Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series.
Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series finally explains a plot hole that has long plagued previous anime installments. Part 1 of the series is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix, with new episodes set to release quarterly. Pokémon Master Journeys received some backlash following its Japan release 10 months ago, with most of the critical ire directed at Goh's character who bucks the trends set by conventional Pokémon trainers -- not least of all because, as his name suggests, Goh is based on the Pokémon Go mobile game, making him somewhat of an outsider to the original Pokémon cast.
Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series has been quick to introduce a plethora of legendary Pokémon sightings in its first season, both in its promotional material and narrative. Indeed, Pokémon Master Journeys' main story is centered around Professor Oak's Project Mew, a research initiative dedicated to finding the titular mythical Pokémon.
Yet, Pokémon Master Journeys, at last, goes to lengths to explain a legendary Pokémon plot hole that has existed in various forms of Pokémon media since 1997. Pokémon Master Journeys does away with the cliché of ordained legendary Pokémon encounters with a protagonist, instead choosing to focus on the legendaries' intrinsic behaviors. The series also displays a refreshing breadth of legendary Pokémon in their natural habitat, solidifying that these creatures are not as elusive as initially presented.
Previous Pokémon animes and games are usually microcosmic, with each installment featuring one or two Pokémon regions at most, with a correspondingly minute amount of legendaries included. The traditional Pokémon format is well worn, with the protagonist defeating gym leaders and beating evil teams while learning about a legendary pair of Pokémon before encountering one of them. Where Pokémon Master Journeys really excels is in its ambitious scope, doing away with an insular storyline and having Ash Ketchum and company explore all 8 known Pokémon regions in search of Mew. This allows the anime to show legendary Pokémon in their natural habitats, such as Darkrai, while showing others willingly interacting with humans, like Suicune. This narrative confirms the long-held idea that legendary Pokémon (and their locations) are actually not elusive and are fairly easy to find when sought out by an experienced trainer like Ash, who is not starting a brand new journey.
This theory is backed up by the controversial trainer Goh's story, who Ash mentors in Pokémon Master Journeys. In the Pokémon canon, Goh is an inexperienced trainer who relies on Ash's teachings of legendary Pokémon's lore and migration patterns to learn how they are incorporated into the world around him. Consequently, Goh is able to befriend Suicune, meet Darkrai and Cresselia, and catch a sighting of the supposedly elusive Mew within the first season of Master Journeys. While Goh's seemingly exceptional luck has angered some sections of the Pokémon Master Journeys fanbase in some episodes, what his encounters with many legendaries do is erase a long-standing cliché in Pokémon that each protagonist is destined to meet with their region's main legendary. Instead, Goh seeing many legendary Pokémon in their home environments indicates that Ash's tutelage and vast knowledge of all 8 Pokémon regions have allowed Goh an opportunity to study Pokémon that most trainers would not know how to find. In this way, Pokémon Master Journeys breathes fresh life into the franchise by reinforcing that you can catch legendary Pokémon through hard work and dedication, rather than setting off on a pre-mapped journey as the de-facto "chosen one."