advice only makes her feel worse about herself.