The third season of the Pokémon anime, dubbed The Johto Journeys, marks a slightly different approach to the immensely popular TV show. The first two seasons, the Indigo League and Adventures in the Orange Islands, moved at a considerably quicker pace. There were occasional episodes that would ease off the gas and slow the plot down, but for the most part, it was a rapidly moving adventure for Ash and his friends, as he worked towards earning badges and onward to the championships of both regions. Each season encompassed one region's full story from beginning to end. Starting with the third season, we've now almost entirely pumped the breaks on that race to the region's championship, and stretched Ash's time in Johto out to cover three total seasons, with something like 150 episodes across those seasons.
The Johto Journeys covers the first leg of Ash's trek through the titular region, as he encounters many brand new Pokémon for the first time and battles the first two gym leaders in the Johto League. This is my personal favorite region in the entire franchise. Johto seems to be based on older, more traditional Japanese locales, as there are towns and regions that feel like they're straight out of Japanese history. I also adore the new Pokémon that are native to this region.
This season served largely as a reset for Ash and his team. Brock is back after briefly departing during Season 2, and his replacement, Tracey, now stays in Pallet Town as Professor Oak's assistant. The GS Ball story arch is also completely dropped and forgotten about during this season, which was an intentional move on the writers' part. That driving force and mystery was something that kept the viewers intrigued, and I think the writers probably thought that seeing a whole new set of Pokémon and a new region to explore would be enough to keep the viewers invested. For a child, this is probably true. Seeing wholly new Pokémon after years of seeing the original 151 was mind-blowing as a kid. As an adult who has watched quite a lot of Pokémon, I was enjoying a more focused macroplot beyond Ash's goal of winning yet another championship.
With Ash catching a whole new team of Pokémon, his old, trustworthy Pokémon are regularly being swapped out for their Johto counterparts. I think this has a practical effect of needing to wipe Ash's power level, as we see in one of the first episodes, his Charizard basically disintegrates a girl's Chikorita. They clearly needed to readjust Ash's Pokémon team back to a starting level team to be able to have him ascend through the gym battles again. Ash gets all three Johto starters over the course of the season and begins using them in place of his Kanto starters. Charizard is replaced by Cyndaquil (my personal favorite Fire starter) and actually leaves Ash for the next few years to live with other Charizards and be trained by an expert. Bulbasaur, who has really become Ash's most trustworthy Pokémon, (save for Pikachu, obviously) is swapped out for a spunky Chikorita. The most frustrating swap for me was Ash getting rid of his Squirtle so that it can go become a firefighter. It was replaced by Totodile, who I like, but he's no Squirtle. I'm just beyond tired of Ash constantly getting rid of his loyal Pokemon. Speaking of loyal, I want to give a shout-out to the real MVP of Ash's team in this season - Heracross. That guy saves Ash's hide more times than you can count.
Misty also gets a new Pokémon, in that her Poliwag evolves into Poliwhirl. Brock also catches a Pineco, which is one of my favorite second generation Pokémon; though Brock's is more of a comic relief addition, as it kills itself with Explosion literally every time that he uses it.
Like with the prior seasons, Johto Journeys is chock full of really fun, creative episodes. There are several memorable episodes that I enjoyed. There's an episode where a town's police force is locked in a game of cat and mouse with a thief and they use the spider Pokémon Spinarak lay a trap and catch him in an intricate web. It was so cool seeing a largely forgotten Pokémon utilized in such a unique, believable way. There's another neat episode where a man acts as a superhero for his town by dressing up like Gligar (a flying scorpion Pokémon) and battling evildoers. Obviously, there's the iconic episode where Ash sees and catches his first ever shiny Pokémon, Noctowl. I remember that episode being so cool to me as a kid. Seeing a shiny Pokémon still feels like some kind of miracle.
Ultimately, there just isn't all that much to say about The Johto Journeys. Seeing all of the new Pokémon is obviously noteworthy and cool, but this slower, more meandering pace results in a more drawn out plot. The stories of the individual episodes are still really fun, though again, I think the show feels a bit weaker without the GS Ball story pulling us along. Nonetheless, it's still a fun time, and worth a watch, especially if you're a Johto-head like me.
VERDICT: Recommended
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