Well now-a-days I feel like I'm as closer than ever to a full recovery, though I won't say I'm fully/100% recovered from the issues I had. My doctor advised me to continue the rigorous medicational course I was on, which likely indicates that it'll still take some more time before I can call myself fully recovered.
Yeah Journeys honestly had all the necessary elementary aspects to become an upgraded version of Battle Frontier and a fitting closure to Ash's journey/story, but the writers didn't quite properly utilize this opportunity to the fullest as some of the writing choices/direction in the series were quite questionable. I'll have to disagree regarding Lucario though, because Lucario is a Pokemon that suits Ash's battling style extremely well, plus with Ash's unique aura abilities been shown in the anime multiple times it makes perfect sense to have a Lucario which is a Pokemon so heavily associated with aura (a reason why you can see countless Pokemon fanfics had Ash with a Lucario before Ash legimately got it). Giving Ash a Lucario one of the few writing choices that Journeys got right IMO. Though I do agree with idea that bringing back one of the Lucario/its evolutionary line Ash had bonded with previously would've been better than giving Ash a new Lucario....but I'd rather have that Aura Sphere Riolu Ash bonded with back in Sinnoh come back to join Ash's team and have it evolve rather than a reincarnation of the movie Lucario. I agree with most of the rest of your points like having Sabrina's Haunter coming back to Ash and evolving, plus giving Ash a Dragonite wasn't really necessary when he already has Charizard, a Pokemon lot similar species wise; having Larvitar come back as Tyranitar instead of that would have been a very unique idea, but I'd rather instead have Ash's Gible come back and evolve all the way to a Garchomp TBH....when Ash already has a Pokemon of the evolutionary line of a pseudo, bringing it back is better than bringing back a Pokemon Ash has bonded with before IMO. Gible was a late capture in DP with a lot of potential who deserved to return and get some good development under its belt in a latter saga, like how Phanpy ---> Donphan happened in BF. I was OK with Sirfetch'd and Dracovish though......after all Ash needs to have some Pokemon that are of the current generation.
I genuinely do feel like Journeys could have done better in several aspects, some of the previous character/Pokemon returns weren't really satisfactory, like Infernape's return amounted to pretty much nothing, same goes with Serena like you said, (I mean why on earth would they focus the entire episode on Serena interacting with Chloe whilst having Ash interacting with her for a mere 30 seconds), none of Dawn's multiple returns were that memorable or fruitful either. A few character/Pokemon returns however were pretty memorable like with Greninja, its return was very memorable & significant for the most part with how much of a part it played in Lucario's training & development, they at least made Greninja return like a badass with how it beat the crap out of Lucario in a sparring battle unlike Infernape who did nothing on its return other than getting overpowered by a wild Moltres. As a XY fan myself it was very satisfactory to see Greninja play such a strong role in Lucario's training and development, the Pokemon which went on to became Ash's overall most consistent ace, going on to have astounding feats like beating Raihan's Gigantamax Duraludon without Mega Evolution, defeating Cynthia's Dynamax Togekiss and Garchomp back to back etc. But one thing that bugged me a little there that how the Greninja episode pretented that the Ash-Greninja form never existed, I know that they were trying to make a reference to the games where the Ash-Greninja form didn't exist anymore, but since in the anime Greninja's battling and development were so heavily associated with Ash-Greninja back in XY, the Greninja return episode pretending that the form never existed felt quite weird. I mean that Mega Evolution and Z-moves also doesn't exist in Gen 8 but the anime showed both of them multiple times in Journeys, so I don't see why the same can't be done with Ash-Greninja too.
Paul's return also likewise was pretty satisfactory with him and Ash having a fairly good battle where we got to see some of Paul's new powerhouses. For Iris, while it was cool to see her return as a Champion and having her Axew finally fully evolved into a Haxorus (which was its goal), it felt like that the writers just left too much to happen off-screen...the last time we saw Iris before, she couldn't even defeat Claire and now she returns directly as a Champion who is capable of giving Cynthia a close fight, I felt like there should have been at least a special or something like that which showed how Iris gradually rose up the ranks to become a Champion prior to her reappearance in Journeys to make it more believable. Definitely agree with the part than there should have been more full battles; I mean the Master 8 is such a high-profile tournament with world's best 8 trainers competing, there should have been no place for 3 on 3 battles there...it should have been an all full-battle tournament. I also wanted an Ash vs Alain rematch, Alain is someone whom Ash never beat despite battling him multiple times so having a re-match where Ash finally defeats him and his Mega Charizard X makes a lot of sense; instead the writers have him battle Leon and get destroyed by the latter. If Ash can have a rematch with Volkner, Iris and Paul, they I see no reason why Alain didn't have a rematch with Ash as well.
Honestly, power scaling became really tricky after the inconsistent power levels portrayed throughout Journeys. Now-a-days it's more reasonable to assume that Pokemon win/lose battles according to what the plot demands for them to do. It's extremely hard to try and make sense of the inconsistent power levels of Journeys....like the Ash vs Iris battle was a solid example of how power levels of Pokemon can fluctuate even within the same battle lol. Even Lucario, who had such a consistent record in battles throughout (IIRC after its evolution it never went down without taking out two oppenent Pokemon alongside him before the final Leon battle) also got nerfed in the final battle against Leon where it surprisingly could take out only 1 Pokemon before losing to Dragapult, something which is quite unexpected after its insane feat against Cynthia. Throughout most of the series Pikachu battle record was good without being outstanding but when it came to the Masters 8, the writers just insanely glorified Pikachu. Obviously Pikachu as Ash's main ace is expected to pull off great feats when it comes to the big tournaments, but in the Master 8 the writers just made Pikachu abnormally good. Part of that was kind of justified by Pikachu having access to an extraordinarily strong gimmick in 10 Million Volt Thunderbolt but in the final battle Pikachu's resistance and viability was DEM levels, like how can Pikachu after taking so much damage from Gigantamax Charizard and Cinderace earlier on still take on and defeat Leon's Charizard from there, who was relatively much less damaged + fresher than Pikachu.....it looked pretty absurd TBH. Anyways, if we still have to make a proper tier list of Ash's Pokemon strength wise, then it's more than obvious that the #1 and 2# spots are sealed for Pikachu and Lucario respectively, it only after that the other Ash's Pokemon come to consideration. His whole Journeys team was probably astoundingly overpowered compared to most of his other Pokemon, I mean...all of them have multple wins against Elite Four members and Champions who were depicted as nearly unbeatable entities the anime prior to Journeys, henceforth I'm not quite sure whether the likes of Charizard, Sceptile and Infernape still come into Ash's top five....only current Greninja could come into consideration as it was shown to have gotten way stronger, effortlessly beating the crap of Lucario that already had feats like taking down two of Volkner and Bea's Pokemon, plus with how insanely strong Lucario got after it's training with Greninja, I think that also indirectly refers to Greninja's strength. Plus due the fact that Ash even after becoming the Champion/Monarch still lost a battle to Misty afterwards with his Corphish (a Pokemon with decent enough battle experience), we can't automatically assume that the rest of Ash's Pokemon have been automatically upgraded to E4/Champion level as well, or that Ash's E4/Champion defeating skills automatically upgrades the rest of his Pokemon to the level of his overpowered Journeys team.
I guess my reply has become a bit too long by now.....so I won't make it even more longer, just want to point out a couple of things more before ending my reply....that I'm not a fan of the Gen 9 gimmick of Terastal Phenomenon, a main reason why I haven't started watching the Horizons series yet. Mega Evolution, Z-moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax were all cool gimmicks with each of them providing new & unique concepts of adding a boost to Pokemon, but Terastallization? Meh, it isn't even a boost/power up, just a mere interchanging of the types of the Pokemon, something which can be even done by certain abilities like Protean or Libero....so it doesn't offer anything new or unique concept wise. I see on your list that you have been watching the Horizons series....so I'd like to know your opinion on the series so far if you don't mind, whether you think it's worth watching or not.
As I am typing this reply, I've finished watching Journeys and currently watching Ultimate Journeys.
Well obviously Ash's reserves being reintroduced/getting some focus would've been better, but some captures in Journeys like Lucario got me quite elated TBH. Lucario is a Pokemon a huge portion of the Pokeanime fan base wanted Ash to catch for a long time, especially with Ash's special aura abilities being shown in the anime multiple times like in M08 and with that Aura Sphere Riolu back in Sinnoh.....plus it's a Pokemon that suits Ash's battling style so well. Before Journeys, it seemed that the idea of Ash having a Lucario would remain confined only to fanfics...But Journeys made that dream come true. Overall, Journeys was quite a mixed bag for me though, while there are certain things I really liked about it like it's strong continuity to the past series, bringing back many previous characters + the battles, there were certain aspects I really hated as well like it's terrible sleep inducing fillers (even in between the Master 8 tournament, the series crammed in ridiculously boring and unnecessary fillers, like after the completion of the first round, the series had 3 consecutive fillers crammed in). In between the intensity and tension of the Master 8, those fillers just totally ruins the watching momentum. Apart from that, the Masters 8 battles were super cool, being really well thought out and having thorough intensity throughout, but still one thing bugged me thst Ash didn't use any reserves. I mean that the Master 8 is the biggest and most high-profile tournament in Ash's journey as a Pokemon trainer, it'd make perfect sense for Ash to use all of his Pokemon there and not just his Journeys team. Maybe in the final battle a.k.a. Ash vs Leon, Ash using his Journeys team makes sense, but these is really no excuse for him to not use his reserves in the earlier rounds. Journeys overall had so much continuity otherwise, so many previous characters and Pokemon reappeared, but for no reason Ash didn't use any reserves at the Master 8 and stuck to only his Journeys team.
Overall, I had a love hate relationship with Journeys, and rated the series a 7/10. If was being completely honest, I would have given it a 6/10, but I gave it 1 point extra since that series got me out of my anime slumber.
Recently I was involved in some interesting debates in the Versus thread TBH, and several of those debates involved Ash's Lucario, Leon's Charizard, JN Paul, etc etc. Though now-a-days the amount of posts in that section are far less in comparison to what it used to be back during those days, there are still some people who are interested in debating hypothetical matchups and the strength of various Pokemon.
I see, cool. Demon Slayer is one of my favourite battle-shounens, I even used to have it in my Top 10 anime at one point. The visuals/animation of that series it totally on another level, and I still do remember episode 19 of the first season had me literally screaming in excitement whilst watching it. The characters/story aren't anything too unique and like a standard battle-shounen, but they are still solid in their own way. I hope you enjoy watching that series. :)
Well as you're saying this, the situation has changed over time. I have resumed watching Journeys again and have made a return to PAD. I've currently watched up to the part where Ash finally defeats Bea in their third battle.
TBH even though most of the previous users who were active back during those days are now either inactive or banned, a few users like Pokegirl Fan, ShadowForce720, AuraChannelerChris, 1rkhachatryan, PokemonBattleFanatic, etc are still active around there.
A rather odd question, would you have gone back to SPPF, more specifically PAD now-a-days if you could? I myself now-a-days really do feel like going back there and post again but sadly I can't as my knowledge/experience with the Pokemon anime is quite backdated (only seen upto 54 episodes of Journeys). The problems I have been suffering from since late 2021 has forced me to stop watching any anime since then + as you know, my problems generated from extensive engagement with online forums so obviously have to refrain from engaging too much in internet forums....pretty much the reasons I can't go back to PAD again even if I wanted do.
Being a regular member in SPPF at a point of time, do you also feel like going back there and post like me? I'm just genuinely curious to know.
Pretty much the same for me over the last 2 months or so haha, which is pretty obviously why my reply is also late lol.
I see, yeah I miss those days as well TBH, those days in SPPF were a nice break from reality. But well, life moves on of course. I kind of have somewhat of an idea of how life as a doctor can be since my younger sister (who is 6 years younger than me) in also currently in the final year of her MBBS course and hence pretty obviously would become a doctor very soon. For me though, the life as a patient still hasn't ended unfortunately, the anxiety issues + OCD I have still do persist to a notable extent, though comparatively much lesser and a lot more in control than what I had to endure back in late 2021 and most of 2022. It still takes a rigorous sedative medicational course to keep the psychological/anxiety problems in control. Might sound wierd, but these problems actually generated in me from online forums and anime watching. My doctor told me that it was too much engagement in internet forums + extensive anime watching which caused my anxiety disorder + OCD. Pretty obviously the reason why I was off this site for the entirety of 2022. From late 2022-2023 and onwands, I have been much better than before, gradually recovering from those issues with time. The problems still haven't receded totally but the intensity of them is much less than what was before. I have come back on here in 2023 occasionally from time to time with notable breaks in between but I've been nowhere nearly as active as I was previously before, pretty obviously cuz I couldn't afford to be given my condition. And....as you can see, I recently took a month and a half long break here which is why my reply is a month late.
Well, I guess went a bit too deep there regarding my problems....hope it wasn't too long. Patients with issues like me often do have a tendency of speaking elaborately about their problems with others, cuz it tends to make them feel better. :)
My anxiety issues were really that much strong to the point where psychiatric treatment was required, I tried general counselling but that didn't seem to work. For the last year or so, I have been consulting a psychiatrist whose medicational course has slowly made me recover to the point I am today (which is a whole lot compared to my previous condition). I have been taking that medicational course of 5 psychiatric sedatives a day for the entirety of 2022 to today, thanks to that I'm recovered a whole lot today (still a bit away from being 100% recovered though). Kinda hard to explain how terrible my condition was in late 2021 and the early half of 2022.
And the fact that I have been taking a break from watch anything anime/Pokemon related is because of those anxiety issues....like I didn't even have an option otherwise.
I will write an elaborate reply to all these soon enough, but knowing that you did become a doctor, what's your branch of specialization? If it happens to be Psychiatry that please do tell me lol.
Umm so you now admit that Navin and Dream Lad were the same guy? :P
Haha, anyways glad to hear from you after such a long time.
It was a long, big struggle for me with psychological & anxiety issues that kept me away from internet forums for so long.......bit tired to explain all that. But currently I'm a lot recovered from all that, though still not 100%.
IDK whether I'd ever come back fully....though I just felt like logging in here after an year. Not currently updated on anything anime related and I'm not even sure I'm going back to those stuff ever again.
All Comments (21) Comments
I still go on serebii but I don't post that much anymore.
Yeah Journeys honestly had all the necessary elementary aspects to become an upgraded version of Battle Frontier and a fitting closure to Ash's journey/story, but the writers didn't quite properly utilize this opportunity to the fullest as some of the writing choices/direction in the series were quite questionable. I'll have to disagree regarding Lucario though, because Lucario is a Pokemon that suits Ash's battling style extremely well, plus with Ash's unique aura abilities been shown in the anime multiple times it makes perfect sense to have a Lucario which is a Pokemon so heavily associated with aura (a reason why you can see countless Pokemon fanfics had Ash with a Lucario before Ash legimately got it). Giving Ash a Lucario one of the few writing choices that Journeys got right IMO. Though I do agree with idea that bringing back one of the Lucario/its evolutionary line Ash had bonded with previously would've been better than giving Ash a new Lucario....but I'd rather have that Aura Sphere Riolu Ash bonded with back in Sinnoh come back to join Ash's team and have it evolve rather than a reincarnation of the movie Lucario. I agree with most of the rest of your points like having Sabrina's Haunter coming back to Ash and evolving, plus giving Ash a Dragonite wasn't really necessary when he already has Charizard, a Pokemon lot similar species wise; having Larvitar come back as Tyranitar instead of that would have been a very unique idea, but I'd rather instead have Ash's Gible come back and evolve all the way to a Garchomp TBH....when Ash already has a Pokemon of the evolutionary line of a pseudo, bringing it back is better than bringing back a Pokemon Ash has bonded with before IMO. Gible was a late capture in DP with a lot of potential who deserved to return and get some good development under its belt in a latter saga, like how Phanpy ---> Donphan happened in BF. I was OK with Sirfetch'd and Dracovish though......after all Ash needs to have some Pokemon that are of the current generation.
I genuinely do feel like Journeys could have done better in several aspects, some of the previous character/Pokemon returns weren't really satisfactory, like Infernape's return amounted to pretty much nothing, same goes with Serena like you said, (I mean why on earth would they focus the entire episode on Serena interacting with Chloe whilst having Ash interacting with her for a mere 30 seconds), none of Dawn's multiple returns were that memorable or fruitful either. A few character/Pokemon returns however were pretty memorable like with Greninja, its return was very memorable & significant for the most part with how much of a part it played in Lucario's training & development, they at least made Greninja return like a badass with how it beat the crap out of Lucario in a sparring battle unlike Infernape who did nothing on its return other than getting overpowered by a wild Moltres. As a XY fan myself it was very satisfactory to see Greninja play such a strong role in Lucario's training and development, the Pokemon which went on to became Ash's overall most consistent ace, going on to have astounding feats like beating Raihan's Gigantamax Duraludon without Mega Evolution, defeating Cynthia's Dynamax Togekiss and Garchomp back to back etc. But one thing that bugged me a little there that how the Greninja episode pretented that the Ash-Greninja form never existed, I know that they were trying to make a reference to the games where the Ash-Greninja form didn't exist anymore, but since in the anime Greninja's battling and development were so heavily associated with Ash-Greninja back in XY, the Greninja return episode pretending that the form never existed felt quite weird. I mean that Mega Evolution and Z-moves also doesn't exist in Gen 8 but the anime showed both of them multiple times in Journeys, so I don't see why the same can't be done with Ash-Greninja too.
Paul's return also likewise was pretty satisfactory with him and Ash having a fairly good battle where we got to see some of Paul's new powerhouses. For Iris, while it was cool to see her return as a Champion and having her Axew finally fully evolved into a Haxorus (which was its goal), it felt like that the writers just left too much to happen off-screen...the last time we saw Iris before, she couldn't even defeat Claire and now she returns directly as a Champion who is capable of giving Cynthia a close fight, I felt like there should have been at least a special or something like that which showed how Iris gradually rose up the ranks to become a Champion prior to her reappearance in Journeys to make it more believable. Definitely agree with the part than there should have been more full battles; I mean the Master 8 is such a high-profile tournament with world's best 8 trainers competing, there should have been no place for 3 on 3 battles there...it should have been an all full-battle tournament. I also wanted an Ash vs Alain rematch, Alain is someone whom Ash never beat despite battling him multiple times so having a re-match where Ash finally defeats him and his Mega Charizard X makes a lot of sense; instead the writers have him battle Leon and get destroyed by the latter. If Ash can have a rematch with Volkner, Iris and Paul, they I see no reason why Alain didn't have a rematch with Ash as well.
Honestly, power scaling became really tricky after the inconsistent power levels portrayed throughout Journeys. Now-a-days it's more reasonable to assume that Pokemon win/lose battles according to what the plot demands for them to do. It's extremely hard to try and make sense of the inconsistent power levels of Journeys....like the Ash vs Iris battle was a solid example of how power levels of Pokemon can fluctuate even within the same battle lol. Even Lucario, who had such a consistent record in battles throughout (IIRC after its evolution it never went down without taking out two oppenent Pokemon alongside him before the final Leon battle) also got nerfed in the final battle against Leon where it surprisingly could take out only 1 Pokemon before losing to Dragapult, something which is quite unexpected after its insane feat against Cynthia. Throughout most of the series Pikachu battle record was good without being outstanding but when it came to the Masters 8, the writers just insanely glorified Pikachu. Obviously Pikachu as Ash's main ace is expected to pull off great feats when it comes to the big tournaments, but in the Master 8 the writers just made Pikachu abnormally good. Part of that was kind of justified by Pikachu having access to an extraordinarily strong gimmick in 10 Million Volt Thunderbolt but in the final battle Pikachu's resistance and viability was DEM levels, like how can Pikachu after taking so much damage from Gigantamax Charizard and Cinderace earlier on still take on and defeat Leon's Charizard from there, who was relatively much less damaged + fresher than Pikachu.....it looked pretty absurd TBH. Anyways, if we still have to make a proper tier list of Ash's Pokemon strength wise, then it's more than obvious that the #1 and 2# spots are sealed for Pikachu and Lucario respectively, it only after that the other Ash's Pokemon come to consideration. His whole Journeys team was probably astoundingly overpowered compared to most of his other Pokemon, I mean...all of them have multple wins against Elite Four members and Champions who were depicted as nearly unbeatable entities the anime prior to Journeys, henceforth I'm not quite sure whether the likes of Charizard, Sceptile and Infernape still come into Ash's top five....only current Greninja could come into consideration as it was shown to have gotten way stronger, effortlessly beating the crap of Lucario that already had feats like taking down two of Volkner and Bea's Pokemon, plus with how insanely strong Lucario got after it's training with Greninja, I think that also indirectly refers to Greninja's strength. Plus due the fact that Ash even after becoming the Champion/Monarch still lost a battle to Misty afterwards with his Corphish (a Pokemon with decent enough battle experience), we can't automatically assume that the rest of Ash's Pokemon have been automatically upgraded to E4/Champion level as well, or that Ash's E4/Champion defeating skills automatically upgrades the rest of his Pokemon to the level of his overpowered Journeys team.
I guess my reply has become a bit too long by now.....so I won't make it even more longer, just want to point out a couple of things more before ending my reply....that I'm not a fan of the Gen 9 gimmick of Terastal Phenomenon, a main reason why I haven't started watching the Horizons series yet. Mega Evolution, Z-moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax were all cool gimmicks with each of them providing new & unique concepts of adding a boost to Pokemon, but Terastallization? Meh, it isn't even a boost/power up, just a mere interchanging of the types of the Pokemon, something which can be even done by certain abilities like Protean or Libero....so it doesn't offer anything new or unique concept wise. I see on your list that you have been watching the Horizons series....so I'd like to know your opinion on the series so far if you don't mind, whether you think it's worth watching or not.
Well obviously Ash's reserves being reintroduced/getting some focus would've been better, but some captures in Journeys like Lucario got me quite elated TBH. Lucario is a Pokemon a huge portion of the Pokeanime fan base wanted Ash to catch for a long time, especially with Ash's special aura abilities being shown in the anime multiple times like in M08 and with that Aura Sphere Riolu back in Sinnoh.....plus it's a Pokemon that suits Ash's battling style so well. Before Journeys, it seemed that the idea of Ash having a Lucario would remain confined only to fanfics...But Journeys made that dream come true. Overall, Journeys was quite a mixed bag for me though, while there are certain things I really liked about it like it's strong continuity to the past series, bringing back many previous characters + the battles, there were certain aspects I really hated as well like it's terrible sleep inducing fillers (even in between the Master 8 tournament, the series crammed in ridiculously boring and unnecessary fillers, like after the completion of the first round, the series had 3 consecutive fillers crammed in). In between the intensity and tension of the Master 8, those fillers just totally ruins the watching momentum. Apart from that, the Masters 8 battles were super cool, being really well thought out and having thorough intensity throughout, but still one thing bugged me thst Ash didn't use any reserves. I mean that the Master 8 is the biggest and most high-profile tournament in Ash's journey as a Pokemon trainer, it'd make perfect sense for Ash to use all of his Pokemon there and not just his Journeys team. Maybe in the final battle a.k.a. Ash vs Leon, Ash using his Journeys team makes sense, but these is really no excuse for him to not use his reserves in the earlier rounds. Journeys overall had so much continuity otherwise, so many previous characters and Pokemon reappeared, but for no reason Ash didn't use any reserves at the Master 8 and stuck to only his Journeys team.
Overall, I had a love hate relationship with Journeys, and rated the series a 7/10. If was being completely honest, I would have given it a 6/10, but I gave it 1 point extra since that series got me out of my anime slumber.
Recently I was involved in some interesting debates in the Versus thread TBH, and several of those debates involved Ash's Lucario, Leon's Charizard, JN Paul, etc etc. Though now-a-days the amount of posts in that section are far less in comparison to what it used to be back during those days, there are still some people who are interested in debating hypothetical matchups and the strength of various Pokemon.
I see, cool. Demon Slayer is one of my favourite battle-shounens, I even used to have it in my Top 10 anime at one point. The visuals/animation of that series it totally on another level, and I still do remember episode 19 of the first season had me literally screaming in excitement whilst watching it. The characters/story aren't anything too unique and like a standard battle-shounen, but they are still solid in their own way. I hope you enjoy watching that series. :)
TBH even though most of the previous users who were active back during those days are now either inactive or banned, a few users like Pokegirl Fan, ShadowForce720, AuraChannelerChris, 1rkhachatryan, PokemonBattleFanatic, etc are still active around there.
Being a regular member in SPPF at a point of time, do you also feel like going back there and post like me? I'm just genuinely curious to know.
I see, yeah I miss those days as well TBH, those days in SPPF were a nice break from reality. But well, life moves on of course. I kind of have somewhat of an idea of how life as a doctor can be since my younger sister (who is 6 years younger than me) in also currently in the final year of her MBBS course and hence pretty obviously would become a doctor very soon. For me though, the life as a patient still hasn't ended unfortunately, the anxiety issues + OCD I have still do persist to a notable extent, though comparatively much lesser and a lot more in control than what I had to endure back in late 2021 and most of 2022. It still takes a rigorous sedative medicational course to keep the psychological/anxiety problems in control. Might sound wierd, but these problems actually generated in me from online forums and anime watching. My doctor told me that it was too much engagement in internet forums + extensive anime watching which caused my anxiety disorder + OCD. Pretty obviously the reason why I was off this site for the entirety of 2022. From late 2022-2023 and onwands, I have been much better than before, gradually recovering from those issues with time. The problems still haven't receded totally but the intensity of them is much less than what was before. I have come back on here in 2023 occasionally from time to time with notable breaks in between but I've been nowhere nearly as active as I was previously before, pretty obviously cuz I couldn't afford to be given my condition. And....as you can see, I recently took a month and a half long break here which is why my reply is a month late.
Well, I guess went a bit too deep there regarding my problems....hope it wasn't too long. Patients with issues like me often do have a tendency of speaking elaborately about their problems with others, cuz it tends to make them feel better. :)
And the fact that I have been taking a break from watch anything anime/Pokemon related is because of those anxiety issues....like I didn't even have an option otherwise.
Haha, anyways glad to hear from you after such a long time.
It was a long, big struggle for me with psychological & anxiety issues that kept me away from internet forums for so long.......bit tired to explain all that. But currently I'm a lot recovered from all that, though still not 100%.
IDK whether I'd ever come back fully....though I just felt like logging in here after an year. Not currently updated on anything anime related and I'm not even sure I'm going back to those stuff ever again.
Oh & wish you a very (belated) Happy New Year!
https://forums.serebii.net/members/metamantis.448288/
So Lillie has a chance to beat Ash in a battle.