Heh, I forgot how terrible the Johto seasons were

[precita]

I originally stopped watching the anime back in 2001 I believe, a little after Ash let Charizard go in the valley. I caught the show on and off after that, only hoping to see Ash beat Gary in the league.

So after nearly a decade I decide to rewatch the show. I loved Kanto, and Orange Islands was OK.

Then I get to Johto, and while it starts out decently enough...this season goes to hell very fast. I now remember why I stopped watching in the first place:

- Ash, Misty and Brock no longer have any chemistry together. I guess the break in Orange Islands made the writers forget what made the original trio good, because they were so bland and boring together in Johto. Misty and Brock don't even have that good friendship anymore, and the Ash/Misty dynamic is dead.

- Speaking of Misty, she has very little, if any, personality in this season. What happened to the loud-mouth tomboy who used to smack people? In Johto she's like some dainty little mother who holds Togepi and does absolutely nothing in most episodes. You couldn't even hope for Misty to battle because she hardly has any battles whatsoever. She's just boring in general, this must be the reason the writers got rid of her all those years ago.

- Ash's Johto team sucks. Whatever compelled the writers to give Ash a bunch of weak Pokemon and not evolve any of them is beyond me. Bayleef was his sole evo for all the saga, and the rest of his pokemon either don't evolve or were sent off. This team was crap compared to his classic Kanto one.

- The fillers, good god are they terrible! Almost every episode has the same boring plot of Team Rocket stealing Pikachu. Misty and Brock stand in the background like zombies and Ash just talks with a boring Johto filler character about their problems.

- Little to no Gary. No joke, Gary only appears in 3 episodes prior to the league over the entire 150 episode span of Johto

- The Gym battles are hit or miss. While I loved Falkner or Claire's Gym, the ones in the middle were really dull. Shame because I like the Johto Gym leaders themselves.

- No GS ball plot resolution. What a way to crap on a storyline, (and yes I know it was intended to be Celebi)

- Charizard and Squirtle get dropped. They should have either dropped all the Kanto pokes right away or not do it at all.


Overall I'd give Johto a 6/10 rating at best. I now remember why so many people lost interest and stopped watching the show when Johto was airing back in 2001-2002. It does have some good episodes, but the majority of it is either boring or crap.

[Blademaster]

Now for Hard Mode: Watch Hoenn.

(Spoiler:) WITHOUT putting a gun in your mouth.

[DarkestLight]

The only good Johto ep was Heracross vs Scyther. That's IT!

[CaptainJigglypuff]

Well the episodes where Ash battles Harrison and Gary during the Johto League were pretty good to. Although I do not understand why they clearly pronounced Misdreavus differently in this season than the others and I think Misdreavus appeared in one more episode before the voice changes.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Hoenn was overrated. Hanada Tattsu and others were praising the season 'just like Kanto' but I was disappointed. Although I wasn't in a good mental condition myself when watching Hoenn from TV...

Hey have I said this before?

YES

Anyways, Misty reached her peak of beauty before she got Togepi. The episodes weren't in the correct order due to the Porygon 'incident', but Princess VS Princess was the ultimate MISTY climax. The downhill began when Togepi appeared as it sucked Misty's energy and prevented her own beauty from evolving to the woman we all wanted. That's why we have Dawn now. Don't say Iris, I haven't watched Best Wishes! enough as of yet.

Härregud! Did I just write all that!

[classy_cat18]

- Ash's Johto team sucks. Whatever compelled the writers to give Ash a bunch of weak Pokemon and not evolve any of them is beyond me. Bayleef was his sole evo for all the saga, and the rest of his pokemon either don't evolve or were sent off. This team was crap compared to his classic Kanto one.

Um...they were following the same formula for Kanto. The majority of the Kanto Pokemon either stayed unevolved, were caught after they evolved, or took them a while to evolve.

The Johto team was actually pretty good, especially since hardly any of them evolved. They were portraying them as Pintsized Powerhouses. If all of them evolved, it wouldn't really make them much different than teams that most people would have in the games. Heracross didn't get as many wins as I had hoped but he was the reason why Heracross is one of my favorite Pokemon to train. I also liked that he was able to catch a Shiny Noctowl (a way to introduce the concept of Shiny Pokemon) in this season. Oh, and Cyndaquil eventually did get to evolve even though he didn't do so until Sinnoh.

- The fillers, good god are they terrible! Almost every episode has the same boring plot of Team Rocket stealing Pikachu. Misty and Brock stand in the background like zombies and Ash just talks with a boring Johto filler character about their problems.

Wired for Battle, the Eeveelution sisters, the episodes featuring Lavitar, Lapras' episode, the Mewtwo episodes...they actually had quite a few good non-gym battle episodes.

- Little to no Gary. No joke, Gary only appears in 3 episodes prior to the league over the entire 150 episode span of Johto

Gary was doing his own thing. Plus I liked seeing less of him after all those scenes of him in Kanto being a jerk.

- The Gym battles are hit or miss. While I loved Falkner or Claire's Gym, the ones in the middle were really dull. Shame because I like the Johto Gym leaders themselves.

Bugsy had a formidable METAPOD, Whitney had her powerful Miltank and unpredictable Clefairy, Bryce had that great battle between Pikachu and Piloswine.

- No GS ball plot resolution. What a way to crap on a storyline, (and yes I know it was intended to be Celebi)

Yeah, that part sucked.

- Charizard and Squirtle get dropped. They should have either dropped all the Kanto pokes right away or not do it at all.

Charizard and Squirtle probably couldn't get dropped right away because they were so popular. My theory is that they already had storylines planned for those two. They made future appearances, which wasn't bad. And you forgot to mention Bulbasaur and Brock's Vulpix.

Overall I'd give Johto a 6/10 rating at best. I now remember why so many people lost interest and stopped watching the show when Johto was airing back in 2001-2002. It does have some good episodes, but the majority of it is either boring or crap.

I stopped watching at the Battle Frontier. I couldn't take the voice changes. x.x

[Blademaster]

The only good Johto ep was Heracross vs Scyther. That's IT!

I thin you mean Heracross VS. Scizor, right? That early-ish episode where Ash and crew are hanging out at a dojo and the Scizor's trainer was an edgy teenager with 'I-go-on-4chan-therefore-I-know-everything.' mentality?

(Spoiler:) "Finish it off with FALSE SWIPE!"

[CaptainJigglypuff]

I just remembered that in the episode with all of the Dunsparce, the characters kept calling it a "Bug" type. And I mean ALL of them! Even Misty said that Dunsparce would be one "Bug type Pokemon" she wouldn't be afraid of. Anyone else remember this HUGE continuity error from that episode?

[Rossymore]

What? You expect 4Kids to actually KNOW the base material? Hah!

Though sometimes the animators do make their own goofs, letting normal moves hit ghost types, having Pokemon use moves they can't learn, etc. Somewhat minor stuff, but 4Kids very impressively took it and made it worse.

Hey, you know what Pokemon evolves into Seviper?

[BTPoke]

Hey, you know what Pokemon evolves into Seviper?

Well, obviously, it's arbok. Duh!

[Oslo]

Whitney had her powerful Miltank and unpredictable Clefairy

Don't forget her rough-and-tumble Nidorina!

...:|

44 Normals at the time and she whips out a Nidorina.

Nidorina.

Like, c'mon, Whit. Give us something to work with, girl.

[Chris 2.1]

For me, Johto's tiresome, painful, second-most-painful-thing-after-pregnancy was due to its length. There were some solid episodes, but because they were among so many awful episodes, they didn't really make much of a case. The Wobbufet trading episode, the episode where Chikorita evolves, the Ash VS Misty battle for Totodile, the gym matches (Ecruteak, Violet, Blackthorn). But it just wasn't consistent.

I think much of it came down to the fact the writers hadn't a clue what was going on. The middle saga (series 4?) feels incredibly lethargic and grim. But then, in later seasons (Sinnoh) there was an ungodly long gap between badges (about a year between badge 7 and 8). Still, with Dawn's sub-quest, something Johto didn't have, the writers were able to drag things along without anyone minding that much.

And Hoenn? I admit enjoying Hoenn mainly because it felt refreshing. But Gen 3 was always a hard sell; people weren't used to losing main characters like Misty (something we're all totally fine with, oh Iris are you leaving it's been nice knowing you etc etc) and there was a pretty strong backlash against the new Pokemon. One of the main things that I remember sucking was the animation; some episodes looked like they were assembled from the spit-dripping remnants of a dog chew-toy.

[Blademaster]

Don't forget her rough-and-tumble Nidorina!

...:|

44 Normals at the time and she whips out a Nidorina.

Nidorina.

Like, c'mon, Whit. Give us something to work with, girl.

My rationale for why that shit happened is that Whitney and her Gym were 'girly.' Pink hair, used a Miltank (always-female Pokemon) and a Clefairy (stuffed pink toy)... Nidorina's line was the only super-stand-out one back then in terms of you look at it and think "Yep, that's a female all right.".

[precita]

Now for Hard Mode: Watch Hoenn.

(Spoiler:) WITHOUT putting a gun in your mouth.

I'm halfway into Season 7 now, what consists of the, "Advance Challenge" season in the dub, and I actually don't mind Hoenn.

Ash actually has a brain this season, (OK he's still stupid, but he's smarter than he was in Kanto/Johto), May is a very refreshing change of pace from Misty, and the Contests have been a welcome surprise for the show.

I also really like the Pokemon on the group this region. Treecko and Corphish are awesome, and for once Ash doesn't get all the starters. I like May's Torchic and Beautfily and Jessie/James Seviper and Cacnea are great replacements for Arbok/Weezing.

From what I heard the Team Magma and Aqua arc is horrible, and I know Ash loses the league again like always, but its a vast improvement over Johto in every way. This is probably the same way most felt back in 2003 when it was originally airing.

After all, something had to convince the writers not to bother reuniting the original trio or returning Misty to the show. Otherwise we probably would have seen Misty return as soon as Hoenn ended, but I know she stays gone permanently for the entire rest of the anime.