I did the same as you. I've watched Pokémon since its release in the West but stopped after the voice cast was changed here in Brazil in the transition between the second and the third XY season in 2016.
Some years later, in 2021 I started watching everything again, since the beginning, up to the season I had dropped and onwards. I finished it all around early 2024.
It was definetly a fun ride overall. Pokémon was the cozy TV show I would turn on and get some 22 min of dopanine while having dinner or launch. I remember I would generally watch 3 episodes per day. Some parts of the show was a little bit hard to endure, though. The Johto episodes are infame for a reason. The episodes got too formulaic at some point and nothing really exciting happened for a great streach of episodes. The Best Whish episodes were the worst in my opinion. The change in Team Rocket's personallity was extremelly annoying to me, Ash's party wasn't interesting and the League Arc was pathetic. Things got better only during the Decolora season. And, although I liked Sun/Moon season, I felt that the Ash staying in one local instead of going on a journey through a whole region, going from town to town was a better formula for the anime. At least, the setting was consistent, the Alola region, the islands, the culture and citizen of the region... Journey takes the premisse of Sun/Moon anime and makes it worse. I really hated how all the Pokémon World was depicted in the Journey seasons. Until very recently, the Pokémon World was like a fantastic world that had parallels with ours but with its own quirks. For example, we had Pokéballs, which from our world's perspective is a high-tech sci-fi extraordinary product, and in the Pokémon World, that is just an ordinary daily object. Cellphones, internet and other stuff, on the other hand, was no where to be seen on the Pokémon world. The Pokémon World itself used to be less integrated and, thus, mysteryous and impressive. Remember when people from a region would react impressive to a Pokémon from another region? Remember that going to another region would mean an exciting travel? It started in XY but by Journeys, the Pokémon World got too much globalized to me, with everyone knowing about everything (Pokemon, regions) from other places and traveling with ease between regions. Funnily enough, by the time of Journey, I really missed the vibes from Johto filler episodes. Yeah, I think that I may dislike Journeys even more than Best Wishes
The transformation of the Pokémon World in a "real world but with Pokémon" have been happening in most recent games, unfortunately. I mean, people taking selfies with a rotom-phone, characters who are streamers... The fantastic elemet of the Pokémon world have been lost in my opinion.
Well, but after so much negative comments, it's fair to highlight the positives. I really enjoy the first season, the Indigo League. The humour is sharp and smart, the original trio worked very well together, the elements of the Pokémon World was fresh and interesting, the league was awsome, very few boring episodes. The Orange League I used to like better when I watched it when I was younger, but I still find it almost at the same level of the Indigo Season. Despite having talked bad of Johto, I still like it overall. And the Advance and Diamond/Pearl were a delight in my opinion. People tend to prefere the Diamond/Pearl series more, but I prefer the Advance series, though. I think the Diamond/Pearl episodes sometimes take them too seriously, like the whole plot involving the Team Galatic (the same problem I had with Team Plasma and Team Rocket in Unova).
Yeah, I think that for me, Pokémon was a 9/10 from first until the last season of Diamond/Pearl. After that it was a 7/10, with the best moments being the X/Y and Sun/Moon seasons and the Coronation Tournament leading to Ash winning the whole thing. And although not very exciting, I quite enjoyed the final 13 episodes with Ash, Misty and Brock again reunited.
To finish things up, I'm just gonna say It's a shame we didn't have a proper return of May and Max during Journeys. I know May's Japanese voice actor have health problems that prevents her to voice May, but, still...
Last edited by CourageTCD - on 29 October 2025
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